Checking out our own stall...

Please excuse how awful we look, but this is the only picture taken of us at the pop-up shop. I've only just found it on a blog my tutor told me about. It's not the most flattering picture, and although we look like we're looking somebody up and down we're not - we're actually stood in front of our stall looking at the stuff and checking it was all in the right place before the shop opened properly, and concentrating really really hard!

Oh dear :')
In other news, our handpainted pumps got a mention on the LCA website and in the Yorkshire Evening Post, eek!

LCAhttp://www.leeds-art.ac.uk/home/news-events/news/article/leeds-college-of-art-pop-up-shop/

Yorkshire Evening Posthttp://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Leeds-students-put-art-work.6652168.jp

Cya! x

Pop-up shop, future planning and Christmas!

I'm going to apologise in advance for how long this post is going to be. I also need to apologise for not updating in so long but we've been so busy, what with the stall, college deadlines, Christmas shopping and Christmas itself! Add to this the fact that my laptop decided to break so I'm either having to work froom my iPod or on occasions Mike's tiny college laptop.  So here's what I think you'd like to know that's happened in the past 17/18 days and I will be back to my regular updates from now on :)

The stall ran from the 9th-11th of December and in that time we sold a fair amount of stock, including 2 pairs of our handpainted pumps. You can see pictures of the stall in production and almost finished below in a previous post (camera bloomin' ran out before we got more pictures!). I really enjoyed being able to interact with the customers and talk about our 'stuff' to them, made it really nice to be able to see who the item was going home with :) Some of the other things being sold were lovely! You can see how much I liked one girls designs in particular in the picture in the previous post, new love! I'm hoping to organise a pop-up shop or event of our own, hopefully with some of the other designers from the college's event, but any event ideas are welcomed :)

In other news, I got my university application sent off and they've sent me a task which I need to complete to even get an interview for the 12th January, so I need to get cracking on that asap, which is proving to be a bit difficult with no working laptop or camera :') It will be fine!

Christmas shopping was a nightmare, I started too late because of all the stall stuff but I managed it! Success! Got Mike a lovely Fred Perry bag, a Chuck Norris book, a laser-cut vinyl wall-piece, and I owe him a hat :)

I got a bigger version of the bag that I got Mike and it's gorgeous! Also got Hello Kitty headphones(!!!!!) and a 'Urban Decay' makeup brush from Mike's mum, as well as so many more things, she spoils us! Mike bought me a Victorinox multi-tool which will come in handy for jewellery, as well as some lovely sillicone teacups for making cupcakes in (complete opposite ends of the  present spectrum there!) and a gorgeous necklace which I'll show you when I've got a working camera! Yet to open any presents from my family as we've spent Christmas at Mike's, which has been so nice. We're going home tomorrow after we've had a meal with my Dad, then back to Mike's Friday for New Years Eve with Mike's family and friends :) Phew! Busy busy. (Might do a full Christmas day write-up another day).

We're now back to taking orders as usual and will be making more designs in the New Year :) We will be putting the money we made from the pop-up shop towards more materials, as well as paying for a stall at an event. I'm really hoping to get us a place at 'The Vintage Fair', so I will be emailing the lady in charge very soon!

That's all I can think of right now, anything else I'll let you know :)
Cheers guys! xxx

Even more new stuff...

These are some gorgeous limited edition earrings that will be available at the pop-up shop then hopefully afterwards in our usual stock (we will be trying to get hold of some more of the buttons to make more).

I personally love them and will be showing off my own as of tomorrow :) (The great thing about making my own jewellery is that I have the choice to only make one earring because I only have one available ear piercing on my lobe as my right side ear is body modified at 10mm so will not fit a normal size earring, rather than me having to buy a pair and waste half my money because I can only use one!)

However, a lot of our earrings can be used to fit in other ear piercings, rather than just the lobe, such as the pinna (top of ear) and tragus. I will be testing and showing this personally over the next few weeks :)

Today we've also made some 'Build me up' brooches and cufflinks, as well as some 'Rosette' brooches and 'Lost my heart at sea' rings before we went out to a family thing.

This is what I wore;
Dress - from 'New Look' (bought it ages ago and hadn't worn it yet!)
Cardigan - was my Nana's :)
Boots - vintage fair!
Cameo brooch - 'Blue Rinse' in Leeds
Not shown: I also used my new blue handbag from the vintage fair and wore one of our own 'Build me up' rings in red <3
                                 
I dress like an old lady sometimes and I love it!

We're hopefully getting the cards and everything sorted tomorrow ready for the shop on Thursday :) Got a rescheduled meeting on Tuesday to finalise things on the sales team, and also really really need to get our sales pitch and prices sorted D: Eeeek.

Thanks for reading x

Pop-up preparation..new stock!

Finally, here are some new updated photos of our new stock, ready in time for the pop-up shop! We've got some other stuff yet to show so keep an eye out :)

Please note; the items are much brighter in real life, the camera didn't pick up how bright they are, but we've worked around it. The colours are actually gorgeous :) Thanks.

Enjoy!

'Build me up' rings, pick a colour :) (Others available)

'Build me up' brooches, pick a colour :) (Other colours and combinations available)

'City lights' earring, pick a colour :) (Other colours available)

'Roses are red...' earrings (Made from modified buttons)
Also shown: 'Lost my heart at sea' earrings

Capsule vintage collection, made from modified vintage buttons (Limited edition!)

Thanks a lot for looking, and we'll be doing a complete price list post later which will include our original prices and the 'Artsmix' price (our price + 20% commission) that will be getting charged at the pop-up shop, byee  :) <3

Who doesn't love party umbrellas?

Getting into the Christmas spirit with hot chocolate....and a party umbrella :')

We've got a snow day off college today but all our 'stuff' and making bits and bobs are at my house so we can't do any making :(

There's no buses running and there's still a LOT of snow, our meeting's definitely cancelled and I'm not sure how well the pop-up shop will run if the weather stays like this :(

Hopefully our online orders will still make it to us in time, and we still need to go sort out the cards and everything that we didn't get to last night.

On a happier note, we're wrapped up nice and warm watching 'the lion, the witch and the wardrobe' :)

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.

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

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

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!