Hectic Week

My Dad had my teenybobble this weekend, so I was meant to be relaxing. Getting up at 6am every morning is still a daily shock to my system so I had a great sleep on Friday night. I went to the craft shop on Saturday and got some new square bezels, and talked to the guy about putting up a sign for the craft fair that I am in the process of organising with a few fellow Etsians. You can find out more information, sign up, and find out the latest goss at the blog and our brand new flickr group. We are still accepting table reservations, although Jewellery spots are now filled.

Also, in regard to the craft fair, we are working hard to have some great promo bags to hand out to customers. Our minuscule advertising budget is being stretched to breaking point in order to buy up some cute reusable shoppers, but we need to fill them. I have offered myself up to be in charge of receiving the goodies, and we have had loads of interest so far. We really want to make these bags a great promotional tool for Etsians and Folksy users across the globe, so I thought you might interested in a few tips for sending in promos.

• Contact me directly for the address. I'm just reluctant to put it out here in the public domain, but send me and email to cakeadaykatie@hotmail.co.uk, flickrmail me or convo me on Etsy and I'll send you the address.


• Quality is preferable to quantity. We will be using every single promo we receive (provided it has not been damaged in the post or have some hideously obvious flaw) however, you will reach customers more with 10 fab samples, than 100 badly printed flyers.


• You may choose to include: a small sample (a teeny pot of something, some earrings or a charm, a little notecard, any tiny doodad!), a coupon for money off at your online store, a flyer or business card. If you do decide to use more than one of these options, please remember to keep everything nicely bunched together. A whole load of plastic isn't very economical, but a little paper bag tied with a nice ribbon, or some other way of packaging to make it like a weeny gift for the bag-getters could really boost your business.


• I will be photographing each batch of promos that I receive. Bags will be carefully co-ordinated to include a range of samples and business cards. Don't freak out if you can't afford or don't want to include a sample, business cards can be just as good!


• Any bags left over (although, let's be honest, who would say no to a free bag stuffed with goodies?) will be donated to the next UK Team craft fair.


• We don't need to receive the items until mid October, but remember, this is international shipping we are talking about. I wouldn't post any later than the end of August from the USA. A couple of people have said they are going to start filling a flat-rate small shipping box between now and then, with little samples and anything else they find that may promote their business, this is a great idea!


• If you have any further questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me. I check my email religiously throughout the day and night (I have a baby - I'm up at totally random times!) and I will endeavor to respond quickly.

I know this is a bit of a meaty entry, but just a couple more things! I have been designing and thinking hard about the direction that I want my jewellery to take this week. I have created these fab rocky charms, they look great as a bracelet, plus I used one to make this gorgeously girly-rock necklace. Check out that platinum chunky chain!

I'm going a bit wacky, and currently these are ONLY available in my brand-new Folksy store. I have yet to get a sale on this fab UK-based Beta site. If you are my first sale, I'll throw in a cute ring free of charge - so you should definitely get shopping!

Internet Outage & New Designs

Uurgg! My bloody internet connection has been crap this week so although I have been taking photos and creating gorgeous new pieces, as well as working on a huge wholesale order, I haven't been able to upload anything to Flickr or Etsy :(

So, this is a bit of a meaty update.

Firstly, I made a whole batch of 'Meadow' bracelets.

Here are a bunch of the charms I have made for each of the bracelets. Each bracelet takes 15 flowery charms to create, so I had to do over a 100 of these to create the amount of bracelets that I was trying to!

And here is a snap of some of the completed bracelets! I ended up making 8 of them, because I ran out of the flower beads, which are from Hong Kong, so I'll need to order some more pretty soon (I hope!)

You can read more about how I made these bracelet on my Flickr photostream, plus see some more lovely colourful snaps of them! You can purchase one in my Etsy shop for a reduced price right now, as I really need to see how popular they are before the launch of my website on September 1st. Click here to purchase yours!

So after all that, I had a bunch of these left:

Which are the pieces I cut off the end of the headpins that wasn't needed. So I wracked my brains for something I could do with these bits. I added a couple of beads to each, and curled the end: And basically, I made this cute, nu-rave coloured set!

I was really happy with how this turned out, and although this colour combo will be a one-off, I might do it again in a different colourway!

So, I think that is probably about it. I'm off to the Harvester now, I just adore their lovely Salad Cart and Lemon and Herb chicken - yum, my belly is totally rumbling right now. I'd love to know what you think of my newest jewellery, it's always nice to receive comments on posts. I know people are reading because I can see on my stats, so make yourself heard!

EDIT:

Stupid Harvester have changed their menu! They no longer do the bloody chicken that I love so, I had to make do with some yucky pasta, it was rank and bland. Down with menu changes!

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!

Gastro-Entroritis

You know this is going to be a glamorous entry with a title like that, eh?

Well, me and my little guy have both been struck down with a nasty tummy bug, there's nothing like throwing up over the side of the bed at 5 in the morning to really get those creative juices flowing.

I got a cool package from my parents this morning though, packed full of beads and a new digital camera! Well, it's not new, but it's their old one, and it's new to me. So I am going to spend tomorrow taking new pics of all of my jewellery and relisting them on Etsy.

I have made two funky new bracelets and a new ring, although the ring is based on a prototype I made a few weeks ago that sold without 3 minutes of being listed!

I have also spend three hours this evening attaching charms and beads to a stretchy bracelet. It's my wackiest design yet, all in shades of red and blue, and I can't wait to take photos of it tomorrow and get it listed. Hopefully this bug will have cleared up by then too.

A Snazzy New Bracelet

I got these amazing butterfly connector charms the other day, they are sort of gold-toned. I couldn't think of what to make with them. I hate making the obvious with things, so I decided to go a bit wild and attached some cute glittery beads to a stretchy bracelet, with the connector charm 'connecting' the ends, and added a flower button, and I love it! It's probably he cutest bracelet I have made yet, I hope to use it for my business cards, what do you think?

On a totally random note, I have lost another pound this week. Even though I ate five kitkats yesterday - result!