A bit of input from Mike...

It's Mike doing the blog this time because Derrian's busy doing college work :)

We've just finished our commission for 2 rings and 2 pairs of 'City lights' earrings, and are going to pick up more supplies for rings, brooches and earrings tomorrow. Also we are re-visiting the business card designs and the themed cards for our jewellery to be placed on tomorrow and mass printing in preparation for the pop-up shop :)

Hope to see you there.
Mike.

'Lily Bones' will be at the Leeds College of Art pop-up shop from the 9th-11th December.

Pop-up preparation :)

Tonight we set out to make a couple of pairs of earrings and rings just to get us started again this week; we ended up making 22 pairs of earrings, 11 rings and a couple of new brooch ideas! (The brooches are an extension of an original brooch we do). They look lovely, but it's resulted in me having to place another very big online order, I really hope it comes just in time for the pop-up shop, if it doesn't we'll still have enough stock, it'd be nice though as I've got a couple more ideas I'd like to have done for then :)

The shop's just over a week away and we've got so much to do! I've also got my college deadline and my university application deadline all on the same day so it's a lot to handle at once :')

I'm so excited to see how people react to our designs, we've had nothing but good responses so far :D

'Lily Bones' will be at the Leeds College of Art pop-up shop 9th-11th December.

Lovely goodies :)

Please excuse the quality of the pictures, nothing looks good in artificial light :')
These are my lovely purchases from the vintage fair;

lovely boots :)

Blue handbag :)

Brown purse/clutch :)

Everything :)

I've got a feeling my Doc Martens are going to be taking a bit of a back seat for a while with these boots on the scene :')

Feeding my love of vintage...

Today we went to a vintage fair at Leeds met SU and it was lovely! It was run by the people who do the one we normally go to in Sheffield, and they didn't disappoint!

Their vintage fairs are so well organised and laid out, and everything's so lovely. They even run a little tea party with gorgeous mis-matching cups and saucers and cupcakes (so yummy!). I had a raspberry cupcake with crazy blue icing as always and it was so tasty!

I saw so many things that I wanted to buy and a LOT of things I couldn't afford (the joys of running Lily Bones) :')
I am very happy with what I did buy though; I got a blue vintage handbag and it's so lovely, a smaller brown bag/clutch type thing which looks very old and worn and it's so nice, and a gorgeous pair of boots which are exactly what I've been looking for for ages! (I'll post pictures when I've taken them). We went into town after and I also bought the Grinch on DVD because Mike's never seen it and he NEEDS to, as well as a new white bandana :) It's been nice today :)

If you want to check out dates for the vintage fair you can find them here:
http://www.thevintagefair.com/

I've also got the email address of the lady in charge of the vintage fair so I'm going to email her very soon about getting a stall with them, it would be so amazing if we could. I'm also going to email 'Culture Vulture' (a shop in Leeds) about getting a place for our 'stuff' in their shop; I've loved that shop since I was 14 so to be able to get our 'stuff' in there would be such an achievement!

This week we've sold 2 pairs of 'city lights' earrings, 2 rings and a pair of 'pretty little lady' earrings.

The girl who we sold the ring to was on a photoshoot the other day and she wore our ring and she said she had 4 different girls come up and ask her where she got it from! So proud!

That's all for now, I'll get these pictures posted now as Mike's very kindly taken them for me :)
Byee x

Preparing for the pop-up shop :)

We had our second meeting about the pop-up shop yesterday afternoon/evening where we were discussing how to price our items and also what 'value for 'money' actually means. We also started to sort out what 'teams' we want to be on (eg. sales, promotion, design), and Mike and I have been asked to be head of sales! :) This means we'll actually be near our designs and will also be able to actually talk to customers about them which is great.

However, we only found out yesterday that we have to add 20% commission onto our original prices which will then go to Artsmix afterwards. This means our original more affordable prices will all be a bit odd now. For example, a £3.50 ring will now have to be £4.20, and our £4.50 brooches will now be £5.40 :(
Can't be helped though, just keep that in mind when/if you come to the stall :)

Also, our big online order just came last night so we're going to get cracking asap on a load of rings, earrings and brooches :) Need to do a bit more promotion for the stall too...

Excited!
x

Very very very exciting :)

We've just been asked to do a very exciting commission by a friend :)

She wants a personalised charm necklace with an 'E' tile on it, with other cute little charms like cupcakes and teacups, and artsy type things :)

It's lovely, I'm in my element looking at all these different charms and thinking what I think would look good together :) With this one, because it's a commission, the buyer has a lot of say in what charms she wants and what she wants it to look like but I'm looking forward to making more afterwards where we can pick the charms and make some really interesting combinations! :D

It's so exciting! :D

Need to prepare for the pop-up shop, do my college work and now this too! Busy busy!

Byeee x

Insight...

We haven't put many pictures up before now, so here's to the start of many pictures to come :)

These are a selection of our designs, we have retained some images for personal reasons.

Enjoy!

Lily Bones' handpainted pumps

'City lights' earrings

'I lost my heart at sea' earrings and 'pretty little lady' earrings

Please let us know what you think, and remember, this is only a selection of our designs, and we also do personalised designs and commissions :) We are also still working on the names of our products :)

Tatty bye x

Update.

We went to our meeting on Thursday about the pop-up shop, it was interesting to see what other people are going to be selling, as well as thinking more about how we want to exhibit our work. We already had some ideas about what 'props' we could use to help display our work, but now we need to also look at where abouts in the area of the shop we want to display them. We thought we would be best off with a table, and just presenting it really nice, but a lot of other people seem to be wanting to put their work on the walls and on shelves ad things, and it's making us wonder whether we'd be better doing something like that. Decision, decisions.

I've also been on the hunt for new places for us to sell our 'stuff' and came across a lovely blog of a lady who organises craft events in the Corn Exchange in Leeds, which would be brilliant! I sent her a quick email and she replied very quickly and was very lovely, we just need to email her some pictures and she'll send us some forms and we'll be on our way!

In other news, we've sold another 3 rings, a brooch and a set of cufflinks this week, and we've been given even more commissions to do, which we've worked on today. We've had a small setback with the glue we were using but that's been solved already and we're using something now that's stronger than ever :)

The business cards went to print this week also, so thats another step forward for us, as well as the launch of our Facebook (facebook.com/lilyboneshandmade). It feels like we've made quite a bit of progress this week. Now we're just waiting on our big online order and looking at some other bits and bobs for new designs. We bought a lot of supplies yesterday with the money we made this week so that we're stocked up over Christmas too :)

Think we're going to look into doing some Christmassy designs, as well as our originals, either make great presents! :)

Today, we also started working on our mini vintage collection, made from modified vintage buttons, they're looking lovely if I do say so myself :) We'll put pictures up asap! We seem to be lacking in pictures on most of our websites so we will try sort that quickly quickly!

And finally, these lovely antlers that Mike's dad bought in York for his knifemaking :) Fear not animal lovers, as you probably know, deer grow and shed new antlers every year so no deer were harmed in the making of this photo!

Thanks for reading, sorry for the enormous post and I will keep you updated on the vintage collection amongst other exciting things :)

A very happy customer...

Last night we sold 3 pairs of earrings, a ring AND a brooch, all to the same lovely girl :) Tomorrow we're taking in what people have ordered into college, so that's another 3 rings, 1 brooch and a pair of commissioned cufflinks! We have our first seminar for the pop-up shop on Thursday and they want us to take our stock with us; seeing as we've just sold 10 things we really need to get cracking over the next couple of nights. Going into town after college tomorow to buy more supplies and doing some online ordering tonight so we'll be ready!


We've also got more commissions to do, and a few people wanting to have a good look at our designs before they order so we're very busy.

On top of all this I'm looking into getting us a space in either a shop or design studio to showcase our 'stuff', as well as organising our own event within the college (fingers crossed). The pop-up shop is less than a month away and we're sooo busy (adding in both of us having college deadlines!) but so excited.


I've just been raiding my Nana's button boxes and there's some in there that are over a hundred years old! There was so many, and she's said we can have any that we want so we've got a nice collection of vintage buttons to work with now! :)


On another note, Twitter doesn't seem to want to work on my laptop at the moment so I'm updating a lot less than I would be but still attempting it from my iPod!


Until next time, goodbye! xx

Need to update more

Sorry, been very very busy with college work the past few days, went to an animation workshop in Leeds today as well which was pretty cool :)

We've got a couple more commissions to do so we'll be busy busy tomorrow night. The business cards are also finally going to the printers I think which will take a weight off my mind, ready for the pop up shop.

We've also been looking at cute little pick'n'mix type bags to put our stuff in once someone's bought it, they're gorgeous!

Taking in the stuff people 'ordered' on Wednesday too, the ball is finally rolling! :D

Just got an email back off the pop-up shop woman...

WE GOT IT!
This is great :) We have to go to 2 'training seminars' beforehand though to make sure we know what we're doing. Need to get cracking making more stuff, but yay!

It's just a waiting game now...

I went into college today to hand in the application form for the pop-up shop, the pictures we took for it came out pretty good so we're happy. It's just a waiting game now to see if we've been selected, reaaally hope we have. Otherwise we just need to keep looking out for other crafts fairs and opportunities :)


This weathers awful! Kills my creative buzz, cups of tea and episodes of 'Friends' it is :)

First look...

These are the first pictures we've taken of any of our stuff so keep in mind the quality will improve.

This is one our chosen images which we need to send to the woman in charge of the pop-up shop so she can see what our designs are like. Might upload some of the others later :)

Shown: 'I lost my heart at sea' earrings and 'pretty little lady' earrings.
(We may change the names of our items at a later date, we're still working stuff out)

Both items made from modified buttons.
Hope you like!

Planning ahead...

Mike's turn to be caught concentrating this time. Look at our army! We've been getting them all prepared for tomorrow morning, because we need some new resin before we can do anything with them.

They all look so good but they'll be even better when we're finished with them! We'll be putting up pictures tomorrow because the artificial light makes them look awful, we need natural light.

Can't wait to do more making tomorrow!

Busy busy...

Thinking up exciting things for us to blog about other than just our designs, we also need to get some pictures of all our stuff for here. Been emailing the lady in charge of the pop-up shop, thought it had turned into a disaster but I think we might be okay now, just need to hand in the application form she attatched and give it to our course administrator Shirley on Monday :) Phew.

Snapped by Mike, concentrating so hard!

Having a bit of a break now and looking for exciting blogs for us to follow, any recommendations?

Pop-up shop.

My tutor at college told me the other week that there's going to be a pop-up shop at the uni campus of our college and that we should try get a stall there so we've spent weeks slowly building up our stock in preparation for it as my tutor had said it would be around the end of November.

I saw her yesterday and she told me that it is going to be the 9th-11th December instead which gives us a bit more time, she also gave me the organisers email address so that I could get the information from her.

I just emailed her now but as always I'm really worried that I've put her email address in wrong or something :')

Suppose if I did I'll just have to email her again, it'll be alright in the end, I hope.

Goshhh, I really really hope we get it, it'd be such a great opportunity for us!

I get really annoyed when...

I see stalls and websites selling things that we can make for well under half the price, it's as if all people care about these days is exploiting buyers, you're supposed to take some joy in what you're doing, rather than it just being a way to make money.

It also upsets me when other sellers are rude about customers on their own blogs and such - just because they're never going to see it doesn't mean other people won't and it just makes you look very childish and narrow minded. People who treat a commonly recreated item as something they own, as if it was never done before them; face it, sometimes someone IS going to have done your idea before you, just deal with it and don't try to pull their design down.

If I could just influence someone to be more creative and try their hand at something like this, that would be so rewarding!

After actually talking to several sellers at vintage and crafts fairs I've had mixed feelings about the people I spoke to; some were very interested in what I do and others suddenly became very closed off and suddenly didn't want to talk and gave very short, rude answers which is exactly what I'm talking about, people who think they're better than you because they're a little further ahead than you, but they forget that they were in the same position as me at some point in their career.

In conclusion, I don't like rude people and I don't like people who think they are much better than others because they are a bit further ahead.

I plan on being as helpful as I can to customers, and if they want tips on making their own stuff I'll give it to them.

I'm sorry if I've come off as rude or bitchy or anything in this post, I can assure you I'm not, I just saw something on a sellers blog which upset me and reminded me exactly why I started Lily Bones - so that I can be exactly the opposite :)

Hello!

We're new to blogger so go easy on us :')

Lily Bones is run by 2 Graphic design students, myself (Derrian) and my partner (Mike). We create affordable handmade and upcycled stuff, including rings, brooches and bags so that students like ourselves and other creative individuals can afford innovative items to express themselves.

We aim to keep our prices low and not overcharge as we have experienced this with other brands like ourselves, through attending vintage and craft fairs in and around Yorkshire.

We'll be updating as much as we can but we're still working on the blog!
Bye :) xx