Calm

What a few weeks it's been so hectic at home with trips to hospital, school plays, special book days at nursery & spring cleaning going on everywhere i really just want to curl up in to a little ball & sleep for a few days but no time for that, as for tomorrow the school Spring break starts & all time for relaxation fly out the window along with peace & quiet. Hopefully the weather will stay good like it has been the last few days, I actually have sun burn cant believe it i really didn't think it was that hot but their you go i should have been more careful luckily Dylan was stuck to his DS in the living room so he never got burnt but i am starting to worry about him playing his DS all the time he has hardly put it down since he got his new game. I have managed to fit in a little bit of jewellery making in over the last few weeks but it has been mostly beads as i have not had time to felt but i love the
eclectic mix of the beads in my new necklaces i have one listed on Etsy & i managed to finally take some pics of my new bracelet/bangle i love the marled colours of the felt beads & the pale wood cones which make it look really Summery. It reminds me of driftwood. The picture of the felt flower was my first ever attempt to make a wet felted flower i could not find any instructions on how to make them so just improvised & came up with this one it is not great but i like it, i am going to keep it as a guide to try to help perfect some more when i ever get round to doing it again that is. Since everything has calmed down at home now & the holidays are upon us i think i will be going for some walks through the woods which the kids like & hopefully get some inspiration for new designs i will just have to make sure Dylan does not climb any trees or it will be back to hospital again. Hollie is talking about swimming lessons so i see a few trips to the pool coming up, i hate going to the public swimming pools, standing freezing wondering if we will catch a verruca & all my wobbly bits on display for all to see, not fun or pretty!I hope everyone has a good Spring break & the weather stays great.

DAY TRIP

Lately when I have been siting at my workbench in my little kitchen my mind has been completely blank so when my Mum asked if I wanted to go to the SECC in Glasgow for the Hobby Craft show with her i thought OK what the hell maybe get some ideas to get me out of this blank hole i am in. Two hours on the bus there & back were defiantly worth it, not only have I seen some beautiful work, met some amazing artists, got some great ideas & decided to broaden my crafts, I am now completely skint, But it was worth it all. I have also found a few sites where i can buy new supplies, I have been using knitted wire that i had got when i was studding jewellery design & have never found anywhere that had a big selection on colours & widths. Plus i was running low so i was over the moon when i saw The Crazy Wire Company with there huge selection of different wires & great ideas to use there products. Will defiantly be a returning costumer. this is where you can find there products http://www.crazywireco.co.uk/ Another of my favorite stalls had to be Homespun Hearts which has loads of primitive style bits & pieces like rusty cutout hearts, stars & willow shapes that I did have to buy. You will fall in love with their products here http://www.homespunhearts.com/ Other than these 2 great stalls were http://www.thesouthamptonbeadshop.co.uk/where everyone who is a bead addict should defiantly pop in & have a look at their fabulous collection of beads. I met a fantastic woman called Ewa Kuniczak who is a textile artist who also had a stall their. Ewa like myself works from her kitchen I was surprised at everything she has managed to do in a tiny little space like that so that has defiantly inspired me to be more adventurous with my felt. The art work Ewa has produced over her years is amazing, she has also writing books on felt making, holds work shops & has exhibitions ongoing & upcoming, truly a amazing artist. Eva also sells these fantastic dry felting needles which are the BEST i have used i can go through at least 2 needles a night especially if i am tired which is often, i tried theses ones out over a solid 4 hours last night & never broke 1 so that is a record for me. Eva is the only outlet in the UK that sells the "Super" needle so defiantly a place to visit is http://www.feltheadtotoe.co.uk/ to find out more about this wonder woman, have a look at her work find out about her workshops, buy felting kits & of course buy the Super felting needle. I hope some of these links will be handy for someone now I am away back to my new project.

Happy New Year

Well it is a new year, new start & nearly the big 30 in a couple of days so I have really been looking at where my life is going & what the future can hold for me & the kids. A lot of siting thinking about what has been and what can be. So this is it 2009 is going to be the year I am going to sort out where my Life & Jewelry is going, is it worth while just getting the odd sale on Etsy or should I branch out & start my own web site? Must admit had my first sale on Etsy on the 3rd so that was a good start to the year & November through to December was really steady for me so I am happy with Etsy over the last couple of months but with this credit crunch will it last? As for the my life I am making the final step to remove my ex from my life I know I can not remove him completely because of the kids but that is it there will be no more climbing out of bed, slipping on my bafays & seeing the tattoo of his name every morning on my foot because I have my first appointment at the tattooist tomorrow to discuss what will be the correct way to go about erasing the last reminder of the last few years of my life. I have a few ideas of what I would like but this time I am doing it right I have had my idea for over 2 years so it wont be something I have thought about lightly either will it be some mans name, Always listens to your Mum, Dad, friend Grandparents whoever says never get your lover/ partners name tattooed on your body as most of the time the tattoo will be their a lot longer the the relationship will unfortunately for myself I never listened! So if you are reading this & considering making a statement of your undying love to your beloved DO NOT get their name inked forever on your body because you never know where the relationship will be in a couple of years. I will keep you updated with the progress. As you can see my last promise was to keep my blog updated regularly and I never kept it so I made that one of my New Year resolutions as well as keep on top of all my other Trinket Tree related pages on the world wide web I have that many things I joined up to last year I cant keep count of them so I think I will be getting rid of a few that I am never on & just leaving the main ones to give me more time to spend on my blog, shop etc. As well as Tattoo's & updating everything I have been working on new felt brooches I really like how they are turning out but unfortunately not had a minute to take any photos yet but I will post them here when I get the camera out I just hope it is working better than it was over Christmas or will be having to close up shop until get some cash together for a new one fingers crossed it will be fine. Blethering away now so I will leave it there for the now.
Happy New Year everyone!

New Ideas

My Internet has been down for weeks & weeks & weeks it has been a nightmare but never mind hopefully now every thing will be fine & i can get on with updating my blog more often(fingers crossed) Since it has been down I have been playing about with new ideas, The candle holders are definitely one of my best efforts thanks to my little baby niece Grace who has been keeping me supplied with baby food jars so there has been plenty recycling going on in my house. Now that Grace has finished with her baby food & on too big girl food & she can finally get jam pieces on her expensive lactose free bread the jars have been dumped. I think it is terrible that if you have an allergy to any sort of food it is more expensive for you, there should be an alternate low price range as well as the expensive brand just like in all the other food that you can buy at the local supermarket which I might add has a very poor range for people with allergies. Anyway that is my opinion! Other than making recycled candle holders I have been trying my hand again at making a new painting for my hall what do you think? It is not actually hanging in the hall yet but it is framed and sitting pride of place on top of the shelves in the living room, but i am getting there slowly! The kids are back at school & nursery now so I am getting a little bit extra time to do more, well that is the idea anyway I just have to put it into practice I have made some cute little painted hearts since they have been back but don't ask me what I am going to do with them yet I was thinking of giving them as free gifts with my orders because I think it is good to change your gifts some times plus I am bored making bag charms. They might also make good little Christmas decorations I you can think of anything just let me know alwayss happy for a little help! I have also been trying out new color combo's for my felt beads so Etsy is not being completely neglected here is some of my new bracelet/bangles. Tell me what you think thanks for looking :)

Now I am back!

Well what can I say I have been having a little bit of family trouble over the last few month & everything has been getting on top off me so now that I have been away with the kids to the beautiful coast I am feeling a little bit better & have decided to get catch up with everything again, hopefully this time I will keep more up to date with my blog ;) The last time I was on blogger Aileen Clark (there is a post about Aileen's fabulous work further down my blog) awarded me with a blog trophy for one of the best blogs she has been reading as I have not been blogging for a while now I have decided to pick it up & pass it on at a later date as right now I definitely don't deserve it!

Even though I have not been updating my blog I have still been busy not as much as usual & I have been neglecting my jewellery, now my little shop on Etsy has only one page which is a bit surprising but hopefully in the next few days that will all change, I have just listed a new felt memory wire bracelet & a new Rose Quartz memory wire bracelet, My addiction for felt is still strong but my old gemstone addiction is heading back through in to my jewellery again so I am going to be listing a few more gemstone creations to Etsy soon! Other than making more jewellery I have been recycling my baby niece's baby food jars & making them in to little candle holders now I have a big collection of candle holders that I don't know what to do with, Any ideas will be appreciated!

When I was on holiday I decided that now was the time to get rid of one off my tattoo's so I have been working on designing a cover up for it. The one that I need covered was one of those one you get when you are in love & very very silly! I am totally stuck been to loads of tattoo sites but never see anything that I really like so by chance if anyone knows anything about foot tattoo's please leave me a comment as I want to get it covered up A.S.A.P!

Fused Fabric Artist

As I have mentioned before I am now a felt addict & use a lot of my felt beads in my jewellery creations but today I am wanting to tell you about a very talented friend I have met through Flickr who also uses felt & other fibers to make the most gorgeous pieces of art work , Aileen Clarke came across my page one day & left me a wee note , which I am very glad she did as her beautiful work inspires me to try new techniques out & try to incorporate them in to my jewellery. Aileen is a very busy work at home Mum of Two kids who has worked hard to build up a successful cottage industry over the last couple of years, I am going to have to meet up with her for a coffee one day to discuss business tactics as with my two kids I never seem to have any time to myself to build up any sort of business at all, so Aileen if you are reading this do you have any tips for me ? :) The photo above is one of Aileen's creations called Aziba as you can see it is a beautiful mix of different colors & textures , this is just one of the many pieces she has created, Aileen also makes gorgeous cards with fused fiber motifs on them & Beautiful sea scape's which I must admit are my favorite as every time I see one it reminds me of my holidays by the sea when I was a child. If you go & have a look in Aileen's Etsy shop you will see she has a little soft spot for hearts, one of her best sellers is a gorgeous fused fiber heart decoration which looks amazing, At the moment in Aileen's Etsy shop she is also selling a beautiful fused fabric bird which has lots of beautiful detail on it . What else can I say about her work ? You are just going to have to go & visit her to see what you think for yourself , I am sure you will see something you like. http://www.aileenclarkecrafts.etsy.com/

This is my entry for EAST's Winter challenge, as you can read from my blog I love being outside so when I was told that the challenge was going to be Winter Wonderland I insistently thought of walking in the woods with my children & being surrounded with trees all sparkling with snow & ice. I love when you go for a walk when everything is frosted & glittery, so I came up with the idea of a wind chime because to me Winter is a magical season ,where everything in the woods looks completely different & magical!. I have made the leaves of my Magical Winter Wonderland Wind chime out of polymer clay & covered them in beautiful iridescent glitter, to make them look like leaves touched by the frost , I think they have worked out well & the added bonus of this wind chime is that there will never be another one like it as each leave is different which is the way that Nature intended. I still have not picked a pic yet to post onto flikr as you cant get the whole effect of the wind chime into just one photo so I am a bit stuck so I think I will post a selection onto my Flikr page & see which one gets any views before I post it to the challenge page so if you like you could pop over to my flikr page & see which one you like best, just click on the flikr icon at the side of my blog & it will take you wright there. I suppose I better go & get on I will try and post back later with my new buys!.

Second Sale

Woohoo! I got my second sale tonight & I was not even logged on I was watching Dirty Dancing with my daughter, she is only coming up for 7 but she enjoyed all the dancing, It was a return to my teenage years for me, great fun. Anyway i thought i would post about my 2nd sale I am so Happy! This is my first ever sale abroad my Happiness earrings are going to be going to a new home in the US, The lovely lady who has bought them has a lovely shop on Etsy selling beautiful hand made card's this is her shop http://teenytinycardco.etsy.com/ please have a look.
Here is a photo of my Happiness earring's. My first sale was a couple of weeks ago, i was in the forum on Etsy at the time and the kid's were just finishing there tea when i got the news i jumped up and started jumping around the living room, the kid's thought i had gone mad, anyway my first sale was to a fellow UK member of Etsy, she sells gorgeous shoes & other beautiful goodies. This is her shophttp://bunny.etsy.com/ please drop in to her shop & have a look. Here is a photo of bunny's new Tiger's Claws bracelet. From now on every time someone buys from my shop I am going to post a link to their shop here on my blog. I like the idea of helping them to get their shop promoted, Not that my blog gets a lot of views but every little helps. It would be great if they even got a sale out of it. If you do buy from any of the shop's please tell them about where you seen them advertised.

Beach Comber

This is my first blog! so bear with me & any help or info will be very appreciated, Anyway this blog is all about my little shop on Etsy, http://trinkettree.etsy.com/ , the Ups & Downs of trying to start up selling my jewelry on & off the net & trying to do it all while being a single mum of 2 gorgeous kids. So as you can see there will probably be a lot of bad times & hopefully good to come....I am going to start of with this picture of a necklace i made the other day as i can't find any nice pictures of me & the kid's, (well none nice ones of me, i am a bit camera shy unless i have had a few whisky's.) This necklace is called Beach Comber as the idea for it came as i was having a walk along the beach with my children , while they were hunting for sea shell's & chucking stones in the sea i was looking at all the beautiful colors of the crushed shell's, pebble's & sea glass left by the waves. When we got back home & got some heat in us (Scotland in Autumn is not a great time to be walking along a beach) I grabbed my bead's & gemstone's, put all the color's i saw at the beach together & came up with this lovely necklace i think it worked out well, what do you think?