Problems, solutions, adventures and prizes.

I'm slacking a bit in keeping this up, but in my defence I have been very busy. 

I spent this weekend away, first in a spa in Kent with the lovely Corrie of Plutonium Muffins, and then in Brighton with Corrie and JT. Corrie and I had much fun going round all the shops I wouldn't have wanted to drag JT round and had some awesome hot chocolate.

Here are some pictures of our adventures:

Dinner in the hotel/spa. Notice the teeny tiny pots of sauces. Corrie and I now have a LOT of these.

I tried to take a picture of the beautiful sunset we drove through, but it hasn't really worked.

And that's me being very uncouth drinking wine through a straw (as is my way) in the hotel bar before we (and a random pair of rich people) nearly drank the bar dry of coffee flavour cocktails.

In more crafty news, after my recent development of new stock I had been proudly wearing my lovely multicoloured gun earrings pretty much every day but one day when I took them off I noticed the colour had worn off in a lot of places.

Sad face.

Back to R&D.

Seeing as I'd made about 50 pairs of earrings up already, this was a bit of a blow. I discovered with some spare charms that the colour stayed pretty well under a coat of spray varnish so I dismantled all the pairs of earrings, sprayed them with two coats of varnish (one to seal and one for good luck), left them to dry and then rebuilt them and have packed up the two orders I need to send and they should be in the post today. 

Yesterday I also made some new things! 

I've been wanting to play around with salt dough for ages and finally got round to making some up. I loved playing with it so much I decided to make more in different colours and attempt to marble the colours as dough, rather than water marble them after as had been my plan.

The water marbling was.... Fairly ineffective. Salt dough likes to absorb water. Bit of a problem. 

The marbled dough was.... Fairly dull by my standards for colour but I think it picked up when I drew on the dried pendants. What do you lot think?

I also remembered making some cinnamon dough ornaments a while ago at a friend's house and thought

"Wow having a little gingerbread man necklace that smelt of ginger and cinnamon would be SO cool"

So I went back to the kitchen and I created.

Mainly I created mess. I realised the dough set too quickly to do much to without having a cutter of the right size (and my attempt at making a cutter did not go well) but I did manage to create a ball of cinnamon ginger scented awesomeness that I will probably find no use for, and these little fellows!

Pretty cute, yes? Sadly they don't smell too heavily but I think they will do more when next to warm skin, and if you sniff them they smell heavenly, but you do look a bit odd sniffing your necklace! 

If you would like to win one of these little guys, head over to my Facebook 

www.facebook.com/colourfulcrafter

And find out how!

I think that's pretty much it other than letting you know that pendants will be available soon in all types and designs. They'll be available on their own so you can attach them to any chain you like, or with waxed cord (as shown) or a thin 20" sterling silver chain for a little extra money.

I hope you're all well. Let me know what you think of the salt dough experiments!

Over and out

Janet

P. S. I also made this. I can hang useful reminders to myself on it too!

New varieties of stock!

A while ago, I used to make earrings like these:

I liked them, but my interests have moved on from simply buying charms and attaching them to earring findings, however I still have a load of charms left because I bought hundreds and then got bored selling them.

I realised yesterday, however, that I can marble the charms so here arises a new range of earrings which I think are pretty damn sweet. Made with the same technique I showed you yesterday, here are my multicoloured and silver earrings:

Uploading the pictures to this from my iPad is a bit tedious so to look at them all you will have to visit my rather lovely shop: www.colourfulcrafter.com

Check them out, only £4 a pair and cheap shipping!

I'm pretty pleased with myself, I've stolen quite a few of them for myself!

Other than making earrings I've had a pretty productive day, finally sent off some earrings I needed to, collected some things from the post office, ordered some things I needed and went to my henna course. While there, I did one design on me, two designs on fellow classmates and one on the college receptionist who came in to see the teacher and wanted some henna. I literally had a queue. I was pretty impressed with myself.

Anyway, speak to you lot soon, I'm going to eat a creme caramel and go to bed 

Over and out,

Janet

P. S. I got a haircut today too. What do you guys think?

Wednesday already?

Time really flies when you have two naps a day. Also I've been busy with some other work so that's been keeping me on my toes, however I did manage to find time yesterday to both play with some new marbling inks (more on that later) and buy a wonderful bit of crafting kit that I'm very excited to receive on Friday (Hopefully!).

The new crafting kit is a Silhouette Portrait, a machine that looks a little like a printer, but instead of ink nozzles, it has a blade so can cut out things for you. This is particularly awesome because it can cut shrink plastic, which is my main material right now. At the moment, I'm making a lot of triangles and that's because they're easy to cut out and they tessellate perfectly so I don't have any wastage. I've cut out more complex shapes in the past but always stop because my wrists can't cope so hopefully this bit of kit will allow me to do loads more designs and shapes.

I've also been doing some maths today. I tried yesterday and came up with a set of numbers but couldn't work out what they were meant to be telling me. It reminded me why I gave up doing maths when I was on lots of painkillers - numbers don't make sense when you're on opioids! However, I managed to do it today and have been working out the best value pack of shrink plastic and it turns out to be joint between the craft pack of shrinkles and artists grade polyshrink so I'm going to get some polyshrink because I already know how the shrinkles stuff behaves.

This was my maths:

So, on to the exciting thing I did yesterday which was play with some marbling inks.

They're fun little things that you drop onto the surface of some water, swirl it around, then dip the thing into. It's pretty awesome. 

Here are some pictures of what I got up to:

Pretty snazzy, but I think I actually prefer them before the marbling was shrunk so what I'm going to do today is make some fun shapes, bake them, then marble them and see how that turns out. Obviously that process will be a lot easier when I've got my Silhouette!

Anyway, I'm going to go do something useful now.

Speak to you all soon!

Janet

Craft fair aftermath

So we last spoke on Sunday? I think I told you about my fun times at the craft fair, written from my bed as I nursed my poor, overworked back.Got into a bit of a pickle with my back, had to get my dad to come round to make me some food because I couldn't move. A very important lesson for next time, don't neglect my joints while enjoying myself doing craft things. I think I shall add my back support and some valium to my craft fair kit.

Anyway, I still managed to get down to Brighton to see the lovely JT. I actually managed to spend a whole day awake with no naps while down south! It was a good day. I spent that day making JT buy lots of cushions and pillows for me so I can get more comfortable when I'm there.

I also took my shrink plastic and pencils down so I've got some earrings ready to cook so I can actually send the ones I need to send to Emma after I melted the previous pair!

Earrings I sent last week, and a bag and a t-shirt, went down well with their respective recipients which was good! And I've made a sale on Etsy! It's been a good week.

I've also been having a play at some craft projects with my smallest (although not that small!) cousin Eve who is reading over my shoulder as I type this so I had better be nice to her :P

We made cake decorations from fondant icing:

We did some pumpkin carving:

There they are in my parents' house's window.

My cousin got a bit sinister... Repeatedly!:

I did some henna:

Sadly it didn't really take as well on Evie as it could have done. I think it needs some good moisturiser and it'd take better.

Mine stained pretty well:

I've also ordered some oil based marbling inks because I thought they'd be really awesome on earrings so watch out for some in the near future. 

I'm going to attempt sleep again now, I'll check in next time I have something interesting to say!

Janet

P. S. I think this sloth might be my spirit animal.

My first craft fair is DONE

Hello there, internet dwellers.

It's done. It's over. I did it. 

With my beautiful assistant, Corrie, I have done my first craft fair! 

Suitably colourful I think!

What's more, I broke even, and I think I was the only person there to do so. Sadly, not many people came. Probably because it was half term and the weather was poor, less people came than otherwise, and also it was the first craft fair there so I think they were all factors to the poor turnout. I sold two pairs of earrings, one to my dear mummy and one to my friend Lubna, and a phone case to my sister in law. I did a henna tattoo on a small child, one on a fellow stall holder, one on Corrie and one on me.

Overall it was a really positive experience, if a little disappointing in terms of turn out. It made me realise how much I like doing this! It's been a stressful week, but I love making things, and I love other people liking the things I've made, and if they want to buy them, that's even better! I also love doing henna on people. I think I'm getting better at thinking on the spot about designs, as shown by the last picture. A heart is not something I would usually do, but I think that turned out really well, and I'm also impressed with how dark this henna is. I've put the remaining cones in the freezer to preserve them as the colour is awesome. I think I'll definitely be buying from that supplier again.

When I got home last night, I sent a few emails about other craft fairs and I've got a table (subject to me completing the form!) at a shopping and pampering evening in Kenton on the 8th of December. The stall cost is £25, but I'm fairly confident I can make that back. I'm going to be offering henna, a small amount of jewellery and t-shirts. I'm going to do some more hand painted ones for that event as I imagine it will be people looking for slightly more luxurious products than my printed t-shirts, not that they aren't nice, but they're better for a different audience I think. Slightly longer to prepare for this one anyway :D

My back has been rather angry with me today for the abuse that it has suffered this week, so another thing I have learnt is that I really need to give myself more time to do things, and not take tables at craft fairs with a weeks notice, however much I want to do it!

I think I'm going to spend the next few days asleep (subject to the forecasted storm noise!), and then I'm seeing my lovely family and helping my cousin make a Victorian costume. I think she's going to be a chimney sweep/beggar child! Also hoping I get to take her trick-or-treat-ing! 

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend.

Until next time...

Janet

P. S. Corrie took this lovely picture of Mau!

Time's UP!

Ok, it's just gone midnight, I've packed everything I think I need for tomorrow other than my insurance documents which I'm printing now, and the stickers, which I haven't designed yet, and I'm not entirely sure I'm going to.

I've done a stock check and I have:

• 30 t-shirts
• 64 pairs of handmade plastic earrings
• 39 pairs of silver earrings
• 15 phone cases
• 8 bags
• 2 pashminas
• 2 small scarves

Total: 160 pieces of stock!

I think that should be more than enough! I also have 5 cones of henna, and two cones of henna/jagua mix so I can do two toned designs.

I also have a very sore back and a very sweaty face! I was going to have a shower tonight so I don't have to get up even earlier tomorrow, but I think that I'm just going to sit here and be lazy instead, possibly design some stickers, and do a check over the to-do list to see if there's anything I'm missing!

See you on the other side!

Janet

P. S. Don't leave shrink plastic in the oven too long!

Less than 24 hours to go!

And to say I'm stressed would be an understatement. 

I'm trying to be calm because I know when I stress I hurt more, but it's a bit difficult.

At the beginning of the week my to do list looked like this:

Sort the t-shirt stock

Print the t-shirts

Decorate phone cases 

Make Henna/Jagua cones

Buy insurance

Sort table layout

Get blu-tac!

Make and print henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Price lists/signs

Print bags

Buy frames for Henna designs

Sort my design book

Make more earrings

Design & Print stickers

Iron all stock

Get change from the bank

Post long awaited items to Luisa and Emma!

I have:

Completed 20 t-shirts

Decorated 10 phone cases

Made henna paste

Bought insurance

Worked out the basic principles of my table layout

Got blu tac!

Designed henna ingredients and aftercare sheets

Designed price list

Designed size list

Printed 3 bags

Framed henna designs

Finished 24 pairs of earrings

Realised I can tumble dry stock rather than ironing it

Not bad for a week.

Really important things to do are:

Make my printer work so I can:

Print aftercare, ingredients, size, stall info and price sheets and insurance documents

Design stickers for earring bags

Make henna cones

Find some fabric to cover table

Get change from the bank

Find out where I'm actually going tomorrow

Rest!

Desirable things to do are:

Print more t-shirts

Print bags

Work on design book

Post things to Luisa, Emma, Christina and my solicitors. 

Speak to the people about my business cards

I've hopefully sorted getting the printer to work, ie. I've asked my dad to come round later and fix it! Printing the things shouldn't take too long. Designing the stickers might be a bit difficult before I've got my printer working because I wanted to scan the sheet so I knew where to put the design etc. 

Making henna cones takes me a while because I'm completely incompetent. What I'll probably do is cut out loads and loads of bits of cellophane and set myself up in bed with Netflix and a cup of tea, make hundreds of the things, then use the ten or so that actually work. I've got the henna mix in a piping bag ready to fill cones with but want to make some mixed with jagua so will have to do that too. That shouldn't take long though. Finding the fabric should be easy, I have a whole cupboard full and I think I've got some nice orange linen that would be good. 

The bank should be fine, I think I should get a float of about £40: 4 £5 notes and 20 pound coins. That just means I need to get out of bed before 5.

I've just worked out where the place is. I thought I knew, I just needed to check!

Now to work on the rest? 

Janet

P. S. 

This is how I feel right now!