Rings and Bracelets and things...

Been having a fun time in my jewellery class, we made jump rings and I had quite a few so I turned them into a bracelet...

And I had a bit of spare time and thought I'd make my own little Indigo and Gold ring

 #bracelet #ring #IndigoandGold #jewellery

More rings

Been a busy day! Embroidered what feels like a million leaves and still have some to finish. I'll show you the pics when it's all done but you'll just have to wait for now...
I do, however, have pics from my jewellery class where I was class swot and made 2 rings...

There's not actually a lot of difference in size but the smaller one will fit on my ring finger quite nicely whereas the bigger one is miles too big for even my thumb!

#sewing #leaves #rings #jewellery

Peacock products

I decided print just wasn't my friend after several slightly rubbish attempts so I stuck to what I'm good at and did a bit of embroidery today and everything worked out fine (apart from it taking so long, I forgot how quick print is and it skewed my time perspective haha)
Anyway, I made a butterfly and a peacock flower. I'm afraid I don't have a proper pic of the peacock flower, just a petal while I was making, cos we were rushed out of Uni so I'll have to show you my peacock leaf instead.

In keeping with the peacock theme of today's post I also printed a peacock feather onto Chamois leather (I'd never heard of it either, apparently you clean your car with it?)
It was the most difficult thing to cut out, it wouldn't cut properly unless I slipped and cut half a feathery bit off but it still looks pretty good. I might have a go using it for some other things too

And, I'm afraid this isn't peacock related, sorry to disappoint, I went a jewellery making course the other night which was very fun and had a bit of a play.

Firstly I had to cut the shapes out, the circle was a bit fiddly, then anneal them by heating them so I could shape them. I made the dome by hitting it with a round nosed hammer to give it the texture then bending it using a dome-making tool. It was a concave sphere that I put the copper into and hit the corresponding convex sphere shape into it to bend it. The rectangle was given the texture by running the copper and sandpaper through a machine that pressed them together - a bit like in kids play areas there are the two rollers that you have to roll through - and the just shaped by hand

#peacock #chamois leather #petal #butterfly #jewellery #copper 

The day is Tuesday, the word is Sunshine...

Well, how very exciting. Just finished my first trade show and am exhausted! Been at Harrogate Home and Gift for the past few days, really enjoyed it there and quite fancy doing another.

Had some fun setting up everyone's stuff, turns out I'm quite handy with a drill, but we eventually managed it. We're the stall on the right, the one on the left was called Dassie and they sold some gorgeous stuff - it was all fair trade from South Africa, they had some really nice old wooden chopping boards etc and knitted toys and beer bread (they brought some in and it smelled delicious) - and we kept getting a little distracted looking at their stuff lol. 

When it went a bit quite there would be one of the lovely guys from The Wee Tea Company would come round with samples of their teas that were almost nice (and that's from someone who hates tea so for normal people who like tea its probably delicious) and I even bought some so it must have been amazing.

We did get quite a lot of interest too, everyone we spoke to had lots of positive things to say which was great. I even got an order for my big necklace from Lloyd Waters (Haberdashery and Linens) which was very exciting.

The only bad thing was the air conditioning, because it had been soooo hot the air con had to work overtime to keep us cool and it struggled through the Sunday but broke on Monday afternoon! We got loads of fans in our hall which was great but on Tuesday it had broken in a few other halls and the fans couldn't keep it cool enough so the lovely organisers of the show got us some Bucks Fizz and little cakes. We had to sneakily go up to the food stalls and use our code word - Sunshine. I felt like some sort of secret agent lol.

 It was a really great experience and I'm so glad our college organised it, hopefully I wont be quite so scared when I do another one for real. Huge thanks to the organisers of the show too, especially Tom who was in charge of our hall, they deserve some Bucks Fizz of their own after the air conditioning nightmare!

#Harrogatehomeandgift #tradeshow #bucksfizz #dassie #weeteacompany #lloydwaterslinens #feathernecklace

Opening Night!

Opening night was really quite exciting, there were so many people looking around and asking about work. There was even some interest in Azadi and the feathers which was good. And, since the show's now public, you can finally see the final thing on here too!

 It was such a good night and I'm so glad I got to make the products I did. Huge thanks must go to my tutors and the technicians for actually getting me here and to Mr Brian Bedford for letting me use his amazing song.
 
 #CCAD #opening night #degree show #Azadi #Whats the Use of Wings #Brian Bedford #birdcage #feathers #jewellery