Lovely Customers

I find it very difficult to let my shiny things go once I’ve made them. I spend hours cutting, carving, sanding, polishing, only to package up my glittery little creations and send them out into the big wide world, to be owned by other people.

So, it’s brilliant when you get an email from a customer saying that they’ve received a shiny thing from you and telling you how much they love it :)

I came into work on a dark and rainy Friday morning to find a lovely email from a customer in America telling me how happy he was with the little silver moustache charm he had ordered from me. It brightened by day rather a lot. He even sent me a picture of himself wearing it and kindly gave me permission to use it here.

Meet Scott:

Awesome moustache, I think you’ll agree.

Scott makes some rather nice pictures, also occasionally featuring moustaches, which can be seen here:

http://www.scottwrightart.com

In other news, I sold a silver cloud necklace and have a commission for a new name necklace, which I really like doing, so all is currently good in the world of shiny things. Which is nice.

Models!

One of the questions I am most commonly asked by visitors to my website is "...but do you have any pictures of it being worn..?" This is definitely something I need to work on for my site.

A few weeks ago, a friend I skate with at rec league asked if anyone was interested in helping out at a photoshoot for a very cool book she's doing on roller derby fashion. I offered my services as photography assistant in the hope that I could (a) learn some stuff about photography and (b) sneak my jewellery into some shots.

And here are the results:

I think they turned out really well. The jewellery isn't super-clear, as necklaces have a tendancy to move around a bit, but you definitely get the idea of what the jewellery looks like on, right?

Many thanks to Ellen for letting me hijack her shoot, to http://www.dannybournephotography.co.uk/ for the pictures and the patience, and to my gorgeous rollergirl models, Anna, Danelle and Erin.

A Week of Cats and Cake

I have, as ever, been just a little bit rushed off my feet recently. People are buying my jewellery, which is lovely, and I very much wish I had more time to make new shiny things.

Rather excitingly, I sold some non-roller derby things too.

A little cloud necklace:

And a tiny moustache charm, to a lovely artist.

Helpfully, it turns out that I am no longer invisible to Google, hurrah! When I built my website, I used a flash based program, which looks very pretty and all, but is picture based and has no text for Google’s little spiders to crawl. Aha, I thought! I shall be clever and put titles in white text against my white background so Google has something to find, but so they don’t show up and ruin my pretty pages. Have since discovered, however, that Google frowns upon such things, considering them sneaky and suspicious, and therefore ignores the websites.

So, I spent ages going through my website, removing all my secret headings and using something called Alt-tags to create a text version of my title pictures and everything else. And, it worked! I’m now getting a regular stream of hits on my website with a whole range of search terms. Oddly, my most popular is “Essex necklace”, closely followed by “moustache jewellery”.

I’ve had loads of requests recently to sell the silver AFI necklaces I’ve blogged about previously, but have turned them all down, as the artwork belongs to the band, and not to me.

I’ve also had a few requests for commissions, but nothing that’s been finalised as yet. Fingers crossed for something fun...

Anyway, back to the title of this post, I’ve been away at home for a few days. It was really nice to see my family and have a bit of a rest. And cake. I did eat an awful lot of cake. Also got to visit my godmother, June, whom I’ve not seen in forever, and her beautiful Birman cat – check her out:

And here’s my mum’s gorgeous but grumpy little kitty, Pudding:

I was a little bit naughty when I was at home and bought a new camera. “Another one?!” I hear you cry... Yes, I know I only bought one last year, but that one was purchased on rather a whim and didn’t really do what I wanted it to for the jewellery photography, so I’ve now bought a lovely SLR, which is what I should have got in the first place! Went for a Canon EOS 550d. Had a bit of a play with it just in point and shoot mode and here’s some of the results. Nice, no?

Now, I just need to learn how to use it properly. Have ordered a book, which was recommended by a proper photographer and everything.

Right, enough of my wittering. Off to poke bits of metal with sharp things now.

Oooh, A Feature...

So, the lovely Jayne from Guilded Gems has done a little feature on my shiny weather. Exciting, no?

Check it out here: http://www.guildedgems.co.uk/index.php/news/25-jewellery-trends/64-april-showers

In other news, I completely failed to attend the Liberty Open Call, as I hadn't finished any of the new shiny things I wanted to, hadn't gotten my hallmarking sorted, and hadn't even thought about my presentation. Which was rubbish. But... they are doing another one in August, hurrah! Which I absolutely WILL be ready for.

Commissions, Cupcakes and Cuba

I've not had a chance to post for a while, due to being crazy busy in the couple of weeks leading up to my lovely holiday in the sun (more of which later).

Had a nice commission from the husband of a rollergirl for one of my winged skate necklaces, customised with her skate number. I've not had much of a chance to saw things from silver sheet with tiny blades for a while, so creating the little 9 made me happy.

Didn't have time to take proper pictures, but took a couple of (slighly blurry) snaps.

Also, I've not made any cupcakes for ages, so created some vaguely royal wedding themed ones in red, white and blue and took them into work. The boy came home as I was merrily pottering around the kitchen with icing and glitter and commented that I'm always so happy when I'm creating things. Usually a mess!

Anyway, here they are:

Had a bit of a horrid last day at work trying to get everything finished before going on holiday and ended up in the office until gone 8pm! Boooooo. But a lovely time in the glorious Cuban sunshine perked me up no end. We spent a few days in Havana, which was beautiful, fascinating and chaotic in equal measures, then on to Varadero for a few more days on the most gorgeous beach. Think I finally relaxed and slept properly for the first time in about two years!

I took a ton of photographs, but I don't want to bore you all rigid with my holiday snaps, so here's just a couple of my favourites:


Now, back to reality and back to the workbench. Many shiny things need finishing before the Liberty open call in August.

I Has a Website...

I have FINALLY finished my website, hurrah!!! Well, when I say finished, it's as complete as it's going to get till I finish the shiny things currently skulking grumpily on my workbench.

And here it is:

Pretty, isn't it? Although, knowing nothing about web design, I did make it full of lovely pictures, and consequently it is a little slow to load, so please be patient with it.

You can find it at http://www.laurengrace.co.uk/

Oooh, and I also made a facebook page - see?

I have fans and everything. Come and like my page at http://www.facebook.com/laurengracejewellery and then I can have more :)

P90X Update

Hello again,

Had a little bit of a blog break there, as have been ridiculously busy. P90X has not fallen by the wayside, but I’m definitely no longer on the day I’m supposed to be on, as I’ve had to abandon several days worth of workouts due to random and fun things, such as theatre trips, drinks with friends and roller derby practice.

So, let’s say I’m now on Day 17, even though it’s been more days than that since I started, and last week I definitely did not Bring It. Sorry Tony.

This week, however, I’m totally bringing it. Day 15 was the shoulders and arms workout, aka the horrid one with all the push ups and pull ups. Felt like I really pushed it though and am doing 2 extra reps on each round, hurrah. Arms felt somewhat like jelly afterwards though, and made cutting out silver with miniscule sawblades a bit tricky.

Day 16 was plyometrics, which I also pushed harder this week. This one is still completely exhausting, but all the leaping about and occasionally pretending to be a frog is fun.

Then, Day 17 was shoulders and arms. I have finally acquired some heavier weights, but rather over-ambitiously attempted to go from 3kg weights to 7kg. This, as it turns out, was quite foolish, as I couldn’t even lift them above my head. Pathetic. So, I switched down to 5kg, which was much better. I can do 8-10 reps with these, and my arms hurt rather a lot afterwards. But not in a bad, oooh, I’ve done some damage, kind of way.

So yes, still going, still detest the Ab Ripper workout, still hoping to one day be able to do a proper pull up. And it’s yoga tonight, which is my favourite, hurrah!