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

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

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: Chain maille flowers tutorial

What a lovely week it's been since the weather got over itself on Monday.  We had a great walk yesterday at Wixford, followed by a delicious lunch at The Fish pub there.  It's been a good week for sales in the shop too, especially for bag charms, and I've made some progress updating my web site so people can design their own charm bracelets and necklaces.  The wild flower strips in the Coventry parks make you think you're in Italy!

They are actually not sunflowers but loads of these lovely flowers. Do you know what they are called?

They've inspired a tutorial this week.  Partly because I've not done one for a while and partly because I find it so easy for me to forget how to do things these days, it's handy to write them down on my blog. Also, unlike the other chain maille designs I've done, I'm not sure if anyone has done this particular flower design this way before. You usually find there is nothing new in the world of craft, so apologies if I am unwittingly copying!  Here's a daisy version of the watch style bracelet.

You'll need 11 beads and 51 jump rings for this design.  The tutorial is just for the flower - if you want to turn it into a watch style bracelet you'll need a few more jump rings in different sizes and to learn the butterfly chain maille weave.  I can cover that in another tutorial if you want. I'm using 6mm beads and 50 5mm jump rings, and one large 12mm jump ring for the centre. You need a bit of fine gauge wire too (0.4mm is good) and some beading thread. I like to use very strong jump rings, the ones I'm using here are 1.2mm gauge - Fabfifi50 on EBay is my favourite supplier for these.

Start with the 12mm jump ring. Close it and use the fine wire to wrap one of the 6mm beads in the centre, then add 10 of the 5mm jump rings to either side of the bead. 

It looks a bit messy at the moment and the centre bead will be quite loose. Don't worry about that - it will all tighten up soon.  

Next add 10 jump rings to link up in pairs the jump rings you've just put on. 

This is a very easy design but the next bit is where you could do with counting out 10 of the remaining jump rings and making sure you keep stopping to check that you're adding the jump rings on the same side of the flower.  This time you link two of the original jump rings again, but alternate ones from last time so that the next layer of jump rings lays on top of the last one. It's hard to explain, but hopefully clearer in the photo. 

The design will be really loose at the this point, so watch out for naughty jump rings trying to flip over and confuse the pattern!  The next step is to tighten the whole thing up with jump rings linking the last two layers:

Use 10 again and make sure you always link two jump rings but never go through the same jump ring twice. 

Now it's time to add the beads. Put one as a stopper bead on a long length of beading thread and then begin to sew them on, picking up one jump ring from the last layer between each bead as you go:

I find I need to go around with the thread several times to get the flower really rigid. The advantage is that you then don't need to tie or crimp the ends of the beading thread, they can just be cut.  You can see the beading thread a little but I don't think it detracts too much from the flower.

Once finished, you can add further connector jump rings as you need them.

There you go. 

Here's a link to what other crafty folk have been doing this week. 

Alison x

Handmade Monday: Tree of life

This week I've mostly been experimenting with tree of life pendants.  I've not tried them before, but I know they are popular, so thought I'd have a go.

My first attempt with lapis lazuli chips and bronze wire.

Hubby pointed out, after admiring it, that there aren't many bright blue-leafed trees around.  I think that is now it's unique selling point!  I just like blue and brown myself...

Then this one is a little more experimental

I wanted to set the glass beads in a sort of bezel of wire, which kind of half-worked.  The finished piece is very delicate, and I had to add lots of scaffolding at the back to reinforce it.  I need to work on the idea, so watch this space for more mutant trees in weird and wonderful colours!

Just as a PS: A few crafty folk and blog readers have bought this bag charm in the past, and it sold again last night.  I have more of the beads on order, so it will be back, but is just available for pre-order at the moment, with an estimated mid-May delivery. 

Here's a link to see what others have been doing this week for Handmade Monday. 

Alison x

Handmade Monday: Thank you blog readers!

I wanted to thank everyone for the feedback you gave me the other week on the bag charms 'with or without beads' issue.

Most people said they liked the non-beaded flower version best so I've been busy putting together some non-beaded examples and should be able to show you some more soon.  Just to add to the consensus, I had a custom request on Etsy for five bag charms without the beads.  So there we go.  The jury has spoken. 

I guess that the colours and combinations of the beads won't always appeal to everyone, and just having the charms it will be easier to appeal to more people.  So I'll list, sit back and wait for the rush!  (Well, I can live in hope ;-)

In the meantime, here are some new beaded bag charms and a couple of other pieces listed this week - see what you think.

Two little owls with hematite stars and crystals

Deco style dragonfly with glass beads

Filigree peacock with crystals

Steam punk style bi plane earrings

Sari silk and heart charm bracelet

Bird cage charm necklace with pearl

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

Alison x

Handmade Monday: February?

Well, I'm not quite sure what happened to January - it must have passed in a blur of being busy, but here we are early at Valentine's Day so I'm saying an early 'I love you' to my blog as apology for neglecting it for a month!

One lovely bit of news is that Pearl from The Beading Gem's Journal contacted me to ask if it was OK to feature one of the beading tutorials on the site.  As I keep a permanent bookmark on that site and worship at the feet of its bloggers, this made me a happy bunny!  In March I'll be shouting even more about it.

I was lucky that my sales continued into January and folks again voted with their pockets for cord bracelets and bag charms.  These will be the focus of all my shops in the coming months, so naturally I've made more, and found some beautiful charms on the way.  I've also been improving my stamping skills, so expect more personalised and hand stamped items on the way.

Here are some new additions.

These two have already been popular, with a couple of sales on each from Folksy and Etsy. 

I love the love birds on this bag charm - they are a nice antique gold colour too.

This one's an experiment with no beads, just charms.  What do you think?

And a bit of wire work, not yet listed, with bronzite and white and yellow howlite.

Here's a link to see what others have been doing this week for Handmade Monday. 

Alison x

Handmade Monday: Busy, busy, busy flowers

What a busy week!  Record sales in my Folksy shop this week, and the little cord charm bracelets are still proving popular everywhere.  There's not been time to do a tutorial, and at one point in the week, I was literally selling faster than I could make.  Long may it continue, and if I can get to 100 sales on Etsy (I'm at 97 at the moment!) then that will make me a really happy crafty bunny.

Every sale just encourages me in my obsessional, charm-buying habit and this week was no exception.  These beautiful flower connectors arrived in time for me to make and list cord bracelets in pink, coffee brown, red and lilac.

Aren't they pretty?  One has sold today, so later I'll be making a replacement.

I thought they would also make nice bold but light earrings too and combined them with some of my favourite drawbench glass beads in deep blue with red and gold drizzled paint.

Drawbench glass beads, this time in red with green, blue and gold drizzles, also found their way into a flower themed bag charm...

... and into these 'bubble' rings...

...

 ...which were a bit of an experiment but might well get repeated.  I thought they looked quite Christmassy - what do you think?

Talking of which, I have custom orders to do in time for Christmas, and presents to make for the family.  And someone said it was only a couple of weeks away, now that can't be true, can it?!

Here's the link to see what other crafty folk have been up to this week.

Alison

Catching up

New on Folksy - heart charm necklace

This poor little blog has been neglected recently and I keep promising tutorials that don't materialise!  I must be more strict with myself.  I've missed handmade Monday for a couple of weeks too.

Wire woven leaf earrings

Mostly my excuse is restocking my Folksy shop, when I've now got a substantial number of items back for sale and have had a good number of sales.  Etsy is good too at the moment, with a recent big order for bag charms and my lovely wire work dragonfly has flown away to the US too.  Here are a few things I've put in since.  Weaving, charms and wire work continue to be themes.  I went a big paisley crazy with the earrings - they are quite big and bold.

Paisley earrings

Quartz swirl earrings

Vase bag charm

Next week I'll be a better blogger.  Already planning a tutorial, and hoping to show some more metal clay creations.  Honestly!

Handmade Monday: Recent jewellery makes and bag charms, more bag charms!

Poor neglected blog.  Not sure why I haven't been posting, I have been busy making and listing, and have had a few sales on Etsy (and one on Folksy) which is always good for morale. I treated myself to a new gizmo - the 'deluxe' version with five different thicknesses of coiler, so had some fun with coiled wire jewellery. 

Wire coiled gizmo bracelet

This bracelet has double coiled 'beads' with pink crackle agate and smoky quartz cubes.  It's a bit of a big statement piece, but I'm very pleased with it.

Coiled wire earrings

The earrings are a bit more manageable for everyday wear, and they've been nicknamed 'Around the Globe' because the mosaic turquoise stones look just like a map of the world!

Ancient world bag charm

Meanwhile, I've been having an ancient world inspired season.  This bag charm with the lovely yellow and green agate vase bead sold on Etsy for a mother's day present. 

And this charm bracelet has a similar feel about it, I think.  So many of my creations these days look like they could have been dug up - perhaps I should bury a few in the back garden!!

Love knot bracelet

Finished off this love knot bracelet - the matching earrings sold so this is the last in the series.

Flower necklace

And finally, a little flower wire woven with tiny pearls and pale blue sari silk necklace.















Hope you like the creations.  Let me know if you have a favourite.

Here's the link to see what other crafty folk have been making this week.