Hand stamped necklaces back in stock!

Hello all,

I've been working a lot on hand stamped pieces at the moment, so these are making their way into my shop.  I love handstamping jewellery because the possibilities are endless.  I had a trial run with a few of these rings and they proved very popular.  This is my latest design, and following a new delivery from the States, they're back in stock!

Apologies for the colour cast on the second photo, the heart is bermuda blue but it was taken on my iPhone.  These are available in silver colour (aluminium - safe for nickel allergies!), brass or copper, with any colour heart you like in the centre!  The rings are 1" across.  

I also have other sizes available, including tiny aluminium rings and the larger sizes which are 1 1/4" across.  (Yes I've also just discovered Instagram...)  You can also have different shaped crystals in the centre - Swarovski crystals are available in lots of gorgeous shapes and colours.

I've got some cute half heart charms too - perfect for 'Best Friends' necklaces, or Mum & Daughter necklaces, perhaps with a Swarovski birthstone as well?  I have number stamps too so important dates can be added to jewellery as well!

I've also been making these beautiful bookmarks.  I know Kindles and iPads are all the rage, but you really can't beat a good book in my opinion! 

The little disc can say anything, and again the crystals can be in any colour!  This one was made for my Mum for her birthday...

As you can see in the pic above, I've got one very empty compartment in my box, so I'd like to hear your ideas on what shape I should get next.  

I am also planning a competition in the very near future to win one of these bespoke necklaces (worth £15), so watch this space!  It will run through my facebook group as well once I have more 'likes', so please do invite your friends and share my page!  More details on this competition to follow...

Kat x

Happy Easter!

Hope you've all had a lovely Easter weekend and eaten far too much chocolate!  I certainly have.  My favourite being the Creme Egg "Splats" I was given.  I absolutely ADORE creme eggs so that was a fab treat.  They didn't last long though...

I thought today I would share with you some of my favourite Easter finds from the world of Etsy...  Here are my top 3 "Eggs-tra special" (sorry) Etsy finds...

First I found this adorable little felted bunny!

Isn't he just gorgeous?  I love the long ears and cute little beady eyes.  This little guy comes from MiaPuPe in Estonia, and she makes lots of little felted treasures, as well as rag dolls and soft toys.  

Next up is this beautiful nest necklace by Les Petit Choses of Lisbon.  Don't you just love the name too?  I really like the detail on the eggs in the nest.  It's made from polymer clay and then hand painted.  Have a look at the rest of the collection too, it's described as "Delicate Romantic Jewelry", and doesn't disappoint!   

Last but no means least are these gorgeous bunny slippers for tiny feet!  They're made by Puddintoes in the US, another fantastic name, and they're just adorable.  I just wish I knew a tiny person to put them on so I had an excuse to buy them.  Shelley has lots of other fun baby things including hats, blankets and quilts.

So there are some of my favourites - what treasures have you found in your travels?  Did you get any cool Easter presents?

Kat x

2013 update!

Hello all,

Hope the new year is treating you well!


I've been busy making new things, even though I've not been blogging...so I thought I'd share some of my new creations with you, starting with this Harry Potter inspired bracelet...

It features a little owl charm (Hedwig), a hat (the Sorting Hat) a castle (obviously Hogwarts!), a feather (Harry's Phoenix feather wand), and a dragon (Norbert the norwegian ridgeback), and Swarovski crystals in the house colours and two black crystals.  

As it's nearing St Patricks day as well, I've created this Luck of the Irish charm bracelet, with green Swarovski crystals and lucky charms!  Any custom orders for themed bracelets are always welcome - I can almost always find the charms to make them :)

And speaking of custom orders, I've also had a repeat order from a lovely lady in the states for some hair pins.  She bought my ruby crystal and pearl pins in August and came back with two custom orders.  I thought they were such lovely ideas they've made it into the shop!

So there's a snapshot of what I've been upto!  

In other news, my house has been taken over by two furry menaces!  Meet Jess and Millie...

Jess is the black and white one, Millie is the tabby.  They're 12 weeks old, very nosy and like to curl up on anything that doesn't move away fast enough!  They're from the same litter and we got them about 3 weeks ago now.  They have already mastered scaling the curtains and chosen their favourite napping spot...

So productivity is way down here and our house plant has been destroyed/eaten, but aren't they just adorable?!  ^_^

New things and old things back in stock!

Sorry for the long and unplanned absence!  I've finally moved house, up to South Yorkshire, and started a new day job.  I'm a full-time primary school teacher now, in year 5 and have a house full of boxes.  As such I've had very little time (or energy) to dedicate to other things!

I have been doing some crafting though, and ordered replacement bits and pieces, and made a few new designs.  Firstly, I'm very pleased to say that I now have my Hunger Games themed charm bracelets back in stock.  These bracelets have been really popular, so if you missed out before, now's the time!  :D

You can now find these bracelets here in my shop at £10.00 plus p&p.

My key necklaces from the last post are now back in stock too, with the full range of birthstones, and I also have wire spiral earrings to match my wire spiral necklace:

And finally, I've designed a Halloween charm bracelet!  Featuring some cute tibetan silver charms with orange and purple Swarovski crystals, it's perfect as a bit of spooky sparkle this Halloween.  I have lots of these charms in stock, so if you wanted matching earrings, that can be done too :)

So there are new things happening at Willowbrook Artistry all the time, even if it seems a bit quiet - do keep checking back! :)

What I've been making - Custom Orders :)

I've had a crafty weekend!  I've had a couple of custom orders to do, so I thought I'd share them with you!

First one was a personalisation on my birthstone key necklace.  Lovely for an 18th/21st birthday present, this one has a peridot Swarovski crystal - peridot is the birthstone for August.  

Each charm is on a separate ring so you can wear all three or any combination, and the crystal and pearl are hung on headpins that have a little twist under the loop.  The crystal is 6mm and the pearl is 4mm, so it's still dainty.

The next order I had was for 9 custom wine glass charms for a bridal party.  The theme is orange and pewter, so after a chat with the bride, I went for pretty silver tone charms with Swarovski crystals and pearls.

I'm really pleased with them!  I love custom orders because I get to try out colour schemes I wouldn't necessarily have tried otherwise.  The crystal satin Swarovski crystals really sparkle in the light (excuse the photo - I'm away at the moment without my photo cube!).  They're off to a lady in the US - I hope she's happy with them!

And here they are all packaged up to go!  As they're for a bridal party I put each one in a separate organza bag, ready to give to each person as a keepsake - a pretty reminder of the day!

Lastly, I tried my hand at something totally different.  I love baking so I decided to make a birthday cake for my OH.  My cakes never turn out like the pictures (whose do?!) but they usually taste good.  Anyway, with this much chocolate in it, it was bound to be tasty... :D

I found the recipe on the BBC website here, highly recommended if you want a quick and easy recipe for soft, chocolatey goodness!  

A few updates - prints now available

So again I feel I should apologise for the long absence!  Summer months are busy for gigging musicians and I haven't had much time off.  That and things are picking up in the shop so I've been keeping on top of orders.  I have finally started adding prints to my shop though!  :)  I'll put more on that in a sec but first, there's no space to write this on Etsy so I'll put it here - I've been selling more of these bracelets recently than I ever expected! (thank you if you've bought one!)  At the moment they're sold out, but that's temporary.

I've run out of the little bird charms.  I've got some more on order, so hopefully I can get these back in stock soon, so if you are wanting one, I will be making some more.  :)  I've also been making plans for a Harry Potter inspired bracelet, and in the meantime I made this blue one, centred more around Annie and Finnick.  Again though, until I get my little birds I only have one in stock!

Anyway, that's my little service update :)

Back to the prints - I'm really pleased about this because I've been dabbling in photography for a while now - I had a DSLR for Christmas a few years ago and have been experimenting with it ever since.  I finally decided to take the leap and list some of my photographs in my shop.  At the moment I'm just selling them as prints, but I have been looking into greetings cards, calendars, and more.  Here are a couple I've just listed.  I'd be really interested to know what you all think!

This one was taken in a little patch of woodlands in Dorset in 2010.  It's such a pretty place I have a number of images from that spring.  Every year it fills with pretty bluebells, and the light was just perfect on this particular day.  








This photograph was taken in July 2012 on my recent trip to the Loire Valley, Brittany and the surrounding area (see previous post!).  This is the Passage du Gois, a natural road between Beauvoir-sur-Mer and the Isle of Noirmoutier. The road is flooded twice a day by high tide.  Luckily for me, the beautiful weather and the timings lined up and we crossed just at sunset.  It really was an incredible sight!  


So yeah, you'll be seeing more of my photography sneaking into the shop - I'll mostly be listing nature and landscape photographs.  I'm also into sports & gig photography so I might put those up in an album but probably not in the shop.  As with most of my work, I'm not too focussed on any one thing, I just tend to go everywhere with my camera and see what catches my eye! 

Lastly, the final reason for my recent disappearances - I'm moving house!  I'll no longer be based in the Midlands, but I'm moving up to South Yorkshire to start a full-time day job.  I'll still be running my shop and blog, but over the next few months I might be a bit quiet.  However, one of my main excitements about the new house is I'm getting my own craft room!  No more scrabbling in bags and boxes for bits of ribbon or those crystals I know I have somewhere - I'll actually have a space to set everything out - YAY!  :)

Back from France, found some treasures :)

So I've been away in France, in the Loire Valley and Brittany, for a week, and it was beautiful.  The weather was gorgeous and I went to some beautiful places, like Quiberon...

How stunning is that?!

As well as trying the local food (including mussels in roquefort cheese - just fantastic!) and local wine, I also managed to find handmade things whilst I was out there, including this lady.

I bought a gorgeous necklace from her that she made in polymer clay, then wrote my name along with a design of my choice, music, of course!  Anyway, I don't know if you can read the pic, but this was the sign on her stall.  

 

While I was out there I also visited an amazing themed park (not theme park), Puy du Fou (google it!).  It's basically got themed areas including Vikings, Roman Colosseum, Middle Ages Village and others, with amazing shows in each, and they have traditional crafts.  I found one lady stamping metal necklaces, and another doing calligraphy.

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the finished necklace, but it was really interesting to watch as I've dabbled with stamping and she made it look so simple!  The calligraphy was amazing too, I do have a photo of that, excuse the awful colour cast, it is a plain white background really.  The photo above is of her actually writing mine!

If you're ever in the Loire Valley, check out Puy du Fou, the shows are fantastic - it's a great day out :)

Finally, on the last day, we went to Quiberon, in Brittany (the first photo), and I had some time down on the beach.  I found this...

It might not look like much, but it's beach glass.  Pieces of glass that have been tumbled by the sea until they appear frosted, and then washed up on the beach.  I've cleaned them at home and will be using some of them to make jewellery. My favourite is the light blue, and the piece of pottery, although it's a shame the pattern is damaged!  Watch out in my shop for some of these pieces :)

So that's the condensed version of my trip to France.  I got to wander around some very pretty towns and take lots of photos.  I'm keen on photography too, in fact today I've been investigating prints, so hopefully very soon you'll see some of my pictures in my shop too!