A little Alternative

So having not made any jewellery for a while even though I have been meaning to I decided to make some jewellery to wear for a friend's birthday party.

I love this design, it was meant to be alternative looking.

During the making process it was so difficult to make. Obviously the Cabochon needed gluing, and the E6000 that I use takes a while to set, so whilst trying to get the chain attached the cab was sliding all over. Eventually it set.

I have never found anything more difficult than putting tiny pin prick holes into black velvet to put a jump ring through to attach the chain. I must have stabbed myself a dozen times, maybe more but after half an hour of struggling I managed it.

Next I decided to make earrings to match, well not matching earrings but the whole alternative style.

I thought different lengths would be a great look, everyone loved them at the party and was shocked I made them.

New Year's Resolution

As many people know I spent my first Christmas away from my family and spent it with my Partner and his family.

I took with me loads of beading supplies, so much so that I had to take 2 seperate bags with me, one for beading supplies and one with Christmas presents and clothes in.

I do love making jewellery and I love Gothic items, clothing, jewellery etc. but I know not everybody does, so when I make jewellery I make a bit of Gothic as well as more 'ordinary' items.
Having taken everything with me I spent 10 days on the sofa watching television. How boring was I?

I never made one piece of jewellery!!!

So I have decided that this year, 2012 is going to be a new beginning. I am going to make at least 3 new pieces a week. The only problem with making this amount is being able to afford it, therefore I also need to start pushing on the selling a bit more.

2012 is going to be a great year I think

Macrame

Seeing as Macrame is very in fashion right now I thought I would give it a go. Everywhere you look at the minute there are Shamballa bracelets and necklaces. In a well known high street jewellers I have seen them retailing at £69 going all the way up to £145. Well I don't know about you but I think this is ridiculous for a bracelet.

Macrame is just a form of knotting, there are different style of knot, such as the box or spiral. I don't own any shamballa beads but learning the technique for this style of jewellery may come in handy one day.

So last week I brought some bootlace cord to work to attempt macrame on my lunch break. I have heard a few people say they can't do it because they just can't get their heads around it. Knowing how I get I did think I would be the same.

My first attempt didn't go so well, so I undid everything and decided to have a shot at a spiral macrame bracelet. The picture below is not the finished product, as I now don't have enough cord to finish it off, but I will be soon. I may even see if I can add a few beads for decoration as at the moment it looks rather plain.

Well next after realising I didn't have quite enough to make a whole bracelet and after deciding I wanted to attempt a box style macrame too I made the one pictured below. Typical me, I kept getting confused as to which side of the design I was working on so instead of it taking half an hour it took me all afternoon to make. Again this one isn't finished as I don't have enough cord to make the sliding knot. I did find an old button though and thought that it would give it a bit more 'umph' if you know what I mean.

I understand why people love Macrame now, it is very relaxing and it is very addictive. Now all I need to do is buy more cord, but there are other techniques I would like to try with leather cord too.

I don't really want to do Shamballa bracelets so think I may incorporate this into the Gothic designs I have.

Christmas Approaches

Christmas is approaching and I've been busy making a lot of jewellery for gifts, for family and friends.

So far I have made my mother a brooch, and until Friday night I had never made a brooch before. I've done my 'surrogate' mum a necklace with a pendant, which has her initials in it and matching earrings, and her daughter i've done a choker style necklace.

Tonight I've wrapped all the presents but up until today I have been so excited for Christmas. I am like a big kid, as soon as it hits December I get excited and start singing Christmas songs. The singing may explain the weather though.

For some reason the Christmas spirit left when I wrapped the presents. I hope it comes back soon. It's the work Christmas Party on Friday then next Friday as soon as I finish work I will be heading North to spend Christmas with my partner and his family. It will be weird not spending Christmas with my mum. The first Christmas ever away from my mum.

Hopefully next year I will see her on Christmas day.

Recent Sale

I am very pleased that today someone actually spent money through my website. Normally I give people my paypal address and they pay into there or it's cash in hand but today felt so great to see an email saying an order had been placed on my website.

I have already go the order ready to be shipped tomorrow and I have already spent the money on new beads. I've decided to go for clear cabochons, this way every design is going to be unique as I can put a picture in it. This is very personal to someone so I am hoping this brings in a few sales.

There is another order I need to get made but I can't seem to find the energy to make it. After going to hobbycraft yesterday and finding they didn't have the wire I wanted or needed in stock I lost hope.
However today a lovely lady offered to send me some of the wire I needed, money has now been transferred  to her and hopefully in a few days I will be able to make the barb wire earrings the customer wants.

I think I may need some practice at barb wire as I've never done it before.

Wish me luck!

Re-make

I don't make things easy for myself do I?

First of all I made a lovely mookite bracelet but realised it was about 2" longer than it should have been and wouldn't fit anybody so I took it to bits and re-made it. This time it was too short and so I put an extender chain on, so that almost the whole back of the bracelet was chain. To be honest this looked really good.

I sold the bracelet to a lovely lady for a present to her mum. Unfortunately this would not fit the customer's mum so I brought the bracelet home again and have for the 3rd time now made this bracelet. It is about the same length as the one I started off with.

I can't help but laugh, if I don't laugh I would probably cry. I don't mind re-making but stupid me ended up making
it 3 times for it only to be exactly the same size as the original.

Being the nice person I am I also decorated a box so that it would make a nice enough gift without having to wrap it. I am proud of myself, it is the first time I've done anything like this. May even make it a regular process.

Slave Choker

I created a slave choker tonight. I have seen them around before and I actually really like the look of them and it is something I would wear on a daily basis.

I have a padlock, a decorative one and I have some chain, so why not try and make it.

Other than using the key there is no way out of the choker, it is literally to only be opened with a key. This would be fantastic for someone into a BDSM lifestyle. In my opinion it would make a great slave choker.

Rather than using a simple curb chain (and for the fact I have none in silver left) I decided to use a more decorative chain; what I like to call a figure of eight chain. As you can guess each link looks like a figure of eight.

There is no way I am getting rid of this choker. I have already fallen in love with it; in fact I fell in love with it months ago when I saw one originally. Never would I have thought of using a padlock, now I am wondering what else I can use.

The key I believe is going to go on a chain for my partner; though I think I may have to find a different type of chain for him as I don't think he would like a girly figure of eight necklace.

New Creations

So I actually decided to get my rear end into gear on Sunday night and finally managed to re-photograph everything as well as photograph all of the new creations I've made.

I sat there on Sunday with the idea in my head for a necklace and have been putting off making it for weeks. Finally I made it, but that was the last thing I made; before that I took an old bracelet I made apart as it was way too big for anyone. I thought it best to remake it, just slightly smaller so it would fit anyone.

A few months ago I brought two bit cardboard lids home from work, wanting to make a necklace stand so that when I photographed my work it would be better. Well I had other ideas for these. One to be used as the base and another as the backdrop.

Unfortunately I don't have white paper/card big enough to cover the base or the backdrop and joining 2 together would look awful, so I got my blanket and draped it over. To be honest it looked quite good.

The above image is my favourite. Deciding they needed editing because light in my flat is not the best I enhanced the light on the pictures and edited so the background was not taking attention away from the jewellery.

So far I've only managed to edit the most recent makes as the other designs all have old pictures up on the website already.

Can you guess what I'm going to be doing for the rest of this week. It takes ages to edit a picture so that it brings out the jewellery correctly. Having a dim picture in a dim room does nothing for the jewellery, you can't see the sparkle, the glow.

Hopefully I will have more items on the shop soon too, the new items to the collection have already been put up for sale.

I do love these pieces and would love them all to go to a great home. I would love to keep them all but know I just can't do that.

Apology

I have to apologise to everyone for not being around lately, I have had quite a busy social life and have had a week off work and away from home.

A couple of weeks ago I did manage to make a bangle, some ear-rings, necklace and a few other bits and pieces but have not had the time to photograph them.

I have the cardboard at home but I keep meaning to make a necklace stand for the purpose of photographing them. First of all though I need to clean my flat and organise everything; at the minute everything is scattered around.

The night before I travelled up north to Darlington I started making a pair of ear-rings, of course using only the best materials (925 stirling silver) but I needed to use the glue on them so didn't finish them. I daren't finish them off while the glue was still tacky, last time I did that they fell to bits.

Hopefully on Monday night I can finish them off.

I did have an idea for another necklace but now I can't remember what it is..... oh damn, well I will just have to hope I remember the idea.