Digging Out

I was hunting for something under my bed yesterday, and I found some drawings that I did a while ago when I worked in a very boring job.

I took a photograph of each of them, then fiddled with the Threshold on photoshop, and they have come up looking quite snazzy. I might use one of them for a new project I have got involved in;

http://www.fantazya.ca/diary2009.html

It's basically, you design a page for a diary, you can advertise your shop, or simply make it super-original. I love being part of something like this, and I'm quite excited about designing my page. I nabbed my birthday, I think some dates are still available, if you fancy giving it a shot.

You can view more of my found designs on my Flickr account. Feel free to add me as a Flickr friend too!

I also made a new bracelet today for my boyfriends sister. She wanted something pink and blue so I made her this;

I hope she likes it! It's very girly, lots of hearts and spangly stars, and her initials right in the centre. I'm not sure whether to list this as a custom item, I could do pretty much any colour combination and any initials, although I have only one 'M' which is a little bit weird, but serves me right for buying a mixed bag of random letters!

Loads of stash pics and work-in-progress snaps coming over the weekend!

Rainbow Fun

Etsy has this searching tool called a 'Treasury'

Basically, it's a group of 12 items that match a certain theme or look good together. Anyone can make one, but there are only 333 spots, so you have to wait for one to expire before you can nab one. I sat waiting last night for the number to drop and YES! I got it!

Here is my Rainbowtastic Treasury (you can click here to see the real thing if you are a member of Etsy - leave a comment so that my treasury gets pushed higher up the list!)

And yes, Captain Eagle Eye, I did sneak in my gorgeous Meadow bracelet, because what's a bit of shameless self-promotion between friends?

I got a little packet in the post this morning, it was a bunch of butterfly charms to make bracelets with - they are so cute! I was really pleased because I ordered 12, and the lovely seller sent me 15, plus a little bag of freebie goodies! The post this morning bought another revelation too. I'm going back to work! I have been on maternity leave for 9 months, and although I love being at home with my little boy, we need the moola really. So...I am going back, evenings only, 6-9and one weekend day. This with give us 50% more again than what I am getting now, so plenty for treats for little dude and me! I start June 02. I know, I'm going to be knackered aren't I?

Bead Porn!

I'm in a great group on Flickr called Born Porn, isn't that the cutest name? Well, I guess it's not really cute, but still. I liked it! I'm trying to expand my Flickrizing to spread the twinklyspangle gospel, so if you have a cute beady or jewellery group to invite me to, I would love to hear about it, even if it only has one member! Let me know in the comments :)

My grandmother has been to stay the last few days, and I have sent her on her way with a huge package of beads and fandangles to show my Dad, who is facilitating the designing of the website and all the accounting stuff. He wants to see the items and start trying to take some professional looking photos. We are thinking of going with a lightbox but I'm not sure exactly how that would work. They need to have a pure white background. I'm excited about seeing what comes of it, m photo's are getting better but they are not spot on yet.

My boyfriend has his horrible tarantula out. I want to squash the nasty clambering thing. I want to hear her go POP under my shoe. I hate her so much.

Gorgeous New Designs

In the process of setting up my new website, I have the task of creating 20 lines for the site. It's hard work, creating things that I think will sell and also that it is possible to create and sell in a profitable way. But, I think I have struck gold with this:

Isn't it cute? It's great because it's totally designed by me, I even made the flowers using three different types of beads, petals, leaves and tiny contrasting faceted round beads. It's so colourful and cute, I have put it up for sale on Etsy for a super-cheap £8, but it will be £10 when my website launches, and this is the ONLY one I will be selling at this price (my beautiful prototype - ooohh I'm so proud!) so snap it up!

I have been working on my packaging this week too, here is an order ready to send out:

I would love to know what you think of the stickers being used like this, and how I have tagged the jewellery. I want to make it look funky and original, I'm not really sure about this lime green. A couple of people have suggested black, which might look better, what do you reckon?

On a totally unrelated note, here is a picture of me with my little boy in Brighton over the bank holiday. It was such a beautiful day, I got a great tan, and the tiny fellow had his very first dip in the sea.

You can see more photos of us beaching it up on my flickr account - including the little one's first dip in the sea and my boyfriends mad hair - fun!

Stash - Crash

I am seething right now.


If anyone had wondered exactly what my stash all over the floor would look like, congrats! Today is your lucky day. Bugger.

Knowledge On A Sunday

So, right, I made this necklace;

And when I was thinking what to call it, my very first necklace and all, I thought, "A Swarm Of Butterflies? Well that's a bit gross because 'swarm' reminds me of locusts." SO then I started thinking up other collective nouns that might work. I settled on Shoal, as in, a shoal of fish. But with butterflies. Well, it's cute word anyway! But, when I was adding the photos to my Flickr account (The link is on the left if you fancy checking it out!) I decided to check out Wikipedia for the true description of a collective of butterflies. There were three entries:

• A Rabble Of Butterflies
• A Rainbow Of Butterflies
• A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies

How cool is that? I wish I had known this before I settled on a name, although I love the word shoal. So, I feel like I learnt something today. Plus, these made me laugh:

• A Rascal Of Boys
• A Herd Of Faeries
• A Corner Of Goths (how weird is that?!)
• A Prickle Of Hedgehogs

A Lazy Saturday

My little guy is off for the day with his auntie, so me and Mr Twinklyspangle have some time together. We have spent it cleaning out a large cupboard in our bedroom - I'm going to use it as my studio, I'm so excited! I can stand up in it but there is plenty of room for a large desk and lots of storage space. It was filled with paint, DIY stuff, tools, glue, tape and other random stuff from when we have been doing up the flat, and now it's empty and ready for me to paint. I have been taking photos of the whole process so I'll be putting them up when it's finished, so you, my beautiful readers, can see my little workspace!

I have had a few great sales this week, and I really need to ship them but it's the bank holiday weekend, and I'm reluctant to send my items of into postal oblivion.

I have added some links to my blog. I always get these little obsessions with people I have never met online. I read their blogs daily, stalk them through flickr and livejournal, secretly wish they were my friends, and generally act a bit nutty. My obsessions don't last long before I move onto someone else, but they are always super-cool people who have no idea of my love for them. Weird right? Well, I made it sound a bit creepier than it is, actually, looking back on what I have just written, but this week I have been mostly following the craftiness of Omg! Lia? who I once convo'd on Etsy to say I loved her stuff, and she was soooooo nice, and now I have started reading her blog and she's really fun. I'm not doing well at making this seem less creepy.

Let me know if you sell cute, fun stuff and want to swap links :)

Newest Earrings & A Fab New Design!

I took some gorgeous photos of my newest earrings yesterday, the colours look amazing, the new camera is working out really well. (Thanks Dad!)

So I've listed those, and a new bracelet I created. Now this is something special, I think. I adore the colour combination, the look of the bracelet and it's general jangliness! It used about 100 charms beads and buttons, and I'm really having to resist wearing it, because it's so fab! It's up for sale on Etsy, and I have had loads of lovely comments about it. Let me know what you think!

Lee came back last night with a whole bunch of stuff for me to make more fab jewellery with. He already bought me these beads;

Which I have made some snazzy bracelets with, but the stuff he bought me yesterday was immense; giant heart and kitschy diamond charms, gorgeous ribbons, raspberries and butterflies, and loads of faux pearls and enamelled heart embellishments. I can't wait to start creating with them!