Shop Handmade Gift Boxes – Now on Sale!
Shop Handmade have opened a Folksy shop to promote and showcase the talents of UK designers by selling the sort of sample boxes you want to buy. They’re a little more expensive than other sample boxes in the region of £30-50 each depending on contents, but each box contains a wealth of full size items from a mix of UK designers and all money taken goes straight back to those contributors- how nice of Shop Handmade!
I have managed to get in almost every gift box available, contributing ice rings, fruit stud earrings and image pendants. Contributions from other people include knitted items, brooches, cards, artwork, candles and bags. Please take a look at the Folksy shop for an unusual gift for Christmas, or maybe just to treat yourself!
A waste
I hate waste. So when I ended up stuck in standing traffic due to an accident on the M1 today (well two- one on each side of the road) I didn’t know what to do. I was supposed to be going to a Craft Candy Mini fair in Sheffield, but by the time I got off the M1 I was an hour and a half late with 25 miles further to go through the busy diversion, parking and setting up my stall to go. I decided to turn back. Now I feel like I have wasted an opportunity and petrol. And more importantly, the M1 is still closed hours later for “accident investigation” suggesting wasted lives too.
I’ve been made very aware of this after seeing a fatal crash on the other carriageway of the M1 when I was last heading north, and by watching Collision that has been on ITV this week. It’s frightening how quickly something like that can happen.
Make 50: Week 46
This week’s make is a submission for the Upcycle Christmas competition run by Folksy. The Carnaby bangle is made with plastic beads from a charity shop and will go up for auction for Sue Ryder Care in a few weeks time.
On another note I am at Bungalows and Bears in Sheffield this Saturday afternoon selling my wares, and also at Rawlins Community College, Quorn, Leicestershire on Sunday if you wanted to pop in!
Spotlight on… Jujulee
It’s been a few months since I last featured laser cut jewellery, so I think I’m allowed to show you some more! This time it is Etsy seller jujulee’s turn. My absolute favourite pieces are the”diamond” rings. Very cute and inexpensive!
Custom order part 4: now finished
I always seem to finish these stages at night when photo taking is rubbish as flash is pretty compulsory!
I made the little silver pieces on Monday night and fired them on Tuesday morning, then distressed them with liver of sulphur and a wire brush. Then the findings finally arrived so I could finish putting everything together…
This is a heart containing horse hair on an 18″ sterling silver chain with little name tag, and hair in a lozenge of resin on sterling silver chain made into a bracelet with small “K” tag. The only thing I would have liked is to have found a neater finding for the two ends of the lozenge- they’re quite big but the jumprings I had were too round to go through the hole at each side, and when I tried to form them for this purpose they were too weak for use in a bracelet. The other clamps I had were too small so I didn’t have a lot of option 
I just hope the chain isn’t too thick as the lady they are for likes more delicate chains. It is 6mm round chain and the thinnest “bracelet” chain I could find!
This is a more casual jewellery set- a teardrop of resin with red glass bead and ashes embedded. It is on a 26″ grosgrain ribbon with (mostly) sterling silver findings. There’s a britannia silver name tag on that too and it also has a small red glass bead added alongside it. The bracelet to match is again ashes and glass bead, but is attached to a band made from cord. Quite pleased with this one as the findings were easier to source and worked well despite this being my first cord bracelet (maybe I’ll make more?). The also has a “K” tag and a glass bead dangle.
Custom order part 3 and your help needed please!
The horse hair and ashes custom order is nearly complete, I just need to swap some of the findings for sterling silver ones when they arrive (hopefully today) and make the silver name bits. I think I should be able to add the full name to the pendants, but a small initial might be better for the bracelets.
I cast a block of resin in bands and then cut it and sanded it with the bands going across the ring. However I now think it looks a bit plain and is lacking something. Any ideas? Do you think I should sell them in sets of 3? They won’t be very cheap because of all of the sawing and drilling and sanding involved, so hoping there’s a way of selling them individually still. Maybe I should just make them thicker?
Make 50: Week 45 and custom order continued
My make for this week is this pair of earrings, they have fabric embedded inside which gives them an ornate sketchy feel.
I am progressing with the custom order I blogged about in my last post. The pieces are now sanded and polished (sorry for the flash I took it after 10pm last night), I drilled them this morning and started working on the findings, though I need some ribbon clamps and triangular clamps to be delivered before the bulk of the work can be done. I will also be making real silver name tags for them too, so there will be another update…
Custom orders
I have quite a lot of custom orders going on at the minute. I have a special project involving locks of baby hair with Jellybelly*Jellybrain plus trying out bubble rings with photos for a lady too:
Normally I can do photo rings with the flatter square rings I make, but we tried this as an experiment.
I’ve also been making two bracelets and two necklaces incorporating horse hair and- for the first time- ashes. I’m quite pleased how the ashes came out, it looked horrible and sludgy when I mixed them in, but once set, the heavier pieces sank to the front, giving a nice granite-y effect!
As usual I have a never ending pile of sanding to do! I’ll share some more pictures as I go with these ones.
Make 50: Week 44
This week’s make is this pair of ladybird earrings:
And I was asked to keep you posted on the friendship necklaces, so here are the two I currently have available, working on a girly girly one at the minute:
Spotlight on… None of the Above, plus a new idea in progress
Last week I received a little parcel from Canada, and I eagerly opened it… Look what I got!
The colours and textures are gorgeous- just look at the detail!
They are made by None of the Above on Etsy and I envy her patience and polymer clay skill! She’s got quite a successful shop (and rightfully so), and I’m now worried that the items I sent her in a swap won’t be up to her expectations…
Here’s some more of my favourites from her shop- check them out!
In other news, I am working on making my collection of Christmas cards this week and also I had a brainwave. I decided to make resin friendship heart pendants. I make the resin fabric hearts as normal, then each one is individually cut before findings will be added. I haven’t sanded this one yet as I was eager to get the saw out first, plus I plan to sand then cut in the future, but you get the idea 
I hope to have some in my shops soon for potential Christmas pressies!
