These are a few of my favourite things

Firstly, running my own little business is one of my favourite things, not very profitable, I certainly couldn’t live on my earnings that’s for sure.

Take last weekend for instance, I had a stall at a craft fair at my local shopping centre, thecentre:mk, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. The weekend was great, I met some lovely people and I took £276.

This Saturday I had a stall at a craft fair in High Wycombe High Street in Buckinghamshire and I actually ended up making a loss. I made £10 in sales, but my stall cost me £20! High Wycombe is an hours drive away from my home so there was the fuel cost of getting there and back. Naturally during the day we (me and my Husband) had to eat and drink so that was more expense. To wind up an already bad day I found that a pair of earrings belonging to one of my jewellery sets had been stolen. Needless to say I will not be returning to High Wycombe, even though I had pre-booked a stall there for May 21st which was to be the changing of the Lord Mayor ceremony and the whole town was having a medieval theme for the day. I will lose my £20 which I have pre-paid for my stall but I can’t afford to run at a loss, no one can and even more precious is my time because I have so many events booked for this year that I need to make some more stock to sell.

 Whilst at the market in High Wycombe I was approached by a shopkeeper who liked my jewellery so much that she wanted to sell it in her gift store. She wants to put a display in the shop of two shelves full of my jewellery and she has specified what she would like to have made for her shop. The sales will be on a sale or return basis so if she sells any of my items, I will then get paid. I was also  approached by a lady who wants my stall at her school fayre.

 I have an event on the day I come back from my holidays. I am having a stall at a biker’s rally, so I have to make stock for that event too. I am going to need a stall full of Gothic, steampunk, and rock chic styled designs to suit the tastes of the bikers. I am going to be busy braiding leather over the next month in preparation for this event !!! As you can see I am very busy at the moment and I can’t afford to spend time in places where there is no profit to be made.

 Okay so now as well as running my own business, my favourite thing is making jewellery and I have some favourite designs which I have made and I would like to share some of them with you, I hope that you like my images and captions/titles for each image.

I love the colours of this necklace and the vintage style. I was very pleased with how this came together and looked so great.

Mmmm sweets, I made one of these for my Daughter-in-Law and she loves it. I love it too and it is made using polymer clay to make the mini licorice allsorts and the other charms are crystals and silver spacer beads. A quirky summery favorite.

Hard to see on a photo but the colours in the handmade lentil beads are beautiful, and there are little flecks of black and white which make each bead look very sea-like. The necklace is really long and feminine and reminds me of a crystal sea in the Caribbean.

My 16 year old cat, Max guarding my newly made glitter ball chokers. I love the chokers but I love my cat even more, miowwwwww.

Craft fairs and events are great fun to do and it’s lovely to meet people and get positive feedback about my jewellery and of course it’s even better when I sell some !

 

My second Licorice Allsorts Charm Bracelet, this one has the whole range of allsorts handmade by me from polymer clay and again it has coordinating crystal charms, simply delicious !

Well there’s just a tiny insight into what I like at the moment.

 

I was really pleased this morning when two parcels arrived full of supplies that I had ordered the contents were gorgeous and really good value for money. I am so excited now because I have collected all the supplies I need to make some jewellery which is a little different for the Biker’s Rally which I am having a stall at in July. I will post some pictures on here once I have made a few jewellery pieces, so watch out for snakes, dragons, skulls and leather !! Well this is the end of this post, it’s a bit shorter than my usual ramblings because my computer is playing silly beggers and there are so many more favourite things that I wanted to add, never mind I will try again next time, until then farewell my friends.

Have a look at my stash

Hi folks, I have showed you my studio and now I am going to show you my stash of beads and other bits and bobs. I am a bit of a freak when it comes to collecting beads and I have bought a few more since these photos were taken and I have some more on order. I love it when I have made an order, I wait for the postman like a big kid and when it comes I open it real careful like there’s treasure inside. I then lovingly go through each part of the order and then find homes for it all in my studio.

Before putting my new beads and stuff away, I label it with where I bought it, how many I bought, the price and price per piece so that I can easily work out my materials cost when I make anything and so I can reorder it easily. I made a beautiful charm bracelet last week and my Daughter bought it and now wants a necklace and earrings to match, so I know where to go for most of the components because of my labeling system. I do have a slight problem though, my Daughter wants a large ship’s wheel as a focal for the necklace and I am having problems sourcing one.

If any of you readers of my blog can find one that might suit then please leave a comment as to where I can find it, many thanks. Okay so now I will add the pictures of my stash and a little description of what they are, I think it’s great looking at other peoples studios and their collections, I hope you like looking at mine.

The bracelet my Daughter bought from me, it's called the Sail Away Charm Bracelet, don't forget to look out for that pendant for me folks.

A beautiful rainbow of Peciosia Crystals from the Cxech Republic, these are almost as good as Swarovski crystals but less expensive.

My glass pearl collection, I also want to begin collecting Swarovski pearls in all sizes and colours. Pearls look great for springtime and wedding jewellery.

Handmade by me, my polymer clay bead collection, some are unsanded and some are smooth and glossy and ready to be used.

My main bead boxes with all different types of glass, bone,wood and shell beads in colour order in the boxes

All my beautiful, natural semi-precious gemstone chips and beads.

Miyuki, Japanese cube beads in a lovely selection of colours, these 3 and 4mm beads make lovely flat peyote stitch bracelets.

Swarovski crystal collection in the foreground, these are so sparkly, the Preciosia ones in the background are a really good alternative though.

A mixture of beads incuding, wooden, Czech unbranded crystals, glass chips, pendants and more.

Little poly bags full of pretty little Czech glass dagger beads and some glass cube beads too.

Czech fire-polished crystals, they make these by heating the beads and taking them off the heat and rapidly cooling them just before they melt. There's some other beads in the pic too.

Some gorgeous blue lampwork glass beads that I recently bought, I want to take lessons in making lampwork beads very soon, I met a ldy who offers lessons so I am going to book some with her.

Some recent additions to my stash, some dark red Czech glass pansy beads and some red and white acrylic striped beads.

 

Purple glass pansy beads, shiny pink long beads and tiny purple drop beads, these are new additions to my collection.

 

My whole crystal collection all together.

 

Top to bottom, silver plated, gold plated, black plated and brass findings.

 

From top to bottom, Tibettan siver charms and earring connectors, copper and brass findings, Tibetan silver beads and steampunk watch cogs and gears.

Here are my chains and connectors, mostly silver plated and Tibetan silver with a few gold plated chains too.

Silver plated and copper watch faces, brooch pins, ring blanks, bracelet blanks and wedding tiaras and hairclips.

My collection of British 925 sterling silver wire and findings, I want to expand on this collection but real silver is expensive.

This metal is called Niobium, it is virtually allergy free to everyone, it is very expensive, even more so than real silver which is why my collection is limited. I really want to expand on this as it comes in all different colours, this colour is dark bronze.

Alumininum jump rings in silver and multi coloured packs. These are used to make chain maille jewellery and I confess I have not made any yet, I really must give it a try.

This is all my wires, ribbons, cords and hemp, I have some more including tiger-tail and beadweaving threads.

Well that is my collection or should I say part of it. I also have a huge collection of seed beads in different makes such as economy brands, Czech seed beads and the best makes which are Miyuki, being the best and Matsuno and Toho all of which are made in Japan. I have a collection of Miyuki Delica beads which are the best seed beads in the world they are expensive but the effect is well worth the money.

I hope that you have enjoyed having a nose around my bead and findings collection. My next post will be a look at the favourite jewellery pices I have made so far and my reasons for them making it into my favourites collection. See you all soon.