Second Craft Fair

I'm not quite sure how it got to be May already, it feels like I've not posted here in a long time!

I recently did my second craft fair in my home town, at the Village Fete.  The weather was cold, wet and very windy, and the organisers insisted on holding it outside regardless of the weather.  (What happened to the summer?)

Anyway here I am with my little stall!  I used covered boxes and brandy glasses to give some height to the stall, and kept a little tub of (home made) fudge on one corner (to give away to bored youngters).

I only put out a selection because I didn't want to overcrowd the stall.

Here is a close-up of the brandy glasses:

And also pictures of a couple of items that sold on the day. 

Gold plated angel earrings with crystal head and body:

 

Silver plated chandelier earrings with dark blue faux pearls:

For more design ideas, see the main website  :-)

Second Competition

After the success of the first facebook competition, I thought I would do a second one.   But this time the winners would get to choose which prize they wanted to win by sharing the relevant picture.  There was a choice of 2 designs ... the silver celtic design or the golden champagne twist:

Over 70 people shared at least one of the photos within a 3 hour period.  I was utterly amazed.   I thought it was take a couple of days to hit the target of 300 "likes" but it only took a couple of hours.  I need to make the target more challenging next time  ;-)

Although the silver celtic earrings seemed to be more popular, the winner chose the gold champagne twist.  I hope she likes them as much as I do :-)

For more design ideas visit the main Inner Fyre website.

My First Competition

I decided to try a competition on facebook, to win the pair of earrings shown here.

34 people entered, and given that the whole business venture is still very new, I was really pleased with such an overwhelming response!

There were also some lovely comments posted on the facebook page about these earrings.   This has certainly encouraged me to do more competitions in future.

For more pictures and design ideas, visit the Inner Fyre website.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope everyone had a good festive season.  We saw it as a time for family and had a nice time with my parents and my brother's family.   It was only a couple of weeks ago, but it feels like a lot longer!

Since then I've had a couple of commissioned items recently that I really liked, so I thought I'd share them.  The first is a silver plated bracelet with black Swarovski briolettes.  I think it's pretty, and the lady who bought it said she really enjoyed designing it with me, which is always nice to hear.

The other one I liked a lot was the chandelier earrings in gold and brown.   I think the colours really compliment each other and it's a piece which makes a statement.

I'm in the process of creating a gallery of commissioned and sold items.  Hopefully it will inspire people to get creative with me  :-)

My First Craft Fair

I was recently asked to participate in a charity Craft Fair to raise money for the Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice in Farnham. Although I'd never done a craft fair before, I thought it was about time I did, and how can I refuse when the money raised is for such a good cause?

Everyone made me feel very welcome when I arrived, and there was a steady flow of people visiting all the stalls throughout the day.    I tried to explain to people who visited my stall that because I make the jewellery by hand myself, to just ask if they didn't see something they liked and I'd try to make it for them.  Or if they liked something but would prefer a different colour, I'd be equally happy to go away and make it for them.

One lady really understood this concept, and asked whether I could make some "treble clef" earrings for a music-lover.   I told her I'd never tried to make treble clefs before, but I was happy to give it a shot!  She was really happy with the result (and so was I!):

I was incredibly pleased with the amount of interest my little craft stall received, and happy that the hospice benefitted from it.  The "best seller" of the day, was the set of "Christmas Angel" earrings in silver (pictured).  (Two ladies both wanted the last pair at the same time!):

It was a great atmosphere and I may be inspired to participate in other craft fairs in future ... watch this space :-)

CraftsLink

I recently joined a website I found that displays and promotes hand crafted items.  It was called CraftsLink and it promotes and shares the work of artists from various niches, whether they are in business or doing it as a hobby.  I've since discovered it is a lovely community to be a part of, and it feels like it has potential for even better things to come.  

This morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that my profile on CraftsLink was currently their "Bio of the Week!"  Thank you to everyone involved in CraftsLink for being so supportive of my new venture.  I'm really happy to be a part of this community, and hope there are other crafters out there who are inspired to do the same.

If you want to find out more about CraftsLink, they also have a blog so you can keep up with the latest news.   There is of course also a Facebook CraftsLink community and Twitter too!  Keep up the great work guys  :-)

NCT Raffle Prizes

It's been over a year since I gave birth to my baby girl, and the time has gone so quickly.  The pregnancy itself was abnormally difficult, and there were long periods where I was bedridden and unable to move without help.  But of course, as every parent knows, it was worth it.

The National Childbirth Trust provided me with a lot of support during that difficult time, and I was pleased to be able to give something back to them recently.  I created these two sets of earrings for a charity event they held in Basingstoke, and the earrings ended up being raffle prizes.   I think everyone had a good time!  I then offered identical earrings at a discount on my facebook page, and was surprised at just how quickly both pairs disappeared!

If you like these, you can find them for sale on the Inner Fyre website's charity page.