Viva vintage!

I've just spent the day in the rather elegant surroundings of the Shire Hall in Chelmsford at the Truly Madly Vintage vintage & handmade market, in the company of my usual partners in crime, Shivs of Lillyroses Luxuries and Rose of Victoria Rose Crafts. The event was really successful, bringing more than 300 people through the doors and offering a range of fabulous things from clothes, jewellery and fabrics to gorgeous handmade cakes and tea served in beautiful vintage china. I managed to sell one of my favourite pieces - the Cake Shop stretchy bracelet - and a couple of new items like a Loveheart Ring and Sweetie Jar necklaces. We're back there on 27th November for the Vintage, Handmade and Christmas Market!

Rose, Shivs and I are also organising our own Handmade Christmas Fair in Epping on 13 November, in the Catholic Church Hall, Church Hill, Epping (just off the High Street if you fancy coming along!) - we're open from 1 - 5pm, and if you're a stallholder who fancies joining in drop me a line on kirsty@ladybirdbeads.co.uk and let me know.

We're charging £10 for a small stall and £20 for a large one, and all stall fees after we've paid for the hall will be donated to the Neo-natal ICU at Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow. We have a great range of stalls so far, including cupcakes, vintage clothing, jewellery, books, handmade cards, handmade soaps, stained glass and others, and it'll be a great opportunity to stock up on some one-of-a-kind Christmas presents. Hope to see you there!

In the meantime, here are some of the latest items - Iced Gem rings! How '70s...the vintage thing is catching...

August!

Once again it's pouring with rain so I've been making my own summertime with lovely kitschy acrylic flowers and ladybirds, in the shape of earrings and necklaces. I really like the colour of these yellow daisies, they're so summery! Other things on the beadmat this week have included these tattoo style earrings with agate hearts and skull & crossbones charms, Hello Kitty style necklaces and earrings (thanks to Daisy!) and Loveheart necklaces. I've had these charms for a while, bought from the wonderful Bead Shop Scotland and have finally got round to using them. You may notice that my stuff seems to be getting a bit brighter - I love all the gorgeous colours of beads I keep seeing, and have a great love of slightly mad things, which is hopefully showing through. I've just bought a pasta machine (gotta love Ebay!) and will hopefully be creating my own polymer clay beads very soon...

I've been inspired to get on with these things and take new (and hopefully more professional) photos by an application I've made to sell on Amazon, and also a new venture run by Elise Steedman-Green called Eegee.co.uk, a not-for-profit sales site for handmade goods. They are charging listing fees but not sales commissions, which will hopefully make a difference to us small-timers. The site launches at the beginning of September and I wish Elise the best of luck with her new venture.

On the stitching side (yes, really...) I've been working sporadically on the Fumitory Fairy, and need to get it finished as I have two baby feet pictures to do for colleagues who have recently produced, and then I really need to get my daughter's birth sampler done before she turns 2 - and before no. 3 arrives in February.

Got me thinking...

The post below about my friend Rhiannon's '30 things to do before I'm 30' has got me thinking, which is never a good sign. My next milestone is - rather terrifyingly - 40, and I'm all too aware that there are an awful lot of things I haven't done with my life so far. Jobwise, I love what I do and I'm really pleased I'm doing something crafty as well, but what else have I missed?

For example, I have ALWAYS wanted to learn to tango. I'd also love to learn silversmithing - either with the actual metal, or these days with artclay (thus opening up copper and bronze as well....ooh!). I'd like a proper cooking lesson, to go in a helicopter, to learn Welsh and/or French, I want to finish (oh, OK, start) the cross stitch version of Seurat's 'Sunday Afternoon', to learn to make a dress...and wear it! I want to go back to West Wales and show my kids where I used to spend my summer holidays and where I went to college. Soooo many things.....

Better start that list now, and then I have 3 years to do it!

Rhi's 30 before 30: 30 things to do before I'm 30

A really exciting project by a friend of mine....almost inspiring me to make a '40 before 40' list....


Rhi's 30 before 30: 30 things to do before I'm 30: "Thanks for taking an interest in this blog. This is a personal project to do 30 things before I turn 30 on 3 June 2011. These are either th..."

The Gaslight Anthem: Baba O'Riley live @ Brixton Academy 2010

'Seven Deadly Sins' Teaser

Here's the LGMC with a teaser....

Where did June go?

All of a sudden it's July and I haven't managed a post for almost a month. I'd like to say it's because I've been out doing really exciting things but mostly I've been asleep!

On the few evenings I managed to stay awake I did get out and about occasionally though! I had a stall at a local school's Pamper Evening, which meant I avoided another dire England match - I didn't make much money but it meant that people could see what I do and they've invited me back to their Summer Fete next weekend. I'm making piles of pocket money items like worry beads and phone charms as these are what sold the other week. Here's some of my new stock - it'll be available on the website and in my new Faceboook shop soon! Find the new shop here - just click on the 'Shop Now' tab at the top of the page.

I also had a fun packed birthday weekend, including a fabulous night out at Camden Roundhouse where I saw a friend perform with the London Gay Men's Chorus in their Seven Deadly Sins show. You can see a video of it here, and if you ever get the chance to see them then jump at it! I'm trying to embed the video too, but it may be beyond my limited technical capabilities (if it's not copy & paste, I can't do it...I do seem to be able to 'share' it directly from youtube, though, so keep your eyes on this blog). On the day itself we took the girls up to High Beach in Epping Forest and had a picnic in the sunshine, and in the evening we saw The Gaslight Anthem at Brixton Academy, who seem to get better and better with each album!

Right, back to my making for the school fete!

Enchanted Garden Wedding

How excited am I? Ailsa Heinlein-Thompson Weddings got all inspired by one of my tiaras and designed a wedding concept around it! See it here....

Other than that, my NY resolution to blog weekly has failed miserably but I have had a lovely time in France and am currently engaged in making stock for a Pamper Evening next week in North Weald, supporting St Andrew's Primary School. I'm also eagerly awaiting beads for a statement bracelet (my favourite kind), necklace and earrings in purple, coral and orange for a birthday party at the end of the month. Sadly not for me though!

Helpful stuff for the crafty person!

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to be picked for a Facebook giveaway by the lovely people at Persephone Moon, who wanted testers for their Crafters Bookkeeper range of Excel spreadsheets for the crafty maker/seller. I have to say that as a frequent Excel user in my day job - to balance the budget, track evaluation etc etc - I wasn't expecting to be terribly excited by this and certainly didn't expect to learn anything new.

However, I do admit to being a bit if a random pricer when it comes to my jewellery, occasionally thinking 'I can't charge that!' when I've used one pricing theory (and in consequence wiping out any profits....duh!) so I thought I'd give this a go. And I'm properly impressed! This is a really professional-looking, user-friendly document which comes with a flash tutorial explaining exactly how to use the sheet in layman's terms and with enough tips and assistance to help even the most beginning beginner. The spreadsheet offers two different methods of working out your prices (the hourly method and the times method) and even offers a calculation for wholesale suppliers. Both methods are explained, and there is the option to add photos to the sheet so that you can identify your own inventory products easily (along with random pricing, I'm a random namer...). I'm sure you could do this quite easily yourself if you were really, really comfortable with Excel and it's many amazing properties - but, honestly, at these prices (this sheet is sold on the Etsy site linked above for $5.00 - about £3.50 at today's exchange rate) why would you want to? Highly recommended!

Right, I'm off to put my prices up....only joking...

Mad March!

Spring is finally starting to spring here in sunny Epping - I'm loving looking at the daffodil spikes appearing along my route to the station, and Epping's many crocuses (croci?) are starting to bloom along the verges. Although I'm definitely an autumn girl I really love all the gorgeous yellows that seem to pop up about now - it's still cold but there is a feeling that winter might be on its way out. Something is getting me down, though - what is it about dog owners (in this town, at least) that makes them think it's ok to leave piles of crap all over the place? Who thinks 'oh look, there's a bed of daffodils, I'll let my dog foul it?' I'm a firm believer in personal freedom and object to the abuse of council spying powers generally, but if they want to use my council tax to catch the disgusting people who encourage this, then hey - I say yes!

On a crafty front....this time of year also makes the creative mind kick into high gear and so I have ideas for patchwork, the urge to stitch, the need to knit, as well as the beady head to contend with. Work really is the curse of the crafty classes...

I bought some fabulous charms from ebay recently, lucite ones from Hong Kong, and I've been waiting for the inspiration to make the most of them, and here's the end product.