Sunday Market Is A Go

Unless the weather changes horribly.

Had a cold time but a good time today.  I want to say thanks to the young man who called one of my necklaces phat. Definitely my favourite compliment of the day.

Here's a picture of my table:

I should probably get some sort of riser so people don't have to bend over to see my stuff.

If anyone is reading this after grabbing one of my cards at the Centennial Square market, please leave a comment and let me know.

See you tomorrow.

Weather Permitting

I will be doing the pop up holiday market in Centennial Square tomorrow (December 14), and depending how that goes, possibly Sunday as well.

Details can be found in my posts below, but just to reiterate briefly, it will be from noon until 5:00pm under the Ferris wheel in Centennial Square, downtown Victoria.  Hope to see you there!

Update on Pop Up Holiday Market

Sadly, we were rained out this weekend, so no market for me.  Next weekend I'm volunteering at a swim meet, so unless I do Friday night, I won't be there that weekend, but weather permitting, I should be there on Saturday, December 14 and possibly Sunday, December 15.  (Details about the market can be found in my previous post.)  I'll let you know when I've decided about Friday.  Until then, feel free to contact me via comments or send me an email.

Pop Up Holiday Market in Centennial Square (and some pictures, as promised)

The next event where I'll be selling some items is the Pop Up Holiday Market at Centennial Square (downtown Victoria), underneath the Ferris wheel and among all the holiday lights. 

The market will run Fridays from 5-10pm and Saturdays/Sundays from 12-5pm from November 29th until December 22nd.  More details can be found at harbour living.  Sadly, the market was rained out today, but hopefully I'll be able to be there tomorrow.  I don't think I'll do any of the Friday nights, but I'll probably do a couple Saturdays or Sundays.  I'll keep you posted when I know which ones I'll be attending.

In preparation for the holiday market, I made some more holiday-themed items.  Like I said in a previous post, I made some jolly holly earrings with glass pearls.  Here are the ones with two leaves (seed beads, bugle beads, glass pearls, gold plate ear wires):

And here they are with three leaves (same materials, just more bugle beads):

I also made a necklace to go with them.  I decided to avoid gold altogether for the necklace and to go back to the cluster of three seed beads as berries.  I'll probably make a pair of earrings to match perfectly.  (seed beads, bugle beads, lobster claw clasp in gold plate):

And here's the necklace again just as a jumble on the table because I almost like it better that way.  I may make a few lengths of this just to wrap around the bases of candles or something.  I think that would be quite pretty, at least until wax started dripping into them, haha.

You may recall that I mentioned that at the Gifts show I discovered I needed to make more variety of lengths for my bracelets.  One customer brought a couple back to me that she'd bought and asked if I could change the length on them, and after we talked for a bit we decided it would be best to add some extender chain since they're gifts and she doesn't know the exact gift size of the recipients' wrists.  Here's a picture of the chain extender I put on, just so you have an idea of what that would look like.  (seed beads, glass pearls, lobster claw clasp, silver plate chain):

I think the little pearl with the seed beads on the end of the chain looks fairly cute.  I chose a larger chain because I thought the size being more consistent with the bracelet itself would be less jarring.  Thoughts?

And last but not least, my fringe necklace that I finished up during the Gifts show.  I promised you a slightly clearer shot, and here it is.  It's still not perfect, but I didn't feel like setting up all my multi-angle lamps just to photograph one necklace.  Next time I do a photo shoot of a bunch of my work I'll get some more pictures of it, assuming I haven't sold it by then.  (seed beads, filigree clasp, mother of pearl "focal" bead):

Since it's a big/fancy piece I've decided to give it a name.  I'm calling it "treasures of the deep" since the idea was that it would look like waves or currents of water, and since the focal bead is made of mother of pearl.

It's probably a fairly safe assumption I won't sell it any time soon (and that you'll therefore get better pictures) since I'm asking $180 for it.  Does that seem reasonable?  I spent about 40 hours making it, but I know no one will pay the $400+ that minimum wage plus materials would cost.  But given all the time, and the sheer volume of seed beads and expensive extra fine beading thread, I'm not parting with it for a small amount either.  In the few hours it was up at the show, it got a lot of attention, so who knows.

That's it for today.  If you've read this and then see me at Centennial Square, let me know.  I should be there tomorrow (Sunday), and I'll post again when I know my next day there.

Gifts for Myself and Others Report

Hello fabulous readers! (aka, Hi Mom!)

I thought I'd make a brief report about how the Gifts for Myself and Others show went, since I chattered about it so much in advance.  It was my first crafts show, so it was very exciting.  Prepare yourself for a long slog.

On the Thursday before the show, we were allowed to come in for a few hours and set up our booth/display, but not allowed to put out any of our product since there would be no security that night.  I should have taken more pictures, but here's the one I do have of our empty setup.  There's a big table out of view, across from the shelf.

Friday we were allowed to come in a few hours early and fill up our display with all of our lovely items.  As I said before, I was sharing a booth with Deb Thurlbeck, who makes all of the lovely fabric sculptures you'll see below.

We'll start with a shot of the overall display/booth.  We did rearrange things a bit as the weekend went on, partly as figures sold, partly just to keep things interesting, but here's how it started out:

 

Doesn't Erin the Heron look wonderfully festive in his little Santa hat and collar? And the peacock on the table is quite a show-stealer, isn't he?

My jewellery was mostly clustered on the left side of the table there, as you can see.  Here's a closeup from day one.  Sorry, it's a little blurry:

Here are a couple less blurry shots of sections of that main table spot:

As you can see, I had quite a few bracelets out.  Beaded bangles and the S curves with pearls in all sorts of colours.  I learned that I need to make a greater variety of bracelet lengths though, or at least have some extender chain and pliers on hand so that I can make them adjustable.  My preference with bracelets is not to have the chains though, personally.  What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know if you like to have a length of adjustable chain on your bracelets.

I also had a few things on the stepped tables along the side.  You'll notice the earring tree under the lamp in the corner.  After a while I realized nobody was noticing it there, so we moved it up to the shelf, though I don't have a picture of its new home.

The giant glittery pine cones you've probably noticed are real, and enormous.  Deb collected them on a trip to California and then glitterified them.  I think they're just delightfully festive.

Here's a closeup of some of my donut wraps.  Deb and I finished setting up much faster than expected, so I had time to make a chain for the copper one.  I'm not 100% sure how I feel about the shape of it.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.  (Again, I apologize for the quality of the images.  I took these with the camera in my phone since I forgot to bring my actual camera along.):

Oh, and here's another shot of the copper one with its chain (comment please!) against a lighter background:

In between moments of talking to delightful people about my beading and Deb's fabric art (and a bit of browsing and shopping through all the other wonderful vendors) there were some lulls when I was able to work on some more beading projects.  Here's a pair of festive earrings I came up with.  I call them my jolly holly earrings:

I also made another variant of those with red pearls.  I'll post a picture later.

The last project I had time to work on was a fringe necklace I'd already spent a good 35-40 hours on in the past.  I kind of stopped counting.  I had done all the fringe, but I wanted to turn the ladder stitch over the fringe part into brick stitch in order to tidy up places where you could see knotted thread and also to make it less inclined to flop back and forth over the top of the chain rather than lie straight.  I was really pleased with how the brick stitch helped with both of those goals.  Ta da!

I don't know if black is the best background for it.  The colours are supposed to look like flowing water, which is why I put a pearl in the center, since it could be a natural jewel of the deep.  I may take a better picture later, but in the meantime, let me know what you think of the colours, what you see in it.

So that's about it.  I think our display ended up looking quite lovely once it was filled in and that our items complimented each other quite nicely.  Sea horse giraffes may have wound up wearing bracelets as necklaces for parts of the show, but sadly there is no photographic evidence to prove it either way.  It was lots of fun and I got to talk to lots of great people (shoppers and other vendors).  I look forward to doing more shows in the future.

Gifts for Myself and Others starts tomorrow!

I'm very excited that Gifts for Myself and Others will be starting tomorrow.  We did our setup of our display space this afternoon, and tomorrow morning we'll all be arriving early to put out our stock.  I've been continuing to work on new stock for the show (in fact, I've got a series of small blisters on my left index finger from all the wire wrapping) and I have a few pictures of new pieces to show you.

First up is another set of spiral earrings.  I'd done so many in silver that I figured I really ought to do another pair in warm gold tones, so here it is.  (glass pearls, gold-plated copper wire)
 

I also made a necklace to go with the purple daisy chain bracelet with the leaves.  It has a nice vintage-y look with the fringe of bugle bead leaves.  It's displayed on my newly papier macheed cardboard necklace stand.  The papier mache gives the home-made stand +3 classy points, no?  (seed beads, bugle beads, lobster claw clasp)

Next up are a few new donut wraps.  I tried to give each one a unique "collar" -- the housing for the loop one uses to attach the pendant to the chain.

First up is the one I wrapped in copper wire.  I don't know that kind of stone it is.  Again, if anyone has any idea, I'd love if you let me know in a comment.  For this one, since I had a lot of dramatic angles in the wrap, I decided to attach the collar with some zig-zaggy angles too.  (stone donut, copper wire, swarovski bicones, faux swarovski bicones, e beads)

The next is in gold-plated copper wire.  I decided to add some extra scrolls (the flat spirals) to this one.  Again, don't know the stone.  (stone donut, gold-plated copper wire, swarovski bicones, faux swarovski bicones, e beads)

The last new donut pendant is wrapped in silver, but I finally chose a stone that wasn't green or turquoise in colour tone!  This one, I'm fairly certain, is rose quartz.  It also had a hole drilled through it so I was able to include a scroll in the center.  (rose quartz donut, silver-plated copper wire, glass pearls, swarovski bicones, e beads)

And finally, I decided to make a donut-wrap set of earrings.  Instead of being wrapped on heavy stone, these are wrapped on donuts made from some sort of pearlescent shell.  (shell donuts, silver-plated copper wire, e beads, square beads)

Time to get a good night's sleep before the show tomorrow.  If you happen to have read my blog before attending, let me know.

The Gifts for Myself and Others show is happening this weekend!

As mentioned in the title of this post, the Gifts for Myself and Others Christmas crafts fair is happening this Friday through Sunday (details can be found here) and I've been working hard to make some new inventory for it.  As a result, I've neglected posting in this blog over the past few days, so I'm going to make up for it now by including a whole pile of pictures of my work.

I'll start with a couple more pictures of bracelets.  This first batch is a set of what I call my "beaded bangles" which are fun, colourful, slender bracelets which can be worn alone or mixed and matched as a series of bangles, or twisted and braided together, or anything else you can come up with.  I should have a few new colours at the show.  (Seed beads and bugle beads)

The next set of bracelets are more of the same type as the harlequin bracelet I posted before.  I also make these in all sorts of colours.  (Seed beads and glass pearls)

I also have some of that design in necklace lengths.  Here are two of the ones in rich, warm tones.  Please note the lovely home-made stand my boyfriend and I put together for the Bastion Square Market this summer. (seed beads and glass pearls)

I believe I mentioned at some point that in addition to bead threading I've also recently gotten into wire-wrapping.  Here's an example of one of my donut wraps with a simple beaded chain made to match.  Unfortunately, I didn't write down the type of stone when I bought it, so I've no idea what it is.  I do know it did not cost enough for it to be turquoise, so I would guess maybe some kind of agate.  If anyone has any ideas, let me know.  (chain: seed beads and e beads.  pendant: stone donut, silver-plated copper wire,  e beads, swarovski bicones)

And last but not least, there are earrings.  I've been spending most of the last few days making earrings, and I'm quite excited about them.

The first pair I'll show you is meant to match my harlequin set.  (seed beads and glass pearls)

The next set are some fun and colourful tassel earrings I made over the summer.  Sorry about the red strings in the photo, but I took it at a market and those are my price tags.  (seed beads, bugle beads, various metal caps)

And this last set are the earrings I've been working on for the last little bit.  They're a really fun freeform coil wire technique.  Here's a shot of the full set that I've made up so far: (silver or gold plated copper wire, copper wire, glass pearls, tiger's eye, various beads)

Here's a closeup of the ones with glass pearls.  They'd go nicely with my harlequin sets, or just look really snazzy with a little black dress.

And last but not least, here's a closeup of the two pairs I made with those neat beads that sort of look like they have two layers to them.  My camera had a bit of trouble with them, so you will just have to come to the show to see them in person.  The light blue ones look like little drops of ice with their silver spirals around them, and the red ones look beautifully festive for Christmas, trimmed in gold.

And that is all for today.  Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some new pictures to post.  If not, I'll definitely post some images from the Gifts show.

A Work in Progress for the Gifts show

Here's a coral I'm working on for the Gifts for Myself and Others show.  I apologize for the quality of the photograph, but I took it using my phone.  I'll upload nicer pictures once it's finished.

The colours are supposed to reflect autumn foliage.  Seed beads, bugle beads, and swarovski bicones.  If I have time, I'll work on one in winter tones as well.

Some Bracelets

I suppose I should go ahead and post some of my work.  I'll start with a few of the bracelets that will be available at the Gifts for Myself and Others show (see my previous entry for details on that).

This first one is more or less a basic daisy chain, but I decided to see what would happen if I added bugle bead leaves.  Personally I rather like the effect, and I think it could be really pretty for a short necklace as well.

The different colours in the bugle beads look a little funny in places in the photo, but I promise the effect is more subtle in person, and I think adds a hint of "realism" to the leaves, if one could use that term for anything so stylized.

The next bracelet also makes use of seed beads and bugle beads.  This is a design I tried back when I was twelve and wound up just hopelessly snarling my thread.  It then got filed in my mind under a "too difficult to be worth doing" category and sat there for entirely too long.  Only a couple of years ago, when I came across the design again, did it occur to me that I might now have more fine motor control than I did back then, haha.

I only have the one colour so far, but time permitting, I'll do a few more.

The last one I'll post today is my most common type.  This is also done as a modified daisy chain, but the effect is quite different from the classic one.  Glass pearls and seed beads.  I make these in quite a few colours.  I call this particular design "harlequin" because of the way the dark and light crisscross.

I also make these at necklace length, and am working on a few different earring designs.

Well, that's it for now.  Next time maybe I'll post a work in progress shot of the coral I'm working on.

(Please feel free to comment, btw.  My traffic counter says 42 people have viewed my blog, but I've no idea what anyone is thinking.)

Getting set up & Announcing Gifts for Myself and Others

Hello world wide web!

I suppose I should be more formal, given that I'm creating this blog for my business.  Then again, my business is hand-made beaded jewelery, which makes me more of a batty artist/artisan than a formal, suit-wearing businesswoman.  Which is good.  I hate formal writing.

The reason I'm setting up this blog in the first place is that I'll be participating in the Gifts for Myself and Others Christmas crafts fair at the Da Vinci Centre (195 Bay Street) on November 15-17.  Details can be found at the Island Artisans Association website or at various other places such as chatterblock or harbour living.  Let's see if I can insert an image of the post card for it.

Turns out I can.  Huzzah!  As you can see, there's a mini map there, but I also included a link to google maps if you'd rather look at that.

You can also check out more info on the IAA's facebook page.  There are lots of pictures there of pieces by many of the amazing artisans who are participating.  You should especially check out the gorgeous peacock by Deb Thurlbeck, because I'll be sharing a table with her.

The IAA theoretically also has a twitter account, but I don't know the url for that yet.  I'll share a link when I do.

I guess that's all the info I'm going to put up for now.  I need to see what my blog looks like, and twiddle with it.  Possibly create a website too.  And maybe a new email address.  Then order business cards.  I'll put up some pictures of my work soon though.

Jessica