It's A Double Giveaway!

Hello again!  Well, it's been a funny old week as my husband has been away and Layla the cat seems to have taken the absence of her favourite man personally.  She keeps glaring at me as if I've got him hidden somewhere and I wouldn't mind, but she's actually my cat and I had her before we met!

I also started another blog on food - we are foodies after all.  Look out for http://slickysfantasyfoodhaul.blogspot.com/

I was hoping to have another blog collaborator this week, however, things have not quite worked out that way and we shall have to wait until another time for the person I had in mind.  Next week, however, I hope we shall have another exciting collaboration to look forward to! So, to make up for not having another artist this week I thought we'd have a little giveaway - details at the bottom of the page.

So, what else has been happening on the jewellery front?  Following my shoulder surgery I've only just started making again so I've been mixing up new dyes (a mid pink, a deep coral and a lovely gold) and trying out some new dyeing techniques.  I tend to texture my aluminium after dyeing and cutting as that helps me to maximise the best areas of the design, however, I have been experimenting with cutting a much smaller sheet, dyeing it once, heavily texturing it and then dyeing it again.  As this only produces a small amount of usable material (commonly the edges of the sheet are lost through trimming) I plan to use this technique to produce some very special signature pieces.

This week I've been chatting by email to Twitter friend S L Jewellery and Accessories about our dreams and plans and about approaching galleries to feature our work.  Today I went into a new gallery and looked at the jewellery on offer.  There were a couple of empty shelves in their display cabinets and I noticed that they didn't sell anything like I make.  I took a chance and introduced myself to the owner.  I always carry business cards and leaflets that show my work, although I don't normally take the cold approach as it doesn't often work.  I guess today was just pure luck, right time right place, etc etc because the gallery owner is very keen to stock my jewellery.  Hopefully it will come to fruition!  Normally if I see I gallery that I like, I email them and ask them to take a look at my website and to let me know if they would be interested in stocking me.  What does everyone else do in this tricky situation? Similarly if there are any gallery owners out there reading this - how do you prefer to be approached? I'd love you to let me know what you think.

So the competition then! The above sample is taken from my Poppies collection - what I'd like to know is - how many different aluminium sets are currently available on my website for sale?

The prizes? Yes, there's two!! And you're not going to be able to see them this time! I'll be giving away two aluminium rings which are adjustable to two lucky winners and the competition closes on Monday 24th October at 7pm.

So get checking and leave your answer as a comment below!

See you next week!