Surrealism Art Book Workshop

I've just spent a great day at a high school / college in Bradford working with a group of Btec students.The aim was for each student to create an art book on the theme of Surrealism. The first photo montage below is of books produced by myself and the course tutor.We encouraged the group to look at Surrealist paintings and provided a large and eclectic range of objects and images to inspire their work. Everyone was given a blank book box as a starting point.

The following groups of images are the books produced by the students. Not all of them are finished but they give you a very good idea of how the finished pieces will look. I was really impressed by the way everyone took on the brief and went about illustrating their ideas. It was a huge task to tackle in one day but no one seemed to be too worried about that!
It is great to see how many wierd and wonderful ideas everyone came up with! Babies on a washing line, a sofa with lion feet, the Titanic sinking in a bath tub, an upside down living room.... Dali had nothing on this lot!

I hope I've managed to include everyone. If any of the workshop students see this and I've missed your work off or it wasn't ready to be photographed please ask Miss to email me a photo and I'll happily add it to this blog post, thanks ever so much for a lovely day and I wish you all every success for your future x

Craft Business Heroes

I'm sure you will have seen this book mentioned on lots of other blogs. I've been meaning to post about it for a couple of months but there you go! If you are a regular visitor here you will know I'm not the most prolific blogger :/ I don't tend to read 'how to' type business books or guides and I can promise that this book won't try to provide a formula for how to set up or move on your business. I found it far more interesting than than that!
       Craft Business Heroes by Alison McNicol
(I should mention here that you can't 'click to look inside' because I don't know how to make the picture into a live link - see if I blogged more often I'd probably have figured out how to do that by now)
                   

The book is a series of 30 interviews with successful designer makers. They describe how they set up their businesses, the challenges they faced and how they have moved on. I found the whole book very inspiring - and its goods to know that I'm moving in the right direction! I admit that I found the interviews with British makers such as Kate Hamilton Hunter and Poppy Treffry more interesting than the US makers simply because I'm more familiar with the set up here. When makers used jargon related to selling their products at trade events and how to work out trade and retail pricing I didn't always know what the US makers were referring to,maybe a  glossary would have helped. I also preferred the more direct way the British makers answered the questions but that didn't really detract from a really absorbing read.
I read the whole book in a day but I keep going back and dipping into it. If you haven't already read it I'd really recommend you give it a bash x

Time out

The last few weeks really haven't run to plan. We've known for quite a long time that our wee boy needed surgery for a kidney condition that was identified during pregnancy. Last September he had surgery to remove part of his kidney and we knew then that he would need a further operation to (hopefully) complete his treatment. For a while after this every time a letter hit the doormat or the phone rang we thought this would be it. Time went on, we relaxed, then at the end of May we got a call from the surgical team - could we go in on Monday? Absolutely we could!

 The surgery took 5 hours, it was successful though more complicated than expected. Our poor boy had 4 catheters in place for a week - not fun! Recovering from all of this took a few weeks - far longer than expected. It was really frustrating for him, he really wanted to get up and about but had to take it easy - not something a 5 year old really cares to do!

On the Jubilee Bank Holiday Monday we had to go back into hospital after a bit of a scare. Following this we were all a bit frazzled. So we had a chat, recognised that all four of us were worn out, Sheps and I couldn't work despite our best efforts, the kids needed some proper family time - the solution? We checked with the hospital and shot up to Scotland for a break.

It was just what we needed. We stayed in a cottage over looking the sea on the Fife coast. A place we completely fell in love with.The weather was fairly good to us considering the rain we've had recently! It was a lovely few days, we visited the pandas at Edinburgh Zoo, tripped over graduates / American tourists / golfers in St Andrews but mostly spent our time rock pooling and looking for treasure on the beach.

A month later things are a lot better. The children are now back at school and Sheps and I are back to work. And its good to be back - theres quite alot of catching up to do*! I have plans to develop the Meadow Garden collection. I've already completed this new pendant set, it will be in the shop soon.

*thank you so much to everyone who knew what was going on and sent messages and thanks for your patience and understanding while waiting for wholesale orders.

Happy 2012

Happy New Year! A bit late I know, things really ran away from me over the last few weeks.


It was a very busy run up to Christmas, I began supplying several new galleries and took part in four Christmas exhibitions. But then the littlest Shepherd caught chicken pox. Its not usually a big deal, not fun either though. It became more complicated when he developed an infection in the gland in his cheek and was admitted to hospital where he was on IV antibiotics for 4 days. I stayed in with him, and Sheps came in and stayed with us each day.

This happened on the 12th December, luckily I had despatched all of my wholesale orders but my retail orders and Not On The High Street orders still needed completing and packing. I suspended both shops so that no more purchases could be made. As we were in a room of our own at the hospital - so that the other children wouldn't catch the pox - I set up a wee despatch area,
and managed to get everything out on time. We were sent home with another two weeks of antibiotics. His cheek was still swollen and very sore but he was much happier at home! Gradually over the next few days he began to feel better and the chicken pox had just about cleared up. It had been a very stressful couple of weeks so on the 23rd Sheps and I decided to take the kids to the cinema to see Arthur Christmas and kickstart the festivities. Towards the end of the film a little voice piped up "Mummy, I've got a really itchy bit on my shoulder..."
I think you know where this is going. A certain little girl got chicken pox for Christmas and was covered head to foot.

Despite all of this it was a lovely Christmas, the children really enjoyed it even though every time they turned around I was ready with a thermometer or an other spoon of medicine!

After all of that its good to get back into the swing of things, the children are back at school and I'm back in my workroom. I like January its a new year and a fresh start. I spent today working on new designs for my Seedhead brooches. Pics coming soon!

How is 2012 treating you so far?

Silver prices

Last week I had to make a few changes to my website. Some were changes I really wanted to make, such as finally sorting out the home page - a wee task I had been putting off for a while and then came the change I really didn't want to make and I've been holding off with fingers crossed for the better part of a year. A price increase. About a year ago the price of the silver components I use when making my jewellery more than doubled. I held off the price increase hoping that the price of silver would come down but it hasn't happened yet and I'm told that even if it does it will take a while for this to be reflected in the wholesale cost of components. When the price starts to fall of course I'll reduce my prices too.

I'm offering free delivery on all orders placed via the website.

On a more positive note I have begun work on a new range of brooches. These feature
reproductions of my ink drawings of seedheads from my garden. I'd love to know what you think :)

Holidays!

A couple of weeks ago we snuk away for a short, much needed break. It was a last minute thing, we found a late deal on a cottage in Seahouses, Northumberland. We've never visited this area before but will definitely be visiting again! After a bumpy start to the holiday (more on that in a minute!) we had a wonderfully relaxing time. The beaches are great, with lots of rockpools, stunning views and for unknown reasons, hardly any people! The pic below is Bamburgh Castle and beach.
We took a boat trip from Seahouses habour to the Farne Islands, an amazing sea bird sanctuary.

Where we were surrounded by thousands of sea birds. For me the most amazing part were the puffins. We were able to stand just a couple of feet from them! Whilst back at the cottage I'd been lamenting the lack of internet connection or even moblie phone signal on this tiny island in the sea I did get a call and took a wholesale order.

There were so many more things we wanted to do, and we could have done more - but for that bumpy start to the holiday....

We set off on the Saturday.

Due to a road closure we had to make a detour, it took over 2 hours to travel a distance that normally takes 40 minutes, which is when the car began to fart great plumes of smoke from the exhaust. We decided the only option was to turn around and go home, hire a car and set off again. We figured we would make it to the cottage late in the evening.

But no. When we finally made it home we started contacting car hire companies, they all closed at midday on Saturday and re-opened on Monday morning.

We arrived at the cottage on Monday afternoon. It was a 3.5 hour trip! But it was worth it.

The visit to Alnwick Castle and Gardens was spectacular. The kids loved playing in the water features - this is encouraged by the owners!
We had lunch in the amazing Treehouse Restaurant and played on the rope bridges.

So even though our short break was even shorter than expected, this is a place we all want to visit again.

The tea tray system

Its been a very busy and exciting few months here in the studio. Since making the decision to focus on wholesale work and so exhibiting at the British Craft Trade Show (BCTF) I haven't stood still.
On the third day of the fair I had to tell customers that my lead time would be 10 weeks rather than the 3 - 4 weeks stated in my trade info. Since then I've been busy filling orders. My order book is still looking healthy as repeat orders are coming in.

One of the first things I needed to do to be able to complete orders was re-organise the studio. Again. All of the pieces I make are finished with resin which needs around three days to dry. Drying resin needs completely level, dust free surfaces. I needed more surface areas. I also needed somewhere to store part orders while the rest of the order was drying or waiting to be finished. That's when I came up with the 'tea tray system'. I bought a set of Ivar shelving from Ikea - these are great! They are a doddle to put up and can be rearranged on a whim. I set the shelves 4inches apart - just wide enough for me to be able to slide the trays on to maximise space. Then I bought a stack of plastic tea trays. I label the tray with the gallery name and home it on the shelves. This way I can work on several orders at once without losing track.
It's not very sophisticated, much like myself, but it works, much like myself. And I make no apologies for the pics, I'm loving the iphone photo apps these are from lo-mob if you can recommend any others please let me know x