Sunday 9 May 2010

1st Birthday on Folksy

At the end of May, my shop on folksy will be 1 year old, at the same time I have a number of listings coming to the end of there listing period.

To celebrate the shops 1st Birthday I’m offering 25% discount on the following items in my shop, and 15% off the rest of the items.

This offer will end on 31st of May at midnight.

As an additional extra offer, I’m 3 sales away from 50 sales in this shop. So will be offering free P & P on ‘magic sales’, my son has picked 4 numbers from 48 to 65, and when those sales happen the buyer will be refunded the postage cost as well as the additional discounts.

25% off the following items

http://www.folksy.com/items/119138-Flower-shaped-earrings
http://www.folksy.com/items/119150-Triangle-Cuff-Links
http://www.folksy.com/items/119346-Key-to-Heart-Necklace
http://www.folksy.com/items/123086-Pink-Ivory-Gate-Gorgette
http://www.folksy.com/items/123106-Necklace-in-Purpleheart
http://www.folksy.com/items/124950-Eleven-Spike-Necklace
http://www.folksy.com/items/125154-Corner-Cut-Squares-Necklace
http://www.folksy.com/items/125350-Buffalo
http://www.folksy.com/items/139430-Greyhound
http://www.folksy.com/items/140414-Dove-in-Pink-Ivory

15% off all other items

Folksy Shop

Discount will be refunded by paypal, or direct message me for discount to be applied before sale.

Sunday 25 April 2010

Hidden Secrets part two

I’ve had a lot of messages on forums and via Facebook asking me about the stand seen in the pervious post ‘Hidden Secrets’, several have asked where it was purchased and others have asked how it’s made.

The stand was made by me about 4 years ago, it was my first attempt and I’m still amazed at the way it has stood up to being transported, put together and then dismantled, I’ve been doing up to 60 events a year for the last two years, and at a rough guess I would say that this display has attended 250 events.

The stand was designed to knock down flat for transport, and needed to be easy to re-assemble each time it was needed, Initially it would have to be said that I over engineered the design, and maybe that’s why it’s lasted, but some of the initial features, such as using wing nuts to hold the cross braces in place, are now no longer used, I just slide the braces onto the bolts, and don’t bother putting the wing nuts on.

In this first photo, you can see the stall ready for transport, it’s simply 8 components; 3 shelves, 3 cross braces, and two side panels.

In photo 2, we have a view of one of the side panels:

You can see the bolt positions onto which the side braces fit, these bolts are epoxyied in to place allowing me to put the unit together on my own.

In the top part of the photo you can see the dowel pegs that slot into the shelves, helping to add stability to the unit.

Below is a more details shot of the dowel pegs

The first step in putting the unit together is to get the cross braces into place, each end of the cross brace is marked, with a corresponding mark on the frame

The next stage, once the cross braces are in place, is to fit the shelves, these just slot onto the dowel pegs (each shelf has the dowel pegs in slightly different places, giving an added benefit of increased stability), as can be seen from the photo below, the back of the shelf has a raised rigid back brace fitted, this allows for a thinner thickness of board to be used to make the self (the back brace also stops the shelf sagging in the middle, and forms a slight joint with the side frame). At the front of the self you can see a raised section again, this time much smaller; this addition prevents items slipping from the front of the shelf.


Once constructed, the naked frame can then covered with a cloth.

Some things you may have noticed, on the bottom rear cross brace, the are cup hooks at either end, this is where I hang bags that I use to put multiple purchases in, although sometimes they can end up inside the cubby the frame creates. The black PVC fabric on the side panels are their to stop people seeing in the side, and to keep wind and water out.

Please note, I have not included the plans for making this stand, for one simple reason, I do make them to order, and each one is custom designed to the requirements that it will be used for. If your interested in having one made, please leave a comment or message me at woodjewellery@gmail.com

Sunday 18 April 2010

Understanding twitter (info)

Now a great many people use twitter to promote their shops.

I beleive that everyone understand the concept of followers, and the more you have, the more people will read what you tweet?

I'm sure that many of you understand that messages can be re-tweeted.

How many understand the RSS button? the RSS but apears on all sorts of places, like at the top of forum threads, but with twitter it can sever a second purpose.

Did you know that instead of just having the people who 'follow' seeing what you tweet. people who click on the RSS feed button can as well.

Also remember that once you click on the tweet button, you can't delete or edit what you have said. anyone could be watching.

Even if you try and keep seperate accounts, one for your private tweets and one for your shop.

Once something is posted out into the WWW, it's there forever.

Anyone could be watching your tweets. Even Me (but then i'm Illiterate so i can't read?)

Ooopps is posting info 'throwing my weight around'

Thursday 8 April 2010

New issue of UK Handmade

The Latest issue of UK handmade magazine is out (it's been out over a week, but with Half term, I've been a bit bogged down).



This Issue also contain my blog post on Insurance.

Another great issue

Monday 8 March 2010

Hidden Secrets

When you look at my Craft Fair Stall, there are a few hidden secrets, and I'm going to share one with you all today. One secret to a good stall is to display items at different heights and as can be seen below, this display lifts items of the flat of the table.


I still have a lot of work to do on the front of this display before I'm going to be happy with it, but the real secret is the other side.

I use the underside of the display at the back to store my cash box (unlocked and open so that you can see it), and also my packing supplies as can be seen in these two photos.





Under the table itself is a large box, which hold cardboard jewellery boxes of various sizes (sorry, the photo did not come out).

By having this hidden area at the back of the display, I can keep thing out of sight, such as cups of tea, food, etc. From this partial side view, things can not be seen.


This photo from a recent craft fair, shows the stall and the display, and also it's smaller sister (more hidden secrets under there as well).

Craft Stall Update


Over the last few weeks, I have been working on my stall for craft fairs; I had grown a bit bored with the slate and stone I’d been using.

I had decided I wanted to use more wood in my display, I had been donated a large chunk of root stock from an Apple tree, So my first step was to discard the sections that had root and disease, and then work out just what displays I wanted.

As can be seen in this picture below, these first sections have cuts through the trunk at 45 degrees, each cut was done with a hand saw, and took over 10 minutes of hard sawing, so by alternating the cuts at 90 and 45 degrees, some nice displays were created

Next instead of alternating the cuts, I stayed at 45 degrees and ended up with some large flat ovals (known as oyster cuts), and with the smaller limb sections, I kept the cuts at 90 degrees to the line of the limb, to give me some circular disc shapes


These fit in with the larger oyster cut sections that I've been using for a few years, but cutting these larger sections needs a much bigger saw than I own

I still have a fair amount to do to these new displays, but the theme is slowly coming together. I hope to soon have some more log sections to make some more so that i can replace the non - wood items used to display my work.

Wednesday 24 February 2010

Sunshine Blog Awards

The sunshine award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspires others in the blogging world.

The rules for accepting the award are as followers -

* Place the logo within your blog or post
* Pass the award on to 12 bloggers
* Link the nominees within the post
* Let the nominees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog
* Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award

I will be awarding the Sunshine shortly