Friday September 17th, 2010

Greetings oh loyal and humble diary tidings, I sincerely hope you can forgive my incessant absence. For I can bring no fanciful or elaborate excuses all I can say is that I have been stupendously busy and by that I mean real busy.

The reason? Wait for it…drum roll please… I am due to have a stall at the University of Bradford Christmas Market on November 24th selling only my personal handmade creations. Well, my mum is actually having it on my behalf (that’s where she works you see) I live a good few hundred miles away from there so I’m going to be posting my goods up there for her to sell. The weird thing was that it was all her idea, I guess the fact that she herself is prepared to sacrifice one whole day of her English life to sell my crafts is one true compliment and I can honestly say that is without doubt the best one I’ve received so far.

Now that is officially confirmed I am now in a serious predicament for I need to make things – enough to suffice a market stall before mid-November, quite daunting circumstances to find oneself in, especially as I still consider myself to be a mere novice. Personally I would have waited till next years but then again it’s all about challenge and motivation, my mum must see something in my pieces to do this for me, with my current profits exceeding £150 so far it could to be a success and that would be far more rewarding.

It would be quite fair to say that I possess a somewhat vivid and colourful imagination hence inspiration isn’t so much a problem but as they say ‘every little helps’. I’ve been scouring my backlog of bead magazines, books I’ve rented from the library even flicking through the Argos. Now with a bunch of ideas chilling out in my head I now have to work out how I can pull them off economically whilst maintaining the best possible quality. Hmm, I compiled a shopping list of some essentials; jump rings (various sizes), bead caps, head pins, bracelet blanks, charms of various descriptions (charm bracelets have become an inadvertent speciality) and lastly some satin acrylic beads. Alright so the latter can’t really be considered an ‘essential’ more of a luxury. These past few weeks has seen me develop a fondness for these beads, they have so much potential and are perfect if you want to achieve a vintage/Victorian look. I must get some, especially as I’ve just discovered an eBay shop that sells them in bulk at very reasonable prices so I’ve got no excuses have I?