Category: what’s coming

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Update what's coming

SALE: Out With The Old

I have new stuff I want to add to my shop, including some nice little accessories and storage solutions! But my old stock is in the way!

So I’m having a clear out. Which means it’s SALE TIME! Nearly everything in my shop is currently 50% off its normal price and I’m keeping the sale going on those items until they’re all gone!

Not only that, but there’s also a nice 25% off the price of the made-to-order items I’ll be keeping restocked after all the others have gone. This is only for a limited time of 14 days though, just FYI.

I realise, looking back at my previous blog post, it does seem a bit strange to almost immediately reduce the prices on several lovely pieces of handcrafted jewellery, but I need stock space and who doesn’t love a bargain? So it’s win/win, really.

Right, that’s all for now. Thanks so much for popping in and having a read. Have a lovely rest of your day! 

If you’d like to see more from me, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter, and of course, you can support me and treat yourself – or somebody else important – in my Shop, where delivery is free, and the Sale has only just started!

Helen x

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Behind The Scenes Colour Ideas jewellery making personal what's coming

BACK IN MY COMFORT ZONE

I’ve been trying out different jewellery-making techniques over the past few months: working with precious metal clay and getting to grips with a kiln; trying to achieve that “real marbley stone” look with polymer clay and resin (those videos absolutely dominated my social media feeds for quite some time earlier in the year); prong setting individual stones; reviving my long-forgotten love for chainmaille weaving. But I didn’t feel like there was any real point to the pieces I made, other than serving as a physical reminder that I was convinced whatever the technique was would become My Thing.

The image in my head was always better than the finished product, though. I know it’s likely that all I needed to do with any of those ventures was to stick at it, and it wouldn’t be long before I’d see an improvement, impressing myself with my new-found talent. But I am impatient and I want to be great at whatever I’m trying immediately. So sticking with something I’m not an Instant Pro at, really is difficult.

And then it just so happened that I got my hands on some strands of the most gorgeous, tiny little faceted beads recently, and I’m having a great time.

They’re all precious stones, which is something I tried to keep away from for as long as possible: making your own jewellery is not a cheap hobby, even if you sell your pieces. Plus, though it can be easy to forget, they’re naturally occurring rocks that have to be mined; they’re pretty much a finite resource with a big environmental and economical impact. Another reason I want to find out where I can source lab-created gemstone beads. But in terms of availability, especially if we’re looking at the bead-quality, stringable kinds, natural stones are more readily accessible. Accessible even to me. Me! Incredible.

Although I said “precious stones”, and went on about how jewellery making is not a very bank account-friendly hobby, I should point out that I’ve not omitted any of the Big Four from my little photo gallery above. ‘Precious’ isn’t a word reserved for diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires anymore. I read something the other day that commented on how gemologists are moving away from referring to stones like opal and turquoise as ‘semi-precious’, and I love that. Diamonds aren’t all that. Well, they are. It’s just that so many other gems deserve the love that those clumps of glittering carbon get, too.

Anyway, like I say I’m having a great time, with all the different colours and shapes. Well, not “shapes” plural; it’s all strand after strand of spherical sparklies as you can see. And I think that’s the beauty of it.

Being quite an untidy person, both in mind and in… well, in general, I appreciate a bit of uniformity. It’s quite satisfying to see evenly sized things in even rows of even numbers. It might sound a bit silly, but I think this “sameness” is a key ingredient in making a good-looking piece of jewellery. For me, anyway. Fully content to only speak for myself here. And it’s quick, too! Always a plus. For example, I got three stretchy bracelets done the other night in roughly the time it would take for me to weave a few inches of Byzantine chainmaille. Which is still not very long, but it’s a lot easier to write a product description for my next Etsy listing right after making dainty little bracelets than inches and inches of individually and intricately linked chain.

So stretchy bracelets is where I’m at right now. And rings. Stretchy rings are something I didn’t know I needed in my life. I’m back in my comfort zone of stringing one bead after another after another. Reassuringly predictable: Add your beads until the desired length is reached, tie a secure knot, add a blob of glue, wait for that to dry, and Robert’s your mother’s brother!

In some ways, it might have made more sense for me to make the strands go further by using them more sparingly. Maybe adding a one or two beads onto a pair of drop earrings, or every few inches or so on a chain necklace. But that would feel like treating them as commas or full stops at the end of a sentence, when in actual fact they are the whole sentence.

That could well be the most pretentious thing I have ever written, and I can’t decide whether I’m sorry about it. I’m not deleting it, though.

You should see the bracelets in my shop very soon. And maybe rings, too. I somehow have enough of the beads left that I could get a few more rings out of the strands.

The aim is to have them all up and listed by 10 July. There’s no particular significance for me about that date, it’s just that on the day before I started typing this (1 July), I’d posted on Instagram about them being available in my shop next week. And the 10th is the last day of what is still at the time of writing, next week. Also it rhymed nicely with “sneak peek”.

Right, that’s all from me for now. I still have some more fine-tuning to be getting on with before my newest pieces are ready to be released into the wild. In the meantime, I have a quick question: Could I get a show of hands on who’s interested in the idea of a little jewellery Top-Up/Refresher/First Aid kit kind of thing? Safety chain, spare earring backs, small carabiner clip, all in a nice little fabric pouch? Just comment “Yes” or something if fancy the sound of that.

Thank you so much for popping in and having a read. Have a lovely rest of your day! 

If you’d like to see more from me, there are other posts on the blog to read if you haven’t already. Plus, you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and of course, you can treat yourself and visit my Shop)!

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Behind The Scenes Ideas jewellery making Project what's coming

“I Could Make That!”

Go on, then! I’ll even get you started.

We hear that a lot – both directly and indirectly – us jewellery makers. Anyone crafty, really. That someone else could make the thing we made. And yeah, they probably could make that thing, but 1) pointing it out is a little rude, and 2) they should know it’s a really lovely feeling knowing that, of all the handcrafted pieces available to them, somebody else chose the thing I made, to own for themselves even though they also could probably make the thing too.

Right now I’m working on putting together jewellery making kits for beaded bracelets and necklaces that you will be able to make for someone special. Yourself can be that someone special, if you like.

There are lots of kits available elsewhere already, but more often than not, once you have your completed piece, you’re left with a load of bits and bobs that might be useless to you and will just end up being chucked away. Also, they tend to be aimed at children or younger teens, so the packaging reflects this.

And it’s the packaging that I gave the most of my focus to when I started jotting down my ideas about the kits. I want it to look “grown up”, but more importantly, I want to be sure that anything left over can be recycled or disposed of with minimal waste.

Let’s start with the sleeve box it all arrives in:

  • Slim enough to fit through a letterbox; ideal if you’re sending it as a surprise gift to someone else who likes to make things, or if it’s for you and you know you won’t be in to collect it.
  • Made from Kraft card that is 100% recyclable. And roomy enough to use it to store other bits and pieces, so you might want to keep it for storage. Somewhere to keep other jewellery, pehaps? Makeup? Sweets? Sewing stuff? It’s 2022, we can give the Danish biscuit tins a rest now. Maybe glue a fabric tab on the sleeve to keep it easy to open? You could discard the outer sleeve bit and just use the box as a little tray for bedside stuff.
  • If you are giving it as a gift, cover it – sleeve and all – with wrapping paper, tie a pretty ribbon around it, et voilà! Now it’s a gift box! And someone else’s problem!
  • For what it’s worth, my personal advice would be to put the empty box on the floor and see how long it takes for your cat to try getting in it. You should then tag me in any pics or videos you post.

What other packaging paraphernalia will you find in the box?

  • A little square of Kraft card to keep the beading needles in one place while you’re not using them. Once the jewellery piece is made, keep the little card so you don’t lose the needles, or repurpose it as a bookmark or something.
  • A cute little velvety pouch which serves as an easy gift-wrap option if you’ve made the jewellery as a present for someone else. Or as something to store it in if it’s for yourself. If you have somewhere else to store your new handcrafted jewellery piece though, there are still plenty of ways you can make use of the pouch. You could fill it with cedar and hang it in your wardrobe to keep moths out. Or keep your crystals in there. Or other jewellery? Not with the piece you made, though. It’s best to store jewellery pieces on their own if you can help it.

And now it’s time to talk about the jewellery you’re making. There will be a few options. Whether you choose precious metal or precious metal-plated, or semi-precious stone beads or synthetic, everything will still have been packed with the same care for quality and ease of use.

As you will know from my previous posts, I’m a fan of a particular type of synthetic pearls, so I want you to be aware that any pearls in my kits or ready-finished pieces of jewellery will be these synthetic ones. For one, it will keep the kits and pieces far more affordable than if they were genuine pearls.

I am looking at other stones – genuine semi-precious stones – and crystals, to include in the kits in case pearls are not your thing. My favourite is labradorite, but I find it makes more of an impact in a piece when used as an accent rather than the main feature.

I want to include birthstones, especially if I can get my hands on the real thing. But April, June and September babies, I will be making sure you get a beautiful alternative. Comment below what your favourite gemstone is, and is it your birthstone?

You can choose whether your kit will be for a bracelet, a necklace, or both, or even an anklet, and it will include pretty much all you need: thread, beads, clasp. If this feels limiting, it is intentional. Taking into consideration both the reusability and user-friendliness of the kits’ contents, it is important that things are kept as simple as possible, so you won’t need to get hold of any specialist equipment just to make these one or two lovely pieces of jewellery.

That’s all from me for now. I still have some more fine-tuning and R&D to be getting on with before my kits are ready for you. In the meantime, I want to say thanks so much for popping in and having a read. Have a lovely rest of your day! 

If you’d like to see more from me, there are other posts on the blog to read if you haven’t already. Plus, you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, and of course, you can treat yourself and visit my Shop!

featured image by AlisonHShaw (via canva.com)