meet me at the camden lock market next friday

please remember the date 5th july

it is next friday

and if you are in the camden town area you may find me together with we make london designers showing and selling our creations, i am bringing some of my new jewellery that has never been seen yet so be sure to check it out 🙂

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and my newest necklace in my shop is now available online as well 🙂

new triangular scarves

I started making another scarf with triangular motifs and the first one isn’t really finished yet,

but this is me being over excited with the colors play 🙂

whilst i think i know how the completed scarf will look at the beginning of the project

things come out differently sometimes and i need to look for a change in the plan

well this time i think i might need to add something on each end of the scarf to make it more special

if you have any ideas you would like to share, please do

i would love to hear them 🙂

thank you for visiting me 🙂

please spare a moment a vote for my design

ok readers and crocheters

another request from me – but this time is only a moment of your precious life

can you spare it?

if yes – follow this link and vote for my design to be chosen for shopbevel produce and to be sold by them

thank you very much for all your help

http://www.shopbevel.com/vote/ivory-lace-and-linen/2330-delicate-lacy-earrings/

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delicate crochet lace earrings, designed by me, made by my hand, stained with tea extract

beautiful and elegant

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and please share it with you friends and fans – this really helps

xxx

my creative space

how are your creative juices working? for me deadlines at the moment

but usually i can never sit sit down doing “nothing” or just watching tv or just sitting in the park

i need to have something in my hands to make because otherwise my brain is attacked by millions of new ideas that i will never be able to do

so making the little crochet mouse for a customer last week made me make more – here they are

bank holiday monday out

some crazy time spent at the park

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and two moths i had to wake up when tidying the garden… sorry folks

my shrug is in the magazine

i so missed you and the real blogging thing

i can’t say much what is going on right now because it is all happening so fast

changing form day to day you would get bored if i shared that all ;D

but as i have some really exciting news to share (that should be blogged long time ago)

here it is all:

i have been asked if i don’t mind to appear in the wedding feature in the inside crochet magazine (of course i don’t mind, i would looooooove to 😀 ) i agreed and the magazine is out and i am sharing yesterday news, but still exciting to me…

and that is not all from my very exciting news to share with my best blogging friends and other readers

after meeting lovely Judith from Fringe gallery in london i now can say that you can buy my jewellery there and if you are anywhere near alexandra park road you have to go and visit this gallery, it is probably the nicest place to be, to buy beautiful yarns, fine cotton threads, vintage threads, buttons, trimmings, probably everything you need to keep your textile hobby going and definitely best place to be inspired by textile artists producing textile artwork and jewellery in such a unique way… and if that was not enough – you can also find variety of workshops that can help you learn some new craft techniques

and here you have the photo of the delicate crochet lace earrings in progress – same that can be found at the Fringe gallery

simple ways to grow, review 2

finally i got a moment to finalize my mailing marketing

(the weather is really too nice to be at home, but i already had my coffee and breakfast

in the garden, so a little bit of work is not gonna harm me 🙂 )

my 50 addresses from the data supplied by simple ways to grow is ready

just needed to do the artwork for a mail, you get to choose from a4 letter, greeting card and postcard

and i have chosen postcard as this seems the most appropriate way to let someone know about an exhibition

simple ways to grow uses docmail for direct mailing

it all looked so scary to me as i like easy interface of website and user friendly applications that don’t use

too complicated words, but you get a lot of instructions that you can find on the website here

and also in the welcoming email you receive pdf with nice explanation of all your steps,

to be honest i still wasn’t convinced to read that

just had a look and went straight to the website and clicked “create my mailing”

after choosing the product type (postcard for me)

choosing the friendly name that you can save all your data under,

choosing delivery type and time,

you can download your own artwork (scary to me, i wouldn’t be able to do that

i like computers and photography, but creating artworks is something extra)

or just go straight to “design your own postcard” and this is what i was looking for,

easy, step by step instructions, everything works just as i like

downloading the photo for one side of your postcard, on the other side writing the message, save, view and download the proof ,

you can also download the template as word and add some text to your photo if you want

(but later you have to download the edited template again)

and off we go to the pay for the service button

and we are done

what i just found out is that you can use that service as pay as you go

so no contracts – i will probably use it again

(you can upload your addresses from your customer base and one full colored letter, with envelope, printing and shipping costs only £0.43 plus vat, not bad ha? i also think it is slightly cheaper if you top up your account before – because they charge £0.35 for credit/debit card processing)

easy peasy

and this is my artwork

Postcard_A5_right_address-1

jewellery showcase

hi all

i hope you are as happy and enthusiastic as me,

because i just left my jewellery at Norden Farm Centre for The Arts in the cabinet to be there until almost end of june

this is great feeling and if more people can see what i am making

i will be much happier

(not that i am not happy, but you get it, don’t you)

🙂

and some progress of my latest makes

i hope you all have amazing weekend

like we here enjoying the spring that has finally sprang and really nice long weekend

XXX

simple ways to grow, review 1

i am trying out the new service offered by Royal Mail

and i hope you find my notes useful, i have been thinking of letting some local people know about my existence

and as i am just getting my jewellery ready for the exhibition in Norden Farm Arts Centre that starts on Monday

and will last almost till the end of June 🙂 i thought that this will be the perfect opportunity to do it.

if you go to Simple Ways To Grow website here

you can find really useful advice and tips to not only grow your business, but how things like marketing work,

why do you need social networking and some more…

I needed some direct mail to be sent out and before i thought that this is too complicated and too expensive

for my pocket to try, but actually with £54 a month (or one of payment) you can do a lot

on the website it says that the starter marketing (direct post and e-mail marketing) is £45 but the information is misleading

as this is the cost without VAT (and i am one of those small businesses that did not sign up for VAT – so for me the cost of the service is £54)

if you know that you only need direct mail or only e-mail marketing it is £59 without VAT

i have signed up and even the payment process takes a little longer than i am used to

this definitely felt more secure and trustworthy too

they use World Pay to process your payment and i know from experience that it works fine

after the payment i got the confirmation and note that within few working hours i get the welcome letter from the service and all the info i need to start using it

i got my welcome emails very quickly

my next move is choosing the list of potential customers, i was rather prepared to this and i sort of knew who i would like to add, what people i would like to invite to my exhibition, but the steps are quite easy and you can play with it for as long as you want – even if you by mistake click to save your list the software will ask if you are sure that this is the list you are ordering, so if not you can amend it and search again, i would suggest reading more tips before choosing your target list here

my list is ready to go, but i am still to read the instructions on how to start preparing my invite

🙂

to be continued…

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and for you to look at

the photo of my latest work in progress:

crochet shawl

i thought i’d share the project i have started last night

new crochet shawl, perfect for milder cold, like spring, fall or cooler summer days

i am just finishing (still!) two puffs that i have started long time ago

but the cotton yarn i chose is quite heavy so i stop after couple of rows each time

and make something else instead…

anyway i had this beautiful cotton wool blend yarn n the drawer for ages

and decided to start a shawl made out of motifs

motifs are joined as i go to save myself sewing (sewing equals extra work to me so i try to avoid it whenever possible)

also i would like to interest you in new royal mail service that i am to try

and it designed to help smaller businesses grow

it is called simple ways to grow

it seems really easy to use so far, it also seems to me that it is quite affordable

and you pay monthly, but you can actually cancel at any time

so to make it more exciting i am gonna use it to invite people to see my jewellery being exhibited at norden farm arts centre

but about all of this soon 🙂

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have a look at this beautiful photo taken by me yesterday

when walking to maidenhead to work my shift at the craft coop shop

so dreamy…

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and of course my campaign:

who would like to help me to get noticed

it doesn’t have to be big, you can send as little as a £1 or $1 and as much as you like