Mosaic Mania!

Despite the ankle surgery and spending most of my time presently lying on my bed I have managed to get up for a few things...

I've had a few custom orders in the past few days - one from a lady who ordered a pendant from me and as soon as it arrived ordered another one! That's got to be a compliment and a half, right? I can't show a picture of it yet as she ordered it as a present but her feedback was lovely:

"I am thrilled to bits with the necklace, it is simply beautful. Could you possibly make another one as quickly?"

So I've spent a fair amount of time in the garage over the past week making some mosaics pendants. What do you think of my new designs?

Of course I haven't just restricted myself to pendants... I've made a few new rings and a pair of cufflinks as well:

And the good news is that the physical bricks and mortar shop up in Highgate has sold a few of my pendants too so I'm going to have to restock there as well! Here are two of the pendants I'll be sending up to them later on this week (the others aren't quite finished yet...)

I've also been having requests from all sorts of people in the past few weeks about making mosaic earrings. I have to say I've been a bit dubious about them as part of me thinks they'd just be too heavy. But I've been convinced to give them a go. I haven't actually made them up into earrings as yet (I'm going to need to go into a craft shop to buy the fittings in order to do that first) but there are designs for 2 pairs ready to put together properly and see what they're like...

So it's all go on the mosaic front! So much so in fact that I need to put in some orders for new stock! Hmm... best get on with that. I have ambitions of moving onto bigger and better places this year and I'm going to need a fair amount of stock ready by August at this rate. Off I go to check out my suppliers...!

A craft-astic weekend

Well I've been very lapse in the blog posts recently but that is definitely because Trouble HQ has been super busy the past few weeks. As you may have noticed I've been posting up about different fairs that I've been at so thought I should give you a bit of a run down on last weekend's fairs.

I was at Tootopia Festival down in Tooting this weekend. It was a two day event although there were slightly different vendors on the different days. It was lovely to see Emma from Emma Barrett Designs there - she is a lovely crafter who I enjoy chatting with and it's always great to see her. Emma works wonders with beads and also makes the most beautiful bunting possible.

Click on the picture to go to Emma's website

I also saw the lovely Mic from Dagaz Designs who was selling her vintage jewellery and designs. We've bumped into each other a few times and there was a lot of laughter for the time that we were sat opposite each other... mostly due to my clumsiness I think but I'd like to think it was more to do with bubbly personalities...

Click on the picture to go to Dagaz Design's Etsy store 

And I met Nikki of Nikki Stark Jewellery who was absolutely lovely and makes some gorgeous silver and gold items. I was really impressed with her work and also the fact that she's just been featured in Vogue! Wow!!!

It was an interesting (and tiring!) weekend. The weather was beautiful which kept lots of potential customers outside in the sun instead of in the Tooting Tram and Social with us, but even so it was quite a productive weekend, and it's always great meeting new people, chatting with people about your work and seeing what people are interested in. I got a lot of enquiries about my quilts although I didn't actually have any orders. I'm going to be listing some of them this week though so keep your eyes peeled for them!

I sold a number of pendants including the lovely Daisy Daisy pendant to a lady who actually put it on there and then and wore it around the garden for the rest of the afternoon.

And another lovely customer pointed out that some of my cufflinks match some of my pendants and bought a pendant and pair of cufflinks as a wedding gift for her friends - subtle enough for both to wear at the same time but matching so that they are a complete gift set. I hadn't actually thought of doing that before so quite excited about the prospect of doing some more matching designs.

Lots of little penguins are flying off to new homes (have fun little guys!) and some cards and cufflinks have gone as well so all in all I would say I've had a fairly successful weekend. Hooray! I'm back at A Glamourous Affair this weekend in Islington if anyone fancies coming along to say hello...!

Mosaics for Men?

At both of the craft fairs I've been to recently people have asked whether I make any other kinds of jewellery with mosaics as well as pendants. The one that people keep coming back to is cufflinks - can I make some mosaic cufflinks as it's really hard getting presents for men?

I've been a bit dubious about making things like cufflinks or earrings as it involves making the exact same design twice. This doesn't sound that hard but sadly glass has it's own mind and will do what it wants, not necessarily what I want it to do! Even when I make a design more than once, it is always slightly different so I worried that it wouldn't look right. However, I finally came to the conclusion that people don't walk around with their wrists together comparing whether they are exactly the same and it's a hand-made, unique gift so... why not? 

It took a fair amount of sourcing to find suitable bezels for the cufflinks, but I think I have finally found some. I only got five pairs to start with as I wasn't sure how they would turn out and I obviously haven't made all of them yet - it takes a fair amount of time to make a design, cut the glass, make sure it's the right size, cut another piece because the first piece wasn't the right size, go and find a plaster as you've cut yourself again... sand down the pieces so they are smooth, attach them, wait 24 hours for them to dry, grout them, polish etc etc... and even longer to make two of the same! What do you think of those that I have made?

I can't quite get the colours right on the photo - these are a deep red with gold

Art-Deco Black and White

My personal favourites - shades of green with gold

I'm really happy how they have turned out. I'll be taking these ones with me to my craft fair this weekend where they'll be available for £20 a pair. If you'd like a pair yourself, just send me a message through the contact form saying which pair you would like. I also do custom orders so if you would like different colours / a different design, please just let me know and I'll see what we can come up with!