Where does the time go!

It has been an embarrassingly long stretch since I last posted. Partly that was due to breaking two of my fingers in July (ooops!) but mainly it was due to being terribly distracted due to the kids summer break.

I've had a fun 6 weeks or so (distracting children aside!) with lots of drawing, painting and claying but for now I'll simply leave you with my latest tutorials available on my website.

First up we have this beautifully delicate silver filigree bracelet with rose Swarovski crystal. Deceptively easy to make, its a sure hit with anyone and can be made in any number of colour combinations.



I've also made matching earrings to compliment the above bracelet. For this quick and easy tutorial, click the image.



Finally, this cute and whimsical mermaid necklace is great for summer!



That's all for now - I'll be back with a claying post later in the week!

Stephie

A plethora of pretty things!

Shame 'plethora' is such an ugly sounding word or that title woulda worked better...

For all you jewellery lovers out there I have a tasty feast of eye candy today. Plus some stuff that I made :p

First off - I still haven't sanded & polished the weekend's lentil beads and realistically I can't see it happening before Friday now so here they are in their unfinished form.

First off - the best of the bunch





The beads I made out of the remainder of the red mix




Best of the blue/pink/silver



And the remainder



And these were made out of the scrappy leftovers from the previous 2 mixes (believe it or now, quite a lot of creamy gold went onto the red ones!)




Now... the Scheherazade necklace and earrings set - slightly better picture although blue goldstone is an absolute bitch to photograph. Its a little chunky for my personal taste.



And the first of the necklace connecters to go with the previously made red pendant (not yet finished)



And finally, these turned up today. I almost never use gemstones, partially because I sell Swarovski crystal for a living and so have lots of it lying around and partially because I'm not really an earth-tones kinda gel, however I've been looking for this stuff for ages - its titanium coated druzy (druzy is a generic name for the tiny little quartz crystals that sometimes form within rocks) and the titanium coating means it comes in a whole range of completely non-natural shades :p They're gorgeous. Far better than expected, I was absolutely blown away by this lot.













The druzy came from www.druzygems.com

Imperfection

It may surprise those of you who know me well enough to know that I'm totally anal and incredibly self critical, but I don't actually mind imperfection. I mind screwing up something I shouldn't - but I don't get mad at myself just because something isn't perfect. Everything's a learning curve and learning curves inevitably have fuckups - whats the point of trying things that you know you can do perfectly? where's the challenge? So... I can probably complete a 'perfect' necklace or bracelet using wrapped links and connecters. Because due to the nature of the day job, I do that a lot. I'd therefore get pretty peed off with myself if I screwed up all my wrapped links on a bracelet. But trying something new, half the fun is in seeing yourself improve. And being afraid of trying... well yes you could go through life doing everything perfectly because you never tried anything new but... your comfort zone would get boring very quickly.

Therefore this is an imperfect pendant, and up for rewiring. But the interesting thing about it was that as I was working my way down the weave, I could see the technique improving, and looking at it after completing it, I can see how to redo it so the mistakes start to be corrected. I don't know if it will be perfect on the second try. More likely, it will be closer to perfect on the third.

Pretty isn't perfect. Anyone can make pretty jewellery. There's very few people make perfect jewellery (and I don't count myself among them). One lady that does however, is Eni Oken and it was looking at one of her pendants that resulted in my trying this particular technique (I was orginally going to try crocheting). The pendant is here and check out her gallery as well - she's amazing - at the very top of her area. She also has a lot of tutorials. I've occasionally been tempted to buy the whole pack but I'm very much a figure-it-out brain and following tutorials seems like... cheating. Plus I'm spatially strong enough to be able to see how things are put together most of the time. Stupid, but it seems only a step away from all those jewellery people who only ever complete set projects and therefore never develop jewellery craft into jewellery art. Which is absolutely fine as a hobbyist - making magazine-published projects for yourself and presents for your family can be satisfying, but if you're going to aim to be a professional then originality is needed. Design and figuring out is important to me.

Imperfect Pendant



...two hours later...

OK second attempt. Still not even remotely approaching perfect - but significantly better than try #1

It was going reasonably well. So I added a bead. A reasonably adventurous choice of bead for the technique. Which screwed it up more than it otherwise would have been. Other than that, I changed from working with one really long piece of wire, to separate pieces for each 'row' (you can see the ends sticking out - I didn't tuck them in properly when I wrapped them around the beads as I expected to be undoing it again). And consciously remembered that wire loves curling. Its its natural state - no need to fight it.

For attempt three I'm going to take that slightly further I think and coil each piece around a pen to match the number of arcs in each row. Although later, because I'm getting tired.



...4 hours later... after a nap

OK - I'm actually reasonably happy with it now. There is still some slight problems but they should be fixable without restringing.



And perception of size works better on a bust - it's about 2 inches top to bottom. Yes that's my work bench, yes I'm messy. So sue me :p



The mesh size I used is quite a bit bigger than is usual for this technique which I think makes it harder to get perfect - each section has longer pieces to develop kinks! Its more usually seen as a cabochon bezel wrap with very tiny arcs/swags/whatever you call the graceful curves!

An OhShitMoment

Below is a necklace I just completed. It already got restrung once because I didn't like the way it was turning out. So I finally finished it, crimped and attached clasp, trimmed the fireline its strung on... and realised there's an excess stardust bead at one end that isn't on the other end. So it needs restringing. Again.

An ohshitmoment (actually my standard exclamation of dismayed frustration is somewhat more... pithy than that... but perhaps somewhat offensive so I shan't repeat it here).

It's called Sheherazade. I don't even know if I've spelled that correctly, but she was the teller of the 1001 Arabian Night's tales and a necklace in predominantly navy with a million tiny sparkles seemed appropriate - the very dark blue beads are starstone (or blue goldstone) which shimmers with a zillion tiny twinkling stars. The rest is sterling and Swarovski crystal.

And if I'm honest I haven't managed to get the style as I want it. I'll try some different variations in other colours and beads but I want to test it with a few different methods including different stringing material, a double drop, and wire meshed 'gaps'.

Its only a point & click snap I'm afraid so not my best. Will post a better one when I get the darn thing to stay strung!

Its Springtime!

Wow! I realised at lunchtime that its over a week since I'd left the house. Which is never a good sign and one of the risks of working from home (especially as I don't have a car at the minute!) So I went for a walk along the river and back for half an hour and discovered it's spring! Being the UK though, that doesn't mean that there won't be howling blizzards next week, but its nice while its here! My Tree Stump with Character has developed leafy frondage growing from it's top, and there's little yellow flowers growing along the riverbank - I don't know what they are, those little wild flowers that are somewhere between a daisy and a dandilion. And this sounds weird, but they were oddly accented in a very peculiar suburban-beauty kinda way by a trolly with a bright yellow handle that had been dumped in the river. Not that I think we're suburban. We're more subrural - not quite rural but not urban enough to be suburan! Plus all the trees are sprouting leaf buds and the birds are being busily frenzied with numerous nests-in-progress. And there was a tiny patch of purple crocuses with saffron centres by the river which looked wonderfully spring like. I didn't see a kingfisher though (we do have kingfishers along the river but I've only spotted them a handful of times).

The weekend was tiring but very productive. On Saturday we completely swapped the stock with the studio which meant shifting all the stock and shelving out of here and bringing all the random studio furniture into this room. I actually started on friday night while the boys, Geoff and Jan were gaming. I was decidedly wrecked after but it was so worth it - this room looks a million times better AND I now have all my crafty stuff to hand in the room I spend the most time in. And on Sunday we cleared out the computer and all Jay's stuff from the library and put it in his bedroom. So the library is now no longer infested with the paraphenalia and litter of 13 year olds AND we can fit al least another couple of book cases in.

This is what the office looked like before we shifted everything (I forgot to take a proper pic but you can get the general idea from the background behind Darren - floor to ceiling in blue shelves and boxes with our computer desks at the end of the room the picture was taked from


And this is what it looks like now - my beading table and desk to the left, more beading stuff, books and magazines on the shelves at the back, my photography setup next to that and random wall unit that had to go somewhere by the door. I'm standing my my desk, the window is behind me and Geoffs desk is opposite mine.



I did take some time to plan out a necklace which is still sitting unmade in my bead tray as I realised I didn't actually have any 18ga GF wire in and 22 just won't do! So as soon as thats in I'll finish that necklace. I also finished up a pair of earrings which I think of as lotus blossom drops even though they look nothing like lotus blossoms. They're made with a bead cap that has been beaded although I think I need to change the design slightly, either to simply a beaded ring sitting below the cap, or a beaded cap with 3mm pearls rather than 4mm. They're still pretty, but slightly imperfectly engineered.



I also photographed my springtime bracelet which I love. Peridot and Light Rose always seem super-springlike and the red adds a bit of contrast with silver butterflies and rose beads to add silvery sparkle and a GORGEOUS rose shaped box clasp that I've just got in stock.





So I'm feeling quite happy despite feeling slightly neglected - Jan was here Friday and Saturday night so the boys were all gaming, and on Sunday evening, Jan, Geoff and Darren went out to meet with some similarly geeky friends before coming back and erm... gaming more. I did steal Geoff away for an episode of SG1 before bed though. And tonight, Geoff, Darren and Jan were supposed to be going out but Jan cancelled so I get my husband to myself - yippee!

Mrs Clarke's office, how may I help?

I appear to have developed a new role in life as the personal secretary of Mrs Clarke. Today I took a returned call after Mrs Clarke left a message on some company's answerphone, and dealt with her delivery company. This has been going on for two weeks, Mrs Clarke gets a LOT of phone calls and deliveries. She also saves or has a mortgage with Northern Rock.

Trouble is, I have no freakin' CLUE who Mrs Clarke is.

I am assuming she's a dimwit of the highest order due to her not only getting her own number wrong (forgivable, especially if BT are involved) but you'd think after TWO WEEKS she'd have a) clicked that no-one ever returns her calls and b) that SOMEONE in her personal circle would have mentioned it to her.

Its getting mildly irritating. Especially as I work from home and get her blinkin phone calls all day long.

But other than that life is.... tentatively OK. After a couple of bitch-from-hell PMT days this week I appear to be back to what passes as normality in my quirky little world. Work is happening. Its mainly counting beads and listing them so deadly dull, but it is getting done and I'm staying motivated by keeping up my research on magazine submissions. I figure, if I JUST manage to get everything outstanding listed then all I'll have to do work-wise is restocks and packing so I'll be able to spend a lot more time working on designed-for-publication jewellery, and will have the time to keep it all organised and efficient - there'd be nothing worse than having no clue what had been submitted to where and what was free to be submitted etc. Well there are plenty of worse things, but within the confines of my current ambitions its pretty bad!

I did have on my list for February 'hunt down submission guidelines for all relevant magazines' however the lovely Cyndi from jewelleryandbeading.com blogged the entire list this morning, missing off only Bead Magazine which is a UK publication and therefore understandable (I also already have their submission guidelines bookmarked).

So I'm getting quite excited. I'm looking forward to the day I can come on here and say 'one of my necklaces is going to be in xxx magazine!' with happy bounciness and major overexcitement. I don't of course, consider that I'll spend a lifetime being perpetually turned down. I'm too confident/arrogant for that and honestly, what's the point of submitting if you expect to fail? Plus I know I'm good at design (it surprises me that some people can't do it, it's the easiest thing in the world) and if I'm actually trying my writing is OK as well (for years I wanted to be a journalist - I seriously kicked ass in GCSE and A Level English with 90%+ overall scores... then went and did a degree in mainy IT. How bizarre... all I can say is that I was 18, had just discovered the very new Internet (as far as public use went) and I was TOTALLY overwhelmed and enthused by the possibilities this geeky little toy offered the world. Turns out I was right ;-). Saying that for years before that I wanted to be a vet. And Geoff still wants to be an astronaut...

So thats how I'm staying motivated amidst millions of uncounted beads. Maybe not millions. But I'd say certainly in excess of a couple of hundred thousand.

Jewellery Tutorial - Rainbow Crystal Bracelet

Jewellery Tutorial - Making a Rainbow Crystal Bracelet.

Difficulty level: Level 2 - Quick & Easy (For explanation of ratings please see bottom of this guide)
Time: 60 minutes

This beautiful rainbow bracelet made from Swarovski crystal and sterling silver is a super-sparkly stunner! Works well in any colour scheme so if rainbows aren't your thing, try it in a different colour combination. With all my instructions, I'm simply describing how I do it. There may be other techniques and you may find that another suits you better - there's usually no right or wrong method, only how comfortable you are using it.

This tutorial assumes that you know how to use crimp beads, jump rings and are able to close clamshells - all easy :-)

Sparkly Rainbow Bracelet.

What you will need

I use the following which made up an 8 inch bracelet. 4 beads and 1 spacer is equal to half an inch so to shorten or extend just adjust the number of beads and spacers you use!

52 x 6mm Swarovksi Crystal Bicone Beads - 4 of each colour
13 x 2 String Spacers (I used my D96 Spacers )
4 x 3mm Stardust Sparkle Beads
2 x Clamshell with Loop
2x 2mm Crimp Beads
24 Inches Fireline (or the stringing material of your choice)
2 x 5mm Heavy Jump Rings
1 x Lobster Clasp


I also needed the following basic jewellers tools:
Wire cutters
Flat pliers (I used two pairs - I prefer two to open and close jump rings)
Chain nose pliers

Making Your Bracelet

Before starting, I find it useful to arrange the beads and spacers loose on a tabletop so I can see which beads go in which order. It makes it nice and easy when it comes to stringing the beads.

Slide a crimp bead onto your stringing material and crimp flat at at the half way point with flat nose pliers.

Thread both ends of the string down though the clamshell and through the hole until the crimp bead prevents you from pulling further. Close your clamshell with your pliers.



Thread a stardust bead onto each string and take them as close to the clamshell as you can. Then start stringing your beads and spacers (with a string going through each side of the spacers)



Continue stringing until all the beads and spacers are in place. Add the final two stardust beads.

Thread the two ends through the clamshell from the bottom (so through the hole in the bottom, up through the 'shell' part).

Slide a crimp bead onto one string down into the clamshell. Don't crimp it.

Tie the two strings together using an overhand knot (like the knot you use to tie shoelaces, before you do the looped bits!). You want the knot to close over the crimp bead while keeping the bottom of the clamshell as close to the stardust beads as possible - the tension of the beaded string is really important - too little and your beads will slide around leaving ugly gaps. I use a spare bit of wire to help push the crimp right down while I'm tying. (I've shown the wire in the picture - the hand I'd be holding it with is, of course, holding the camera instead!)



Repeat this overhand knot two more times, keeping the bead string tense. If you wish, you can use chain nose pliers or tweezers to crimp your crimp bead at this point (although it's not neccessary). I dab the knot with the tinyest bit of clear nail polish to help fix it before trimming away the excess line with my wire cutters and closing the clamshell.

Fit a jump ring through the loop on one clamshell, and a jump ring attached to a lobster clasp through the loop on the other clamshell.

Note from the Author

I hope you found this useful. I'm writing new guides all the time so don't forget watch out for more tutorials.

Many thanks and happy crafting!

Explanation of Difficulty Levels

I rate my designs by four difficulty levels for non-soldering or sawing jewellery making. They're rated by a number of factors including time taken to make, whether you need to make some of your own components and whether they need basic tools or 'specialist' tools.

1. Beginner - Anyone should be able to manage this, even if you've never held a pair of jewellery pliers in your life.
2. Quick & Easy - Fast project, basic techniques only. Should be confident with pliers, cutters, jump rings, basic beaded links - anything else will be explained in easy steps.
3. Needs confidence - Longer project that includes some trickier elements including but not limited to using more complex wire manipulation (e.g. making wire bails, using a jig or pliers to make wire components) and more time consuming projects that involve lots and lots of small steps.
4. Tricky - Projects for the terminally insane. Whether I'll put anything here is up in the air. The vast majority of what I make is 2 or 3 - simply because I don't have the patience for long projects

Copyright Notice

I am happy for designs to be copied where I've given instructions to do so :o) (i.e. this guide!). However if you're producing for commercial use (i.e. resale) credit for the design (e.g. 'A Stephie Hall design'), and a link to my website would be appreciated.

Text and pictures may not be reused without my express permission.

A kick up the bum!

I've spent most of the last few days (while conscious anyway, I have a cold and I have a tendancy to sleep ridiculous amounts when I'm sick) sitting being very aimless and thinking of all the things I should be doing and haven't, and mentally adding them to an as-yet unwritten list for some unspecified 'tomorrow'.

So I still haven't....

• Finished listing the beads on my desk to my eBay shop (get a move on woman, there are only 6 styles and some chain left to do)
• Tidied my office
• Put away all the new storage boxes into useful places where they can be used to STORE
• Put away all the stuff that I HAVE listed and that is now selling and isn't where its supposed to be when it comes to packing
• Done any art 'lessons' of any variety
• Made any jewellery.
• Not even managed the tinyest hint of writing a tutorial. Stupid thing is I know exactly which project I want to write up - I just haven't done it
• Done anything on my 'book'. OK its not actually a book, its writing for personal gratification and the satisfaction of curiousity for interested parties, but it still needs doing!
  
• Finished my jewellery website. All it needs is a few pictures and a link changing. Not rocket science.
• Read this months jewellery magazines. I have a Simply Beads, an Art Jewelry and a Bead & Button that I've done nothing more than quickly flick through.
  
• Gone through all the starred stuff in google reader and acted on those which require action

I could go on... but its getting silly.
Trouble is I rely HUGELY on Geoff to help keep me focused. I am not the most self disciplined of people. Not that HE disciplines me (well not at work anyway *grins* ...he can be rath... oh OK, TMI, I'll shut up... ) but he's pretty good at getting me to focus myself. I'm great with ideas, conceptualisation, innovation, ingenuity and occasional flashes of brilliance. I'm not so good at daily grafting and staying focused. Neither is Geoff of course, but he's pretty good at keeping me on track. And now he's back at work full time, I don't have that help here when I need it.

So focus, Stephie. Focus!

Just half an hour to go....

...then I can SLEEP! The girls have been... tiring in the extreme today. Every time I've left the room to try and do anything their have been wails of Auntie Stephhhhhh I want a drink, auntie Stephhhhhh I want a sandwich, Auntie Stephhhhhhh, I need the toilet ad infinitum... so I'm kind of wrecked and peed off in the extreme now.

Which is a shame because I suspect if the girls hadn't been here I would have had a really rather creative day. I got all fired up last night after realising the 2008 Bead & Button Bead Dreams competition was now open. Not that that I expect to even register as more than an entry fee but one has to start somewhere and get in the habit of submitting (and that somewhere is erm... one of the biggest beading jewellery competitions in the world...) and I've had all manner of sparkling entry possibilities whirling through my head and no time to work on the detail. I reckon work productivity would have featured as well, I have soooo many things at the minute that I need to model in the form of sparkly jewellery and no time to make anything up.

I also found an RSS reader that I LIKE in the form of Google Reader. Perhaps I haven't really looked very hard before but no description of a free RSS reader ever sounded like exactly what I wanted. Google reader IS. Its perfect and I love it and now all those zillions of RSS feeds I click subscribe on and promptly forget about are all nicely displayed as new items for me to read on my browser homepage. I truly am in love.

So I'm feeling artistic, productive and completely and totally frustrated at my complete inability to act upon it due to stress-inducing babies of the niece variety. Made slightly more annoying because I strongly suspect that Phil could have picked them up this morning and taken them into their nursery for the day. But Phil has vanished off the face of the earth. Plus its Georgie's birthday TOMORROW and I still haven't finished her blinkin present (eeep!... its been in-the-planning-stages for weeks!)

The good news is that, assuming Phil actually materialilses into some sort of solid and useful form, rather than a rumoured existence, the girls WILL be going home tonight and WILL be going to their school tomorrow. Then we need to not only repair the damage 3 days of small girls does to a house, but completely clean and hoover it so my asthmatic mother doesn't die when we leave her babysitting (we're off to have birthday drinkies with Andy tomorrow night and will be gone from tomorrow lunchtime to sometime Saturday afternoon).

And ~yay~ typing has cut down my time-to-go to just 15 minutes till Geoff gets home. ~does a happy dance~. And I don't think the girls are screaming... which could be a bad sign but I'm hoping one or both has fallen asleep, they did at this time yesterday.

Making my life better - creativity

"I want to find a balance between money making, personal fulfillment and my responsibilities as a wife and mother. I want to make my husband and children happier while not feeling it takes away from the money or personal side of my life."

That was written amidst some notes but probably sums up what I'm aiming for overall.

With my job, and business development plans, creative wellbeing is intrinsically tied to work. So this post is about creativity and work as two separate but interrelated topics. I'll have a separate one about money and work although again, I have a fairly holistic approach. How could work, money, creativity, relationships, health and fitness not be interlinked? They're all about the common theme of me and my sense of happiness and fulfillment.
I want to work through the points 2 and 3 in Steven Aitchison's article 'Change Your Life Part 1: Grab Your Balls'

[Taken from his post with my answers in red:]

Most people don’t know what they really want to do with their
working life. Try the following exercise:

Write down 7 things you love to do: Read, Shop, Spend time with friends, Draw, Play with Beads, Write, Receive praise

Write down your 7 best talents (be honest and don’t be shy): Design, Analysis, Seeing how things (physical or abstract concepts) work, Jewellery making, writing, ability to learn quickly, sales, animal interpretation

Write down 7 jobs you’d love to do: Jeweller, Artist, Singer, Entrepreneur, Writer (non fiction), Wildlife photographer, erm... I'm stuck

Write down 7 things other people say you’re good at: Jewellery making, art & design, making people feel better, self analysis, sales, techy web stuff, mind reading (its a combination of empathy, logic and interpretation of body language, I do it unconsciously).

Write down 7 courses you would take [cut - specified university but I think thats too limiting. Not everyone wants to learn something purely academic - personally I've done quite enough academia to know I'm damn clever, now I wanna have fun!] if you had the chance: Silversmithing, salsa classes, drama, enamelling, fantasy watercolour painting, the psychology of mental illness, circus skills

After you have down this look at all the things you’ve
written and try and find a common theme. It might be teaching, it might be
learning, it might be driving just try and find the theme.

Art, design, performance, sales. I want to be good at my arts, and I want to achieve recognition and financial recompense for them.

3. If someone gave me a million pounds

If someone gave you a million pounds to change careers what
career would you choose?

I'd take the opportunity to learn to become a bench jeweller, opal cutter and artist, and to develop a name writing about my chosen arts. All three skills would require learning and practise.

[end article text]

To an extent I know what I want to be, what I want to do and how I need to change things to get there - but I think everyone knows that about themselves really, whats important is working out the specifics.

• I want to develop as an artist.
• I want the development of my websites, galleries and tutorials to drive money in through the business rather than the sales side being the focus and everything else being an afterthought 'when I have time' - switching those focuses is perfectly possible but requires planning and determination.
• I want to spend less time on the work that I dislike to free up more time for the artistic side.
• I want to get my websites up,
• I want to be a good artist,
• I want to be beautiful and I want to keep in touch with the things I enjoy.
• I want to stop procrastinating with things that mean nothing and result in me getting frustrated,

I can see all the answers are there, everything I need to change my entire life focus and I can see what's stopping me from reaching it. I need to work out how to get past those obstacles, not just now but as an ongoing thing.

So - back to the focus. Creativity is a wonderful thing and I have the good fortune to be passably good at most things I try. I also learn extremely quickly. But I do have a tendancy to be impatient and fickle. My interests can change quickly and I'm not very good at working myself through passably good and onto excellence. I'm also quite poor at doing things that require a degree of setting up - because its not instant gratification and inevitably requires the drudge work afterwards of clearning up. My strongest artistic skills are cold jewellery making, web design and written communiation - because they're the ones I've been doing the longest. They're also the ones that currently contribute to my income. I'd like to add traditional art, cgi art, bench jeweller, opal cutter, and specifically specialist jewellery making writer to that skill set that makes money. Of those four extra things, writing is the only one I currently do so it stays as its essential to my business plans. The others are all new skills that will require development over a period of time. As my current interest is traditional art (and by traditional I mean pencils, pastels and paints), that stays too. Bench jewellery and opal cutting both require additional expenditure and learning from scratch so they can be pus aside for later development. CGI art I was reasonably good at until I found a reason to stop doing it, and realistically I no longer have a computer capable of dealing with modelling software. So it stays on the shelf as well.

Creativity requires regular practise - the more you do it, the better you get. Simple and obvious but easy to overlook. Some creative things are essential to my job. Jewellery making sells my beads and components by demonstrating their potential use. Writing enables me to sell my products through clear use of words. Web design enables me to create welcoming and easy to use environments in which to shop. My fledgling tutorials project is aimed at reaching a wider jewellery-making audience to buy my products (I write the tutorials using the ebay guides feature. Whether you love it or hate it, ebay has great search engine ranking). But they all need developing. I have a jewellery gallery within my ebay shop aimed at providing design ideas but it doesn't get updated anywhere near as often as it should. I should be producing a tutorial a week, and I've only managed two since the conception of the project several months ago. Both finished jewellery and jewellery making sales websites are still in their embryonic stage. I have plans to start writing for magazines, again with the aim of promoting myself and my products to a wider audience (but need the websites finished first, realistically - eBay is a problematic venue). And I have all manner of plans for raising my internet profile to much higher levels (again, I kind of need the websites finished first). Artistically, I see no particular reason that I couldnt become a good enough artist to be saleable, but more importantly, its something I enjoy doing for ME. I don't want to spend every waking moment obsessed with whether what I'm doing makes a profit.

I believe that doing (I used 'practising' first but that suggests 'not for real' which is misleading) those artistic skills, regularly and consistantly will automatically result in a greater income. As above, I want to use my creativity to drive sales to the more mundane side of my business, by creating a reputable, well regarded presence within my fields, rather than my focus being entirely on the mundane side with anything creative being an afterthought. So my products are listed, sold and restocked with very little direct input while traffic comes from making jewellery, writing about design ideas, tutorials, magazine features etc which is a major shift from where I am now where all of my sales come through ebay and I'm constantly revising listings, and adding new products (and getting very bored and frustrated with it, and angry at myself for being bored with it).

So on a regular basis I aim to:

• Draw or paint
• Make Jewellery
• Write online tutorials for publishing on both my websites and ebay
• Write tutorials aimed at specific magazines
• Spend some time every week looking at promoting my web presence through the use of online communities (various methods from writing book reviews to offering advise on jewellery making forums)

I should be spending some time, every day, at a creative activity that I enjoy.

To do this I need to:

• Get my house in order - finish my websites and make sure my stock is all listed
• Energise myself - mental energy is related to physical energy and that is related to diet and exercise
• Create a calm environment - I hate mess and disorganisation (bit stupid really given that I'm one of the messiest people I know) - schedule in regular housework.
• Develop a balanced life schedule. I don't mean to the exclusion of spontaneity but I dont want to be sitting round going arghhh I don't know what to do either. I'm at my best when I'm structured and busy and I operate well with lists.
• Have welcoming artistic environments. My bead room is getting better, it feels a bit more homey now and Geoff shifted his CCG cards off my desk in there. My stock will be moving out of the office at some point in spring (to new premises - they're currently being built) at which point the office  can be optimised towards Geoff and I doing things we enjoy. Drawing is OK at my desk, painting really isn't.

My main problem here is balance and scheduling and organsation and I want help and suggestions with this.

hmmmm artistic blank

I haven't been doing a whole lot of arty crafts stuff of late. Or rather I have but my entire time has been spent trying to master the drawing of realistic fur, which I've yet to accomplish. Jewellery making hasn't been happening at the minute simply because its too late to really get things hallmarked and on sale for Christmas so I've been concentrating on other things. I've also been weirdly obsessed with trying to get my house clean which I blame ENTIRELY on my sister. I ALWAYS get her pre-birth nesting instincts. Its so unfair.

Georgie did send my an amazon voucher for my birthday/christmas which I promptly spent on some artsy fairy books (and a terry brooks novel). Haven't arrived yet but amazon assure me they've been dispatched. And as I detailed in previous post I've been thinking LOTS about ways to develop the business in a way that will keep me interested. And I've done most of the geoff & older kids & family christmas shopping now. Only really my mother and some ancient relatives who need frames for their cam & finn school photos we had done to sort. Geoff will do cam & finns shopping.

I did finally get around to photographing my Vintage Lace necklace. Although it looks better 'in person'. I need to work on my necklace photography skills. Tiny things - no problem. Anything bigger than a bracelet and I start to struggle.

I can't remember if I already posted a picture but here it is.

Something is missing....?

I have a vague feeling that I've missed something I've finished recently when doing these photos. I KNOW I forgot to photo my Vintage Lace (or possibly Rhapsody in Lace) necklace - the cake part of my Coffee & Cake sets but I'm sure there's something else missing. No clue what though.

Either way. I don't usually make earrings as anything but an afterthought - I'll make them up to go with a necklace or bracelet, but this week I felt like making some relatively quick projects and opted for earrings in 9k gold (partially because I needed to make up the numbers for hallmarking - I only had a couple of pieces in gold and given that I have to pay for a minimum of 10 IIRC, I may as well send that many in for hallmarking)

Today however I have earrings to show you. And the Coffee part of my Coffee & Cake necklaces

Hoop earrings made with 9k gold wire, Swarovski bicones in Capri Blue and Swarovski crystal pearls in Gold Pearl.

More hoop earrings in 9k gold wire with assorted colour Swarovski bicones. Kind of dreamcatchery. Wish I had some little gold feathers to hang off the bottom.

Emeralds and golden shadow Swarovski crystal cluster earrings with 9k gold wire. The spirals at the bottom are a direct result of my being unable to get hold of headpins at a remotely sensible price in 9k. Mainly I just wanted to play with green and gold. I like the colour combination.

Long chain drop earrings in fire colour crystals and 9k gold. I adore these (and am halfway through making a matching bracelet - unfortunately I forgot that I'd sent the relevant 8mm Swarovski round faceted fire opal beads to my mums for counting).

Cute butterfly earrings. I wanted to see if I could do exact replicas/matches in bent wire so I did the wing shapes on these and added rose and 9k stardust beads and light rose Swarovski butterflies.

And the coffee part of my coffee and cake necklace and is called Autumn Cascade. This is - as my pal Andy would put it - an blatant exercise in fanwank. Not that I'd use such a crude term, but it WAS inspired by a very beautiful character for which the costume dept managed a perfect and meticulous detail to her jewellery at all times. Prize if you can guess the character :p. Hint - TV.

I have - finally - finished the cake section which is probably called Vintage Lace but potentially Rhapsody in Lace. Feel free to vote :p You can also vote for 'naming your jewellery is the most stupidly pretentious thing I've heard in a long time' if you must. Be nice about it though, I appear to be somewhat oversensitive at the moment.

Almost...

Well I managed the hour of listing in my ebay shop yesterday. Then did an arrghhh I don't want to be here any more and spent large parts of the rest of the day sleeping or moping. But by 2am my drive had returned and I spent 5 hours or so making my sister's birthday pressie. With barely a bent bit of wire in sight (note its not that bent wire is WRONG. Its that its my method of choice for 90% of what I make. So occasionally producing something none-bent-wirey is cool)

Necklace, bracelet and earrings set. I'm particularly pleased with the bracelet - I don't generally do beaded strung bracelets and I'm pleased with the result. They're made with a mixture of Swarovski crystals and glass seed beads from my friend Georgie at madcowbeads.

hmmm

OK... as a jewellery maker, I don't do chunky, I don't do asymmetry, I don't do rectangles and I don't do wire wrapping. Which could be why this piece is confounding my usual philosphy of 'part of being good is knowing when you're not'. I don't know if I like this. I don't know if its any good. I think it stops just short of chaotic mess - but am not 100% certain.
I do like that its very tactile - its heavy and a mix of sterling wire, smooth glass beads and faceted Swarovski crystal beads and its also quite motion-y - there's slight movement in the wrapped beads and a tremulous jiggle to the beaded rings on the botttom (they look fine when its hung by the way - not so good flat which is how the photos were taken).

So am posting it here. Not that anyone reads this journal other than my OH who is quite capable of commenting when I wave it under his nose (anyone else is more than welcome to comment - but most of you who are likely to see this ain't going to have any interest!). I've done it on two separate chains. And again, am not sure which I prefer. I'm leaning towards the crystal linked chain.


So... Attempt Number 1 at a framed wire wrap type pendant. My wire wrapping experience before this was limited to wigjig components and wrapped loops so there's plenty of scope for improvement!

Do-Over

I suppose I'd better do a proper introduction post. I almost feel like I'm starting over with this journal - realistically, opal work is not something I have the time or the equipment to do at present, so for the time being it's being shelved.

I’m Steph Hall, 30-something years old and I made my first piece of real jewellery when I was 17. I so wish someone had introduced me earlier! The short bout of metal work we did in school would have been so much more interesting if it had been jewellery focused and 3 years of secondary school art classes would have been far less excruciating if someone had explained you don’t need to be able to draw to be an artist. Because I can’t draw for toffee. I totally suck. I still enjoy it on occasion but my 12 year old son is significantly more talented than I!

!Artist.... Am I pretentious? Of course I am. I call my work 'art', my workshop a 'studio' and see 'inspiration' everywhere :p I'll get around to putting up a 'gallery' soon to 'showcase' my 'portfolio' as well. I've even got my very own fashionable mental illness to explain away my 'eccenticities'*. Just be thankful I'm not churning out crap poetry anymore!

*As an aside I did try getting my husband and best friend to refer my wierdness as 'endearingly quirky'. Their responses were 'Nucking Futs is more like it' and 'No, you're completely insane' respectively. I love them :o)

Jewellery making first came about because my parents decided their latest get-rich-quick scheme (or at least earn some extra cash scheme!) was to be making jewellery. So armed with plated wire, a pair of round nose pliers and semi-precious beads I set about making jewellery which went into local shops, libraries and such for sale. It stayed interesting for a while but I was significantly ‘handicapped’ by my parents’ cost awareness. If I used a bead too many or tried something a little too ornate it was too expensive to make. Eventually, my mum left and the jewellery making died and it was a good 13 years before I picked up a pair of pliers again.

Can't Paint...

Can't Draw...

Can Sew a Little...

In the interim I’ve flirted with a lot of crafts. I became reasonably good at my style of digital art & modelling, painted (badly!) and wrote a lot of poor short stories and poetry. I’ve also done a reasonable amount of sewing. For a while I had a stepdaughter for whom I enjoyed making pretty-girly dresses (I had two sons then – I’ve since had two more so there’s a lack of girlyness in our home!). I’ve also done a reasonable amount of costume making for amateur dramatics (I always particularly enjoyed panto and have performed in a number of shows – always with my hands firmly dug into the costume and makeup design as well). I also spent three years designing and selling ballgowns before selling off the business due to a lack of space.

Finding my Mediums
Digital Art	Ballgown Design	Wire Jewellery

So through a very roundabout route, I ended up selling jewellery, beads and jewellery findings for a living. It started when I thought it might be nice to try making jewellery again and I discovered I enjoyed it. I do seem to have ‘caught’ the cost awareness aspect from the parents however instead of limiting myself, I made a business from selling the components needed to make jewellery and have established a lot of wholesale and manufacturing contacts around the world. So I use whatever I feel like using for a piece – I just buy at very low prices in bulk! Its not unusual for me to buy 1000+ identical beads because they gave me an idea for a necklace. I just sell off the excess – which fortunately I’m quite good at - my ebay shop pays the mortgage and the bills so its reasonably important!

Colour is my main motivator. I find inspiration in all manner of things – from art to nature to people but what I see will always be related to the colours I can use in a piece. I’ve zero interest in the very intricate and beautiful art of chain maille – I can appreciate it as an art form but it doesn’t hold the allure of working with colour for me. I frequently look at other artists’ jewellery and sites – not to copy, I’ve never replicated anything in my life – but because their beauty stimulates my creativity – sometimes I look at the same styles as I make, sometimes I’ll browse through sites showcasing the wonderful art of glass beadmaking or polymer clay, or silver & goldsmithing none of which I’ve ever tried and all of which I’d love to be able to do and I do of coursed have my own favourite artists whose work I will never tire of looking at. Alas, I’ve had to put measures into place to severely restrict myself – I’m quite bad for getting worked up about something new, spending way too much money on it and finding myself without the time to work at it.

Jewellery is exciting. There are so many methods and techniques that I’ll never get through them all, and if I start to even consider it my mind takes off on wild flights through my imagination so I do try and keep myself grounded to one or two things at a time simply because I’d never get anything done otherwise!


And the point of this... *shrugs* do blogs need a point? Its a visual and literal diary & scrapbook of my play-time :p

Sadly neglected

I do try not to completely ignore this space... but looking at the dates it seems I erm... did. Financial meltdown and pneumonia (in August. I mean really.... who gets pneumonia in August?) means that I've been desperately trying to keep enough money coming in to live on. Not helped by the tax credits office being total incompetant idiots.

Anyhoo... I promised pictures and pictures there will be. Nothing very inspiring but the studio (yes, i did give it a pretentious name!) is looking much more studio-ish - in my own, chaotic fashion. No longer a child infested bombsite anyway. More a bead-infested bombsite.

Plus opal. Not that rough opal is particularly inspiring in photo (its actually very inspiring if you're sitting handling it. But maybe I'm just odd). But I've amassed quite a collection of Stuff to Play With, I just need a shiny expensive machine with which to play. True I could go buy something to do the job for considerably less than my shiny toy but I'll just get frustrated I think and want to upgrade. So I might as well do it properly the first time.

In the meantime I took some normal work deliveries that I've been playing with. I'm in love with gold filled findings and I think its high time the UK craft making population realised their value. So its my current mission to make them do so, along with pushing gold foil beads. And being a seller of such treasures I do of course need to demonstrate their application. So I've been making some shiny things.

These were made with gold fill chain, beads and gold foil beads.










Soooo pretty! Must get round to selling them. And because my core market is sterling silver, I've added some more sterling jewellery to my designs, made with a combination of Swarovski crystal and glass beads (coz I've just added glass beads to my shop). Must get around to doing my ebay designs gallery.





And finally... Christmas is coming! And a little logical thought says that kids jewellery is the perfect line. Quick, easy, pretty and the little horrors get more money spent on them than any other section of society. So I've been knocking together a range of kids jewellery using little ceramic beads, sterling silver and Swarovski crystal - couple of example pieces below.





So I haven't been completely unproductive whilst ignoring my blog. Just concentrating on things that will make me immediate cash!