and the BriesBerry Mice

SO…as I organised the Felidae Craft swap, you may be suspicious and thinking I paired us up on purpose.  I promise I didn’t though! It was completely random, honest!

Natalie has been a fantastic swap partner, I LOVE EVERYTHING…
If you click through on the photo to the Flickr page, you can see little notes that I’ve added to each thing and see the full size version.

My little Cat Creature is called Neko, inspired by the Japanese Lucky Cat – isn’t she adorable?!  My extra treat to an original Natalie Wilson watercolour, printed on a card has sent me over the moon, it’s so beautiful…I’m ashamed to say that I’ll never be able to actually give this to anyone, it’ll have to be framed for my wall I think :)
To top it all off (as if I haven’t been spoiled enough), Nat has also sent me a whole heap of gorgeous fabric samples.   I’ll have to take individual photos at some point to really show off all the prints…that’s if they don’t all disappear into other projects by then!  I’ve already set aside some of the sequin fabric and an anchor print sample for current projects in college.

Thank you so much Natalie, I absolutely love my swap package and I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have!

You can see what everyone else has been making in the Flickr photo pool or check out the comments on This Post to get the links to all the bloggers involved!

Bit bonkers looking but in a good way, right?  Also, do you know how difficult it is trying to take pictures of the side of your head?! Especially with luminous hair, in the glaring sunshine.  These photos are absolutely the best I could do (without getting out the tripod, shhhh) so apologies if they’re still blurry, I gave up.

After I finished making clips I went on Folksy for a little Clown search.  You know there are only FOUR pages of clown items and the majority of those listings are BUTTONS. Disgraceful.  I’m going to have to do something about that in the near future.

I did find this though, I’m in love…
Vintage lace doiley collar from Miss Amy Phipps £15

SpoiltPig jewellery is all going to be re-priced by the end of April.

I wish I could say its now all FREE but erm…nah, that’s not how it works :(

I’m not sure how much anyone’s interested in the ‘details’ but I figure I should be as transparent here as possible.

Currently, I don’t pay myself for my design work or the time it takes to put that idea to paper(many long hours cursing and swearing at photoshop and tearing up sketchbooks) or the time it takes me to promote, list and write item descriptions, the cost and time for promotional materials like flyers and business cards, travelling to and working all day at markets in the freezing cold, the cost of market stalls in the first place…this list goes on forever.

From the very beginning, I’ve been paying myself minimum wage for the time it takes to ‘make’ each item and then y’know, adding materials costs and rounding it up or down to the nearest quid. It’s not even the current legal minimum wage…I’m lazy at maths so when I say minimum wage I mean a FIVER p/h.

I’ve managed to keep it going this far with LOTS of help from lovely, awesome friends who’ve donated time and tools to help me.  I don’t have to pay for professional jewellery shots or expensive programs, I didn’t have to pay a web developer and I currently don’t have to pay for web hosting, all down to their generosity.   These people deserve to be paid though, right?  and I’d like to start doing that at some point this year…and maybe start earning a proper wage for myself too.

Folksy, the UK based site that I use to sell my work through are coming out of beta mode on the 1st May 2010 and as such, will be introducing a teeny 5% commission on my and everyone else’s sales,  so I figured that’s as good a time as any to re-launch SpoiltPig with some more realistic prices.

I hope this doesn’t piss anyone off, I hope that all my lovely customers will stick with me and I’m more than willing to answer any questions anyone might have and explain commission and fees in more detail if needed/wanted.

I got a great custom order to work on a while ago, the task being to create something with a cutesy bee theme.

SO – I got the thinking cap on and created a little smug bee character to embed in resin and turn into jewellery!

I unfortunately don’t have a picture of that very first Bee necklace I created but I went on to make some different colours for last month @ Sloans market (where they went down a storm!) and now have decided to share my little illustration(“doodle”) with my Folksy customers :)

Of course I did have some bright yellow ones but they all sold out today at Airyall Craft Bazaar :)

What’s your favourite colour? What would you like to see in the Spoiltpig Folksy Shop?

This listing on Coriandr was pointed out to me last week and since then it has inspired quite a few blog posts on the subject of knitting and realistic pricing.  The same topic arose over on Folksy today and I got to discover a whole range of amazing, knitted items that are still at absolute bargain prices.  Thought I should share some of my favourite things from these hard-working crafters:

Blue Slippers by Wool & Wire £18.40

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Plum Crumble Beret by Ginger Nut Knits £25

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Red Sunset Scarflette by Woolly Lakes £8.00!

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Black & Pink Skull gloves by Susie J £10!

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and my favourite and biggest bargain find…ADORABLE little Easter Chick by The Hunny Bunny Comany

£2.00

Having had my first disastrous attempt at knitting just the other week, giving up after hours of persistence, I can certainly appreciate the hard work and skill that goes into creating all of these lovely things.  And if anyone’s looking for a pretty present for a talented knitting friend, then I’d recommend Pennydog’s handmade resin knitting needles:

Aren’t they gorgeous?!

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I’ve already received my swap package and have been beaming all over the internet about it already :)
BlondeDesign makes the most amazing comic-y cushions:  (M’kay, so they’re in the “Baby” shop, don’t judge me!)
So obviously, I was super delighted when I found out that’s who was making my Valentines Heart present – and here are the AMAZING things she made for me:

Couldn’t be more pleased!   Black and red + Polkadots + SKULLS + something for my teapot = GRIN :)
Definitely one of my favourite Craft Swaps so far :)

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FINALLY – A quick plug for my Folksy shop ( I know *yawn*)  Keeping with the theme though, here are some of the heart shaped items in stock at the moment:

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend whether they be celebrating Valentines day or not.
x0x

I’m still enjoying not having to work in my old stinky job and being constantly skint is good for the soul, less take-away pizza but more surf-watching down the beach :)

You’d think that I’d be at a loose end for things to do with my lazy, good-for-nothing self but seriously, there STILL aren’t enough hours in the day for me! It would appear that the less I have to juggle, the more balls I drop. I haven’t made any time for friends, I’m still not 100% caught up on college work, I keep breaking all my promises of making things/doing things/seeing things, my room and ‘creative space’ are both an absolute shambles.
Saying that though, I have watched three seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the space of 2 1/2 days and I’m VERY proud of that. I’ve probably had about 6hrs sleep since Thursday but fuelled by the Buffy and some really shit coffee, I’ve managed to sand and polish around 20 of 50 unfinished jewellery thingums (some of them dating back as far as the Jurassic period/January). If anyone wants to help finish the rest, I’ll teach you how to make them really really smooth :D

Taadaaaa…

Photos are clickable for the larger versions on Flickr.

These eight have just been added to my Folksy shop.. and the rest shall appear, erm, at ‘some point’ when I get round to photographing them too. :)

I’ve entered them both in Crafter..oo’s Halloween Challenge – if you like making things, if you like halloween then I suggest you join in :)
I may or may not get a chance to add the leopard print heart to the Folksy shop tonight, moving house tomorrow + playing catch up on college work = TIRED TIRED TIRED.  The crystal clear Spider necklace has a busy schedule of travelling across the country and posing for a magazine article this week so won’t be appearing in the shop until mid-week next week at the earliest (it’s all very exciting but I don’t want to jinx it by blabbing about it!).