silly season

Well, silly busy season....first craft fair is over and I'm preparing for the next one! This coming weekend, the Crowthorne Craft Fair at Wellington College, Crowthorne is on from Friday until Sunday. It was excellent last year, with a good buzz and people enjoying seeing the fabulous skills on display. Between now and Friday I have four classes, my engraving course, and about a hundred little household tasks. So, busy it is! I'm going to try to get some items up on Etsy and Folksy today as well. I have so many ideas for new items, it's hard to focus on the things that need to happen now...must concentrate and write down all my new ideas for testing after the busiest time of the year.

Also, aside from all that, an amazing new shop has opened over in Oxford called Comma. The website is coming soon, but the shop is already there! If you're in the area, you should definitely give it a look! Especially since it says Hello in giant colourful letters in the window :-)

back to the bench

I'm going back to work at my bench today for the first time since I hurt my hands. They are mostly better now and my other half got me some fingerless cycle gloves. They have padding over the palm, so should help me to keep it painless. I've got oodles to do and now of course I'm well behind because of all this nonsense. I did get to sort out my spreadsheets and update my Folksy and Etsy in the meantime though. I picked up the flyers for the Caversham Arts Trail last night and will be distributing them around. If you'd like one, let me know. I'll put a bunch over at South Hill Park as well, so you can pick one up there. Here are some pics of items added to Etsy/Folksy:

end of financial year

So today I got around to doing my stock take, which means taking everything out of boxes, counting, and then putting it back in the boxes. So I've been relisting items on Folksy and Etsy since I now am sure of exactly what I have! I still have a bit of commission work to do, having been rather slowed down for a week because of my bruised hands. They are healing quite well, but man is it a pain to have big, painful scabs on my hands! I'm going to get back to the bench tomorrow and see how it goes. Today it's all paperwork and relisting. I'll be listing some newer items soon too. I've added the 18k yellow gold crossover post earrings for the first time. I only have one pair, so while the craft fairs and shows were on it didn't make sense to also put them in my online shops. I guess I could put up a gross photo of my bloodied hands, but I think you'd probably prefer a picture of the gold earrings, so here they are:

brrrrrrrrrrrr

Happy 2010! It's a new year and after a very lovely holiday it's back to normal. All the snow has melted around here, but it's still pretty darn cold. My fingers are freezing and my toes are numb. Much tea and thicker socks are needed! And back to the bench I go. I have several custom jobs to work on and a batch of items to send off for hallmarking today. It's all systems go and my teaching starts next week as well. I'll be posting more photos of custom jobs soon as well as attempting to put new items on my Etsy and Folksy sites. For anyone around this area, I have a bunch of work available over at Norden Farm now, so if you're over that way have a look :-) For now, here's another photo of all the snow that we had over Christmas!

today today...

is my last craft fair of the year - get ye down to Farnham for mulled wine, mince pies, and an amazing array of homemade goodies perfect for those last-minute presents!

In other news, I'm shifting around my online presence a bit. I'm moving off some sites and possibly on to others. I have now stopped using DaWanda because it wasn't working that well for me and I just don't have the time to keep on top of Etsy, Folksy and also DaWanda. Plus I think DaWanda works better if you're also fluent in German and French so you can use the other parts of the site. So hey ho, I'm focusing on Etsy and Folksy. This way I have shops that are in good shape and I can offer PayPal or Google Checkout and dollars or pounds. So hopefully this will make things a bit neater and easier to manage!

In the meantime, I'm working on finishing custom pieces before Christmas - hopefully all will go well and it'll all be finished by this Saturday - here's hoping! And here's a photo of one such custom job....

featured

Folksy is doing a little showcase of all items red, which you can read about on their blog. One of my pairs of earrings is in the selection:Click on the photo for a better look, or just go straight to the page on Folksy.

happy october!

It's October already! There's a chill in the air and I'm looking forward to a possible halloween party and cosy evenings near a fireplace. Well, ok, it's only quite mild out, so maybe the fireplaces will have to wait a bit longer! Also, I have to admit I really like my winter coat, so I prefer wearing that to my summer/autumn light jacket.
Anyway, enough of that. I've had a flurry of posting on Etsy & Folksy. Lots of earrings (see photos of some below) - since I retrieved a bunch of items from Slough (since they're in the process of finding a new curator) I have lots of little earrings. I've added some of those, more to come. I've also got a bunch of rings which I'm going to polish, photograph, and put up on Etsy & Folksy at reduced prices.
Yesterday I organised a whole bunch of boxes and items and I'm definitely getting into craft fair mode! The first one of the autumn is a mere 16 days away - 17-18 October Festival of Crafts in Farnham ! I have a mere FOUR tickets left for free entry. They are actual paper, so I can only post them to you if you're interested. Just send me your address if you are...

oh boy...

See this lady? I don't feel that way about cooking. Cooking is alright every now and again, but I find it rather boring and I'm better at chatting to the cook and setting the table and things like that. Anyway, so it's a novel situation today because I have promised to make my husband a 13 course meal!!!!! That's 13 very small courses. Very small. There will be some weird things, some hopefully tasty things, and some things that I buy ready-made....because there's no way I can cook 13 different things for one meal. Well, I could, but it would take forever! ha! So, that's my story today. Tomorrow I'll be working on my lesson plans for South Hill Park. Oh yes and today I'll put some more earrings on Etsy/Folksy from the Lingerie & Lace collection. I was going to put a photo here, but I just realised I've never taken any photos of these earrings...so I'll add that later....

phew

As the culmination of months and months of work and planning, I've started adding pieces from my Lingerie & Lace collection to Etsy and Folksy. This collection of tactile silver jewellery is inspired by and handmade with imprints of luxurious lingerie. Each piece is unique – only yours.
Below are some photos of the pieces already up on the sites. I'll be adding more (including another type of ring, small earrings, tie clip and bracelets) throughout the month. Each piece comes out slightly differently, showing a different part or type of lace. It's a great collection for weddings, since the pieces can be 'matching' for men and women, but not the same, so it's not too matchy-matchy, if you know what I mean. Anyway....have a look and maybe let me know what you think?

things

This week is flying by faster than you can say September. I can hardly believe it's Thursday already! I sent out my newsletter on Tuesday. Of course I tested it and tested it and all was well. Then I sent it out and the main picture didn't show up! Argh! So I had to send another one after it with the photo...oh dear. Well, lesson learnt and next time I'll attach the photo with super glue...ha! Of course, the craft fairs draw ever closer, so preparation continues. I've also added a page on my website about commissions. Hopefully today I'll add a page about my latest collection. And hopefully today I'll also add a new pair of cuff links to Etsy & Folksy. I'm not sure what to do about Coriandr. I get the feeling that site isn't doing that well. For starters I can't find any sellers on there that have had more than a handful of sales. Also I had a pair of earrings on the main page and the views didn't even increase, which makes me wonder who is looking at the front page! I think it might be better to focus on the sites I know are working - Etsy and Folksy. For now I'll keep the Coriandr shop open, but maybe not for much longer, unless there's a change! What else...I'm still working on a tricky commission that involves lots of stones. I'm hoping to finish the first version of that ring today. It's been a busy week and I have some big-ish news as well, but I want to be 100% sure about it before posting, so that'll have to wait until next week!



ps. if you're in or near Reading, something different to do this Sunday in town:
http://thejelly.wordpress.com/

back in the swing of things

After a couple of weeks of holiday and a long weekend, I'm getting back into the swing of things. I'm feeding items back on to Etsy, Folksy and DaWanda. I'll be adding new items this week and next. Just letting you know I'm working on it :-)
I am amazed, but we are having a sort of heatwave here. It's nice that it's warm but it's not so nice to have it so hot when I want to sleep. Anyway, I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts. I've ordered a fan though, for the bedroom. Almost all the fans were out of stock, so I'm guessing that there are a lot of people with the same idea! Reminds me of several years ago when there was a really hot spell and we decided to get a small inflatable pool - they were all sold out, which is why we have a purple plastic hippo in the back which although it's supposed to be a sandbox for children, is also a good paddling pool for cooling your heels! ha!

spring, erm, summer cleaning

So I'm doing some sorting out of stock and boxes and inventory and so on. This means a trimming down of my online shops until I know what I want to put back into them and what new items I want to add. Hence a wee bit quiet on the online front. I figure this'll be a good time to do it - it's lovely weather and summer so people are out and about. It's a kind of quiet, outdoor time of year. At least, it is if the weather stays this way, which I'm really hoping it will. Wouldn't it be great if we had a whole summer of this? That would be so nice. Also very unlikely. Anyway...so I'll be blogging but my shops are getting a dusting out!

dark at 4pm

oh yes, it's winter alright...dark by 4pm....
I've been putting up loads of new items on Etsy, Folksy and Dawanda...check it out :-)
Finished a ring for a friend today and have been working on two new necklaces...photos soon to see what people think of them...
hope everyone's having a good winding-down-to-Christmas week!!! Nearly the holiday....

13 days til Christmas

Oooooh it's miserable looking outside today. Drizzle and about 2 degrees C. brrrrrrrr. Yesterday I managed to get to the post office and post heaps of things (ok, 11) on Etsy, daWanda and Folksy. That involved a lot of picture-taking as most of it was new stuff that I hadn't photographed at all yet. So we'll see how that goes online. I still have some little earrings and a pendant and some more things to add, but that will go up slower since I have to wait until after tomorrow - which is the last craft fair for me for this year!!
I suspect I'm going to be rather on the tired side after this last craft fair so the plan for Sunday is fun - sort out some holiday things. We're going to go find a Christmas tree and make lists of what we need to have in the house so we actually have food when the shops are closed. So that's pretty relaxed. Over the holiday I've promised myself to make time to make two things - one is the ring with a big pearl that is going to be my gran's 90th birthday present - I think it's safe to say that because I don't think she reads my blog, ha! The other is a gold ring that I've been meaning to make for myself as a replacement-of-sorts for the ring that was stolen at the beginning of the year. I've been meaning to get around to it, but because it's for me there has always been something more important to work on! So it will get done this holiday!!!

two remain...

So on Saturday we had the Art Market at the Rising Sun which went pretty well. It was COLD though, very cold. Much tea was consumed. Much shivering was done. And despite all that, the promised snow did not materialise either Saturday or Sunday. Anyway, the art market went pretty well and so now there are two fairs remaining for me this year - Gift in Farnham this weekend and then another Art Market at the Rising Sun on the 13th of December. So, getting there.
In other news, I had my first sale on Folksy, which is quite exciting!! hurrah!!
Now I have to get ready for Gift!! Here we go again.....

This week is whizzing by.... and I've stumbled upon a new UK-based craft site which is very similar to Etsy & DaWanda..... it's called Folksy and it's still in beta version. This is my shop on Folksy:
http://www.folksy.com/shops/magpienest -- you can explore the whole site by just clicking on the "Folksy" logo in top left hand corner. It would be very nice indeed to have a successful UK-based site!! It's looking good so far....
Several people have been clicking away on my own site to help me make sure there are no errors...it seems that all is well in that arena. If you have a spare minute, have a look and let me know what you think of the new design! www.magpienest.co.uk
In other news, my friends over at www.todryfor.com are doing very well and are going to be mentioned in the Telegraph this Saturday!! Not only that, but they are in the current Elle Decoration magazine and are going to be featured in a bunch more magazines in the coming months! Well done, tea towels :-)