Shpangle Jewellery Blog

Unusual custom made jewellery requests

2012-02-09T19:15:00.006Z

I have been really busy since Christmas with custom requests for my jewellery that sometimes I don’t know how I am managing to fit it all in! Some of it may be due to the run-up to Valentines’ day, with the usual love heart sweet pendant requests and some probably because word-of-mouth is spreading.

Amongst the requests I have had a few unusual jewellery designs. I love making every single one of my pendants but when a custom jewellery order comes along for something a little bit different, I find it exciting and sometimes challenging!

The first pendants I am going to show off are these resin pendants that contain Silver Birch tree bark. These are extremely important for the family who asked for them because the bark was taken from a tree with great sentimental value.

The second pendant contains the world’s smallest rubber duck, along with a miniature dice (to represent the birth day), and is bordered by two locks of hair.

The next piece of memorial jewellery was interesting to make; the pendant contains the ashes from a much loved pet and I was asked to make it gothic looking.

Finally a keyring containing salad! I have incorporated miniature slices of cucumber, tomatoes, egg, onion, lettuce and even celery into the charm.

...great for those watching their weight or if you are just fond of salad! The salad keyring has given me inspiration for a new range of unusual jewellery so watch this space!

Mick

Featured Artist - Equine photography by Hoof Behind the Lens

2012-02-01T20:34:00.016Z

The really nice thing about making custom jewellery for people is that I often meet some lovely people that I may not otherwise have met. This happened last year when I was asked to make some horse hair jewellery for Nell Best who lives in Cumbria. Nell is an equine photographer and travels the area and beyond taking beautiful photographs of peoples horses. She started her equine photography business ‘Hoof Behind the Lens’ last year at the age of 16 and it is going from strength to strength.

I asked Nell if she could do a little interview that I could share with you and thankfully she agreed. All the photos below were taken and kindly given to me by Nell.

Firstly can you tell us a little about yourself?

Right, Hoof Behind The Lens is an equine photography business based in Kendal, Cumbria and owned by Nell Best. I am an equine photographer and I take photos of horses out at shows, at home with their owners and also offer photography for horses that are for sale, so that owners have photos that will best show off their horses to potential buyers. I offer prints of the photos that I take, in various sizes, both normal and poster sizes and can mount photos if required. I cover the areas in and around Cumbria but am willing to travel if there is a demand for it.

Whatever kind of shoot I do, I strive to create beautiful photos that owners will be able to treasure forever.

My website is Equine photography by Hoof Behind the Lens
and I am also on Facebook at Hoof behind the Lens on Facebook or Search for Hoof Behind The Lens - Equine Photography.

You take beautiful photographs of horses, how did you come to learn your art?

Thank you. Well I've been at it for a while really, I started taking photos of my horse Bella when I got her in May 2010, just on a little compact camera, and took more and more, but I got frustrated that I couldn't be that creative with a compact camera, and couldn't get the quality of photographs I was aiming for. Then in December 2010 a friend of my Dad's had a Canon DSLR camera he had owned for a couple of months but not used, and he said he saw my talent from the photos and asked me if I would like it. So since then really I've just kept at it, taking photos daily, mostly of my very patient horse (and model!), Bella.

I then set up Hoof Behind The Lens in March 2011, really as something to take my mind off things as I had recently lost my Grandma, and it grew from there, with more and more people wanting photo-shoots. So it's just endless practice really that's got me where I am now, and I still have a long way to go!

What inspires you?

I'm inspired by horses in general really, just the way they move, interact with both people and other horses, and just generally everything about them. I think they're stunning creatures, and I strive to create photos that reflect that. There's not really a main human figure that inspires me, there are many Equine Photographers that I look up to, including Tim Flach and Bob Langrish, but I am mainly inspired by the beauty of the equine species itself.

What's your favourite photograph you have taken and why?

You know what, I really couldn't pick. I do have a few that I really love, nearly all of those are of my own horse but really, I love all the photos that I take, and am just as excited about the ones I've taken and love already, as the ones I haven't even taken yet, because I want to take better photos each time.

Do you have any tips for anyone starting a photography business?

I'd say just practice really, keep on taking photos, never stop, and always look critically at your work and try to see what you could do better - then do it! Start doing shoots for friends and family, and start up a website and/or Facebook page as they're great publicity, and get the word out about your business. I started from nothing not even a year ago now, and now I've got a successful little business at the age of 16, just by getting out there, taking as many photos as I could and getting the word out that I'm different. Also, never ever give up! It's a hard business because everyone nowadays has a camera, but keep at it and you can only improve!

What is my favourite photograph?

Well that is an easy one for me but I am biased! Nell posted this photo onto my Facebook page last week. It is a photograph she too of the pendant I made for her last year and it is awesome!

Oh and this one!

Nell has definitely got a photographic talent and business awareness that will see her good for the future and is definitely someone to look out for. She is also already a great role model and inspiration for any young person who wishes to start a business.

Thank you again Nell for letting me share your equine photography story so far....

Mick

Custom made Poppy flower paperweight

2012-01-23T20:19:00.004Z

I was recently asked by a lady if I had anything suitable that could be used to preserve a Poppy flower. She wanted something making as a gift for her friend and we discussed different items of jewellery because initially she wanted something that could be engraved. I then suggested making a custom made paperweight containing the Poppy; she loved the idea and knew her friend would love it too.

Rather than using a real Poppy, I suggested using a traditional Memorial Day Poppy and that she could then write a message to her friend on the back of the leaf. But she had an even better idea! She would create a poppy herself by painting an image of the Poppy onto a piece of card making it an even more personal gift for her friend. I received her Poppy picture and it was a wonderful painting! She had also written a personal note to her friend onto the back of the picture and this can be seen through the base of the paperweight.

I encased her Poppy picture into a domed resin paperweight, mounted the paperweight within a leatherette box and sent it directly to her friend and she loves it!

I must say I have made several custom made paperweights recently and haven’t even got around to advertising paperweights on my website yet!

Mick

Real pressed Fuchsia flower jewellery

2012-01-16T20:36:00.007Z

I had a lovely custom jewellery order to complete recently. The order was actually first place last July however it has taken until now to complete. The lady first contacted me after seeing my Fuchsia flower necklace within my online shop which was unfortunately out of stock at the time.

The lady grows Fuchsias to show and also collects Fuchsia lore so she was quite keen to have a pendant making! I suggested that she may want to send me a few of her own flowers and after giving her advice on how to press them this is what happened. A couple of months passed and then I received a lovely selection of Fuchsias in the post from her.

Using her fuchsia flowers I photographed a few pendant designs and an example can be seen below:

These are the pendants that I made for the lady; the first is a resin teardrop shaped pendant containing three small Fuchsia flowers.

The second pendant is again a teardrop shaped pendant (which really does lend itself to the shape of the Fuchsia flower) and this contains a single large flower.

And finally a sterling silver pendant with a small Fuchsia flower set against a silver backing that I also engraved. This pendant was to be given as a Christening gift to the lady’s niece.

I love making jewellery like this where the customer has contributed towards the design and has even supplied her own flowers; which reminds me, I must remember to press a few Fuchsia flowers of my own this year!

Personalised Memorial Jewellery

2012-01-08T19:49:00.006Z

I have been making quite a lot of memorial jewellery for cremation ashes recently so thought I would show off some of the designs. I am often asked how I cope with handling the cremated ashes from loved ones or pets. To be honest I do not think about it when I am working other than treating it with the utmost dignity and respect. As with my lock of hair keepsake jewellery I find that I can distance myself from it as I did not personally know the people involved. I do get immense satisfaction though when creating any kind of memorial jewellery as I know that I am providing an important service to the families.

Unlike traditional memorial jewellery for ashes, the resin jewellery that I use permanently encases the ashes with the pendant. Because of this there is no risk of the ashes from being lost and the jewellery is unlikely to break or smash if accidently knocked or dropped. The other benefit of using the resin to encapsulate the ashes is the jewellery can be further personalised with other small objects. For the following pendant I was asked to further personalise it with items that are important to the family. The lady was extremely fond of VW campervans and her son had sent me a VW sign from a toy car to encase with her ashes. She also liked anything red and glittery so the second request was to include lots of red glitter in there too.

I am often asked to include small Forget-me-not flowers within the memorial jewellery; the following small charms contain both the ashes and Forget-me-not flowers. Not only are these flowers symbolic but they are very pretty too!

And finally these bracelet charms contain ashes, Forget-me-not flowers and small gold stars.

If you would like to find out more about my keepsake jewellery for ashes, please visit my Memorial Jewellery website page.

Mick

Jewellery Made From a Broken China Cup or Plate

2012-01-02T05:55:00.005Z

I have always been a huge fan of the work by Marjorie and her Cracked Plate Jewellery. I have great admiration for her ability to take a broken shard of a decorated plate, china, porcelain or ceramic and turn the item into a piece of art. A china plate or teacup is often an extremely sentimental item and one that may have shared many happy times (especially when involved with slices of cake and cups of tea!). So to accidentally chip or break a piece of china can be devastating to the owner.

No longer does a cracked piece of broken china need to be thrown away. Marjorie expertly wire wraps the piece of china and the results are stunning. Please take a look at her handmade jewellery website here: Marjorie’s Cracked Plate Jewellery.

Marjorie also shares my enthusiasm in creating custom jewellery for people who want to preserve memories of loved ones. This leads me to a recent custom jewellery commission that I had and one that led me to contact Marjorie and in turn write this plog post.

I was contacted just before Christmas by a lady who wanted a special Christmas present making for her Mother. Her Mother had recently broken her favourite china cup and the lady had managed to retain a few fragments of the cup. Initially I thought that the ideal solution would be to have them formed into one of Marjorie’s creations and even suggested this to her. However the china fragments were extremely small and far too small to be wire wrapped.

I set the three china pieces that the lady sent to me within a teardrop shaped resin pendant and coloured the background green. I was very pleased how it turned out and I am sure it was a lovely surprise when it was opened on Christmas day.

I hope that everybody has a happy and healthy New Year and I look forward to sharing more of my jewellery making journey with you in 2012.

Mick

Wedding Cufflinks for the Groom

2011-12-22T20:13:00.004Z

The last of my Christmas orders has now been posted and the last present wrapped (which is extremely organised for me). This is my last blog post before Christmas and so I thought I would share with you a recent custom jewellery order that I made. This is for a lovely Christmas wedding that is due to take place a couple of days after Christmas day. The bride to be wanted a pair of cufflinks making for the groom and the cufflinks were to incorporate a small sample of her wedding dress.

And these are the cufflinks that I made for her. They are sterling silver and the wedding dress material has been set within resin within the silver flat cups. As always the resin has brought out the texture of the material and I think they are a lovely gift for her husband to be. I really do need very little wedding dress material for making these; approximately one inch square of fabric is ample. The tricky part is cutting the fabric into perfect oval shapes to fit inside the cufflinks but I have had plenty of practice! I hope the couple have a lovely winter wedding and that the groom treasures his cufflinks for years to come.

I wish all my blog followers, fellow crafters and customers a very Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Best Wishes

Mick

Horse hair Bangle

2011-12-14T16:17:00.009Z

You may remember a recent blog post where I announced the lucky winner of my horse hair jewellery giveaway. Well this is what she won; as part of the giveaway I asked the horse owner if they could send me some long lengths of horse tail hair for me to make a new range of horse hair jewellery. Well Louise kindly sent me some long strands of hair from her new pony and I made them into this horse hair bangle for her.

I love the effects of the hair twisting around within this handmade resin bangle and can’t wait to make some more of these.

I have had quite a few commissions of horse hair jewellery over the last few weeks leading up to Christmas. I particularly liked this order for a matching set of jewellery.

This bracelet is sterling silver and the horse hair has been set within each charm in a criss-cross pattern. I have also engraved the back of each charm with the name of the horse and have included fine amber glitter within each charm (although you can’t see that within the photograph).

My wife likes the bracelet so much that she would like one too; even though she isn’t a horse owner! To match the bracelet I made these horse hair earrings. Again sterling silver and the name of the horse engraved onto the back of each earring.

And to finish the set of jewellery is this sterling silver pendant engraved on the back and hung from a leather thong style necklace chain.

I love the effects that can be achieved by using horse hair within jewellery and if you would like to see more examples please visit my horse hair jewellery website gallery.

Mick

Custom Jewellery - Microchip Cufflinks

2011-12-09T19:57:00.003Z

I am often asked to preserve some very interesting items for people within my custom made jewellery and last week was one of those occasions. I was contacted by a UK company who specialise in the design and manufacture of wireless microcontrollers. These microcontrollers are used in many applications such as controlling smart lighting for homes, offices and even street lighting.

The lady who contacted me was organising a retirement gift for an employee and asked if she could send me some of their microchips (the electronic component type, not the McCaine type) for me to place within silver cufflinks. The microchips are part of the microcontrollers that the company manufacture, are 4mm square and paper thin. I encased them in resin onto a pair of sterling silver cufflinks and this was the result.

It was the man’s retirement day today and I hope he liked his gift; I think the microchip cufflinks are certainly a very thoughtful gift by the company and I am sure they will bring back very fond memories for him.

The Daisy from the Glass Jar

2011-12-02T20:04:00.005Z

I live everyday by the slogan on my website ‘...more than just jewellery...’ because I truly believe there is far more to my jewellery making than just creating pieces of jewellery. I am often asked to help people who are going through difficult times, for example with my hair keepsake jewellery. Other people have a story to tell and want a keepsake making as a reminder of a moment in their lives.

This became evident this week when a lady purchased a daisy necklace from my website shop and left the following story after receiving it. It is extremely moving and I thank her for giving me the opportunity to share it.

“When I was a little girl, winter nights were filled with terror because of my father, so I picked a daisy in the summer (nature was where I took my comfort) and sealed it in an opaque glass jar, so that when things got bad again, I would be able to open the glass jar and see and feel the daisy.

I waited and waited until things got so bad it was difficult to bear and I opened my glass jar. I was so excited. I peeled the Sellotape off of the lid, strip by strip in anticipation. When I finally opened it, the daisy was black and mouldy. I think my heart broke.

Now all these years later with beautiful children and grandchildren of my own, my daisy is back. It is such a wonderful feeling to know that the heart break of that night all those years ago has been healed and the past re written.

I know this is possibly too much information for you, and I apologise for taking your time, but you should know how powerful this has been for me and how grateful I am to you, your skill and your Art.

This is my daisy from the glass jar. Bless you and thank you again”.

This story means more to me than anything and I feel very honoured to have brought such joy from the things that I do. I will continue to follow my website slogan and comments like the above continue to make the things that I do extremely worthwhile!

Mick

Shpangle Jewellery has gone International

2011-11-26T20:18:00.008Z

This week has seen a few items of my handmade custom jewellery and paperweights making their way to their new home in Thailand. It got me thinking about all of the international countries that now have Shpangle Jewellery and how proud it makes me feel.

Anyone who makes jewellery and other handmade crafts knows that feeling when an item they have made goes to a good home. The feeling never goes away, knowing that an item we have made with our own hands is now being loved by somebody else. But whenever a piece of my jewellery makes its way to another country, the feeling is awesome! Yes, the internet has opened up the possibilities of selling worldwide to everyone, but people do tend to stay local whenever they can. So when a piece of my jewellery becomes owned by somebody on the other side of the world I feel it is a huge achievement.

Currently the different countries (and states) that have my jewellery are:

USA - Washington
USA - Colarado
USA - Florida
USA - Arizona
USA - Wisconsin
USA - California
USA - Georgia
USA - Ohio
USA - Minnesota
USA - New Jersey
USA - Virginia
USA - Massachusetts
USA - Tennessee
USA - Texas
Australia - New South Wales
Canada - Ontario
England
Ireland
Scotland
Wales
Northern Ireland
Taiwan
Slovenia
Thailand
Austria

I found this great website called www.travbuddy.com where you can create your own travel map. And this is what I go when I listed my international jewellery sales.

Shpangle Jewellery has currently visited 5% of the countries in the world! I would love to hear about your worldwide sales of handmade jewellery or crafts.

Mick

Patchwork Tote Bag for my Wife

2011-11-18T20:11:00.004Z

It was my wife’s birthday last week and she is now an extremely proud owner of this patchwork tote bag by the fabulous Lynda of Bags of Swank by SimJaTa.

When the tote bag appeared on Lynda’s Facebook page I immediately fell in love with it. I am not the kind of guy who walks around with tote bags; but my wife’s birthday was a great excuse to buy it for her and she loves it too!

The patchwork of colours that make up the bag all complement each other and work together so well. With bright paisley prints, tie dyes and cords and details such as the inner pockets and lining, the tote bag is so special and a real credit to the handmade industry. You just couldn’t find a bag made to this quality and level of workmanship in the shops so thank you Lynda for making a fantastic one-of-a-kind bag.

I must say, the tote bag is one of the best presents that I have ever bought (and certainly beats last years’ present of a lump of dinosaur poop). Not only is the quality fantastic but it is supporting a fellow maker of handmade crafts. So if you are looking for a unique gift for a member of your family or friend, please visit Lynda’s SimJaTa shop on Etsy.

Mick

What were you doing at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11?

2011-11-15T12:27:00.003Z

I am sure people will be asking you this question for years to come. It will only happen once in our life time so I would love to know what you were doing at this moment in time when the clocks struck 11:11:11: on the 11/11/11.

I was in the middle of blowing up some strange animal shaped balloons for my wife’s birthday at the time. As the time drew closer to the 11:11:11 moment I probably took the strangest decision ever and decided to capture the moment on my PC! So there I sat with my PC clock open and fingers poised over CTRL-PRTSC.

I then opened Twitter to see what others were doing on this date and time and saw a great Tweet from Pan Aveyard, who made his 11111th tweet at the precise moment and here it is:

So what were you doing at 11:11:11 on 11/11/11 and did you make a wish?

Mick

The Horse Hair Jewellery Giveaway Winner is...

2011-11-12T20:30:00.002Z

Following my recent horse hair jewellery blog giveaway at 12.00 noon on Friday I selected a winner. The random number generator didn’t have to work too hard because not that many horse owners entered, but here it is!

The winner of my horse hair jewellery giveaway, who will receive the first of my new range of horse hair jewellery, is...... Louise Yeoman from my facebook page. Congratulations Louise!

The runner-up of my jewellery giveaway who will receive a custom made horse hair pendant, similar to the one below, is..... Carl Dunger for his friend Sharnna Makins.

Many thanks for all those who took part in my first horse hair jewellery giveaway and if you were not successful this time please look out for my future giveaways.

Mick

Budgie Feather Keepsake Jewellery for Circus

2011-11-05T16:07:00.008Z

Back in February this year I blogged about A Budgie Keepsake - Mango’s Last Feather which was a very touching story from Laura who asked me to make keepsake jewellery from the feather of her gorgeous budgie Mango. Laura contacting me recently, following the very sad loss of her budgie Circus who was being treated for respiratory infection. She wanted the leg ring and a small feather taken from Circus preserving within a clear heart shaped pendant.

The following is a lovely message that Laura gave me after receiving her keepsake necklace:

“Once again Mick has left us with a fantastic reminder of one of our budgies - Circus. I was given Circus from a breeder who is also a great friend around my birthday 5 years ago.

Over that time he has watched his sister raise 8 gorgeous little chicks and a year later to be joined by a great niece. Their blood line is by far my favourite and I'm proud to have most of the family tree right upstairs in the bird room!

Soon after his passing I knew Mick was the person to go to preserve his leg ring and tummy feather.

Just as I'd hoped it's as beautiful and peaceful as imagined! There is something so calming about the pendant, you can view a perfectly frozen feather from all sides, there's something special about that.

Thank You a thousand times for once again providing a perfect keepsake that we will be able to hold close for a lifetime, he will still be here if or when his great niece and nephews take the plunge in starting their own family, now that'll be a story to tell them!”

Laura – Nov 2011

Many thanks to Laura for a lovely story; it is a pleasure to have made a keepsake for the feather of such a gorgeous budgie!

If you would like to see more examples of my pet keepsake jewellery please visit my Pet Keepsake Jewellery gallery.

Horse Hair Jewellery Giveaway

2011-10-29T20:22:00.006+01:00

I have been making horse hair jewellery for quite some time now and thought it was time to bring out a new range of jewellery for the horse owner. Unlike the traditional braided horse hair jewellery, my jewellery actually uses very little hair; approximately one to two inches of hair the thickness of a pencil is more than sufficient for any of my pendant designs.

For my new range of horse hair jewellery I am looking to use longer strands of hair to incorporate into my designs. And this is the reason for the giveaway. If you are a horse owner, or know of a horse owner who can supply me with a few (maybe six) strands of tail hair (approximately twelve inches long and preferably dark in colour), I will then send you the finished prototype piece of jewellery that I make with it free as a thank you!

I will only be making one prototype for my new range of horse hair jewellery and therefore will be selecting at random the winner of the giveaway (assuming more than one person enters that is!).

The rules of this giveaway are simple. If possible please follow this blog (Using the ‘Join this site’ button located on the right of the page). Then leave a comment on this blog, maybe letting me know why you would like a piece of my horse hair jewellery and how I can contact you if you are the winner.

This giveaway will end at midday on the 11th November 2011 (which incidentally is my wife’s birthday). Good Luck!

Mick

Jewellery Made from Recycled Fabric Remnants

2011-10-22T18:34:00.003+01:00

I do not know where the time has gone but it was last spring when I mentioned that I had been making jewellery made from recycled fabric. At the time I asked if anybody had small off-cuts of fabric that could be donated to me for my jewellery making, and the lovely Lynda of ‘Bags of Swank by SimJaTa’ came to my rescue. She sent me a huge pile of fabric remnants with some very gorgeous designs and I have finally got around to making some pendants with them.

Two pieces of fabric caught my eye in particular and the first is this ladybird fabric with foliage and small daisies. The ladybird fabric has been encased within a teardrop shaped resin pendant and has been backed by green coloured resin to compliment the colour of the foliage. The pendant has been given a Shpangle sparkle with a small amount of glitter dust.

The second fabric remnant is this one with pink flowers and a lovely cheeky looking bee. The pendant has been backed by pink resin and given the usual sparkle.

I must start making more pendants with the fabric off-cuts that Lynda gave to me. The fabric is gorgeous and will look lovely made into some pendants; I also have an idea to make some of it into handmade buttons.

Mick

List of Messages Found on Love Heart Sweets

2011-10-14T20:10:00.010+01:00

No, I am not currently going through some strange kind of mid life crisis by having a fascination with love heart sweet messages; there is honestly a serious reason why I would want to make a list of the messages found on love hearts sweets, so please continue reading and you may be able to help me!

I am often asked to incorporate love heart sweets into my jewellery and more often than not I am asked to include specific love heart sweet messages. I then encase the sweets within resin and they are transformed into pendants and charms. When I am asked to incorporate sweets with specific messages (for example this week when I was asked to make a pair of love heart sweet cufflinks); if I don’t have the requested message in my collection I need to purchase several tubes of the sweets!

These regular visits to the local shops to buy tubes of love heart sweets has resulted in a rather large collection of the sweets (and strange looks from shop assistants). Ok I admit that I have eaten quite a few...alright lots of them but still have bags and bags of them. So to help with future orders I thought it was necessary to catalogue the sweets and provide a list of the different love heart sweet messages in my collection.

The following list contains the different love heart sweet messages in my collection. I will keep this list updated whenever I receive new additions:

All Mine - Guess Who - Lush Lips

Angel Face - Happy Birthday - Make Up

Be Good - Hard Luck - My All

Be Mine - Heart Desire - My Angel

Best Mate - Heart Throb - My Boy

Bless You - Hello - My Girl

Blue Eyes - Hi Baby - My Hero

Bye Bye - Hold Me - My Ideal

Canny Lad - How Nice - Neat

Catch Me - Hug Me - New Love

Chase Me - Hunk - Oh Boy

Cheeky Boy - I Hope - Only You

Cheeky Boy - I Love You - Real Love

Cheer Up - I Spy - Relax

Cool Dude - I Surrender - Say Yes

Cool Kid - In Love - Smile

Crazy - I'm Shy - Spoil Me

Cuddle Me - Its Love - Sweet Heart

Cute Kid - Its True - Sweet Kiss

Dear One - I Want U - Sweet You

Dishy - Just Me - Take It Easy

Dream Boy - Keep Cool - Text Me

Dream Girl - Kiss Me - Too Much

Dream On - Lets Dance - True Love

E Mail - Lets Kiss - Try Me

Ever Yours - Like You - Wicked

Find Me - Little Kiss - Will You

First Love - Looking Good - Wow

For Ever - Love Bug - Yes Dear

For Keeps - Love Heart - You and I

Funny Face - Love You - You Win

Good Pals - Lover - You're Fab

Great Guy - Luck Lips - You're Gorgeous

Grow Up - Lucky Lips - You're Mine

Yours

And this is where you can help. I want to create a ‘wish list’ of messages that you think would be appropriate and would like to see on love heart sweets. I will then add them to a list here.

Mick

Taking Inspiration from Beacon Hill Country Park

2011-10-09T06:49:00.007+01:00

Last Sunday we spent a lovely day at Beacon Hill Country Park in the heart of Leicestershire. Beacon Hill is located in Charnwood Forest and has a lovely combination of woodland walks, ponds, grassland and Beacon Hill itself which is the second highest point in Leicestershire. We had a lovely picnic and sat on top of Beacon Hill (which was once a Bronze Age hill fort), taking in the surrounding views whilst our little boy climbed the many rocks.

We began our walk around the Beacon Hill Country Park and our first observation was an amusing sight of this tree that was just refusing to give up...

Continuing on our walk we came across this wonderful rock formation and commented how the profile was similar to a face. Later we discovered that it was in fact known as The Old Man of Beacon Hill!

We stopped at the natural play area, a secluded area created in 2010 with timber grown at Beacon Hill. Here we discovered many wooden sculptures, a maze and even a wooden train that we pretended to drive around the park.

We then continued our walk through the beacon plantations to the native tree collection. In 1994 8,000 trees were planted in the park with representatives of the 28 species of trees and shrubs native to the British Isles. We managed to get ourselves a little lost in this area and after finally making our way out walked back to the 802ft summit of Beacon Hill.

The fantastic landscape and views around Beacon Hill Country Park gave me the inspiration to make a couple of pendants this week. The first is my interpretation of where the sky meets the sea. Not that there is much sea around Beacon Hill, in fact it couldn’t be further from the sea; but there was plenty of blue sky to look at and that was the inspiration behind this piece.

The second pendant was inspired by the random patchwork of colours around Beacon Hill. From the colours of the trees and heath land to the views of far away buildings and fields; this was the inspiration behind this item. The pendant was actually formed by encasing small fragments of sea glass within the resin pendant. The photo does not really do the pendant justice as the fizziness and details of the sea glass within the pendant is quite beautiful.

A visit to Leicestershire wouldn’t be complete without a visit to Beacon Hill Country Park, the views are breath taking and each time you visit you are guaranteed to discover something new.

Mick

Jewellery Donated to the Acorn Centre Charity Auction

2011-10-01T19:08:00.007+01:00

Yes it is your opportunity to bid on an item of my jewellery that I have recently donated to a fabulous charity auction and help a great cause.

I was very happy this week to donate an item of jewellery for a local charity auction to be held later this month. The charity auction is being held by the Acorn Centre (www.acorncentrenuneaton.co.uk) a small Nuneaton registered Charity which has been working for over 16 years offering a specialist pregnancy counselling service for women and men for issues relating to miscarriage and fertility problems. They also offer young people's counselling too to help with issues such as depression and anxiety etc.

The organisers are trying to get some interesting prizes together and thought it would be great if they could include some individual and unique pieces from local artists. So I have donated a custom made name on rice pendant to the auction.

The Acorn Centre is one of the only charities in the local area that offer the specialist pregnancy counselling support and all of their counsellors and administrators are volunteers. They really need more funds to enable them to keep helping people in the community so anything you could do to help would be much appreciated.

The auction is the charity's first major fundraising event and will be on Friday 21 October at the Rugby Club in Nuneaton (tickets are £3 and there's a live band on the night too.

Please join me in helping this charity by either donating a handmade item or you can come along on the night and make a bid for my necklace or one of the many unique gifts on offer.

For anybody who is ever given the opportunity to offer their handmade goods or services to help a charity such as this please do it. My personal experience from doing this has meant that I have already had mentions in various local newspapers, will have great product exposure on the night and I will have the satisfaction of helping a great cause.

Mick

Custom paperweight with a lock of hair

2011-09-23T19:50:00.004+01:00

I have been asked several times in the past to make paperweights containing locks of hair for people who want to preserve a lock of hair from a loved one, baby or pet. They don’t necessarily want an item to wear such as my hair keepsake jewellery; but they want to preserve the lock of hair within a custom made object that they can view every day.

So a couple of weeks ago I started making my first paperweight containing a lock of my own hair tied with a pretty purple bow! This paperweight took me at least 10 days to make because I wanted to take my time and also wanted to prevent any heat build-up that can occur when working with large quantities of resin. The finished paperweight is dome shaped and measures three inches in diameter and approximately 2 inches high. The lock of hair is suspended within the centre of the resin paperweight and surprisingly the paperweight has quite some weight, weighing over 100 grams (about the same as an apple when I weighed them).

These custom made paperweights are going to be an ideal solution for people who want to preserve an item and don’t want an item of jewellery. They are also going to be great for the larger items such as large flowers, pieces of fabric and other items of memorabilia that would be too large to incorporate into an item of jewellery.

I am going to have some great fun making these paperweights and my mind is already full of ideas for things to encapsulate into them. Make the most of this as it will be the last time you will see my hair tied with a purple bow but I must admit I don’t think it has ever looked so nice, what do you think?

Mick.

What to do with Wedding Flowers?

2011-09-18T19:39:00.005+01:00

I had a great little project to do last week; I was given the opportunity to preserve some wedding flowers in resin pendants for a lady who recently got married. She actually contacted me before her wedding back in July wanting to know the process and how to go about sending the flowers to me after her wedding. At the time I gave her help and advice on how best to dry the flowers and a couple of weeks ago I received these:

Most of the flowers were unfortunately too big to include in the items of jewellery whole, however I prepared a few designs for her and she decided upon a teardrop shaped pendant containing a selection of her wedding flowers. I have tried to make all of the pendants similar to each other where I could and have included small flower buds, petals and gave them a little sparkle with some glitter dust. I eventually made these pendants which are bursting with the lovely colours from the flowers.

The pendants containing her wedding flowers are to be given to her mother and the bridesmaids as keepsakes or their wedding day. I think they are a lovely memento of such a special occasion and a unique way of preserving those sentimental items.

So the next time anybody asks ‘What can I do with my wedding flowers?’ you can tell them to send the flowers to Mick at Shpangle Jewellery!

Please visit my website page Wedding Keepsakes for other ideas and inspiration for preserving those special items from a wedding.

Memorial Jewellery – Keepsake Jewellery for Ashes

2011-09-11T16:57:00.006+01:00

A little while ago I made a pet hair keepsake bracelet for a lady who wanted to be able to wear the hair from each of her six dogs. The lady runs a puppy and dog training academy and has since given me lots of publicity and help. After receiving her bracelet she asked me if I had ever considered making memorial jewellery and in particular preserving the ashes from pets within keepsake jewellery.

To be honest it wasn’t something I had ever thought about, mainly because I haven’t previously been given the opportunity. She very kindly sent me the ashes from one of her dogs so that I could try and make a few items. I was very happy with the finished items and was quite amazed at how little ashes were actually used. I obviously sent her all the items that I made with them and thank her so much for giving me the opportunity.

The following are a couple of the items of jewellery that I made with the ashes. This resin heart shaped pendant also includes a small pressed Forget-me-not flower:

With this pendant the ashes are encased in resin against a sterling pendant bezel. I also engrave the back of the pendant with names and messages:

Unlike traditional glass memorial jewellery, this type of jewellery is unlikely to break or smash if accidently dropped or knocked. Also there is the artistic element in that the ashes have been crafted into the object with care. I think the best description of this memorial jewellery though was made by one of my Facebook page followers yesterday. She said that they look like ‘little pieces of angel dust’; a very appropriate and beautiful description for these extremely important items of jewellery.

If you would like to read more about my new range of memorial jewellery for the ashes of a loved one or pet, please visit my new website page Keepsake Jewellery for Ashes.

Wood Crafts - The National Forest Wood Fair

2011-09-04T19:26:00.006+01:00

I have always had a real fascination with wood crafts; from a young age watching my father making me toys from pieces of wood and to the present day when I visit craft fairs and spending most of my time admiring wood turned objects of art. So last weekend I had a great day out at The National Forest Wood fair. Set in the Beacon Hill country park in Leicestershire, the wood fair provides an opportunity for woodland related businesses and craftspeople to demonstrate their skills and showcase their wares.

This year’s wood fair included many woodland related crafts including furniture makers, wood turners, wood carvings and even longbows. There were also several demonstrations and displays during the day including woodland survival crafts, lumberjack shows and even clog dancing. There were also plenty of hands-on things to do as well from having a go at Pyrography to paddling coracles!

The first highlight of the wood fair for me was watching Dick Tilley – Spirits of Wood; a chainsaw artist who was turning a couple of tree trunks into works of art. I was amazed at the workmanship and how much detail and delicate touches that were being made with such heavy equipment. These people certainly know how to handle chainsaws and the sculptures they were making were incredible.

The next highlight for me was watching the New Forest and South East Axemen put on their show. This small group of young (and some not so young) men put on a great display of axe and cross cutting and the crowd participation was great. They made the cutting down of a tree look so easy; the picture below shows one member of the group demonstrating the old style lumberjack techniques of cutting down a tree. He is actually standing on a plank that he has just wedged into the tree-trunk!

It was a great day out at the National Forest Wood Fair this year. The weather could have been better but it certainly didn’t spoil peoples’ enjoyment and fascination of this wonderful craft.

Mick

My latest pet keepsake bracelets

2011-08-28T18:30:00.008+01:00

You may remember on a previous blog post where I showed my latest pet hair keepsake bracelet. Well, last week I was asked to make a similar bracelet for a lady who wanted a keepsake to her pets while they were all alive and well.

This bracelet is sterling silver and has seven charms represented her different pet animals; each bracelet charm is also engraved on the back with the corresponding pet’s name. The bracelet contains animal fur and hair from some types of pet that I have not worked with before and includes two cats, three gerbils, two dwarf hamsters and some snake skin that had been shed.

Last week was quite a week for making pet keepsake bracelets and here is three more that I made for a lady in the states. The heart shaped charms are resin and contain the hair from some of her dogs. Unfortunately I cannot engrave the resin charms so instead I have embedded silver lettering within each charm to spell out the name.

This charm bracelet contains the hair from Brutus and his name has been spelt with silver lettering and I have also included some crystals to give it a twinkle!

This lovely rainbow bracelet includes the hair from three different dogs.

And finally a second keepsake bracelet in rainbow colours for a dog called Sandy.

Thank you for looking at my latest pet keepsake bracelets and I hope you all have a great bank holiday!

Mick

Horse hair brooch – Equine jewellery

2011-08-21T20:20:00.003+01:00

I have been making horsehair jewellery for quite some time now and I have created quite a few designs for necklaces, bracelets and even earrings containing horse hair. However last week I was given a challenge of making a horse hair brooch for a lady who has recently moved to Ireland.

Initially I thought I would encase the horse hair within resin and attach a silver brooch bar to the back. But then I like to look for alternative solutions that are a little bit different and decided to make her this:

This sterling silver oval brooch has an extended brooch bar that gives a modern look to the piece. The sterling silver cup holding the horse hair is quite small (so I was quite limited to what I could do with the hair). As always the horse hair has been sealed with resin within the brooch cup.

So that is my latest piece of equine jewellery now in the safe hands of its new owner; hope you like it! If you would like to see more of my designs incorporating horse hair please visit my horsehair jewellery gallery.

Mick

Farmyard Jewellery – Little Piggy Necklace

2011-08-14T15:32:00.003+01:00

Old Macdonald had a farm ee-eye, ee-eye oh. And on that farm he had a pig ee-eye, ee-eye oh...

Yes you guessed it; today’s blog post is about my latest farmyard jewellery and in particular a little piggy necklace. I was asked last week to make an item of rice writing jewellery for a lady. She wanted to give it as a gift to her friend who is a farmer and she asked if I could make it farmyard related i.e. to include a farmyard animal within the necklace.

I searched high and low for suitable miniature animals that I could incorporate within the necklace however nothing was really appropriate or small enough to fit within the standard glass vials that I use for my name on rice jewellery. Then I came across this piggy glass vial which is so cute and without hesitation I imported it from the states.

This is quite a greedy little pig as it has five grains of rice floating about including the names of the farming couple, their two dogs and a grain of rice with the year 2011 written onto it. I gave the magnifying oil within the glass vial a slight pink tint to give this little piggy some colour. Although there are five grains of rice floating about in this piggy, there is plenty of room for them to move about and it is really good fun watching them!

So that is my first piece of farmyard jewellery I have made making its way to a farm. I think this little piggy necklace will feel quite at home with all the other animals; what do you think?

Mick

Personalised bridesmaid gifts – Wedding keepsakes

2011-08-07T19:42:00.003+01:00

I had an order for my name on rice jewellery before I went away on holiday and I thought I would show it off. The original request was for several of my name on rice pendants for the lady’s bridesmaids. The wedding is due to take place this month, and the pendants are to be given to the bridesmaids during the wedding as personalised keepsake gifts for the special occasion.

As time went by the order grew to also provide personalised gifts for other wedding guests including the Mothers, friends and their daughter (who will be the flower girl) for the couple. I was asked to make each pendant personal to each person by including other objects such as flowers, pearls and glitter. Each pendant contains two grains of rice; the first grain of rice has the recipients’ name and the second grain was double sided incorporating the married couples initials with a heart, and on the reverse side the date of the wedding.

And here the wedding keepsakes are displayed in their presentation boxes and I also included little card inlays repeating the wedding details and the recipients’ name.

It is a lovely feeling to know that my handmade gifts will be given out on such an important occasion. It is also good to know that these wedding keepsakes will be kept for years to come and will be used to bring back the happy memories of such a special time.

If you would like to read more about my personalised bridesmaid gifts please visit my unique bridesmaid gifts website page.

Mick

Getting creative on the beach – Sea glass

2011-07-31T19:52:00.007+01:00

My apologies for having not blogged for a couple of weeks but I have been braving the arctic conditions on holiday! This year we decided to have a change from our usual visit to Cornwall and visited the East Coast, staying at a friend’s caravan in Chapel St. Leonards (near to Skegness which is a traditional holiday resort for us Hinckley folk). Whilst we did have a few days of rain we made the most of it and probably visited a few places that otherwise we may not have discovered, including a working windmill, a lovely donkey sanctuary and a seal sanctuary.

We also had some very nice sunny days (we later found out that we were very lucky). So I was subjected to the annual ‘bury dad with sand on the beach ritual’ which gave our children great amusement.

We also spent many hours creating sand sculptures on the beach and these were all carefully planned and designed by Braden, our five year old boy. This is one is based upon his design for a rocket powered boat. It took hours to make and then lasted five minutes once we allowed the children to board her!

My jewellery making is never far from my mind even on holiday and this year I managed to increase my collection of sea glass somewhat; this collection was the result of a few happy hours spent walking up and down the beach.

For those of you are new to sea glass, it is formed from broken glass bottles and other glassware being tumbled and polished by the forces of the sea. The result is beautiful pieces of polished glass that have developed unique colours and textures. I am not quite sure what I am going to make this collection of sea glass into yet; perhaps a few pieces of sea glass jewellery but I quite like the idea of making a mosaic. If you have any suggestions for what I could make with this sea glass please let me know.

I hope everybody has a great holiday this year and for those lucky enough to be going away use the time well to replenish your creativity and gain inspiration from the different surroundings.

Mick

Thank you gift for my Son’s teacher

2011-07-15T19:51:00.008+01:00

My children break up from school today for the long six weeks of the summer holidays; so please forgive me if I am a little quiet for the next few weeks as I will be busy entertaining them! The children in Leicestershire seem to break up a week earlier than most of the country. This has its advantages as this first week seems to be relatively quiet when taking them out to visit places and most of the prices haven’t been inflated just yet.

It dawned on me the other day that I didn’t have a thank you gift for my son’s teacher. It has been his first ‘proper’ year at school this year and she has incredibly helpful in helping him to settle in. He will also be having a different teacher next year so I thought it was only right I made her a little gift.

Having a talent of writing names on grains of rice can be quite handy when it comes to last minute personalised gifts such as these. A quick phone-call to the school (to find out his teacher’s Christian name) and then a few hours later of staring at grains of rice and I produced this.

It is his teacher’s name written onto a single grain of rice and I have also included a little pink flower and a slight tint of pink to the magnifying oil. A lovely handmade gift for a teacher to receive don’t you think and it also makes a change to the many bunches of flowers and boxes of chocolates that she is also likely to receive!

If you would like to read more about my rice writing, and how it is made please visit my name on rice jewellery website page.

Mick

Personalised pet hair and fur keepsake bracelet

2011-07-10T20:27:00.006+01:00

Thought I would show off a bracelet that I made this last week as I am quite proud of it. I was asked to make a keepsake bracelet for the owner of six dogs so that she could carry a small piece of her pets’ fur with her wherever she goes.

Initially she was happy with the suggestion of having a charm bracelet with six small silver charms. Each charm would hold a small piece of her dog’s fur and would hang from the bracelet chain. But then I had a moment of inspiration and suggested making this bracelet.

The lovely thing about this bracelet is that I could size it exactly with the addition of jump rings. Also each charm is interconnected rather than hanging to form the bracelet. The whole bracelet would be sterling silver including the toggle clasp. The lady was happy to go with my suggestion and I was equally happy to have been given the opportunity to make something different.

Each of the six silver bezels within the bracelet holds a small sample of the dog’s fur which has been sealed with resin. The bracelet was further personalised with each dog’s name engraved onto the back of each charm.

She was extremely pleased when she received her keepsake bracelet and also informed me that the fit was perfect. This was brilliant news because I had made a very last minute decision to extend the bracelet a little. She also let me know that she runs a puppy and dog training academy and has subsequently offered me some excellent publicity; and has also given me an idea for a new range of jewellery so watch this space!

If you would like to see some more of my recent commissions for pet hair and fur keepsake jewellery please visit my pet hair keepsakes gallery.

How did you celebrate your 21st Birthday?

2011-07-03T19:16:00.005+01:00

I came across several bags of 21st birthday confetti last week that was originally purchased for a custom 21st birthday jewellery order I had made a little while ago. Not being one for letting anything go to waste I thought I would make a few items of jewellery from them so made these pendants and keyrings.

I encased the 21st confetti within resin hearts, gave them a twinkle with glitter dust and confetti stars and the result are these lovely pendants and keyrings. Being 21 is all about sparkle and I hope these provide a lot of enjoyment for someone and a keepsake for a very special occasion.

Making this jewellery got me thinking about my own 21st birthday celebrations; and brought back many memories of my 21st birthday party. So here goes, this is how I celebrated my 21st birthday...

I hired a local club, mobile disco and invited lots of friends and family. My friend made the invitations and I spent a few weeks handing them out to whoever I knew. In fact I probably invited a few too many people; I had visited my regular night-club the weekend before the party and had handed out over 100 invitations to people within the night-club, most of which were complete strangers!

Worried that my invites may have got into the wrong hands I invited my Uncle to be a bouncer on the door. My Uncle was a chief inspector in the police force at the time and I watched in amusement as he interviewed the partygoers as they entered the club.

My 21st birthday party was held on the weekend before Christmas so I decided to dress as Santa. Not that it was a fancy dress party or anything, I just thought it would be a good idea to stand out, and stand out I certainly did! Mothers from a nearby bar brought in their young children to visit me during the night only to be met by a skinny 21 year-old dressed as Santa. Pint in hand, beard hanging off I mumbled incomprehensibly to the children. Several children were whisked away by their Mothers, covering their children’s eyes from what could have very easily spoilt their children’s expectations of what Santa Claus was all about.

The party went well until the end of the evening. Suddenly I was tackled to the ground and many pairs of hands reached out at me through the disco lit hall. One by one all my items of clothing were removed and I was left lying on the now empty hall floor...just my Mum, Dad and police inspector Uncle looking down at me. Yes my “friends” had given me a 21st birthday treat and took great delight in removing my clothes which were now making their way to the far edges of town.

We made our way outside in the vague hope that a few of my clothes may have been left behind. There I stood wearing nothing but my Mum’s coat when to top the evening, yes the police arrived. Luckily for me I had my chief inspector uncle at hand and he waved them on; thank you Uncle!

I hope you enjoyed reading about my 21st birthday memories and I would love to hear how you celebrated your 21st Birthday!

Mick

Sweetie Jewellery - Handmade crafts that look like food and sweets

2011-06-24T20:23:00.007+01:00

This week’s blog post is a result of a forum debate that I had with another maker of handmade jewellery regarding the implications of making handmade crafts including jewellery, soap, candles etc that resemble sweets and food. My concerns were that the jewellery in question resembled sweets and there were possible safety issues and that the maker should consider having it tested. My comment was based upon past experience however was made to seem unimportant by the other jewellery maker.

When I started out making resin jewellery a couple of years ago, my first attempts were to incorporate real sweets within resin jewellery. At the time I liked the fun and often colourful results of using sweets and food within the jewellery and to be honest they were very popular. After making a few items of jewellery my immediate concern was for any health and safety implications of having items of jewellery that looked like sweets. I therefore contacted my local Trading Standards office who were very helpful and came to visit me on a couple of occasions. Not only did they take some of my jewellery away for laboratory testing they were also very helpful with the business side of things.

So my jewellery was tested for compliance with the Food Imitations (Safety) Regulations 1989 and they were considered satisfactory. They even presented me with the laboratory report and gave me the ‘green flag’ to allow me to sell them. It was suggested that if the jewellery or beads closely resembled sweets they would not be acceptable; the items need to be sufficiently altered and that there have been several makers of sweetie jewellery and beads that have been asked to stop trading because of this.

So what do the Food Imitation (Safety) Regulations tell us? Well, Section 4 of the Food Imitations (Safety) Regulations 1989 clearly states:

"No person shall supply, offer to supply, agree to supply, expose for supply or possess for supply any manufactured goods which are ordinarily intended for private use and are not food but which–

(a) Have a form, odour, colour, appearance, packaging, labelling, volume or size which is likely to cause persons, in particular, children to confuse them with food and in consequence to place them in their mouths or suck them or swallow them; and

(b) Where such action as is mentioned in (a) above is taken in relation to them, may cause death or personal injury."

Seems to be quite clear to me and in my opinion I feel that if anybody wishes to make sweetie jewellery or any handmade crafts that resembles sweets or food they should seek advice before selling it. I have looked at a few reputable online bead shops that sell sweetie beads and several have this statement within their terms and conditions:

"The individual beads must not be resold by you to non-commercial (private) buyers as they do present a potential choking hazard and as such do not comply with section 4 of the Food Imitations (Safety) Regulations 1989.

It is your responsibility that jewellery made with Imitation Food beads is safe and secure. The beads are not edible and they are not suitable for children due to choking hazard."

There are lots of people making or supplying handmade crafts that resemble food and sweets; most of which is targeted to children. It is our responsibility that handmade items that resemble food are safe for all and the best way to confirm that is to seek advice.

There....got that off my chest!

Mick

Personalised Pet Hair Keepsake Jewellery

2011-06-19T19:41:00.004+01:00

You may remember a recent blog post when I mentioned my Personalised Horse Hair Jewellery and how I included silver lettering within the pendants to represent the horse’s name or initials. Well, this has proved to be quite popular now with my pet hair and fur keepsake jewellery so I thought I would show a couple of recent examples.

I made this bracelet last week for a lady from Virginia USA who wanted some keepsake jewellery making for her recently departed pet dog. The order was initially for a couple of engraved pendants containing her fur, however the order grew over time and one of the items she wanted making was this lovely rainbow coloured bracelet.

I have included a small amount of her dog’s fur within each of the six charms and included a small rhinestone crystal. The name of her dog ‘Maggie’ has been spelt out using silver lettering and I have coloured each charm to represent the colours of the rainbow.

The second item of pet keepsake jewellery that I want to show you was made for a pony sanctuary in Kent a couple of weeks ago. These were intended as gifts for the people who helped look after the old ponies at the sanctuary. I was asked to make thirteen of these keepsakes and each one was presented on pieces of ribbon within their display boxes.

I have included a small tassel of each pony’s hair within the keepsakes along with silver lettering to represent the name or initials for the pony.

If you would like to see more of my horse and pony jewellery please visit my Horse Hair Jewellery gallery.

If you would like to see more keepsake jewellery from other pets including cats, dogs, rabbits and even budgies, please visit my Pet Hair Keepsakes gallery.

Mick

Steampunk necklace – Old watch parts and a mouse!

2011-06-12T16:25:00.005+01:00

Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock didn’t strike (it had no hands),
So the mouse stayed where it was,
Hickory, dickory, dock...tick tock.

Yes, you may have guessed that my latest necklace is an interpretation of the classic nursery rhyme; however this mouse wants to stay on the clock.

This Steampunk style pendant incorporates an old watch mechanism within a circular pendant bezel that has a burnished finish. The pendant has an integrated tube bail and is hung from a leather thong style necklace chain. The cheeky little mouse took me a long time to source. It is sterling silver and was actually discovered attached to on an old pair of earrings.

I am very proud of this pendant as I have managed to avoid the use of resin that has somewhat dominated my jewellery making! I wanted to keep the old watch parts exposed and natural to make the pendant more tactile. I really do enjoy making Steampunk jewellery; I find it quite therapeutic turning old watch parts into something that can be enjoyed again.

I don’t think I will be selling this pendant but will display her in my ‘studio’ as an inspirational piece..having said that, my wife has already worn the necklace to a family meal so if it goes missing I know where to look!

...tick tock tick tock...

European Drag Racing at Santa Pod Raceway

2011-06-03T19:44:00.009+01:00

I managed to get a day off jewellery making last weekend (the first day off since before Christmas!) and we spent the day at Santa Pod raceway in Northamptonshire to watch Drag Racing. Not that I am normally one for fast cars but there is something special about Santa Pod that makes me want to go back for more. It is probably because we get to experience things that are far from the norm; things that you just don’t get to see every day.

The last time we went to Santa Pod was five years ago when my wife was heavily pregnant with our son. We were certainly not prepared for the noise and I spent most of the day shielding my wife from the sound waves that are generated from some of the cars racing down the drag strip...I had never experienced anything like that before, it is far more than just noise and you can feel every organ in your body vibrating through the sheer speed of the cars. Reaching speeds of over 300mph and completing the quarter mile strip in less than six seconds, you certainly can’t blink; I wish I had a picture of my tortured face as the cars and bikes roared by!

This year since my son is five years old we could appreciate the whole experience a little more. Equipped with ear defenders we took in the sights and sounds of Santa Pod. The place has a lovely festival feel about it and there is so much more going on apart from the drag racing.

Titan the robot made a few appearances throughout the day, entertaining the crowds with his wit and humour.

And there were the awesome Monster Trucks, crushing cars like they were paper bags.

Through the extremely gusty winds the Black Knights parachute display team braved the weather and all made perfect landings next to the crowd.

An unclaimed Ford Mondeo car that had been illegally parked at Santa Pod was rolled by multiple world record holder stunt man Terry Grant.

And finally the commentator makes a lucky escape by the impressive braking skills of former stunt riding world champion Zoltan Angyal.

A great day was had by all at Santa Pod raceway and next time I visit I might just have a go myself; they have public days where you can take along your own car to race down the famous drag strip!

Mick

Forget-me-not flower necklaces

2011-05-27T19:59:00.006+01:00

It has been very busy here at Shpangle jewellery over the last couple of weeks and it feels like I haven't blogged for a while! Had a couple of huge orders that I have been working on as well as producing a few items for fun, especially these necklaces containing real forget-me-not flowers.

You may remember in a recent blog post My Favourite Flowers and Real Flower Jewellery when I mentioned my fascination and love of Forget-me-not flowers. Well, I have been busy since pressing a few of these flowers amongst many others for encasing within my jewellery.

The first necklace has layers of pressed Forget-me-not flowers within a heart shaped resin pendant. This necklace sold within a couple of days of me putting it into my shop (but thankfully I have lots more flowers ready to make another!).

This next necklace has a few Forget-me-nots and a pink flower from a flowering currant encased within a pale pink teardrop necklace.

And the last pendant is from a recent custom jewellery order that incorporates a Forget-me-not flower and a lock of hair from a pet...these are becoming popular as it is quite appropriate to incorporate these flowers with a lock of hair from a loved one or pet.

You can see a few more examples of my jewellery incorporating Forget-me-nots and other real flowers on my Real Flower Jewellery website page.

STV ‘The Hour’ Program – Free Publicity?

2011-05-19T20:03:00.003+01:00

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Scottish Television (STV) who asked if I could supply some of my lock of hair jewellery for a program that they were to broadcast. Not wanting to turn away some free publicity I obviously jumped at the chance. The feature was to be part of ‘The Hour’ program, which is Scotland’s very own lifestyle show and is presented by Michelle McManus and Stephen Jardine; this particular show was to feature wonderful ways modern mothers are celebrating having a baby.

I made some lovely new samples of my lock of hair jewellery for the show and even engraved them, and off they went to the Scottish Television studios. The day of the program came and I let everybody know through Facebook, Twitter, my blog (which I subsequently deleted), friends, neighbours and family. I sat down and watched the recording of the show on their website that evening and did I see my jewellery....NO!

Quite frustrated the next morning I emailed STV and they replied saying that they didn’t have enough time (planning?) and asked if they could feature my jewellery on another program, to be broadcast in a few weeks time when they could devote more time to it. Now that is better than nothing but I asked them if they could send my jewellery back to me since the program was due to be broadcast in several weeks time.

My jewellery arrived the next day and I was shocked when I opened the jewellery boxes to find STV had not added the protective packaging that I had included to prevent the jewellery from being knocked about during posting. Necklace chains were tangled, pendants had been bashed around within the cases and a sterling silver ring was completely damaged beyond repair! A few furious emails later I managed to calm down a little but still wondering if free publicity like that; is it really worth it?

On a positive note, the day after receiving my jewellery back I received a call from a children’s hospice wondering if I could send some lock of hair jewellery samples and literature. They would like to have them so that they can show them to their families who have unfortunately lost young children. I feel very honoured to have been asked and even more honoured that I am helping people through such a difficult time.

Mick

Psychedelic fabric pendants – made from recycled fabric

2011-05-16T19:50:00.003+01:00

I little while ago I managed to get my hands on a piece of this fabric and I just love it! I adore bright fabrics and the psychedelic elements to this fabric are fantastic and great for making jewellery from...I just wish this fabric was never ending, but I only have a small amount of it however I am going to have so much fun with it over the coming weeks.

After working with fabrics and resin jewellery, I tend to now look at fabric in a different way; rather than looking at fabric as a whole, I tend to look at small segments of it. My jewellery tends to be one or two inches in size so I tend to look at very small areas of patterns and combinations of colours and objects.

For the first pendant I took an area of the fabric that incorporated a flower and suddenly what was previously quite a multicoloured and psychedelic fabric becomes predominantly orange in this pendant.

Resin is a great material to use with fabrics as it tends to magnify the weave of the fabric slightly. You can also include other objects or colourants to the resin to compliment the fabric. With these pendants, I coloured the backs of the pendant orange to match the material and gave them a slight twinkle with glitter dust.

For the second pendant I took an area of the fabric that incorporated some swirls and flowers that I thought matched the teardrop shape of the pendant.

If any of my blog followers work with fabrics and regularly have waste material that can’t be used for anything else (all I am looking for are one or two inch pieces), please don’t dispose of them as they would be often sought after by a resin jewellery artist like myself!

Mick

Gone Today Hair Tomorrow

2011-05-07T06:39:00.003+01:00

Just a quick blog post to let you know that Shpangle Jewellery will be on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 9th May 2011 describing my lock of hair jewellery and in particular my pet hair and fur jewellery. But please don't blink because I will only be on air for a minute or so in a short burst towards the end of the program.

The program is called 'Gone Today Hair Tomorrow' and airs at 11.00 am on Monday May 9th on BBC Radio 4 92-94 FM, and I think it is a 30 minute program. According to the BBC Radio 4 website the program is described as:

Gone Today, Hair Tomorrow - For centuries hair has been used as a symbol of remembrance; from a simple lock kept to the more intricate practice of weaving hair into bracelets or its use in art and jewellery. In this programme the historian and biographer Juliette Barker traces these practices through history and talks to some modern collectors. Now that it has become apparent that hair offers us the chance to retrieve good quality DNA could it be about to enjoy a renaissance as favoured medium once more by which we remember our loved ones and ancestors?

Sounds like it will be an interesting program!

Mick

Resin Jewellery – Disposable Latex Protective Gloves

2011-05-04T19:47:00.006+01:00

As any resin jewellery maker knows we get through lots of disposable latex gloves used for protecting our hands whilst working with resin. Just like all the stirring sticks and measuring cups used in making resin jewellery, they are all used once and then disposed of. I am always on the lookout for inexpensive but good quality protective gloves and when I recently discovered some for sale at a very reasonable price at my local Hinckley market I obviously bought them; little did I know of the problems and potential safety issues that purchase was going to cause.

Hinckley market is a bustling and award winning market with plenty of quality produce on offer and I quite rightly assumed that my new protective gloves were going to be fit for purpose. How wrong was I, the first few pairs that I plucked from the container just didn’t fit; I have a pretty much average hand size for a man and these protective gloves were marked ‘large’, but I couldn’t get the gloves over my fingers let alone my hand.

Thinking it was me and that my hands must have had a growth spurt over night, I investigated the rest of the container. Out of the 100 pairs of disposable gloves, approximately one quarter of them actually fit and the rest were a mixture of smaller sizes. Looking at the gloves closer I also found small holes present around the fingers; most certainly a safety hazard when working with dangerous substances like resin.

But the scariest thing I found on a pair of protective gloves near to the bottom of the container was this...

There were faces drawn onto the palms of the gloves, how scary is that!

I contacted the manufacturer of the gloves who confirmed that they ‘had a batch of Nitrile gloves delivered in 2010 which were of a very poor quality. We in fact threw this container of gloves away but unfortunately they were then reclaimed by someone who now sells them at market stalls and car boot sales and we have no control over this at all. This is a nuisance because it de-values our brand.’

So the moral of this blog post is that if you are looking to purchase items that are there to protect your health, please purchase them from a reputable supplier. Also avoid purchasing the Nitrile disposable gloves (pictured below) from market stalls or car boot sales.

I wrote an article a while back about resin jewellery making and general guidelines to be followed for staying safe here: Resin Jewellery Making - Safety Precautions and Equipment.

Personalised Horse Hair Jewellery

2011-04-29T20:03:00.006+01:00

I thought I would blog a little about my horse hair jewellery, mainly because I haven’t mentioned it for a while and I am currently making quite a lot of it! I really do love working with horse and pony hair, not only because of the great sentimental value for the owner but also because of the fantastic effects that can be achieved from it.

Would you believe that the horse hair pendants that have the criss-cross effect that I make take between five and seven days to complete. The pendant is built up in four layers and I individually place each hair in turn, creating a three-dimensional effect by having several strands of horse hair on each layer.

I have quite often been asked to make my resin horse hair jewellery a little bit more personalised for the horse and owner. This has sometimes been quite a challenge but very rewarding.

Sometimes I colour the horse hair pendant to represent the horses cross county colours or stable colours:

I have also included other small items to the jewellery such as flowers or tiny confetti stars:

On other occasions I have even included glitter and seed beads to give the horse hair jewellery a totally different look:

Sometimes I am asked to include the horse’s name with the jewellery. This has previously been achieved by having a separate silver charm engraved with the name or even engraved onto my silver pendants themselves.

But a recent blog post about my Photo Jewellery gave me the idea of including the horse’s name within the pendant itself, and this has been quite popular. Obviously I am restricted to the number of characters I can have but so far I have been lucky! I use the silver or gold peel-offs to represent the name and it really does look lovely and three-dimensional suspended within the pendant.

So there is my latest array of horse hair jewellery, complete with colour, names and other items to make it a little bit more personalised to the horse and owner, I hope you like it!

If you would like to see more examples of my horse and pony jewellery please visit my horse hair jewellery website page.

Mick

My Favourite Flowers & Real Flower Jewellery

2011-04-21T20:27:00.009+01:00

I hope everyone is enjoying all this lovely weather that we have been experiencing. On a personal note, I think it has made me realise that I am a winter kind of guy! It must be all the years of living on a Narrowboat but I much prefer a cold winter’s day. I loved snuggling up in front of the wood-burning stove and having the towpaths to ourselves and then taking the boat out breaking through the ice (and not having to avoid hire-boats filled with drunken boaters having very little respect for nature and other people).

Apart from the overcrowded and litter strewn country parks and the smell of half-cooked meat drifting over from next door’s barbeque, a warm spring day does have some lovely points for me. Nature comes to life after having a rest over the winter months. Baby animals are born and beautiful flowers start to appear in celebration.

A couple of days ago my daughter asked me ‘what is my favourite flower?’ Without question I answered the following; so in no particular order my three favourite flowers are...

1) The Daisy

Such a simple and innocent flower that speaks volumes to me about what summer time is all about. Sitting in a meadow making daisy chains is my idea of a lovely day out.

2) Forget-me-nots

Beautiful flowers that I am happy to seed all over the garden if they want too! I also like for folklore and legends behind the flowers (especially the one about the knight who picked a posy of flowers whilst walking with his lady, fell into the river, started to drown and threw the posy to his lady shouting “Forget-me-not”.

3) The Dandelion

A flower that looks like a ball of sunshine, the Dandelion has its rightful place in my top three flowers...I really resent mowing the lawn when I see them growing out of the grass.

So they are my top three flowers, I would love to hear what your favourite flowers are?

You may remember that last year I produced a few pendants and necklaces containing real flowers. Well, this year I have quite a few planned and have already started to press flowers in readiness for some new items of jewellery...in fact I am now taking a small flower press with me whenever I go out!

If you would like to see some of the real flower jewellery that I made over the last year, please visit my real flower jewellery website page.

Personalised Photo Jewellery – 21st Birthday Gifts

2011-04-13T14:30:00.008+01:00

Hi all, I haven’t really planned anything to blog about this week so I thought I would show off a custom jewellery order that I completed last week. I was asked to make some pieces of personalised photo jewellery for a lady to give as a gift to her sister for her 21st birthday.

The request was for a pair of earrings containing photographs of her sister as a baby and a more recent shot. And this is what I came up with; the photographs have been set within sterling silver oval -shaped pendant bezels on sterling silver fishhook earrings.

...and this is how I made them; I took the digital photograph and scaled it down to suit the size of the pendant. I then took a template of the pendant and removed the unwanted area surrounding the oval.

I then superimposed the oval shaped photograph over a photograph of the silver pendant bezel and sent it to the customer for approval.

The photograph was then printed and cut, placed within the pendant bezel and sealed with resin, creating a slight domed effect with the resin over the pendant. I also made this personalised pendant for her which was again a sterling silver pendant bezel with 21st encased inside with resin. I actually used letter peel-offs, the kind you use for card making to form the ‘21st’ and it is very effective and an unusual birthday gift for the young lady.

To further personalise the pendant and earrings I engraved the back of each item with a different message, engraving the phrases ‘Happy 21st Birthday’, ‘11th March 2011’ and ‘Love Eva & Hannah’ onto the backs of the jewellery.

If you would like to find out more about my photo jewellery, how it is made and the types of jewellery that I offer, please visit my personalised photo jewellery website page.

My new rainbow peelable window decoration

2011-04-06T13:59:00.007+01:00

Last week I was extremely lucky to win a blog giveaway by Ali’s Craft Studio and I got to choose one of her wonderful handmade peelable window decorations, and it has just arrived!

Although I was spoilt for choice when looking around her website, the window decoration that really did beckon me was her ‘rainbow and cloud’ decoration. It is lovely and bright and happy; I have always had a big thing about rainbows and have many dotted around house in various places. Recently I spent some time looking through my old primary school pictures to find the majority of them I had drawn a rainbow!

So the question is where do I put my new rainbow?

Do I put it in the rather dull bathroom to brighten up the tiles?

... or do I put it onto the mirrored wardrobe doors in the bedroom? (hehe just noticed teddy has his head in the clouds).

... I think for now I will put it on our front room window so that every time I look out I can see a rainbow in the sky.

The beauty about Ali’s peelable window decorations is that they are moveable, so whenever I want a change I can do just that. Having said that I might just go and purchase a few more so that I can have rainbows all over the house and car!

Please go and have a look at the handmade peelable window decorations made by Ali on her website Ali's Craft Studio.

Daily Mail Feature and Jasmine Harman Necklace

2011-03-30T14:32:00.006+01:00

It has been a hectic but extremely enjoyable week at Shpangle Jewellery. I woke up yesterday to find my website stats had gone through the roof, and after a little investigation found my lock of hair jewellery had been featured in the Daily Mail newspaper! Not only had I been featured in the online article titled The art of pregnancy: The weird and wonderful ways modern mothers are celebrating having a baby I was also in the paper copy (page22) if anybody still has it. As a result I spent yesterday and much of today answering phone calls and emails from potential customers of my keepsake jewellery.

And it doesn’t stop at the Daily Mail; it appears that several newspapers around Europe also ran a similar article with references back to my website so I have been a busy boy! The other news is that I was asked last week to make a name on rice necklace for the lovely TV presenter Jasmine Harman who amongst other things presents the Channel 4 program ‘A place in the sun – Home or Away’. The necklace was to be a gift for Mother’s Day and contained two grains of rice both with names on. While I was at it I made a name on rice pendant for her as well! It is a single grain of rice with her name and the glass vial has a daisy fused on the outside; I included a little glitter as well and here it is:

So far this year Shpangle Jewellery has been in a Movie, had a Radio Interview and now a newspaper article...what is next, a TV program maybe? Well, guess what...one phone call I had yesterday was from Scottish Television wanting to show my jewellery on TV, so watch this space!

Mick

Blog Giveaway! - How many letters on a grain of rice?

2011-03-27T19:52:00.005+01:00

I was asked by Laura of 'Cards and Candles for all Occasions' recently if I would like to make her a name on rice pendant. The pendant was to contain grains of rice containing her Mums name, her Mum’s kennel club affix and her dates of birth and passing. Everything sounded fine and then I counted the number of letters in her Mums name – nine eek! I haven’t previously managed to write more than eight letters onto a single side of a grain of rice before. But then the more I thought about it, the more I concluded that I had probably restricted myself to that number because I just haven’t been asked to write more, and I am always up for a challenge!

I found writing nine letters onto a grain of rice was relatively easy and felt I could even go for more! But writing on both sides of a grain of rice still proves to be quite a challenge, in fact to some extent I find writing on both sides of a grain of rice more challenging than the writing itself. It is a psychological challenge of knowing that I am writing onto the back of a grain of rice that has already had successfully completed writing.

I made two pendants for Laura, the first contained three grains of rice with her mums name on one grain, kennel club affix on the second grain and the third grain with the dates written onto both sides of the grain of rice.

The second pendant (as seen below) contained a single grain with her mother’s name and a tiny red flower.

Blog Giveaway

To Celebrate 150 blog followers I have decided to do a Blog giveaway and here it is: I have decided to set myself a target this year. I want to get all the letters of the alphabet onto a single grain of rice, and here is where you can win my giveaway. Firstly follow my blog and then place your bets (by commenting on this blog post) on how many letters I will achieve (the closest guess will get a little gift from me at the end of the year). Duplicate correct entries will be decided by the ‘drawn out of the hat’ method and sorry you have to wait so long for your prize...but I hope it is worth it and it will make an unexpected present at the end of the year!

If you are interested I have put together a small tutorial with advice and a few tips for writing names on a grain of rice onto my website. It can be found here: How to make name on rice jewellery.

Shpangle Jewellery’s new company vehicle

2011-03-22T13:24:00.004Z

No more one hour round trips to the post office or into town to get those urgent craft supplies...I now have a new mode of transport, my new bike!

I haven't ridden a bike for a few years and when I picked the bike up from the shop on Saturday, I had the immediate challenge of having a three-mile cycle home. It went very well and the main thing I noticed was the car fumes yuck! Not a very nice experience when you are whizzing along with the wind in my hair only to get mouthfuls of exhaust fumes. Anyway, got home safely, stepped off the bike and almost collapsed...talk about jelly legs! I must have used muscles that have been lying dormant for the last few years and they certainly got woken up and then complained like a teenager.

On Sunday my wife wanted to go to the local Garden centre. What did I suggest? Yep, that I would go on my bike and meet her there! What was I thinking! The garden centre was a good four miles away and most of it felt like it was all uphill. After a couple of hours it was time to leave and I had the daunting task of having to ride home...it did cross my mind to somehow force the bike into the car, but no I resisted the temptation and had the long long ride home. I still don’t understand how on earth it was uphill on the way back as well.

I love my new bike and think it is really going to pay for itself; I won’t have so much lost time as well as keeping me fit! I am so happy that I have finally gotten around to parting with my money and buying her. I haven’t given her a name yet so any ideas would be appreciated!

Mick

Staying Safe - Recycled Crafts and Vintage objects

2011-03-18T10:36:00.003Z

I recently had the urge to make some Steampunk jewellery using old and recycled watch and clock parts. Like anything that I make, I looked into any potential dangers with using the materials and came across a startling discovery.

The problem is with the phosphorescent compound coated on many old vintage watches. The compound contains Radium and was used to coat the watch faces and hands so that they would glow in the dark. The radiation from the Radium coated watch faces has the potential to cause serious health risks and the problem doesn't stop at the watch face and hands...Over time the paint breaks down and will become very dusty and it is important not to breathe any of this dust. This dust can in turn contaminate the work area and the watch mechanism itself.

If you are interested in reading more about the risks and history of working with luminous watch dials please the following website. The website also includes a link to an article about the Radium Girls who used to paint the watch hands and dials. They were instructed to point their brushes with their lips when their brushes lost their shape!

http://www.midwestcs.com/elgin/help/luminous_dials.html

Hopefully I am not scaremongering but it is extremely important as crafters that we stay safe and any items that we sell to others are safe for them. We need to be aware when dealing with recycled and vintage objects that we understand what materials were originally used and any potential hazards with them. This can be anything from old watch parts used in jewellery to the paint used on old wooden items and fire risks associated with recycled fabric.

Let’s face it, at the time many vintage items were made without knowledge of the potential health and safety risks associated with them. We are more aware of these risks today and anything that we buy ‘new’ would have had to pass health and safety assessments.

Personally and as recently advised by a Steampunk forum, I am going to borrow or invest in a Geiger counter to eliminate any radiation risks and will certainly wear a dust mask when handling old watch parts in the future.

Onion Cufflinks and Onion Rings

2011-03-03T19:49:00.004Z

Warning – This blog post contains over-use of the word ‘onions’. In fact I have managed to reference the word ‘onion’ 17 times within this blog post!

Spring will soon be here and what do we with think of when it comes to springtime; spring-onions of course. Well, perhaps not but I needed something to lead me into this blog post which is all about, yes you guessed it, onions.

You may remember last spring when I blogged about a pair of onion cufflinks I was asked to make. Well, at the time I thought it was a strange request and never found out why onions; also at the time I would never have imagined to be asked to make any onion jewellery again. But since making that blog post I have made another five pairs of onion cufflinks for people!

Firstly there was a fellow jewellery maker who asked me to make her a pair as an anniversary present for her husband who likes pickled onions. And then last week I was asked to make four sets of onion cufflinks by a lady who is getting married soon. The onion cufflinks are to be given to their best man and the ushers at their wedding as the couple are going to become Mr and Mrs Onions!

So seeing how popular the onion cufflinks seem to be I have added several sets to my online shop here: Onion Cufflinks

Also while I was at it I made some onion rings and have lots of other fruit and vegetable jewellery planned including garlic and peppers!

So, if you are into your onions and vegetables you know where to come!

A Budgie Keepsake - Mango’s Last Feather

2011-02-23T11:23:00.007Z

You may have noticed from my last blog post that I have recently been making a few items of Budgie keepsake jewellery by encapsulating the bird feathers within resin necklaces. Well a few days ago I received the following message from Laura who received the necklace. It is extremely moving and really makes me appreciate how my jewellery helps people with their loss.

“We had only owned Mango a few short years before her sudden death, she had many years left in her and the entire incident has come as a complete shock. She was the most beautiful of birds, with stunning markings, even on the back of her head her feathers were in such an alignment it looked like she had a smiley face!

Christmas 2009 Mango was diagnosed with psittacosis and we undertook months of treatment and quarantine, we were one of the lucky ones and came out the other end fit as a fiddle thankfully. After the ordeal she went back to being her normal self, making lots of beeping sounds and like a typical Kakariki caught up on baths - drenching everyone and everything around her. She was a beautiful flier, completely silent, great for causing mischief! By far her favourite thing was to sit out in summer and soak up the rays, the sun really brought out her colours.

Loosing her has been a big hurdle and very hard to deal with, on the evening of her death we removed some feathers from her cage and kept them separate. We contacted many jewellery makers and finally found Mick, we were very grateful he was open to giving it ago and seeing if we could preserve her last feather forever.

The necklace has turned out beautiful, far better than we expected, the entire necklace has a glow about it, we spent quite a while just starring at it, it was an emotional moment seeing it for the first time.We can't thank Mick enough for what he has done, being able to carry around the feather has helped with our emotions and grief immensely and it feels like a real healing charm.

Thank you Mick for keeping our little girl alive in such a graceful way.” (Laura Feb 2011.)

If you would like to find out more about my jewellery and the different ways of preserving those precious items, please visit my Keepsake Jewellery website page.

Pet Budgie Keepsake – Bird Feather Jewellery

2011-02-18T15:08:00.007Z

As some of you may be aware, quite a lot of my work involves encapsulating peoples’ pet hair and fur within my jewellery. I love making this jewellery as it gives people a lasting reminder of their beloved pet and of allows people to carry a piece of their pet close to their heart. I have been sent many types of fur and hair from several different kinds of pets including dogs, cats, rabbits, horses and ponies; and each one is special for me to make as I know how much it means to the owner.

A couple of weeks ago I received an enquiry from Laura who had sadly recently lost one of her birds and had kept the last feather from her bird. She wanted the Budgie feather she had kept setting within a necklace so that she could keep it close to her and preserved forever.

I haven’t had any previous experience of setting bird feathers within resin jewellery so I asked if she could send some test feathers for me to experiment with before using ‘the Budgie feather’. She kindly sent a few feathers for me to try and I made these examples:

They really are gorgeous to look at; this example shows the Budgie feathers encapsulated within clear resin heart-shaped pendants. The photographs were taken by Laura after she had received her pendants and her photography skills are much better than mine!

This example shows the Budgie feathers again set within clear resin heart shaped pendants, however with these pendants I have coloured the resin at the back of the pendants black to provide a contrast with the Budgie feather colours.

I sent her the test samples and she loved them and wanted me to go ahead with setting ‘the Budgie feather’ within a clear heart shaped pendant, and this is the jewellery I made her. It is a clear heart shaped resin necklace containing the Budgie feather on a sterling silver necklace chain. It really is beautiful to look at in real life as you tilt the pendant and look at it from different angles the colours and feather almost look as if they are moving and come to life.

I hope I get to make more of these Budgie feather necklaces, in fact I would love to have the opportunity to incorporate feathers from other birds into my jewellery; the effect are very nice and they are fun to make too!

If you would like to see some more examples of my pet keepsake jewellery; please visit my pet hair and fur keepsake jewellery website page.

My BBC Radio 4 Interview

2011-02-11T19:44:00.003Z

It has been quite an exciting week at Shpangle Jewellery this week; you may remember recently my jewellery featured in a movie, well on Tuesday I was interviewed by a producer for BBC Radio 4 for a documentary they are in the middle of making. The producer contacted me a few weeks ago and they explained how they were making a documentary about the history of keeping peoples hair (for example Victorian hair jewellery) and wanted to feature me as the modern day equivalent. As well as the lock of hair jewellery that I make, they were also particularly interested in the pet hair jewellery and this was to be the main topic of the interview.

On Tuesday morning the BBC producer arrived and explained that he had travelled as far as USA to interview people. We had a little chat and everything was going well until...he put his earphones on and switched on the tape recorder! My brain instantly turned to jelly and I became so nervous. What was worse was the fact that he had just explained that he wouldn’t be on the final recording; I should therefore not answer his questions directly but to speak as if I was reporting the subject.

He asked me lots of questions such as explaining how the lock of hair and pet hair jewellery is made, describing the jewellery and reasons for people buying it. I think I managed to somehow squeeze out sufficient answers through my nervousness, a bit silly really since I have done many a presentation to company directors during my career as a senior systems engineer. But this felt really different as I knew I was presenting myself to possibly thousands of people who will hopefully listen to it on the radio!

Afterwards he explained that it would be edited (to remove my long pauses etc) and that he will also put a link to me and maybe some pictures onto the BBC website! The program is due to be broadcast on May 9th at 11.00 a.m. on BBC Radio 4. I am now left wondering what will be next, first a film and then a radio show; perhaps a book?

Fossil Dinosaur Poop Jewellery and Gifts

2011-02-03T19:54:00.005Z

You may remember from a recent blog post where I said one of my New Year’s resolutions was to take myself more seriously and that I would be working on some new ranges of jewellery. Well I thought I would show off my latest range of jewellery and you can’t get any less serious than this; Fossil Dinosaur poop jewellery and gifts!

The inspiration behind this Dinosaur poop jewellery came from a Christmas present that I bought for my wife this year. Yes, I bought her a gift of a big lump of fossilised Dino dung! Don’t ask me why, it was kind of one of those moments, and I can’t remember why on earth I chose that or even looked for it in the first place!

This is real fossilised Dinosaur poop (Coprolite) originating from millions of years ago and fossilised to form a mineral called Marcasite. I have come across Coprolite jewellery before but it has always been sliced, polished and formed into cabochons. Manipulated to such an extent that it no longer resembles its original fossil form and may as well be another agate cabochon. I wanted to keep the fossilised Dinosaur poop in its original recognisable form. I am quite against setting fossils into resin or forming them into other shapes. They have survived millions of years and deserve respect even though these originally came from Dinosaur dung! I wanted to create something that was tactile as well as being educational and fun!

Quite a lot can be learned from fossil Dinosaur poop such as their eating habits as tiny fragments of bone, shells and other material can be discovered within the coprolites. These fossils came from the Ichthyosaurs who ruled the seas during the Jurassic period and are thought to almost resemble Dolphins. The fossils were discovered in the UK along the Dorset coastline and are 148-170 million years old!

I think the Dinosaur poop necklaces make a great statement piece of jewellery and certainly make a great conversation piece. If you would like to find out more about the history of the Dinosaur Poop and the possible health benefits (other than scaring away the odd Dinosaur you may come across), please visit my Poop Gifts website page.

Pet Hair and Fur Keepsake Ring

2011-01-27T14:09:00.003Z

You may remember my last blog post where I mentioned that I had an order from Taiwan; well it has been completed now so I thought I would show it off. The customer initially wanted a pendant with some of her pet Golden Retriever’s fur encapsulated within it and then decided to also have a ring to match.

She also asked if I could also include the number ‘22’ within the keepsake ring and pendant as it was a special number for her and her dog. Sourcing the numbers was initially quite tricky but I do like a challenge. After hunting around various craft shops etc I finally discovered them at a supplier of dolls house miniatures; they are in fact miniature brass house numbers!

This is the first hair or fur keepsake ring that I have made; I have made many pendants and bracelets in the past encapsulating hair but never a ring. The ring is sterling silver, fully adjustable to fit any finger size and the dog’s fur and number ‘22’ have been sealed with resin. I also made a pendant to match and included a couple of extra goodies since it was my first order from Taiwan!

The pendant and ring both arrived safely in Taiwan and she was very happy with them, in fact I quote ‘OH MY GOD..I got my package today and am honestly at a loss for words!’ It is lovely to receive great feedback like that an equally amazing to know that my keepsake jewellery is being worn and loved on the over side of the world!

Handmade Custom Jewellery Presentation

2011-01-20T14:19:00.005Z

I am still very busy at Shpangle Jewellery and as well as my usual UK orders I have been having quite a few from around the world. I have just completed a large custom jewellery order from Canada of 12 keepsake pendants and today have completed an order for Taiwan! Yes Taiwan is a first for me at Shpangle Jewellery, well in fact it was for a Canadian lady living in Taiwan but still counts to me as a Taiwanese custom jewellery order! There seems to be a common trend with my custom jewellery orders and Canada, in fact outside of the UK most of my sales come from Canada.

I have also been doing quite a bit to my website; have reorganised my customer Testimonials page and have added quite a bit of information to my hair keepsake page. In doing so I have realised that I do not actually display any where the presentation of my custom jewellery when I send it to the customer.

So I thought I would show you a couple of examples of my custom jewellery. This photo shows a typical hair keepsake pendant mounted within its jewellery box. The customer didn’t want to wear this pendant but they were to be given out as gifts to family and friends. The pendant was mounted within the jewellery box on a short piece of ribbon, to be kept as a keepsake rather than worn as an item of jewellery.

This photo shows an example of the engraving that I do for the back of my sterling silver keepsake pendants. I can accommodate most engraving requirements including small messages, names, dates, and in this case a heart symbol. I think the most words that have been engraved onto one of my keepsake pendants was seven or eight words which isn’t bad for the size of the pendant. The engraving on the keepsake is a nice touch as it makes the jewellery even more personal to its owner.

You may remember a recent blog post of mine where I mentioned my name on rice jewellery that starred in a movie. Well another exciting thing happened to me this week, I was contacted by a producer at BBC Radio 4 who is putting together a documentary about hair jewellery and wanted me to help! I will update you with the details if/when it goes ahead at a later date!

Confetti Wedding Keepsakes

2011-01-08T20:29:00.004Z

I hope everyone in blog land is having a good start to 2011; I am really busy in the land of Shpangle with lots of custom orders keeping me busy and some exciting new ranges of jewellery being prepared. It has been quite an exciting start to the year for me so far, my custom jewellery has been accepted this week in a chain of outlets in and around Tamworth, but more about that in another blog post!

One of the last few custom jewellery items that I made in 2010 were these resin charms for a lady who’s sister is a fellow jewellery maker. She sent me some table confetti from her sister’s wedding, and she wanted me to make some charms containing the confetti for her sister to use. The wedding table confetti consisted of multi-coloured animals and I placed a single animal within a resin charm and finished with a twinkle of magic sparkle dust.

I thought these would make lovely keepsakes for the bride and groom but could also be handed out as wedding favours to guests. Giving the wedding guests a long lasting reminder of the wedding day and functional too! I love them because they look so happy and colourful and might have to make some for myself!

The same customer also wanted some horsehair jewellery made for her sister so I made this bracelet containing horse hair...

...and also made this pendant again with horse hair encapsulated within resin.

If you would like to see other examples of my recent custom jewellery orders please have a browse around my website jewellery gallery.

Thank you 2010 and Welcome to 2011

2010-12-31T14:58:00.002Z

Just a few more hours left of 2010 so I thought I would post one last blog post for the year to wish everyone a happy New Year and hope 2011 is going to be a great year for all.

The year 2010 has been a great year for Shpangle. I started the year with a new year’s resolution to concentrate on my online business and not to do any craft fairs throughout the year. This has certainly been extremely positive; the custom jewellery side of my business has certainly taken off and it has also meant that I am able to spend more time with my family rather than to have weekends planning or attending craft fairs.

The Shpangle New Year’s resolution for 2011 will be to take myself more seriously; I have many ideas for new ranges of jewellery and other handmade goodies that I have promised to make all year. I don’t know where the time has gone because all these ideas are still tucked away in my mind. I think the only new designs for 2010 were my name on rice jewellery items, so for 2011 I am going to channel a lot of my energy into new releases.

I know this next year is going to be a great year for handmade crafts and I look forward to sharing all of our makes with each other in the coming year.

Happy New Year to all!

Mick

Custom Jewellery and Wedding Keepsakes for Christmas

2010-12-19T19:18:00.008Z

I thought I would squeeze one last blog post out before the Christmas festivities start and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and happy New Year! I have been having a very busy time here at Shpangle with lots of custom jewellery orders keeping me out of trouble. I am certainly looking forward to having a rest over the Christmas period, locking my jewellery making bits and pieces away and coming back refreshed with lots of new designs in 2011.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all the custom jewellery makes leading up to Christmas but there are a couple of items that I particularly enjoyed, so I thought I would show them off.

The first custom jewellery order I want to show off is from a lady who lives in Canada. She first contacted me last July prior to her sister’s wedding and wanted me to set some of their wedding keepsakes into jewellery. I received a package containing items from her sister’s wedding a couple of weeks ago. In the package were a few small flowers from the wedding and small pieces of her sister’s wedding dress.

She wanted a pendant making for her sister using the wedding flowers and inspired by my previous blog post about wedding dress cufflinks, wanted a pair of cufflinks for her brother-in-law containing pieces from her sister’s wedding dress.

The second custom jewellery I want to show off is from a repeat customer of mine. It is always nice to have a returning customer and in this case the lady was also kind enough to send me a lovely Christmas card! For her fist order I made a small silver charm for her charm bracelet containing some of her dog’s fur and last week she asked me to make two more charms. The first charm contained some more of her dog’s fur and the second charm contained some of her wedding dress material with some small crystals also taken from her wedding dress.

I wish everyone a very happy Christmas and look forward to seeing all your lovely makes in 2011. I think 2011 is going to be a great year for handmade crafts and I look forward to being part of it.

Have a good one!

Mick

Keepsake Jewellery for my Wife

2010-12-08T19:55:00.005Z

You may remember a recent blog post where I had made a name on rice necklace for our daughters’ birthday – Personalised Birthday Presents. Well, it was my wife’s birthday a few weeks ago and one of her birthday presents from me was, guess what, yes a name on rice necklace!

The keepsake necklace contained four grains of rice each one with our names on; my wife, me and the two children. I set the grains of rice within a glass vial that had a glass daisy fused onto the outside of the vial, I also coloured the preservative oil within the vial a tint of pink.

My apologies for the quality of the photograph but my wife has worn her name on rice necklace every day since her birthday and I haven’t had chance to photograph it properly yet. She even managed to get an order for four pendants the first day she wore it from her friend at work!

Making name on rice pendants is proving quite useful when it comes to family birthday presents and gifts. It was my wife’s uncle and aunts Ruby wedding anniversary recently and we thought it would be nice to give them something handmade and personal as a gift, as well as being a keepsake to their Ruby Wedding celebrations.

I made a key-chain for her uncle and a necklace for her aunt, each with two grains of rice, both with their names on. I also included a tiny Ruby Swarovski crystal bead to make it even more personal to the occasion.

If you would like to see more of my rice writing, please visit my name on rice jewellery gallery.

Mick

Buying local – buying from the high street

2010-12-03T05:24:00.005Z

It is very busy in the land of Shpangle at the moment with the Christmas rush that, to save my sanity, I am now turning away any more pre-Christmas orders. So when I awoke at 3 o’clock this morning with my mind buzzing with jewellery related buzzes, I just needed to write about something totally un-related to jewellery making...

Although I am always preaching about buying handmade and buying local, I must admit that we as a family have always bought our weekly shopping from a supermarket (which kind of goes against all my principles). I suppose it is the ease of parking and then having everything under one roof, and it has become quite a routine, knowing where everything is and then being confused once in a while when they decide to change the shop around.

But over the years, I have become more and more despondent over the tricks these big supermarkets play on us, what with their pricing wars, buy one, get ten free offers, the way they are squeezing our farmers and the general lack of quality food. So four weeks ago we decided to boycott supermarkets altogether and get all of our weekly shopping from the local high-street shops.

And it has been fantastic and I will never go back to buying from a supermarket. OK, it has been taking us longer to complete our shopping (but that is getting easier and quicker every week) we also make it more of an event, having a stop off at the local cafe for a bite to eat. The quality of food is far better and fresh fruit and vegetables seem to be lasting longer. We have also been eating a lot healthier; where before we may have bought a ‘ready-made’ pie, we are now baking our own and actually filling them with proper meat.

Best of all, we are supporting the local high-street shops, many of which are sadly suffering from the un-caring, un-sharing hands of those money hungry supermarket giants. I would highly recommend giving it a try to anyone like us who regularly shops at supermarkets...

OK, back to the jewellery making, I hope everyone is well and looking forward to the Christmas break!

Mick

My rice writing is in a movie

2010-11-24T14:06:00.005Z

Well almost! A few weeks ago I was contacted by a film producer who was in the middle of making a series of short tutorial films about camera lenses that will eventually appear online on the Canon website.

One of the lenses was to be a macro lens and they were thinking it would be very nice to finish the tutorial film with the words 'The End' written on a grain of rice.

He had seen my name on rice jewellery and wondered if I could produce one and get it to them for their filming. I was given a day to do the rice writing and sent the grain of rice by over-night delivery to their film studios.

If you would like to see the film in full, please follow this link (you can skip to the end to see my grain of rice if you don’t want to watch it all). You have to click on ‘Macro’ and then ‘Macro Tutorial’ when the video window loads on the Canon website.

Watch for the very end and the presenter sneezes and blows my hard work off the table!

My name on rice movie

Here is the grain of rice being prepared by the presenter. He is lifting the rice out of a box (that I sent it in) and placing it onto a red silk pillow with tweezers.

And here is the rice after being brought into focus with the macro lens. It’s amazing how poor handwriting looks when it is magnified like that! But having said that, the writing is on a grain of rice as well...

If you would like to see more of my rice writing, take a look at my name on rice website page.

Gothic Steampunk Rings – Recycled Watch and Clock Parts

2010-11-16T09:18:00.005Z

This type of jewellery has been categorised many ways, whether you want to call it Steampunk jewellery, gothic, recycled, up-cycled, altered art or any of the many other labels that it has been given. I have always wanted to create something out of old watch and clock parts and when I came across these antique pewter Patera ring blanks I had the urge to make some Steampunk Rings (or whatever you want to call it).

For those who haven’t come across Steampunk fashion (and I have only recently discovered it), Steampunk fashion and jewellery tends to be modern styles influenced by the Victorian era. It is very popular with Goths, punks and industrial music fans and often incorporates old watch and clock parts into the jewellery. Steampunk jewellery is probably like Marmite, you either love it or you don’t. I am quite fond of Steampunk jewellery, but not so keen on Marmite...

The Patera ring blanks are really nice and chunky and the worn, antique feel to them really do lend themselves to this type of jewellery. All of the old watch parts that I used were all responsibly sourced i.e. no watch was harmed and the parts could not really be re-used as spares. I came across many old watch and clock parts on my travels that had been ripped out of perfectly good and working old watches and clocks. Many of the watches and clocks had been broken up for their gold content on the casing which is shocking because many of them were handmade, very old and have been broken just for the gold.

I set the watch parts into the ring blank with resin and included a small Ruby glass cabochon to give them a little bit of colour. The Ruby glass also resembles a mechanical watch jewel so I think it works well with the other watch parts. The rings are fully adjustable and are completely one-of-a-kind. Although I have intentions to make more Steampunk jewellery in the future I will never make some like this again!

Since making these Steampunk rings, I have managed to get my hands on some gorgeous old, handmade watch parts and some Victorian looking bezels, so expect some more Steampunk jewellery from me in the near future!

Horsehair Jewellery with Cross Country Colours

2010-11-05T09:28:00.005Z

I am really busy with the Christmas rush at the moment and have bags and bags of various samples of hair waiting to be made into jewellery. Many of them are from horses and people but a few are from dogs and even a couple of cats. I think forensics would have a field day if they examined my work area with the DNA that is likely to be about!

I wanted to show off a horsehair jewellery order that I completed last week, mainly because it brought back memories of my very first piece of jewellery that I made. The customer wanted some little blue and red stars also incorporating into the horse hair necklace. The horses show name is ‘little star’ and her cross country (XC) colours are red and blue stars so it seemed appropriate to incorporate the blue and red stars into the pendant.

And here they are, I incorporated a few tiny blue and red confetti stars into the pendants and made two designs one with the horse hair criss-crossed within the pendant and the other pendant with a straight gathering of the horse hair.

Making these brought back memories of my very first resin pendant that I made, where I incorporated multi coloured confetti stars within a resin heart shaped pendant. This is still one of my favourites to this date and it was great to incorporate this design into the horsehair jewellery.

Please visit my website page if you would like to see more Horsehair Jewellery designs.

Haribo Jelly Sweet Engagement Ring Keepsake

2010-10-28T14:24:00.004+01:00

I have had several custom jewellery requests recently that have involved preserving customers wedding keepsakes within resin jewellery. There have been the preserved wedding flowers that I set within pendants for a 1st wedding anniversary gift, a brides wedding dress cufflinks for her fiancé to wear on their wedding day.

But last week I had a very unusual request to preserve a Haribo jelly sweet engagement ring in resin. The lady said that the Haribo sweet ring (sometimes called friendship rings) was used by her fiancé to propose when they got engaged and obviously because it was very special to her she wanted it preserved as a keepsake. She didn’t want the jelly sweet ring making into jewellery but just wanted it so she could keep it and have it on display.

Initially she wanted it embedding into a block of resin, however I suggested it might be best to coat the ring with resin and therefore not only preserve the integrity of the ring but also keep it looking the same. She then informed me that she had initially been looking for someone who could do just that (i.e. coat it in resin), had trawled the net but was unable to find anyone that could do that for her.

The Haribo jelly sweet ring was obviously given the respect that is deserved, being such an important memento of the couple’s engagement. Firstly it was posted to my house by special delivery. I then gave it a coat of Acrylic spray to prevent any oils or colours from leeching out from the sweet over time. When this had dried I gave the Haribo sweet several coats of coating resin over a period of a week. The sweet was then finished with a good polishing of Carnauba wax and I then mounted the Haribo jelly sweet ring within a very nice clear lidded display box.

So there you have it, one Haribo jelly sweet ring preserved as a keepsake to their special day. If you get time please take a look at my wedding keepsakes website page.

Another Interview with Shpangle Jewellery

2010-10-23T18:24:00.006+01:00

You may remember a little while ago that I was interviewed by Abi of Angel Eden. This was my 1st and only interview to date, however a couple of weeks ago I was approached by Karen who is currently studying for an FdA in Applied Arts at Cleveland College of Art and Design. For one of her assignments this semester she needs to carry out a small presentation related to a designer maker of her choice.

Karen explained that the brief was quite open for this; there were no set criteria for choosing the designer maker, and so it was a bit of an issue as to where to start! She had a spare ten minutes immediately after the session when we given the brief, and so she spent those minutes on the Crafts Council directory, simply opening up random websites, and mine immediately caught my eye!

Karen had a few additional questions that couldn’t be answered from my website and blog, and here they are, complete with my answers which I thought I would share with you.

“In the article, you give some advice to new crafters about finding your niche, and making something unique. I've never seen anything such as your work before, but you must be constantly checking out the competition. Is there any major competition out there for you?”

The arts and crafts market has grown enormously over the last few years. With craft tutorials and supplies etc being so readily available online and online selling sites such as Etsy and Folksy making it so easy to setup an online shop, so many people have turned to trying to make money from the arts and crafts.

As a jewellery designer/maker it would be easy to follow the latest trends and styles. Whether it is beaded jewellery, the use of metal clay, steampunk etc but you will soon find that you will be competing for space with thousands of others, all doing the same thing.

So, the major competition out there is anybody who wants to make money out of selling jewellery, and there are thousands and thousands of them. Unfortunately not all of these ‘crafters’ and artists are perhaps as creative as they should be. I hate to say it, but there are elements of copying amongst crafters, and there is very little protection from this.

When trying to promote your work online you need to show off your designs a wide and varied audience as possible. Unfortunately this means that any new designs you announce are open to be copied. This has regularly happened to me and I know happens to other creative people. I have even had in the past sales enquiries from potential customers whom I have since traced as being fellow crafters trying to find out information; it can sometimes be a cruel world in the world of arts and crafts.

It has got to a point now where I will be moving away from the use of resin in my jewellery, and I will be adopting other techniques, some of these I might announce to the world, and some I will just keep to myself, and my family. I hope that I don’t come across too bitter, but the satisfaction of knowing that I have made something unique means a lot to me. I suppose it is weighing up the pros and cons of sharing it with the world.

“When reading the "about me" page on the website, the comment about how "if it doesn't move it goes into my jewellery" really stood out to me. There are so many people now who like to recycle or reuse objects, or use ‘reclaimed’ materials in the arts, but I haven't come across anyone else who produces pieces such as these. Can I ask where the original idea came from? What was it that first made you think of encasing something in resin?”

I see beauty in natural and everyday objects. So for the example the natural beauty of a daisy flower, you just can’t replicate that, you can try but to reproduce the subtle colours and details would be near to impossible.

I didn’t see the point of trying to copy what nature gives us and I wanted a way of preserving this natural beauty. So my first experience of the use of resin was when I was looking for a material that I could use to encapsulate everyday objects.

I like the idea of making jewellery from objects that aren’t using up the earth’s resources. Traditionally jewellery has been made using gemstones and precious metals, but I wanted to make items of beauty from things that are around us (without harming the earth too much).

My favourite item of jewellery that I have made consists of strips of newspaper with the words love randomly placed within the pendant. I think it is such a simple concept but so effective and that it is providing something wearable from a few strips of newspaper.

What inspired me to start making jewellery I don’t know, it just happened one day!

"Obviously the thing that stands out most about your jewellery is how personal it can be. The items in the shop are all fantastic, but the added dimension of being able to almost design your own piece must be quite a big selling point. Would you be able to talk me through how you go about commissioning such a piece from yourself?"

I like to be more than just a click of a button on a website and provide a very personal service for my commissioned jewellery. When somebody asks me to either embed an object or make an item of jewellery to their specification, I like have regular conversations with them during the process and keep them involved every step of the way. I like to make it very personal, which obviously may not suit everyone, but I have made good friends with customers working that way.

Wherever possible I like to submit designs, often photographing their items set against a mould or bezel that I use for making the finished jewellery. That way the customer can visualise the finished item. More often than not however, a customer would usually refer to a previous commission by me and ask for it to be made like that.

So the best of luck to Karen for your presentation and I hope that some of the things that I have said will be useful to you!

Mick

The Ozric Tentacles Experience

2010-10-20T09:48:00.005+01:00

It has been a mad last few days in Shpangle land; on Friday 15th October I went to see my favourite band the Ozric Tentacles at the newly refurbished HMV Institute in Birmingham. The Ozrics (as they are sometimes called) have been an inspiration for me for years and continue to be my most listened to music. With 30 albums spanning over 25 years of music making there is plenty to choose from.

I went to the gig with my wife Angela and my brother Rob who took lots of photos, so many thanks Rob for doing that and for driving. It was his first experience of seeing and in fact listening to the Ozrics, and I think he is now a converted man. Angela and me have been to loads of Ozric gigs over the years and have many happy memories, and this one was no exception. We were right at the front, the venue was very friendly and the atmosphere electric.

The Ozric tentacles have had several band members come and go over the years, and Ed Wynne (pictured below) who writes the majority of their music is now joined by his wife Brandi on bass guitar, his son Silas on keyboards and a drummer called Oli. They have now moved to America so any chance to see them playing live in this country has to be taken.

The Ozric Tentacles are true artists and have that ability to paint pictures with their music. I often play their music when I am making my jewellery and always do when I am making my name on rice jewellery as the music gets me into the right zone for when I am writing on rice.

This picture was taken of me ‘letting my hair down’ to one of their many tunes and probably sums up the night. I was pretty much useless for the next couple of days, and was completely Ozric’d out, ached in every muscle of my body but it was so worth it!

On Monday night my brother took me to see the comedian Frankie Boyle in concert. He was so funny and just as I had recovered from the Ozrics gig; I not have an aching face from all the laughing! I have often seen him on Television and have thought him to be controversial but playing live he doesn’t hold back at all!

What a mad few days. If you get a chance to see the ozrics playing near your town or city, please go along as I promise you, you will never forget the experience :)

Name on a grain – Custom Jewellery Order

2010-10-14T10:39:00.007+01:00

I mentioned in my previous blog post that I had been working on quite a large name on a grain of rice jewellery order. Well this is it, there were twelve items in total and each one contained a message written on a grain of rice.

This kept me busy for a while, 7 name on rice key-chains, 1 name on rice phone charms and 4 name on rice necklaces. Each glass vial also contained a small pink flower, now I have seen small flowers before, but these were so tiny. They all had either the name ‘Hope (heart)’ or ‘2010 (heart)’ written onto the rice, so my heart drawing skills have now improved quite considerably.

I have also conquered my fears of having to write on both sides of a grain of rice. For one of the pendants, as well as the message, they also wanted a date of birth written on the opposite side of the rice. I have always had problems, which are probably psychological with writing on both sides of a grain of rice. I think I have over-come this by leaving it a day and then completely ignoring the fact that I have already written on the rice...it also helps to have a few spares!

Also, this was the first time I have been asked to incorporate birth stones within the jewellery. I used a small Ruby Swarovski crystal bead to represent the month of July and it really was effective. Just fitting inside the glass vial it would slowly follow the grain of rice up and down the vial as you tilt it.

It was a lovely name on a grain of rice jewellery order to do as from it I managed to establish a few more rice writing techniques, and the use of flowers and birthstones in the jewellery was good fun too.

If you would like to see more of my rice writing, please visit my name on a grain jewellery website page.

Personalised Birthday Presents

2010-10-11T14:34:00.004+01:00

I remember as a child and even now that my favourite birthday and Christmas presents have always been those that have been handmade. The fact that whoever gave me the present had taken the time to design and make something just for me means more than any shop bought item. My favourite present when I was little was a sledge that my dad made for me. It was extremely heavy and so well made that it lasted years, and I think at some point we even turned it into a go-cart.

It was our daughters 12th birthday this week and being a girly-girl I thought I would make her some jewellery. It is quite handy being a jewellery maker at times like this and decided to make her one of my name necklaces. I have had a really big name on rice jewellery order to complete this week so because I was in the zone of writing on rice I thought it was probably the most sensible thing to make. It is also something that would be very personal to her; her name written on a grain of rice, and I also included her birth stone as well within the glass vial. A very small Rose coloured Swarovski crystal to represent the month of October.

I personalised the jewellery box that contained the rice pendant with her name in gold lettering and I think she loved that alone, but when she opened the box saying she was happy would be a understatement; I immediately go a really big hug from her. I think the face that I had made something for her and had taken the time to write her name on a grain of rice meant more than anything.

1st Wedding Anniversary – Wedding Keepsake Jewellery

2010-10-06T10:00:00.002+01:00

I was asked by a young man last week to make a pendant for his wife for their 1st wedding anniversary. He wanted some of their wedding keepsake items, flowers and ribbon setting within a pendant. I was originally asked several weeks ago, but these things happen and I was sent the items with only a couple of days to make the jewellery and get the finished pendant back to him for their anniversary.

The first pendant that I made for him contained a few rose petals, grouped together with a small piece of ribbon from their wedding. I had to first press the rose petals to remove any moisture and then grouped them together with the wedding ribbon to form this pendant. I added a little bit of glitter dust to give the pendant that extra sparkle.

The second pendant contained small a sprig of small white flowers, please correct me if I am wrong, but I think they are ‘baby’s breath’ flowers. Again I used a small piece of the wedding ribbon that he sent me to finish the pendant and added a sparkle of glitter dust.

I managed to get the pendants back to him in time for their 1st wedding anniversary celebrations and what a thoughtful gift it would have been; keepsakes from their wedding preserved forever, and that can still be worn and enjoyed for years to come.

If you would like to see more wedding keepsake jewellery ideas, please visit my website page Wedding Keepsakes.

Handmade Crafts Terms and Conditions

2010-09-30T20:43:00.006+01:00

Apologies in advance if I bore you with this week’s blog post, but I am going to talk a little about website Terms and Conditions (T&Cs)...well I did warn you!

If you are selling online you will hopefully have Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) covering your website shop, including amongst other things shipping policies and returns/exchanges.

Selling online is very different to selling from a physical location such as a shop or store because the consumer can’t see or touch the item that they are buying. Because of this, the Distance Selling Regulations were introduced to protect the consumer in the UK.

I cannot claim to be an expert in this area but the following advice was given to me by my local Trading Standards Officer after I asked her to review my website Terms and Conditions. I got these things wrong in my website Terms and Conditions, and many people still do.

Returning Earrings

Whilst the returning of earrings can be seen a health hazard, they are still returnable. What you can do, however, is seal the bag with hygiene seals and ‘ask’ that if they are returned then the seal must not be broken.

Seven day return policy

The seven day returns policy whereby a consumer can return their purchase without giving a reason, for example changing their mind about the purchase upon receiving the product.

The seven day return policy is seven working days, starting the day after receipt of the product. The consumers’ time limit does not start until the day after they have received the goods.

Return of goods in an unused state

You cannot state that the goods have to be returned in an unused state as legally the consumer does not have to return the goods. You can however, 'ask' that the consumer returns the goods as soon as possible.

Consumer responsible for returned goods

The Distance Selling Regulations also state that as soon as a consumer has posted the item for return or given it to a courier, the trader is then responsible for it. This means that you are responsible for any goods lost in transit and therefore you cannot put that you are not held responsible.

Displaying Prices

It is best if you include VAT on all of your prices when they are first displayed as this will prevent the consumer from being confused or mislead.

Geographical Address

The website must display your geographical address of the place of business to which the consumer may address any complaints

I hope that this was of some help and that I didn’t bore you too much. If you would like a good bed-time read, grab a copy of the Distance Selling Regulations...Enjoy!

Real Flower Jewellery - African Violet Pendants

2010-09-24T11:13:00.003+01:00

I was given this custom jewellery order to make last week that involved taking some real pressed African Violet flower petals and setting them into resin jewellery.

The pressed flowers were taken from her Nan's favourite African Violet plant and were very special to her. She wanted them setting into a teardrop shaped resin pendant and I also added a sprinkle of glitter dust to give the jewellery an extra sparkle.

When I opened the package containing the flowers I was met with a lovely aroma that obviously didn’t come from the African Violets. The source of the aroma was a lovely bar of handmade soap (Cedarwood Orange). It turns out that the customer produced handmade soap, so being a fellow crafter I did a nice swap with her!

Lots happening at the moment in the Land of Shpangle Jewellery, including an order for twelve ‘name on rice’ pendants, so I might be a little quiet for a while.

If you would like to see more of my jewellery made with real flowers, please visit my Real Flower Jewellery website page.

A Pet's Name Necklace

2010-09-15T10:23:00.001+01:00

I don't feel like I have blogged for a while so though I would show off one of the latest custom jewellery commissions that I was recently asked to make. This was for one of my name on rice necklaces but this time it was for a pet dog's name to be written on a grain of rice along with a image of a paw print.

Now, this took quite a few grains of rice to get the paw print right, it was a little like the difficulty I had drawing hearts; on paper fine but when you are trying to draw on a grain of rice less than one millimetre wide and not perfectly flat it is a different matter. I think I did a good job and I do like challenges but more importantly the necklaces new owner loved it.

I have had several requests for my name on rice jewellery over the last few weeks and they are all very different. But I really enjoyed doing this one because it was for a lady who had recently lost her lovely pet dog. She had been searching for something on the internet that she could remember him by and came across my name on rice jewellery.

Please visit my Name Jewellery website page for more examples of my name on rice jewellery.

Wedding Keepsakes – Wedding Dress Material Cufflinks

2010-09-06T09:36:00.007+01:00

After spending many weeks making my lock of hair jewellery, the last couple of weeks I have had several requests for setting couples wedding keepsakes into jewellery.

The first custom jewellery order to be completed this week is from a lady who is getting married in a couple of weeks-time. She wanted some of her wedding dressing material set into a pair of cufflinks to give to the groom-to-be to wear on the big day. She actually asked for two pairs to be made, presumably the second pair was for either the best man or father of the bride. I set the wedding dress fabric into sterling silver cufflink blanks and sealed with a couple of layers of resin.

Other orders that I am currently working on are another pair of cufflinks for a wedding, but this time containing flowers from the place that the young man proposed. I am also about to start working on some wedding flowers (roses) which are to be set into a pendant.

I am over the moon to think that my jewellery is actually being worn on a couples’ big day and what a special keepsake it is for them to treasure after the wedding. I know I have been complaining recently about not being able to start something new...but I really enjoy making these keepsakes for people. I love the idea of giving the groom something to wear and keep from his wedding day and that it contains something so personal to the couple. Whether it is flowers picked from the place that he proposed or a part of the brides dress, it gives him something to wear that is much more than just a pair of cufflinks.

If you would like to see more of my previous commissions please visit my website Wedding Keepsakes page.

Handmade Custom Orders - Website Tips

2010-08-30T16:22:00.004+01:00

Have you ever seen the phrase 'Commissions welcome' or 'Bespoke service available' on a crafts website or blog? I have many a time and have even used a similar phrase myself on several occasions. It is used all over the crafting fraternity to welcome custom made orders from potential customers, and is usually followed by a 'please contact us/me' type of statement.

But it probably raises lots of unanswered questions such as how long does it take?, what materials can be used?, price? and probably doesn't really entice somebody to actually click on the link. So I thought I would share with you a possible solution to attracting more requests for custom-made orders. This was suggested to me by a member of a Business Forum that I frequent; at the time I was enquiring about solutions for displaying customer testimonials.

Although this method refers to the making of jewellery, it could be adopted for all custom made goods and services and is certainly something on my 'to do' list.

The idea evolves around telling the potential customer a story. Lets say that a previous customer wanted a piece of jewellery. He/she gave you a specification , you created the jewellery and in the process you took some pictures of the item. Upon receiving the item of jewellery the customer wrote a lovely letter to you saying how nice it is.

So, on your website you create a page with a description of the project, including the customers brief, the materials you used, pictures of you making the jewellery, pictures of the finished item and the customer's testimonial. You then repeat this process for other custom orders all linked through to your website home page.

This is a great way to describe and present your custom made process, display your customer testimonials and to entice future orders.

If you would like to see some of my custom made jewellery previously commissioned for people please visit my Custom Jewellery website.

A Montage of keepsake Jewellery

2010-08-26T19:43:00.006+01:00

Since getting back from holiday a couple of weeks ago, I have been really busy making my keepsake jewellery for people; and the majority of that has involved the use of hair and fur.

So I thought I would show you a little medley of some of the jewellery that I have made over the last couple of weeks. At one point I had ten jewellery orders on the go, all containing hair so you can imagine it took quite a lot of organisation.

These keepsake jewellery items contain everything from horse and pony hair, dog fur and locks of hair from loved ones. One of the most unusual pieces is the horse hair key-ring (top-left) where the lady wanted some yellow and orange seed beads and glitter incorporated into the design.

I am having a change from the use of hair in my jewellery this week as I am currently working on a custom order for several pairs of cufflinks. A lady who is getting married in a couple of weeks wants some of her wedding dress material embedded within the cufflinks to give to her hubby-to-be and other guests. I am using sterling silver cufflink blanks and resin and will blog about them at a later date!

I really want to get started on my new ranges of jewellery but every time I get started, I receive another request. I am not complaining though because I really enjoy making these for people and the satisfaction it gives knowing that I am helping somebody, sometimes through a difficult time.

Please visit my website for other examples of my keepsake jewellery.

The Soldier Boy's Pendant

2010-08-20T14:08:00.006+01:00

As I write this one of my pendants is making its way to the other side of the world, proudly adorned by a soldier.

I was contacted this last week by a young man who had been told he was going off to serve his country. Being away from his family he wanted a pendant that contained both his son and daughters hair. Something that he could wear under his uniform and body armour that allows him to carry something of his family close to his heart. So I made this; a sterling silver pendant, containing the locks of hair from his son and daughter sealed with resin on a leather thong style necklace.

This pendant was so important to him and also because of the short notice that I was given, that he was prepared to travel for several hours to receive it in person. I really liked that; its not often I get to meet the recipient of my jewellery and it was good to see his reaction when he opened the case containing his pendant.

I am not altogether in favour of conflict, being an old hippie at heart, I wish differences in opinion could be settled differently. But I am proud that one of my keepsake pendants is helping a person in that situation.

I wish him well, to stay safe and bring the pendant home along with all of its stories to pass on to his children and his children's children.

Perkins' Pendant

2010-08-13T09:26:00.007+01:00

I won't write very much in this blog post, but I will leave it to Sharon and her Perkins below. Sharon gave me this message this week after receiving her horse hair pendant that I recently made for her. It brought tears to my eyes and makes me realise how special the keepsake jewellery I make for people is. Enjoy...

"I had my Perkins for over 16 years. I bought him as a scruffy, thin, green little thing just shipped in from Ireland when he was 6 years old. I only meant to keep him a year as I'd lost my confidence off my previous horse!

But somehow he grew on me and out-stayed his 12 month contract!!! We had many many happy years of hacking and competing. He was perfect! When he was 13 we found out he had a growth in his foot which had to be removed via a large, very expensive operation. I nearly lost him. I remember the night before the operation; I actually slept in his box with him, terrified of what the morning would bring.

The op was a success and he recovered slowly, but we never competed again and settled into a life of happy hacking. I semi-retired him in 2007 when my son was born and in 2009 he was joined by a yearling New Forest called Echo - my "future pony" for when Perkins fully retired to a well-earned life of leisure.

Sadly in June of this year in the field, while haring around with the Echo, Perkins chipped a bone in his leg. Being an old man and already arthritic it soon became apparent that the injury wasn't healing, that the pain killers weren't working and that my beloved old friend was suffering. On the 12th July 2010 I made the heartbreaking decision to have him put to sleep - the last service I could do for a horse that had given me a lifetime of pleasure and loyalty.

The day before he went I took a lock of hair from his tail - I smiled as I did it because his tail was always a wild tangle of course hair, I could never really comb it all the way through and the white streak in the middle of the black was never truly white, no matter how many times I scrubbed at it! I took it home, washed it one last time and put it away in a drawer, determined only to look at it again when I felt ready.

I was keen to have some reminder of him - I had decided not to have him cremated and returned to me as having a wooden box stuck in the house somewhere was not how I wanted to remember my horse. I started googling for horse hair jewellery and found Mick and Shpangle.

The products were so unusual I immediately dug out the hair, emailed Mick and got it in the post as soon as I could. Mick was wonderful, emailed me back immediately, firstly stating his condolences, then letting me know he was going on holiday so not to worry he'd start my pendant as soon as he got back, then letting me know he'd received Perkin's precious hair and was starting work that day.

The pendant arrived this morning - along with a lovely surprise gift from Mick of a keyring, both with Perkins' hair preserved forever. I've worn the pendant all day today and lots of people have asked me about it.

It makes me sad when I explain the story of the pendant, but happy too that I can keep talking about my horse as people admire Mick's handiwork so Perkins' will always be close to my heart on a silver chain, and his name never far from my lips!"

Buckets and Spades of Inspiration

2010-08-02T15:02:00.004+01:00

I have been a little quiet recently with my blog and that's because I have just got back from a fantastic two week holiday in Cornwall! We went to the same place that we visit just about every year for the last ten years and I can't think of a nicer place in the world that I would like to be at. The beatiful scenery, coastal walks and beaches are breathtaking and I am already arranging to book our holiday there for next year!

We stop at a place called West Pentire, near Crantock on the west coast. The coastline in this area is thankfully protected by The National Trust and the whole area is beautiful...oooh I just want to go back now. I find Cornwall so inspirational and can see why so many artists and crafters base themselves there.

Having cleared my mind with the Atlantic sea breeze and taken in the inspiration of the area, I have had a good think about what I want to achieve with my crafting. I don't really want to be known just for my resin based jewellery and have decided to have a good long break from it. Of course I will continue with custom jewellery orders (which I have got home to find stacks of them waiting on my door mat), but I want to start making jewellery using more natural objects, so watch this space!

I hope you all have an equally good holiday!

Mick

It must be fate my dear Violet

2010-07-09T12:04:00.005+01:00

I am a great believer in fate and also believe that much of what happens to us is destined to happen. Something wonderful happened this week that cemented that belief and I can only put it down to something more than just coincidence.

A few days ago I was asked by a lady to make a pendant and keyring that contained a real purple Violet flower because her daughter’s name is Violet. Convinced that I didn’t have any such flowers in my box of goodies, I searched the Internet to try to source them. After several hours, and without any luck, I decided to take a look in my box of pressed flowers...and there nestled amongst the daisies, forget-me-nots and an assortment of flowers were two Violet flowers and they were both purple! Wow, how strange is that, the fact that I was asked for two purple Violets and I happened to have just two in my collection of flowers.

So I set them onto sterling silver bezels and coated them with resin to produce this pendant and keyring. I hung the pendant from a sterling silver fine curb necklace chain and for the keyring I attached it to a stainless steel key-chain. I think they turned out lovely, in fact so lovely that I found it hard to let them go! Having said that, I think they were always destined for their resipient.

If you would like to see more of my pressed flower jewellery please visit my real flower jewellery website page.

Shpangle Jewellery in the Spotlight

2010-07-02T15:57:00.005+01:00

I thought I would share this blog feature that has just been done about me and my 'Shpangle Jewellery'. Mainly because I don't normally do blog features, however when I was asked by a fellow Tweeter (the lovely Abi of Angel Eden) to do one for her blog I jumped at the idea.

I spent the whole of last weekend writing things about myself for her blog and soon discovered why I hadn't done this before; I initially found it quite difficult to do! However once I entered the zone there was no stopping me and I am extremely pleased with the feature as it captures a lot about me.

If you would like to read a little about me, my inspirations and experiences please read this blog feature.

Shpangle Jewellery in the Spotlight

The rest of her blog is beautifully written with lots of tutorials, photographs and inspirational ideals...she is also up for the Dorset Cereals Blog award and would appreciate the votes!

"Forget-me-not" my Lady Daisy

2010-07-01T08:05:00.004+01:00

My favourite flowers of all have got to be daisies and forget-me-nots. They are both beautiful flowers and seem to grow as nature intended...everywhere! I am not one for garden flowers and if I had my way would leave the garden to become more 'natural'. Daisies remind me of long summer days sitting in a field making daisy chains, and forget-me-nots as well as being beautiful, well I just love the name.

There are many legends and folklore descriptions regarding the origin of the name Forget-me-not, and most are connected with romance and tragic fate. Forget-me-nots were often worn by ladies as a sign of faithfulness and it was supposed that the wearer of the flowers would not be forgotten by their lovers. The legend that I particularly like comes from medieval times:

Once upon a time a medieval knight and his lady were having a romantic walk besides a river. As they walked, the knight picked flowers for his lady and held a bouquet of flowers in his hands. As he picked the flowers, (and probably due to the weight of his armour), he fell over into the water. According to the legend, as he was drowning he threw the bouquet at his lady shouting "forget-me-not".

Sadly the forget-me-nots have now finished flowering in my garden, however I did manage to preserve a few in my jewellery this week. I have been so busy recently with custom jewellery orders that I have not had time for anything else, so this week I reserved some time for me! These forget-me-nots were picked and pressed this Spring and the daisies were picked by my little boy last summer whilst we were playing in a local park.

The flowers have been sealed in clear resin and I have made one into a pendant and the other into a matching brooch. Although I am not normally keen on the colour pink, I gave them a pink pearl-like backing which I tend to do with most of my pressed flower jewellery as it kind of suits it!

So thankfully now I can admire these forget-me-nots all year round!

Please visit my real flower jewellery website page to see more of my pressed flower jewellery.

Horse and Pony Hair Bracelet

2010-06-21T12:30:00.004+01:00

I finished this custom jewellery order this week so thought I would show it off! It was made for a lady who owns six ponies and wanted the hair of each pony set within different charms for a charm bracelet. Each heart shaped charm was also coloured to represent the pony's colours and a small gem embedded into each resin heart. Apparently each pony has its own unique colour so that all equipment such as buckets and blankets are all colour coded to match.

Unusually this bracelet took me over two weeks to make, mainly due to the fact that I only had one mould cavity that suited the size and style of heart that she wanted for the charms, so as you can imagine it was quite a production line to get it completed! She is extremely happy with the finished bracelet and I am too as it has my favourite colour combinations and I love rainbows!

You can see more horse and pony jewellery designs that I have previously had commissioned on my Pet Hair jewellery website page.

Name on Rice Jewellery - For a Crafts Forum Friend

2010-06-15T20:10:00.004+01:00

I made this name on rice necklace last week for a friend on the Crafts Forum and a similar one as a keyring for her hubby. They have both got lots of things happening over the coming months and wanted the good luck that name on rice jewellery is said to bring it's recipients!

This was quite different to the rice writing that I have previously done in that she wanted two names (initially on the front and back of a single grain of rice). I spent a couple of days trying to do just that but every time I came to writing the second name, I failed. I am extremely meticulous with my work but I think it was the psychological barrier of knowing that I was writing on the back of something that I had spent so long getting right.

Anyway, as a compromise I suggested having two grains of rice, with their names in the same necklace vial, and I must admit it seems a lot better and more symbolic of them both.

Have a look at my website page for more examples of name on rice jewellery and its history.

Custom Jewellery - Pet Hair Keepsakes

2010-06-03T09:06:00.005+01:00

I seem to be spending a lot of time recently making custom jewellery for people and particularly hair keepsake jewellery. The majority of this has been horse hair pendants, in fact I currently have seven different horse hair pendants in progress in my craft room, all at different stages of completness and all requiring different colourings and other objects included...as you can imagine it takes quite a lot of organisation!

So to be given the opportunity last week of making a dog hair/fur pendant was quite pleasing and especially because of the background behind the order. These are the completed dog hair pendants, the orginal request was just for the heart pendant, but quite often I like to give an extra something and so I also made the sterling silver pendant as a gift.

The background to this order started when I had a problem with one of my website pages. Instead of asking my usual contacts via craft forums and other networks, I decided to ask for help on a technical forum related to website building. Not only did I get a solution to the problem, the respondent also emailed me to place an order for the dog hair pendant and he lives in the USA!

So the experience I have gained from this is that it is often quite natural to seek the comfort of the places that are familiar but to expand into unknown territories can be quite positive! The customer for the dog hair pendant also wrote a wonderful message to me (which can be seen here on my website testimonials page).

CraftsforCharity Blog has Moved

2010-05-29T09:31:00.005+01:00

Hi all!

I have decided to move all future blog posts about craftsforcharity to a new dedicated blog and therefore keep my own blog dedicated to my jewellery making and craft work. If you would like to follow the craftsforcharity blog please click here: Crafts for Charity Blog.

The new craftsforcharity blog will keep you up to date with new listing (which I will always blog about), changes to the directory and future crafts and charity projects.

If you have not yet registered with the crafts directory, please have a look and if you need any help, please ask!

Thanks

Mick

Thank you from CraftsforCharity - Part 2

2010-05-27T09:23:00.007+01:00

It has been 2 weeks since I launched the CraftsforCharity crafts directory and so far we have all raised £84 for charity plus £11.28 gift aid. There are now 15 artists and crafters listed in the directory which is fantastic!

As requested by fellow crafters I have also added two more charities to the directory this week, The Royal Marsden Cancer Campaign and The Great Ormond Street Hospital. Since which I have already been contacted by the Business manager at Great Ormond Street as he was interested in what I was doing!

One of the lovely things about doing this directory is that I get to have a good look at your websites and all your lovely crafts. So this is 'part 2' of the thank you's for those lovely crafters who have included their details in my new craft directory.

To welcome the latest listings since my last blog I would like to say a massive Hi and Thank you to the following:

The first thank you goes to Aviya Glass and their unique hand-crafted fused glass jewellery and art made by Terry in Kent UK. From dichroic glass rings and necklaces to glass picture, sun-catchers and glass art, there is something for everyone on her website.

The second thank you goes to Moonbeam Mosaics and her beautiful array of hand-crafted mosaic art. Using a variety of media including stained glass, glass tiles, glass nuggets and vintage pottery, she produces unique designs including mosaic mirrors, photo frames and wall art.

The third thank you goes to Tiny Oyster Designs who make plush toys for both children and adults, all available from her Etsy shop. From unique kooky creatures including the Patchimals to Patchimal fridge magnets..they have got to be seen and custom orders are welcome!

The fourth thank you goes to What the Jackdaw Saw and the fine art photography by the young British photographer Louise Knight-Richardson. If you want a piece of art that is guaranteed to make you smile and remind you of how beautiful the world is look in her Etsy shop!

The fifth thank you goes to Jewellery by Mia and her beautiful collections of handmade silver jewellery. Mia also offers fingerprint jewellery, preserving your little ones or loved ones fingerprint forever in handmade silver fingerprint jewellery.

Hopefully, I have now caught up with all the Thank You's but if I have missed anyone out, please shout at me!

Please also keep spreading the word and if anyone has an enquiry as a direct result of the directory, please let me know and I will make an effort to do a special blog post about it!
Mick

Thank you from CraftsforCharity - Part 1

2010-05-25T09:05:00.008+01:00

I have been away this weekend for a long weekend away in the Lake District (which was wonderful), but quite rightly so Angela banned me from using my PC for 4 whole days! Anyway, I have come back to a mountain of emails and have fallen way behind in my Crafts for Charity Directory Thank you's.

So this is 'part 1' of the thank you's for those lovely crafters who have included their details in my new craft directory. More to come later this week!

To welcome the newest listings since my last blog I would like to say a huge Hi and Thanks to the following:

The first thank you this week goes to Never Forget and their huge range of unique and personalised embroidered gifts for home and family. Whether it is a gift for a newborn baby, birthday, wedding or Christening, they can offer you something personalised for you to receive.

The second thank you goes to Collars and Woofs and their House of Zed adjustable Martingale collars. All uniquely made to order in a smoke-free, dog-filled home, the collars are much safer and more humane than a choke-chain, and are all adjustable in length.

The third thank you goes to Curious Cat Creative and her ever-expanding range of handmade leather gifts and jewellery. From decorative stemmed flowers, to leather bookmarks, leather art, keyrings and phone-charms, you can find a large range of handmade leather gifts or have something custom made.

The fourth thank you goes to Damselfly Gemma. Unique handmade jewellery designs by Gemma Andrews that can all be purchased from her Folksy shop. Emma specialises in creating both sterling silver and costume jewellery but often dabbles in many other areas.

The fifth thank you goes to Orchy Designs. Handmade in Scotland, these bold and vibrant jewellery designs are handcrafted using dichroic glass and sterling silver. The colours and textures produced by the use of Dichroic glass really are beautiful!

I promise to catch-up in the next couple of days and include all the remaining crafters who have joined the crafts directory. In the mean time, why not take a look!

Mick

Crafts for Charity Explained

2010-05-20T09:52:00.006+01:00

I thought that I should better explain the purpose of the Crafts for Charity directory and the reasons for developing it.

The Crafts directory ws developed with the purpose of promoting arts and crafts. It is not a Charity directory and neither is it a directory of crafters that support charity. By listing your website, blog, Etsy, Misi or Folks shop in the directory you will receive a high level of promotion for your crafts. In return I am asking for a small donation (minimum £2) which gets paid directly to your chosen charity via JustGiving. If you would like to nominate another charity not listed, you can contact me and I will add it to the directory. This has already happened this week when I was asked to add the Dogs Trust.

Unlike many other directories, nobody is making any money from it other than charities. I was asked by my Dad this week 'So what are you getting out of it' and I replied 'Nothing, other than the satisfaction that like minded crafters are receiving promotion for their work, and also charities are benefitting'. I could add advertising etc to the directory but feel that it would spoil the whole ethos of the directory.

The Crafts for Charity directory is now one week old and so far we have raised £41 which is a great achievement since there are only eight of us in the directory. All of the directory pages have now been indexed by Google (in less than a week!) and I have also discovered that some of the crafters details have already been picked out by Google for searches. For example, yesterday I received a hit on the directory from somebody searching for 'leather antler jewellery Celtic' and that is after just one week being online!

So that is a magical start as far as promoting the crafters who have already listed their sites, and I hope it makes many more sales for you! I will also blog, Twitter and Facebook about new entries to the directory every week.

So a huge thank you for those who have already listed and I welcome more crafters to join us. If you need any help or comments please email me.

Mick

Jedward, Jedward, Jedward!

2010-05-19T10:45:00.005+01:00

Well, my wife came home last night and announced that she had been given a free gift of a suitcase. And a very nice one it was too. We haven't owned a suitcase in years and normally make do with carrier bags when we go away. The idea of owning a suitcase was quite novel and we all made suggestions of how best to use it, like for doing the shopping etc.

Then it came to me announcing my big news. I said 'I have won something today'...and we all did a big drum roll and then I announced what I had won....

A lovely Jedward keyring courtesy of the Glamglass Gifts Blog give away. As you can imagine there were lots of oooh's and aaarh's coming from all direction, and my 11 year-old daughter went hysterical! I think she automatically assumed that it was going to be for her!

So, many thanks to Rachel for her lovely giveaway, you certainly made our day, it's not often I get something as special as that and I will treasure it forever!

My first name on rice custom order

2010-05-18T10:35:00.005+01:00

I completed these pendants last week and they are the result of my first custom order for 'name on rice' pendants.

The young lady who contacted me wanted the pendants personalised with the words 'Ari (heart) Roni' writing on the grain of rice, and also wanted two identical pendants making, one for her and one for her sister.

These 'name on rice' pendants proved quite a challenge, it wasn't the wording that was the problem it was the heart symbol. For some reason I am not the best at drawing hearts on paper and trying to draw something that resembles a heart on a grain of rice is a different matter! She also wanted the pendants colouring with a tint of blue. Anyway, several hours later (and many grains of rice) I had produced two pendants that I was happy with.

She is over the moon with her new pendants and so am I for overcoming the challenge of my first custom order!

You can see more 'name on rice' jewellery, the history and symbolism on my name on rice website page.

Thank you from craftsforcharity

2010-05-16T12:20:00.006+01:00

The big news this week is that we have raised £26 in the three days since the craftsforcharity directory was launched. That far exceeds what I expected but I also realise that I need to keep the momentum going..

The other news is we have added a new category to the directory for Pet Crafts. This was requested by a maker of dog collars whom I would like to thank because I just love comments like that.

SO a huge THANK YOU goes to the following crafters who have listed their craft websites in the directory this week. You have made the launch of this directory very worthwhile! So in no particular order the people I would like to thank are:

The first thank you goes to Bags of Swank by SimJaTa. I have always admired her fabulous, handcrafted handbags, rucksacks and lavender sachets not only because the quality of work is fantastic but she makes use of recycled fabrics. She is also available for custom orders!

The second thank you goes to Glamglass Gifts who specialises in handmade funky jewellery and gifts, from beadwork to fused glass and Dichroic glass, her tallents are endless. She often tries her hand at many other crafts as you can see in her blog.

The third thank you goes to Hamespun who produces unique handmade jewellery inspired by centuries old Sami, Celtic and braiding traditions, made in NE Scotland. Their bracelets, complete with very intricate weaving designs are fantastic.

Thank you all for your extremely valuable contributions!

Mick

CraftsforCharity - The Arts and Crafts Directory with a Heart

2010-05-13T14:23:00.007+01:00

So here it is! The reasons behind why I have been quiet on forums, blogs etc recently, I have been beavering away producing this new website.

Crafts Directory - Crafts for Charity: Find quality arts and crafts that support charity.

I have produced a directory based arts and crafts website where artists and crafters can list their handmade arts and crafts website, blog, even your Etsy, Folks, MISI shop and in return you will be raising money for your chosen charity. This is your directory, I have personally put a lot of energy into developing it and the return that I will get is the knowledge that charities are benefitting and artists and crafters are being promoted. I will continue to promote the arts and crafts directory in a big way and have lots of future ideas on how to develop it so that it becomes more than just another arts and crafts directory.

I have currently listed ten charities which have all been nominated by fellow crafters, however this list is likely to grow so if you feel that you would like to nominate other charities for inclusion into the directory please let me know.

Please help me to promote the craft directory, feel free to mention the directory on blogs, twitter, facebook, forums and tell the world about it so it becomes a valuable resource for the crafting community.

I hope you like it and any comments really would be appreciated.

Many thanks

Mick

Scorch's Pyrography & Custom Jewellery

2010-05-10T11:12:00.005+01:00

I have been busy surfing the web over the last few days trying to find royalty free photographs to represent the various craft disciplines (all will come clear later this week when I launch a new website project). Anyway, the craft category that I was having the biggest difficulty with was trying to find a photograph to represent Pyrography.

Then it dawned on me that I (well actually my wife Angela) already has a pendant that has been made using Pyrography! It was custom made for me by the very talented Tracey Annison of Scorch's Pyrography for a Christmas present for my wife and I have never shown it off!

The pendant is made from solid sycamore wood and the picture is of our special place, Stonehenge and burnt onto the reverse side there is a personal message to my wife. The whole process of having the pendant custom made by Scorch was fantastic and enabled me to have something that far exceeded my expectations, and my wife was very pleased too!

On another note, I have just had my first custom order for some name on rice pendants. A lady wants two, both with writing on each side of the grain of rice and the glass vial coloured. I am extremely excited with this order as apart from making these pendants for friends and family, it will be my first custom name on rice jewellery order.

In fact, I am a little bit shaky with the prospect, which is not a good way to be when you are about to write on a grain of rice.

Hope you are all have a good week!

Festivals!

2010-05-03T20:06:00.004+01:00

It was the 1st of May on Saturday, and the beginning of May means something important to me, it is the start of the Festival season!

I absolutely love going to festivals; spending three or four days being transported to another world. A world where everyone around you are there to celebrate good music and good company. A world where the rules and barriers put down by our society are broken and people are free to be their real selves. A world where the words 'morning', 'afternoon' and 'evening' become meaningless because day and night becomes one never-ending experience.

No material possessions, no 'home comforts', smelly portaloos, dirt and mud growing out of every orifice. Thousands of tents, but nobody sleeps, food like you have never seen before. People dressed as fantastical creatures from some far-away planet.

Happy, dazed and sometimes crazed, the people around you become one, a festival family of happy individuals who have completely forgotten what life is like the other side of those festival gates.

This picture was taken at one of our festivals my wife Angela and me went to. I think we spent most of the festival just sitting outside the chill-out tent watching the festival world go by. And what a beautiful world it was.....

Made in Leicestershire Directory

2010-04-26T13:44:00.005+01:00

This is my second publication of the year; I have made it into the Made in Leicestershire printed directory for 2010 that was published this week. The directory showcases fifty original artists and crafters from around Leicestershire and Rutland, and I am very excited to be featured in it. I spent a long time preparing my artist statement for it and selecting an appropriate photograph that it is fantastic now seeing it all in print!

I feel really honoured to be amongst some extremely talented artists and crafters in this directory. If I was to pick any (which is extremely difficult because they are all very talented), the ones that caught my eye were:

Quirky stoneware figures (mostly animals) by Oddbods Ceramics...just look at their facial expressions!

Beautiful, sculpted and tactile handknitted and felted bags by Created and Felted...don't you just want to give them a squeeze!

Ceramic figurines by Create to Destroy...just look at the texture of movement captured in these figurines.

And of course my Handmade Custom Jewellery by Shpangle!

Personalised Name on Rice Jewellery

2010-04-20T12:06:00.005+01:00

Yes my eyes may be sore, yes reading a book will not be the same again but I think what I made my wife recently was well worth it!

This is a necklace personalised with her name written on a single grain of rice.

With a steady hand and lots and lots of practice and patience I have managed to master the art of rice writing. Recognised as a symbol of good luck, prosperity and fertility (but we will ignore the last one!), writing on a single grain of rice dates back to ancient times and originates from Ancient Turkey and India.

Currently I can comfortably write 16 characters on a single grain of rice (eight characters per side), which covers most names and messages. However I am slowly aiming for the record of two hundred characters, made by a man in Turkey a long time ago and written with a strand of hair!

If you would like to know more about name on rice writing and its history and symbolism, please visit my website page Personalised Name Jewellery.

Onion Jewellery

2010-04-16T12:35:00.004+01:00

Yes you have read it correctly! A customer asked me last week if I could make him some onion cufflinks, well in his own words he asked “I know this may seem like a strange request but is it possible for you make cuff-links with an onion ring inside”.

I managed to persuade him that using real onions was probably a bad idea. I am not sure if you could get an onion small enough, maybe spring onions I suppose. But since objects need to be completely free from moisture before being placed in resin, I wouldn’t like to say how an onion ring would look when it has been completely dried!

So I suggested using vegetable dolls house miniatures and that is exactly what I used. These lovely detailed and handmade miniature onions have been embedded into clear resin cufflinks, and he is delighted with his new onion cufflinks! I never did ask what the significance of having onion jewellery and I probably will never find out, so I will leave that one to your imagination!

To read about his reaction to his new onion cufflinks please visit my website Testimonials page.

Taking every opportunity - Promotional Jewellery

2010-04-12T13:59:00.004+01:00

My son's school has recently appointed a new Headteacher who has certainly made his mark on the school. He is gradually introducing a new image for the school and this includes putting love hearts everywhere around the school and he has even put one around the school logo! It is all to do with his change in the school aims and introducing a culture of taking pride in each other’s achievements and helping each other.

Anyway, because I try to take every opportunity to promote my jewellery I thought it would be a good idea to make something for him. Using the heart theme I produced a resin keyring and phone charm, with the school logo embedded within a pink resin heart.

The Headteacher now has the keyring and he gave the phone-charm to the deputy-head. They are both over-the-moon with them!

Well, we have to take every opportunity that we can to promote handmade goods and I wasn’t going to let that one go by. It has already got me thinking about producing promotional jewellery for clubs, charities, companies and other organisations, so a big ‘Thank you’ goes to the Headteacher for giving me a new inspiration.

My jewellery is in a Fashion Magazine!

2010-04-09T09:55:00.006+01:00

I was contacted a few weeks ago from by a UK fashion magazine which focuses on alternative fashion and culture. They were putting together their latest addition and wanted to feature some of my unique cufflinks within their wedding themed product spread!

And it came out this week so as it is my first time ‘in print’ I immediately bought a copy, and here I am (top left in the feature).

My cufflinks are part of their ‘Something new’ product spread where they were highlighting a few pieces that would make excellent accessories for an alternative wedding.

I am chuffed to bits, mainly because I was approached by them, it is fantastic free publicity and little old me is in a Fashion Magazine WOW!