Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight

Very inspiring!

I hope you enjoy!

Want to know more, click here.

Nicholson Museum Collections

Don't you love these earthy ceramics! They are as old and as modern as you can get. What i mean is they are very old and at the same time have a very modern feel and look about them ( i do not have the date and where its from on my finger tips, i was too busy to take photos and just literally blew away with their beauty and simplicity!).

Its all part of the Nicholson Museum Collections at the Sydney University. We drove pass the Museum several times a day on the way to youngman's school everyday........ and we never visited the place!!!!! Or more precisely, we did not even know its there!

All i really want to say is they are so beautiful and simple............
Worth a visit if you are in Sydney next time and their school holidays programme is excellent and it's free!!!!!!

See more photos here

Sydney Children's Festival

It's the much needed school holidays again.........

We normally go to the Power House museum, but this time the Sydney Children's Festival just literally around the corner from our place and its all happening in the Carriageworks !

We went to see the Jungle Fever and really enjoyed it!
There are lots of other free events and activities happening in the main foyer as well.

We might pop back in again next week..........

Talk about Carriageworks, they are planning a market on the site and you know how much i love having a stall in the market.
I've already put my hands up and hopefully they will get it all organise and in time for the X'mas season!

Did I just mention the word X'mas, I am not joking, the big department store in the city ( Myer) already have their decorations out.....

OK! OK! That's enough for today!

WWW.Silvermonk.net

Dear friends,

I have been working on my new website www.silvermonk.net for a while now. I am very excited to let you know that it is all ready to go......

One of my favourite features on the new website is I can hand out discount coupons ( code) whenever i like.....
And here is one for my fellow bloggers, just enter the discount code "BlogLove15" upon checked out to get 15% off on any purchase! (valid until 28th Oct. 08)

Thank you for celebrating this milestone with me, your ongoing support and comments is much appreciated!

cheers
chimin

Shaun the Sheep and his friends

Man! I did not know that Shaun the Sheep is so well loved around the globe!
I thought it was only happening in the house of Silvermonk! Youngman and his Dad really enjoy watching the show. They have a good time laughing their head off.

While I was making this pair of earrings........



Shaun the Sheep and his friends just jump out of my hands and here they all are.........
They put smile on my face!

The moral of the story is " I need to loosen up a bit more and have a laugh ever now and then........."

More Storage

I've been looking for storage unit for a while now.
Ikea is on the list, but none come close to this one by the nightwood

Their upcycle philosophy and "down to earth yet airy aesthetic and sensibility" is my kind of thing.
One for youngman's toy collection and one for my work bench..........

Exploration '08

I am excited to be part of the "Exploration '08" jewellery exhibition. It is held by A&E Metal Merchants at Gaffa Gallery, Surry Hills in Sydney from 19th-27th September.

My Spiral Dream Necklaceis in the show.

This is the first opening ( with one of my work) we attended since Youngman was born.
The opening was cool, lots of people and free beer.......

After a few beers, we all let ourselves loose and drove around the city and the Harbour bridge and the Opera House......

I want more!!!!

( I will be back to the exhibition this weekend and take more photos )

I will not be in the Kiribilli Art and Design Market today!

Just a quick note to let you all know that I am still recovering from a Flu and would not be able to catch up with you in the market!

Take care and have a nice weekend!!!!

cheers
chimin

Some new works

Up In The Cloud Pendant



SongLine Rings



Autumn Earrings



Tree Earrings

Along the River During the Ching-Ming Festival

Along the River During the Ching-Ming Festival, originally uploaded by silvermonk.

The National Palace Museum of Taiwan is a good place to visit if you ever travel to the Island. They have a phenomenal collections of ancient Chinese treasures!

Here is a famous painting from around AD1200 China. Follow the instructions at the bottom of the picture and little windows will open up to display animation.

click here to watch the animation.

Control the speed of picture moving with your mouse.

Enjoy!

And the winner for the August mailing list is.........

.......... Sally Cooper! Congratulation sally and i will email you shortly with the details!

Thank you for all of you joining my mailing list!
You can still join now if you haven't.( joining button is on the right hand side bar)
Watch out for news about my new website........

Thank you youngman for playing " Midnight snack" by Sonny Chua.

Red Around The World

tactileeclectics has been travelling around the word to put this beautiful red treasury together. I am glad that she came all the way to down under and including my Inner Peace Red Coral Pendant.

www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=4933

I jumped into the Fantasy tree and found myself in Norway surrounded by beautiful illustrations.........

Ps: I will get the email draw ready as soon as youngman back from school!

Give away!!!!!!!

Spring is here in my part of the world.

To celebrate the abundance of universe, I am giving away this fine silver half moon earrings.

Comment on your favorite item from my shop and enter into the draw, It is currently held in the giveaway blog run by Katie.

check it out and have fun!

( until 4th September)

cheers
chimin

I am back.....

.........from the Olympic Dream! To be more precise the whole Silvermonk family came back from the TV land.

I was always a very sporty person and love just about any kinds of sports. In my school days, i used to play volley ball, basket ball ,soft ball and table tennis. I probably would not survived my secondary school years without table tennis. When the bell rang, i would be the first one rushed out of the classroom and sweated over the little white ball. In any kind of sport, there is a beauty about the movement of the body when it strikes a balance and i really enjoy that moment when it comes.

My best memory about playing table tennis was when i went to the training sessions at night in the late 60s and early 70s ( in China ). After each training, they would served us a bowl of hot rice soup loaded with sugar ( made from sugar cane). In those day, food was not as abundant as today, and that bowl of silky rice soup was indeed food from haven and i doubt i ever missed one training session. I still remember the sweetness of the rice soup until these day.....

A sporting event like this is a good place for people to know each other, we watched every single country that paraded into the stadium and wonder where they all came from and we found them on the map......

Now that the Olympic curtain is drawn, I better chain myself to the work bench and seriously playing with the new materials and some gemstones that i just got......

In the woods

After Mr.Silvermonk took the whole family for a site visit, Gabriel suggested we go for a little adventure in the bush.
It was only 20 minutes drive across the Harbour bridge. You would not believe it is in Suburban Sydney.

The winter sun was so beautiful and just lightened up the whole bush.

A secret path......
A pleasant walk....

See more of the adventure photos and video here

Join my Mailing List

Yes, that's right!

Just want to keep you inform of my new designs, sales and give away.......
All it needs is your name and e_mail address, nothing more and you can always unsubscribe from the list!

I promise I will not flood your inbox with marketing junk. If i get my act together, then it will only be once a month newsletter affair........

And if you join in the Month of August, you are in a run to win a $50 coupon to spend in my online shop.

I will let the Birthday Boy (Young man turning 7 in August ) do the Lucky Draw and the winner will be published here!

The joining Button is on the right hand Side Bar.

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You can watch Youngman learning his new piece here

"Local River" Mathieu Lehanneur with Anthony van den Bossche

How cool is that!
Love the whole concept, the music, the video editing, the herbs, the glass tank .........

but not the eel though........

I will definitely replace the eel with a different type of fish if i am installing one in my living room!

Click on the Title to go to the Artist website!

Web banner

I have been contemplating of redesign my web banner for a while now. My style have been changed or should I say "evolved" quite a bit since i first started. I found out from Etsy forum that you can use power point to made a web banner, and here it is!

After i uploaded my web banner to my site and have a peek at the Etsy Treasury and I was surprised to see this beautiful Treasury by abbagesandkingsArt. My Songline pendant is among all those wonderful pieces. Go and check it out .........



As you can tell Charcoal and Orange are my 2 favourite colour combination at the moment.

Thank you cabbagesandkingsArt !

Up lifting experience

I was contacted by Melissa from the Wesley Mission in Sydney to make some necklaces and badges. It was a very simple commision piece, simply just use their Dove Logo.

The Dove is such a simple and beautiful image. It was a really uplifting experience to make the Dove badges and the necklaces.

I used 1 mm thick sterling silver sheet to cut out the shape and the wing span of the Dove is about 25mm! I also made two different Dove necklaces just to have a different feel of the piece!

Years ago, I took Rod to Wesley Mission's Sunday service in the City for his father's day present and there you go. Who would think that i will have the chance to work with them years later......

Its all good!

Cockatoo Island-Biennale of Sydney 08

The 2 weeks school winter break almost zoom passed just like that...........

I am grad that we managed to have a fun trip to the Cockatoo island.
It was a great day out, the weather was fantastic and the kids ran wild on the island, just don't ask me about the art installations.........

well, on the way to one of them, we were warned that it was not child friendly........
The one with the sails were cool, but the kids were warned that "no touching........."
We were closly followed by a lady with a walkie talkie when the kids were a bit over excited about the upside down boomerang boat.......

So we decided it's time to go outside and the kids were having real fun throwing rocks into the harbour!!!

Honestly, Cockatoo Island is full of industrial characters and if you love heavy rusty machinery, it is for you, they are just as good as any art installation.......