New Custom Work

Phew, survived Christmas unscathed!  Chrismas dinner was nice, almost on time, and I didn't poison anyone with the turkey.  The less said about my doomed from the very start Christmas cake, however, the better...

Also I can now share some custom orders/pressies that I made for people, as (hopefully) they'll have received them by now.

A silver initial letter 'T' in my gothic font:

 

A custom roller derby necklace with skate number and black spinel gemstone:

And a Christmas present for my mum, made to match the earrings I made for her 60th birthday:

 

And a pair of earrings for someone at work, with little garnet stones:

The photography was done on my iphone, so it's rubbish I'm afraid, but I didn't have time to get out my proper camera and lights before I had to send everything out.

I've also done another couple of custom orders that I can't share just yet...

Christmas Chaos!

Yes, I know every year I say I'll be more organised in the run up to Christmas, but every year I fail!

This year, I decided to rebuild my entire website a couple of months before Christmas.  That was silly.  I spent so long having a nervous breakdown over Wordpress, I was frantically making orders and posting them out right up until December 20th.

I finally did my Christmas shopping and put up decorations the day before Christmas Eve!  Didn't get round to getting a tree this year, so I put up ALL the lights instead.

Here's some fairy lights in a vase:

I managed to make the cuckoo clock look even more mental:

And my ultimate triumph:

This piece of gorgeous tropical bird fabric was a gift from the boy's lovely auntie. She's an interior designer and makes the most amazing curtains and I fell in love with this fabric when we helped her move workshop. The birds are a combination of applique fabric and embroidery with sparkly threads and it's just brilliant! I'd stretched the fabric over a canvas and stapled it, then I found these amazing lights for half price in the Habitat sale - the colours and shapes went perfectly with the birds.

The boy initially despaired (his first reaction was "Oh god, my eyes!") but I think I've won him over to its awesomeness and will be allowed to keep the lights after Christmas, hurrah!

I also managed to go home to Jersey for a far too brief weekend with my mum just before Christmas, which gave some much needed relaxation.  Mum had left putting up the tree so I could help as I don't have one of my own this year.  My mum is the best!

Here is the tree:

We were checking all the old lights that have been on the tree since we were kids.  This set of alarmingly demonic decapitated Santa heads used to scare me when I was little.  Eeeeeevil Santa!

Also took some pictures of the Jersey Christmas lights and various cats whilst I was home.

  

 

 All I need to do now is pick up the turkey and buy a few last minute food bits, and await the arrival of the boy's lovely family.

Merry Christmas!

New Website!

After months of shaking my fist at Wordpress and despairing wails of "but I don't understand WHAT THAT MEANS!" my new jewellery website is finally (pretty much) finished, hurrah! I'm so proud that I didn't give up at any of the many hurdles, especially given my general lack of technical ability.
Thanks to my very patient first customer, who helped me iron out a couple of final glitches :)

You can see it here: www.laurengracejewellery.com

New Skate Necklace

I've had a few requests now for a derby skate necklace without the wings.

As the wings are actually a big pain in the bum to do, I am delighted to oblige!

Here you go:

Now available to purchase here on my website.

Spooooooky...

Given that it's Halloween today, I decided to go to work dressed as a sort of goth circus master.  Did think I may have been pushing it a little with lack of office-appropriateness of outfit, but no-one even batted an eyelid.

Check out my rather fabulous Halloween spider necklace.  The boy is afraid of spiders and does not like it at all!

I picked this up, along with some other gorgeous crystal costume jewellery, at a trade fair a couple of years back.  I'm thinking about having a costume jewellery section on my new website, so watch this space if you fancy having your very own giant crystal spider.  Everyone wants a giant crystal spider, right?  Right...?

Pandora Style Charms

I was recently asked to make one of my little silver bee charms to fit on a Pandora bracelet.

I carved a little ring from wax with an inside diameter of 4mm, to fit on the Pandora chain, and had it cast.  I had a mould made too, just in case anyone else ever asks me for one!

 

And here is my little bee:

 

I think it turned out really well – I might offer the ‘Pandora Style’ option for some of my other charms.

New Commission

I was recently asked to make one of my custom initial necklaces in gold - eek!  Working with gold always scares me.  It's silly really, it's no more difficult than working in silver but it's just the expense of the materials if it all goes wrong!

Anyway, my customer liked the Ornate font that I use, so here is the little gold initial - it's 15mm wide.

On the Workbench

You may have noticed that I appear to have done a bit of a disappearing act from my blog recently.  I have been a little bit swamped with work, hence not really having time to write about it!

Here’s a couple of shots of the current chaos of my workbench.

   

See, working really hard!

More roller derby goodness soon :)

Custom Roller Derby Helmet

I was recently asked to make a custom silver jammer helmet necklace, complete with the skater number, for a skater in Australia.

Slightly randomly, she actually skates in a league with one of my old team mates from London Rollergirls!

And here it is:

I didn’t have time to set up my lights and photograph properly, so I just took a quick shot with Instagram on my phone.  Turned out okay actually!

Took Some Pictures...

Having recently got a rather bargainous second hand Canon 15-85 lens, I thought I'd have a go at actually leaving my house with the camera.  The only thing I know how to take pictures of is jewellery, which just sits there quietly being small and annoyingly reflective.  So, I joined a camera club.  Actually I joined a while ago, this is just the first time I've been brave enough to actually go on a shoot. You have to talk to strangers, it's scary!

Anyway, they were doing a themed shoot called Rock n' Roll bride, I though it sounded fun so I went along. 

It feels a bit strange waving a camera at people, but they're models, they're used to it!  There was a mixed range of abilities there, a fair few of my fellow clueless but also people with those fancy white lenses and flash gun/mini umbrella combos.

Given my lack of knowledge, I don't think my pictures turned out too bad actually! 

Here's some of my favourites: 

 

It was actually pretty fun - not sure I really learned anything technical, but it was good to just have experience of taking a ton of pictures of stuff.  I might try a studio lighting workshop next time, so I know how to take pictures of my jewellery on models at some point in the future, when I build my new website.  After I've done all the other million things I need to do first!