A Budget Way to Make a Jewellery Display Stand

Good afternoon folks! It's been a while since I've had the time to sit down and write anything on here, but I had to share this clever wee shortcut with you. As you'll see from my previous posts I make my own jewellery, and I recently attended a craft show to try and sell some of my work. I noticed a lot of people have these fancy wooden tiered display stands, but since I only intend to do a few fairs a year I didn't want to fork out loads of money for a stand! I came up with a quick and easy solution to the problem using the ever-so-useful crafting material that is chipboard and some other bits and piece that are already in an everyday crafter's stash. Here's what you'll need to make this...

1. Some A4 pieces of chipboard (at least 4 but I'd have extra in case something goes wrong!): it doesn't have to be that heavy weight but it should be robust enough to stand up when slotted together with the other pieces of the stand
2. White A4 card (8+ depending on how many sheets of chipboard you require): I used a really nice white textured cardstock from Paper Mill that's quite strong and gives a nice finish
3. 2 plastic/wooden 30cm dowels: the best for me were actually wedding cake dowels (6mm x 30cm dowels from Amazon.co.uk) because they went well with the patterned paper that I used on the panels
4. Patterned paper, card and embellishments for decorating!

You could technically do this with whatever size of card you want, scaling it up or down as you need, but I thought that A4 worked best as it was just big enough for long earrings to hang in but small enough to not swamp your whole display table.

I first covered all my chipboard on both sides with the white A4 card to give it a smooth finish. To make the back panel of the display I cut two 10.5cm slits at each end of the chipboard, about 1cm in from the side using a craft knife. You can cut from top to bottom or bottom to top but REMEMBER: whatever direction you do on the back you have to do the opposite on the sides so that the panels slot together nicely (see below).

To make the side panels, I made my 'stairs' 9.8cm wide by 7cm high (about 3 equal sized stairs on a sheet of A4). Mark the tops of the stairs at 7cm and 14cm (for the middle stair). You can make the stairs whatever size you want, or add more if you need more space! After I had cut out the 'stairs' I made similar slits as to on the back panel (1cm in and 10.5cm long) on the tall stair and 1cm in/3.5cm long slits on the low stair. Another thing you need to do on these panels is make notches for your dowels to sit in to form your earring hanging bars. The size you make these will depend on the size of your bars, but I made 1cm x 1cm indentations for my 6mm dowels to sit in. For the lowest 'stair', I decided to put in a shelf that I could rest smaller earrings or necklaces on, so I cut a 7.8cm x 1cm slot in these bottom 'stairs'. I then cut pieces of A4 chipboard and card to 7.8cm wide to make the shelf to slot in.

The front panel is made in a similar way to the back panel: just cut yourself pieces of chipboard and card to the same height as your lowest 'stair' (7cm in my case) and cut slits in both ends (1cm in/3.5cm long for mine).

Next comes the fun part: decorating! For this I used my favorite crafting card (Kraft card) and some 12 x 12cm floral patterned paper from my stash. I also added the logo that I designed for mine and my mum's craft business, a good way to get some advertising in without having signs dotted about your display table.

Make sure to decorate both sides of your side panels: I found that the stand looks a little bare if you only decorate the back on the inside surface! I'd also go for reasonably light colours of paper as well since the last thing you want is your stand overpowering the jewellery it's meant to be displaying! Once you have decorated all your panels, you should be able to assemble your completed stand into something that looks like this...

TA-DA! So there you have it, a cheaper way to make a display for your jewellery with bits and pieces that you have lying around your craft room anyway. The other handy thing about it is it's completely collapsible, so you don't have to waste precious space in your crafting room. Feel free to let me know if you try this out and whether it works for you, and any improvements you make to it to suit your needs! Happy crafting everyone!

Emma x

Craft Fair

Morning everyone!

Just wanted to drop a wee note to say that my mum and I will be displaying our work at our first craft fair this weekend! If anyone is in the Glasgow area on Sat/Sun we will be in Merchant Square from 10am - 6pm, please pop in and take a look.

Here's a wee sneak preview of one of the items I'll be selling: a drawing of a baby elephant that I did in ballpoint pen:

Happy crafting everyone!

Emma x

Wild at Heart

Good morning everyone! I have been making some animal themed earrings recently and have uploaded a few of them onto Etsy. Please take a peak if you're interested! Here are three of my more recent pieces, hope you like them. My personal favorites are the elephants, I think they look great with the tiger's eye and gold bead combo!

The swallows and the elephants are earring sets in co-ordinating gift boxes, and the seahorses are an earring/necklace set in a gift box. More details can be found using the links below.

Swallows:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/233925093/antique-gold-swallow-earrings-with-pink?ref=shop_home_active_1

Seahorses:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/234604093/blue-beaded-seahorse-earring-necklace

Elephants:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/235534705/beaded-elephant-charm-earrings-gift-box

That's all for now folks, happy crafting!

Emma x

Nearly There!

Wow I can't believe it's been nearly A YEAR since I last updated this blog! Such is fourth year of university though it seems: so much work, so little time! You will all be glad to hear that I have still had time for crafting, and I have a whole box full of handmade jewellery to share when I finally finish off my last few exams. I'm taking a momentary break from the joys of DNA profiling techniques to share some good news with you...I'm now selling my jewellery on Etsy! My mum and I have a joint account but at the moment it's only some of my jewellery on there. I'm still populating the shop with things, so bear with me, but one of my most recent additions is shown below.

So here they are: some antique gold dragon earrings! I'm a massive The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit nerd so I saw these charms and just HAD to have them! I've combined them with some faux gemstone chips that I had in my stash and made a coordinating brown/gold gift box for them.
The full product details can be found on Etsy here:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/233179568/antique-gold-dragon-earrings-with-gift?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=antique+gold+dragon+earrings&ref=sr_gallery_1

That's all for now, better get back to the books! Happy crafting everybody :D

Emma x

Wire Flower Earrings

I found a tutorial video on YouTube (see 'Easy Wire Wrapped Jewelry Tutorial : Flower Earrings') for making wire flower earrings and thought I'd give it a try. It's a lot more fiddly than I first anticipated but I thought I didn't do too bad for my first try! I also made a co-ordinating box from some 10" square colour cardstock.

I decorated the box with some floral paper that I added glitter glue to, to highlight some of the detail. To finish I added some lace ribbon, a message tag and some silver liquid pearls.

Blue and Purple Spiral Earrings

Here are some simple spiral earrings that I made from coloured wire. You make the spirals by twisting both ends of a length of wire (in this case 4" long) in opposite directions and then wrapping them into spirals using flat nosed pliers. To make the top spiral, you only make one end into a spiral and simply curl the other side into a loop (just over 2" of wire needed in this case). I then attached these together using silver jump rings and attached them to silver hook earrings. I made a blue pair in a co-ordinating gift box...

 ...and a purple pair in the same style but with one extra spiral:

Wire Cage Bead Earrings

Here's a couple of pairs of spiral beaded earrings that I made, they're actually surprisingly easy to do! I found a video tutorial online (see "How To Make Wire Caged Bead Earrings" on YouTube) and here's my finished sets...

A silver and blue pair:

And a gold and maroon pair:

Handmade Earrings and Gift Boxes

Afternoon folks! I've found a way to tie in my paper craft skills with my new found interest in jewellery making: creating boxes for my earrings so I can give them as gifts. The boxes are about 5cm squared (made from 6 inch pieces of card) but you could make them whatever size you want, provided you have paper big enough. Here's the four that I've made so far:

A green, pink and red one...

A brown and peach one...

A blue and red one...

And (finally!) a powder blue and pink one...

All the papers and the wee sentiments I used are from Craftwork Cards, but the Kraft card and Mirri board are from docrafts. I made all the earrings first and then made the boxes to match because I have far more choice in papers than I do in beads! I hope to make some more over the Summer but it's getting into exam time now (eeek!). That's all from me today, happy crafting!

Simple Gold and Pearl Earrings

Here's a wee pair of earring that I made for my sister. They're just simple gold stud and hook earrings with a pearl bead drop...

She was looking for something simple that she could wear during the day so the drop is only about 3cm. Not the most technical thing I've ever made but I'm a bit of a beginner jewellery making-wise!

Spider Earrings

I was looking for something to do over the weekend when my friend asked me if I wanted to go see the new Spiderman movie that comes out next week. I was looking online for running times and things and somehow got side-tracked onto looking at spider themed earrings. That's when I stumbled across this neat tutorial by atomicrose on how to make Beaded Spiders (see http://www.instructables.com/id/Beaded-Spider-Tutorial/). I'm always up for a challenge so I had a go at making myself a set of earrings. The technique is a bit fiddly and I'm a bit of a novice at jewellery making but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out...

The spiders are only about 4cm across and 3cm high so they're not too bulky (which I was worried about to begin with!). You have to be REALLY careful with the legs as well, I secured mine at the back with glue but they have come unstuck a couple of times already so I must remember to use something stronger next time.

Long time, no blog!

Didn't realise how long it had been since I updated this, my word! Anyway, better late than never as they say so here it goes. I've not really had all that much time to craft since I've been back at uni this year BUT I was given the opportunity to design some pieces for the docraft Creativity magazine. I had a great time doing it and my work is in Issue 44 of the magazine that comes out this month. On another note, I've been doing some more sketches with what little crafty material I have in my flat! I bought a kit from Miller's (before it shut down!) with some coloured pencils in it, only 12 or something like that so a lot less than I'm used to! I found a picture online to draw from and I'm still working on it, but here's what I've done so far...

Not sure whether to do a background or whether to just leave the contrast between the colour and the white...think I'll wait until I've finished the parrot and then decide! Hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year and I hope to be posting some more soon!

Tiger Pencil Sketch

Needed a wee bit of a break from writing up a bioassay report this afternoon and I re-discovered a sketch that I started a while back and never got around to finishing. It gave me a nice distraction for a bit and I got both things finished this afternoon so all is well! Here's the finished result:

Anyway, I'd better get back to writing up my forensics notes now...the joys of being a uni student! Happy crafting all :)

Long time, no blog!

Hi everyone! Wow it seems like forever since I've blogged, been so busy with work and uni but things are calming down now...hopefully! Quick update from the lovely people over at docrafts who are running another Design Team Call. It's a great opportunity to design projects with a fab team of people and get your work displayed on the docrafts site as one of their designers. If anybody is interested, here's the link with more information and details of how to apply:

http://www.docrafts.com/article/docrafts-Creativity-Club-DESIGN-TEAM-CALL-October-2013

Happy crafting folks!

Creativity Club Sketch #331 Cards

Here's a couple of square cards that I made based on Creativity Club Daily Sketch #331. The first one I made using the new Home To Nest Ultimate Die-Cut pack from Papermania. I chose one of the small square images and mounted it off-center on a square of Kraft card. For the background I used the bird patterned paper, which I inked around the edges in chestnut and mounted onto Kraft card before attaching to the card blank. The sketch has a horizontal and vertical line across it so I used the egg patterned paper with a little bit of Kraft card behind.

I punched individual birds from the same paper I used in the background using a circular punch and mounted them onto Kraft card. To complete I added a message banner from the die-cut pack and some gold glitter glue around the edge of each embellishment. For my second card I used the Wellington Ultimate Die-Cut Pack and followed the same sketch layout as the Home To Nest card.

The pack contains small circular elements that are pre-cut so I just mounted three of these onto gold Mirri card and then onto Kraft card. To complement the gold in the circular elements I used gold brads to attach the message banner to Kraft card, some gold gems in the corners of the teddy image and some gold glitter glue as before.

Vintage Notes Cards

I discovered a 6 x 6" pack of the Vintage Notes paper last week that I didn't even know we had, which just proves that my mum and I clearly have too much craft stuff! I used a couple of the Docrafts Creativity Club sketches again for these cards. For this first one I layered up four different papers, stamping a best wishes greeting onto one of the more subtle patterned papers. I chose a beige button from the Vintage Notes button bag and threaded it onto some pale pink ribbon to tie in with my background paper. To complete the card I made some pink roses using the Spellbinders Bitty Blossom dies, added some pink pearl gems and some brown faux stitching.

I re-arranged the sketch a little bit for my second card and added a scalloped circle element to tie in with the background paper. I then embellished round the circle with gold gems to co-ordinate with the gold Mirri card that I mounted each of the papers on.

Finally I added pale pink and blue gems to the corners of each rectangle of papers, a greeting banner with pink brads and some hand-cut love hearts from the embellishments page in the paper pack.

More Forever Friends

Anyone would think I quite liked the Kraft Notes range! Here's another two cards that I made in combination with the Docrafts Creativity Club Sketches. I liked the quirky angles and shapes on this first sketch so I went with a slightly more adventurous colour scheme. The background papers are from Craftwork Cards but they matched quite nicely with the dotty background of the Forever Friends image (which I double mounted on dark purple and lime green to tie in with the colour scheme). I kept the embellishments simple by adding a circular message tag, purple & gold Candi and black faux stitching.

For my second card I kept to the Kraft Notes range, going for a lime green spotty paper in the background and the button flower paper to tie in with the buttons on the greetings die-cut. I went for gold and pink double mounting behind the image this time to give the card a bit of a colour injection! I punched some flowers out of a gold and cream paper that came from an old Forever Friends "Black and Gold" pack and layered them up with smaller flowers and buttons.

To complete I added a co-ordinating purple butterfly, gold gems and some pink spotty buttons to the top corner. That's all for today as I've just received a parcel of crafting goodies from Craftwork Cards...which is technically my mum's but I'm sure she won't mind me taking a peek!!!

Forever Friends Sketch Challenge Cards

Finally finished all my exams for this year so I'm back to crafting! Here are some cards that I made using the docrafts Creativity Club daily sketches and the Forever Friends Kraft Notes range...

For this first card I combined one of the die-cuts from the Kraft Notes Ultimate Die-Cut Pack and the Papermania Pastel Capsule Collection papers. I added some detail with buttons, some purple Candi and purple and white twine.

Again, I used a couple of the die-cuts for this card in combination with some punched flowers which I inked at the edges and embellished with clear gems. To complete I added some gems to the corners of the teddy image and some purple Candi.

This is my favorite sketch of the ones I did because I like how the quirky angles and shapes all complement each other. This time I used die-cuts with co-ordinating backgrounds and worked in the colours of the other papers in the range. To complete, I added some pink self-adhesive gems to the top and bottom corners.

For my final card I combined the Papermania Pastel Capsule Collection and the Kraft Notes ranges again. The spotty background paper is quite bold so I inked the edges of the Kraft Notes paper to give a bit more definition before I layered them us behind my chosen image. To complete I added one of the die-cut greetings and some green buttons.

Button Box

I'm just going to take a break from exam revision to update you with my latest project from the weekend! My mum bought the awesome new Capsule Collection Brights mixed bag of buttons and so I decided to decorate one of the Bare Basics boxes to give us a place to store them.

First I covered the lid with pink cardstock and then the button patterned paper from the Forever Friends Kraft Notes range. I used a pale blue piece of cardstock for the message banner, adding Birdsong self-adhesive lettering and a pale pink button that I stitched into place with beige thread. After attaching the message banner to the top of the box, I riffled through my collection of buttons (mostly Capsule Collection, Vintage Notes and Boofle!) and found some blue, brown, cream and pink buttons that tied in with the colours in the papers. I decorated the sides of the box with blue and pink cardstock and the floral paper from the Kraft Notes range. To complete, I added some pale pink ribbon and the button patterned ribbon from the Kraft Notes range around the edge of the box lid. Here's a closer view of the detail on the lid...

Dolly Mixtures Cards - Coleen and Cheryl

LOVE the new Craftwork Cards "Dolly Mixtures" papers!!! My mum got both the Coleen and Cheryl packs and I just had to try them out. I have to admit the Coleen papers are my favorite, the wee Scottie dogs are adorable! I used the dog patterned paper for my first card, mounting it onto some pink card and then a 5 x 5" card blank.  I remembered there was a doggie stencil from Craftwork Cards so I used it to cut a black dog to match the background paper, tying a little bit of pink ribbon around its neck to add some detail.

I decided to keep things relatively simple as the backing paper was quite busy so I used three of the co-ordinating flags that come in the paper pack in the to corner of my card. To complete, I added two rows of mint green Candi, black stitching detail around the flags and a "With Love" greeting tag.

Now here's my Cheryl card! I went for a similar layout as my dog card but used some purple and orange-yellow flowers that I cut using one of the Craftwork Cards stencils as a template, embellishing with purple Candi centers. For the background I tore the floral patterned paper from the Cheryl paper pad and inked the edges with purple ink before mounting onto dark purple card and then a 5 x 5" card black. I added small orange-yellow brads to the top and bottom corner and curled the edges to give a more distressed look.

To complete the card I added two of the co-ordinating flags and a gold and white die-cut message tag, also from Craftwork Cards. Hope you like them!

Personalised Thank You Card

Morning everyone! Hoping the weather is decidedly better wherever you are today, absolutely chucking it down here! I made this card last week for a friend of my mum who gave my sister and me gifts for Easter. I used a photo of the two of us as the focal point, as she hasn't seen us in a while, and took the dominant colours in the photo as the colour scheme for the card.

I mounted a peach dotted paper from a Craftwork Cards mixed stack onto some brown cardstock and then onto a 6 x 6" white card blank. Behind the photo I added some gold Mirri card and a brown frame that I die-cut using the smallest X-Cut Ornate Frame die. I also die-cut the "Thank You" greeting from some peach card and added it along the top and bottom of the card in brown banners, which I edged with clear glitter glue. To complete I made some layered flowers using the Glorious Gerbera dies and some brown brads, and added some smaller punched flowers with peach pearl gem centers.