Competition Time and Mouse

Hi all!

Well yesterday was a little traumatic - I choked on a piece of pickled ginger! Yes I know it's a comdey moment, but my life flashed before my eyes and I saw myself as a pile of bones, only coming to light when I didn't arrive to pick up hubs from the station..... (ok slight exaggeration, but still....) and then as if that wasn't bad enough Layla the cat strolled into the lounge with a live mouse!! She meowed to tell me she'd bought me a present, mouse took off like a rocket underneath our corner sofa which is heavy and a tight fit. Now, I can't budge the sofa and this is Layla's attitude to the entire thing! Bothered? Not much.....

Anyhoo

I've solved all the little glitches (I think) in the new website and I'm chuffed to bits with how it looks!
That brings me on to my website launch competition where you can win a little bit of something nice - all you have to do is count how many items are for sale on my website at the moment and to enter you will need to send your answer via the Contact Us page. Please don't post your answer below as others will see it! Closing date is Saturday 27th at 5pm.

Last week I gave you a teaser of one of the new pieces so this week I thought I would show you a whole picture of a cuff from my favourite collection ever - Digital Cuff.

What do you think? Do you like it? There's a necklace and earrings to match on the website too.

Exciting News
So what's next for me?  Well I'm extremely busy at the moment putting collections together to go off to Salford Art Gallery and Museum to go into their brand new Landing Gallery and also some work to go into an exhibition they're organising in Ordsall Hall, a Tudor Manor in Salford.  The exhibition is called By Hand and will run from October until January. This is very exciting for me as it's the first exhibition i've taken part in outside Devon. If any of you are in the area, please do go and take a look and let me know what it looks like as I doubt I'll be able to make it up there.

Anyway, I'm off to the studio now to put together the collection I've been working on over the last few days - it's called Solar Flare and is yellow/peach/orange and it's very summery.

See you all next week! Don't forget to enter the competition you've got to be in it to win it!

It's Finally Here!

Hello world, have you missed me?

The last three weeks have disappeared into a fog of work, work and a little more work.  I did have a few days away visiting my parents which was lovely and completely internet and phone signal free too (although I confess to being a little panicky about what I might be missing.....).

So what is it that's been taking up so much of my life? It's the new website, that's what. It's now been launched, although there are a couple of little glitches in the way of logos not opening correctly, but the content all works and it does look pretty!  I've also co-incided the launch with the release of some brand new work so take a  look and let me know what you think. Most of the feedback I've received so far has been positive and centred mainly on the colour scheme which people seem to like.

Would you like a sneeky look at one of the pieces I've featured on the new site?  This is Digital and I loved the end result so much that I made myself a cuff and some earrings.  It has been printed on to the aluminium using acetate and then dyed.

Digital Necklace

Artist David Muddyman and myself will be taking part for the first time this year in Drawn To The Valley's Open Studios and will be doing so as part of Plymouth Arts Trail.  There are 101 artists taking part altogether at various points along the Tamar Valley with 27 of us around the Plymouth area.  If you would like further details about our opening times please see Events, however if you would like details about the entire event please take a look at the Drawn To The Valley website. We really hope you'll come and see us if you're in the area, we will have paintings, drawings, jewellery and wall art available for you to buy and take home.  We will be accepting card payments.

So, now that the website's off my hands for a little while I might get back to making jewellery and blogging about it!

News and What's New

Hi all - I missed you all last week! We had a very busy week at home and I have to say that this week may well be the same as we start decorating! Needs must!! My husband's an artist and our lovely white walls are covered in little splashes of prussian blue, don't get me wrong it's one of my favourite colours, however, thankfully he's on a waiting list now for a studio!

Well in some ways this week has been quite exciting - I've delivered work to one new gallery, Hannah's at Seale Hayne, Newton Abbott, Devon, I'm about to deliver work to another new stockist, Tania Holland in Bridgnorth and there will be news of a brand new gallery who will be stocking my jewellery but a bit more about that next month when they're a little closer to opening their doors, so good news.  On the down side I'm still waiting for my shiny new mobile card machine to arrive....grrrrr. Would have been nice to have had it for Crocadon Producer's Fair last saturday!!

Anyway, I've been making though and have added Brocade collection and Peonies collection to my stock though there has been a lot of interest so they may not be around for long!  What do you think?



Brocade Collection 1
 

Brocade Collection 2



Peonies Collection

I have a couple more people lined up for Three Beautiful Things so hopefully I'll be able to include another one soon, hope you all enjoyed that feature.

Can I remind you that there's only a few days left to vote for me in the Selected Awards, if you have already, thank you. If not please do take a look, there's loads of categories to vote for and you could be helping someone like me (or me!!) to get a little more recognition for their work. To vote for me just follow this link and click vote at the bottom of the page Val Williams - SlickSilver Jewellery

See you all next week - have a lovely week.

Friends, Awards and Getting Organised!

Hello everyone!

Well the first week of 2013 has come and gone and what have I achieved?

My good friend via Twitter, Sarah S L Jewellery and I decided back in 2012 that we were going to take over the world, the jewellery world anyway - oh well, ok then, we were going to be a bit better organised!! We email each other regularly (she lives in Wales, I live in Devon and we've never met) with ideas that we need feedback on and other stuff and it really works for us. Sarah told me that she'd made a target plan for the year and I thought I would do the same and so that's what I've been doing this week (as well as my accounts - groan). Organisational stuff is still pretty much all I can do as my splint is still in place, however, physiotherapy starts this week and I have high hopes and lots of painkillers!

I mentioned last week that the Craft & Design Magazine Selected Awards were going to be under way soon and they are now live.  If you like my work, then of course I would appreciate your vote, but there are lots of talented makers featured and several categories to vote in. You can vote for me here. SlickSilver Jewellery Just scroll down my page and then click on the banner to register your vote. Thank you!

So what shall I be doing this week?  Well supplying new work to some of my stockists who are, happily, running out and I'd like to tackle using a computer programme I've been meaning to try for ages - sounds like a fun time - I'd rather be making but hey ho!

This gorgeous long necklace in shades of gold, silver and bronze and inspired by last summer's Olympic Games is available from my Signature Collection. It's the only one of it's kind and looks lovely on so why not become the only person to own it?

Look forward to chatting next week!

New Work and News!

Hi all, thought I'd start straight off with my latest news - following on from your suggestions for a name for the blue collection last week (and tons more suggestions on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/SlickSilverJewellery?ref=hl) I found that I really liked the Rebecca Adlington suggestion!  With that in mind I've contacted Rebecca via her manager and hope to hear back soon as I'd really love to send her a piece to wear and hopefully if she lets me have a photo of her wearing it I can put it up on here.  If the lady who made the suggestion would like to contact me at info@slicksilverjewellery.co.uk she might get a little something!!

Would you like to see what I've made out of this particular sheet?

Each piece has been saw pierced, filed, polished, textured, forged and cold connected!! Carrying on with the water theme I explored various shapes of droplet for these pieces of jewellery. Hope you like them.






So, what else has been happening? Oh yes I've grown quite a few more grey hairs following a text from my son who's travelling in Australia.  In the last few days apparently he's flown a plane, woken to hundreds of wild kanagroos outside his cabin, is off gliding (the whole 'no engine' concept worries me slightly) and is conducting some music later (yes that is his job!)  and he has yet to do his skydive - lordy, lordy!!

Another little bit of news to share with you all is that Workshop 22 in Bristol now stocks my work!

So that only leaves me with the exciting bit to tell you!  I'm in the running for a Great British Makers Award! Yay!!! What's more, you can vote for me! You all, out there, can actually make it happen!
All you need to do is follow this link which will take you to the Meet The Makers section at Seek and Adore http://www.seekandadore.com/MeetTheMakers.aspx then choose Devon in the dropdown menu, then hit the Facebook Like button beside SlickSilver Jewellery. How exciting is that?!?

See you next week lovelies!

A New Direction!

Hello everyone and hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.  I also hope that everyone who received my jewellery as presents were happy with it.

Well, we had a crazy, but wonderful Christmas Day with 9 of us gathering at the home of my daughter-in-law's parents who are very good friends of ours for a lovely family day.  As is usual for any family gathering Jeff managed to set light to something, however, this time it was only a paper napkin in the bin! The indoor fireworks left us all staggered by their beauty.........

New Year was very quiet and saw me writing lists of things to do in 2012, mostly for SlickSilver Jewellery as it will be a period of change and hopefully growth as I plan to spend more time working in the business, funds allowing.

So on to some changes - I shall shortly be adding a Signature Collection to my website where you'll be able to see the highly individual pieces that form a crossover between my silver and my aluminium work.  I shall be featuring, as part of the collection, some new designs I've been working on which explore simple basic leaf shapes with handpierced centres.  The following design started as an idea for an alternative to hearts for Valentines Day, however, I feel that the shape lends itself to further exploration which I plan to do.

This example would make an ideal gift for Valentine's Day or at any other time of the year so don't forget to point the relevant people in the right direction!!

I had a week off this week from my day job and it seems to have vanished into a pile of paperwork for my tax return, however, it's all done now, but I have had a lovely treat to cheer me up.  Those of you who read this blog regularly will know that I often feature other artists in my collaborative items and you may recall that I featured Phiona Richards of Rare Notions with her exquisite recycled books.  I was thrilled to received this from her in the post the other day and I'm really looking forward to wearing it - thank you Phiona - do make sure that you check out her website http://www.rarenotions.co.uk

Ok I must get on with finding some more lovely artists to feature on here - suggestions anyone?