2011 craft fairs - Bridge of Allan and David Lloyd

I realised I haven't posted about 2 craft fairs I attended this year. The first was the Bridge of Allan Art and Crafts festival. This was held on Nov 5th this year, and was the first time Bridge of Allan, just outside Stirling in Scotland, had held this sort of event. I grew up in Bridge of Allan so it was great to be able to take part. There were 3 different venues in the village, and I was in the Royal Hotel.
This is the facebook page for the festival: click here
It was a great success, with loads of different artists there. I had a lot of lovely comments about my jewellery, as well as some sales. I also had some ideas to expand my range after suggestions from interested people. If I met you at the craft fair, thanks very much for looking at my work and stopping to chat. I received so many nice comments from people, it was really encouraging!
I even made it into the paper as a result of the fair...

That's me, bottom left of the page!

I also took part in the David Lloyd Anniesland Christmas Fair at the start of December. Unfortunately it was less of a craft fair than just a sale - mostly manufactured stuff; I think I was the only one selling hand-made items. Which meant I was quite a bit more expensive than everyone else! However, I made a sale which more than made up for my time there that evening. Thanks to everyone who took a business card and stopped to chat :o)

Hopefully in 2012 I'll attend some more sales, and I'll try to post advance notice on this blog for anyone who'd like to come along. I'd really like to get a stall at a high class craft sale, but we'll see what comes along....

The end of 2011...

2011 is almost over! I'm hoping to make 2012 the year of my jewellery - at least as far as I'm concerned. I hope to be able to update this blog more frequently, and also post more pictures of my jewellery pieces. I'm hoping to expand my soutache jewellery, and also start on my bead embroidery pieces as well - I've made a few but not enough to put on the website yet. This is my resolution for 2012!

I'm also going to occasionally post some reviews of bead shops around the world. This might sound a bit odd, but wherever I go I always like to try to find a bead shop, because you never know what you're going to find. So I go to local bead shops in Scotland, but also far away bead shops, like Las Vegas, Rome and Vancouver!!

I have a lot of news...

but for the moment I will just give one update, hopefully I will get to the rest shortly!

I have spent today working on the website, and have uploaded a lot of new jewellery images. The main 'featured' section now has some new pieces, but you'll now find the soutache section divided into two - a 'statement pieces' section and a 'pendants' section. There were just too many images to have them all in the one area.

I hope you like the new pieces - as I said, more updates coming soon. Here is just one of the new pieces I've added:

Pictures from the fete

Rather belated I know, but here are a few photos from the fete. I've been busy working on new pieces as I'm going to be at the bridge of Allan craft fair in November and need to build up stock! Pics coming soon...

Ardmaddy fete

Just back from the Lorn Garden Club fete at Ardmaddy Castle. Although I love the highlands, I forget how really amazing they are when the sun is shining. There were some stunning views on my drive there and back.
I got a lot of lovely comments from people looking at my pieces; only one sale but to be honest I was not expecting a lot, I really wanted some feedback on how my jewellery was received and I certainly got that :o) Lots of people took cards.

If you're one of those people, thanks very much! A 'shop' section will be appearing on my website soon with some of my smaller pieces available for sale.

Some of my latest pieces

These are some of the pieces I've made for the fete tomorrow

My work station!

This is a photo of my current work area. It's a little chaotic, and I dream of more space, but it works! There are lots of projects on the go in this picture, mainly because i'm trying to get ready for the summer gets which means I need stock!

Bigger image

Test

Image test

Here goes...

a trial run

I now have a smartphone, but am still working on getting the hang of it! I'm hoping that it will make it easier to blog, I guess we'll have to wait and see if that's the case! I'll gave to try and post a photo too...

A new bit of technology on the way

I have taken the plunge and bought myself a new phone - a smartphone! An HTC Desire S... which hopefully will allow me not just to blog more easily, but also put photos on to my blog much more easily too. I have lots of projects underway at the moment that I would like to be able to share, but it is a convoluted process to use my digital camera. Hopefully in the next few days - and once I get the hang of it! - it will become much simpler!

Craft fair

I have a couple of things to blog about but I'll start with this. I'm going to have a stall at the Lorn Garden Club's fete at Armaddy Castle, near Oban. Granted, I still have to make up my stock for the event, but I intend to be there! I'm going to make a selection of smaller pieces to sell - I doubt impulse buys will stretch to the larger pieces - but I will take a couple of bigger pieces with me. So now I have a tray of beads which are 'available' for me to make smaller pieces with... all I have to do is start making them! It would help if I didn't have a nasty cold though, doesn't help with detailed work :o/

The location looks wonderful.. you can click the link below to see a map of where it is. It will be a bit of a drive from Glasgow!

current projects

I'm working on two soutache projects at the moment; both were originally competition entries but I've missed the deadlines so they are now just projects. One is a turquoise butterfly design, with orange and brown braid; it's taken a while to come together but is starting to look good which hopefully means I'll get on a roll with it and get it finished.
The second project is a rainbow design. I think this one could have done well at the competition as it's definitely unique, and quirky, but there was too much going on at work and I didn't have time to get it finished for the deadline. It's the first time I've tried to use soutache to represent something, rather than just being purely decorative, so I'm interested to see how it turns out. It has already evolved slightly from my sketch design, as bits have ended up different sizes from what I expected, but it's definitely unlike anything else I've made!

Welcome

Welcome to my new blog, to accompany my new website - www.isobelhamilton.com. I have to confess I've not been the best at updating blogs in the past, but I'm going to make an effort with this one!