New Look, New Experiences!

First off, I've updated the look of my blog! Blogger has gotten a little more sophisticated so yay for my blog looking more London-y!! Having web experience, I should really just make my own Blog template, but they just make it so darn easy to look pretty!! 

Anyway, Friday I went to Silver Jewelry making class!! There is this really cool area in London between the Chancery Lane tube stop and the Farrington stop called Hatton Garden. I would think it's the equivalent to the diamond district in NYC. There is one main street where there are nothing but jewelry stores for several blocks. It makes quite fun window shopping :) But a street over from Hatton Garden is Leather Lane where there is a cute little market every Monday thru Friday. Right smack in the middle of this market is the London Jewellry School (well, in one of the buildings lining the street where the market is). 

They offer ALL kinds of classes! I took the beginner silver jewelry class and you can see my creations here! There is also an intermediate and advanced class, a Soldering Masterclass, stone setting in silver, metal clay (three levels) and a TON more. It's really nice because they only let 6 students in each class max and the day classes are from 10 AM to 5 PM so you REALLY learn a lot of skills :)

The smaller banded ring was the project we spent the most time on. It started as a straight. smooth piece of silver. We used a saw to cut the silver to be a size right for whatever finger we planned to wear it on and the we got to use the torches! Long story short, I got to solder and heat and bend and shape and smooth and polish and to make the textures on it, I hit it with a hammer!! I even learned how to stretch it to make it bigger if needed! 


The swirly ring was also made from a straight piece of silver but it was thinner and I heated it more and then picked out these metal textures, ran it through a press and then shaped it. It was a great class and i really liked being around other girls!! I definitely want to take another class!! 


The best part of the day (other than making jewelry) was lunch time when Andrew came to meet me! His office is only two tube stops from this area and so we went and explored the market. There was a mobile looking Chipotle that had a super long queue and so we assumed that meant it was good. It wasn't really Chipotle, but it was called Daddy Donkey. It was phenomenal!! So good, in fact, that Andrew and I were in that area today and were hoping it was open so we could have it for lunch! It wasn't... but we got crepes instead :) 


Last night was also the England vs. USA game. A girl in the jewelry class told me I shouldn't speak too loudly on Saturday because I sounded very American and the radio stations where talking about how Americans were showing up in Leicester Square to watch the game wearing USA gear and how very brave they were. Kind of crazy. 


But Andrew and I were invited to watch the game at the couple's flat that Ryan, Andrew's boss, had introduced us to awhile back!! Andrew made a fabulous coconut cake (probably the best I've ever had!!) and I decorated it for the occasion :) It was GREAT!! They are a really great couple and so easy to be around. It was definitely nice to feel like we had friends for the evening :) Hopefully the will turn into actual friends! We still have a week and a half or so before we head off to the world cup so perhaps we can have them over for a game before then. 


As for the game, I'm VERY happy for the draw (and not to mention Bocanegra is even PRETTIER this world cup!!) but I felt so so bad for England's keeper, Green. Horrible way to let in a goal, but yay for the USA!! Poor Green was SLAUGHTERED in the papers here today... 


Well, off to make dinner! I plan to actually start some kind of routine this week to keep me from being an ultra waste of life so maybe something exciting will come out of it!!