Take Your Mum To Work Day

I often wonder what my mum thinks about what I do for a living. I know she’s proud of me – she tells me a lot – but my job isn’t exactly a ‘normal’ one. I’m not an accountant, a solicitor, or a teacher: I wonder if she finds it hard to quantify what ‘Blogger/Writer/Speaker/Instagram Addict/Slave to Elfie and Hux’ actually means . I’m not even sure I know how to quantify it, and I’m the one logging the hours on WordPress.

Well, now she wonders no more! Yesterday we were invited to go together to the Notonthehighstreet offices in Richmond to find out more about their Mother’s Day offering and take part in a jewellery workshop with one of their partners, Kat & Bee. I was more than happy for a chance to spend the day together and give her a bit of a taste of what a day in the life of an avid Instagrammer looks like.  You already know I’m a big fan of Notonthehighstreet. We hosted a Valentine’s party at home with them last month and I bought my boyfriend’s Valentine’s card from them, my absolute favourite Walt Whitman quote from talented Eleri Haf Designs (I can show it to you now the occasion has been and gone – he loved it!!).

I adore how NOTHS champion small creators and was really excited to spend a morning with my mum in their lovely offices, learning a new skill from one of their very best partners.

After a slightly hairy journey down the M1 (it was -5!!) we arrived to the most beautiful spread of pastries, partner-made biscuits and macaroons, chatting over warming coffees with other mums (It was fab to see Rosie with her mum and Donna with her mother in law) as we looked over the jewellery we’d be making that day. Our lovely teacher Kat Barry, runs the successful Kat and Bee, and launched her jewellery range after taking a bracelet making class while working her way up in a print media career with the likes of ELLE, Good Housekeeping and The Guardian. A surprise and immediate hit, she gained popularity by exhibiting at London Fashion Weekend a few years ago and now sells her beautiful handmade wares all over the world. And weirdly enough she grew up in the village next to me!

With Kat’s supervision we were going to create one of her signature rings (that could also be turned into a pendant) with our own unique twists.

We started by perusing the wide bead collection to source the accessories we’d want to use when making our pieces. I went for a gold/silver theme, picking some amazing gold skulls set off with a couple of pearls and diamanté beads. I loved seeing how everyone’s personalities were reflected in their choices: in contrast, mum chose a couple of darker beads offset with clear accessories and Mel, sitting next to me, created a beautiful colourful spring-like masterpiece with greens and yellows.

We got cracking, measuring our fingers and turning sterling silver wire into rings (harder than it looks!) by wrapping it around a long ring-shaped stick. We were then to loop our beads and accessories through the wire to create the feature section of the ring. To finish, the remainder of the silver wire was bent around the structure to ensure everything remained firmly in place before a finer wire was wrapped around the body of the ring.

My mum’s design is on the left, mine on the right

It was so lovely for mum and I to spend this time together doing something new to both of us. Our days are usually really busy: though we live next door to each other our time in each other’s company is normally spent on the more mundane… looking after the kids, talking about house admin, taking in each other’s Amazon packages. This fun bonding time was fab, and not a child or delivery driver in sight.

Waving goodbye to everyone after the workshop we quickly made our way back home before The Beast From The East made an almighty deposit on us, stopping off for an early Mother’s Day lunch and glass of wine at one of our favourite restaurants.

Thank you to Notonthehighstreet for a really wonderful day out with my mum. They have some fantastic gift ideas for Mother’s Day this year (I love there’s a whole section dedicated to Single Mums!); if I was shopping for myself this year (and I just might) I’d be hankering after this Rose Quartz healing bracelet, yummy biscuits, an All My Love bracelet, this ‘You Do You’ sweatshirt, a personalised necklace or these gorgeous letterbox flowers. What are you going to choose?

And did mum enjoy her day at work with me? She had such a ball and loved meeting people I chat to on a daily basis, appreciating the special time together as much as I did. Though she still thinks I fanny around on Instagram far too much ;)

Thanks to NOTHS for inviting us to this wonderful event.