sweet keyrings/handbag charms...

yes, they are real sweets embedded in resin..

love hearts and liquorice allsorts

all available from Just K Jewellery at £5 each

they could be an unusual valentines pressie for your loved one...

Twitter & Stumbleupon....

I've just signed up for Twitter and Stumbleupon. I'm justkjewellery on Twitter so please come and find me if you already use Twitter. On Stumbleupon my use name is kbeads so please add Just K Jewellery as one of your favourite websites if you use this site. I'm struggling a bit with SU - not the easiest site to navigate but I'm sure I'll get to grips with it eventually....

getting organised...

I have to admit I'm not very organised. My jewellery and the handmade beads that I sell are in boxes next to my work desk. I bought a workmans storage box at the weekend which has about 50 small compartments - ideal for my handmade beads. I've now got the beads sorted but am still trying to come up with an idea to organise the jewellery - without spending a fortune.

I've spent this morning restocking Just K Beads after a customer bought most of the stock at the weekend. It always takes much longer than you expect it to. Getting the beads ready for sale involves drilling holes, rubbing down rough edges, taking photos, editing the photos, writing the item description to give as much & as accurate a description as possible....

Making jewellery...

I've recently made myself a workroom - I had to move out of the dining room so we could use it at christmas. I was making resin in the dining room & jewellery in the study - and any other table I could use around the house! I've redecorated the room and moved everything in. Nick said he was going to take a photo to remind us of what it looked like tidy - I think he's just glad I've got a room we can close the door on!

Anyway - I decided to take some photos myself...

Dolly the dispay dummy in the corner says "hello".

This is my jewellery making desk. It was untidy again within 30 minutes of moving in as I uprooted boxes looking for something

This is my resin table - I doubt if I'll ever see it as tidy & neat again. I use a selection of ready made molds that I have to buy from the USA, I can't find a supplier in the UK with a decent range of shapes. I also make my own molds from found items and I make shapes out of fimo & then make a mold.

To make the resin you mix the resin with hardener in the correct quantities. While it is liquid you can tint or colour it and add a variety of different items/inclusions. It takes about 24 hours to become hard enough to demold the pieces & then they need to continue curing for about 48 hours. Curing under lights helps to speed up the process.

As you can see from the photo I've got some kitsch pieces curing - I've embedded sweets in the resin. I've had about a 50% success rate so far - the others had air bubbles trapped in the resin. I hope to be able to take photos of the finished pieces in the next few days...

more charm bracelets...

Two more charm bracelets - I've just added both of them to JUST K JEWELLERY

This one, as you can see has lots of different butterfly charms and beads. The two fimo butterflies are absolutely gorgeous - Ill definitely be buying more of them.

This is another hearts charm bracelet, but this time in shades of blue & silver

charm bracelets...

I was asked to make a bespoke charm bracelet recently. My customer know exactly what she wanted & sent me some photos of bracelets she's seen & loved on sites in the USA but were very expensive. I don't believe in copying other peoples work but used the photos as inspiration & I also knew the budget I was working to - £15 including P&P. This bracelet is the result...I had to buy a variety of different beads & charms - I buy online in order to get the best prices & usually in bulk too so I now have a nice healthy stock. I've already made the bracelet below & will be using the rest of the beads and charms to make some more bracelets.
available to buy from Just K Jewellery for £14 (P&P free)

Thanks Susie

Thanks to Susie from Diet Cut Dreams for nominating me for an award.
Click here to visit Susies blog http://diecutdreams.blogspot.com/

gorgeous little beads...

I found some gorgeous little glass beads at the bead shop - clear glass with delicate stripes of colour - and just had to buy them. They are mainly tubes that I'm going to make up into earrings and these little triangles of glass that look stunning strung simply on sterling silver chain.They are much smaller & delicate than they appear in the photos but unless I take a close up photo you can't see the detail. Both necklaces have been added to Just K Jewellery

We're on Facebook...

I have just created a group called JUST K JEWELLERY on FACEBOOK. This is an open group so please feel free to join. I'm hoping to use it as a way of sending out a regular newsletter as well as giving a members only discount code to use in the shop - Just K Jewellery on Facebook

New year... new name...

Secret Jewellery on GroovyCart has now been renamed JUST K JEWELLERY.
I'm in the process of working through everything to make sure all the links are working and that I've changed the name of the links. You don't have to try & remember the new name as the following domain names have been set up to take you to the GroovyCart shop
www.justkjewellery.co.uk
www.justk.co.uk
www.karenjewellery.co.uk
www.secretjewellery.co.uk

Happy New Year...

Happy New Year...
Here we go - back to normal and I've got loads to get my teeth into this year. Nick was supposed to go back to work today after a nice long relaxing christmas break but like most of britain we've had the lurgy & he hasn't shaken it off yet. Hopefully he'll be well enough to go in tomorrow.
I'm planning to change the name of my jewellery shop on GroovyCart from Secret Jewellery to Just K Jewellery - it gets so confusing having online shops with different names. The plan is to have just one online shop eventually which will be Just K Jewellery on GroovyCart. All the different domain names I own will be redirected to take you to this shop. I'll be making the change this week and will need to check all links, listings etc. If anyone finds a link that doesn't work I'd be really grateful for a quick email...