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

A milestone to share

Just a quick post to share this little milestone - 500 sales in my Folksy shop https://folksy.com/shops/BlueForestJewellery

It's been a while coming, and it was reached at 1.15 am with the sale of a pair of earrings. I love it that sales can come at any time of the day and night, and go anywhere. Yesterday, three bracelets set off for Stockholm, and we all wished we could go with them!

Thanks to all my blog followers and commentators who have kept me at it over the years. Overall sales reached about 1,000 a couple of months ago.  It's great that people like things enough to purchase them, and it's always a lovely surprise to get a sales notification. 

Please pop along to have a look at the shop if you're interested. There are some new key rings, in vintage bronze and antique silver, and until the end of the month, you can use the discount code Celebrate 500 to get a 20% reduction. 

Here are some recent makes.  Which do you like best?  And what are you making at the moment?

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 Long Necklaces

Apologies for the gap in blogging. I've been busy, both with crafting and with other less fun stuff including poorly relatives. I always find crafting relaxing, though, so even if I'm a bit stressed, the Blue Forest Jewellery production line is never quiet - in fact, it often gets more efficient!  There is so much jewellery in our house now, I have to look through my photos before I make something just to check I haven't done the same thing before!

One thing I really love is a long, tassel necklace.  So I've made a lot, but it always seems wasteful to be using so much chain. I've tried to solve that now by using a large textured ring on a long chain and adding the bar of a toggle clasp to the dangle so as to make that bit interchangeable.  I made a long version of the chain, and then an even longer one so I've got a choice to suit whatever neckline I'm wearing.

It took a while to convert all the ones I'd already made...

And some of them are not quite tassels either...

And a slightly different toggle clasp used on some of them...

Anything that saves room in my clutter is a good thing, IMHO. This one is my favourite...

And it's nearly Christmas.  How are your preparations going?  I haven't done as much as I should, probably because I've been messing around with necklaces!!

Here's a link to see what other crafty folk have been making this week. http://handmadeharbour.blogspot.co.uk

Happy Christmas in case I don't get chance to blog again before.

Alison 

Handmade Monday: More poppies and Autumn colour

As it gets closer to remembrance day, I keep getting new ideas for poppy jewellery.  This week it's chain maille again.  The little poppies that make up the links take a while to do, so getting seven together for the length of the bracelet and earrings was quite a challenge.  In a way, it's a good job it was quiet in the shop this week, despite me listing a few new bag charms.

Apart from that, we've had this stunning Autumn weather, with the colours so fabulous and the sun shining on them like the middle of the summer. The park looked amazing the other day.

 Christmas themes are starting to creep in to my makes:

Isn't he cool?  I added the little daisies because the contrast between his size and theirs just seemed right!

and the stars always remind me of singing children's carols at school.

I've been working on my website too.  All will be revealed soon...

Here's the link to see what others have been making this week.

Have a great week,
Alison x

Handmade Monday: Poppy

If the clocks have gone back, then it must be close to Poppy Day and a really special one this year. I love poppies, but I did struggle to convert my chain maille flower into a poppy, as I couldn't find the right colour in 6mm beads and had to use rondel crystals instead which meant adjusting the weave a bit. Are all us crafters a little bit perfectionist?  I must have undone this a good few times, but I think I'm happy with it now!

A short post this week, but do hop along to http://handmadeharbour.blogspot.co.uk  to find out what other crafty people are doing this weekend.

Alison 

Handmade Monday: Wedding jewellery

This week I've mainly been making some jewellery for me to wear to a family wedding.  I can't reveal the pictures as it's a family secret until next weekend, but I'll just say that my dress is bottle green and the statement necklace involves deep green and purple glass bead chain maille flowers, there's a lapel brooch, a bracelet and some tiny bead earrings. 

I started, and then stopped, making a fascinator, as my OH said it looked like a helicopter propeller, and I have to say, he is always an honest and very good critic and I could see the resemblance myself as soon as he said it.  So no fascinator, or hat, or tiara - just bare hair! The other pieces do meet his approval, but I'm not sure whether I should wear all of them together.  Hopefully, I won't be looking back on the photos in a few years time and wondering what on earth I was thinking!

I thought I'd show you my other wedding pieces in the meantime.  These always sell well in my shops, and it's lovely to have something, in some cases personalised, to celebrate your special day. 

This one has all the elements I think you need for the special day and the marriage afterwards - luck, love, a posh dress, the right shoes, and the key to your beloved's heart.  Have I missed anything?

There are some couples who, dare I say it, need a bit more luck (!), so this one has a four-leafed clover and a guardian angel too. 

This one is personalised with a rustic style stamped charm, and has a traditional pearl for the wedding - and a bird, as the person receiving this one has a particular love of them. I hope they had a lovely day on Friday.

This one was intended for wedding favours, or bridesmaid's gifts with their initials.

I was once the bride, but a long time ago now, and before I made jewellery myself.  I would probably choose pearls if I was a bride now, and this necklace is my favourite piece of wedding jewellery.

It's a metre long, with luscious vintage faux cream pearls and rock crystal cubes.  It would be great for a twenties, flapper style wedding.  The camera doesn't really do it justice.

This one was bought by a lady for her daughter's wedding.  It was lovely and delicate with the coin and potato pearls, and I think a surprise gift.

Which do you like best?  What is your favourite wedding jewellery?  When have you successfully pulled off the fascinator/big hat/no hat/tiara/discreet hair comb look?!  Share with us.

Have a great crafting week.  Here's a link to see what others have been making.

See you soon,
Alison x

Handmade Monday: Right angle weave

It's been a lovely day here - the first day of the year I've been sitting out in the garden to bead which is always a treat. I've been experimenting with bead stitching and had a go at a simple right angle weave (or RAW) bracelet. 

The bracelet is made of crackle glass beads which are half purple and half brown, and the beads pivot on the string so it never quite looks the same twice!  It's actually the second version because rather-clumsy me dropped the bracelet on the floor and smashed quite a few of the delicate glass beads in the process!

Being challenged in not being able to tell left from right, it was quite a task to find a tutorial I could follow. So I'm recording some pictures here of how I constructed the weave, using different coloured beads to record the steps. 

I found that if you remember you are always making a diamond of four beads, that helps in knowing how many beads to add and what direction to weave in.  

The needle here is getting ready to form the next diamond, this time adding two beads...

...and going through two existing beads. 

One more diamond takes me to the end of the row....

Then it's starting again with another three beads. 

Will I ever go beyond basic bead weaving?  Not sure, it's a bit fiddly and I need more sunny weekend days when there's plenty of natural light to work by. Here's hoping!

Look, I've made the dog yawn!  He would rather I was paying him attention than working with beads. 

Here's a link to what other crafty folks have been doing this week: http://handmadeharbour.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/handmade-monday-158.html

 Alison x

New year, new jewellery

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope you all had lovely holidays and are starting the new year with lots of creativity. For myself, I've mostly been making flowers recently - and why not?  They are always cheerful and popular, aren't they. Let me know which you like best. Alison x

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