New Daisychain Jewellery website party - Pinterest competition winners

Only a week has gone past (ok then, eight days!) since my last blog post but so much has happened! I think the next few days are going to be days of multiple posts to try and catch you all up with life at Daisychain HQ, but my priority tonight is to announce the winners of the Pinterest competition that has been running over the last two weeks to celebrate the launch of my lovely new website. To remind you, the rules of the competition can be found here.

So, without further delay the winners are....

First prize of £50 gift certificate for the Daisychain Jewellery website - Kira Withers-Jones with her pin of my Luna earrings.

Source: daisychainjewellery.co.uk via Kira on Pinterest

Second prize of £30 gift certificate for the Daisychain Jewellery website - Linda Landig with her pin of my Dusky Rose pendant.

Source: daisychainjewellery.co.uk via Linda on Pinterest

Third prize of £20 gift certificate for the Daisychain Jewellery website - Sarah Goulding with her pin of my Ever Decreasing Circles pendant.

Source: daisychainjewellery.co.uk via Sarah on Pinterest

Congratualtions ladies! Emails will be on their way to you tomorrow. And a big thank you to everyone who took part in the competition!

So excited!

Today's the day when lots of hard work behind the scenes by me, my lovely friend Nicky and the equally lovely people at Big Front Door will finally pay off! Hopefully - I am keeping my fingers crossed as when I'm doing something like this I always have a last minute panic that some gremlins are going to get involved.

Anyway, what have we been doing? Only building a brand new fantastic completely new look website, that's what! I am so excited it's ridiculous! I've pressed the buttons to tell the web and google and any one else who needs to know that my website is moving, so sometime before tomorrow morning this front page....

will be replaced with this one..... (maybe with a different photo as I've got a loop of gorgeous photos in a carousel)

I'm having giveaways and competitions and lots of lovely things to celebrate over the weekend, so do come back for more information - or even better sign up for my newsletter or follow me on Facebook by following the links on the left to get the information as soon as I write it!

Jubilee Jewellery Sale

I've mention on here before that I'm making some changes to my website. I use zencart, a free ecommerce package, and I've made all the changes to the template and layout myself. It's done me well for several years, but I've been conscious recently that it doesn't look quite how I want it to look - not as polished as I'd like, and a bit too mixed up too with one-off pieces competing for space with the made-to-order designs that I make, and tuition information added to the mix as well. I'm going to turn the website into a space for the made-to-order designs as these are the ones I supply to galleries and also tuition information, and I'm going to move the one-off pieces of jewellery over to my unused Daisychain Jewellery etsy shop.

However.....it's going to take me ages to transfer everything over, even considering that I've got the descriptions and photos already! So, to reduce the number of items I've got to move over, I'm having a sale on all my jewellery, just over the long Diamond Jubilee weekend. All jewellery is reduced by 20%, and the discounts have already been applied to the website. I've also got some pieces such as the jewellery I've made for recent blog challenges that are included in the sale, such as my Home Is Where The Heart Is bracelet, although I haven't added them to the website yet. I'll post about them on here again over the weekend so that you can see them again, and if you're interested in them please email me about them!

So, if you fancy giving yourself (or someone else!) a treat then you can find my website here!

BTW part 2

It took me a while to get going this morning. I knew what I wanted to get done, has my list of jobs drawn up, but it wasn't until mid morning that my brain was ready for the delicate task of stone setting! Lots of hammering had to be done to wake me up first. Wednesday morning, you see, is the morning after the night before of teaching two 2 hour college classes back to back - the 15 minute break between the two never really happens! Don't get me wrong, I love teaching my classes, love helping my advanced class bring their beautiful designs to life and teaching them more advanced techniques, love seeing the delight on the faces of my beginners class when they complete a new piece of jewellery - and reassuring them that everyone, no matter how experience they are, has off days when things don't quite go as well as they planned! But some Wednesday mornings are a bit sleepy.

Anyway, I did get my list of jobs done in the end. Parcels have been sent with NOTHS orders in time for Mothering Sunday, two of the stone settings that I posted a picture of this morning have had more silver added to them and added the box of items to be sent off to Goldsmiths' Hall for hallmarking, new clasps made to polish tomorrow and list on etsy before the weekend.

This evening has been spent editing photos of the four pieces I finished today and listing them on my website - you can see them above. The lampwork cabochon much admired in the comments on my post earlier today is by, of course Mindy Macgregor. I've taken about 50 photos of this pendant to try and show the colours and the pattern on the cab as clearly as possible! The silver surrounding the cab has been decorated to mimic the pattern on the glass. The other two cabs are porcelain, shaped and glazed by Lisa Stevens. I've used a combination of bezel and prong settings to hold the stones in place - I love how it has worked, and I'll definitely be using this design again! The fourth pendant has been sitting on my desk part done for weeks, and I finally finished it this morning as part of my "warm up"!

All of the pendants are now on my website - and the lampwork cabochon has 10% off as I've decided to extend the Moogin sale until the end of March as Moogin March sounds good and I want to buy more of her beads!

BTW

Today has been a day of hiding away from the rain inside my workshed, standing over a hot kiln working on some keum boo jewellery. I've been putting the finishing touches to a couple of gallery orders, but although that was most of my work today I forgot to take any photos! Never mind, I do still have some photos to show you as the last hour or so of the day was spent taking and editing photos of new pendants.

Some more Moogin Special pendants!

These are all made with Moogin lampwork beads with such beautiful detail. My favourite is the one in the middle with glorious shades of purples and reds. The centres of the flowers are slightly raised rather than melted completely into the bead, and so the bead has a lovely texture to it. I have to admit that I've been hoarding this one for quite some time!

These three have all been listed on my website, and remember that there is 10% off jewellery with Moogin Beads during March. The Peacock bracelet that I made for the February ABS challenge sold today. I've started making a couple more feather clasps so I think I'll be using another one in a bracelet soon.

Thank you for all of the lovely comments you have made on my Bead Soup post! I'm about halfway through the list of blogs - I will get there, but I want to leave a comment on each blog I visit so it's taking a while!

Not everything goes to plan....

I wish it did, but not all plans work out the way you hope! Sometimes that leads to good things - for example, if I had got the grades I was predicited in my A levels the first time round (my Mum says it was because we moved house three times during college and both my Grandads died just before my exams, but it may have had something to do with the fact that my boyfriend at college was one of those really annoying people who don't have to revise at all to get top marks) I would have ended up studying Meteorology, probably working for the Met Office, and not have gone into teaching, met T, had my wonderful boys and ended up playing with stones, beads and metal for a living.

However.......my plans for the last week did not involve major work on my website that has taken up what little free time I've had, and again it's my blog that has suffered, sorry. I've kept up with all my orders and teaching and a couple of commissions together with family stuff and painting the new cupboards that T has built for the lounge diner (really looking forward to showing you what we've done, but I want to wait until it's finished!), but it's always my blog that suffers when things go mad, sorry. If you've been on my website over the last week or so you'll have seen a few funny messages talking first of all about malware and then about maintenance. The malware was trying to redirect you to a site selling fake gucci goods, and that was easily sorted within 24 hours. I then decided to upgrade the site to the version of zencart that has just been released, and that's where it got complicated as this version isn't compatable with the software my hosting company has on the server. It's taken longer than I'd hoped to sort it out, but hopefully I'll be back up and running by the end of tomorrow by the latest. Didn't someone say that computers would make our lives easier, create a paperless society, reduce the burden of admin etc etc? Pah!

Anyway, lots of things have gone to plan over the last week. Jamie has finally cut the three teeth that were coming through all at once, so he and T and I are finally getting some sleep. Poor love, he's so good and rarely gets upset, but he was not happy. Ben seems to sleep through all of Jamie's noise thankfully - I don't think I could cope with the two of them and me being overtired! Ben has yet more birthday parties and homework involving building robots (I'm sure that my homework wasn't as much fun when I was his age!). And I've been spending lots of time up at the post office. The poppies for the poppy challenge were posted last week so the overseas ones should be arriving with the challengees any time now and the UK ones should be there already, and I posted Michi's bead soup off to her yesterday as well. Fancy a sneek preview.....?

For once, there are no daisies or poppies, but that's all I'm saying, you'll have to wait until it arrives safely in Austria!

New Year Sale!

In keeping with the best New Year traditions, I'm having a sale on my website for the month of January - there is currently 15% off all jewellery, including my Keum Boo designs that feature 24k gold.

The website has automatically adjusted the prices, so *puts on her best marketing voice* now is the time to go and buy yourself a treat or stock up on a few presents for later in the year!

Could someone please explain

where the last couple of weeks have gone!? I have meant to blog, honest, but although I've planned fascinating blog posts whilst I've been filing and sanding by the time I've actually been able to sit down and write them my mind has gone blank! Can I blame it on the heat, please?


We've been very busy here over the last fortnight or so. B and I have been out and about alot enjoying the sunshine, and T & B have been tenderly looking after the carrots, tomatoes and peppers they planted a couple of months ago - although in B's case, TLC for plants includes giving them a bath if you're not careful. Having thriving vegetable growth is a big deal for us as I'm very much a "if I had more time I could...." gardener with lots of plans and little time for them, and T, well, let's just say that he and his brother, encouraged by their dad (oh, yes I do remember Mr M - I know that you read this sometimes, and you definitely encouraged them!) once decided to cut our grass with a hedge trimmer and a strimmer. The grass never recovered and all the sweet peas I'd planted to grow up the apple tree mysteriously disappeared. So, as I say the fact that the seeds a) got planted and b) have actually been allowed to grow is pretty impressive!

I've been busy with not on the high street orders, and this week now that my website is finally up and running again I've been busy with orders through that too. I decided to take advantage of my old hosting company going belly-up and start the website from scratch. Uploading the backup would have been a lot quicker, I know, but I had been meaning to make some changes for a while and I knew that if I didn't do them now I'd find something else to distract me for another couple of months. The general information on the website is still the same, but I've clarified some of the info on made-to-order items and hopefully made it a lot easier to find what you're looking for. At the moment I've only uploaded the made-to-order items as I'm retaking the photos of the unique pieces still in stock, but more will be uploaded very soon. Whilst redesigning the website I also designed a new logo and banner - what do you think?

I've also got some new designs, created using silver and 24k gold (yes, gold!), to show you very soon. They use a ancient Korean technique called Keum Boo that I've been teaching my City and Guilds college class, and I've enjoyed it so much that I've got pages of designs sketched out to work my way through. You'll have to wait until the start of next week for those pictures though, as tea has been bubbling away as I've been typing and it's ready now! It's going to be a relaxing evening of knitted whilst watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on DVD. Popcorn, anyone?

Too dependant on computers?

Well, what do you think? Have we becaome too dependant on computers? Mine has been rather poorly lately, so poorly that it had to go to hospital (aka a friend's computer-whizz husband) to have not one but four nasty bugs cleaned off it. Now, if the computer gets an 'ordinary' virus then I can usually deal with it, but this time what ever was on here was actually preventing our virus checker from working (but still making it look on the surface as if it was working) and preventing us from getting onto virus and spyware checking sites that could have helped. I really and truely cannot understand the mentality of people who create and release these programmes. How on earth can they go through life with no thought for other people? It's just completely alien! I'm not a violent person (unless you're a piece of sheet silver that needs hammering of course) but I was definitely thinking very violent thoughts when I was wasting my time trying and failing to get the computer sorted out.

Anyway, rant over! I've got it back now, so you will hopefully have seen that I've been able to finally update the front page of my website. I'm trying to de-clutter everything to make it easier for people to find the information that they need without looking at a long list of links in the menu. I've got some more work to do, and planning to get it done this weekend. Jobs for tomorrow include:

• letting you know who won February's earrings and posting a picture at last of the ones you could win in March if you sign up for the newsletter,
• uploading some more new products to the website,
• catching up on the emails I couldn't deal with while the computer was down (an iphone can only do so much)
  
• preparing some information sheets for my class tomorrow evening and
  
• sending out a new newsletter

The newsletter will include details of the next set of workshops, so if you'd like to be one of the first to know when places are available you'd better sign up!

As well working on the website, I've been taking photos today, including those shown here. The pendant at the top was uploaded to the website this afternoon. I cut the daisy from sheet silver and then textured it with the texture that I'm loving so much at the moment. The stone set in the middle is blue topaz, and I'm planning to offer the pendant with a choice of different stones.


The Silver Birch bangles shown above have been popular on the website for a few months now, but I've updated the listing to offer the choice of a shiny of an oxidised finish. Oxidising has changed the look of the bangle greatly, and I love how it has really highlighted the beautiful texture my favourite hammer has given the wire.

It's definitely my bedtime, but I will be back tomorrow with more to show you!

Tutorial Tuesday

Well, B had his first afternoon at preschool today. He was excited at going in as we'd been talking about the toys he could play with and the fact that his childminder's little boy was going to the same sessions, and he sat down at the table at the start really well and went to get some toys when the registration part was over. I had a chat with his key worker (I've got to come up with a better term than that - it reminds me of the keyworkers from social services I worked with when I was a teacher!), signed some forms, checked that he was settled in and wasn't bothered at the thought of me going, managed to get a kiss from him and then slipped out of the door - all without getting tearful! Both T and I knew that B wouldn't have a problem with starting preschool, it would be me that would get upset. I did get a bit tearful on the way home, but then started laughing at myself when I realised that today, of all days, I didn't have any tissues with me! When I arrived to pick B up he was sitting as good as gold in a circle with the other children - he looked like such a big boy! He wanted me to come in and play with him, but I managed too get him to leave with the promise of taking him to the park were he chatted about the toys he'd played with, so I assume that he had a good time! I just hope it lasts and that he still enjoys it when he realises that it's a regular thing.

Anyway, Tutorial Tuesday......after distracting myself by giving the kitchen a thorough clean, I got on and did quite a bit of admin and phone calls etc. Not all the phone calls I wanted to make as my phone is playing up again, but I managed to tick quite a few jobs off my list. I also uploaded the tutorials I've written onto my website. You can't see them on there at the moment as I've still got to double check that they've uploaded okay, but as from tomorrow my free tutorials on basic wire work techniques will be available to download. My plan had been to get them on the website by the end of August, but although they were written by then I decided I wanted to trial them at a couple of workshops first. So, tomorrow the next stage of my mission pass the addiction of jewellery making will be under way!

Right, off to get wrapped up to go to bed now! It may be sunny during that day at the moment, but it's definitely chilly at night! I can't bear being cold at night. No matter how tired I am I can never sleep when I'm cold, so tonight, if anyone is really interested, I shall be wearing winter pyjamas and bed socks (from a trip on a British Airways flight pre-B!), and I've put the blanket back on top of the duvet on my side of the bed. What on earth am I going to be like when winter arrives?!

My cufflinks!

There is a category on the front page of my website labelled 'Bridal and for him', and up until now it's been empty apart from a sign saying 'coming soon'. At last I have something to put in it! I've decided to take out the bridal part, as I realised that alot of the designs I was thinking about putting in there are ones that I'd put in the Limited Edition section anyway, and I don't see the point in having the same items listed twice, it only makes the site more confusing. Anyway, the bridal commissions I've done so far have been either completely new designs or variations of existing designs that brides have seen in the Exclusives or Limited Edition sections.

So, the category has been renamed 'For Him' and these are the first items going in. Each cufflink has been made using silver art clay, so the front design is fine silver while the chain and bar on each is sterling silver. I love the feel of finished silver art clay - it is so tactile. I've lightly oxidised them to give an antique effect and given them a satin finish, but I'm also going to make some that aren't oxidised.

I have a confession to make though - these aren't the first I've made, just the first I've actually photographed and shown you! The first pairs I made were for T and my Dad for Father's Day. I've made some for Spice Art Studios too, and just finished a couple of commission ones, but I can't show you those yet! I'll photograph T's to show you tomorrow as I'm really pleased with them!

P.S. It was my neighbour's funeral today - it went as well as these things ever can. There was a lovely turn out, and I'd say about a third of the households in the street were represented - a lot in this day and age. All this has definitely made me want to get to know my neighbours better. You can't predict what your neighbours are going to be like when you move into a new house, and we have definintely been lucky with ours.

P.P.S. I haven't been able to post since Monday. To cut a long story short I'd tried out a new comments box that blogger had come up with, but I didn't like the look of it in the end. I couldn't upload the backed up original of my template that I had thankfully remembered to save until I remembered older versions of IE sometimes work better with blogger templates than the latest, so uploaded the backed up template through that - and here I am! Maybe now I'll learn not to mess around with my template - maybe!

Papillion

Just a quick note to let you know that I've added Poppy and a few other new pieces to the website. One of the pieces is this one, Papillion, that I actually finished a couple of weeks ago - I must must get quicker at taking photos and uploading them to the website but it takes longer than you'd think to do it and I much prefer creating new jewellery. But...how am I going to sell if I don't upload my new pieces? I know I do quite a few craft shows, but not everyone lives down here on the south coast!

Anyway, I'm really pleased with Papillion. It was one of the rare pieces that I had sketched out and made exactly as I'd sketched it. More often than not, the pieces I make insist that I adapt my designs as I'm working - yes, silver and beads do talk to you as you work with them! Didn't you know?! I cut both layers of the butterfly from sterling silver sheet, hammered the bottom layer to give a line texture, soldered the layers together and finally oxidised the pieces to highlight the texture. You'll find Poppy here and Papillion here. Poppy is obviously unique due to the beautiful bead, and Papillion is part of my Limited Edition collection.

By the way, I've made a few changes to the website menus as it was all getting a bit cluttered. I haven't removed any information, but some links have been moved from the menu on the left to the bottom of the page, and some pages (the jewellery party ones and the jewellery information ones i.e. the ones about the materials I use) have been made into one page. I think the website looks a lot neater and easier to find your way around - I hope you'll agree!

Tutorials & Time Management

For ages now I've been meaning to up date my tutorials, the ones for basic wire skills. I've got several already written - making eyeloops, wrapped loops, ear wires for example - and I used to use them in workshops alot, but since improving my photos of my jewellery I've realised just how bad the photos on the tutorials are! One of the problems is that it is very difficult to take photos of the wire actually being worked on your own - you can't hold the camera, look through the lens and hold the wire on the pliers all at the same time, and using a tripod doesn't help much!

Anyway, one of the reasons that I decided to use a zen cart based website was so that I could easily offer pdfs for people to download. So this afternoon I decided to stop procrastinating (what a big word for this time in the afternoon!) and get to work! I've improved the writing of several of the tutorials and sorted out what photos I need while B has been asleep, and I'm going to ask a friend with an excellent camera and a photography course under her belt to come round and help me take the photos over the next couple of weeks. I'll swop her for some jewellery or silversmithing tuition!

This stopping procrastinating is all part of something that Nicky and I have been talking about for a little while now - time management! We both have young children and so obviously work around them, so organising our time efficiently is so important if our businesses are to grow. She showed me a blog called Bead Nerd (I love that name!) that's all about encouraging people to fulfill their potential. It's written with bead makers in mind but the advice is fantastic for anyone who runs (or wants to run) a craft-based business. I've also been talking to Tracey, the owner of the gallery where I teach my weekly jewellery class, Spice Art Studios, about time management. Anyway, as I result of all this I have decided to block out my diary into time set aside for certain jobs, both household and business. Tracey calls it a default diary - unless there is an emergency, holiday or something like that, a default diary sets out what you are going to do each week at that particular time. I've realised that I have been doing that more or less with household chores, so now it's time for the business. It'll hopefully make me get the non-creating jewellery jobs done rather than allow them to get pushed to one side! I'll let you know how it goes - well, hopefully you'll see the results in terms of tutorials on the website, new jewellery listed more regularly and more magazine articles - oh, and another outlet or two would be good too!

Tomorrow morning is photography time, so look back for some photos then!

Still here!

Yes, I am still here! I meant to post as soon as I came back from the silversmithing weekend at Flux'n'Flame but to be honest I was absolutely shattered!! I LOVED the course! Not everything I tried turned out how I planned (several things ended up in my scrap pot on the second day) but I learnt alot and that was the aim of it.

So.....this is what I made. The first thing I made was a bangle using oval wire and I love it so much that I have hardly taken it off since. It's so comfortable to wear. I really enjoy making bangles and have several ideas for them so as soon as my bracelet mandrel arrives you will be seeing some on my website! The afternoon of the first day I use the rolling mill to press a leave pattern into silver sheet and practiced my piercing skills to cut out a leaf shaped pendant. I plan to hang some semi-precious stones from the top, but I haven't had time yet!

The second day, as I said, resulted in lots of experiments, but the third day was definitely more productive! I finished 3 stacker rings (for me) and a bracelet for Mum - but you'll have to wait for that as she hasn't seen it yet!

I have finally ordered a shed to turn into a workroom as I can't work in my room in the house anymore - it's right next to B's room and the only time I get to work is when he's asleep. Can't exactly hammer then!

The other reason that I've been awol is that I've been sorting my website out - and I've finally done it! Once my webhosting bloke (aka Ben from BM-media) got me so far, I could use some code I found on the zen-cart help forum to sort the rest out. Ben was a star - he even helped me out the day before his wedding! Anyway, go and check my website out and let me know what you think about the new look! And maybe by the time you're back I'll have changed the look of my blog to match.

Yes, I'm still here!

I've been so bad about posting recently, sorry, but there is a good reason, honest! I've been spending every moment I can either making samples to show a couple of possible outlets (keep your fingers crossed for me!) or building my new site. The site is built, most of the products are uploaded, a new logo has been designed for me (it's fantastic! Can't wait to show you!), but uploading it has caused some glitches that my webhosting company are in the process of sorting out. At the moment when you go to my website it's the default zencart template and it just looks awful, but I've decided that there's no point in panicking as it's being sorted and I've just got to be patient. There have been quite a few moments in the last week when I have had to go and hammer some silver instead of hammering the computer though!Anyway, these are the hoops that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. The photos are better than the ones I took before, but I need to figure out a way to photograph them hanging up without using the stands I use for my craft stall. The stands look great on my table, but I don't like them so much in photos. The first pair uses black and smokey grey Swarovski crystals, the second smokey quartz and dusky pink Swarovski crystals and the third garnets that I've wire-wrapped onto the hoops. Earrings are my favourite thing to make at the moment, can you tell?I've got some more new pieces, including some using beautiful lampwork from Moogin Beads, to show you as soon as I can photograph them so I will be back soon - honest!

website headaches nearly over - I hope!

Still no new jewellery photos to show you, sorry! I've been busy trying to sort my website out, but I'm going to use what ever sunlight we get tomorrow to take some photos, promise!

My website has been giving me headaches for a while. On the advice of my first webhosting company I had bought a template using zen cart software (free fantastic ecommerce software) and for months I've been getting frustrated that no matter how many times I followed the instructions in zen cart's online help forum certain functions just wouldn't work e.g. changing the size of the pictures so that they were clearer, adding text to the front page (new workshop date added, last posting date for Christmas, don't forget Mother's Day, that kind of thing). At about 1am the other morning I finally found out that it wasnt' me, it was the template all along! Apparently the people who designed the template I bought over-rode alot of important programming so that although their templates look pretty the can't be personalised properly and alot of the 'behind the scenes' functions no longer work. The template company (who aren't anything to do with the people who wrote the zen cart software itself) sell alot of templates, so there are alot of frustrated people ranting about them on the zen cart forum! So, I have now downloaded the free zen cart software and a couple of other bits and pieces and I'm part way through setting up a new improved website that will hopefully do everything I want it to! Big thanks go to Hannah (Kutuu) who reassured me that yes, I can do this!

Anyway, my eyes are turning square with all the time I've spent in front of the computer this evening, so I'm now off to bed!