Gorgeous Bracelet

I love seeing what happens to my components after they've been sent to their new home!

Yesterday, I saw this gorgeous bracelet which has one of my hammered sterling silver toggle clasps on and I just had to share it with you all

The bracelet is made by Wendy of Creeky Beads using her own lampwork glass beads.  The fact it is in my favourite colour blue probably helps!!!

Tiny Charms

I haven't been very good at blogging lately have I - I really must try harder!

Things are really busy here at the moment - I'm hopefully creating a new business that will continue to grow and generate a regular income for me.  That business is Tiny Charms, I have been creating keepsake jewellery for friends and family for a few years now, but have never made it a proper business.  As news was spreading around friends of friends, the inevitable question of "have you got a website?" kept coming up, and so I decided it really was time to do something about it!!

It has been a lot of work to get it to the stage its currently at, and its nowhere near finished!  I hope to have the full fingerprint range up this week.  Then I'll move on to the art ranges and hand/foot print ranges.

Of course, me being the way I am, having just the basic ranges isn't enough for me!  I will be adding a designer collection as well.  I have lots of ideas bubbling around for designs, but they'll just have to wait!

I knew that when I launched this site, I'd want to work with some charities, so I will be donating a percentrage of my profits to FSID and Tommy's.  Both charities fit in really well with Tiny Charms, and the FSID in particular is important to me personally, so I'm really happy to be able to give something to them.

I have set up a Tiny Charms Blog and I could really do with some followers!  Please if you think this may be of interest to you, or people that you know, pass the link on.  The more business I can generate, the more money goes to the charities.

Metal Clay Weekend

Two posts in one day!!

I've managed to finalise the details now for a weekend of classes at my studio. Anyone fancy a weekend in the lovely Cheshire countryside??

To have a look at the details of the classes available, please click HERE

Any questions, just let me know and I hope to see lots of you in June!

Workshop Update

As promised, here are some inside shots of the workshop space. I was going to take them when I first arrived this morning, but forgot!

So, here's a before shot





After a couple of hours of swearing at the furniture! Here's an after shot

I didn't get as much time here today as I would've liked, but I'm quite pleased with the progress so far. Fingers crossed my next day there will get the sorting finished off, I may even spend a couple of evenings this week trying to get it all done.

Lots of New Metal Clay Classes

Now that I finally have a base, I've got my class schedule sorted for the next couple of months, as well as running full day classes, I've added some short taster classes which I've wanted to do for ages.

There are too many to list in full, but there's a ring making class, beginners classes, stone setting, and more so just email me if you're near Cheshire and fancy making some jewellery!

I thought the blog looked boring without many pictures of my jewellery! So here you go, they may be bad, mobile phone pictures, but at least you can see some of my recent metal clay work.

I'm working on some new pieces ready to launch my Etsy store. There'll be a range of these necklaces with matching earrings. They are highly polished silver pillow-shape beads, simply strung on sterling silver necklets. There are countless options for these in all sorts of different textures. They look really pretty on - in fact I'm tempted to keep the ones I've made so far!

These lentil shape beads are lampwork beads by the fantastic Claire Morris. They had a top decorative layer of glass that I decided to cover up!! I painted some silver paste onto the top, and left it fairly uneven so that it took the shape of the glass underneath. It silver has cracked in some places which I love because it adds to the texture of the glass. I think there's about 10 of these beads, so I see them being split up into a few different pieces of jewellery.

Better pictures will follow as soon as I can get my hubby to take them. We're currently looking into equipment to set up a proper lighting / photography area. This will mean much better photos and hopefully, even I will be able to point the camera and take a decent picture! Well, maybe!

Becci

xx

PMC / Art Clay Class

I spent a very lovely day yesterday teaching a beginners metal clay class. I had a lovely group that just seemed to gel, we had lots of lovely chat as well as them all making some fantastic first pieces. I think I've managed to convert more people to the world of PMC and Art Clay!!

It has got me thinking today about teaching. I've had a bit of a love/hate feeling about teaching. I've come to the conclusion today that the reason I've not enjoyed it so much in the past is that my creative time has been very limited with me being a stay at home mum. It meant that the creative time I did get was mostly spent teaching rather than creating. Now that I've got more creative time as my little girl is in pre-school, I feel like I can get a good mix of both teaching metal clay and actually working with it and making new jewellery. So, teaching is definitely part of my business plan (yep, I'm being disciplined and writing one!!), I've got lots of new class ideas which I now need to develop and of course need to come up with a class schedule!

Mailing List Competition

So, there's still a lot going on behind the scenes here at Fired Silver!! This means no time for blogging unfortunately, but hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll have some exciting news which will then mean lots of blogging cos I'll have lots to talk about!

Anyway, as there are lots of new things coming up, I thought some of you may like to join my mailing list to be kept up to date with all the new product lines, news and classes. Don't worry you don't get bombarded with emails, I'll hope to make it a monthly newsletter, or more often if I have something exciting to share!

I'm running a prize draw for those who sign up to my mailing list before the 14th February 2008. I'll draw a name from the hat, and you'll receive a surprise! Needless to say it'll be silver!! So if you fancy taking part, just sign up to the newsletter at the top of the screen here, and that's it. I'll announce the winner here on the 15th February.

Bye for now!

Interesting couple of days

I've been quiet for a couple of days haven't I!

I'm really giddy at the moment, I went to Kilncare yesterday to get a new controller for my kiln. Mine has been broken for months and months, so I've been limited as to what I can make, but there's no stopping me now! I did my first firing today and it's fantastic!

So the pieces that you saw as work in progress are now fired, except for the glass work. Everything's going around in the tumbler now, so hopefully there'll be photos soon.

I had planned to do some more work tomorrow, but I've been asked to step in and teach a beginners class for someone tomorrow as her tutor is ill. I'm quite excited as I enjoy teaching and it's a place I haven't been before. There's also the chance for me to teach there again if tomorrow goes ok, so I just need to come up with ideas for new classes - no problem there, I've got a long list that I've never got around to doing anything with. It's a small class, so should be a nice day.

I put this piccie up on Frit Happens, but thought it might be fun to show it here as well - it's my work in progress.

I think it's sometimes hard to imagine how pieces are going to turn out, so seeing them part made gives you a bit of an idea

There's a mix of things on here, it'll be interesting to see what you think of the finished pieces compared to the WIP!

I'm getting my kiln repaired on Friday so watch out for lots of lovely glassy goodies, as I haven't been able to do any glass work because of the kiln ggggrrrr.

Finally, a new year!

I'm glad to see the back of 2008, so here's to being happy, healthy and positive for 2009!

I also wanted to say thank you to everyone who's supported me and bought from me during the last 12 months. I still get really excited with every sale!

So what's new - being poorly the last few weeks has meant that I've sat down and tried to think about how to drive things forward for the next 12 months. I don't do resolutions because they just get broken! So I've worked on what I'm going to sell, where I'm going to sell it and how I'm going to market it. I've done some experimentation through 2008 with ideas and products to see what works and what doesn't. Now I just need to focus and try to achieve a the goals I've set for the business.

I've set up a Fired Silver shop on Etsy. I've sold on Etsy before (under a different name), but have brought my range all under the one brand. There's nothing in the shop at the moment, but at least it's there and all the boring policy stuff is written.

I've also set up a group on Yahoo, I'll use this as a sort of fan club - someone else's description, not mine! I will use it as my mailing list and it's the people who are registered there that will receive updates on newly listed items, special promotions and sales etc. If you'd like to join, please go to Join my Mailing List Don't worry, you won't be bombarded with emails, just one or two per month.


Finally, a picture! I made this ring as a birthday present to myself. I will be listing these for sale though, as I really loved making it. They'll be custom made and the purchaser will be able to choose from a range of stones.

Here are the tags I mentioned in an earlier post. Each customer will get them custom made for them, so they can choose a font to match their existing fonts on their website etc, or they could have their logo imprinted. I think tags give a really professional finish to a piece of handmade jewellery and I hope fact that they can now tie in with the rest of the makers' image will mean that they're popular!

So, what tantalising pieces of information do I have for you today (assuming I'm actually talking to someone that is!!)

I've been working on my commission piece today, and it's had to undergo yet another repair, aaarrrggghhh. So the kiln will be on later, it's a shame to only have one piece in there, so to fill it up, I'm making components for another bracelet. It'll be a little brother or sister to the bracelet I made the other day. I've got 5 of the lampwork beads left so this is going to be mostly silver with a bit of lampwork. I can visualise it in my head, I just hope it turns out the way I see it.

I'm also going to start listing jewellery tags as part of my range of handmade beads and findings - ooh, that's a blog exclusive! Having completed a custom order of 50 tags last week, I decided to make some other samples and add them to my range. I'll post piccies here when they're ready. I think they're great - they're custom made with fonts to match the designers font or logo and add a really unique finish to the jewellery. I've made them for myself in the past but had never thought about adding them to my range before!

Right, off to put little 'un to bed and then on with more silver work!

Well, nothing much creative to report today! Today has been a pottering day - housework, bit of shopping, a few tantrums from the toddler! I'm now catching up on some paperwork -yuk.

I've got a commission that really needs to be finished. It's been hanging around for ages and for one reason or another just hasn't got done. It had another kiln firing last night, I think it's had 5 or 6 now, so a bit more sanding and polishing work tonight and I hope it'll be finished. Sometimes it's just better not to agree to these things! It turned out to be a really complicated shape to get right and it's been driving me mad because it just hasn't looked symmetrical.

The coffee machine's on the go now, so hopefully a caffeine injection will sort me out!

New Bracelet

Right, I'm going to make a big effort to keep up to date with this now - even if I do just ramble on to myself!!

I got this bracelet finished today and I love it! This one is a keeper. The lampwork beads are by the very fabulous Tania Grey (http://www.tanofcourse.co.uk). I thought the beads were just so beautiful that they didn't need much adding to them. So I just made some silver spacer beads using Art Clay Syringe, and a matching toggle clasp.

I've been determined to start making complete jewellery pieces. I spend so much of my "free" time either teaching or making commission pieces that I don't feel like I'm being very creative with my own jewellery. So, I've got a few pieces on the go, which I'm hoping will reignite my creative side! So watch out, this could be the first of many!!

Hi, well this is my first ever posting on my first blog! I'm not really sure what I'm doing with it at the moment, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it soon!

I really wanted to set this up now, as there's lots of new and exciting things in the pipeline for me at the moment and I wanted to document everything as it happens.

I'll post more over the coming days (hopefully every day!) but for now, I'm off to have a play and set things up.