Craft Neutral begins here.... and playing with wire

Right then. I've been to all the fairs I wanted to go to before starting the craft neutral thingy. I am now NOT GOING TO SPEND ANY MORE MONEY ON CRAFTY THINGS unless I've sold something. (This was a challenge Vonnie set for herself  (here) for the year but I wasn't ready to start in Jan.)

Ok. So I need to start making to sell. I have an empty folksy shop waiting and my brother-in-law has said I can put stuff in his bookshop- I really must ask him for a bit more info on that.... Then my thoughts took me to displaying my creations. I decided to make an earring hanger out of random wire I have lying around and a polymer clay base. Whilst I was playing with wire I also made a couple of flowers but I have no idea what I'm going to do with them!

Here they are. Please ignore the burn in the table. It turns out that when you heat silver with a blowtorch and it decides to leap off your fire brick its pretty hot ;o)

Kempton Park Rock'n'Gem fair

I've never been to a rock'n'gem fair before so when I found out that there was one on at Kempton Park a weekend I was planning on being in London anyway I jumped at the chance. Especially as the friend I was seeing was busy all day on Sun.

So many gorgeous, shiney, pretties!! I could have spent thousands! Here're some pics of the gorgeous bits I got. I'm going to have so much funfun making jewellery with it- when I'm feeling brave enough that is!

Kinda top to bottom: brown and red tiger's eye; green amber; smoky quartz drops and cuboid beads; cracked rock crystal nugget beads; labradorite cabochons; rutilated quartz teardrop cabochon; ruby in zoisite nugget; ametrine facetted stone; two stands of lava rock beads; ammonite pair; and opal rough bits.

Pyrite sun: I had no intention of buying decorative stuff but couldn't resist when I saw this. The photo doesn't do it any justice really. Its simply gorgeous. Got to think about where to display it.

I also picked up some slices of tiger's eye, labradorite and picture jasper whick I'm going to cut up and play with just  to experiment really. I have no experience cutting stone but wanna play to see what happens. They were cheap so it doesn't matter if I mess it up!

Coming soon (hopefully): jewellery made from these bits in my (currently empty) folksy shop!!

Bad blogger and decisions to make...

Sorry folks. I'm being a bad blogger at the moment. Live a bit topsy turvey as I've just given up my main job. Going to continue private maths teaching though. I'm also toying with the idea of openning a folksy shop. That and Phil's brother says I can sell jewellery in his bookshop. Just have to start deciding what I'm going to make to sell. At the mo I only make for myself and for gifts so I can spend days on a particular design but thats a bit impractical if I'm going to be selling them! Also, although my main craft passion is jewellery making, I dabble in all sorts of things. So should I sell other things too I wonder? A good thing about selling all sorts is that I can destash. I'm planning on cutting down on buying crafty supplies until I start selling. I'm not going completely craft neutral yet because if I see something thats a good price it would be silly to leave it in the shop. Also, I'm going to hobbycrafts at the NEC at the end of the month and there's not much point forking out for travel, hotel and entry if I'm not going to take advantage of the show prices!!

Decisions, decisions, decisions...