Bracelets and birdies…

A discussion on the Craftbritannia team pages today reminded me that I wanted to share with you my favourite piece of jewellery (with apologies to Ally!)

Here it is…

I found it in a little secondhandy sort of shop in Hampstead in the early 1990s and fell in love with it on the spot – I paid about £20 for it (which was rather a lot for me at the time!). The combination of sad faces and hearts really appealed to me, and still does. I love the simple design, and the way the clasp works perfectly with the design (and the clasp has never failed me, which I suppose is a sign of good craftsmanship!).

It has the makers mark Askew London on the back of the clasp, and a bit of digging on the internet turned up this:

Askew of London seemed to be in production through the eighties to the early nineties. Their vintage jewellery was often gold plated with a mix of statement necklaces, earrings, bracelets and brooches. Signed Askew of London.

Famous owners of vintage jewellery pieces to date is Keira Knightley who was spotted wearing a bracelet. Prices are rising for these named pieces.

So maybe my £20 was well spent back then?! I’d never part with it though!

On a non-jewellery front, I have a new birdie in my shop – here he is:

And I’ve also been busy making more greetings cards – I have quite a selection now! Stop by and have a peep at the Cards section of my shop if you have a spare mo! 🙂

Right, on with the housework… *sigh…*

Could I have more time please?

Told you I was going to make some more cards!

I now have four designs of cards in my little Etsy shop:

Guess I need to do a skull card and a blue keyring to even things up!

I’ve also been working on a noofing today – here it is, nearly-but-not-quite-finished!

Well, Easter isn’t that far away really, is it!

I’ve almost decided to take a stall at a local craft fair at the end of March – it’ll depend on if I can get a good stock of items made, and that’s the problem… I want to experiment and make new things, and try out new ideas, rather than build of a stock of things I already make! Is that bad?! Do any of you have that problem?!

And on the subject of trying out new ideas, I’d really like to start doing Hardanger embroidery again – I learnt about 12 years ago while I was living in Iceland. It has its origins in Norway and is traditionally done in white. I dug out an old photo of a couple of my pieces:

So that’s another thing on my to-do list! Although the old goth in me would like to do Hardanger with a twist – all in black! I think that’d look quite cool!

I’m also itching to have a go at a teeny needle-felted elephant brooch after a Craftbritannia teamie planted the seed…

…could anyone give me… ohhhh, I dunno… about 7 extra hours in every day?!

A noofing, miracles and milk…

Sorry, I best translate that first word:

noofing n. a new thing

Here’s my second noofing of 2012, hurrah!

It’s a Valentine’s card, with a simple, needle-felted heart design mounted on yummy Bockingford watercolour paper.

It matches this keyring:

I’m going to be offering cards to match my other keyrings too soon – I have four designs so far, with more on the way!

Here’s my Valentine’s card in my Etsy shop.

Right, now I’m off for a relaxing soaky bath – I had a bit of a fight with my printer earlier so need to chill out! I mean my computer printer, not the little man who does my printing, I don’t have one of those. Well, unless you include Moo, but I’ve no reason to pick a fight with them!

Which reminds me, must order Moo mini-cards by midnight to get the discount…

Which reminds me of being reminded of something last night. We were watching Top of The Pops, and Hot Chocolate came on singing ‘I believe in miracles’, which reminded me that when I was little I thought he was singing ‘I believe in milko’, and that reminded me that we’d run out of milk and as it was nearly midnight, all the shops were shut. Bah!

Newly fledged!

Just a quick one!

I’ve finished my first creation of 2012, hurrah!

Here’s everything ready to start felting…

By the way, my workbox was a Christmas pressie from my other half’s sister last year – no, the year before last now! – it’s so useful, I love it!

And here’s the new fledgling in progress…

…and here he is all finished – a weeny baby brown owl brooch 🙂

Now he’s happily perched in my shop just waiting for you to buy him!

A custom cat…

Goodness, is that another year gone? Happy 2012 everyone!

I thought I’d share with you one of the custom needle-felted cats I made this year – it was for the hugely talented glass artist Rachel Elliott, and is her mum’s cat Jo Jo:

I think it’s my favourite so far of all the cats I’ve made 🙂

And now… *raises glass!* …a toast to all you lovely readers and customers out there! Thank you for reading, and for shopping with stupidcats – I wish you all a happy, healthy and successful 2012! Here’s to you all!

*clink!*