The main event this week has been completing my watch and chain for the ACJ exhibition "Sleight of Hand". The last element to be completed was the fitting of a glass to the 1838 silver watch-case which was…

Jan Donaldson

At last I can reveal the "secret project" I have been working on for the last month for "The Contemporary Jewellery Exchange 2015" in which various contemporary jewellers around the world create pieces which they send to each other. I didn't want to…

I've been on holiday! Last thing on my bench were the silver "rabbit in a hat" charms, one of which I managed to set and polish:

This one has 24 x 1.8mm garnets round it and I'm making others with…

This last couple of months has been absolutely unbearable for someone who enjoys sharing the progress of works online. First came the Caledonian Sleeper cufflink commission, then came my work with "The…

Gets longer and longer.



I need to get into the habit of posting more frequently.



The last couple of weeks have been very busy, mainly working on the cufflinks for the Caledonian Sleeper which I am not allowed to show you until after the press-launch on 23rd March. It is a real production job and not the sort of thing I really enjoy, even though I am going to be so incredibly proud to know that my work is part of something so big and impressive.

I remember hearing an article on Radio 4's "All in the Mind" programme about how the definitions of mental illness were changing due to the re-writing of a single book which is generally used to define all mental illnesses. A psychiatrist who disagreed with the new definitions pointed out,



"most people in the west do not consider themselves to be fundamentally happy... because the majority of the population do not consider themselves to be happy, we could say that anyone…

... I find February to be by far the cruellest month and the raw, icy blasts this year have not done anything to make me change my mind.

Lots of odd things to report on since my last post, including a box of "gingerbread gimps"…

Somehow it is approaching the end of January and looking at my last blog post, Christmas and New Year seem so far away. I've been incredibly busy working on lots of small projects - largely re-stocking after pre-Christmas sales both…

SO, it is 2015 and I've not made a post for almost a month, which is most remiss. First of all, I wish everyone a happy and successful 2015 and hope that we can overcome what has not, generally, been a particularly…

The last few weeks have been busy but ultimately I've not really achieved very much. The photograph above just about sums up my current attitude to Christmas and the plasti-tat landfill festival it has come to represent, not much…

A busy week in the run up to the festive season.



Kicked off with the pleasing completion of a watch-chain for my friend and colleague,…

An eventful week which included my 50th birthday!



I've been in Edinburgh again for a couple of events, taking in the current show of work by the Northern Irish family of Silversmiths "The McCrory Family" as well as…

A busy week! I spent all day in London on Thursday, first of all visiting a private breakfast view of the superb "Masters of Modern Jewellery" exhibition at…

Last day of October and spooky hallowe'en is here again. I've never much bothered with the festival as I'm not much of a horror fan but this year I've been paying a bit more attention and have been finding it quite funny, especially…

I've just got back from almost a week in the Lone Star State which I was visiting on the invitation of my friends and colleagues, James Thurman and Umut Demirguc Thurman. What a trip!



Based in Denton, Dallas, the main…

Gordon Millar, organiser of the "Scot Street Style" events.



What a whirlwind of a week!

It all kicked off on Saturday night with a visit to…

Since my last post, I've been on the south coast of England, variously in London, Folkestone and Brighton. What should have been a very relaxing weekend proved to be anything but, albeit in a good way. Very…

I feel really deflated after all the stress leading up to the referendum and although my sleeping patterns are back to normal - for the four or five days prior to the event, I was getting about 2 hours a night! - I'm still…

I've been in the workshop a lot over the last week - not all of which has been to bury my head in the sand away from the increasingly nasty pro- and anti-independence campaigns in Scotland (which is also why I've not been so…

Today I headed off to Edinburgh with one aim: to see the show of work by the wonderful Judy Clark and her twin sister, Christine. I've written of Judy before - commissioning a…