Thank you!

Wow! You guys are awesome. Thanks to my wee weekend sale in aid of the thoroughly horrendous 2 weeks we've had dealing with our bitumen-enveloped floorboards (kind of like tar....), I'm now approaching my 100th sale on etsy - only 2 more to go. Amazing! 

I can't quite believe I've almost hit this target. I had hoped to reach it by Christmas, but it looks like I may just possibly reach it before then. Tomorrow I'll be posting out most of my SANDINGNIGHTMARE sales out to the lucky recipients. But it feels like this potential milestone should be celebrated! So here's what I'll be doing. Whomsoever makes the 100th purchase from my etsy shop will be rewarded with a one-time only coupon code for 50% off one further purchased item from my shop. 
100 reached! Thank you so much!

So, if you are planning stocking up on holiday gifts, now is the PERFECT time to start :-) And of course, my current coupon code (did I mention it?!) on etsy is still running until the end of today. I will suspend it at around 8am, GMT, so that my North American friends have a chance to use it until the end of the 11th. And you don't have to wait for someone to make the 99th purchase - you could pick up just two pairs of earrings, and snatch the 99th AND 100th spot! 

Thanks so much. It really means such a lot to me to have your support! 

***Update: WOW. My 100th sale came literally SECONDS after I posted this blog! Ridiculously chuffed everyone :-) So I am extending this offer to lucky number 101! On your marks.....;-)***

***Update on the update - 101 was reached about 2 minutes after I posted here! Wow again! Overwhelmed, humbled and incredibly chuffed. Thanks so much to you all :-)***

For Remembrance Sunday. 

Flash Sale!

Flash Sale!! 

So, I promised NO MORE SALES until 2013. But due to home improvement nightmares, I've decided a little sale is in order over this weekend. Who doesn't love a sale, after all? And with Christmas just around the corner, I'd love to think of more Songbeads sitting under those trees, or wherever you put your holiday gifts.....

Use Coupon Code SANDINGNIGHTMARE for 20% off my Etsy store, through Sunday. Go on, you know you want to!

Some lovelies currently available...

 Vintage Circus

Parisienne 

Nesting

 Happy Leaf

Happy Happy, Joy Joy 

 Home Sweet Home

Eclectic Dreams

Dunvegan Shores

more pretty jewellery

I'm preparing for The Handmade Show in Perth, this coming Sunday (4th November). Hot on the heels of this are 6 other events between now and Christmas, so I am trying to stock up as much as possible! I have a mixture of events - a couple of open house events, 2 local fairs, Perth, and then a fair down in London on the 22nd - a totally new venue for me. It can be a bit of a guessing game, thinking what to create for such a mixture of events....so I'm trying to make sure I have lots, or at least some(!) of everything. Here are some of the new pieces I've made in the past few days.

Quietude

Whispers

Aztec

Vintage Circus

Parisienne

I keep promising that items will appear in my etsy shop and failing to deliver - apologies. Light is a nightmare at the moment (if it's not horribly overcast, it's raining...), and we are in the midst of having our floorboards sanded (taking much longer than estimated.....) so setting up anything in the house is not practical right now. In fact, the only place to sit, be, work, is on/in the bed. Not ideal! But hopefully soon things will be back to normal....just in time for the Christmas craft fair rush.....! Hallow's Eve Eve all.

Gift Guide: no.1

I am a subscriber to the lovely British magazine, Ideal Home. I love looking through it every month - it's full of impeccably stylish houses, gorgeous interior design, and beautiful items for the home. Of course, my home actually looks like a slightly rabbit-chewed not-quite-student but definitely not-a-proper-grown-up cross between a house and a flat, and I don't think that our purse strings will ever allow us to live in the pages of Ideal Home, never mind that I am simply awful when it comes to interior design (too big. Can't do it!). 

This month's arrived a few days ago, and it is geared towards Christmas, which is approaching apace. One of this month's feature is a Gift Guide. It's gorgeous, and whilst almost every single item is from an independent co., there's practically nothing handmade on it. So I thought, why not create my own? Some beautiful eye candy, and hopefully some good ideas for your Christmas list. I feel strongly about supporting independent artists all the time, but especially at this time of year.

Rather than compile a huge list, I'm going to do a series of smaller, more palatable ones, starting here. A random selection of pretties; perhaps other selections will be themed - we'll see.  

Starry Starry Circus Night from ButterscotchBeesting

Pete the Pigeon Wooden Brooch, Katrine Brosnan

The 'Wool' yarn bowl, Little Wren Pottery

Daisy 8 x 8" Print, Cassia Beck

A5 Embroidered Bird Sketchbook, Fiona T.

A few pretty pieces in the autumn light

Golden Hour

Flight of Fancy

  

Road Trip

Nesting

Reverse side of Nesting. 

I'm hoping to make it out to snap some pics today, and upload into les shoppes later. I'll make the links live as and when. Toodles!

Art beads from: 

SwoonDimples

Bo Hulley

TheaToo

Earthenwood Studio

DaisyChainExtra

Mamacita Beadworks

Lush Lampwork

Gardanne Beads

Show Us Your Hooters!

There's a new site in jewellery town, and it is called Artisan Whimsy....now, anyone who knows me knows I'm not terribly computer savvy. I'm absolutely FINE, but it takes me a good while to get my head round something new - took me about 7 years longer than everyone else to start using Facebook. I'm still not convinced by Pinterest.....but very, very slowly, I am educating myself on this new site. All the popular kids are there, and I don't want to get left behind ;-) Why not sign up yourself if you haven't already? 

A contest that AW are running is called Show Us Your Hooters. How could I possibly resist? 

I made the perfect pair of earrings for the challenge.

Lovely freshwater pearls, twigs from SmittenBeads, and gorgeously sweet owls from BeadsByEarthTones. One of my absolutely favourite polymer clay artists! Pretty sweet, if I do say so myself. 

So, I think the deal is that once we've all entered, there's a vote. And I have spotted some absolutely lovely designs in there already! Why not sign up if you haven't already, and take a peek at the owl-centric jewellery, and cast a vote when the time comes? Plenty of eye candy, I can promise you!

Jewellery Fair Display

You may have spotted over on Art Bead Scene this weekend, a run down of my new jewellery stand for craft fairs. If not, hop over there now (if you leave a comment, you can also be in for a chance of winning a pair of my Om earrings in the colour of your choice......a pretty cool Studio Saturday prize if I do say so myself!). The last shot in my post, is of my practice set up in our spare room. Which is also a music room, and a library - hence the load of books as a backdrop. I was remiss and didn't say this in my post, and some folk thought I was going to take all the books along as my backdrop to the fairs that I do! I can't imagine quite how much work that would be, having just emptied the spare room to get the floorboards polished in there........we'd be there for hours! Here's the shot, so you can see our practice run.

Dry run in the music room, books not included! Or beige carpet, thankfully.

Helen and I  had our first go at a proper craft fair with this set up, on Sunday. And I'm pleased to say, it went really well. We had our most successful day at this monthly market for 2012 - which may have been in part down to the stand, or may also have been because it was October and getting closer to Christmas, because it was a beautiful sunny Autumnal day and because the market was a lot busier than it has been. It was also our card payment acceptance debut! If that makes sense(!). The second sale of the day was a card payment, so that was pretty exciting. It was also the only card payment of the day, but we know now that the set up works, and that we know how to use it. I had a meeting with the gentleman from CardSave (the company who organise the set up for me) about a month ago, and we decided on a virtual terminal, rather than a card machine. Thinking of my clientele, a card machine would probably have been the ideal, but the monthly cost was reduced significantly for the virtual terminal, so we've gone for that. It's a little complicated for us - involves using my iPhone as a WiFi hotspot, we had then hoped to use the iPad but it wouldn't pick up the signal, so we resorted to a laptop instead which is slightly less portable - and the customer or seller then types all their card details into a payment 'gateway' on the screen, just as if they are making a purchase online and using their card to pay. It doesn't save any of the details for us to access, but I am aware that some people may be a little hesitant as it is unfamiliar. We'll see! I am hopeful, and excited that I can now offer this service at events.

Here's a couple of shots from the day:

A couple of thoughts upon reflection.

*The log is a good prop, but the items on it are hidden within the crate. Work out something different......

*I have nowhere to put my lower priced bracelets. Time to drag out the bracelet stand, give it a bit of a white-wash and work out a spot for it....

*Work out some way for the earring cards to be punched in a more consistent fashion. If the earrings hang too close to the top, or the central punch for hanging is off, they just don't hang nicely at all!

*We now can't see out from the back at all. AT ALL. And remembering our thefts in the summer, that is not great! So one of us needs to be round the front at all times, and if Helen can't help me out at a fair, I need to try and get a helper for the day. Or else can't accept card payments on that day. 

If you sell your jewellery (or anything else for that matter!) at fairs, how has your stand developed? Does it constantly change, as mine has done, or have you reached a level that you are happy with? And if you don't sell, what do you like to see as a customer? Sometimes when it's your own stand, you stop 'seeing' it, if that makes sense - you miss the obvious. But so far, I like the way my new look is shaping up....If you fancy seeing it in person, check out my Forthcoming Events tab at the top of this page for craft fairs I'll be attending soon. I also have 2 open house events coming up soon - if you're in the Manchester or Edinburgh areas, please do email me if you wish to attend - they will be relaxed, intimate social events and are the perfect way to start your Christmas shopping!