Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Hope your all doing well and 2014 is treating you well.
2013 was a brilliant year for Fashion Magpie Jewellery, so I'd like to say thank to you all for your support and feedback.
To kick start the year I'm going to start with a tutorial for a brooch I've been making. It's inspiration came from a hair bobble I brought from a company called Inca jewellery a few years ago.
In this tutorial I'm going to use stamped jewel enamel (something else I've been experimenting with.) Felt, beads, needle and thread and loads of glue.

Here is a picture of the results from my jewel enamel experimentation first.

For the tutorial I'm going to use the tree design, so lets begin.

 

Step 1 is simple cut your felt to the desired size then glue the jewel enamel (or any other focal piece) in the centre and leave to dry.

 

For step 2 thread your needle and tie a knot on one end, now thread the needle through the back of the felt to the front as close to the focal piece as you can and then thread your first bead on to the needle. For my design I've used a lime green seed bead but you can use anything you wish. Now push the needle back through the felt, approximately the length of the bead, then back so that your next bead will sit snugly next to the first. Now repeat this step until you have gone all the way round your focal piece and your design looks a bit like mine below.

 

For step 3, repeat step 2 until you have a second ring of beads. You may repeat this several times until your happy with the results.

 

Step 4. Now you should have finished sewing your beads on so it's time to cut the excess felt off being careful not to cut through any of your threads on the back.

 

 Step 5. Cut a second piece of felt for your back, I've chosen to stay with the green but you could use contrasting colours.

 

Step 6. Cut two slits for your fastening to poke through like in the picture.

For step 7, glue the fastening to the back. you can be as messy as you like with this bit as it'll be covered later, just make sure the glue doesn't get through the slits and onto your fastening. From experience I can tell you that if it gets through, it'll glue the fastening in place and you won't be able to use it!

 

Step 8. Glue front and back together and when the glue has dried you can cut the excess felt off the back.

 

And finally you now have a finished brooch!

 

Preparing for next craft fair

First today I'd like to say thank you to all the people who came to Falstone Christmas fair. You raised loads of money for the north air ambulance and I really enjoyed myself meeting you all and selling my jewellery. Also helpful was the feed back I got from you which was really helpful. One last thank you has to go to my brilliant fiancé who stuck with me throughout the fair and helped to sell a few things.

With the success at Falstone I've decided to do another fair, this time Kielder Christmas market at Kielder castle. It promises to be a lot busier and this time is set over 2 days, the 7th and 8th December.

Until then don't forget you can still find fashion magpie jewellery at folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery  

Craft fair

Hi, hope your all well.

First thing I want to tell you about today is I've booked to do a craft fair. It's on the 29th October at falstone community hall in Northumberland near kielder water. If you fancy coming along, I recommend putting in for the raffle as all the proceeds go toward the north air ambulance helicopter.

The second thing I want to tell you about is all the lovely new pieces I've made lately. Unfortunately I can't show you pictures, for some reason the app version of blogger doesn't let me attach pictures but on the plus side I've put everything on my Facebook page. Www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery 

There'll be loads more new pieces too on the lead up to the craft fair.

Remember if you'd like to come meet me the date you need to remember is 29th October and the place is Falstone community hall.

More jewel enamel

So excited. Just purchased by jewel enamel kit, got the melting pot and molds/ bezels off ebay and the jewel enamel powders from crafty notions.

Soo looking forward to it arriving. Will have a play with it then post my findings on here.

Jewel enamel

Came across a new way of making jewellery today and have spent the rest of the day excitedly trying to find out more about. It's called jewel enamel.
I've attached an You Tube video for you to watch, it's better if you fast forward the sales pitch at the beginning of the video because then you can dive straight into learning about this brilliant and beautiful way of making jewellery.

Another video I found that might be of interest is how to make pendants for necklaces and earrings from the same jewel enamel technique.

Hope you enjoy watching these two videos and feel as excited as I do to try this easy way of making jewellery. Happy viewing

New project

I've decided I want to add something new to my collection of jewellery I make for fashion magpie jewellery. Something for the men in our lives, I want to make cufflinks.

Decided what I will do is look out for some wholesale bulk buys of blank cufflinks, from there I'll make the faces of the cufflinks. Over the years I've seen some really imaginative designs such as glueing Lego men to them. I've been giving it some thought and I think I'll try maybe using beer bottle lids squashed down, as one idea. Another idea is to make a range for grooms and best men. 

Of course all of these ideas are still in the idea process so far but watch this space...

New things. Summer collection

Check out http://folksy.com/shops/FashionMagpieJewellery for all the latest additions to Fashion Magpie Jewellery.

Here's a sneak preview of some of my new collection. Enjoy!