Jewellery Tidy Out

Hey All

Day 3 of this blogging malarkey, I am enjoying the idea of updating this, kinda like a diary, and its really motivating!!

As I said in an earlier post I was inspired to do this blog by the lovely Sue Wilson from Creative Expressions after seeing the lovely lady on Create & Craft.  I have since been following her blog and guess what, I won a prize in her most recent contest!! I just cannot believe it, never win a thing and if she hasn't already done enough for me.  Sue gave me the inspiration and motivation I needed to get out the dumps and back on track.  A blog, imagine, PC illiterate me doing a blog, crazy and something that never once crossed my mind!!

I have had a few pieces of feedback re the pictures on my website and my designer and I are currently looking into this to see if its something that can be fixed just by a setting, if not it will come down till new pictures can be taken and uploaded.  I love crafting but I really am not a fan of all the admin stuff and taking pictures, its something I have never been interested in which is funny as my sister is a degree qualified photographer (she has another profession though and is super busy hence the reason I have not employed her to do my pics for the site).

Well, done it, I spend all morning cleaning out my jewellery stash of goodies, found things I had forgotten were purchased, like some awesome charms from a facebook page called "Mary-Beth originals", she does some very gorgeous handmade fimo charms for crafters to use in their jewellery as well as some other lovely pendants which just had to be assembled and popped on chains, it was so well worth doing and I am going to tackle my card stash tomorrow. 

This was my table yesterday;

And this is it today;

I thought it may be a benefit to new crafters to show what I have in my stash and the things I just cant do without, so;

Here I have 2 different compartment boxes which I have now organised for all my different beads, the black one at the back has all the metal/ fimo charms, the lovely split organiser at the front has one side with all my glass charms in colour order in one side and in the other all the different finding and joining type components that are used and needed to actually put jewellery together.

I have a box which just has all the different stretchy cords/ tiger tail/ different colour & widths of jewellery wire/ ready made cords/ memory wire/ hemp/ antique brass chain and silver plated chain, this just means that I am able to create different looks with any charms or pendants that I make up.  There are also ring blank and the all important E6000 glue which is so strong and really the only thing i recommend to stick items of jewellery together i.e. brooches & rings.  I have used a glue gun which i fab but sometime just not strong enough and I have had a few issues with bits coming apart, never happens with the E6000. 

There is also a wee hexagonal tub with all the clasps/ connectors in, a bead board which is something I only purchased recently and now don't know what I would do without it!!  I also have a thing here in white that you can see, I was given this by a very dear friend and it is amazing, I have no idea what it is called but all you do is attache each end of chain to the spikes or clips at the top and it keeps the chain in place whilst all the charms are added, it is a godsend and something else that if you can get, defo get it, takes loads of time off the assembly part of jewellery making and means you can pop more bits together in less time, I love it!!!

Finally, some very essential bits, the pliers, flat nose, round nose, cutters, crimpers and various other tools, these can usually be bought as a pack.  I received mine for my 18th birthday from my sister which was many moons ago, I believe if you spend that little bit extra you get really good quality products that you don't always have to replace.  The pink fluffy thing under the tools is a bead mat, I also received this from my sister and again it is essential, its a bead mat and it turns any surface into an area that stops your beads rolling all over the place, fab fab fab.  The other two boxes are just to again organise my beads, I have one which is for acrylics that i use for the cheaper children's jewellery, stuff that parents don't mind if they lose as costs pennies, the other box just has all the different shell and seed type beads that I have, again just keeps everything together.

It wasn't this tidy yesterday and took many hours of organising today so that I wasn't ashamed to show you the bits I use and the things I just couldn't be without.  So so worth doing and I am very pleased. 

I also managed to squeeze in the finishing touches to a painting that's been sitting undone since before Christmas.  Its only a small oil painting but as oil take so long to dry and take many many hours, days, months to complete I am very chuffed with the outcome, looks very simple as a photo but the texture on it is lovely.

Well that's me for today's instalment, maybe heading out to see my wee mum tonight and just have the night off from crafting.  However, I also received the Hunkydory compendium about and hour ago so I'm saying I wont be crafting but the likelihood is that I will knock some cards up later ;)

Happy crafting everyone xx