Ski Trip

Completely un-jewellery related but I went on a ski trip organised by NFYFC National Young Farmers and since I havn't written a blog in while...

To start 2015 I headed off to the snowy mountains of Tinges (pronounced 'teen') in France for a week. I've been on a couple of ski trips before but this time I decided to try snow snowboarding. 

I absolutely love the scenery in snowy climates I'm always amazed at the views when we go up in the ski lifts.

Ok, so the snowboarding didn't last long....  

After attempting and failing to figure out the complexity of snowboarding I switched to ski's. Mainly so that we could head over to the awesomeness that is Follie Douce.

Follie Douce is a club at the top of the mountain, the only way to get there is by ski's (or snowboarding) and since there was no way I was going to make it snowboarding we skied there instead. You can hear it before you see it! Then when you do get there all you see is a sea of heads and a rainbow of multicoloured ski outfits, it's such a great atmosphere. If there is space on a table it seems to be a rule that you have to get up and dance on it (in your ski boots - perfect for dancing) great fun, loved the live saxophone player too.

My favourite evening was when we headed to the yurts and sat around the camp fire with soup and wine. 

We had our main meal inside the yurts which seated about 30 of us, where we had a bread and meat platter and for dessert meranges dipped in sugared cream, yummers. I appreciated the decoration here especially the log seats. Even better on the way down from the yurts we all jumped on tobaggedans and headed down a ski run in the pitch dark (the route lined with guys wearing head torches to stop us going off the edge of the mountain..) at 30mph - actual speed as timed by our ski app!! Literally so much fun!

Baked Camembert for two? I'll just be having that for one thanks! Yes it did taste as good as it looks. I ate ALOT of cheese on this holiday. 

On the last day we took a ride on the Funicular (a train that runs through a tunnel on the side of the mountain) to this awesomely decorated bar and had some hot chocolates. This is how I plan to decorate my house, 10 out of 10 to the interior designers!

One of our less tiring days. This was the view from the balcony outside the bar: 

View from the top of the Funicular

One of the days we hired some retro ski wear from retro rentals, I enjoyed wearing the onesie ski suit a lot. I felt like my ski barbie I had as a child.  (That's is in the reflection)

This was where I spent most of my days at the bottom of the slop attempting (poorly) to snowboard. To anyone wanting to try skiing or snowboarding I would strongly recommend learning to lesson 5 at the snowzone (snow centre with real snow - there's one in Milton Keynes) before you go. That way when you arrive to your ski destination you can have a couple of refresher lessons and then go straight to the main slopes to get the most out of your ski holiday. 

Note: anyone reading this post that has seen the film Chalet Girl learning to Snowboard is not like the film, it's super difficult and takes ages to pick up especially if you learn while you're out there, the film is all lies! She makes it look so easy and cool, it's not, well it's cool when you can do it if you ever figure it out but it's definitely not easy!

Wax carving course

The wonderful people at Young Farmers kindly funded a course for me to learn how to carve in wax to create cast silver jewellery. I went along to the Jewellery School in London to try my hand at a new skill.

I chose wax carving as it allows for more complex and creative designs. Now that I have done the course I thought it would be good to share my findings.

The main tools you need are; 

Pencil and paper

Metal ruler

Bench Peg

Piercing saw

Wax blade (a thin twisted blade) 

Small files

Large file

Wax tube ring sizer

Dentist tools

Calipers For measuring

Before you start it is important to plan out your idea, do some research to get some inspiration and then sketch out a few ideas.

Once you have come up with your final idea sketch out the design from 3 different sides (known as an orthographic drawing - hopefully you remember these from Design and Technologly lessons at school) the more detailed the design is the better, so include as many measurements as you can.

With the design complete you are then ready to begin. Select a piece of wax to suit the size and shape of your design (note that rings require a specific block of wax that has a pre-cut hole)

Draw your design onto your wax piece checking your measurements carefully. If your shape is complex you could cut out a paper version and stick it to the wax using double sided tape to trace round with the saw.

Once you have the basic shape of your design you can begin to file and shape it. Begin with a large file working your way down to a small file.

Dentist tools are great for carving into wax, it's worth checking if your local dentist has any old tools they no longer need.

The last thing you need to do it use a fine grade sand paper to remove all the scratches, the smoother the surface the less polishing you will have to do later on. When you are happy with the finished result you are ready to send it off to a casting company to get it cast into gold or silver (or cast in a base metal and then plated)

The idea is to take out as much unnessacery wax from the design as possible to bring the price down as low as you can and also to keep it light weight. 

Here is a wax to metal price conversion chart to give you an estimated cost before you send it away to be made. 

Note: allow for shrinkage when wax is cast particularly with ring sizes.