Diamonds, lab grown diamonds, opals, counting and tags, at the Jewellery and Gem trade show in Singapore in September 2022 - where next?

 The show was divided into sections by country, types of stone, type of product, so you could look at Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Israel, or Antwerp, the Diamond Centre, or Poland, where Gdansk, the Amber capital in Poland, which has exhibitions and authenticates your amber. At the show I was able to see and buy samples of amber, jewellery such as fine (thin) silver or gold chains.

 Some stands were not able to sell to potential customers because they are not in the Zone. What does that mean? Paying 7% tax, even having to register each piece you take out of your country and showing you have brought them all back through customs. 

Counting

How do you count dozens of pieces of jewellery and precious stones? There's an app, a business, which does that. Not cheap, but it enables the jewellery store to stock take every night by waving a wand over tags. 

What a great idea. How handy to tag everything. Never lose a coat or hat. Could you take it home to count your packing? Never lose shoes or leave a left shoe under the bed or a toddler's toy in a cot.  Alas, not yet. It would cost a lot and every item would need a tag. Maybe one day.

Successes

A few people on stands at the show were not doing as well as they had hoped. I asked, 'Why?' 

'Because our existing customers and potential customers have attended recent trade jewellery shows elsewhere. Such as India.' 

Covid laws have changed. A cancelled show in Hong Kong in 2022 meant the gain of a show in Singapore.

One stand owner told me, 'Our potential customers from Hong Kong haven't come in the numbers we wanted. They would be allowed to leave Hong Kong for Singapore, but would face quarantine on returning to Hong Kong.'

Antwerp

But others found the show very successful. Those on the Antwerp stand were very happy. At the end of the day they were eating chocolates and drinking bubbly. They were brokers, go-betweens, without the worry of physically transporting goods.

Other stands had chocolates under the table. Belgian chocolates. Chocolates bought at Changi airport on arrival.

More from me later. It will take some time to read through all the useful brochures I collected.  The stand owners will be packing up an hour early today - the last day, Friday, - and preparing for the next jewellery and gem shows in other countries.

If you are in the jewellery business, or want to learn about what's new from the media, look out for information on fairs and events around the world including

Lab Grown Diamonds

Lab grown diamonds come in various colours. They are cheaper. Industrial diamonds used in electronics are usually lab grown diamonds.

Fairs Worldwide

Turkey - Istanbul

6-9 October 2022

16-19 March 2023

Middle East

Bahrain

22-26 November 2022

Dubai

12-14 Feb 2023

India -Hydrabad

9-11 June 2023

New Delhi

30 Sept-October 2nd 2023

Thailand

from other organizers

Fairs UK and Europe

https://www.eventseye.com/fairs/cst1_trade-shows_uk-united-kingdom_jewelry.html

Fairs In the USA

https://expotobi.com/country/usa/sector/gems-jewelry

I found this link to a consumer website for lab grown diamonds although the reviews were not all complimentary. I would decide my budget and visit three shops, with a companion, and read reviews, before making a major decision. 

https://novitadiamonds.com.sg/

Go Recycling - Cleaning Up a beach in Hawaii - could you clean up your beach or city?

Trash Or Stash?
Trash is a worldwide problem. It isn't just ugly. First it is harming wildlife. Photos on the internet show abandoned fishing nets strangling turtles and tangled around the fins of fish. A turtle has a straw stuck up its nose. Birds and fish have pieces of plastic and plastic bags in their stomachs. The plastic is not excreted but forming a giant blockage or ball, uncomfortable, and killing them. 

How can we stop this happening? Prevention or cure? Cure is good. But prevention is better. Cure is good, necessary, but we must think longterm, because with the human population expanding, wildlife is diminishing. The Chinese curbed the birthrate of citizens in Shanghai to one child per family, although the government has now changed that policy.

We can prevent plastic being made. Recycle existing plastic. It is no use doing one without the other. But no use avoiding doing one because you or your orgnaization cannot do all three. You do what you can do. Others do what they can do. Together we can make a difference.

How do you change habits? Analyse your own family's behaviour and try to co-ordinate. You see what a baby does. it picks up things to look at them. Bored, it throws them away.

How can we utilitse the children's urge to throw? Stones in a pond? Making ripples.  What about plastic? Instead of throwing plastic where it should not go, throw it where it should go.

I have videos on the internet of litter bins which are shaped like creatures with a mouth which opens to receive litter like big versions of pedal bins in your home or nearby supermarket. The bin then says thank you or well done or somethign amusing in a voice matching the bin design, quakcing duck, or whatever. 

Next, I immediately envisage bottle caps being used to be thrown at targets in a game. Children will gather items to collect to throw into bins, or to make into a game.

Some people, adults, like to collect. Encourage them to collect litter.

Some people like to throw away. Encourage them to throw things in the right bin.

Some people like to create. Encourage them to create objects from abandoned plastic.

Songs
Songwriters can write a recycling song for their favourite project or city or the world. Here's my immediate effort.

Song:
What are you doing today
by Angela Lansbury
What are you doing today? Are you throwing your life away?
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

 Look - Litter's heartbreaking. Help! You could be making
Our precious earth, more dirty or clean than it was at your birth.
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

You could be prospecting. You could be collecting.
 Instead of thwarting, you could be sorting.

Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Don't you litter and dirty?  Help clean up our earth! 

We're circled by plastic. But life is elastic.
Let's pick up the litter. Let's make our life better.
While you are here, collect, recycle, make a great souvenir.
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

How was the wonderful world at your birth?
The plants and tall trees which grew from moist earth
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

When each grain of sand could smoothe your small your hand
When you could spend hours just sniffing the flowers
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

School kids walked and looked, toddlers turned picture books
Magnificent mountains, soft, pure clean water, magic dancing fountains
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you litter and dirty?  Or clean up our earth! 

Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Will you drop litter?  Or will you tidy and clean up our earth! 
Remember the wonderful world at your birth, 
Don't you litter and dirty?  Help clean up our earth! 

Angela Lansbury. Copyright 2019.
Please pass on with the author's tagline. Sing to your favourite traditional out of copyright tune.

Reward. Advertise rewards.

Punish. Advertise fines.

Here's one way to do it. Like the Canadian company in Hawaii did it. Not hurting or harming. helping.

Don't hurt. Don't harm. Help.

CLEARING BEACHES BIG TIME - BIG PROJECTS
Clenaing. Inventing. A team in Canada set about a project on cleaning plastic from a beach and picked a nototrious beach. Hawaii.

The solution was simple. Vacuum the beach with a tube from a large vacuum cleaner.

However, how do you separate the sand from the plastic? Put what you collected in water. The sand sinks. The plastic floats.

Great. That will help beaches on an industrial scale where there is a huge problem.

LOVELY LITTER
But there's litter everywhere. On beaches and promenades by the beaches. We eat and drink all day. We throw away everything we use.

Look around the nearest room, building, garden, street. What do you see?

Wrapping for food. Drinks bottles. cereal packets. paper bags. Plastic bags. Bottle tops.

HOLIDAY CLEAR UP
On a small scale you could do this with a bucket of water.

If every family visiting the beach, instead of collecting shells, collected plastic, we could all make a difference.

REWARDS
Every visit and local who clears up can be rewarded with a badge or piece of jewellery made from part of a plastic bottle.

Cut the bottom off a see-through plastic bottle and you have a circular see-through badge or brooch and cut out a circle from a piece of abandoned paper and you have a name tag, buseiness card or advertisement.

Ships
Every ship should pay a plastic tax. Or carry its own rcycling bins and recycling machines, and run recycling classes. Insted of dropping litter, ships should collect it.

No need to worry about dirt on things you pick up making you or the family dirty. Plastic in the sea has already been washed. Plastic on the beach can be washed in the sea or the shower.

I used to collect shells as a child. It was years before I discvoered that shells were the abandoned homes of dead sea creatures.

CHILDREN CAN COLLECT
Today's children have another opportunity. They can collect coloured bottle tops and put them in a recycling bin.

Plastic should be collected and remoulded into litter bins.

RECYCLING PLASTIC INTO JEWELLERY
But where does that litter go? Not back into the bins then out to sea. Instead it can be made into bracelets and necklaces.

Classes for tourists. Free classes - if you collect a big bag of littler. Otherwise low cost lessons, or even, free but donations welcome. Make souvenirs of your holiday. Donate for the class. Donate for the jewellery you make. Take it home.

Or donate it to be sold or given away. People can buy it. Or take it home as souvenir for your holiday and  donate money.

You are often asked, 'What did you do on holiday?' You have an answer.

You did not leave litter behind. You helped clear it up.

Useful Websites
Problem
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/waves-garbage-are-washing-beach-dominican-republic-180969747/
Solution
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-48551041/how-do-you-vacuum-plastic-from-a-beach

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker. If you need a speaker on the environment, I have won two levels of contests on speeches on the environment. I can speak on radio or TV or give an amusing keynote speech.

How To Create Art With Nothing But A Cup of Coffee - warning: watch for stains and insects

Problem
You arrive at your wonderful destination. Great view. But you left all your paints at home. Too heavy and bulky to carry. Or you just forgot.

Answers
1 Add paints and pad to your packing list.
2 Buy tiny colouring and painting sets to carry.
3 Look around for items you can use to improvise. Such as? Anything you could use to dye clothes. Anything which makes nasty stains on clothes.

Stories
I once sniffed a flower on the table at the Wetherspoons pub in Hatch End, London. I couldn't understand what had stained the front of my white blouse. I had not eaten curry. Then I returned a week later and sniffed the lovely white lily and got yellow on my face and fingertips.

I like the idea of using whatever is to hand to draw, coffee, chocolate, dust, charcoal. That's how art started, I suppose, on the walls of caves.

There's only one problem with using food and drink for drawing, especially in hot countries. I had a heart shaped red pendant made of painted dried dough from central Europe in my costume jewellery box in Singapore. I think the pendant was from the Croatia stand at the World Travel Market in London. A year later I discovered nothing but a red string and a box of ants.

Little Boxes
I am also fond of saving pretty chocolate boxes. I like the pretty decorative box, with the ribbons, the patterned paper, the gleaming gold paint. Open it and my eyes light at the sight of the handy dividers. I love the cute compartments. One could use them for storing ear-rings, pencils, whatever I might want to store for later.

Unfortunately, I just had to throw out the cardboard box which once held dates. It had acquired black dots of mould or droppings. The box is ruined, nasty to handle. If I kept it, in future I would be afraid to open it. What might I find?

I managed to salvage the see-through plastic compartment inside. I spent some time washing it out. Then I dried it. I shall watch it for a while. Suspiciously. Is something still breeding?

Tips
When handling clothes and foods which stain, wear gloves and a waterproof apron - or a cotton one which you want to look like an abstract painting.
a) Brown from coffee, tea, tights.
b) Pink, purple or red from red hand wash only clothes. Beetroot. Raspberries. Red currants. If you don't want to use leftover fruit, maybe the wash from what leaked into the box.
c) Black from newspaper print.
d) Dried out felt tip pens.
e) Yellow from stamens - watch out - terrible stains.

http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/how-to/Contemporary/1712/how-to-paint-with-coffee

http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/competitions/Unknown/1719/win-a-painting-holiday-in-italy?

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel photographer and writer, author, illustrator, speaker. Please like, follow and share my posts and blogs.

Watch out for pickpockets and thieves when taking photos

A photo has been published in the Daily Mail online and several other places showing a lady posing with two girls in national costume. It is alleged that one of the girls with her hands on a watch was attempting to steal it. The watch was later missing.

Read the story and form your own opinion. Whether or not a theft was in process, it is a reminder to travel with inexpensive items and cover them up in public places.

Readers made many different comments. For example:

1 Travel with inexpensive jewellery and watches. I sometimes buy two of a cheap item, either same colour or different colour. If one is stolen or lost, I have a replacement at home.

2 Take insurance.

3 Do not pose for photos with children because
a) You might be accused of exploiting them
b) They should be in school, not out being photographed
c) They will demand money
d) They are orphans or kidnapped for the express purpose of getting money from tourists and you are encouraging the kidnappers
e) They offer to photograph you and then run off with your camera
f) While you are distracted they steal from your bag or pocket or remove your watch
g) A common technique is to press against various parts of your body with two hand of each person so you are not noticing the hand doing the theft
h) Your eyes are on the photographer not on the people standing alongside you
i) They could steal from the person being photographed, the photographer, or both

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1853867/two-tiny-thai-thieves-in-traditional-dress-steal-from-a-female-tourist-but-would-you-have-seen-what-theyre-up-to/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3807242/Adorable-thieves-traditional-dress-photographed-moment-stole-woman-s-watch-wrist-outside-temple-Thailand.html

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

What to do in Fishguard: the ferry, beach, books on the sea, and sea life exhibition

Fishguard is a quaint two centre harbour and village, end of the train line, where the boat train meets the Ferry crossing to Ireland. Fishguard's fun is seeing the sea and learning about wildlife. As you walk along the front, watching children leap over the low rock, you are invigorated by the sea breeze and the sea smell, tangy, salty, sharp, evoking memories of seaweed, fishy.

The Tesco Express sells bottles of water and sandwiches for £1.10 and fruit packs if you want to go for a healthy walk. By the tills are books on the area, Wales, and wildlife.

Opposite Tesco, across the road, is a seafront path leading to a large glass-sided, two-storey building containing a cafe, gift shop and exhibition areas.
 The Information counter by the doorway has lots of leaflets and people to answer your questions. An exhibition with a tour guide for a small cost every hour or so is about sealife and has a video and aquariums.

The handy gift shop sells jewellery and scarves and items for making mould of sand, and books on birds, seabirds, insects, flowers, SAS survival.

Check out their second hand books for sale making money for the Ocean project.

Birds and books and fish and jewellery.

The bus doesn't run on Sunday. You will have to walk uphill to the Fishguard Bay hotel, where you can buy a bar lunch and read about the filming of Moby Dick and Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood.

If you really want to see the sea, you can take an afternoon trip to Ireland (Rosslare). If you are British or Irish you do not need a passport, just a drivelling license or utility bill. (Check the Stena site for up to date details.) The cost of the trip is only £5 for a foot passenger.

Next post will be about the tapestry and history.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker.
Author of twenty books, the latest being Larry the Talking Labrador.

Colour co-ordinates of shoes and a small carry-on or cabin bag

First things first. Shoes. Open sandals for summer - or shoes which protect your toes. Protect them from the rain. Protect them from the doors. Protect them from people who drop things out of the overhead luggage onto your feet. Or run over your toes with their wheeled luggage. Or even their feet. Doors which swing back onto your feet? You could have study capped walking shoes for travelling, and sandals for the other end.

I wear socks with sandals. I used to wear socks after I developed sore red spots or broken skin or blisters. Now more often I go for prevention rather than cure. It looks odd to wear socks with a short skirt - until somebody makes that a fashion. The trick is to  either buy black sandals with black socks, white sandals with white socks, and stay cool. Then quickly add black, white, tan, or colour co-ordinated knew high socks or tights on top or instead to look smarter when you get to your destination.  

If you can co-ordinate the colours of your shoes and tote bag and suitcase, plus accessories, scarf, baseball hat, sunhat. gloves, umbrella or parasol to protect you from sun, you have a completely co-ordinated outfit. Plus the matching necklace, bracelet, watch strap and ring. Also your box file or notebook and pen. 

Some people do this automatically. Some men go for everything black, or everything grey, or everything brown, or everything navy. A workplace may co-ordinate their colour scheme.

It can get a bit tiring and same-y. I went to a school which had a bottle green uniform. Admittedly brightened with a thin stripe of pale turquoise and red. With a paler green dress for summer. But I still would not wear bottle green for years. 

Some people simply go for this season's colour. All black is businesslike, safer in a crowd. 

Recycling Suitcases & Bags, Pre-packed

In the good old days when everybody had only one handbag, and it was a good one, a bag came with a zip up pocket containing a zipped purse attached by a chain to the bag, and a tiny mirror.

If you buy Travelog bags, they often come with multiple pockets and some models even come with a tiny torch attached. My experience of tiny torches is that the battery is always dead and you cannot find how to turn them on. In fact you often can't find them at all. The more pockets you have, the longer it takes to find anything.

Second-hand and Vintage
I do recycle - buying second hand bags on eBay. Some people have many co-rodinated travel outfits. Others travel with just black and white. A black and white jacket does for summer and winter and lightens an all black outfit which otherwise looks like you are chief mourner at a funeral and/or suffering from incurable depression. In my heyday as a travel writer, when I was often doing two trips in a week, I used to keep my travel clothes permanently in the travel bag.

Quick Pack And Unpack
One tip I picked up from a friend at the Writers' Holiday, pack one outfit per day and at the end of each day, put your clothes back in the suitcase, (perhaps in a bag marked laundry or a hotel's laundry bag), so on the last day there's only one outfit to pack. When you get home, put everything in the washing machine - don't waste time sorting out whether there's one item you never wore.

Colour Coding
If your clothes are colour coded you wore everything. For example, black and white on Saturday night, red on Sunday, orange on Monday, pink on Tuesday, green on Wednesday, yellow on Thursday, blue on Friday, black on Saturday.

No time or space for complete outfits? One, two or three basic outfits, shirt or trouser suit, dress or caftan in a neutral colour. Beige, or black skirt and white blouse, with a tie or scarf or cravat in a different colour.

Jewellery
Jewellery silver or gold or silver or gold tone, or black and white, or three two colour necklaces, one red and pink, one green and blue, one yellow and orange. You could make your own from beads if you are handy, or buy a set of multicolour bangles. or buy two of those magnetic bracelets which wind around, one for a necklace and the other as a bracelet. You could even use a third to make decoration for your belt or bag or shoes.

The packing list stays taped in the lid of the larger suitcase or front pocket of the small carry-on one.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker.

Harrow Open Studios June 2015

Free entry to studios of 30 artists in Harrow, June 6,7, 8, 13 and 14, 2015.

The artists include painters in acrylics, oils and watercolours, glass panel sculptures for house and garden, makers of silver jewellery, wood turners, ceramic sculpture and glass, printmakers, landscapes, seascapes, mixed media collage using gloves, buttons and cotton reels, soapstone and alabaster carvings, glass jewellery, Arabian scenes, life drawing, jewellery with semi-precious beads and pearls, paintings of sports action, steel and metal sculptures, pictures of flowers, etchings, collagarphs, linocuts,  stitched cotton, photographs, portraits, religious paints, paintings based on WWI poetry, abstracts, animal portraits, local scenes, greeting cards. Also artists offering print-making workshops.

The brochure has a handy detailed map of Harrow in the middle as well as advertisements for artists not Exhibiting this year, such as one with vases and post (one pictures with a lizard climbing to peer in. Other advertisements include one fro an electric kiln supplier, local restaurants, Harrow College offering courses, and Bovilles art shops in Uxbridge and Maidenhead.

www.facebook.com/it'sBovilles
127/128 High Street, Uxbridge, Middx UB8 IDJ
tel:01895 450300.

www.harrowopenstudios.com
On the back of the brochure is a testimonial from a Dorothea who came over from Belgium and acquired a wonderful painting and gorgeous bowl. Look at the website. You can download a copy of their brochure. Many of the artists will undertake commissions.

You can often see paintings by local artists displayed all year in the Harrow Arts Centre on the Uxbridge Road. Pictures of Harrow personalities through the ages are on the interior wall of the civic centre. Plaques to local authors are at Harrow on the Hill, where you can visit Harrow School, see the impressive outside and in season book tours of the school.

Angela Lansbury B A Hons is an author and photojournalists and draws coloured caricatures. See more about Angela on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook.

Rennie Mackintosh exhibition in London 2015

What did Rennie Mackintosh do? All those necklace pendants with the art nouveau flowers. Interior design including high back chairs with patterns in the middle. The building as well as exhibits at the Glasgow Museum of Art which suffered a fire in the last year. So many items, which you instantly  recognise as soon as you see them.

The man himself.

Interior of furniture from Wikipedia.

Exhibition now coming to London at the RIBA, Royal Institute of British Architects.

http://www.architecture.com/WhatsOn/WhatsOn.aspx
http://www.archdaily.com/591262/charles-rennie-mackintosh-exhibition-to-open-next-month-in-london/

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/pictures-rennie-mackintosh-exhibition-showcases-5161652

Angela Lansbury BA Hons is a photojournalist, writer, author, speaker, speech trainer and blogger.

What's old and new in Harrods?

The magnificent hall inside at the back ground floor with opulent ancient Egyptian style decor and pillars.

Pass magnificent displays of jewellery, a glitter but classy. Beautiful colours, such as an emerald green necklace.

At the back, downstairs, is the wine section. They have what appears to be an exclusive deal to sell the Coravin wine sampler which is a nifty device which lets you pass a thin metal straw through a cork, pour yourself a thimbleful to sample the contents of a bottle (to see it's in good condition for your guests, or to be sure you won't sold an undrinkable corked wine). Pull out the device and the cork reseals.

You can have just a glass for an evening meal without wasting the rest of the bottle, but save it for the next day or put it back in the fridge, wine cabinet. Great for home. Or a business. No free tasting for passers by.

www.coravin.com/
Coravin | Enjoy wine by the glass without pulling the cork

I glimpsed a side room with sofas where I presume a rich buyer or seller would be entertained in seclusion.

Alongside the wine area is a restaurant open to all - though I imagine there are busy times when you met book. The latest thing is pop-up or temporary restaurants with visiting chefs. I saw an advertisement.

If you are looking for a souvenir gift for somebody, a bottle of wine with a Harrods label, such as a claret, costs under £10.

Here's the sign about the restaurant.