Mosaic Earrings!

It's quite exciting over here in Trouble HQ because I've got a new line of mosaic jewellery now available - mosaic earrings! These are still in the very new stages - I've only made 5 pairs so far and I'm now waiting on more backings to arrive before I can make some more. But thought I should share them with you.

None of them are yet in my Etsy shop but feel free to drop me a line here if you are interested in any of them. They will be £22 + postage.

Pendant and Earring set - £42 + postage

What do you think? I'm excited - almost excited enough to re-pierce my ears so that I can make myself a pair!!

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...!

Wonder Hill Market

Roll up, roll up for this Sunday's Wonder Hill Market. It is normally held on the last Saturday of the month near Borough Market at London Bridge but... they are also holding fairs over the next few months at Keston Lodge in Islington. And guess what? I'm going to be at Keston Lodge this Sunday (10th June) from 12 - 5pm for the Wonder Hill Market. It's all about supporting local artists, ethical shopping, vintage and upcycling and I'm really happy to be a part of it. So, if you're free this Sunday please, please come along and say hello to me and the other artisans.

Click on the picture to go to the Wonder Hill's website to find out more

Details are:

Sunday 10th June

12 - 5pm

Keston Lodge

131 Upper Street

Islington

N1 1QP

Looking forward to seeing you there... 

A Glamourous (Craft) Fair

Sorry I've been more than usually silent this week. I genuinely haven't been looking at my laptop, let alone responding to e-mails etc. Why? Because I've been manically busy! Today (Saturday 28th) is a milestone - in about 2 hours I will be in Islington's Library Bar setting up for A Glamourous Affair - my second ever craft fair. I'm a lot more calm and collected about this one - probably because it's in my own area and I don't have to trek across London to get there, but also because I still have lots of necklaces etc from the previous craft fair. In fact, I haven't actually made anything new for this one. Instead I have been working on making my stall look better. It didn't help that I got confirmation 2 days ago that I would be having a round table. A ROUND table? But my stall is set up for a rectangular one! Oh well, I'm just going to have to adapt.... What I have now got is bunting with Creating Trouble written on it, a mirror and some jewellery boxes. I had run out just before the last fair and hadn't realised until it was too late to order.

So why have I been so busy? Well, first of all, I am back at work with all the stresses that involves (getting up early etc!), secondly my social life seems to have gone into overdrive the last few weeks (in a good way: I've been very cultural and artistic!) and thirdly I have 2 commissions on the go, of which one of them is for 10 homemade bags. So I have been spending most of my time trying to get those done! I still have another week...

Anyway, off to do some last minute bits and get my gear ready. If you are around in Islington, please come along to the Library Bar from 12 - 5 and see what there is in store!

First Craft Fair Fun

My first craft fair was on Sunday... and I survived it! There seemed to be a whole load of things conspiring against me before though. For a start I suddenly came down sick on Thursday - I kept blacking out and the whole world seemed to be spinning for the entirety of Thursday and Friday and all I could really do was sit around with my head very still not doing anything. Turns out I had a case of labyrinthitis, which I love the name of even if I disliked the actual symptoms! Anyway, luckily by Saturday I was feeling a little better, although not back to normal. I could at least get some last things done though so I spent a fair amount of Saturday finishing up last little bits. Obviously I ended up staying up to get everything finished, and worse I kept waking up suddenly remembering 'business cards!' or 'tablecloth!' and then having to get up to check I had remembered them etc. Aaaaannnnddd... the clocks went forward on Saturday which meant I lost an hour's sleep anyway!! Oh, and just to add a little more drama... the fair was in Balham which is quite a trek away from where I live although it is still in London.

What my stall looked like... for next time I want to have some letters on my bunting.

Anyway, I arrived, set up and more importantly I met all the other crafters and artists who were there - first of all, Emma Barrett who organised the whole event - she was absolutely fantastic and had put in so much work into the planning and organisation. It was a really relaxed atmosphere, we all sold very different things so weren't in competition with each other and the venue was great for the event. Next to me were the lovely Daisy of MakeThriftLondon and Emma of KnickerbockerGlories. I spent a fair amount of my day chatting to them and getting tips from them about craft fairs in general.

One of my favourite pendants which was sold.

The Balham Bowls Club is a fairly large pub and we were upstairs in a big room that is used for all sorts of events. There were lots of people coming through the fair as people who had come for lunch or a Sunday drink. There was plenty of browsing and chatting to people, I gave out lots of business cards, had lots of really lovely comments from people and questions about how I make my mosaics and found the whole experience really interesting and fun. And you know what? Yes, I made a couple of sales too! I didn't really know what to expect, but was hoping to at least make back the cost of the stall. That meant I needed to sell at least 2 pendants... which I did! I also sold a number of drinks coasters and lots of penguins so I actually came home feeling quite happy with how the day had gone - it wasn't much but it was definitely a start and I'm not as worried about doing a second or third one now Hoping to sign up to a few more over the next couple of months!

Penguin keyrings were displayed in a converted photo frame

It was a really enjoyable experience and I'm really glad I finally plucked up the courage to get stuck in and do a fair - I'm already looking into doing some other fairs over the next few months and signing up for them. Looks like this year I am definitely taking Creating Trouble forward!

There's only 1 Cath Kidston mug pendant left - I sold one last week and another at the fair.

Upcycled Jewellery

Almost a year ago a friend of mine broke her favourite mug, and instead of throwing away the pieces, she brought them all over to me to see what I could do with them. It resulted in a lovely mosaic necklace (you can see the original post here). Being a bit of a hoarder, I didn't throw the leftover pieces away once I'd made the pendant - I kept them despite moving house in the interim. Originally she wanted to make some other necklaces for her family but somehow never got around to it. This week I was thinking about what designs to make with my new haul of pendant bezels and remembered the mug. After a lot of searching, I finally found my broken china and glass bag of goodies.

And got to work with smashing it up some more... Woah! I had totally forgotten that porcelain is much tougher than glass so you need a lot more muscle to break it into pieces. And once you DO manage to break it... the pieces fly even further afield! One bit managed to totally clear the kitchen counter and land next to the sink on the other side of the kitchen. That's a jump of nearly two metres. But I did manage to cut some successful pieces and was quite pleased with what I'd cut.

Next came the sanding process... ARGH! I sand every piece of a mosaic pendant so that there are no sharp corners for fingers to catch on. Because the porcelain is so much tougher than glass, it was really hard to sand down - and to actually soften the edges took much much longer than it does normally. But eventually they were sanded down properly, attached and left to dry for 24 hours.

And here they are - grouted and finished. 3 new pendants based on one broken mug by Cath Kidston. What do you think?

p.s. Sorry about the photos -  I've been a bit excited about using Instagr.am this week...

Project Update

I bet you're all wondering whether I actually still do anything crafty these days - I haven't blogged about my own craft projects for a while but that's not to say I haven't been doing anything... honest! Admittedly, I haven't done as much recently as I would normally have done, partly because it's a new school year and things are a bit hectic and partly because I have had loads of inspiration but no motivation. What is it that Einstein (Eddison?) said? Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration? Well I'm lacking in the 99% bit at present!

I have, however, been doing some things of late...

I know a number of you who read this know me from Twitter as well and may well have noticed that I've been mentioning penguins the last few days. Some of you may also have seen said penguins. I broke a very old keyring the other day but while the charm bit had fallen off, I still had the actual ring. Coupled with a whole load of felt I've had hanging around looking at me for a while now, I got to thinking... I needed a new keyring charm. I can't say I went through a whole load of designs before I got to this one - one of my favourite animals is a penguin and it seemed quite natural to make a penguin. So this is what I made:

Well, I couldn't leave him all lonely, could I? On Tuesday I went to the local hardware store next to work and bought some key rings. So what have I been doing this evening? Yup, I've made some more. The penguin family is now at 5. I have plans for green, red and turquiose ones but at present haven't got any suitable ribbon for them. The red ribbon I have doesn't sit right with my red felt and, when put with the green felt, is a bit too Christmassy. So I need to get some pretty ribbon... I know just the place. I have a question for you: do you prefer the penguins with the white stitching or the ones where the stitching is a near match to the felt? I thought I'd prefer the stitching to be the same but I'm not sure...

What else? Well back in April I wrote a post about bags (you can see it here). The first bag I showed you was the crazy crazy wool bag. I had finished the main part of it and most of the lining but couldn't find any buttons suitable. Do you know how hard it is to find really large wooden buttons? Oh my, it's been a nightmare! BUT... I have finished the crazy wool bag, and in fact have used it a number of times too. I've realised I made the strap a little too long so I am going to pin it and sew it a bit shorter but otherwise I am quite happy with it. Do you like the buttons?

I"m not done yet!!! I have also made a few new mosaic pendant designs! There should be one more but I managed to break it while trying to grout it this evening so I need to take it to pieces and start again. It was my favourite design but the one I knew was the most precarious due to the millefiori I had used in it.

Sadly I've only just taken the photos of these and as it's quite dark in the flat the photos haven't totally come out. The paler one is light green and orange porcelain - totally upcycled materials as they used to be plates belonging to a friend of mine. I couldn't get a close up shot without it all going blurry but once I have the right light I will try to. Of the larger shots, the top one is a repeated red, purple and turquoise mirror design while the lower one has become known as the Google pendant because it's colours match Google's.

Just to let you know - once I have managed to take some decent shots, the key-rings and pendants will be going into my Etsy store - or if you would like one and can't wait for me to take pictures and list them, get in contact with me via the contact section of this blog and I can let you know prices / payment arrangements etc.

That Friday Feeling...15/07/11

Fancy a cuppa? It's about tea time and that is exactly what I want right now. And I mean a proper 'English' cup of tea - not one of those weak varieties that taste of warm water with milk splashed in it. I may be uncouth but I much prefer builders tea to any other (for those of you who don't know what builders tea is - it's the standard British tea you get in the supermarkets - like PG Tips) and it doesn't taste the same in different places. The water is different so the tea tastes different. Even Yorkshire Tea doesn't taste right outside of Yorkshire! So today's Friday Feeling is all about the tea - because I want a cup.

Think this pendant from BookishCharm about sums up
what I feel right now!

FabThomson makes cute felt brooches like this cupcake

Great combination in this Liquorice AllSorts Tea Cosy
 by Twinkknits

 

Thought I would share some Tea Facts with you...

•  Tea is the second most widely drunk drink in the world - the most widely drunk beverage being water.
• Tea normally grows in tropical or sub-tropical places - but it's been known to grow in Pembrokeshire, England and Washington, USA
• It takes between 4- 12 years for a tea plant to grow seeds.
• If you leave a tea plant alone it can grow to about 16 metres - but most are cut to be about waist height so that it's easier to pick the uppermost leaves.
•  Tea came over to Europe in the 16th Century and was brought over to Great Britain around 1660
•  Tea can help (slightly) with memory - but this is very minimal and not entirely certain...
•  Milk isn't the only thing added to tea - weaker black tea is good with lemon and I had the shock of my life when I was served tea with jam in Russia...

Love the Weekend

It's been a good weekend - well apart from the fact that I haven't left the flat in days and am going a little crazy... But I was really excited on Friday when I checked my e-mail and discovered that I had sold 2 (yes, 2) mosaic necklaces! How great is that? So a massive thank you to Julia from MyApplique who bought them (check out her Folksy shop - it's cute!) Part of me is a little sad to see them go - the mosaic one is one of the very first necklaces I made, and the Red Reflection one is my favourite design. But I'm glad they're going to such a nice person. Just in case you've forgotten what they look like - here are the two necklaces in their boxes about to be put in the post:

Posting these turned out to be harder than expected. I don't have business cards yet (because that would make me feel like a grown-up) so up to now I've been printing off a small card with the Creating Trouble logo on it and using it instead. Except for last night my printer decided it just didn't like me. At all. After about an hour or so messing around with it, Andy decided to try printing with the same printer from his Mac. And of course, it liked him. Admittedly we only managed to get one piece of paper out of it in full colour, and normally my cards are a LOT smaller than half an A4 sheet, but at least we managed to get something!

It was such a palaver (love that word!) Andy decided to design and order me some business cards. They should be arriving on Wednesday or Thursday and I'm really excited to see them!

AND... I follow quite a few other blogs and tend to comment when I see something I like or get asked a question. This weekend Kate from Scientific Culture posted a picture of one of her yetis and asked what people were up to this weekend. Apparently my comment was the most interesting response (it involved turning into a Yeti to be able to move) and she's sending me one of her cute badges! How cool is that?

Go & check out Scientific Culture on Etsy - really cute badges & more!

I'm getting a Yeti Thumbs Up badge... it's so cute! And in fact has quite a lot of character so I think he deserves a name... Any suggestions? Thank you Kate for deciding to send me a badge :-D

Mosaic Pendants

My grout arrived! I'm still fairly new to Mosaics so I was a little worried about mixing up grout myself - last time I tried to mix up some grout I managed to make a watery mess. So with a little trepidation I found myself a pot and poured in some of my anthracite (dark grey!) unsanded grout and started adding the water...

And it worked! Hurray!

So then I let myself loose on the pendants. I still find the sound of scraping over glass more than I can really cope with - the sound is like nails down a chalkboard. But it luckily didn't last too long and, once they had been shined up a bit I think they have turned out alright. In fact, I quite like my pendants... now I need to find some decent silver chains to go with them.

Pretty pretty shiny shiny

Ooooh, I'm all excited - I received 2 parcels today - one from www.mosaictraderuk.com and one from Eolith who sells on www.etsy.com. Eolith sent me these pendant backings and Mosaic Trader UK sent the vitreous glass tiles and the really cute millefiori. I LOVE the black ones with the yellow stars - they are sooo great. Can't wait to get to work!

These are actually for two totally different projects - the tiles are for some drinks coasters I have in my mind but need to get down into reality, whereas the pendant backings are for, well, necklaces; I'm going to experiment with some mosaic jewellery and am all fired up about it.

So why am I on here then? I need to get to my desk and start cutting up some glass...!