Cinnamon Jewellery

* Meet ............... Linda Jones A UK Jewellery designer, author of several jewellery books and an instructional DVD, and regular contributor to Make Jewellery and Step By Step Wire magazines. I own one of Linda's wirework jewellery books so was thrilled to discover she had recently started her blog Wireworkers Guild . She very kindly featured me and my jewellery on it recently  here  and agreed to do on interview for me in return........... If like me, you'd love to have a piece of your jewellery featured in a magazine, read on for Linda's tips on how to do it.......... Amonite Brooch How long have you been making jewellery and what made you start?   I’ve been making jewellery for about 20 years. It’s a long story and I will try to condense it as best I can … I have always been creative, making and fiddling with all sorts of crafts from a very young age: painting, drawing, sewing … and I’ve studied textile batik making and copper tooling in Indonesia in m...

And the winner is............................... using a random number generator....................... Charlotte Hupfield! Well done Charlotte! I hope you enjoy wearing your new earrings!

I decided last night to change my blog template as the flowers in the border had mysteriously vanished. I've searched for one that's "just right" and spent most of the day faffing about with changing templates. They either a) didn't work with blogger  b) looked nice on the site but horrible on my blog or c) made my computer freeze at which point I felt like screaming! In the end I found this background which I like but had hoped I could change the page colour as I don't like the white but I can't using blogger. Aaarghh!! It will no doubt change again in a couple of days when I've found the "perfect" background. Here's hoping :D Don't forget to enter my Giveaway for these Sterling Silver and Lampwork earrings! The winner will be chosen tomorrow! Click here  to leave a comment! Not sure if this photo is showing, there seems to be a problem which rounds off my blogging day perfectly! You can see a photo of the earrings when you cl...

IndieSmiles  is looking for columnists from Folksy and ArtFire to write articles in return for a free shop advertisement on the IndieSmiles site! If you're interested please visit the IndieSmiles blog here  (you will need to sign up) and read the columnists guidelines. If you'd like to have a go either leave a comment here with your email address or contact Sue at indiesmiles@gmail.com So if you think you'd enjoy writing about all things handcrafted and selling online why not give it a try!

The Wireworkers Guild  is a new blog set up by Linda Jones, author of several jewellery making books, teacher and regular contributor to Make Jewellery and Step By Step Wire magazines. Linda has very kindly featured me and my jewellery in a mini interview! Even more exciting ~ Linda has agreed to do a mini interview for me which I will post in the very near future! They're here! Several nice things have happened this week ~ I reached 50 sales in my Folksy shop, I decided to make my life easier by buying a jewellery tumbler AND I won a blog giveaway for a gorgeous keyring from  Dinky Daisy !  The tumbler arrived a couple of days ago and it's fab! It will save me an awful lot of time and brings my jewellery up to a lovely shine :D The print I ordered from Folksy shop Sascalia  also turned up yesterday and it's as beautiful in real life as it looks on the screen And the very cute stickers I ordered from Moo are here too They'r...

I love working with copper wire and the look of oxidised copper so decided to do this week's Folksy Finds featuring, you've guessed it, copper! 1. Clutch - Handprinted Copper Silk ~ Sabine Cornic 2. Copper And Sapphire Galaxies Buttons ~ ButtonsbyMcAnaraks 3. Copper Moon Earrings ~ Silver Storm Jewellery 4. Copper Sea ~ Stutt Art  5. Mackintosh Style Copper Mirror ~ The Owl And The Pussycat  ( I want this!) 6. Copper Pheasant Fascinator ~ KissCurl

To celebrate reaching 50 sales on Folksy last night I'm having a Giveaway! The earrings below are made from Sterling Silver and pretty ivory with turquoise and black design Lampwork beads. The ivory colour is actually a bit lighter than it appears in the photo. To give you an idea of the size, the beads are 9mm in diameter. A small and well behaved pair (compared to some of my earrings!) looking for a home.............. To enter the Giveaway all you have to do is leave a comment saying what is your favourite colour of bead or Semi~Precious stone when you look for earrings. Please leave contact details if you don't have a blog so that I can contact you if you are the winner! The winner will be announced next Tuesday 30th March! I'm off to Folksy now to choose the print I promised myself from Folksy shop Sascalia when I reached 50 sales :D

Reading the lovely comments about my new hideously bright orange backgrounds I used for a couple of my photos and thinking about it, I've decided that the orange is just too much! After two further trips to my local ESK and ferreting around their background papers (I was in there nearly half an hour one day and almost missed an appointment!) I now possess several more neutral coloured backgrounds and some shiny new pebbles. I'm still having problems using my camera in manual as altering some of the settings affects the sharpness of the photo, so even though it's brighter it's not properly focused! So frustrating! I'm hoping to start redoing them tomorrow as the weather is supposed to be better - fingers crossed. God, I hate taking photographs! ~♥~♥~♥~ Got all excited this morning when I checked my emails as I had another sale in my Folksy shop and thought it was my 50th. Alas it was my 49th ~ I sold two lots of earwires yesterday and hoped t...

Selling my jewellery online means I have to take photos of it and I can honestly say that this is my least favourite part of the whole process! I just don't have the patience for all that fiddling about trying to get the perfect picture and I always look at the end result thinking it could be better. I generally just switch on my camera in Auto mode and let it do it's thing, however the other day I actually switched it to manual and played around with the settings. I changed the white balance, (I think that's what it's called) and it has made a difference, the photos do seem brighter. Taking the photos in Manual mode however wasn't very successful, even though it was in Macro mode, the camera didn't want to focus every time, so I went back to Auto mode. I didn't need as much light as normal, meaning I didn't have to pull the curtains as far back as I normally do, so altering the white balance has improved things. I normally use white as a background...

I love making lists and making lists of my top 10 "things" seems like a good idea to me. It makes me think and gives me a break from eating chocolate for a while. I've decided to start a regular (I hope!) feature of top tens.......they could be anything from my ten favourite words to my ten most embarrassing moments (if I can bear to remember them!) I'm starting with my ten favourite songs, although one look at my CD collection made me realize that there's no way I only have 10 favourites! Anyway, these are my ten favourite songs today .......... 1 . Song To The Siren ~ This Mortal Coil . Once heard never forgotten. 2. Freebird ~ Lynard Skynard . Just so cool. 3 .  Stockholme Syndrome ~ Muse . Played very loudly in the car. Could have a top ten list of their own. 4 .  Statesboro Blues ~ Taj Mahal . Dig those Blues. 5. Slide Away ~ Oasis . Before they lost it. 6. Love Spreads ~ The Stone Roses . Northerners. Enough said....

I managed to miss doing a Folksy Friday pick last week so made a supreme effort this week. This week my Folksy Friday theme is Water! My first pick is an illustration print from Marmalime  and is called "Seahorse" Gorgeous refreshing Cool Water Natural Soap from Saffronbarr A contemporary Sterling Silver & Copper Pebble & Water Ring by NRJewelleryDesign A striking Maldon Water Stained Glass Panel by AmyOrangeJuice A dazzling Frosted Lake Wavy Bowl by Charlotte Hupfield Ceramics And finally a vibrant original watercolour "Fire And Water" by Dick & Franny Hope you've enjoyed my wanderings in water!

Meet Joelle Poulos , owner of Folksy shop  Joelleabelle . Joelle recently opened her shop selling kitsch, retro and kooky jewellery. I found those words in her keyword list and they describe her style perfectly! How would you describe the jewellery you make? I would describe my Jewellery as: 'Quirky Handmade Jewellery' You Colour My World Earrings How long have you been making jewellery? Not long at all! I started selling it to my friends little over 2 months ago. What made you start? My friend sent me a link to a site selling charms, this made me think about making some extra money selling jewellery. This then expanded to selling on my website! P.S. I Love You Necklace Have you taken any jewellery-making classes or are you self-taught? I have never taken jewellery making classes, I am completely self taught! What made you decide to make your style of jewellery rather than the more classic type? My style of jewellery is based on something I would like a...

Starting today there's a fab new competition on Folksy! Devised by the lovely Fee of Folksy shop Niche Handmade , the competition runs until Easter. How to enter ~ There are 33  Folksy shops with either a pink, blue or yellow easter egg added to their shop banner. All you have to do is find 11 shops with the same coloured easter egg, make a note of the shop names, then send this in an email to folksytreasurehunt@gmail.com . You can enter three times by finding all 33 shops increasing your chances of winning! The three winners will be announced on April 5 and will win one of three goodie bags packed with gorgeous handmade items donated by the participating Folksy shop owners! Hint ~ "easter" and "treasure" may help you find what you are looking for :D