A bracelet for Paula...

As any regular readers will know, I recently began taking part in Altrincham's new Vintage and Craft Fair. Last month, I was lucky enough to receive a commission from a fellow stall holder, Paula. She is getting married in a month and wanted me to create her a bracelet for her to wear on her big day. What an honour - and a slightly scary one at that! It's always such a privilege to create wedding jewellery but a special type of treat to have a commision from someone who knows you only through your work. But daunting. Very daunting.


Tomorrow is August's fair, and I completed Paula's bracelet a few days ago. Last month, she brought in some samples of fabric and trim that she will be wearing on the day. Very vintage chic! Some lovely off-white, ivory shades. The bracelet came about in quite a fortuitous way - I have a few bits and bobs from pieces that hadn't quite worked out for one reason or another - a strand of linked beads, a scrap of vintage lace....they were lying on my beading table and they all came together very naturally. I just hope she likes it!


I'm not going to share the finished piece here until Paula has seen it and given it the stamp of approval (there are a few options for change I have in my mind, so hopefully one version or another will fit the bill!) but as we are in the season of sneak peeks, here is mine.....

It's something I would have worn on my big day and you can't do more than that, can you? 

Hope you are all set up for lovely weekends. I'll give you the (mini) reveal on Monday :-)

Craft Fair Aftermath

So, after a VERY slow start, the third Magpies and I Altrincham Craft Fair turned out to be a success for me! And really, I can honestly say, no one was more surprised than me. We started at 11 and didn't sell anything til after 1pm. It's the third of these markets that I have participated in and whilst the first one went well, the second was a bit of a wa-wa-waaaa, if you know what I mean! And I was all prepared for today to be the same. Round about 1pm, I was seriously thinking of not signing up again - there had been loads of nice people coming round, taking cards, picking things up, but nobody buying. It's just hard to know what you are doing wrong in that situation....other people were selling this morning, just not us. But we noticed that people were picking up the couple of stamped pieces I had out, put a few more of these necklaces out and we had our first sale....and our second....and by our 3.30 finish, we'd sold eleven items. Including one of my resin rings I made this week :-) So, I'm no Lori Anderson by any means (this could NOT be my full-time job!) but I feel pretty pleased with how we've done today.

Here's how are stall was looking (before we were open to the public, I hasten to add - Helen doesn't usually look so grumpy!) You can see some bags that my sister-in-law made hanging on the sides, and some GORGEOUS silk and mohair cuffs that my Mum knitted. And yes, they are beaded too :-).  So, what do you all think of my display? I can't really afford to be buying any fancy accessories and props - I bought the three picture frames and Helen spray painted them for me and we fitted in the lace together, and the rocks and wood are salvaged from the shores of Whitby. I was pretty pleased with how it looked, I think it was the best so far, and the book you can see on the LH side was a portfolio with a wee statement about me, my jewellery and the materials I use. I'll maybe publish that here at some point so you guys can 'critique' it. 

And here's a quick collage of some of the things that sold. The blue hair clips were actually navy, but I don't have a shot of them....also, a stamped pendant saying 'We are stardust, we are golden', and a handwoven flower pendant in a shimmery, reddish copper sold too. Plus one of the small copper rings I made this week - with a sweet green butterfly inside.  Putting these items all here I see a theme of turquoise and roses.....but maybe that's just because that's what I like to work with! I thought about everybody's brilliant advice for this time, and did my best to stand up a lot (a but tricky as we're on a slope and it's quite uncomfortable to stand for long periods!) and greet and chat to people. Man, I find that HARD. I know it perhaps seems odd for one who blogs and loves to read and comment on other blogs, but I'm actually quite a shy and insular person in 'real' life....and especially when it comes to selling my jewellery! But I swallowed at least some of my shyness and chatted.

[n.b. this is extra hard for me because I actually often don't really like it when people chat to me on their stalls. I feel under pressure and often walk away because I feel under pressure.....perhaps it's a Scottish/British thing - I know sales and customer service is a very different matter in the USA....something I find interesting and will perhaps blog about another time]

So there you go. I'd love any further advice from anyone who goes to or sells at such events, and any critique on my set up (don't be too harsh!) will be much appreciated! Hope you are all having a great weekend and escaping the torrential rain we've had :-)

x x x

More resin!

I've totally got the bug...

I recently bought some bezel rings from Miss Lorelei and have been pondering what exactly I shall do with them....

Here they are, full of not yet set diamond glaze. I tried out putting a bit of tape around a few of them to start off with, thinking that the pointy edging would mean the glaze would leak out. NOT a good plan....it just meant that the resin leaked down the side, between the rings and the tape. I pulled it off, cleaned them up and refilled them. Pretty hopeful they'll work out well - we'll see tomorrow!

And here are the results of yesterday:

Colours are brighter in real life, the light is fading in our kitchen. I found a box of origami paper, stashed away, and used it in about half of these. The red, blue and the butterflies are all from the set. Love the little postage stamp butterflies!

I think that is my favourite bezel setting from Vintaj that I've used so far. I think I have enough resin examples for my class tomorrow by now :-)

Hope you all have a good weekend ahead of you! I've got my beading class tomorrow, then Altrincham craft fair on Sunday. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The question (and price) of silver

So, I took part in my second Altrincham vintage and craft fair on Sunday. I was quite hopeful for it as I'd been pleased with the results and sales at the first one - it had been a nice mix of people, not too busy but a fair amount of folk, chatty and obviously enjoying having a mooch around. Sadly, my second one was not so good. My Mum and my sister came along (Mum was up from Edinburgh to see my sister and I take part in some recitals at college) and they saved the day by buying various things as presents for friends, but I only sold ONE piece to a stranger. She'd been to the previous market and was very enthusiastic about my jewellery and so it was lovely to have a returning customer (she's also commissioned me to make her a bracelet for her wedding!) but I was sad that nothing else sold. I'm not sure if it was a different crowd visiting the market that day - I don't know Altrincham well enough to know who to expect - but I do know that a couple of other jewellery stalls there did well that day. Which is great for them but has left me puzzled as to the dramatic difference between the two market days for me.

I spoke to my mum about it - she visits heaps of craft fairs and is always very nice about my jewellery 'habit'! - and one ting she said she would like to see is more silver. Now, I think many of us who have worked in the past, especially jewellery makers such as myself who are not established sellers, are steering clear of silver at the moment due to the heavy cost. I used to work quite often with sterling, but I have given up recently - partly because I absolutely love the patinated copper and brass I usually work with now, but mainly I've got to say, because of the high price tag that comes attached to silver.

So I've been trying to figure out how to make some pieces using silver but keeping the cost down. I've made a bunch of very simple earrings using beads such as pearls and vintage crystal(and in fact am now waiting on some more silver ear wires coming in the post) 

and a couple of pendants (also waiting on fine silver chain). 

Love this bead frame especially - I've had a couple of these in my silver box for years but never quite figured out how best to use it....I like this simple pendant.

I don't want to move away from my (still developing) style, but I do love silver, and it does give people options when looking at my work. I have quite a few friends who can only wear silver or gold in their ears so it's always good to remember that when creating.

What do other folk think about this? I know that silver isn't everyone's bag but I do personally love it, both oxidised and bright. So I'm going to try and keep some simple pieces in my stash of jewellery and see if they catch anyone's eye next time around. I hope I'm not just pandering to what I think (guess!) potential customers might want (I don't think I am, I really like all the pieces I've made) but am hopefully staying true to myself as a designer, whilst giving people options and keeping an eye on the purse strings.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.

New Beads and Beyond items in le shop!

A quick post today to say I am starting to upload some of my Beads and Beyond pieces into my Folksy shop. Just a couple yesterday (doens't it just take so long to upload into an online shop? Or is that just me ;-)?) but I have more which I will shoot and upload gradually. I've got another craft fair next weekend (Altrincham Market, Sunday 19th from 10.30) so I'm loath to load too much but just a couple of things here and there perhaps. There are some pieces I have either given away as presents, sold to friends or quite frankly, I just want to keep for myself, but there's still quite a lot left over for sale. I love getting jewellery back in the post - somehow it looks fresher and more sparkly than it did before!

Moroccan Spice Bracelet

Nautical Knots Bracelet