New Folksy Banner - That's Better!

You know when you look at your shop frontpage and think there's something missing? Well my Folksy shop has been looking, well, a bit colourless recently. My item photos are quite colourful but my banner was a bit dull and needed some work.
I remembered a pair of "traffic light" earrings I photographed last week made with colourful czech glass beads I bought from Lima Beads. I've been after the gorgeous pistachio green colour for a while and did see some on Etsy but thought I'd check at Lima Beads and they had the exact colour plus some lovely mustard yellow and an orangy-red in the czech glass so I bought them straight away!
I loved the three colours together so made a pair of earrings with some copper discs and used one of the photos to whip up a new banner. Much more colourful!

I took a lot of photos last week because we had sunshine in the UK - yes summer made a brief appearance again and now I just have to edit them all!

Coloured Copper Headpins

A new variation on my copper ball headpins - coloured balls! The headpins are made with a torch, pickled, trimmed, oxidised and cleaned up, tumbled and then the fun begins. I painted the ball ends with different coloured patina inks and sealed with a coat of varnish

 Multicoloured - like mini balloons on sticks!

I found a sponge pan scrubber very useful for sticking the headpins into to let them dry. I think they're really sweet and a great way to add a bit of colour. You could twirl them to make dangling tendrils or make a wrapped loop at the top to make little dangles or just use them as good old headpins!

Available in turquoise, green, lilac, pink and mixed colours and currently being added to my Folksy and Etsy shops

 .................now i just need to make some for myself :D

Mini Envelopes - The Wonderful World Of Papercraft

Since buying a Sizzix Bigshot recently for embossing metal I've suddenly discovered the world of dies. Dies are wonderful things you can use with your Bigshot, Cuttlebug, etc to cut out all sorts of lovely things including envelope templates. I also discovered the world of scrapbook paper. I love patterned paper and most things stationery. I used to love going into WH Smiths each year to buy my new pencil case, pens, rubbers and pencils for the start of the new school year (that was quite a long time ago!) and I still like buying stationery stuff even if I don't really need it!

I thought I'd use my Bigshot to make some mini envelopes so after trawling the internet for a suitable die and picking up a scrapbooking pad from The Range I ventured into papercraft. I've got to say it was a nice change from metal and beads and really therapeutic to do. The folding and glueing is my favourite part and I loved seeing these cute little envelopes take shape.

It then struck me that maybe I wasn't allowed to make stuff to sell from the scrapbook paper I'd used. I know a lot of companies have an angel policy but I couldn't find one for Grant Studios who created the artwork for the paper so a quick email to them and a very quick reply (on a Sunday from Australia!) and they were fine for me to sell anything I made with their paper. The issue they have is if someone claims the artwork as their own or reproduces it to sell. I also checked with the company who make My Mind's Eye scrapbook paper and they were fine about it too. So I felt slightly relieved to know I was ok to carry on.

I've just started listing the mini envelopes in my Folksy shop and I'm going to add them to my eBay shop in a couple of weeks too. I have no idea if they will sell but I like making them so hopefully they will then I can make some more!
The envelopes measure just under 3.25 inches x 2.25 inches with a pretty scalloped edge and they are just so darned cute!

I tried Fotofuze as I'd used a white background for the photos and I was really impressed with the results..........until I noticed how some of the colours had changed and no amount of editing could sort them out. Then I noticed the photos weren't as clear. Fotofuze reduces the image size (to half in my case) and that caused them to be pixelated when I used the zoom while I was trying to edit the colours. So after spending an afternoon playing around with them I went back to normal editing - they don't have the same blinding white surrounding them but at least the colours are true!