Resin and clay and glitter, oh my!

When was the last time I updated?! I don’t even know.

I did have a bit of a dry spell when I wasn’t feeling as fabulous as usual but lately I feel great which means I am full steam ahead in my creative endeavours! I have also been writing loads and have entered a few competitions, so while I’m here I might as well slip in a shameless plug for that. I have a horse in <a href=”http://www.writingonthewall.org.uk/flash-fiction-submission.html”>this race</a>, a flash fiction competition, so if you wouldn’t mind going over there and having a read and perhaps clicking ‘like’ if you like my entry (or, of course, any others!) I would love it. Mine is called Filament.

I have also been branching out jewellery wise and trying lots of new things in that arena, which is what I’m here to talk about.

There’s making your own jewellery and then there’s making your own jewellery. Before, I was playing with beading wire and beads and glue and findings and I still am, but now I am also playing with clay and resin and paint and really making my own jewellery. Pendants from scratch, bangles from scratch, earrings and rings from scratch! It’s exciting and I get to get really messy painting them so I like it.

 

This is my highly professional set up. The stepladder was acting as a chair. It was nice sitting out on a sunny day painting some clay, although I did get some strange looks from my neighbours. 

 

A pendant waiting to be painted.

 

Some painting done. Like I said, messy.

 

Done! The bows will be a necklace, ring and pair of earrings. The hearts and the toadstools are pendants. I’ll be setting a little mirror in the middle of the red and black heart after I’ve touched the paint up.

Today I also ventured into the wide, wild world of resin. This is my first attempt sitting in its mold waiting to dry:

 

Again, messy! I get the feeling that this is a path that’s going to take lots of experimentation and trial and error to get it just right, but as with the clay, the first few creations will just be for me and friends and family until I perfect it. I am really excited about all of the possibilities with resin. This one is made with glitter, but I’m also going to try using little beads, sequins, maybe some coins and eventually I’ll try image jewellery.

While I had the glitter out I thought I might as well go mad and glitter EVERYTHING. Or at least, a few more things.

I love those little pots. It’s really annoying mixing up the perfect shade of paint, only to not be able to get it quite right again when it’s time for the second coat. I can mix it in the little pots and keep it there for when I need to use it again.

 

Glittery bows! Which do actually look like bows when you move them out of the pile of glitter they’re sitting in, I promise. Unfortunately I took the photo BEFORE I did that.

A glittery B. I haven’t quite decided what to do with the white space bits yet.

This is super old and I thought I’d posted it, but I haven’t. Remember I said I was sending some stuff to my friend for a raffle she was holding? Well, here’s that!

And there it is all packaged up and ready to go. I thought I had a picture of my little notecards and things that I got, but apparently I don’t. I’ll take one and post it soon, but here you can see the business cards, which you’ve already seen, and these lovely little postcards. I included ten of those and wrote a discount code on the back of each one. I think I will probably include postcards with all orders when my website is finally up and running properly.

 

Anyway, that’s all for today. Hopefully I’ll check in again before October!

I came back!

I haven’t updated for seven months, what’s that about?! Also, has WordPress changed? It took me a while to find the ‘New Post’ bit.

I have been super lazy in the jewellery-making department, but a bit more proactive with the business side. Here are some new websites for you to go to:

Sally’s Kitsch ‘n’ Sink at Facebook (the Facebook ‘like’ box and I are not talking at the moment)

If you click here, you can go to my actual website. Yes, finally, an actual website! It’s a bit bare bones at the moment, but I needed to publish it so I could get the address for my business cards, haha. Once I’ve battled with the Paypal buttons again (I really hate doing those), it’ll actually have stuff for sale on it. For now, the ‘Online Store’ page just takes you to my Folksy shop.

So, hey, I made a sale! Three of them, in fact. The first one was to my sister, then she put the link on her Facebook and one of her friends bought two rings, then one of my friends put the link on her Facebook and one of her friends bought a ring.

There’s the set my sister bought, all packaged up and ready to go in one of the boxes I bought for shipping. I’m really pleased with these boxes.

I made this bracelet for my niece and sent it along with my sister’s stuff:

And here’s my packaging drawer, where all my envelopes and boxes and bubble wrap are:

And guess what arrived in the post for me today, all the way from…somewhere else (I think America, but I’m not sure!)? 250 of these:

Look at those little blue owls! I love them! This morning, I had an email from Vistaprint listing a load of free products, so I ordered some note cards, letterheads, postcards and magnets, all in the same style, with the owls. I really love those owls. About ten minutes after I’d finished ordering, the postman came with these – these cards were my first Vistaprint order so maybe I should’ve waited until they arrived before ordering anything else, but luckily, I love the cards (and the card holder, which handily doubles as a mirror). I can’t wait until the rest come, but it’ll be a few weeks yet. I finally got around to ordering the cards because a friend is having a raffle soon and asked if I had any business cards and would be able to donate anything for the raffle, and I only had ten business cards! I haven’t made the jewellery yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. I think I’m going to make something blue. I don’t know why, but ever since she asked me, my mind has been going to blue, and it’ll match the owls. Everything should match those owls, because look how cute they are!

I have been looking into getting studio space. There’s a building opening in my town that’s specifically for the ‘creative industries sector’ and they do have studio spaces, and I found some more studios in Middlesbrough, but unfortunately renting a studio is a little out my budget at the moment.

Anyway, that’s all for today. Hopefully it won’t be seven months before I update again!

Watching the clock

So, long time no post again! I’m getting really bad about this. Excuses? Lack of time and inspiration, although ‘lack of time’ isn’t really an excuse because while I’ve had less than usual in the past couple of weeks, I’ve still had plenty.

First things first, the sweater clip is complete. It has been 95% complete for weeks now, but I had two problems:

1) I wanted to show it in action but found that harder than I anticipated when I realised that all my dresses and tops were either black or patterned, meaning the sweater clip itself didn’t show up well in pictures. I bought a new dress yesterday though, so that solved that problem.

2) I couldn’t find anything I wanted to put on the ends of it. I had to be careful not to put anything in certain colours on it because I didn’t want it to clash with whatever I was wearing. I think I’ll definitely make a couple more in other colours though.

Another thing that happened is that I ordered a bundle of vintage watch faces. They’re all in various conditions – some like new, some very damaged, but I love them. As soon as my first lot arrived, I knew I had to order a second batch. I bought them to use on rings, but some of them are just too amazing and need to be showcased on a necklace and others I have two or three of, so I feel like I need to use those all on the same project. They’re quite difficult to use on necklaces and bracelets because they don’t have a hole at the top (obviously) and I’m nervous about drilling through them.

Anyway, here are some pictures taken on my webcam, so again, not the best quality.

You can tell I made it too long – it wasn’t supposed to hang like this and if I want it to hang straight, I have to have my cardigan wide open which kinda defeats the point of it. But I’ve learned my lesson for next time now! Please excuse the leopard print with the polka dots, I don’t have a plain cardigan! The chain part is made of glass pearl beads in cream, glass beads in black and black plastic bow beads.

I was searching through my boxes of jewellery making stuff today trying to find something to use on the ends and I found these umbrellas. They both face the same way, which is a shame because I’d like them facing in opposite directions, but they’re cute. Here’s a close up picture of one.

And here are a couple of rings made with the watch faces. There’s an Adidas and a Rolex here. A Rolex! There’s some marking on the Rolex, looks like it’s where the hands used to be. I’m going to try and get the marks off and I think it’ll be fairly easy.

 

Last but not least, the first thing I made today. I was lucky enough to get this absolute gem in my first batch of watch faces:

 

How adorable is that?! It’s an owl! An owl on a watch! I knew it would be wasted on a ring and I wanted it on a necklace. I lost sleep wondering how I’d manage this, I’m not even joking. Glue it to something flat that had a hole for a jump ring? Just glue a jump ring or bail to it? Well, this little owl has tiny little holes all around it, not close enough to the edge to attach a jump ring but close enough to slide a head pin through, bend it and loop it to attach to a chain.

Here’s the finished product:

Now, I actually hate working with this chain. Especially this chain. I find it fiddly and irritating and I don’t usually like the way it looks, so I was a bit unsure about how this was going to turn out, but it had to be chain. Totally beaded wire would have been way too much – I thought the owl watch face was enough of a statement on its own – and I just don’t like how bare wire looks. This is the first time I’ve ever made something that’s part chain and part beaded! I found it frustrating and awkward but I’m very pleased with the finished result. As you can see in the picture, there are four little beaded parts, two at each side. The beaded part is made up of cream glass pearls, black plastic beads with rhinestones in and little beads that are shaped like owls. I ordered the owl beads when I ordered the first batch of watch faces when I had no idea that I’d get this brilliant owl one. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to use it with the owl beads.

There was something else I wanted to make today (a creation using dolls’ house crockery!)  but due to a glue incident, that didn’t get completed and will have to wait until the weekend.

That’s me done for today. Thanks for looking!

 

Rings and tings

Yes, tings.

So I made my sweater clip. A week ago today, in fact! It was an exercise in repetition because I made it way too long at first – I made it long enough to go right from shoulder to shoulder. Then I realised that I wanted it to hold my cardigan closed a little bit and it wasn’t going to do that at that length. So I shortened it to about half that length. It’s still too long, I think. At least I know for next time. Anyway, I don’t have any pictures of it yet because I want to take a photo of it in action and I decided to get a cold on Thursday and I’m still not feeling the whole ‘getting dressed and putting makeup on’ thing. Hopefully I’ll be up to it on Friday or Sunday.

I did make some more rings and things though, and I took some pictures of them. I took them on the webcam so they’re not brilliant quality but not bad for a webcam at all and for photos that are just for the blog and won’t be on the website (whenever that happens), they’ll do because it makes the process of uploading them and posting them much quicker. So here we are:

Here’s a sparkly and slightly out of focus flower. And my messy nails. Ignore them. The flower is actually a much darker pink, but the webcam isn’t picking that up. It’s super sparkly and really pretty.

Here are some other sparkly pink creatures:

I really didn’t realise how out of focus these were. I was holding them as I photographed them and I found it really tough to keep my hands still! This is a brooch, also much darker pink than it appears and very sparkly. I love this! It was a bugger to make – it’s so narrow that I had to attach the brooch pin lengthways and at an angle. I hope it doesn’t make it too difficult to attach to clothing,

This is a sparkly pink ladybird! I really like the way this picture came out and I think the ring is really cute.

Sparkly pink heart. This is quite a pale pink – I don’t like it as much as the others. It reminds me very much of something I would have worn when I was six!

I made some casino/Vegas themed stuff a few months ago around the time I disappeared from the face of WordPress. I will show you that:

Viva Las Vegas brooch! Again, this is quite a dark pink, but my flash doesn’t agree with that.

Poler chip ring!

I really could not get a good picture of this, but it’s a showgirl headdress ring. It’s really sparkly and the blue is really rich and bright. I love it.

There’s another brooch, but the photos I’ve taken on the webcam are far too bright to show the detail, so I’ll hopefully post that another time when I take a picture with the camera. Just some random rings now!

I adore this crown! I want to put them on everything, but for now, it’s just a ring.

Lots of geometric rings!

Little baking themed rings! I have a flour one too, but it flew away. It’s returned now but I haven’t got a photo. A bit American here, though, because that’s clearly jam.

Anyway, I think I’ve given your retinas quite enough information for now so I’ll sign off. Hopefully I’ll return at the weekend!

Thanks for reading!

Long time, no update

Hi guys!

Sorry for my silence, it is inexcusable! I don’t have any pictures for you today, although I have been working away like one of Santa’s elves over Christmas. Or, more likely, the elves in The Elves and the Shoemaker, because most of the jewellery related work I did over the Christmas period was done in secret. I made a set for my mum and it’s quite hard to make jewellery for someone when they’re in the house with you. It’s especially difficult to do it when you have to lift seven different boxes full of beads and findings and they all rattle!

Productivity has been lower than normal, though. It’s disappointing but I’ve got nobody to blame but myself. I’ve just been a bit dry on ideas lately, but hopefully I’m back on track now.

Anyway, I’m here to talk about two things today. I’ll start with the one you’re probably going to laugh at.

I went to a see a psychic the other day. I’d been interested in going since a friend went to see an amazingly accurate one a couple of months ago and my mum bought me a reading as a Christmas present. You might be wondering how this is relevant. It is, I promise. The first thing she said when I walked in (well, after hello obviously, otherwise it would just be rude) was “I don’t know why I’ve got to ask you this, but I do. Do you make your own jewellery?” I wasn’t wearing any jewellery I’d made. I was wearing one necklace that I bought from Peacocks and that was it. I was astounded. This was the thing she focused on mainly during the reading. She said that this is what will eventually become my career, I will get a business loan and one day, I’ll have my own premises! She runs a shop that sells handcrafted jewellery and things and she even gave me the name and number of her shop and told me to contact her when I was ready. And she told me to add her on Facebook. It was a really strange experience and I am absolutely amazed and also kind of…relieved? Does this make sense? I mean, even if she isn’t actually predicting the future it’s nice to have that kind of confidence from a total stranger! Anyway, she told me that I needed to get on it and stop procrastinating and also upload pictures (she specifically picked up the fact that I had photos taken but not uploaded – weird!), so that’s what prompted me update the blog today.

Now, despite that, I still don’t have any new pictures for you. I am, however, typing away on a shiny new computer (a benefit of having your birthday and Christmas right next to each other – sometimes it’s nice to be able to get combined presents!) which HAS A CAMERA IN IT (and you can log on WITH YOUR FACE! Amazement). This might be old news to some of you, but I’ve been plodding on away on my old faithful computer from 2004 which didn’t have such things and I am so excited by this! Mainly I have just been taking ridiculous pictures, but once I figure out how to line things up properly I will take some proper pictures. I’ve also got a new camera, did I blog about that? I’ve had it a while now, but I’ve yet to upload any pictures from it. I don’t know where its lead is (yes, again!) and I’m not totally sure how to use it yet but we should have something soon. I also got some lovely jewellery holders for Christmas so I’m excited to be able to display things a bit better! And also to hang my own jewellery up neatly, that’ll be nice. I can show you one of those jewellery holders (taken with the camera in my computer!):

It’s to hang on the wall and hang my jewellery off. It looks a bit like I’m licking it in this picture. I’m not, that’s not even a tongue. I’ll take some pictures of the others tomorrow. It’s difficult for me to get very detailed, clear pictures of my jewellery using the computer camera just yet since I can’t figure out the angle and maybe I never will be able to and I’ll have to keep using an actual camera (shock horror), but I can take pictures of things like this no problem. Oh, this picture also stars my new fringe which a month and a half old now. It’s been years since I last had a fringe and I love it, although I think it somewhat hampers my logging-in-with-my-face attempts, because it’s covering my eyes a lot of the time, especially immediately post-shower. Why on earth am I talking about my fringe?

Now, onto the other thing. As they say, necessity is the mother of all invention. I haven’t invented anything, let me make that clear! But I do need something. That thing exists but I cannot seem to get my hands on one without paying through the nose for it and I haven’t fallen in love with any of the things I’ve seen. I don’t buy jewellery or accessories unless I’m in love with them (but I do fall in love with quite a few things). What is this thing, you may ask. Well, this thing is a sweater clip.

I know, I know, who even wears sweater clips these days? Not many people, and that’s the problem! They’re really bloody useful! I have a really cute little dress with a peter pan collar and it’s lovely, but it’s sleeveless and it’s winter. I have an adorable cardigan that I want to wear over it, but this cardigan is a little…um…bursty in the boob area, so wearing it fastened isn’t ideal. Leaving it unfastened makes it difficult to keep on my shoulders, though. So obviously I need a sweater clip. Now, these seem to be working their way back into style, but they’re not quite there yet and after searching the internet, I found that it’s very difficult to find them, especially if you don’t want to pay £84 million or order from America. I found this one on eBay that I like and added it to my watch list, but there’s five days left of the auction and it’ll probably end up costing more than I can afford.

But then I thought, ‘hang on, I bet I could make one of those!’ So I thought about it a bit more and I looked at lots of them and examined them and then I thought, ‘yes, I could make one of those!’ I’ll need to buy the actual clips first (which is a shame because I want it NOW) and I’ve got a couple of kinds of clip in mind, but I’ll pop into my local haberdashery (isn’t that a great word?) type place on Monday and see what I can find. My cardigan is black with white bows on it so I think I’m going to make the chain bit with white glass pearl beads and black bow beads. It’ll be cute! It’s my lovely friend Laura’s birthday on the 25th, too, and she is also a fan of cardigans, pearls and bows (in fact, she also owns a black cardigan with white bows on) so perhaps I’ll make her one too.

Oh, while we’re talking about birthdays, it’s my mum’s on Tuesday, so happy birthday to her! I won’t be making her one. Not because I don’t like her, but because it would be quite pointless. She doesn’t wear many cardigans and she wouldn’t use one of these even if she did.

Anyway, that’s quite enough talk for today. Bye bye!

Things that I’m excited about

Hello,  people and creatures!

No new pictures today, but lots of text. I went to a new (to me) shop today and got some new bits and pieces. The lady there told me there’s a sale starting on Friday, too, and guess what? Friday happens to be payday! I’m at work Friday and Saturday, but I’ll think I’ll pop down on Monday and stock up. These new things are going to be super kitschy. One of them involves a showgirl headdress! Plus, some really cute kitschy cats. Who doesn’t like kitschy cats? People with no soul, that’s who. Or maybe totally normal people, but we can’t be having that.

I’ve got a new necklace planned as well, but I can’t say too much about that yet because I’ve still got to order some bits for it. I’m excited about it, though.

You know what else I’m excited about? Swarovski.

I have this bracelet that my mum got me for my graduation. It’s beautiful – ruby coloured Swarovski crystals (to match the dress I wore for my graduation, which was red) and white Swarovski pearls. I’d never really had much of an appreciation for the way pearls looked before, but I fell in love with them the moment I saw this bracelet. It’s sort of my signature piece of jewellery now – whenever I get dressed up, I wear it. It’s handmade (not by me, obviously) and the lady that made it sells on eBay, I think.

Nowadays, it sort of acts as my inspiration. I used to look at it and think, “I wish I could make something this pretty” and then I thought, “hang on, I can.” I sit there and examine it sometimes, to make sure what I’m making is up to scratch. I look at it to check how well the crimp covers are closed and to make sure mine are closed just as neatly. I examine the distance between the last bead and the clasp. The first time I made a bracelet that was as well-made as this one, I was thrilled. That’s when I knew I really could do this.

And I thought, this is such a lovely, delicate, classy piece. I’d like to make something like that. So off I went and I bought myself some Swarovski crystals and pearls. They arrived, I opened them, touched them and was generally fascinated by the fact that I was holding Swarovski crystals and pearls in my hand and I was about to make something with them. Unfortunately, I ordered the pearls a little too small for what I want to do first, so I need to order some bigger ones, but I’ve got an idea for a black and white piece (black and white pearls and clear and jet crystals) that I think is going to be really lovely. I’ve just bought a black and white dress and I’m thinking of making one of these bracelets to keep for myself to wear with it. I think it’ll do me really well for formal events and I hope other people will like them too. I’m going to use the smaller pearls to make earrings. Honestly, though, I really just love that I’m getting to work with these lovely little things and that I can sit here and say that I’m using Swarovski!

That’s all for today. I’ve got another week off starting on Sunday (I wish it would start tomorrow), so hopefully I’ll be a jewellery-making fiend!

Thanks for reading!

Rings and brooches and bracelets, oh my!

Hello!

I’ve got loads I want to talk about today, but I promised you photos a couple of weeks ago, so I’m going to put those here for now and I’ll update with the rest tomorrow.

First of all, rings.

These ones are pretty standard. A few new button rings (lilac and white polka dots, black and white stripes and yellow and white stripes) and a couple of red and white polka dot rings that weren’t featured in the last batch. I like the butterfly.

Apples! Blue, pale pink, purple and yellow. These are really cute but they seem to look dirty even though they’re not, especially round the edges and in the holes where the glue shows through. They’re so pale, and I think they might look better if they were darker. I seem to have lots of apple jewellery and apple charms waiting to be made into jewellery. I feel like bows are kind of my signature thing (I love bows and have quite a few bow accessories and pieces of clothing that I wear in real life) here, hence the logo, and I have just ordered forty new bow charms, but apples are working their way in too.

Look at these! Don’t they remind you of something out of Rainbow Brite or Jem or Sailor Moon or something? They’re 3D and sparkly and on an adjustable ring base, so they’re suitable for kids as well as adults who want a bit of kitschy glitz in their lives. Great for those who love a bit of Lady Gaga or who have watched Party Monster a few too many times. They’re tacky, certainly, but sometimes that’s okay. I’m not sure why it looks like there’s paint missing on the one on the right. Here’s a photo from the side so you can see the 3Dness:

Next, brooches! I’m really excited about these. When I told my mum, she said, “nobody wears brooches!” but I know that’s not true because they seem to be everywhere at the moment.

They’re pictured here on the collar of my favourite jacket. It’s got this really cute little Peter Pan collar and the previous owner replaced the buttons with big red plastic ones. I’ve been wearing the heart brooch on the collar since I made it and  I love the way it looks. The process of making brooches is just liking making rings, and I thought some of the rings I already had would look great as brooches too (you’ll recognise three of these ones, because I have identical rings – the little yellow snail is the only one that isn’t also on a ring). The great thing about brooches, though, is that I can use way bigger pieces on them than I can on rings. I’ve just ordered these awesome 50s style poodles to put on brooches. I bought this skirt the other day that really can only work in a 50s inspired outfit.  I actually bought it for an interview and it was obviously totally inappropriate, so I was going to take it back to the shop. I was joking about sewing a pink poodle applique to it, but now I seriously think I might just attach one of these poodle brooches to it.

Last but not least, bracelets!

I bought these beads and the frosted aspect of them (as well as the fact that they’re, you know, blue) reminded me of the rhyme ‘In and Out the Dusty Bluebells’, so I hunted down some blue flower beads to put on the bracelet with them.

I made a couple of charm bracelets, too. Confession: I HATE working with chain. I find it fiddly and annoying and I don’t find the results particularly aesthetically pleasing. So, I’ve decided to start making charm bracelets on beading wire with beads, instead. Here are a couple:

Nautical themed! The charms are an anchor, a fish, a ship’s wheel and a boat with sails. The bracelet is made with green and blue glass beads and silver spacer beads.

The super-epic girly charm bracelet. I’ve put this picture here full-sized so you can see all the charms. The bracelet is made with pink plastic beads and silver spacer beads. You’ll recognise some of these charms from the charm bracelet I posted a few weeks ago, but the umbrella, coat hanger (how cute is this?!), hairdryer and mirror are new. Nine charms on this! I love it. I think it’s really cute.

I’ve been writing this post for two hours and I’ve run out of steam now, so I’m going to say goodbye. I’ll be back tomorrow with a post full of text about swarovski crystals and pearls (I know, right?!), and my signature piece of jewellery, which has been my inspiration for some of the stuff I’m working on at the moment. I also have a couple more charm bracelets that I apparently didn’t take pictures of, so maybe I’ll get those up too.

Thanks for looking!

I nearly quoted Eminem in the title of this post, but I resisted.

Hey, people!

This is just a quick post to let you know that I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth. The day job has been quite demanding and I ended up working that Sunday when I said I’d post last. And then when I got home, there was a powercut. The universe was conspiring against me that day.

Anyway, payday rolled around last Friday so I ordered some materials, including 50 ring bases and some brooch backs! I was so excited when they came. I made fourteen rings (including these epic 3D sparkly stars that remind me of something out of Rainbow Brite) and four brooches today, so there’ll be pictures of those in a few days. I’m going to make a few new charm bracelets, as well, including a more fabulous version of the super girly one I posted last time.

I have to go now because the X Factor is on and it wouldn’t do to miss it, but check back in a few days.

Thanks for reading!

Today I have mostly…

…been making rings and making/completing sets.

I am loving button rings. I can’t get enough of them. Unfortunately, I’ve run out of ring bases so I’ll have to wait until I get some more of those before I can make any more, but there’s plenty more to come. I love picking out the buttons. I got nine the other day and five of them are rings now. I wore the black polka dot one the other day (which is the one I made to keep, although I’ll be making another one to sell), partly to make sure it could survive everyday life (including rummaging through my bag of doom) and partly because it’s awesome! It survived and it looked so cute. I smiled every time I looked at my hands.

Here are all of the rings I’ve made so far:

Like I said, I’ve also been making sets. I decided to make a pair of earrings and a bracelet to match the Little Black Heart necklace I have for sale. When the website is up and running, these will be available to buy separately or as a set.

Here’s the bracelet:

And here are the earrings:

I used to make loads of earrings but I haven’t made any in ages. Today I made two pairs!

Anyway, here’s the whole set, displayed on the back of my beading board. I know, super classy and professional. It’d probably look better if I’d actually displayed the necklace by resting it in the grooves. It looks like a stethoscope like this.

I made another set today, too, just a bracelet and a pair of earrings. True story – when I first decided to get this whole thing off the ground, the first thing I made was a simpler version of this set. I had intended to sell it, but…y’know, the bracelet went really well with my outfit so I wore it one day. I had to make sure it would survive being worn! The earrings looked a bit sloppy, but I never wore them so I might take them apart and make them into something else.

Anyway, I liked the way it looked so I thought I’d make another one, but then I realised I had some other beads that would go nicely with it and this one is waaaay better than the first one. I almost wish I’d made this one to keep instead of that one!

So here’s the new set that I made today:

They look a bit like Christmas decorations, but I really like them and I hope someone else will too. They’re pretty kitschy, after all, and that’s what I had intended to focus on.

Last but not least, here’s a charm bracelet I made the other day. It’s super girly, and because the clasp can be attached to any link in the chain, it can be adjusted to fit smaller wrists, if someone wanted to buy it for their daughter, although I know plenty of adults who want to be princesses too!

I don’t know how well you can see those charms, but from left to right there’s a handbag, a floppy hat, a dress on a hanger, a make-up bag (it says ‘cosmetics’ on it), a shoe and a crown with  ‘princess’ on it.

It’s back to the day job tomorrow, which is a shame. I’ve been off for ten days and I’d hoped to get my website up and running and my bedroom sorted out so I could set half of it up just for jewellery making. I’ve made absolutely no progress with the room. I haven’t even touched it. I could have had the website finished if I’d really knuckled down and worked on it and I regret that I didn’t. It’s not complicated, it’s just so tedious! I hate making all the Paypal buttons and uploading and resizing all the pictures and I’ve totally lost my inspiration when it comes to thinking up names for, and writing descriptions of, pieces. Nevermind. It’ll be worth it when it’s done.

Okay, that’s all for today. I’ll hopefully be back on Sunday with some new things, and I’ll have made some progress with the website, too, fingers crossed!

Thanks for reading, folks!

Shopping and Storage!

Hi everyone!

First of all, a big thank you to the people who left comments! I really appreciate you coming here and having a look and leaving comments. And also, a big hello to my best friend, Leanne, although I don’t know when she’ll have chance to see this. She’s been in Australia since October and she’ll be there for a good while yet and I miss her, but she’s been really encouraging about the jewellery-making.

So, I solved my glue problem – it was a ridiculously simple fix. The reason it wasn’t working? I’d got a piece of paper stuck between the ring and the piece I’d glued on top. Epoxy doesn’t hold too well to paper. So I’ve got three new rings made now.

To celebrate, I went shopping and bought some bits to make some more rings. In the next few days, look out for little snails, huge hearts, lips, and the thing that I’m most excited about – button rings! I should be making these tomorrow and although I don’t usually make jewellery to keep for myself, I’ll definitely be keeping one of these.

Here are some photos of the rings that are ready, and some photos to show what the button rings will look like:

These three rings are all ready to go. On the left, a little frog, in the middle, a red and white dotty bird, and on the right, a red and white dotty flower. There’s red and white dotty hearts and butterflies to come, too.

The heart is the focus of this picture – the yellow flower is a ring I own and it’s from Primark! I love the way this picture turned out. As I was taking these pictures, my neighbour was outside hanging out her washing. I was worried she’d look up, see me with the camera and think I was taking pictures of her!

The heart is actually mirrored, and you can see that in this photo. There’s the lens of my camera! I’ve called this the Narcissus ring for that reason – according to Greek mythology, Narcissus was hot and he knew it. As punishment for being a vain prat, he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool, and died because he couldn’t stop staring at himself. Staring at yourself in this ring won’t kill you, though, unless you’re so distracted by your gorgeous face that you walk in front of a car. Don’t do that.

The buttons are just balancing awkwardly on my finger in these photos, but they will be actual rings soon. There are loads of options to come, but I only bought three today because there was only so much I could carry to the till!

Excuse the remnants of my nail polish there (that’s grey nail polish and I am loving it)! I’m definitely going to be keeping one of those black polka dot ones. I’m a real lover of polka dots, but I have a disappointing lack of polka dot jewellery.

Now, I said the other day that I’d share some photos of my storage, so here you go! Having everything in one place is absolutely necessary for me – in the last two days I have managed to lose the batteries for my camera and the lead, AGAIN. I’ve found it now, though, so here are lots of photos. The storage photos might be a bit boring, but if you’re into crafting, you might find this useful.

Here’s my boxes! For context, they’re up to my knees when they’re stacked like this.

The top pink box doesn’t have much in it – a few pieces for rings and projects I’m currently working on, so I haven’t taken a photo of the inside of that. In the top sections of this box are all of my finished pieces (and my tape measure – that’s pink square in the left-most compartment), and in the bottom are tools and things that are too big to go in bead boxes. You can see a few pairs of pliers (I have five, including one set that’s like a swiss army knife – the actual plier part has three different kinds of pliers on it, and wire cutters, and in the handles there’s a knife [great for opening splitrings], a bottle opener, a ruler, all sorts! They were 99p from Netto, amazingly!) on the left, beading wire in the middle, and glue on the right. The things in cellophane bags in the bottom of the box are memory wire chokers waiting for beads and pendants to make them lovely.

That’s what I see when I open the big pink box on the bottom. That’s my beading board. It’s a new addition and I’m really excited to use it, because I think it’s going to save SO much time when it comes to making necklaces and bracelets. It’ll allow me to see exactly how many of each bead will fit before I even do anything else! Gone are the days of, “we’ll have five of each of them…oh. No. We’ll have four of each.”

Underneath that are all of my bead boxes:

I have three full big ones, and three little ones, although only one and a half of those are filled so far. The empty little one isn’t pictured. I coudn’t live without these. They make it so easy to find everything and keep all of my different colours separated, and each kind of finding separate.

Also in the big pink box – millions of little resealable bags which I will hopefully put to good use one day, two catalogues from Beads Unlimited, and all of my receipts so I can keep track of how much everything cost. These help me set my prices.

Okay, that’s all for today. I’m off to eat chocolate and watch The Devil Wears Prada. I hope you’re all having a lovely weekend!