Snapdragon Beads

Grabbing a moment to post before I go and get the little one up.

Last week I posted off a 11.37 kg box to Dublin for the craft fairs that my mum handles for me since I’m unable to travel at present, I don’t want to take a small child on a ryanair flight, plus now that I’ve handed in my notice and my maternity pay has finished I just can’t afford it. In retrospect the cost of shipping the box was probably more than a Ryanair flight, but I’m sure the excess baggage charge would have put me over. And I know from prior experience that I wouldn’t like that.

Snapdragon Beads will be at the Marley Craft fair at Marley Park in Dublin this coming weekend - Friday-Sunday. And also at a new fair in Monkstown, I think, running the 12-14. I’ve been told that there will be signs up for the latter, so if you are in the area you should know about it!

Meanwhile back here in England I’ll be at We Make Christmas at the American Church opposite Goodge Street Tube station on the 6th of December with what remains of my stock, and I’ve held back some unusual pieces, not too avant garde but certainly things you can’t get anywhere else.

I’ve been avoiding listing any of the new designs since I want to debut them at We Make but I have listed one pair of earrings just in case some of you can’t make it to any of the sales.

They are currently listed on Etsy.

Must dash, I think Lia is plotting with the cats…

This Sunday I will be at Handm@de at the Town Hall in Oxford. This promises to be a fantastic craft fair and if you are in Oxford on Sunday please do pop in. Doors open at 11am and there are free goodie bags simply bursting with wonderful things for the first 250 through the door. 

After that the Jewellery gets packed up and sent off to Dublin for the 3 day Marley Park sale at the end of November, anything that is left is coming back for WeMake Christmas which will be held at the American Church on Totenham Court Road on the 6th of December.

And after all that, and Christmas, things are going to go on a little hiatus for a few months while I gather my wits and sort out websites. I will also have a more mobile small child on my hands/in my hair

And a new line of pendants…

If you have been admiring the Wavy Herringbone stitch cuffs but bracelets are not your thing or impractical for day to day then these pendants are the very thing!

Comprised of two arcs, slightly longer than the ones in the bracelets, these sinuous pendants are suspended from a fine sterling silver chain, or gold-filled depending on which suits the colour of the piece better.

At the moment the piece pictured above is available from my Etsy store, but more will be heading online soon.

Over the weekend I was featured on Claire Laraine’s Partners in Crime blog! 

I also sold two pairs of the same earrings, and turned 29 (yesterday) so all in all a busy time, and a definite positive note!

Don’t forget that my 10% promotion is still on until midnight of the 28th and applies to both my Etsy and Folksy stores.

In an effort to keep things turning over I’ll be posting up a round up of items recently listed to Folksy and Etsy.

Today there are two pairs of earrings, both now available to purchase via Folksy

Both pieces have sterling silver headpins, beads and ear hooks and feature handmade beads. They have been made in a smoke-free home (I’ve not burnt a meal in years ;-D )

A few weeks back I signed up to Folksy; a UK based site similar in intent to Etsy. And for a while, what with the manic pressures of dealing with a baby, that was pretty much it. However, in fit of pique yesterday afternoon I decided to photograph and list some simple glass bracelets.

And guess my surprise, and delight when one of them sold! Hurrah!

This is the further incentive I need to sort out the work room so I have somewhere to work again, and to get photographing and listing.

Folksy being UK based means that I can price things in pounds which is great!

You can find my store at http://folksy.com/shops/snapdragonbeads

I can’t believe how quickly this year has gone by, and most of it is a blur now, but I think I can attribute much of that to having had a baby in April.

The little one is now 4 months old and all things considered a pretty good baby.

Time has passed so quickly too that my birthday is now uncomfortably close! So to celebrate my last birthday in my 20’s I’m offering 10% off all items in my Etsy store, which as you should all know is at: http://snapdragonbeads.etsy.com/

The 10% will be refunded via paypal. Also don’t forget to pop “Happy Birthday” in the message to seller box, you’ll get the refund without it, but with it you might get something a little extra

This promotion will be running from then 22nd until the 28th of August.

And more items will be listed before the 22nd!

Not so much with a bang - because the camera battery died just when I got some of that pregnant lady energy that I’d been promised for the last 6 months and I had planned to take lots of pictures and list lots of items…. - but there are a grand total of 3 items listed in the Etsy shop.

The address for which is http://snapdragonbeads.etsy.com/ . This will be my main outlet for selling non-commissioned items, you can still deal with me directly if you want to make a special order based on something that you saw on Esty but has sold or in a different colour-way.

Another source of inspiration for items is my Flickr photostream: http://flickr.com/photos/snapdragonbeads/ .

Both of these sites provide RSS feeds so you can be kept up to date as new items/pictures are added. Which at the moment relies on us being able to find a battery charger which has gone awol!

While not a terribly informative update here is some news as to what’s going on at the moment.

Last week the new shelving for my work room arrived, and at the moment about half of them are built but most of the beads and other paraphernalia are split between the work room and bedroom. Yesterday the carpet finally went down in the loft/nursery so we are hoping to get all the furniture and things for that room sorted out and then the next task for my long suffering husband is to finish off installing the work room shelving and for me to finally inflict some order on things.

We are now 5 weeks away from the estimated due date for the baby and once I have finished making the new bedroom curtains for us and table runners for a friend’s wedding I’m hoping to be able to get some jewellery related work in before the little one arrives. At that point I will be taking a bit of break from everything other than figuring out what I’m meant to be doing with a small wiggly person for a few weeks.

Before then I hope to have some items up on Etsy - I have over 10 Herringbone weave bracelets made which need photographing.

Also I’ve started setting up some Photo Sets on Flickr they will appear as RSS feeds, the first is called ‘Old ‘n’ Sold’ and will feature items from the old site’s gallery.

Just a quick update to confirm that I have not fallen off the planet.

I note with some embarrassment that it has been well over a year since my last post/update.  This is mainly due to a very hectic 2007 which meant that my regular day job and fertility treatments took over my life some what.

The good news is that I am expecting my first baby in around 10 weeks and since I have opted to take the full 52 weeks UK maternity leave I am hoping to start getting some pieces up on line once I’ve settled into a routine with the little one.

Rather than taking up time with coding to sell pieces directly via this site, I will be using etsy.com. I’ll be posting further news when there is some!