Photographing Jewellery

Today I've been taking photographs with my new lens of the garden and some jewellery I made. In the end the pictures have too much sun in them, as expected. I'll take some new pictures soon, I need them for a webshop!

Anyway, here's a little preview. I really love this necklace!

Crafting Again!

Finally, the first time I actually had time to spend on nothing and anything since my preparations for the market stand last week (which was on FR). Anyway, I've been crafting again, look at these!
I'm certainly going to use this more regularly, even though it means a lot more work than 'normal' jewellery.

Queen's Day - The Aftermath

Queen's Day was a succes. I could have sold more, perhaps, but I already earned much more money than I expected. Then again, it was a flea market and people don't expect to buy jewellery for a bit more (I did lower my prices very much for this special 'first selling' occasion). However, I do expect a different buying pattern on my webshop (and people with (more) different tastes) so I'm not going to let this lead my thoughts on, about what kind of jewellery to make. I just want to make things I like myself, you know. ;) (No worries about that though!)

Anyway, here's a picture!

This is somewhere at the end of the day so the stand is a bit messy.

I know, I know, I was trying to sell way too much things at the same time, people barely looked through the baskets with jewellery. Oh well, better next time ;)

I learnt a lot this day!
- make the stand less crowded
- more difference in height
- more things on display
- hang up jewellery (like I did on the photograph, I only did this after a few hours)
- take with me a nice rug or something to put underneath the stand so I can crawl to the other side (since I could barely walk around the stands next to me)
- make better price cards
- get little paper bags to put in what people buy (even if it is just because it looks nice!)
- get more stand-space
- take with me a little table so I don't have to put junk on the stand, it looks very messy (and makes the stand even more crowded)
- the stand/display needs to be more clear, things need to be seen better
- make a few big signs, for example with my website and that all things are handmade
- always bring the boyfriend with me, he knows how to talk.
etc

Queen's Day Has Arrived!

Don't forget I will be selling jewellery at the Queen's Day Orange Market in Veldhoven today! Do come round and pay a visit! I'm so very excited ^___^

<3

Addict?

Right. I am weak.

:P

Not crafting only lasted one evening, the next day I just had to make something :P Oh well, at least I've got loads of goodies for selling now! I still have a lot to do, but I thought I'd give a little update. I'll be posting more hopefully, next week. I'll have more time then because I don't have a market to think about after Friday ;)

Preparating for the EFF

A little break on crafting

No crafting at all for me tonight! And hopefully I will be able to pull that off at least tomorrow as well. Not yet an hour ago being surrounded by such a big crafting mess and supplies, unfinished things and finished things waiting to be properly put in bags and price tagged and whatever drove me insane. So I decided I would put it all away, out of my room for a little while. Maybe now I'll be able to update more regularly ;) (And do some more things just for myself like reading and drawing, which are things I have neglected very badly the last.. year!)

Anyway, today the boyfriend and I went to a fair in my town, I bought a few lovely mouse hairclips (blue and pink) and after that, when we got home (my place) again we cleared the dinner table and experimented with filling a stand. A friend and I hired a stand on the 'Oranje markt' (orange market) at Queen's Day (30th of April) to sell stuff we made ourselves (as I told before). Although for her this is more for fun and maybe a little bit of money, for me this kinda is serious business. It will be the first time I actually get to find out if people would buy my stuff (except for my mum, grandmother, aunt and mother in law :P) and if they are willing to pay what I ask for it (though I must admit I lowered the prices VERY much for the market). After the market I'll hopefully be able to finally open a webshop :) I'm very excited! It gives me something to work for, something to do. Though it means a lot of stress as well.
But! Where was I? Ah, Kevin and I spent the whole afternoon experimenting with how I would put things on my stand. In the end 2 meters suddenly is very little space :S I thought I would have so much space left and the opposite is true! Having only two meters of space for my merchandise means I don't have any space for my left-overs (old jewellery I wanted to sell to make room for new things), cards, felt plushies and whatever I still wanted to make but had not yet started on. So, I guess this IS somehow good, namely that I've got less things to make so less to worry about. On the other hand I was pretty excited to make those things because this would be the perfect opportunity to see if people would buy them. Oh well, maybe I'll still make some little things.

Ah! This blog entry has become much longer than I anticipated! :P

So, what AM I going to do if not crafting?
I would like to..
- update my blog more often
- catch up on things I still need to blog about
- change the information on my blog, I need a new introduction fast!
- start on a nice lay-out for my website (I'll need loads of help from Kevin though since I've never made a website lay-out before)
- update and add information on my website
- Start accumulating pictures for my online portfolio!

Bye~

Glueing...

Usually I hate it when I have to glue things together, but sometimes it isn't that bad at all. Especially not since I found out about this brand of glue! It's called E6000 and it works perfectly! Much better than the glue I was using. I've practically used up all the adjustable rings I had (I have more than shown on the picture) and the earstuds are going fast as well.

I'm certainly keeping some rings for myself! I'll just have to make more to make up for me stealing some of my own merchandise :P

Crafting, Supplies and Thoughts on a Webshop

Today was a long day that went by very fast. I watched 2 episodes of Doctor Who and 6 episodes of Torchwood. I made 12 necklaces, 3 bracelets and 11 pairs of earrings. I might make even more, later. Not sure. I would like to, but maybe I should do something else now. I do know, however, I’m probably not going to watch even more episodes of anything tonight. :P Time goes by much to quickly watching a screen.

Here's a peek at my desk, it's quite full of supplies and other stuff as you can see!

Aside to making jewellery and watching my computer screen, I also sorted out some stuff like my e-mail and all the envelopes from everything I bought online the past 2 years (plus 50 envelopes! That’s mad!). Also, I had to start in another dummy (a sketchbook) because the other one was full.

Oh! Yesterday I bought some supplies for jewellery making, and I still need more! I ran out of chain (I didn’t have much to start with) and now I’m planning on making some wholesale orders since I really need the stuff.
I can’t wait for all the packages to arrive! I love getting packages, even though I had to pay for them myself :P

Anyway, I hope to open a webshop soon. I just have to figure out which is the best website to use (Etsy? Dawanda? Plain ebay?). I can’t start several webshops on different websites because most of my items are unique, so I’d have to split things up and I really don’t feel like having to do that. It would take too much thinking, I’d start doubting.

This reminds me, I’ll need to get my paypal sorted. My boyfriend Kevin pays for me through paypal, and then I pay him back. I thought it was good like that so I wouldn’t shop TOO much online, but when I start a webshop I’ll need an account of my own.

If – no - WHEN I finally decide on which website to start my webshop, I’ll have to figure out how it actually works. AND I really need some neat designs for my website and everything else I’ll use for my website and stuff (like other profiles and the webshop etc).

I’ll probably try out some webshops soon. I’ll post links when that happens.

Earring collection

Sorting through the earrings I never really wear... My own private earring collection just won't fit inside one box anymore... :P I guess I'll just need two of them.

Museum Trip: Stedelijk Museum (SM's) Den Bosch

Today I went to the Stedelijk Museum (aka SM's) in Den Bosch, with my mum. It was a nice little museum, even though it was cold inside and there was some noise coming from the tubes (heating perhaps?). Anyway, the musuem concentrates mostly on ceramics and jewellery. I went for the exhibition about jewellery by artists, without actually knowing anything about the museum, but in the end I preferred some of the other current temporary exhibitons much over the jewellery one.

Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I can't show you much, but I did get my hands on some flyers and stuff, so I'll try to find some pictures on the internet. So, hereby I admit these (in this peticular blogentry) are not my own photographs, they are all copyright to their respective owners.

I'll tell something very short about every temporary exhitbition.

*Uitgelicht - Peter Voulkos
Lots of ceramics, Voulkos is well known for breaking the so-called habit. He creates ceramic sculptures that exist of piled up elements. The way of how it was made is clearly visible in the endresult, and the sculptures aren't just the result of creation, but also of deformation.

Unfortunately I couldn't find pictures of the artworks I had seen at the museum (or just couldn't be sure they were the same artworks). There was a documentary about the artist, and I sat down to watch it for a while. Unfortunately the sound quality was zero and there were no subtitles, so I couldn't make much of it.



*Collectiepresentatie (collection presentation) - California Dreamin'
More ceramics. Various pieces by various artists:



- Robert Arneson
- David Gilhooly
- Ron Nagle
- Ken Price

- Adrian Saxe

*Wynolt Visser - Kamerinstallatie (chamber installation)
The first of four younr artists who will build a presentation in the SM's. The title of the group exhibition is 'The Nomadic Condition'.
Visser works a lot with textile, prints and 3D. It's a nice combination. I like the use of the face and how material meets shape.

*ONE - Andrei Roiter
Roiter takes a lot of pictures and uses these as point of departure for his paintings. Most of his photographs are of architecture, but these buildings undergo a metamorphoses in his paintings. Elements of the buildings are put in new context against a new background.


Bubble
2007
Acryl and oil paint on canvas


National Dust
2009
Oil paint on canvas


Melting
2009
Oil paint on canvas

In my opinion, though, these aren't the best of his paintings...

*Catherine Yass - The China Series
Yass is always looking for a specific place, where actual situations and a dream of the future are combined.





*Private Passion - de unieke collectie kunstenaarssieraden van het SM's (the unique collection of artist's jewellery of the SM's)

For this exhibition we went into another room. It was dark, and we were given little electrical torches. We had to light our own way through the exhibition. If we had been the only ones in the room this would have been nice, but since there were other people as well, I got blinded several times because people were uncareful with the lights.

Anyway, this is what the exhibtion looks like, only darker:


I saw some very nice jewellery, some even by Alexander Calder, whose work I adore. I was really happy about this. Unfortunately I could only find one picture of what I have seen.


I also saw these:

(Unfortunately I do not know by whom this work of art is)


by Oppenheim


Love ring by Robert Indiana

It was also funny to recognise names like Man Ray and Picasso, I don't think I realised he made some jewellery as well.



In the end, it was nice to have been at the Stedelijk Museum Den Bosch, but I don't know if, had I known what it would be like, I would have visited anyway. I can tell you this, the website is absolutely useless. There barely is any information on it, and the English version of the website is even worse. It doesn't work very well, either. I would have liked to see more information on exhibitions than just a few sentences, and some information about the artists. Some pictures of the artworks displayed would have been nice too, especially since most artists featured in the exhibitions aren't that well known at all.
I wish I could have taken pictures... (without flash of course)

Edit: and damn the tag limit! I can't even squeeze in every artist :(

Edit:
By the way, see what my mum and I both got because we filled out a questionnaire about the museum!

Jewellery: Red & White Strawberry Set

A while ago I discovered a really cute bracelet, it consisted of 8 red and 8 white round facetted plastic beads, arranged alternating, and two of the cutest plastic strawberry beads you've ever seen. I wanted it. I needed it. So I bought it. :P

Next day, I wore the bracelet. Unfortunately, it was way too tight to be comfortable, so I took the next chance to buy one, to buy one. Then I just combined the two bracelets into one. It now consists of 8 red beads, 8 white beads and 4 strawberry beads.

Of course, I just had to have a necklace like it, too. So I bought another 5 (Five! I must be crazy...) of the little bracelets and took them apart. They're lying prettily in order (5 beads/strawberry/5beads/strawberry etc).


I did have some doubts, though. Why? Because I've also got some of the cutest red plastic hearts, and I didn't know if I should put those into the necklace as well...


In the end I decided against it and now the beads are ready to be stringed. ^^

DFMD: The Rainbow Sheep

*Note: this message is antedated.

Yes. Sheep. And it gets even better...




Rainbow Sheep!



Blame this all on my boyfriend, since he's the one who sent me an icon of a very, very, colourful little sheep, that bounced. Yes you read it well, it bounced.

I loved it so much I just had to draw it. And keep drawing it.
And then I even made a necklace of it.

As for the future, as soon as I've got enough colours of fabric paint, I'm even going to put this on a shirt. It will be the best shirt ever. Beat that.

Jewellery on display!

Today my dad made me a jewellery display (for earrings). I love it to bits!
It still needs to be painted black though. I actually like the original colour a lot, but because of soldering the parts together the metal is stained, which I don't like in a jewelry display I'll probably use for selling stuff.

Anyway, the creating of this jewellery display gave a great opportunity to show off some of the earrings I made during the last 6 months. ^^

From my private collection:

Other (these actually are for sale):

Enjoy :) And please let me know what you think about them. I just occasionally mess around with beads. In my own opinion, at least half of these earrings are a bit dull. I'm an artist! I should be more creative. Think outside the box. Hmm...