Christmas Opening Times and Last Posting Dates

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Christmas is just around the corner! We have been getting busy with orders and making presents that we almost forgot our last posting dates post!  So here goes:

UK:
Economy (2nd Class /Royal Mail 48):  Tuesday 19th December
1st Class (Royal Mail 24):  Wednesday 20th December
Resin Orders (Specialist Courier):  Wednesday 20th December
Priority (Next Day Delivery): Thursday 21st December

Europe & further afield:
Dates vary - please consult this Royal Mail poster for specific information relating to your country. Please remember we need one day to turn orders around, so please place all orders the day before Royal Mail's last posting date.

If you are in the UK and in a pickle after the last order days above but need something urgently delivered before Christmas, please give us a call - we may be able to send orders with a Saturday Guarantee if we receive them early enough on the Friday.  We are in the shop 10-4 during the week or leave us a message and we will contact you as soon as we can.

After this rush we will be taking a few days off to recover. We will be closing from the afternoon of Saturday 23rd through to 2nd January, returning to work on Wednesday 3rd.  Orders may be placed during this time and we will start to send them on our return, on a first come, first served basis.

We would like to thank all our wonderful customers online and at the shop for another great year, and here's to a peaceful and creative 2018!

xx

Changes are Afoot - New Shop Hours!

We are very excited to have listed the first of our new workshops! We have started with only a couple of events for now, but we have plenty more in the planning.  We will be starting with beginners jewellery making classes, where you can learn how to design and assemble beaded jewellery, so initially we will stick to the basics, let's not jump ahead.

One class that we are particularly fond of is the family class - where adults and children can all join in and learn how to make a few simple pieces of jewellery. I have myself really struggled to find something creative that both my daughter and I could do together. I don't want to always wait for her to finish having fun, I want to join in the fun too!  Yes, I do wish more providers would offer more options for mixed age options.

Admittedly our workshops had been on the pipeline for quite some time already and, honestly? the technology has defeated us, so we will list just a few workshops initially on our current website whilst we work on a brand new website to host all bookings and details about the classes we can offer.

To pave the way for the upcoming workshops we will be changing our opening hours at the shop - from 1st October the shop will open as follows:

             Tuesday - Friday     10am - 4pm
             Saturday                10:30am - 6pm
             Sunday - Monday    closed (but we continue to ship website orders on Monday)

This will allow us to plan more workshops and parties in the afternoon and evening, whilst we also work on our websites. We will be listing online lots of the items that are currently only in the shop. So if you are a local customer you will soon be able to pick your items from the comfort of your own home, and pick up your order from the shop at a time to suit you.  If you are a website customer you will notice that the range of items we sell will increase.

At the point that all the website changes are ready, we hope then to offer lots more variety in our workshops:  resin, polymer clay, silversmithing, silver clay, glass, pearl knotting... plus themed classes in other crafts too! who's up for a Pinterest party?  Are you and your family fans of a particular book series perhaps?

You'll just have to wait and see.
x

Holiday Timetable for w/c 28 August

Kindly note our holiday timetable from 28th August until 5th September:

Tuesday 29th........................................12pm - 4pm

Wednesday 30th....................................12pm - 4pm

Thursday 31st.......................................12pm - 4pm

Friday 1st.............................................Closed for holidays

Saturday 2nd.........................................Closed for holidays

Sunday 3rd............................................Closed

Monday 4th...........................................Closed

Tuesday 5th...........................................Closed for holidays

Wednesday 6th......................................Back to normal!

Bank Holiday Freepost!

A lovely freepost offer for all our UK customers!  Spend more than £10 on any items in the shop and receive free economy postage within the UK.  Simply use code BANKHOLIDAY at checkout.

Valid until 29 August 2017.

Resin Love

If you know us at all, you will know that we love resin – it’s such a satisfying medium to work with.  Not only does it give your work dimension and perspective, but it can carry off any colour to match the style of your makes. 

Our resin of choice is manufactured by RF Bright – a family owned business based in Kent who make, in our opinion, the nicest resin we have ever tried (and trust us when we say in our line of work we have tried more than a few brands!).  If you thought that making jewellery with resin might be too tricky or fraught with issues, think again.  There are several varieties of resin in this range and all are equally lovely in their ease of use and they all have a great finish.  

In the past few weeks we have been making some samples to show at our upcoming workshops, what do you think?

And here are some awesome samples we have been sent by the manufacturers.  We love these!

Gorgeous, wouldn't you agree?  If you are feeling inspired and want to have a go, just send us a quick email with all your resin questions or to find out when we will start our resin workshops.  You can find our full range of resin here, and look out for some resin tutorials coming soon to the blog.

When All Thoughts Turn To Holidays...

Last week we were lucky to have with us two brilliant Year 10 students undertaking work experience with us. Tabby already works with us on Saturdays and she opted to also spend her work experience week at the shop. Amber had not been with us before but after the first ten minutes it felt like a team that had been together since the start!

The girls were tasked with making a piece of jewellery symbolic of their holidays, and here is it - a beautiful memory bracelet:

Below they explain the process:

Holiday Charm Bracelet

This bracelet is about capturing precious memories from your holiday whether they’re from a week ago or three years ago in the summer sun –and you would like to remember the colours of the shimmering waves, or the crabs scuttling along the shore- or a trip abroad to Italy or France where you ate foreign delicacies while feasting your eyes upon iconic land marks -now is your chance to combine these memories and make a beautiful charm bracelet.

We decided to do a seaside holiday charm bracelet. My bracelet has pearls, swirling sea shells, a bottle of sea, a tiny picture of a boat on the sea and a few hand-moulded polymer clay treasures.

To start this easy, quick and fun project you will need to get 4 beads that are sea/beach inspired, shells, pearls, turquoise turtles/fishes are perfect for this sweet accessory. Make bead charms with them by using headpins.

Then get polymer clay in pink or orange to make a sweet little starfish charm. You can make your starfish by making a ball first from polymer clay, then pinching 5 sides to make the star shape. To add detail to your starfish get a toothpick and make small holes on the top and a star on the bottom, then put in oven at 125 degrees for 20 minutes- you must preheat the oven for at least 20 minutes before so the oven is hot.

To make the ‘beach bottle’ get sand and very small shells (possibly from your holiday) however if you cannot get these materials you can use glitter and seed beads.

Another polymer clay charm you can make is a shell. Make a ball with yellow polymer clay and push it down a bit so it’s the shape of a burger. Make it into a v-shape and at the top of this V make indents that follow to lines. Make these details with a tool if you have one, if not just use a toothpick. Cover your polymer clay shell charm in mica powder to give it a golden magical shine, to bake it do the same instructions from before with the starfish.

The last two charms for your bracelet are glass tiles with photos behind in small metal trays. First get 2 10mm glass cabochons and cut out a photo from your holiday or draw a memory from your holiday the same size as the glass cabochon, then seal with ModPodge. After it dries use silicon adhesive to stick the image to the glass, only use a drop but enough so that it spreads around the whole cabochon. 

After that dries stick the cabochon to the tray with ModPodge, and wait 24 hours.

After all the charms are ready, dry and baked, you can assemble them. First cut a large link chain to the length of your wrist, use two jump rings one on one side, and one on the other with a clasp. Put jump rings on all of the charms and attach them to the chain. Put the charm bracelet on and feel like you’re in the sun on holiday again!

Have a lovely summer!
from Tabby & Amber x