Poppy's Art Beads

 Well, it's been another busy week here at Poppy Designs. I have spent the majority of my time photographing my newest range of 'art beads' jewellery and it seems to be taking forever! I am in the process of setting up my own website, which is very exciting, but there is sooooo much to learn. It's nowhere near as easy as it looks to do a professional-looking website.
On a much more interesting topic than my issues with web design.....I have managed to photograph most of my Poppy's Art Beads range. I think these are my favourite designs I have ever made! I have made little sets of beads (in a range of between 5 and 9 beads) and then created necklaces with them. All the necklaces feature 'art beads', polymer clay beads, shell pearls and Swarovski crystals. The one pictured at the top of this blog post is my favourite. The red, yellow and black art beads were supposed to look a bit like poppies, I am not entirely sure I succeeded in that, but nonetheless I love the way they have turned out.  I first tried out this design at Knutsford Christmas Market and sold out within the first hour, so I have spent quite a long time creating a whole new range and currently have about 50 of these necklaces in different colours and designs. I have added them to my Poppy Designs Etsy Shop and a few pictures to an album on my Poppy Designs Facebook page....and a couple of pictures below :

Poppy's Art Beads - navy set with shell pearl and Swarovski crystals

...trying to photograph the black/silver one when Poppy popped up to see what was going on!

 Along with the 'art beads' necklaces, I have also used this technique to create a range of polymer clay pendants. So far I have only had time to photograph a few of the heart shaped ones, but I have also made butterflies and have lots of other ideas in the pipeline. The heart pendants are strung on necklaces of ribbon and cord and I was really pleased with how well they turned out. Again, I trialled a few at my Christmas Fairs and they were really popular.....so I have made loads more.

Green and white heart pendants

Navy blue and white heart pendants

I really love making them so I hope they are a success this year. I don't have many craft fairs booked yet for this year, although I have sent a few applications for stalls off. I am finding it very difficult to find good fairs and I think it is getting harder. There seem to be fewer and fewer genuine craft fairs about, which is a real shame.

Anyway, before I get on my soap box, I am going to sign off and head over to Handmade Harbour and see what the other crafters have been up to over the last week........thanks for reading and have a lovely week xxxx