Tutorial Tuesday - Risk Assessments

The latest issue of Beads and Beyond magazine has just popped through my letter box, reminding me that I needed to upload a new pdf file to my website. This issue included the third in my series of Focus articles on the legal issues of running your own small craft business, and the topic this month is Health and Safety - the last article was on the different types of insurance a business needs, and there's no point in having insurance if you don't do all that you can to minimise the risks in your business otherwise if you do need to claim on your insurance the insurance complany may not pay out!

The pdf file I've uploaded onto the website is a section from the Risk Assessment I have written for my craft stall. Risk Assessments, as their name suggests, are a way of looking at all of the hazards associated with your business and working out what you can do to minimise them. For example, one of the hazards of my craft stall is the electrical cables for the lighting. Minimising that risk is easy - I hide the cables under my tables where possible, or tape them down so that members of the public don't trip over them. The file can be found in the Tutorials section of the website here.

I've also got a silversmithing project in the magazine this month that shows you how to make large oval textured chain links for a necklace - I forgot (again!) to take a photo of the finished necklace, so you'll have settle for a photo of the magazine page instead!  I love the project on the front cover of the magazine too - it's one that I immediately thought "I wish I'd come up with that idea!". The Swarovski flowers are a very effective but very simple idea.