Gifts and Wishes 2016 and new pieces in Etsy

Gifts and Wishes 2016 has begun at the Coast Collective's beautiful new purpose-built location on Wale Rd!  The show runs from November 23 to December 23 during the Coast Collective's regular hours (Wed-Sun, 11-5) and features work by many Vancouver Island artists.

I will be there on December 1 from 11-5 if you want to stop by and talk to me about my art.

The Coast Collective is also running a promotion on their Facebook, so be sure to check that out before heading over.  Sounds like you could win a free art print!

Speaking of promotions, my 10 items over 10 days with a shop wide 10% off (coupon code WEBB10) is in full swing at my Etsy shop!

The pieces for days 2 and 3 can be worn as a set.  It's a harlequin style beaded glass pearl necklace and bracelet with heart clasps, making it a great gift to show your loved ones some warm fuzzies!

The necklace is $39 (-10% with WEBB10) and the bracelet is #20 (-10% with WEBB10), and if you buy more than one piece at a time, you'll save on shipping. 

Be sure to place your orders soon if you want them to arrive in time for Christmas!

Gifts for Myself and Others 2016

I am pleased to announce that I will once more have items in the gallery shoppe of the beautiful Gifts for Myself and Others show put on by the Island Artisans Association at the Leonardo Da Vinci Centre on November 19 and 20.

This wonderful juried show has been running for 28 years and features exquisite handcrafted and upcycled works by local artisans.  I am thrilled to be included once more.

So please shop local this holiday season and pick up some unique handcrafted gifts for your loved ones, and maybe something special for yourself as well!

Gifts for Myself and Others 2015, Nov 20-22

I am thrilled to announce that I am once again participating in the Gifts for Myself and Others Juried Show and Sale of Fine Craft.  (There's actually a short youtube video with pictures of a bunch of the artwork at that link as well as a list of participating artists.)  I won't have my own table this year, but I'll be part of the gallery shoppe, which is a large booth featuring the works of a number of Island Artisans members.  (The video's info is a bit outdated; the cafe and gallery shop are on the main floor.)

Once again, the show is being held at the Leonardo Da Vinci Centre right across the Bay Street bridge.  I got to look around a bit when I dropped off my jewellery this morning, and it looks like it will once again be a fantastic show this year.  In case you missed it in my title, it's this weekend, November 20-22. 

Here's a look at my Gifts for Myself and Others 2015 collection:

Remember you can click on the images to enlarge them.

Here's a picture without the busts blocking the necklaces on the stands:

As you can see, there are a few old favourite designs and some new ones.

Some spiral earring designs make a comeback, with pure as snow white and silver spiral earrings set for strolls through winter wonderlands. $20:

I also have two ombre versions in silver plate.  The first has a white center and gets darker towards the edges for cool sophistication on winter days. $20:

and the second starts dark in the middle and brightens up at the tips like clouds with a silver lining, $20:

New this year I have a design in candy cane red and white for Christmas time delight, $20:

I also have the classic gold and white and gold and caramel and white designs with brass and glass pearls, and the cherry red miracle beads and brass.  New to the golden scale this year is a pair featuring clear amber-coloured beads for a warm honey glow, $20:

I also have a few sea glass pendants at the show, like this one featuring brass wire, a shell charm, and a freshwater pearl.  They're all ready-to-wear on black cotton cords with clasps to match the metal used in their wrap.  $25:

New this year I have a series of triple drop earrings.  These are long and elegant dangling earrings that can be worn to taper towards the face or away from it, depending what flatters your face shape best.

To stick with the golden theme, first up we have a set in brass with pale rose freshwater pearl drops, $20:

Next are some that I think would be perfect for holiday season parties, especially New Years.  They feature silver-plated wire, shiny little hematite stars, and glittering Swarovski crystal bicones.  They'd add the perfect sparkle to any party outfit.

Last in the new lineup of drop style earrings I have some with silver plate, icy blue seed beads and beautiful blue glass beads cut in faceted rectangular prisms.  These would add some fun and colourful sparkle to your look:

And last but not least, since it's in the show and I may never get to see it again, here is yet another picture of my beautiful fringe necklace Treasures of the Deep.

If you make it to the show and enjoy it, drop me a line and let me know.  More news to come soon about my next Christmas season event.

Gifts for Myself and Others 2014 was Lovely

Hello to anyone I may have seen at Gifts for Myself and Others 2014 last weekend.  It was a completely beautiful show with so many talented artists and so many lovely visitors.  It was delightful to speak to all of you.

I thought I might post a few pictures for those of you who missed the show.  As I mentioned in my last post, I shared a booth with Deb Thurlbeck and her wonderful, whimsical fabric art and photography.  Below are a few pictures of our booth.  I apologize about the quality, but my camera didn't do super well in the low light.

First up a nice side view of the booth in its entirety:

 

You can see several of Deb's beautiful masks, a couple of her sea horse giraffes, and a few of my pieces, including my Treasures of the Deep necklace (closeup of that at the bottom of this post).

Next up is a snot of one of my sections of the table, with my beaded bangles, donut wraps, and some of my fancier pearl necklace pieces:

I'm considering discontinuing the beaded bangles, so they are getting pretty sparse.

The final table shot I have for you is mostly of my sea glass pendants.  I'm rather proud of the little beach I manage to set up for them, with the oceany scarf and drift wood and shells:

A little overexposed, but hopefully you get the idea.

I also figured I'd include some photos of some new earrings I had available at the show.  Neither pair has sold, so they are still available.

The first is a pair I made a couple years ago.  They are delightfully extravagant, with a base made from silver-plated copper wire donut wraps on shell loops, and three dangles featuring freshwater pearls and Swarovski bicones.

The wrap on the donut features various types of beads.  This pair of earrings is $50.

The next set are also silver-plated copper wire donut wraps on shell, but they feature central obsidian beads and a square crystal dangle.  They're in multiple shades of blue, silver, and black, not quite as extravagant as the previous pair, but still quite funky.

The central obsidian beads can rotate freely to show multiple sides.  These earrings are $40.

And that's it for today, but please look forward to my next post with info about my final show of the year and photos of a bunch of new pieces.

Gifts for Myself and Others 2014

I've been quiet lately because I've been prepping for my biggest show of the year.  (I'm also on the committee for it, which has been a wonderful learning experience and has kept me quite busy as well.)  So I am very pleased to inform all of you that for the second year now I will be sharing a table with the wonderful fabric sculpture artist Deb Thurlbeck at Gifts for Myself and Others!

As the image here shows, Gifts for Myself and Others will once again be held at the Leonardo da Vinci Centre at 195 Bay Street (map).  It will be this coming weekend, Friday Nov 21 to Sunday November 23.  The hours will be as follows:

Friday November 21 -- 12:00pm to 8:00pm
Saturday November 22 -- 10:00am to 6:00pm
Sunday November 23 -- 11:00am to 5:00pm

Admission is $4, but you can get $1 off if you bring a food bank donation.  There are hourly door prize draws and a chance for a grand prize of $250 which can be spent with any of the participating artists.  New this year we're adding soap and candles as vendor categories, and we're having a gallery shop with work by Island Artisans Association members who did not want to have a full table.  I am super excited about this show; it'll be fantastic.

As I mentioned, I've been busy making new pieces for this show.  I haven't photographed many of them yet, but I can show you pictures of two new bracelets in my glass pearl and seed bead line.  I'm branching out into brighter colours.

More pictures to come soon!

And just a reminder, if you're planning on ordering something from my exciting new Etsy shop, and you want it in time for Christmas, you may want to make your orders soon.  Canada Post recommends early December for orders within Canada, and earlier if you want it shipped internationally, depending on the country.  That being said, if you're willing to pay extra for shipping, I can courier it to you at a later date, but you'd have to specifically request that.

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.

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.

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