starry night... sneaky peek

Not sure where the inspiration came from, but I have two new night sky inspired pieces for my Etsy shop.


I'll be listing these later on today, so happy to have new things after a bit of a drought this week!

I am also offering 15% off this weekend!

.... and don't forget to enter my giveaway, win a necklace!


xx

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something new

Can't stop buying these filigrees, I love them! These will be listed later, with better pictures :)

I also have some beautiful dark red filigrees which I am working into my Autumn collection.


x

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Hard worker

I've been very determined so far this week, at keeping my shop flowing with new lovelies.
I seem to have been inspired by the slightly more thundery weather of this week, these look particularly rustic to me. All of these are in my Etsy shop.


xx

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one of a kind..

{a nice person on flickr says I have 'boken' or 'bokeh' on this picture,
I didn't realise it myself but I think I have?}

I've been hunting extra carefully and I am so pleased to bring you this set of rare 1940s beads in the form of earrings and a necklace.

They are my favourite kind of beads, they have a rippled watery kind of texture and are nice high quality glass. I've had them in a deep amber before and now I've found them in this rich purple.
I've matched them with gold fill and dark oxidized silver.

I hope you like :)

I hope to find more beads in this style but different colours, who knows? I may or may not! Fingers crossed.

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foodie goodies + new earrings

I'm afraid I've been neglecting this blog recently, I'm afraid the lure of Twitter is too much, it is far easier for me to keep up a twitter account rather than a blog account. But I will try harder to write here!

For now, the good weather is providing me with lots of opportunities to take photos, so I am snapping everything in sight. I think the summer may turn this blog into a photo blog. Hope you enjoy these pictures from my week.

From top left to bottom right - Theatre Earrings (one of a kind), Cherry Tomato Pizza, Vanilla Caramel Earrings & Home grown spuds.

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Sweet Treats

I think I'm a bit half way on Valentines day, on one hand I don't like the commercialism of it all - just another excuse for the shops to make a bit of money but then on the other its nice to have an excuse to curl up on the sofa with a bottle of wine on Valentines night and exchange cards and presents :)

Valentines has clearly been affecting my work lately anyway, suddenly I am reaching for pinks, reds and anything sweet and feminine! I have lots of romantic jewellery in my shop and also some simple jewellery which is perfect for a classic gift that your Valentine will keep forever.


Amongst them is my Sweetheart range, earrings and a bracelet. The bracelet has already sold but I will have it in stock again soon, once I receive more wire (the trouble with being solidly creative for a week is that I get through my supplies so quickly!). This range is unashamedly girly, feminine, sweet, sugary, romantic and bright!

I hope you enjoy my new pieces, I will be also listing more spring like jewellery in the next few weeks, the emergence of snow drops in my garden has made me yearn for daffodils and tulips!



xx

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Much awaited..

I am a busy bee at the moment, there are lots of new designs coming up for the shop, I have listed two that I am very excited about today.

The first is my Paired Lockets necklace. This is a follow on from my Two Lockets necklace which has been my most popular item. I wanted to try something new with these lovely teardrop lockets and matching them with sterling silver has really worked very well. I do like the combination of brass and silver, it feels very classic and elegant. I am hoping for this to be one of my signature pieces, like the Two Lockets necklace, I hope you like it too!


My second are named 'Scotch Bonnet Earrings'- they are as fiery as the name suggests, amongst some of the best beads I've found. I only have 2 of these beads so this design is a one off design, not to be repeated again. These earrings also feature long brass hooks which I have handformed myself, they are hammered for strength and the ends filed down for comfort. The beads are a good, true red, unfortunately my camera picked it up as orange, but they don't have any orange in them in the flesh.
These are show stoppers, perfect for a valentine who doesn't like pink!



xxx

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Being productive

I've been most productive over the last week or so, and there are new designs in my Etsy shop for your perusal (and hopefully purchasing too). Finding that my mind is still in winter time, hopefully I will be feeling a bit more spring like soon and able to also include some spring designs as well as winter ones.


Back to the daily grind today, feels like the week went very quickly last week. We had snow during the night, hoping to catch some pictures later before it all melts away.

(the photos are clickable thumbnails leading directly to the Etsy listing).



xx

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For Your Hair

Just to let you know I'm doing a little promotion in my shop this weekend.

Every customer receives one pair of lovely rose hairpins, either a pair of Flamenco red hairpins or Emerald green hairpins. Just let me know when you checkout which pair you would like, if I don't have a message I will suprise you :)


Perfect for filling stockings! In my Etsy shop


xxx

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Update

I don't know where the last 10 days have gone, it doesn't seem like 10 days since I blogged - well thats my excuse for being lax anyway ;)

I've been very busy today, I have used my day off work well and created lots of great stuff for the shop - very much aided by a lot of the supplies I ordered arriving at once today! All in my Etsy shop right now.



xxx

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Light in the Dark

So yes, the nights are drawing in. I love the bright and cold days of autumn, all the rusty colours from the falling leaves but I'm not a huge fan of winter. As much as I love a cosy night in by the fire, wooly jumpers and Christmas in reality winter is mostly a gloomy affair in this country! It has definitely felt like winter these past few days, with hardly any proper daylight today in particular, I miss autumn!


Its nice to be thinking of Christmas (I know, I said it, Christmas!) when its getting a bit gloomy which is what inspired my newest pair of earrings. These are fantastically festive, they glint and sparkle and are so feminine, perfect for Christmas parties. They are made with nice chunky brass chain and vintage glass pearls in a beautiful champagne gold colour, they are dimpled too which makes them really unique. In my Etsy shop right now!


Thank you also to snapdragonbeads for the vintage sheet music booklet she sent me, the cover makes for a gorgeous background for photographs, it really goes with my vintage jewellery.

I am working on Christmas gift upgrades this week, so I hope to have some nice pictures to show you what I have on offer for your gift wrapping needs. I have just ordered some really beautiful ribbon, in chocolate brown and also teal (not very Christmassy but I can't ever resist teal) for my orders. There is also an extra special addition to my gift upgrades, which I will be blogging about as soon as I receive them! I love packaging , can you tell?

xx

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Lovely hardware...

Not usually described this way but it very much explains my newest necklace.
I made the earrings above recently, Coal Earrings, and I loved how smokey and charcoal like they were, especially the great oxidized earwires and I really wanted to mimic this in a necklace to match.


I found these great horseshoe shaped findings, in a great shiny black steel - which looks just perfect against the grey lucite beads that I used in the earrings. I love this necklace (even if I do say so myself) its edgy, dark, wintery but also delicate, lustrous and feminine.

I've got more designs coming using the little horseshoes, including a snowy creation using little white flowers and rosey pink copper.

For now the Coal Necklace and Coal Earrings are in my Etsy shop, the earrings are also in my Folksy and now also my Coriandr shop.

I just opened my Coriandr shop today! It is a new handmade site, but based in the UK so all prices are in pounds sterling. I believe they are also working on Euros and US Dollars, I will update here when they introduce other currencies.

xx

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all new

Happily I've recently had a creative spurt and I've been creating new things for the last week or so, which is brilliant as I had a funny little 'jewellers block' before that, which was very frustrating.

I'm really enjoying getting stuck into the autumn and winter seasons now, and its even better now that its looking a lot more seasonal outside.

First of all I have a new website, here.
I'm really pleased with how it has turned out, thank you to my other half for designing it - please have a look at his website, sensesstudios.

New pieces are in my Etsy shop, among my favourite are these Coal Earrings made with dark oxidized silver and soft grey lucite beads. I have recently received some beautiful new earring wires from Metamorph on Etsy and they look just great with my vintage beads, I love handmade findings.

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Many shiny things..

So we bought a Wii. I am now feeling extremely torn between our new shiny Wii and a big order of beads I have just received.

At the moment I'm torn between the amazingness of Mario Kart (with a steering wheel!!!) and getting stuck into my autumn and winter jewellery. Its a hard life you know ;)

I have created my first proper autumnal piece, using the previously made 'Nectar Earrings' design with more a summery hue. Just in time for the forecast to say its going to be 23 degrees tomorrow!

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handmade of the month - september

wow, is it really september already?

Its feeling distinctly autumnal here, and I am itching to light the first fire in our fireplace - although I feel it might still be a little too early.

I have found my pick for this month, these lovely gold disc earrings from Bloom Studios - I adore the simplicity of them and they have a nice warm feel which is great for this time of year.
I have also set my sights on this beautiful chocolate diamond ring (I've never heard of a chocolate diamond before!).

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All wrapped up..

I have been doing some research and investing some money in new packaging lately and I am really pleased with my gift boxes. At the moment I have some smart looking black boxes but I also have some nice organic Kraft brown coloured boxes in the post.

I am even more pleased with my stickers from Zoopri, they look so great! They personalise my boxes so well.

All my jewellery will be going out in these boxes (with the exception of my hair pins as they are a bit too big) and I am also working on some nice extra gift wrapping options for Christmas. This may the ardous task of looking at pretty ribbon but its something I am willing to go through for you, my lovely customers. Its a hard life being a crafter!

In particular, I have had my eye on this beautiful jade ribbon from BigFish's shop. I am very tempted although I may have trouble parting with it!

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Treasures!

I've been a busy bee on the Etsy Treasuries lately, after a long break from them. I love creating treasuries, browsing through Etsy is great although it does make my wish list a lot longer.

This treasury was last week and was selected for the front page of Etsy, yay! One of the last summery ones I think I am going to do, I'm thinking of autumn more and more now.The inspiration for this Treasury came from the beautiful Cecily Ombre dress by Greygoat, such wonderful colours and a great shape.

My next two are on the site now, both quite autumnal, one a dark maroony brown and another a mossy forest green. Enjoy!


Please visit my treasuries:
here
and
here

happy shopping! ;)

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Catching up.

I love popcorn, proper homemade rather than the bags you put in the microwave (which always end up in you burning your hand on a jet of steam when you take it out).

We often used to make it with my Mum when we were small . I've not had it for a while so I looked in the cupboard and found a bottle of maple syrup - perfect combo! Its lovely this way as the syrup easily coats most of the popcorn and of course it tastes unbelievable.

There are many other ways of making it requiring melting chocolate and baking in the oven with nuts, it is something I am researching heavily!

In other news (I shouldn't dedicate a whole blog post to popcorn really) I've recently opened a shop on Folksy - a new UK site for handmade goods, which is in its early stages but is looking great already. For my UK customers, you can pay in GBP here rather than USD over on Etsy. Please take a look at my shop here

I also have a great new website, and a banner to match, I hope you like it!

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Never to be repeated...

I was hoping that whilst sorting through my button stash (yes I'm still doing it) that I would find something totally amazing to use in one of my jewellery pieces, and I have and I am so pleased.

This beautiful clear circle of faceted glass was sitting in the second box I opened yesterday, its gorgeous. A perfect vintage find, its in such good condition and the facets are lovely.

The necklace is in my shop now, hung on a long vintage brass chain. I will only ever have one of these glass circles so this is the only one of its kind, completely unique.

I've snaffled some buttons to use in necklaces so I shall be adding those to my shop soon too.

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Bridal Necklace - featured!

I have recently made my first bridal item, this lovely Serene Pearl Necklace, so I am really pleased that it has been featured on The Crafty Bride blog along with other very gorgeous bridal necklaces.

It is written by paperandcloth, who has just set up a brand new shop on Etsy - fast filling up with gorgeous items.


I am really enjoying working with pearls, silver and delicate colours so I will be making more bridal items in the new few weeks.

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