Tuesday 24 February 2015

A day of craft fair prep

In case you didn't know I will be attending a craft fair both Saturday and Sunday this weekend at Staffordshire Wildlife Trust Wolseley Bridge, Stafford and today was possibly my last full day this week that I could devote to getting organised - so this morning I mounted about 40 more photos onto greetings cards, this afternoon I packed them away, I also sorted out a few bits an bobs to sell such as headpins, ear hooks and spare beads and packed and priced them as I thought it might be worth me trying to sell some - I also found time to make three more pairs of earrings as I do not have many Murano glass bead earrings left on my display.
These will help fill the gaps





Murano glass deserve sterling silver ear hooks

So that just leaves a bit of pricing up to do and packing hopefully on Friday

handmade jewellery by Angela Smith

Monday 23 February 2015

Red Venetian Glass Necklaces

These winter days when the sun shines are lovely aren't they? well yes when you are inside and the heating is on, not so great when working by large old single glazed sash windows and a bitter wind is finding every gap to blow through - and then I have to brave that same wind outside, crouching over my new makes with a large camera swinging about my neck and hair being blown across my face trying to position my jewellery just so, when along comes an extra large gust of wind and I have to start all over again! my fingers are just about coming back to life again - the sun might be incredibly bright today but I have to say that I am really looking forward to a bit of warmth from it!!!
Anyway here are my new makes for this weeks 'Mondays Makes'
A couple of dark red Venetian glass necklaces - I think that completes my necklace range to take along to the craft fair this weekend at the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust , I still have to stock up with some more earrings but I am getting there.



handmade jewellery by Angela Smith

Wednesday 18 February 2015

New glass leaf bead necklaces

Isn't it amazing how a couple of days of sunshine can give you such a lift - I walked into my workroom today excited about some new glass leaf beads that arrived  recently and I started having a play - these are what I have come up with so far. I like them all - but I do have a favourite!! All three of these necklaces will be coming with me to the Staffordshire Wildlife Trust craft fair at the end of this month




handmade jewellery by Angela Smith 

Tuesday 17 February 2015

New Swarovski crystal earrings added to my shop

'Serenity'  Swarovski crystal  earrings  - made with grey faceted cubes and either coloured Swarovski crystals or Swarovski crystal pearls,  now available to but from my earring shop 








each pair hang from sterling silver ear hooks and measure approx 4 1/2 cm

handmade jewellery by Angela Smith 

Saturday 7 February 2015

sbs event and #sbswinnershour

So the sbs story continues - Friday 30th January was a date with a huge build up on twitter among the sbs winners fraternity and it did not disappoint! this was my third sbs event and if anything I was even more excited about this one than the others - #sbs  or Small Business Sunday was created by Theo Paphitis on twitter - every week he chooses 6 business tweets to Re tweet to his now 463,000 followers. If you are one of the lucky 6 you then join the sbs community and enjoy all the benefits that entails including a page on the sbs website and an invitation to attend these sbs events hosted by Ryman. To find out more about #sbs please visit the website
This year I travelled down to Birmingham with a fellow member of Gallery at 12 - Jo Hill , Jo attended as the representative of the gallery which won an sbs RT on the 1st October 2011, and I won my RT on 26th February 2012 - you can view my profile on the sbs website too.
I had also arranged to meet another Staffordshire winner, Michelle Jones of Rosebud by Design,  as Michelle was attending by herself and it was her first event.
So the three of us climbed the stairs together.
The first thing we needed to do was to collect our name badge - again this year these had our company names not our twitter names - I came prepared with my own badge with my twitter name @pearlysmith on, which I made prior to the event.

Then we entered into the hall and headed straight for the refreshments - and a cup of earl grey - of course by then we had already met several winners and entered into conversations with many people!


We had an hour or so of Networking to start off with while others were meeting the buyers - those sbs winners who chose to could register to meet Ryman, Robert Dyas and/or Red Letter Days to pitch their business to them
I had a few people I really wanted to meet up with, some to discuss potential business collaborations with and others just because we had been tweeting on #sbswinnershour over the last year or so, and wanted to put faces to names and catch up in person - more of #sbswinnershour later.
here are just a couple

Felicity Brown of @HoeGrange +Hoe Grange Holidays 

Graydon of @shrewsmorris
I also found a couple of CEO's to chat with such as Kypros Kyprianou CEO of Ryman who I occasionally tweet with and he then introduced me to Bill Alexander CEO of Red Letter Days, When I told Bill Alexander how many tweets I have posted he was keen to take my card just to see how someone could tweet that many times - 96,000 or so!  we then exchanged  our business cards - I then explained that #sbswinnershour tweets contributed the vast majority of those tweets - more about #sbswinnershour later

After the mornings networking there then followed a presentation by Theo Paphitis - this was introduced by Kypros Kyprianou

Kypros Kyprianou

- he then introduced the CEO of sponsors DHL, ilaw and Red Letter Days ( My mate Bill!)

Bill Alexander  Red Letter Days


Then Theo Paphitis took to the stage



 and after talking about what would be happening later during the day he then introduced Chris Wheeler of Metal Frog who has designed the website,



 Theo and Chris then introduced the new look sbs website - this was all looking very exciting to me but little did I know what was about to happen!!! Chris gave us a tour of the website and arrived at the Stats page.
The stats page has two parts the first is about number of tweets, top tweeters etc using #sbs each week - and the second is similar for #sbswinnershour - oh my giddy aunts!!! sbswinnershour has been recognised as part of sbs and has its own page on the sbs website! to say I was thrilled was a slight understatement - this is because back in July 2013 I posted a discussion on the sbs page on linkedin which asked the question  'You know how on twitter we have county and interest hours on specific days and at a set time, do you think we should have an sbs hour to promote each others business - or do you think that may be we have too many of those hours going on as it is?'  
Well that was the start of #sbswinnershour on Tuesday July 30th I launched #sbswinnershour and it was an instant success, in fact we trended on twitter for several weeks - I continued hosting it for four or five months although I am sure that most participants hadn't even realised that I was hosting - I then decided it would be much better if all the winners had a chance to host it, so I then started asking for volunteers - we currently have hosts planned for the next 2 months or so!
But that wasn't the end of it, When Theo and Chris were introducing the stats page for sbswinnershour Theo was prompted by a lovely winner at the front of the hall to mention me in in person - which he duly did and invited me to stand up - I was at the back of the hall,


 so I stood up and gave everyone a wave, then sat down again, Theo continued talking about #sbswinnershour but I don't really remember much more about that session, I received a tap on the shoulder and turned round to see the official photographer there asking me to stand up for a photo,

still in shock! 
not the greatest photo of me so just concentrate on the jewellery instead - which I crocheted with wire and beads

 the rest is something of a blur! I have to say I am very grateful to Theo Paphitis for giving me the recognition for #sbswinnershour although before the event I was quite happy with the anonymity!!!!
Then thankfully came lunch - a time to calm down and to catch up with more winners - so many people to say hello to and meet face to face after so many months of tweeting! Also we had the opportunity to get a Staffordshire winners photo at the sbs event banner for potential press releases later
from right to left - Jo Hill of @Galleryat12, Me @pearlysmith , Michelle Jones of @Rosebudbydesign   +Rosebud by Design  Umesh Samani of @Specialistscars1

After lunch there was a question and answer session with Theo and a panel of inspirational and successful  businesses  -

the panel comprised of Judy Naake who brought St Tropez to UK



 Judy reckoned that half the women in the room would have used St Tropez, I have to say I was in the half who hadn't - I hadn't even heard of it but worked out fairly soon what it was all about, the point was though that she had seen the potential of something she believed in and worked out a way to successfully market it - so much so that she sold it for £70million

Julienne Callede co founder of Made.com a young Frenchman who has made a successful business in the UK based on the idea of cutting out the middleman connecting directly with the designers - which I guess is what we in Gallery at 12 are offering on a much smaller scale - because we aren't selling our work through galleries that charge large commissions, we are able to keep our prices realistic! .... and yes there seemed to be a fair bit of swooning going on!



Rob Forkan - founder of Gandy's flipflops - a totally inspirational business that set up following his family tragedy in the 2004 tsunami - now 10% of all profit going to fund an orphan programme.



There were several interesting questions asked during the session and some winners pitched their businesses at the same time requesting mentoring, or business opportunities - most of these requests ended positively.

After the Q&A all new winners or first timers to the event had their photo taken with Theo Paphitis.
I patrolled the queueing winners trying to pick out more winners I hoped to network with, so difficult picking people out - We all spent a lot of time peering at peoples chests trying to read name badges and work out who they were
A long term twitter friend Joyce Connor - as lovely as I had imagined

Joyce Connor @BridesandBeauty

  and here is Michelle having her photo with Theo Paphitis


The end of a very very exciting and eventful and inspiring day - thank you Theo Paphitis and Ryman for yet another fabulous day



Wednesday 4 February 2015

'Jasmine' a real treat for your hair

With a wedding fair looming I have been busy making - this is just a quick taster of one of the hair accessory ranges I have been working on, these can be made with a choice of centre bead but I have opted to go with a clear Swarovski crystal as the example  -

large flower beads with Swarovski crystal centre beads


hair comb £22
hair pins £8 each  3 or more £7.50 each

please contact me  for colour options or to order - thank you 

handmade  by Angela Smith 

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Blues day Tuesday

January is now behind us and I now have to focus on February and beyond. Today the sun shone pretty much all day which helped! My workroom faces North and has single glazed sash windows, lovely in the summer when I have them open but when the winter winds blows I really know about it - and today it was blowing- I am now sat in the living room with a heated cushion over my shoulders writing this, having spent most of the day in my work room. I have just sent off an application form for a wedding fair, I haven't attended a wedding fair for a couple of years so I thought it was about time I attended one again, once I have my place confirmed I will add the fair to my events list on the right hand column of this blog, so watch this space, I am also looking forward to a craft fair at Staffordshire Wildlife Trust at the end of the month so today I  made this sapphire blue glass necklace and earring set which will be going to the craft fair with me, unless I sell it beforehand! The rest of today's makes will have to wait for another time, I am hoping for more good light tomorrow.





Sapphire blue faceted glass beads with Swarovski crystals and clear glass beads. The necklace measures 18 inches and has a silver plate clasp, the earrings are on silver plate ear hooks but can be changed to silver plate ear clips or posts if preferred - or sterling silver ear hooks.

necklace £24 
earrings silver plate £10
 earrings sterling silver £12


handmade jewellery by Angela Smith 

Monday 2 February 2015

'Candice' - Pink and grey glass bead jewellery

This week's 'Monday's make' is this striking jewellery in soft swirls of grey with pink glass pearls
The necklace measures 16 inches - 18 inches , the bracelet measures 7 inches - 9 inches both have silver plate clasps. the earrings measure 1 1/2 inches and hang from silver plate ear hooks with the option of silver plate ear clips or posts or sterling silver ear hooks.

'Candice'


handmade jewellery by Angela Smith