Week 4 - back on the horse!

Phew - a busy last few weeks (more about that in a future post!) has got in the way of me updating the blog but catching up now and to make it up I've decided to do some double weeks i.e. at least two posts for the next few weeks till I'm back on track!

This week I decided to get on top of updating my Folksy shop. This meant working my way through all my stock checking what I have and re-listing items that I had previously sold so they were available again. I've still got a few listings to put back up but currently the shop is now up to 76 items! This also means I now have a list of all the stock I need to photograph to then make up new listings for. this list currently sits at 92 items so busy times ahead again, just hope the sun holds out for a wee while to help me get some clear pictures.

I need to do the same with my Etsy store, my aim is to maintain both at over 100 items as this will increase my visability to people searching the sites. And I also want to get started on listing some of my t-shirt designs on both sites within the next few weeks and work on some new products. Some of the items I've updated listings for are shown below:

The last few weeks too have seen a big increase in the number of custom order requests I've had in, a lot of them for weddings. I love working on custom items, I'll show some of the recent ones in a future post too.

My first fair...

A couple of weekends ago I took part in my first fair, it was a school fete rather than an actual craft fair but I saw it as a good chance to work out how to display my items and test out how it would all work for bigger fairs.

I didn't want to spend too much money on fancy displays and I also don't really like the industrial look of the usual jewellery displays so tried to do as much as I could with things I already had around the house with the addition of a few things.

Another custom order

I got an email the other week asking me to make a necklace similar to my greyhound one but instead using a sillhouette of India (for the customer's friend who is living out there). You can see the final necklace below. I also included a heart shaped keyring in the same design as a wee free gift.

This uses the last of my green and gold necklaces (the other is on the greyhound necklace) and I've searched high and low to source these, even getting someone to go to the shop I bought them in (in Toronto) to ask but they claimed to never having seen them! I like the colour combo in them and they're also soft compared to the usual ones you find. Hopefully I'll come across a supplier at some point again...

A recent custom order

I recently got contacted by someone who wanted me to make a custom piece of jewellery as a gift for his wife for her birthday, his plan was to have a necklace that incorporated her birthstone and also birthflower (her birthday was in April so these were diamond and daisies). He'd seen my daffodil necklace and wanted the daisy included in a similar way.

In this case as it was to be a special item I made it using sterling silver chain and findings and decided the nicest way to incorporate the diamond was to use two small heart shaped swarovski crystals. To include real flowers in resin you have to ensure they're totally dehydrated as any moisture left will affect the resin and also could mean the flower can decay inside. This is usually done by burying the flowers in silica crystals abut a side effect is that the colours are also muted. So I decided instead to make the daisy, roughly full scale, out of polymer clay to keep it as realistic looking as possible.

You can see the pictures of the finished piece below, I'm happy to say the customer was really pleased with the piece and hopefully his wife was too!

Personalised pendant giveaway!

My facebook fan page reached a milestone of 200 fans this weekend so to mark the occasion (if it can be called that!) I'm running a wee giveaway for two of my personalised photo pendants.

The winners just send me a digital copy of the picture they'd like on the pendant (it could be a photo, a drawing done by your child, anything that you like really) and I will produce a customised glass tile pendant with their choice of chain, ribbon, velvet or coloured silk necklace. You can see an example of the pendants below, these ones were made with fabric but the same process is used for pictures, they are about an inch square and made from crystal clear rounded glass tiles.

How to enter - to enter all you have to do is visit my shop (here), and then add your comment below telling me which item in the shop is your favourite.

There's a few ways you can comment here, beneath the comment box there's a drop down box entitled "comment as". If you have a google mail account you can select that, else you can select 'name & url' or 'anonymous'.

IMPORTANT - However you comment do it be sure to leave me your email address, or other form of contact so I can get in touch if you win!

Deadline - Comment before 12 noon on Sat 6th of March to enter, then I will select two winners using a random number generator site. Remember to leave me your details so I can get in touch if you win, and good luck!

I'm also planning to have some offers and discounts soon that are available exclusively to my facebook fans so visit my page here if you want to get involved.

Online shop is open!

I've only uploaded some items and will update it over the next few days but my Folksy shop is open. I've started out with some jewellery and accesories and will expand as I get stuff photographed and made.

Check it out and leave me a comment to let me know what you think! Online shop

so adventures in blogging begin...

I design and make custom t-shirts, hoodies, jewellery and crafty things and am hoping to soon have some of my stuff up for sale on a couple of handmade marketplaces including Etsy and Folksy. I was hoping to have this done for the New Year but so much to do and so little time!

I thought I'd start off with listing some jewellery and add in my t-shirt designs and other assorted things as I get them finished. From other websites and shop listings I've seen I personally think photography makes or breaks a shop so I was hoping to get some half decent shots done of a couple of items to start me off...not realising it's really not as simple as it sounds!

Spent most of my day messing about with a rough-and-ready lightbox set up (based on this tutorial) but I really don't have the lighting required (or maybe just the skill!) so ended up spending most of the time adjusting my images in photoshop.

I think I'm going to buy a couple of desk lights and experiment with some backgrounds. And maybe with a bit of practice I get clear shots without having to spend time editing out the shadows of my hand, camera, head etc etc!

Anyway....some initial shots.