Have you missed me?

Well, all I can say is I am sorry for neglecting you! It turns out that it is a lot harder than I thought to have a full-time job, job hunt, flat hunt, wedding plan, run a business, write a blog, AND have any kind of social life! Which is why the blog has suffered so severely these past months. The good news is that I am no longer job hunting (yay!) and have started my lovely new job in this fantastic building:

Impressive, huh? I think so. So now I can substitute job hunting with blog writing, and hopefully soon I can swap flat hunting for actually making jewellery again! How I have missed my beads and pliers! It really has been too long.

I have also been naughty and watched far too much TV recently! I am totally addicted to Homeland, we are deep into series 3 of The Wire, and we're working our way through the Game of Thrones too! So not much time for reading or beading... having said that I have just discovered a fantastic author called John Green who writes "Young Adult" fiction, and have sped though two of his books, "A Fault in Our Stars" and "Paper Towns"; both excellent! I thoroughly recommend.

Anyway, since starting this blog up, so much has changed that I have decided to take a slight change of direction... I have decided not just to focus on my jewellery making and crafting as planned, but to also talk about life in general (sorry!) and... WEDDING PLANNING! It seems to have taken over my life recently, and as I am sure that others will be going through the same stresses as me, I thought it might be a good idea to document it here. I won't be focussing solely on weddings, but it's bound to crop up a bit between now and next July.  I am planning on including a lot of DIY in our wedding, so pictures and instructions of all my mini projects will be posted on here, plus details of research I've done and places I have looked at.  hopefully it will be useful to anyone who is yet to plan their big day, and maybe interesting to those already have, or those who don't intend to!

Our wedding is going to be beautiful and cheap. i use the word cheap loosely, as I am talking in comparison to *most*. I have absolutely no problem with people spending a fortune on their wedding if they want to, but it really seems that we aren't given much choice! I am aiming to spend as little as possible! I have been told you cannot do it for less than £8000. I am determined that I can. I am less convinced that it is possible to be done "on the cheap" now than I was three months ago before I had done any research, but it can be done for under £6000, and I would like to do it for £5000. Now, some if you may be thinking that isn't cheap (like me!) but after much grumbling and googling and emailing etc, I have come to terms with the fact that if I want  to invite everyone on my list (around 120 in total) and I want it to be somewhere vaguely pretty, and I want to feed people, then this is how much I have to spend. But this is DIRT cheap compared to some weddings, so I will be very pleased with myself if I reach my goal. And I will be happy to share my tips for any other thrifty folk out there :-)

So, this is my comeback post. Keep an eye out for whatever happens to come next, be it jewellery blogging, wedding planning, TV talk or book chat...

Oh and in the meantime take a look at Pinterest, yet another guilty pleasure I have become addicted to (apologies for the excessive number of wedding related pictures recently). Sneak preview:

Laura x

Distracted by beads!

Well, I have been working hard at finishing my dissertation (not much time to go now) but somehow I got distracted and started looking for new beads. In the past two weeks, I have made orders from two sites.

Firstly, I was drawn in by some of my favourite resin flowers on Smitten Beads website. And of course ended up buying a lot more than just resin flowers! I'm really looking forward to making some new items with my new beads. Anyway, this wasn't quite enough to satisfy my bead buying cravings, so I ventured onto a site which I've only bought from once before, but I remember being very excited to receive my package from them as it was so neatly wrapped in lovely paper with a bow and a little "thank you" tag, plus a free bead! So I had good memories of this shopping experience on Big Bead Little Bead's site, and put in another order. After my computer crashing mid-order, I had an email conversation with Anna from Big Bead Little Bead, who was very friendly and helpful, and she put my order through super quickly, which I received the next day! I anticipated a another beautifully presented package... and I wasn't let down... this time my beads were wrapped up in green wrapping paper with a lovely tie and another free bead :-) How lovely! Here's a picture of my bead parcel:

And the beads inside were just as lovely. I ordered some gorgeous paper beads and lots of other random bits which I'm itching to get my hands on and starting making. But not until the 3rd May!! I must resist! Here's what's awaiting me when I'm finally allowed back to my bead board. I'm especially excited about the polka dot beads on the bottom left as last time I only bought 2 of these which I made a pair of earrings from, and I couldn't part with them so I kept them for myself!

Well, other than being very naughty and buying lots of beads, I did also make a button necklace this weekend (shh!) and here's the result. I'm quite pleased with it as I often struggle to make things non-symmetrical. What do you think?

This, and all my other items, can be seen and bought on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rococo-Creations/305903832784431

I'll be back soon with more creations and maybe a competition to celebrate the end of my dissertation! xx

Three weeks until I'm back!

Gosh, it's a long time since I last posted. That must mean I have been working hard at my dissertation! I hope everyone had a great Easter. My Easter was combined with birthday celebrations and was lots of fun. I got to play my favourite game (Jungle Speed, a fun French game, a bit like Snap but more exciting and a LOT more competitive!) three times in one week, and I won at Cluedo. I ate lots of cake and caught up with some great friends, as well as making some new ones.

I'm very excited that in three weeks I will have finished my dissertation, and my studying, and I will be able to blog and design and take photos of my items, and share it all with you! How fab.  So, I will say you all in May, when hopefully I'll have lots of new jewellery ideas, and my lovely new look will be almost ready, courtesy of Artwork By Angie who is doing my re-branding. I have posted a few new photos on my facebook page if you want to have a look.  This is my latest bracelet, what do you think?

See you all then!

Laura

Happy Valentines Day

Hello world! Happy Valentine's Day to you all. I was awoken this morning by man lovely man with a cup of tea, a pain au chocolat, and a glass of orange juice :-) How sweet. I am cooking duck with plum sauce tonight and a hot melt in the middle chocolate dessert. Yummy.

Here's a sneaky peek at the fab card I got for Tom, my other half. It was bought from Iconic Designs and is completely handmade, I'm so pleased with it:

I'm lucky enough to have the day off work today as it's half term, so I will hopefully be able to take some photos of my work if the sun comes out. I have just officially put myself on the waiting list for my page to be rebranded by the fantasticArtwork By Angie. I will have to wait a little while but I'm completely convinced it will be worth it as her previous work is just gorgeous! Check out her page if you get a minute, and also her giveaway!

Well, I've got a busy day ahead of me so I had best make a start!

Gosh, what a drama!

Sorry it has been a while since I last posted. Things have been... interesting! Other than being ill, my partner's little brother being hospitalised, two birthdays, and other general happenings, I have had a major setback in my business re-branding! I am completely gutted that the logo (and banner and business cards) that I had designed and that I was SO pleased with, are in fact illegal to use! It turns out that the designer had stolen images from a stock image site and used these to sell on to others as logos. I am not allowed to use my logo, even if i purchase the image from the original site.  So it's back to the drawing board for me!! I'm sad that I have to start again, and annoyed that I have paid money and trusted someone who has been lying to people. But I am worried for those who had got further than me and paid a lot of money to have their logos printed onto merchandise etc. Luckily I had only printed some business cards on my home computer and had not yet invested in the 500 proffesionally printed cards I was planning on.  It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth!  I hope all those affected by this manage to get compensation! On that note, I am going to end this post as I will probably just have a long rant otherwise :)

My next post will be much more cheerful and positive I'm sure! And I won;t leave it so long either...

Posting to America!

I have had my first international order today, and am excited to be sending some earrings out to a customer in America. These lovely vintage-inspired earrings will be packaged up and sent on their way:

Plus, I have just had my new business cards designed so will be getting those printed soon, and my website is well on it's way. Woo!  Here's a sneaky peek of my business card:

I'm going "home" this weekend to Leicestershire as my partner's younger brother is in hospital :( We're going to visit him and hopefully cheer him up a bit!  It means no jewellery making for three days though!! How will I cope?! Well, nothing much else to report at the moment, everything else is ticking along nicely. Have a fab weekend all. Pop over to my Facebook page to see my work... http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rococo-Creations/305903832784431

Valentines

Well, I have been a busy bee! The new website is actually looking less like an unlikely dream and more like a realistic possibility, after a wonderful friend has offered his help :) So hopefully I will no longer be lost and alone in the world of website making, and will now have some sort of guidance. I will be so pleased when that is up-and-running.  In the meantime, I have been making some lovely Valentines items, and of course ordering lots of new beads! It's official, I am addicted to beads! Here's a picture of my latest brass bracelet which I created for Valentines Day:

I love the colours in the little wooden heart buttons and have found some gorgeous roses to complement them. I hope you like it. To me it says "Spring Love".  I think I might start naming all of my creations, but I'm not very good at coming up with names so it might not be very successful!  Right, time to go and make some custom orders... another Valentines bracelet on it;s way.  If you want to pop over and see my collection, please do: Rococo Creations.

Pinterest!

 I have just discovered Pinterest. I am addicted!  If you haven't yet stumbled across this, it is basically a site where you "pin" pictures you like onto boards for others to see, and you can see the collections others have built up too. It's great fun and highly addictive. I'm obviously very busy working on my website... hmmm maybe not. If you haven't gathered yet, I'm a bit of a procrastinator.  What I should in fact be doing is working on my Masters dissertation about public library websites. this is far from that!! Woops.

What's in a name?

"Rococo" is a great word, don't you think? I love the sound of it. I first came across it thanks to one of my all-time favourite bands, Arcade Fire. I spent a long time going through name possibilities, and one of my ideas was to think of every song title by every band I've ever liked. There was a day or two when I considered using the name "Penny Lane" (The Beatles) but realised it would probably sound like some sort of bargain basement type shop, so I said goodbye to that idea! But I'm happy with my Arcade Fire- inspired name. For those of you who aren't familiar, here's the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az_2oiccZNo.

I'm still getting used to this blogging malarchy (right spelling?!) and need to make some final touches to my page but for now, this will do! Have a great day all. I'm working on a special Valentine's piece today for someone- a bit of a challenge!

Launching Rococo Creations

Hello everyone,
I am very excited to be re-launching my jewellery business under it's new name "Rococo Creations". I had spent so long trying to decide on a name, and found that I was so fussy about choosing one, I ended up staying as "Handmade Jewellery By Laura" for far longer than I had planned!  But I eventually got my act together and chose a name, then found a FANTASTIC designer who created my beautiful logo.  The logo was designed by Sweet-Pea Designs who can be found here: http://www.sweet-peadesigns.com I highly recommend her for her creativity, speed, and friendliness!


So, I have signed up for a blog, joined Twitter, made my new Facebook page, and I'm attempting to create my own website... that could take forever though as I'm attempting to do it with very little knowledge! I'm looking forward to meeting lots of new crafters and of course people who like my work too. If I could, I would spend all my time making jewellery and learning new crafts. I have always loved the idea of making my own clothes but never put the time in to learn properly, so I think that is next on my list.  However, I'm currently working on my dissertation so I should really focus on that!!


I've written two paragraphs of a blog and I feel like I'm a teenager again, scribbling away in my diary about boys I like and how irritating my brothers are! I can't promise I will never mention boys or brothers, but I will try to stay away from those topics in general!  Well, that's it for my first post but I hope to be bringing you some more interesting rambles at some point soon. I'm off to discover some new blogs and pages before uploading some photos of my work to my Facebook page. Feel free to pop over and see my work: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Rococo-Creations/305903832784431