A Weekend Away

I am away this weekend, staying in a nice cottage for a hen weekend so as I have tried to fit five days work into four there hasn’t been much jewellery making.

I do have plans though, plans to make rings using sieves, a project I found in a magazine that involves wire wrapping, some beads that will hopefully make a fantastic chunky necklace.

The wire wrapping is possibly the most intricate thing I’ve ever attempted so may be a project of weeks rather than days. I will attempt to document the process though.

I have also created an etsy site so need to sort out everything I’ve made and take pictures of those I want to sell. I have no idea how you work out how much you charge for items though, I see much research in my future. 

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A Confession

I have a confession, I can’t walk past a bead shop or haberdashery and not buy something. Not just something usually, but many thing. It isn’t always beads either, anything you could make jewellery from is incredibly tempting. Buttons are a current favourite. 

This is my latest haul

It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t been sucked into the same shop two weeks earlier…

This week I have also been teaching myself Kumohimo braiding and have made three bracelets. I found a great kit that included all the threads needed and beads to go on it. 

The top bracelet is a basic 8 strand bracelet made with kumohimo silk which really helped see how the technique works. The middle and last are made with beads added each time you cross the string over. The green bracelet is made with the beads on the inside of the design (this is the only way I can think to describe it). However, as much as I like how it turned out, this isn’t the right way to make these bracelets with beads. After a thorough re-read of the instructions I made the final bracelet. It is still an eight string design, with swarovski elements. This time I managed to get the beads onto the outside of the bracelet. 

Above is a close up of a section of the bracelet to show how it all braids together. 

I hope the pictures are clear. As well as jewellery I am trying to teach myself to use a new camera. It is a far more difficult than making jewellery! In future I hope to take photos through the creation of a piece to provide more of an idea of how its done.

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Craft Fairs and Events

Today I bought a ticket for the ICHF Event Hobbycrafts at the ExCel in London which promises a day of craft workshops, displays and stalls. I may have even convinced a crafty friend to go with me. It looks to be a fun day, tickets can be found at 

 HobbyCraft Show

They have a similar event in Birmingham as well.

I love craft fairs , not only can you buy some great things but you can get inspiration and talk to other folk who like to design and make, whether that be jewellery, cards, textile or almost anything you can imagine.  The last craft fair I intended was the Crafty Fox Market in Peckham. I tried screen printing, which was fun although I discovered that cutting interesting patterns out of paper really isn’t my strong point!

I also fell in love with the designs of And Smile They do cute illustrations on jewellery, badges, posters and more. I got these great earrings

They work really well for me as I rarely wear a matched pair of earrings. I also got this amazing Sherlock badge. I really want a matching John badge.

 

Hopefully my day at Hobby Craft will be educational and I will make some beautiful things to blog about. I already have my eye on the marbling workshop…..

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A new blog!

Just between you and me, I’ve never had a blog before. Blogs are for interesting people with exciting lives, right? Maybe and yet here I am with a blog, somewhere I can talk about the learning curve I am on for making jewellery and where I can display the pieces I make. I aim to update at least once a week on a Sunday (unless I am away for some reason), I can’t promise not to update at other times as well though. The updates will be a mix of jewellery I make, new techniques I find, craft fairs I visit, inspirations and whatever else takes my fancy. I currently have quite a few things I have made that I plan to take proper photographs of so I always have something ready. My hope though is that I will make new items regularly and only have to resort to older stuff rarely. To start, one of my first bracelets.

This is memory wire with some stardust beads, crystals and basic silver beads. A gift for a friends birthday and really, the start of everything.The photo was taken with my phone, the dSLR will be used for everything else!