Making gifts for Elves

Earlier this year on FaceBook there was a little meme going around that basically said "I promise to send the first 5 people who comment on this post a handmade gift.  Sometime during 2013 I will send you a little gift.  In return you have to put this status on your timeline and send handmade gifts to 5 of your friends".  We'll I know a whole bunch of very talented people so I was totally up for this.  I said "YES PLEASE" to the lovely and talented Jan Fowler and have received a lovely painted handbag.

One of the people who said yes please to me was Anthony, also known as the Elvish Taylor.  I was inspired to create for him after this hilarious status update where he confessed to sewing his spectacles into the lining of a jacket he was making.  He obviously needs a spectacle chain, so I got out my tiny beads.

I found some great earthy greens, blues and blacks and because of the Elf's fae nature I included some sparkly crystals and some haematite stars.  So I poured them all onto my work mat and get stringing.  Then I had to take most of it out and work out how to space the stars mostly evenly.  A while later, and a few beads on the floor too, I had a spectacle chain.

Anthony loved it.

If you would like to make your own spectacle chain:

You will need:

• 2 spectacle ends
• some tigertail or other strong beading thread
• A selection of seed beads
• Some haematite stars
• Crimp beads
• Pliers 
• A beading mat

Select your colour scheme and pour out some beads on your mat.  Mix them up, adding until you have the colours you want.  

Cut around 34 inches of tigertail.  Slide on a crimp bead & loop the tigertail through one spectacle end and back through the crimp bead.

If you have crimping pliers close and fold the crimp, or just close it flat with flat pliers.

Thread on your beads, with the stars evenly spaced by poking the tigertail end at the beads on the mat to ease them onto the thin wire.  If you are using a thread you will need a beading needle, but I still recommend picking up the beads from the mat with the needle rather than trying to pick them up by hand.

Once you have around 32 inches of beads slip on another crimp, thread it through the remaining spectacle end back through the crimp and close it.

Voila, you have your very own spectacle chain.  If you change the ends you can make all kinds of lanyards and chains.  Have fun

You can get all of the things you need on Amazon (see links below) or from places like Hobbcraft or your local craft store.

Why I need so many necklaces

The lovely ladies at London Jewellery School posted this pic on their Facebook page last week and it made me feel quite happy about the amount of necklaces I own.

I mostly wear V neck or scoop necked jersey tops so a lot of my necklaces are medium sized pendants on fairly short silver chains.  However, I do have a lot of lovely long strands and some gorgeous chunky and multi strand pieces.  This little infographic give you and me, a few hints and tips about pairing that perfect piece of statement jewellery with the right type of top or dress. 

For example, this statement necklace

 was originally designed to go with a strapless dress

but away from the summer sun this long strand necklace would look great with a turtle neck cocktail dress, like this one.

Now this lovely wire wrapped pendant is a great statement piece and you wouldn't want to loose the impact of it.  

I would recommend a V neck or Scoop necked top, or maybe even a sweetheart neckline like this lovely tea dress.

Happy dressing everyone.  If you decide you need more necklaces, please do get in touch, or look on my Folksy store and I'm sure I can   help you out x

Making fabulous Hats!!!!!!!!!!

The Elvish Tailor ran some hat workshops this spring.

I had the great opportunity to learn how to make a straw cloche hat with Anthony this month.  We gathered together in the beautiful sewing room of The Sewing Sessions in Ipswich and had 6 glorious hours to make a hat.  Anthony was an exacting tutor, expecting us to strive to meet his high standards, but a patient and good humoured one.

As well as steaming and shaping our hats on a block, I cut into the brim to make the back curl.  I don't like it when the back of my hat bumps on my collar or scarf.  We then wired the brim and covered the wire in ribbon.  Once we had decorated our hats; with everything from butterflies and feathers to  velvet, chain and flowers, we ribboned up the inside and lined our hats in silk.  I was truly amazed at the professional finish we managed in just 6 hrs.

We were 6 lovely ladies, who made 6 very different hats.

Thank you Anthony, I really hope to make another hat very very soon. x

1st Silversmithing class

My New Year's resolution this year was to "learn new things" (and to moisturise, but that isn't very interesting) so I've enrolled in a Silversmithing course at my local Adult Education centre. Thursday was my first lesson.
Once I'd found the workshop I met my lovely teacher and 4 other eager ladies. Then we got down to the serious business of Health and Safety and making a ring!!!!!! After we had got over the shock of all the terrible things we could injure ourselves with we were handed a small slip of paper. This, we were told was the best way to measure our fingers. Suitable measure we then went on to anneal, saw, file, shape, solder and pickle our rings. I'm very impressed with my little copper ring, which I hope next week will gain silver wire edging and a flower.

I hope you like my little shares and that the pictures will get more interesting as I make more pieces. If anyone would like to commission a piece, or give me some lovely ideas, please comment below or send me an email. Looking forward to next week lots x

Yule competition

Guess how many beads are in this jar to win a £15 voucher for Ivaldi.

This is a 280g pickle jar, aprox 2 inches across.  There are a variety of beads in here, but none smaller than 5mm.

Closing date 17th December 6pm.

The winner will be the entry with the closest answer and will be notified by email within 2 days of the closing date.

You can use your voucher to purchase or to go towards any item in our Folksy shop or on a made for your item (see the web site for inspiration).

Christmas events

We've got a busy couple of months running up to Christmas so I thought I'd better share all our events with you.....

Saturday 17th November 9.30 - 1.30 Poringland Christmas Fair, Village Hall

Thursday 22nd November Recreation Rd Infants School Christmas Fair 7 - 10

Sunday 25th November 12 - 4 Snowy's Christmas gift & craft Fair, Brundall Memorial hall  (FB event)

Friday 7th December 5 - 9 Castle Christmas Craft Fair TBC

Saturday 8th December 11 - 4 Take 5 Vintage Fair TBC

Saturday 16th December 10 - 2 Acle & district Lion Christmas Fair, Brundall Memorial Hall

Shooting Stars Necklace, from inspiration to the big day

We had some lovely news at Ivaldi Towers a few months ago.  My biggest nephew and his long term partner  were finally tying the knot.  So, obviously an enormous hat has in order, as was a stunning piece of jewellery.

Hat and dress were easily arranged, but as a bespoke jeweller I wanted to create something stunning, I do have a reputation to maintain after all.  My current collection is all about stars so the main focus was an easy choice but where to go from here.  An evening on Pinterest and I had an inspiration board http://pinterest.com/ivaldi/shooting-star-necklace-inspiration/ and a quick trip to my favourite beads hop and I had some yummy new beads to play with.

Many sketches later I had a design I was happy with and I started making stars.  The Lovely Caroline from the Outhouse Studio has loaned me a beautiful antique kiln, and I just love the results it gave.

I then spent about 3 days placing beads, polishing stars and generally faffing about until I get things where and how I wanted.

Here it is about half way through.

So, Saturday morning dawned and we were off into the wilds of Suffolk and here it is in it's finished glory.

Rosemarie of the Lighthouse Network has been helping me focus and reach my goals, and she has been hugely encouraging all through this project, thank you sweetie x  

So the final outcome of this is that the necklace is now up on Folksy, the original you see here but also as a bespoke, whatever stones, colours you want.

I've really enjoyed this project.  It's brought my Stars collection to a conclusion and I've learned a lot doing it.  So what next, what will be my next collection.  Stay tuned and I'll let you know.... as soon as I know myself x