Happy Friday: Hand stamped dog charms

I promised you dog-themed, hand stamped bag charms last week, and here they are.

Just listed on Etsy here...

I hope they are going to be popular.  I've tested them out on dog walks and can confirm they are quite sturdy!

So which is your favourite?  Let me know.

Lucca says he likes them all, but it's been so hot, he has mostly been concentrating on paddling and sleeping in the sun. 

Alison x

Happy Friday: Cute puppy pics and some stamping

This week I needed to sort through my dog pictures to pick one for a competition in one of my Labrador groups on Facebook. This is quite a task when you have thousands of photos of your dog - I'm sure I'm not the only one! - and you're asked to pick the cutest one, so took quite a while. In the end, I narrowed it down to these three.

On the mat - this was Lucca's first day at home.

Waiting to go in. This one really melts my heart!

I love the expression in his eyes here! 

Now it will be interesting to see if you think I picked the right one. Which do you think would get the most likes on Facebook?

On another part of planet Alison, as well as sorting some sales from my shops, I've been enjoying some stamping with a new font. 

I'm now working on a range of dog-related sayings for bag charms and key rings which is keeping me busy. Perhaps next week I'll be ready to show them.

What have you been making, or enjoying, this week?

Alison x

Happy Friday: Mostly chainmaille

Hi everyone,

The week's seem to fly by, don't they?  Now that it's getting towards Spring, we have been taking advantage of some sunny but cold days to get out and about and do some swimming.  That's Lucca swimming, not me or Phil!

This was great fun and Lucca got a good workout for his dodgy elbow. Then one of those swans that you can just see in the background decided to swim over to remind us whose territory it was!  

Amazing what you see when you're dog pulls you to every available river.  From the distance, we did wonder out loud whether this was a toy helicopter!  We all thought it was a bit showy to have it on the lawn, but I suppose if you've got one, it's a challenge to find parking spaces big enough.  Not a problem I think I will ever have. The chickens seemed to be quite happy with it there. 

Jewellery wise, still mostly chainmaille. How long can this obsession last? Some of these bracelets are quite heavy - it's amazing how the weight of the rings builds up.

I love that this one looks a bit like knitting.

The weave here is held in place with faux brown leather cord. 

This one is my favourite, with a rainbow of faux pearls.

Which do you like best?

Here's the link to see what others have been creating this week at Planet Penny .http://planetpenny.co.uk

Alison x

Handmade Monday - more of those tassel necklaces

Happy New Year blog followers. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year break.  Here's a quick pic of Lucca the dog enjoying the beach at Broad Haven on Christmas Day, when it was bright and windy.   

I kept crafting all the way through the break, and I'm still a bit obsessed with making dangles for the interchangeable chain necklaces. Because I always want my jewellery to have a touch of the ancient world about it - I like things to look like they could have literally been dug out of the ground! - I always love to use pearls, glass pearls in this case. 

That one is a bit Cleopatra, don't you think?

Five pearls in a row.

A lovely textured ring charm.

And some chainmaille with green Quartz beads. 

Would love to know which you like best?

One of my New Year resolutions is to do more tutorials on this blog, so please make sure you nag me if they don't appear, won't you?

Here's a link to Handmade Harbour where you can see what other crafty people have been making this week. http://handmadeharbour.blogspot.co.uk

Alison x

Wordless Wedneday: Wild flowers

The parks in Coventry have a new initiative this year to designate an area to wildflowers.  The results are stunning.  I hope the idea lasts.

Handmade Monday: mostly chain maille but some bag charms too

I'm still obsessed with chain maille (is there treatment available?!) but I did take a bit of a break to post some new bag charms in my Folksy shop.  It's been a good week for sales, and people seem to prefer the multiple purse charms without beads, so I've concentrated on that.  Now which do you like best...

This one is for when you need a bit of luck...

For lovers of emo, goth, steam punk etc,

For lovers of shoes, handbags etc,

For anyone with a dog.

Is that almost everyone covered?!

And this one is chain maille and a bag charm.

Here's a link to see what other crafty people have been up to this week over at Handmade Monday.

See you soon,
Alison

Handmade Monday: What a holiday!

Hi all, I've been on a break from blogging but back now and ready to show you all what I've been doing in the meantime.

One thing that happened was the most amazing holiday - we caught the start of the heatwave in the UK, with the result that it felt like being in the Mediteranean even though it was the north east of England.

The sea and the sky were mostly these wonderful shades of blue.  Of course that meant that a certain brown labrador spent a lot of time either in the blue sea or digging in the sand near it!

What a perfect holiday.  And of course, such a fantastic time was really inspiring so lots of jewellery was created in the sunny garden.  Here's a selection.

Starting with the blues, a goddess bracelet and some earrings:

Some flower pieces - the bracelet sold to a fellow jewellery maker - what a compliment that was!

More bracelets:

And so on...

And that's just a few of them - I won't bore you with the rest.  Always good to know which are your favourites though, so please do leave a comment.

Hoping to be back soon with more tutorials. 

Here's the link to see what others have been up to on Handmade Monday.

Alison x

Handmade Monday: Fame for my little blog and dog pictures

This week I'm excited to report that this little blog was reviewed in the April edition of Making Jewellery and Handmade Monday was mentioned!  Just pardon me a moment while I quote the whole review in full, and my head swells to the size of a football!

"Alison is a self-confessed jewellery addict, and she shares this with us at her blog.  This down-to-earth, funny and creative blog is all about making jewellery, dogs, literature, travel and other interesting stuff.  With the regular feature Handmade Monday, Alison shares with us what she's been making, and her thoughts on these.  The blog is full of inspiration and interesting titbits, such as Wordless Wednesday, which often involves photos of dogs!"

How cool is that?  And I have to add I didn't pay for it, or submit the blog to anything or bribe the editor or anything like that. 

Anyway, better show some makes otherwise I won't be fulfilling my remit.  I haven't made much, and you'll see why in a minute.

Here's a little bag charm covering dogs, jewellery and my new attempts at stamping.  I do love these little doggie charms - I think they are supposed to be spaniels but it could be a Labrador with short legs if you squint a bit in a low light.

My own real life dog had an exciting day last week.  The poor boy has been limping for a while and our vet has been trying 'conservative' methods of managing what he diagnosed as elbow dysplasia.  Nothing seemed to be working, and although Lucca was still as keen as mustard to go out walking, we felt we couldn't go on like that with him in pain, and us worrying ourselves silly about him.  The vet referred us to a specialist orthopaedic hospital, and to cut a long story short, Lucca had a consultation, scan and operation there all in the same day. 

He is recovering well, and fingers crossed, hasn't limped since the op.  The short walks he needs for the next month are quite frustrating for him, so he's having lots of extra stimulation to tire him out, including drives in the car, frozen kongs and lots of training - all of which is exhausting the humans! 

Here he is falling out of his bed with exhaustion at the end of a busy day.  Check out that shaved patch - it looks like a baboon's backside.  I hope it grows back soon.

 Hope everyone in the UK is wrapping up warm against the cold and snow and reading lovely blogs.  Here's a link to see what others have been doing this week for Handmade Monday. 

Alison x

Wordless Wednesday: What on Earth is that?!

Handmade Monday: Kumihimo to infinity

What a week!  The shops have been incredibly busy, and I'm coming up to 200 sales on Folksy - something I never thought I'd see.  As well as rushing around packing orders, there's been the weather to contend with.  Whilst we haven't had it as bad as the poor folk in the South West, we did have some amazing rainfall and winds.  Here is Lucca the Lab wondering why his regular walk is being swum by the ducks!

Shortly after, he worked out it was just like the beach and you could go crazy splashing in and out of the waters edge, so now he doesn't mind not having his usual walk at all.

I am persevering with the kumihimo and found a great tutorial for a twisted braid.  The lady is Norwegian will a passion for all things Japanese.  Her bracelets are absolutely stunning. 

This is my effort with chocolate, teal (which looks dark blue on the photo) and sky blue threads.

The finishing is still tricky but I'm working on it, and this time I didn't superglue my fingers to anything more embarrassing than a scrap of kitchen roll!  It's certainly addictive though.

The biggest sellers in my shop are still the little cord bracelets, and I've added infinity bracelets to the range this week...

...as well as hearts...

..and birds.

One lovely customer has ordered seven so far! 

Hope everyone has a lovely week, and the weather settles a bit.

Here's the link to see what other crafty peeps have been doing this week.

Alison x

Wordless Wednesday: Cute dogs!

Wordless Wednesday: my doggie double

Lucca and a beautiful carved jasper pedant

Handmade Monday: lots of creations

Hi everyone,
I've been away for a week in S Pembrokeshire, visiting the family.  Have to admit, we had some traditional seaside weather - torrential rain, thunderstorms, hail - but luckily most of it was in the night or at times when we weren't walking on the beach!  And the rest of the time, the sky was pretty blue and there was some extraordinarily warm sunshine.  Lucca the dog found time for some digging, as usual!...

 ...chilling out in the sun room...

 ...and a little ice cream - well, he has lost over 5 kilos, so he's allowed one!

Anyway, what about making things?  I made 12 items, so quite a productive week.  A bit of intricate wire work on this cherry quartz pendant

Something festive and something autumnal

And some new style multi charm necklaces and bracelets on faux leather cord

...to show but a few.  Now there's the marathon of listing them all in the shops!


Here's the link to visit other crafty folks' blogs