Wren-tastic - Art Jewelry Elements COM Reveal!

Hello everyone and welcome to the reveal of the Art Jewelry Elements Component of the Month reveal!

Now, I really love Wrens!  I'm a big fan of out British bird-life in general, but Wrens are especially dear to me as they are my Mum's favourite birds as well.   They are one of our smallest birds and can be quite secretive, so it's always a joy when I catch a glimpse of that iconic cocked tail.

Photo from aminalphotos.me.

It's no wonder then that I jumped at the chance to grab one of Niky Sanders wonderful Farthing beads or clasps.  They encapsulate not only my love of birds, but my love of historical things too.  I was pretty darn happy when I got a message from Niky saying I had won I can tell you!  Now, I completely forgot to take a picture of the bead I received on its own so here is one I have borrowed from the AJE blog.

I think I may have to put in an order for more of these!

I didn't want to do anything too fancy with the wonderful little bead as I didn't want to overwhelm it with too busy a design, so kept my initial ideas simple.  It was drilled side to side which was a bit of a challenge for me.  I tried it in a couple of bracelet ideas, but I really wanted it to be a pendant and I wanted the wren the right way up.  I finally solved this little puzzle by creating a coiled wire frame, complete with loops from which to hang my much beloved dangles.

Mind you I think I got a bit carried away with the dangles, and therefore may have missed my original objective of not overwhelming the focal bead!

I do love my Czech Glass flower and leaf beads!  I use some in pretty much every design I do - can't seem to get away from them!  Most of these come from Smitten Beads - I absolutely adore that shop, it has such a wonderful variety beads and accessories and that is fairly rare this side of the pond.  My shopping basket is slowly filling up whilst I wait for another Etsy sale to fund my ginormous bead habit!

This one won't be going on sale unfortunately - my Mum has already claimed it!  It was a trade though - in return I got my hands on some amazing vintage beads of hers that I've been coveting for years. 

These perfectly smooth hexagonal pillars are made of some kind of jasper with brass end-caps and loops - and those round beads are so wonderfully shaped too!  I can't wait to get to work on them!  In the background is a very long strand of vintage glass square beads in wonderful earthy tones.  All of these beads are older than me!  Of course my mum will get some of them back, reconfigured into something new to add to her collection.

Anyway, enough digression!

Many thanks for joining me here in my little corner of the internet, and many many thanks to the wonderful ladies at Art Jewelry Elements, especially Niky, for the chance to be involved in one of my favourite monthly hops.  Please hop on over so you can see what everyone else has magicked up to!

Guest bloggersRebecca AndersonNan SmithAJE TeamSue KennedyKristen StevensJenny Davies-ReazorLindsay StarrCaroline DewisonLesley WattLinda LandigRebekah PayneNiky Sayers

Good Grief

I can't believe its been over two years since I last wrote on this blog.

I can't believe its been over two month's since I started this post!

In my last post, way back in March 2013, I made mention of the fact that I was moving.  Lets just cut the crap and just say that it was a bad move, the last two years have been hectic and I am so so happy to at last (AT LAST!) be back here writing on this blog ;)

And I have an important announcement to make - I went ahead and opened up an Etsy Shop!

I have called it the Copper Cat's Garden.


I've been umming and aahing about it for just about forever now.  I've read a lot about the downsides of Etsy, but for an absolute beginner I think it makes sense, and I hope to get enough funds together to start selling locally in my wonderful new home town of Brighton.

Seagulls off the Palace Pier, Brighton

It really is lovely here, cupped by the South Downs against the ever changing sea.  I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to be living near the ocean, and I am surrounded by a sensuously rolling and luscious landscape that is very soothing for the soul.  Needless to say, I spend as much time outside as I possibly can!  I feel very lucky to live in such a wonderful place, and it is filled with wonderful people too.

Brighton seen across the Downs from the Chattri War Memorial

The iconic ruins of the West Pier

Cinnabar Moth on Wolstonbury Hill

Now, I have approached this whole Etsy thing in a rather hap-hazard way.  I was playing around with photographing some of my jewellery last weekend, after noticing that the paving slabs in my garden would make a nice neutral background for 'product photography' while I was reading in the sun.  I just used my phone camera along with a couple of adhoc props from my mantle-piece, and before I knew it I had literally hundreds of photos of variously draped jewellery!

Probably my best photo so far

That evening as I sat sorting through all those photos I was over come with a wave of curiosity.  I had 'opened' an Etsy store I while back and then done nothing with it...  I hadn't even spelt the name right!  But I realised I had enough photos from my afternoons snapping frenzy to populate it with a good handful of listings, so I just went ahead and did it with little further thought.  Seeing my jewellery in an Etsy setting was strangely exhilarating, I got all tingly looking at my new, bodged together home page.

You have to understand I had no idea what I was doing!  I didn't have a clue about good titles or how to effectively use tags.  My descriptions were lazy and often silly and I had absolutely no idea about postage costs at all.  This all resulted in a stack of listings that could never be found and probably wouldn't be very appealing if they were uncovered.  Very silly, seeing as listings get the most 'organic' exposure when they are newly listed.

What can I say - creativity is my strong suite, not sensibility!

I love the luminescent quality of  Czech glass

I have improved things a little bit since then.  I've tweaked everything to be more searchable and hopefully more enjoyable to browse.  I actually looked at postage prices (far less than expected) and adjusted my pricing along the lines of a sensible (rather than non-existent) model.  It still needs work, a proper banner and policies wouldn't be amiss, but slowly its evolving into a proper storefront that I can hopefully sell through effectively.

I have a lot more pieces of jewellery waiting in the wings to be photographed today and tomorrow; a plethora of necklaces and earrings and couple of bracelets too.  I hope to have some of these new items listed in the shop Sunday afternoon - all properly written out and detailed this time round of course!

In the meantime here is a little preview of one of the necklaces I will have to offer - featuring some pretty dang stunning lampwork beads from Kaz Baildon of Cheeky Cherub Designs which I have been hoarding for years!  I do love a good crescent shaped bit of copper and plenty of Czech flower beads, I'm sure you can already tell - flowers are kind of my thing!

These wonderful lampwork beads positively glow

Thanks for joining me here for this slightly long winded and definitely long overdue blog post!

I hope you will come and visit again soon :)

AJE MarchComponent of the Month Reveal

Hello and welcome to the Art Jewelry Elements component of the month reveal for March!

I have been very lucky with thee AJE component of the month draws and this is my second one I have participated in.  Back in December I got my hands on a wonderful labyrinth pendants, and this month I received a rather smashing copper hollow bead from the very talented Joanne Tinley of Daisy Chain Designs.  I love her components - they have a sharp clean contemporary edge with a lovely touch of whimsy thrown in for good measure.

I decide to try knotting with waked linen cord for this piece.  I purchased some cord in a selection of colours from The Curious Bead Shop a while ago as I love pieces I have seen using this medium - especially those made by Rebecca Anderson of Songbeads, who also curates the Curious Bead Shop.

Sad to say, but knotting is not a strong point for me it seems!  But then I literally have no clue what I'm doing and a little research will probably help me out.  My bracelt turned out a little bit wonky and sdaly, despite the extra day the moved reveal date has given me, I haven't had a chance to re-do it.  I'm moving next weekend and am no-where near done packing!!

I will probably snip this apart and re-do it at some point as I love the overall design and look of the piece, but a few beads need moving about and I need to get my knots straighter.  The joys of being a n00b!  It is great fun knotting the beads together though and I love the fact it is a lot faster than making individual wire wrapped links!

Apart from the lovely hollow bead, this bracelet includes a mixture of jasper, czech glass and lampwork spacers by The Fyre Faerie.  The pretty little daisy clasp is also by Joanne Tinley - I absolutely adore her clasps :)

Thanks for visiting me as part of this lovely blog hop.  Please enjoy the other participants no doubt super creations whilst I go and shove stuff in boxes!

Jo Tinley
Jennifer Cameron
 Jenny Davies-Reazor
Susan Kennedy
Linda Landig
Melissa Meman 
Kristen Stevens
Francesca Watson
Lesley Watt

 Carolyn (Carolyn's Creations)

Jess Green
Niky Sayers            

I Gots Me a Saw!

OK, I actually got a sway a while ago... I takes me a while to get myself worked up to trying something new - but now I love it!  I have also tried oxidising my pieces for the first time.  I've made so many pieces that would look better antiqued, so I got myself some LOS gel and some steel wool.  I doubt I will ever not antique jewellery again!

Showing these pieces is a tad embarrassing as some of them are a bit wonky, but what can I expect when I am trying something new??  This is the first thing I have ever sawed out of a sheet of copper:

It's so wonky!  And this is actually the back of the piece - my hammering on the front is so awful that I ended up preferring this side!

I love this shape, though I feel I ruined it by adding too many dangle to the bottom which obfuscates the curve.  Also the hole in the middle is a bit smushed - though this is partially due to my rubbish hammering skills!  I'm proud of it though - and due to its slightly more 'rustic' than intended nature I will get to keep it as a reminder of how I started out on the sawing path - it can only get better!

Here I attempted an ivy leaf - I love leaves and I think you will see a lot of leaf shapes from me.  Again it is a bit wonky - but getting better!  I need to sort out the chain on this though - the idea is there but I'm not quite happy with it.

Next I tried out a shape I really love the look of - a crescent   I've seen plenty of jewellery I really admire using this kind of shape as a base, so I though I would give it a go -

And I loved it!  So much so in fact that I spent several hours sawing crescents out of copper sheet.  I made another necklace, with denser dangles as I felt the one above looked a little spare.  Sorry for the fuzzy photo, it was taken in a bit of a hurry and a master of photography I am NOT!  The distinct lack of sunlight recently doesn't help either...

I do love me some dangly bits :)

I bought myself a nice big selection of Czech glass beads at the beginning of the month and I am very much smitten by them - they are cropping up all over the place! My poor gemstone bead stash is probably feeling a little bit jealous.  The little fire polish beads above were actually free samples - and I do love things that are free :)

Carrying on with the crescent theme I made these earrings which will be a gift for a friend.  She loves big dangly earrings and I was struggling to come up with a design I liked before the idea for these surfaced in my minds eye.  They are basically just like the first necklace above, but on a smaller scale -

The two bases aren't actually different colours - that's just my pooey photography skills at play again...

One last one before I go, another leaf shape to take a break from all those crescents.  This is probably my favourite piece of them all, despite including pink which is not my colour at all.  The chain was originally designed with another pendant in mind, but just didn't fit in the end.  Such good luck that I happen to have plenty of sawed out pendanty bits lying around then!  This oak leaf seemed to fit the best, though I may saw out a new flower shaped piece that will better suit the pinky, springy colour scheme:

Do excuse my mucky yucky windowsill...

I'm very happy with what I have accomplished, but still have a long way to go before I master the saw.  It is both easier and harder than I originally thought it would be.  I'm very happy with the results so far, but need to figure out something more to so with the shapes I make.  A hammered finish is all very well but there is so much more I know can be done!  I think the next step may be riveting, or perhaps figuring out what other finishes I can use.  Salt and vinegar crisps maybe?  I do love the look of 'natural' patinas on copper and brass.

Anyway, here's to starting the long and wondrous path to metalworking!  And to managing not to saw my fingers off!

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On Pricing and the Emotional Turmoil It Brings!

A haven't blogged in a while - I have been busy, working, playing and most importantly for our purposes making plenty of jewellery :)

Mrs Owl is Waiting for Spring - I don't understand why all owl beads are referred to as 'Mr'.  After all, if there are no Mrs Owl's, where do cute, fluffy little baby owls come from?  The beautiful copper owl clasp is from Jo at Daisy Chain Extra.

I am trying to build up a shop inventory, enough pieces to open a shop on Etsy that doesn't look rather bare!   I'm finding it hard to decide just how many pieces are enough.  I'm aiming for about 20 necklaces and bracelets at the moment, and about 15 pairs of earrings on top of that (I never get around to making earrings though).

It's difficult, 'cos when I make a piece I fall in love with, I have to remember that I'm not gonna get to keep it.   A part of me is tempted to say 'hey, in a month or so after I've stopped inventory building, I can make myself another one', but in a way I feel that would be unfair to my potential customers who are paying to receive a unique one of a kind piece.

Now the thing is, preparing to open an Etsy store has forced me to face the pricing issue.  From reading various blogs I have long since sussed that pricing is an object of aggravation for many people.  It is really rather difficult!  I read somewhere that we as artisans are often tempted to under value our work.  We put our pieces through the pricing machine and come up with a total that just can't possibly be right surely!!

Mother Earth is Waking Up - a simple beaded chain for my Mum on Mother's Day - I didn't bother pricing this one as it was a gift :)

I have had exactly that problem!  I spent a day going through my bead stash and taking inventory of everything - tracking down receipts and paypal invoices so I could update the nifty bead spreadsheet I set up a few years ago when I last seriously considered selling jewellery.  I then started calculating prices for all the pieces I am going to sell.  Despite all the advice I had read on several sites I was still quite honestly shocked!

The owl bracelet above?  That came out at £38.  It can't be worth that much surely??  It didn't help when I took it in to work the next day and asked a colleague of mine who also made jewellery how much she thought is was worth.  She said she would charge £15-£20, but she wasn't really sure as she doesn't usually make such complex pieces.  I found that just a wee bit disheartening.  My other colleagues didn't do much to boost my ego - they were too polite to say but it was clear they would not pay so much!

I have been through this before though, the last time I tried calculating prices I was so astounded that I was put off jewellery making all together!  For about a year!  Why is that?  When I browse through Etsy and look at other Artisan made jewellery the price seems quite reasonable.  In fact it could even be a little on the low side.  When you compare the market, £33 for a necklace like the following is perfectly acceptable:

Leaves Burn Beneath the Water - Ceramic leaf pendant by Teresa of Bo Hulley Beads

My mother says the problem is probably due to my chronic lack of self worth.  Which is possibly partially true.  It's hard to think that something I have done is worth that much of someone elses money!  But there is another level to this too - I know exactly how much all the materials that go in to these pieces cost me (very precisely in fact, 'cos I spent ages figuring out the value of each little bead).  I umm-ed and aah-ed for quite a while over how much I would charge for my time - after all it does seem cheeky to charge someone for doing what I love to do.

It also made me think about how long it takes to complete a given design.  I love to make really long beaded chains like the one below (sorry for the awful photo - photographing long necklaces is hard and a massive storm cloud came over and stole the light).  Making over a hundred little links, joining the together and then making sure they are all secure sure takes a looooong time.  This necklace would cost a whopping £52!  Yet the actual materials come in at less than a tenner.

I haven't named this one yet - it is so so long though!  You can't really tell from the photo, but this reaches my navel!
And I am rather tall!

I think these prices seem high because I make the jewellery myself and I know exactly what goes into them - both material costs and effort spent.  This brings into the equation the power of perception - to people who don't make jewellery there is an element of mystery to its creation.  Most people don't have the patience to make a hundred links, or don't have a brain that just loves to play with colour.

Also, I think that when people buy artisan jewellery they are buying a little bit of the artist as well.  They are buying a little bit of your lifestyle - or perhaps rather a bit of the lifestyle they perceive behind the layers of shop fronts and photo props and blurbs.  Whether it's gritty urban priestess or flowing-gowned hippy chick, they are buying a little bit of that lifestyle for themselves.  When you say an admired piece of jewellery you are wearing is artisan handmade you are drawing a little of the mystery of the artisan world to you.  Perhaps that is why my friends and work colleagues shy away from my suggested prices - they know me, and so the mystery is truncated - jewellery made by that nutter in the corner doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

A quick note to say...

I feel a bit rude as I have not had a chance to sit down and hop through all the other Challenge of Music creations.  Yesterday and today are very busy for me!  I want to be able to sit down and listen to all the music properly while I read your posts.

I'll be visiting you all tomorrow :)