Today has been a good day

So I have been working on my etsy shop for the past few weeks and today I woke up to a beautiful email saying I had a sale!!! WOOOOP. Someone in the US has purchased my pretty pears and pinky pigs eyeglass lanyards! I'm so excited. So I have packaged them up and will be popping down the post office tomorrow. 

And to add more excitement I got an email saying someone has featured Vampire Victor in their blog. 

SO HAPPY!!! :D

Fruits galore

So I got a little bit excited when I came across these on ebay....

 So I have spent the last few days creating some things for my new shop on etsy. I started with some dangles.

I loved the cute, kitch style of them. I'm not a big fan of dangle, only because they annoy me when they swing. But I have actually fallen in love with these... may have to keep a few pairs for myself.

I then started looking at the packaging of my product as I think this is where I was lacking at the craft fair. I was able to create some really nice backings for all of my jewelley. And like I have been trying to do all along, I wanted to create a brand. And I think these achieve this and I personally think they look really professional! :)

I then wanted to create some eyeglass lanyards, as glasses are in my family, I have been wearing them since 1999 and my mum now works in a optitions. There for I wanted to create a range of quirky eyeglass lanyards.

 

I made five, including: Luscious Lemons, Pretty Pear, Cheaky Chicks, Paw Paw Panda and Pinky Piggys. And again I wanted to package them to match my brand, Glamorous Glass and Bits.

 

 

I love these, they are so cute and look great with any glasses. I think that my chosen colour co-ordination is great too. There are all avaliable in my etsy shop. 

Life under the sea...

So I've been meaning to post this for ages. In the last term of my first year of uni, I did glass. And it was AMAZING!!!! I fell in love with this material, its colours, its texture and the possibilities.

So I began by looking at octopus'. I'm not sure why, I think it's because I'm missing my time of being a fishmonger! If only I could have my own shop and wouldn't smell of fish.... anyway back to the real world!

So I began by experimenting with sandblasting on glasses;

I loved these, and it was such an easy technique. The only tricky bit was cutting out the vinyl by hand however, it can easily be done on the computer. Something I'd like to try next year.

I then started to experiment with Bullseye coloured glass. And this is when I fell in love. We began by making small jewellery which look amazing when fixings are added. 

These are a few of the items that are for sale in my etsy shop. I really enjoyed making the jewellery and I had to make sure that I didn't keep all of it, as I so wanted to!! But I have made lots and will be making some more next year. So please have a browse of my shop, I'm adding more and more each day.

I then moved on to making images with the glass, I wanted to stay with my octopus theme and made this little guy.

 

I then experimented with making moulds to slump glass into. Again sticking with the octopus theme I made three octopus moulds to create three octopus formed pieces. I originally wanted to create bowls, however I was a little bit unsure as to how the mould detail would be once the mould had been slumped into a bowl shape. I decided to try it on a clear piece of glass and made a square bowl.

I love the bowl but it did lose a lot of the definition of the mould. So I decided to keep the colour bowls as flat wall pieces. The colours are amazing and so bright and bold. And the octopus image is really strong.

The backs of them had the indent of the mould and were a little unsightly so I decided to cover the backs in a matching felt to make them more presentable.

I was so pleased with the outcome of this project. I just wish that I had had more time and a lot more money for more glass. 

Norwich Craft fair

So I held a craft stall in Norwich on the 10th July with my friend Chloe. It was a great day except for the downpour at 4pm. The stall took a while to get going, a lot of people were browsing. I made about £55 which wasn't a great deal but I had a great time so that's what counts. However, I had already made £85 from selling my jewellery to a few friends before hand. 

So here are a few pictures of the day.....

So this is my side of the stall, we went 50/50 on it. I decided that I wanted to make my stall reflect my business cards and business image which is white with blue, purple and green glass gems. I wanted my stall to look classy and elegant.

I think that the contrast between the black and the white worked really well. It was great to have definition between the two sellers. We had a marque which were were able to display my teeth and Chloe's cards along the edge. We also made a 'washing line' to display more of our products.

The day was great, it was a great experience to find out what would sell and at what prices. I also found out that I needed to spread my items out so that people would see them as people didn't tend to want to fish around in the bowls I had put items in. The teeth went down a hit, but I think they need more focus and more of an explanation. We were also asked to do another fair in August because the fair organiser really like the quirky nature of my teeth. However I cannot go but I have applied to hold a stall in West Brigford here in Nottingham in September. 

The selling of my items has made me more enthusiastic about opening my own shop/business so to start I have open in etsy shop. Click here.

Where have I been.....

So I've finished my first year at uni and have enjoyed it so so much! I have been so busy with getting all my work finished and handed in. Since finishing the year I went on holiday to Egypt with my boyfriend and had an amazing time. I've then been on a placement at Djanogly City Academy in Nottingham helping in the textiles department which was such a great experience. And I've now been getting myself ready for a craft stall at the Norwich Lanes Fayre this weekend. So hopefully that will go really well. And I'll post soon :) any way I guess I'd better show what I've been up to....

Teethy necklaces

So this is where the fascination with teeth began. My brief for my metal project was 'Object of desire', however I wanted to take something undesirable; wonky teeth, and make them desirable; a piece of jewellery.

I began by looking at the teeth shapes and got some wisdom teeth of my friends and made some moulds. I was able to recreate the teeth using resin and they actually look scarily realistic!

Here are the three necklaces I made:

And they all have a tooth t-bar fastening. 

Ideally I would have made them in silver, but as it was a short project we didn't have silver to use. However, I do like the colour contrast between the white and the copper.

Frog cupcakes

So while looking at cupcake inspiration I came across this;

They are studding and the presentation is amazing. Loving the lotus leaf plate.

I found the whole recipy on Disneyfamily.com. It includes all the instructions. Definatly trying these!!

Guardian Tooth Fairies

So my embroidery project was a continuation of my metal project with the starting point of teeth. I decided that I wanted to go the completely opposite from my metal project and make more cartoon child like items.

I began my making wings for each of my characters, which I wanted to display in a butterfly layout style;

I wanted to explore what they looked like on transparent fabric against the soft light of the window.

I like how they looked like they were moving and 'fluttering'. However I think they lost their cartoon and comedy nature by not being on the teeth chacaters.

I decided that as I had come out with a final solution I wanted to package them up and create a sellable product. I wanted to give each of the teeth a very personal and to each have a name and persona.

 Each character had individual colours and names on their lables.

And the backs even included barcodes.

I am extremely pleased at the result and feel this is an actual sellable product. Any orders welcome :)