Excellent Service!

Hi everyone!

I'm sitting huddled on my sofa and I really think that autumn has arrived.  On my walk into town this morning I went through the park and noticed how much the leaves are turning on the trees and I don't feel like I've had summer yet! I'm sure that I can remember endless hot days during my summer holidays as a child!

So we've all said a sad goodbye to the Olympics and the Paralympics and I thought it was all fabulous. Lots of memories will stay with me from both games and there were plenty of inspirational moments and I certainly got through a lot of tissues during medal ceremonies.

Over the last month or so I've taken on two new stockists - Boo Gallery in Northamptonshire and Workshop 22 in Bristol and today I had to send more cuffs up to Boo as they'd sold out! Brilliant!

On another positive note, yesterday I heard about a really excellent service and I thought I would pass the information on to you all.  I hand pierce all of my aluminium shapes for necklaces etc, but if I'm using a repeating shape, I tend to use jewellery templates/stencils for uniformity.  I bought a new template last week and it arrived pretty quickly with a CD catalogue of all of the company's stencils.  I looked through the vast array with relish, but the shape I'd had in mind for a while wasn't available.  I contacted the company to ask if they'd ever had anything like my requested shape.  I was amazed to receive an email back saying that if I could send them a drawing they would make me the template I wanted for the standard price and in fact they would be happy to make one-off stencils any time for me.  How amazing a service is that??? So, here you go folks, check them out for yourselves!
http://www.technical-drawing.co.uk

So, what have I been making? Lots of lovely new things! Last week I finished working on the Cherry Blossom Petals Necklace below.  It's a really lovely lightweight piece of jewellery which has a soft tinkling sound when run through the fingers and is extremely comfortable to wear. Do you like it?  If you'd like to look at any of my other jewellery take a look at my website http://www.slicksilverjewellery.co.uk

Cherry Blossom Petals Necklace

After the anodised aluminium is dyed each individual petal is pierced out with a piercing saw, the edges filed and polished and then each piece is textured with a rolling mill, drilled and then assembled.

All in all - sore fingers!!

Cherry Blossom Slim Cuff


 

I also made a slim cuff to go with this necklace and I'm pretty pleased with the end result!

















I've also made quite a lot more this week but we'll leave that till next week.

Just to let you know, I working on another blog collaboration at the moment, which I really hope will come to fruition as it would feature a very talented young lady who practices an old craft that is not seen as often as it should be these days, so let's hope she agrees!

Ok folks, that's all for this week.  See you all soon! xxxxx

Important News - Wish Lists and New Collections

Well, plenty of views of last week's blog about Carolyn Saxby's gorgeous work! Good to know I'm not the only person who gets excited about textures/colours!

Last Thursday was my husband's birthday and so we went for a picnic by the estuary near here and were privileged to see an otter happily swimming about and fishing for his tea! On the downside, I was bitten to pieces by some evil insect and spent the next 3 days in agony with massive bites and no sleep!!

Ok, time for some important news (well it was news to me!) - a couple of days ago I was happily adding items to my Amazon Wish List when I noticed that you could download a Universal Wish List button to your favourites bar and add items to your wish list from websites outside Amazon. Great, I thought, now I can add specialist tools and all sorts of jewellery making goodies and so I did.
Later that evening I gave it some thought and realised that my customers could add their longed-for pieces from my collections to their wishlists.  Great, I thought, but then a niggly little thought started squirming about in my poor old brain. 

Wonderful news if you produce multiples, however, not so great if, like me, you only produce one-offs.

I like to change my stock and add new stock regularly on my website so an item added may have disappeared by the time purchase takes place.  Ooops!

I spoke to the lovely Amazon people today and they hadn't really thought about this problem and do not currently notify a vendor that an item has been added to a wishlist although they might look into this for the future. As it's open to all, I don't see how we can opt out of this service if we chose to.

The way I see it is that it is lovely that fans can add our work to their wishlists, but we must make sure that they tell us they have, otherwise an item could already be sold or reserved more than once, leading to embarrassment and difficulties. As makers we can choose to reserve an item for a customer, but we must also then take the risk that the purchase will not be made after all. 

Hmmmmmm, a thinker! I'd really welcome your thoughts on this one.  For the moment, I've put a note on my home page asking fans to let me know if they've put one of my pieces on a wishlist.

Shades of Autumn Collection

So, onto my new aluminium collections!

The first collection was intended to celebrate the gorgeous autumn colours that are just beginning to appear in our landscape.

The collection on the right is vibrant and really looks like neon lights, perfect for that little black dress.

The collection on the left is very pretty and delicate and would suit anyone. They are all available from www.slicksilverjewellery.co.uk


That's it for this week, folks.  Do leave me comments about your feelings on wishlists - look forward to hearing from you.

Neon Lights & Party Nights Collection

Pink Ladies Collection