No blogging, no work...

or hardly any, anyway.  I did receive some amazing new stones last week that I bought from a shop on Etsy.  Now, I just need to order some more silver.  I do have a fair coming up on July 23rd, so I better get some new work done before then.

I need to print up some more business cards and tags, but my bloody printer won't print any work from Pages on my Mac.  I have discovered that the printer is actually working fine and so I think it's a problem with Pages.  I am not sure what to do about it.  What a pain in the ass.

I had made all these awesome clues for a treasure hunt for my son and wanted to make it look nicer, so tried to print them, but it all turned into a nightmare with me trying to re-install the driver and all.  But, it didn't seem to work.  I guess there is nothing wrong with good old-fashioned hand-written notes anyway.  He loved it at any rate!

What next?

Well, the open house was good in the end.  Not as many sales the last two weekends, but overall, fantastic. I have no idea how to sustain this kind of thing though now.  I should have a couple of market/fair things lined up, but only 2 over the summer.  I really must find other venues or outlets for my work.  I set up a new Folksy shop- http://www.folksy.com/shops/DanaLeighJewellery.  Hopefully, I can make some sales on there.  The first one is always the hardest.  My Spiral Toe Ring http://www.folksy.com/items/1847701-Spiral-Toe-Ring?shop=yes sells well on my Etsy shop and people seem to like it.  That's something to remember and work with anyway.  Have a look at my Facebook page- that gets updated most frequently-
http://www.facebook.com/DanaLeighJewellery.

So, I am crap at blogging

Yes, I have not written anything in ages, and my last post was about obsessing over my rental deposit.  Hardly the next big thing.  I suppose after I read that it can be helpful to include aspects of your personal life to your blog, even if it's about something specific you are doing, I let it take over.  Then, because I though it was crap, I just didn't write anything for ages.  Anyway, I am giving it another go.  So, here goes.

I have been showing at a fabulous house in Hove for the Brighton Festival Artists Open Houses.  It's a beautiful house and features all items that incorporate some kind of recycled or found materials.  I couldn't have dreamed of being a part of a lovelier group of artists in amazing surroundings.  The name of the house is Polish and Pin- www.facebook.com/pages/Polish-Pin/160467470635415 and is hosted by Emma Troy who creates spectacular butterfly collages out of magazines, among other things.

The first weekend was way beyond my expectations.  The second was still fantastic and last weekend, though not as busy for me, was still pretty good.  So that, with that last market I did with Makers Boutique has allowed to finally think that maybe I can do this for real!!  What a wonderful feeling.  We have one last weekend for the open house and that is supposed to be the busiest of all.  I need to try to do a bit more work for that, but have my final assignment due for my course on Friday.  Really,  I should be doing that and not writing on here!

So, that be it for now.  And let me come back with more exciting and cleverly written anecdotes and helpful information, so that maybe I will get a few followers at some point! xxx

Obsessing

I have spent the last few days now obsessing over what to do regarding our ex-landlord trying to keep most of our £1550 deposit.  If I thought we had actually damaged anything, then I guess I would have to deal with it.  But we didn't.  He's a nasty piece of work and it makes me so angry.  After googling everything I could think of that had to do with deposits, I found out that he had actually broken the law by not putting the money into a deposit protection scheme within 14 days.  He did it 5 months later.  And he still hasn't supplied us with 'prescribed information' about the scheme.  According to the Housing Act of 2004, if this is not done, the court must award the tenants their original deposit plus 3x in compensation.  And this is what happened many times.  It seemed too good to be true.  And perhaps it is.  At the end of 2011, there were a couple of cases that had made it the appeals court.  They were both similar in that the tenant was actually in arrears and were using the scheme rules as a defence.  The court found on the side of the landlord.  Since it was in the appeals court, it now sets a precedent of interpretation of the law, where they are now saying that the landlord has until the day of the hearing to comply.  These idiots who weren't paying their rent seem to have ruined it for the rest of us.  So, now I don't know what to do.  We can still try to claim this in court, but we are probably better off just trying to get our deposit back.  Which is fine- great even.  But I would like to make this a$% suffer like he has to us.  He even wrote a nasty, semi-threatening email to us the other day.  Said that we better be forthcoming with agreeing to him taking our money, or he would take us to court and it would cost us £2000.  Which is, of course, a lie.  I guess it could cost us that, if we hired a solicitor to do every little thing for us.  But we don't need one for County Court.  Argh.

I haven't really got any work done the last few days.  Too busy obsessing.  I have a mountain of clean laundry that needs ironing.  There's not that much dirty laundry actually, but my husband still can't find any socks.  What a terrible wife I am sometimes.  Why can't we find any when I know there has to be lots?  You know there in the mountain somewhere, but when there is that much crap to search through, you seem to miss them all.  The whites I washed three days ago still aren't dry.  How can this be?  It has been warm.  It is a bit cold today though.

I did manage to pull myself away from google for long enough yesterday to go to a 'sound investigation' at my son's school.  And my husband was off work so he came too.  Basically, it was 90 kids running around to different stations and making as much noise as possible for 45 minutes.  Drums, bells, whistles.  Our favourite station was the one with the earmuffs.  Too bad we had to make them with the kids and they weren't exactly the most functional muffs in the world.

hhmmm...back to googling for a bit and then....maybe some ironing.  I still haven't placed my order for silver either.  ugh.

A sunny day in my little studio

Today is at least the fifth day in a row of gorgeous, sunny spring weather.  Last night, I finally organised my little studio in the back of the house.  I don't know how I thought I was ever going to get any decent work done when it was so messy, dusty, etc.  I guess it's this kind of weather though that really helps you to feel like opening doors and windows and giving everything a thorough cleaning.

My 'studio' is a small conservatory off the kitchen- it's perfect for me as it lets heaps of natural light in.  But, over the winter it was freezing and so even though I kept my stuff in there, I didn't do any work in there.  The little bit of work that I did do since we moved here was done at the dining table.  When I do that, which is what I have had to do a lot over the last few years, it drives my husband mad.  It's not that he minds me working there, he just minds that I leave all my crap all over it for days on end and we end up having to eat dinner amongst bits of silver and little stone beads.  And tools.  I should really be more careful anyway and limit my work to the studio.  My son sometimes comes up to me and hands me bits of metal.  Not the best idea I guess.  If he were still a wee little one, I would be more careful, as I used to be, even when I did work in the living room and such.

At any rate, the weather is not meant to stay quite as warm, but here's hoping that I can now actually work in my studio.  Here's hoping that I will actually do some work.  The summer is around the corner and I have to be ready.  I have a month long open house coming up in May, not my house, but a big, beautiful house that I am joining for the time.

I must go compile an order for recycled silver that I have been putting off for months because I didn't want to spend the money, but if I don't get it in soon, I will have no silver to do any work.  Must also order the Fair Trade chains I have had on my eye on for over a year.  This is it.  I really must make this business thing happen now.

Estate agents are evil

We moved out of our old flat at the beginning of December.  Right away, they sent us a letter saying there were some damages, outlining them, and stating that they would let us know as soon as they figured out how much they would cost.  We didn't agree with what they were saying, but thought that we would see if it was just going to be small amounts, in which case, we probably wouldn't fight it, as sometimes, it's easier just to let these things go.  I don't cope well with these kinds of confrontations.  3 months later, we finally get the next letter.  They have added multiple other things that we are supposedly responsible for.  The patio doors were apparently 'kicked in' and they are trying to charge us £271 for those- £1,300 in total!  They seem to have just made this up some time after we moved out.  They are full of shit and it makes me ill.  I have since read other reviews about them online in which people have had similar experiences with them.  I guess they make a habit out of taking advantage of people like us.  How lovely.

My very first blog post, ever

I suppose I am way behind with this blog thing.  Everyone has been doing it for some time now, and, considering the fact that I like to (sometimes) call myself a writer, I guess it's pretty sad that it has taken me until now to start one.  Let's hope that I actually find interesting and/or amusing things to talk about and that someone, somewhere, actually reads the thing.

So, maybe the introduction stuff is supposed to go in my profile...?  I don't know, but here goes a bit anyway.  I just turned 30.  Does that mean I am supposed to be a grown-up now?  I don't feel like one.  Except for all the grey hair.  I have had some since I was 20, but now it's getting ridiculous.  At least women don't usually need to worry about going bald.  Instead, I just make fun of my husband, since he's been losing his hair since I was 18 and he was 23, probably before then.

I have been talking about opening a jewellery (or,' jewelry' , depending on where you live.  My sister with a PhD thought I spelled my business name wrong) business for the last 3 years or so.  And I have been 'doing' jewellery since then.  And I have gotten pretty good at it.  The jewellery, that is, not the business.  I haven't actually 'opened' anything at all.  But, I have spent plenty of money.  I am not sure on what exactly.  Well, silver and stones and tools and display, I guess.  All that costs money.  And I bought a nice camera 3 years ago, which is already pretty out of date, but takes pretty nice pictures anyway and will probably always be a nice camera.  But, ideally, running a business should not just mean spending lots of money to make pretty things and sometimes actually selling some.  I am very inconsistent, that's my main problem.  I burn myself out too easily because I am completely manic in all I do.  It's all or nothing with me.  No happy medium.

My goal is to make my jewellery as ethical and sustainable as possible.  Sometimes this has paralysed me from doing anything at all with it, since the industry is inherently very UNethical.  But, that's just a convenient excuse most of the time for me.  So, I did make the decision to go for it anyway, but it's not always easy.  We'll see how that goes.

Besides that, I try to be a good mum to our beautiful son who just turned 6.  Overall, I think I am a pretty good one, he knows how much I love him and we usually have a laugh.  But, for all I preach about kids watching too much TV, etc., etc., it's too easy to let him do the same sometimes.  And, he got a DS for Xmas, which I swore he didn't need at his age.  Oh well.  I try, most of the time anyway.