Shop Update!

The photos are edited, the descriptions are written - 

the Daisychain Extra shop update begins at 3pm BST this afternoon!

Poorly spotty boy

My poor Jamie is a poorly spotty boy - a chicken pox spotty boy. He seems so far to be having a fairly light dose of it though and is trying very hard to be his usual cheerful self. I've stocked up on children's puriten and I've been putting a couple of spoonfuls of bicarb of soda in his bath though to help with the itching - and of course cuddles with Mummy whilst watching Peppa Pig DVDs are a very good distraction!

I had planned a Daisychain Extra shop update for tonight, but that's (obviously considering it's so late!) not going to happen until tomorrow now. The photos of new designs are edited, the descriptions written, but my poorly boy has obviously taken priority over finishing the listings! I'll be listing some old favourites and some new designs tomorrow evening - the collage above is a taster of what's to come!

Daisychain Extra shop update!

I've spent the morning taking and editing photos of lots of lovely new products - 

there will be a Daisychain Extra shop update at 1pm today!

Happy New Year!

Ok, so I know that we're a couple of days in already, but I seem to have taken a while to get going this week! I'm blaming the cold that knocked me out for most of the first week of the school holidays, and the travelling around that we did at the start of this week. We spent New Year's Eve with lovely friends in Wales - great company, good food, lots of laughing and relaxing. My favourite way of spending New Year's Eve, although Jayne, if you're reading this, I'm holding you to your promise of never playing the Krypton Factor board game again!

I've had one day back at work this week, but I seemed to spend most of that tidying the workshop up after the pre-Christmas rush. At least that means that I'll be organised and ready to go next week. I like starting a new week, and the New Year, feeling organised. I've promised myself that I'm going to try and be more relaxed this year, as last year, last term especially, got a bit frantic. It took me longer than I thought it would to get used to teaching three college classes a week last term, especially as I hadn't been able to prepare for them at all, or prepare any Christmas stock, while we were away in  New Zealand over the summer, and there definitely were times when my stress spilt over into family life. And one of the reasons for leaving full time school teaching and setting up the business doing something I love was to have less stress in my life. We'll see how I do, but tonight is a good start - T is out, so I'm watching the end of series 1 of Downton Abbey (yes, I know I'm very late to that particular party!) while trying not to eat the whole tub of Belgium Chocolate ice cream!

Trying to be more relaxed doesn't mean, though, that I haven't got any plans for 2013 - quite the opposite! I'm just going to try and get less frantic about them and stop taking on more than I should - although that is usually easier said than done. I've got some new designs to take photos of to add to both my Daisychain Extra and Daisychain Jewellery etsy shops, and more designs sketched out. I've got a new challenge coming for you in the spring, lots of writing planned and new workshops planned. We've also got a fun new challenge planned for you on the Art Jewelry Elements blog, but you'll have to visit there on Sunday to find out more about that!

I'll be adding the first of the new designs to my shops at the start of next week, but in the meantime there are two days left of my New Year sales. This is your last chance to grab some of my more autumnal and wintery designs in the Daisychain Extra shop for a while as I'll be giving them a rest until later in the year - so if you fancy an owl or an oak leaf, get'em while you can!

Phew! Nearly there!

I'm not going to do the usual "where has the time gone" thing. This is a manic time of year, something that I'm finally getting used to! With jewellery and jewellery supply orders (thank you very much everyone!), craft shows, teaching - and of course two boys with birthdays either side of Christmas* - life has been very busy. I'm nearly there though. I finally finished my Christmas shopping today, I've just got a few more made-to-order pieces to polish and post, I've taught my last session of the year, and my last craft show was on Saturday.

I decided to change my craft show displays this year. I've made a few changes over the last couple of years - new table cloths that don't need ironing for example! - but this year I decided to do something to raise the displays up. I hunted for inspiration on pinterest and flickr, looking for ideas that would help me create displays that I could adapt to different sized tables, that I could easily take apart for transportation, oh, and wasn't too expensive either - and this is what I came up with!

A rare photo of me!

The shelves are oak floor boards that I got at a great reduced price as the box was already opened and a couple of the smaller boards were missing. They're not the lightest things to carry from the car but they fit on the small trolley I've got, and they were already cut to different lengths. And to hold the shelves up? Ssshh...don't tell anyone but they're tin cans sprayed cream! Jumbo hot dog cans to be exact, taller than normal cans and the perfect height. I also added in some painted canvasses and lovely wooden placemats to lay the jewellery out on, and I'm really pleased with the effect.

My new displays obviously helped my jewellery to catch people's eyes as my sales have been good, particularly at the show I did in Southampton on Saturday. I kept having to open up the Etsy app on my phone to take pieces out of the shop! I spent yesterday evening editing photos of new pieces list though, including the pieces below, so if you're still looking to finish your Christmas shopping my shop will be open until the end of this week!

These pieces, and several others, will be in my Daisychain Jewellery etsy shop tomorrow!

*birthday photos coming soon - it's been ages since I've shown you how much my boys have grown!

Holiday Open House

Just a quick post to day to direct you over to the Art Jewelry Elements blog, where we're having fun and games all day with tutorials, favourite recipes, tools and art bead wish lists - and discounts in our etsy shops, together with giveaways and auctions!

Use the code "AJEholiday" to get 20% off in both my Daisychain Extra and Daisychain Jewellery shops until the end of Monday 26th November, and visit the AJE blog to see a full list of which shops are taking part in the sale. I will be adding new designs to both shops over the weekend.

A Halloween Owl

I actually made some clasps for my own jewellery designs last week as well as fulfilling my etsy orders, so last Thursday evening I put together some new bracelets while catching up with Grey's Anatomy. This is the first one I made - and my entry into the jewellery design category of the Artisan Whimsy Hooters Challenge.

One of my owl clasps in oxidised sterling silver matched with a beautiful pumpkin orange spiral patterned lampwork bead by Mindy Macgregor. I've added in dyed jade and agate beads and sterling silver rings, so that no matter how the bracelet turns round your wrist there's something lovely to look at!

If you've visited my jewellery website recently you may have noticed that I've been moving things around. I've decided to keep my own website for my made-to-order jewellery such as my Golden Collection and for workshops and private tuition, and I've been moving my one-off pieces of jewellery over to Etsy, to a separate shop than my Daisychain Extra supplies. So, you can find my friendly Halloween owl in my Daisychain Jewellery etsy shop here.

Tweet Twoo!

Owls are now available in my Daisychain Extra etsy shop! And a flock of lovebirds and a few houses too.
I do enjoy making my owls. They start off looking like strange almost egg-like pieces of metal, but with a little texturing and shaping, plus some liver of sulphur to highlight the textures, bring them to life! If you haven't had a chance to do so already, do go and have a read of my post on Art Jewelry Elements and you'll be able to have a closer look at how I make them.

My owl clasps are also my entry to the Artisan Whimsy Hooters Owl Challenge. This challenge is open to jewellery makers and makers of components - all you need to do is join the forum and add your blog link to the list! Photos have to be added by Sunday 28th October, and Artisan Whimsy members can vote for their favourites until Halloween (of course!).

And if you fancy owning your own owl, visit my Daisychain Extra shop on etsy!

A Parliment of Owls

And a street of houses and a flock of birds and a .......what would you call a group of butterflies? Ah, good old Google, it's a kaleidoscope - what a great name!

I've spent this evening editing about a hundred photos of new clasps, so be ready for a Daisychain Shop update tomorrow afternoon!

BTW - I'm back!!

Hello! We're back from our travels! We arrived home last Friday afternoon, but as you'd expect it has taken us a few days to recover from all the travelling and the time differences! We spent four nights in Los Angeles on the way back from Auckland, and left there before we'd really acclimatised to that time zone -in fact we managed to time travel on our way to LA as we left Auckland on the Sunday evening and arrived in LA the same Sunday at lunch time! So, last Saturday lunch time I really wasn't sure whether my body thought it was the early hours of Sunday morning or breakfast time on Saturday! T and I are just about over the jet lag now, and Ben is getting there, but we've definitely got child lag as Jamie is not coping with the time changes well - he wants to be up playing at 2am!

We had an amazing time in New Zealand, and saw so much - but its such an amazing country that there was still so much we could have seen if we'd had the time! It was fantastic to spend so much time with our friends over there too. Hellie and I had lived together before at uni, and after that for a year or so as well, so we quickly fell into a routine, and in some ways it feels very strange to be back. We were so busy over there that although I drafted several blog posts I didn't get round to editing the photos to go with them and publishing them, so over the next week expect to see more photos and chat about what we got up to!

But today things have started to settle back into our normal routine. T and Ben started back at school at the start of the week, and today Jamie went to the childminder for the first time in seven weeks - and I got back into the workshop! I didn't get straight back into hammering and soldering though, as I'd been doing some planning while we were away and I'd decided to do a bit of a revamp. I haven't been completely happy with the worktables. They weren't quite as high as I'd really like, the table legs needed reinforcing because of the amount of hammering I do, and I also needed more storage.

So, this morning saw me emptying out most of the equipment from the shed, putting together three storage units from Ikea (where else?!) and using them as three of the legs. They have raised up the level of the tables perfectly, and as the original legs are extendable I've been able to lengthen them to match. It took all morning and a lot of work, and halfway through I wished I'd never started, but I'm so pleased I did it! I also put up the blinds I bought a few months ago, and it was lovely working in there this afternoon, feeling very organised and not too hot in the lovely afternoon sun! I even managed to get three of this week's Notonthehighstreet orders done as I felt so organised and motivated!

I have opened up my NOTHS shop and my etsy Daisychain Extra shop, and my website will be back up by the end of the weekend. I've decided to offer a discount in my Daisychain Extra shop to say thank you to all of you who placed such lovely orders before I went on holiday, and to celebrate the fact that my clasps have been in several magazine projects over the summer, and not just projects that I wrote!

So, until the end of Monday 17th September 

enter the code "NEWTERM" at checkout to get 15% off your order. 

My "Macramé, Art Beads and Wire" ebook is also included in the sale.

This is the last discount I will be offering in the Daisychain Extra shop until after Christmas, so take advantage of it now!

Back again......

I've done it again. It's not as if I don't think about blogging, it's just that at the moment every moment seems to be accounted for - lots of teaching this week, both privately at home and at college, lots of lovely Etsy and NOTHS orders to fill and, of course, family events too. It was Ben's school Sports Day last Monday. It's actually the first one he's had as it was rained off last year. It did seem a bit like organised chaos at first, but it was actually very well thought out with all nearly 300 children involved and enjoying themselves altogether. No photos I'm afraid as a) the school ask us not to as for a couple of child protection reasons and b) I was too busy trying to entertain Jamie and distract him from running out to join his beloved big brother! Yes, running! Well, walking and stumbling really. There's no stopping him now!

Anyway, my main reason for posting so late at night is to remind you that tomorrow is the big reveal for my Flower Bangle Challenge - 6 designers, 6 flower bangles, and 6 hopefully very different designs! I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone has made with their bangles. I've actually written my post already for once and scheduled it ready to go!

I also need to remind you that I will be putting my website and Daisychain Extra etsy shop on holiday as from the end of Sunday. so if you need to stock up on flower bangles or any other goodies for the summer, then now is the time to do it as I'll be away until the start of September. The collage above (I love the new frames and collage feature on Picmonkey!) shows a few of the new pieces I uploaded this week - bunnies, owls, birdies and flowers! If you follow my Facebook page you may already have picked up on where we're going, but I will let you know more about our plans at the start of next week!

New etsy designs and a shop announcement

I've finally done the Daisychain Extra shop update that I promised last week! It's taken me a while longer than I expected to shake off this tonsillitis, but then again I've never had tonsillitis before now, so I didn't really know how it would hit me! It's virtually gone now though - thank God for antibiotics!

There are a few new made-to-order designs in this week's shop update, such as poppy ear wires to go with the head pins, charms, clasps and connector that I already have in that design. There are also a few Limited Edition designs - a couple of Lovebird clasps as the others flew off to new homes fairly quickly, and the Little House clasps that I showed you last week. And if you look below you'll be able to have a sneak peek at the new clasps I've been working on today to give myself a break from photo editing and magazine projects!

Can you tell that I've been playing around with the new features on Picmonkey?!

And I have a shop announcement too....

My Daisychain Extra shop will be in holiday mode from Sunday 1st July until the end of August as we are going on some family travels this summer. So if you need to stock up you need to get your orders in quickly please - click here to see what's new!

Poorly

I woke up with a sore throat on Thursday morning and put it down to too many late nights - mainly late nights working rather than partying! By the boys bedtime, though, I had to crawl into bed with a temperature, the shivers and what felt like a golf ball stuck down my throat - yep, tonsilitis has come for a visit. It's something I've managed to avoid before, but I remember my Dad having it almost every summer holiday when my brother and I were little. As soon as he stopped work and we went away on holiday he'd be ill until, when I was about 7, I think, he eventually had his tonsils out. Now I know why he felt so awful! Anyway, I've been on antibiotics for just over 24 hours now and they are definitely helping, although it's taken me quite a while to type this!

So, that's why yesterday's planned Daisychain Extra shop update didn't happen! The new designs (some one-offs, some made-to-order) will be in the shop on Monday. I'll post on here when I'm done, but if you want a more speedy update pop over to Facebook and "like" my Daisychain page (click on the Facebook button on the left) as newly listed items automatically get listed on there.

New designs, a celebration - and a new design challenge for you!

It has been a whole year since I opened my etsy shop! I started off with a few daisies, a couple of lovebirds, but I now currently have 108 designs for sale, and I've had 314 sales. Thank you so much to all of you who have supported me in this by buying, spreading the word through blogs and magazine articles, and just generally by being wonderful! I opened up the shop as a little side-line after people kept asking if they could buy my clasps, and it has all grown wonderfully. And it is always so fantastic to see what you all make with them.

I'm celebrating with 15% off everything in the shop when you use the code "BIRTHDAY"

at checkout until the end of May!

I've been busy editing photos and listing new designs in my etsy shop this week. Some are ones that I've had ready for a while but hadn't got round to posting, others are newly designed over the last week or so - here's a selection!

I love making my lovebird clasps, love coming up with new combinations of textures to use on the body and the wing. I'm also really really pleased with my new flower bangle blanks. There are three different designs, the poppy you can see above plus two differently textured daisies. The bangles open up behind the flowers so that you can decorate the wire with fibres, beads, wire or anything you can think of and not have to worry about so much space being taken up inside that you end up making the bangle too small to fit over your hand.

And my new blog challenge is on these cute flower bangles!

I want to see what you can come up with, what unique ideas you can use to decorate the bangles. So, I have five bangles, a mix of the different flowers but all oxidised copper, and if you're up for the challenge this is what you need to do.....

• leave me a comment on this post, complete with your email address before the end of Tuesday (29th May)
• grab the flower bangle button on the left to put on your blog with a link back to this post
• make something beautiful with your bangle and post pictures of what you have made on your blog on the last day of June, Saturday 30th June. 

You will also need to tell us a bit about your design process, what other ingredients you used etc, and link to the other people taking part. I'll be taking part in the challenge too as soon as I've made myself a bangle as well!

In the past I've run my challenges as "first come, first served", but this time I've decided to have a little draw. So, leaving a comment will enter you into the draw, and the first five names out of the hat will get a bangle, and this is open to those of you overseas too! Good luck!

Home is where the heart is

Did you see the photo I put on my BTW post last Wednesday? BTW stands for Bead Table Wednesday, by the way :) In case you didn't see it, here's a quick reminder

I'd been pulling together beads to use in the Art Bead Scene challenge for this month that uses this picture by Maurice Utrillo as it's inspiration, and took a quick photo before I got started on the silver work. Well, this is what I ended up making.....

What's that? You don't see many of the beads I originally had piled up? Well, you see that's what usually happens when I'm making a new design, especially a one-off piece! However, one thing did remain from my original design  - the house clasp. I've had this design sketched out for months, and I knew that this was the perfect challenge for it. As always, I've made it so that the hook of the clasp is hidden underneath, so that the flow of the design is uninterrupted and which ever way the bracelet turns there's something lovely to look at.

The other pieces in the bracelet are a gorgeous lampwork bead by Mindy Macgregor, pretty ceramic beads in a lovely turquoisey blue from Bohulley (part of a great parcel of goodies that I had last week!), Czech firepolished beads, a Swarovski crystal and more silverwork by me. The length of the bracelet can be adjusted slightly as the clasp can hook onto any of the rings at the end of the bracelet.

And it's name? Well, with a house and a heart it just had to be "Home is where the heart is"! I am reopening my etsy jewellery shop at the end of the week, so this bracelet will be on there then.

BTW

A slow start to the day today. Both of my college classes last night were starting new topics (anticlastic raising for the advanced class and silver clay basics for the beginnners) and I also had two new people in the beginners class, both of which meant a lot more talking and demonstating from me than usual. I don't like how tired I get from talking a lot after classes like that, but it's getting better as I recover more from the surgery I had last year. I keep having to remind myself that unless I'm very tired most people can't tell a difference in my speech at all, which is amazing when you consider that this time last year I was still re-learning how to talk clearly. And during the classes there isn't an issue, mainly because I love teaching and the adrenaline kicks in! All I can say is that I had a wonderful team and a wonderful speech therapist looking after me - and having a baby to sing and talk nonsense to also helped a lot!

Anyway, I spent the first part of the morning polishing and oxidising while my brain woke up - which is good news for my etsy shop as it meant that I finished off some new pieces, including the lovebird clasps above. These have been listed in the shop this evening with a few other clasps and connectors. Most of the new pieces are made to order, but the lovebird clasps are ready to go. I put them in the "limited edition" section of the shop as I don't make them that often and no two are ever the same.

And then the post arrived with two parcels from the States, and that definitely woke me up! Two very different parcels but such gorgeous colours, which sent ideas buzzing round my head! I've ordered them for some new projects, a couple for Beads and Beyond and also some for a new ebook that I've started work on - but I'll tell you more about that nearer the time! I had a lovely afternoon working the kinks out of a couple of the projects and taking step-by-step photos. Have I mentioned before how much I love my job?!

Well, that was quick!

This whole week has flown by, but that's probably because I managed to fit a lot into it! Let's start at the beginning, shall we...

Monday...my birthday! Yet again I didn't blog on my birthday. It seemed a little too attention seeking and despite teaching, chatting to customers and having a blog etc I am actually quite shy, honest! As it was a school day most of my birthday was pretty normal, although T and the boys had got me pain au chocolate for breakfast (my favourite!) and gave me time to eat it, and I got greeted with lots of "Happy Birthdays" down at the school gates - I'd completely forgotten that my birth date is on my Facebook profile! We did go out for tea with my parents, which was lovely, and I gave myself the day off from doing housework - which meant I had double to do on Tuesday, but never mind, I had a lovely hour and a half sitting knitting and relaxing while Jamie had his afternoon nap! Most of my birthday presents were money towards a Kindle, but I did have a couple of lovely parcels to open....

an absolutely gorgeous journal from my friend Katie. She found it on etsy (www.etsy.com/shop/KarenGeddings) and I LOVE it! Every page is different, with spaces for photos, for journalling and tags to jot memories on.

and a pair of sweet earrings from Rebecca - who also had her birthday on Monday! I've been wearing them all week, and they've had lots of compliments. They are, of course, in turquoise and red :)

Tuesday...catching up with housework, music bugs with Jamie (which he mainly spent crawling around the room, emptying the basket of musical instruments and bouncing up and down on his bottom - his version of dancing!) and then an evening of organising our new tools cupboard at college. I know it's sad but I've been so looking forward to getting this cupboard! Up until now we had boxes scattered in different cupboards in two different rooms, neither of which are the room I teach in. Now everything is in the same place, we've had a good clear out of broken bits and pieces and some lovely new tools are on their way too!

Wednesday...I spent the morning doing something I haven't done for years - I taught Geography! Ben's school had a Geography week and asked if any of the parents had any Geographical knowledge they could share, talk to the children about Geography based jobs etc. They based some of the week on the water cycle, so I spent the morning going into classes helping them to set up a "water cycle in a box", and teaching them about it. Lots of fun, but no, I'm not going back into mainstream teaching - I love what I do now too much. The afternoon was spent on etsy orders as was most of...

Thursday....but I spent the morning with my gorgeous friend Anna, touring the gargage that she and her husband Syd have turned into an amazing studio for metal work and lampworking. It's a bit smaller than my workshed, but they've fitted so much in there and there's so much beautiful colour! It really is filled with colour and looks like a fantastic place to create. Thursday was, of course, also the last day of my Flap Your Wings bracelet auction - thank you so much again if you bid/left a comment/helped to spread the word on Facebook!

Which leaves Friday (housework, food shopping), Saturday (gallery order in the morning, lego with Ben and his homework in the afternoon) and today (trying to get Jamie to take a few steps on his own, cooking chilli, more lego), and then it all starts again tomorrow....without my birthday of course :)

BTW

 
First on my list today was some organising - a few jobs that didn't actually take that long, that I've been meaning to do for ages and will save me time now that I've actually done them! The one that's going to save the most time was finally organising the index cards that I write out the "recipes" for the clasps and pieces of jewellery, such as my Golden Collection, that I make to order. Although each piece turns out slightly differently as, afterall, they are handcrafted, the recipes help to make sure that they are made in the same way. However, the cards have been just bunged into the box for the last couple of years so that I've had to search through them each time - such a silly waste of time! I don't know why I'd put off organising it for so long, as it only took me 30 minutes! Tidying up the table it's sitting on is a constant job though......

And the rest of the day was spent on etsy orders. Something else that I've been doing to be more efficient is getting a supply of customs labels from my local friendly post office so that I can fill them in at home while I'm wrapping up the parcels rather than hold the queue up and fill them in at the counter.

While you're waiting...

...for me to post the winner of the £20 voucher, there's another giveaway to tempt you here!

Lesley Watt from Thea Jewellery woke up to her 100th sale in her Esty shop this morning and is celebrating with a giveaway! She makes beautiful jewellery and makes a lot of her own components, and the giveaway is either a beady goody bag or something to tempt those of us who prefer to buy jewellery than to make it. You can find her blog here and her jewellery on Etsy here.

My 500th post and a challenge!

Who would have thought it? I've waffled enough over the last few years to have written 500 posts! As promised I have finally uploaded some the new designs I've been working on over the last week, mainly daisies with a few baby poppies thrown in the mix for good measure.

There are toggle clasps, hook clasps (and connectors are on their way) in two different sizes and with a different texture than the ones I listed before Christmas. I love this texture - it's made with my favourite hammer (yes, for those of you who are relatively new or who haven't come to one of my classes, I have a favourite hammer!), and I don't know why it I didn't think of using it on the daisy clasps before now!

The poppies I listed today, and a week or so ago, are lovely little baby ones. There are poppy headpins and dainty poppy charms, and the challenge I promised you earlier today is on the poppy headpins. There are 5 pairs of poppy headpins, a mix of silver, oxidised silver and oxidised copper, available to 5 people willing to turn them into lovely jewellery. I'm running the challenge a little bit differently than the Oak Leaves Challenge - this time I'm going to take a leaf out of Lori's book and run a lottery - although I expect that it'll be a lot smaller than the Bead Soup lottery!

To enter the lottery, leave a comment on this post before the end of Saturday 21st and on Sunday I will pick 5 names out of the hat. If your name is picked out:

• grab the poppies button on the left to put on your blog with a link back to this post
• make something beautiful with it and post pictures of what you have made on your blog on the last day of February, Wednesday 29th February. 

You will also need to tell us a bit about your design process, what other ingredients you used etc, and link to the other people taking part. I'll be taking part in the challenge too. You don't have to make jewellery - if you think of some other creative way of using your poppies, go for it! As before, the challenge is open to those of you who are overseas as well.