Thursday 21 May 2009

feeling like im getting somewhere ish

Feel a little more positive this week about Rocks For Frocks, my business plan and grant application has gone in, not sure how long that takes but fingers crossed.

I had a meeting with a lovely lady at a new shop in Chester called Boda Bridal, and to my amazement she actually bought half my stock and is going to display it in her shop, with a selection of my packaging, I have a few more things to make for her too, so if anyones in the Chester area pop in and have a look, its a gorgeous shop too, a very good concept of a shop for everything for weddings and she's stocking a selection of nicely made items. www.bodabridal.co.uk

Had my first customer on the website through a google search! She searched for invisible necklace and my site came up about 3rd - woooo!

Im biting the bullet and putting an advert in one of the big wedding magazines, Wedding Ideas, which should be in the next issue, really pleased with the advert, the guy at the magazine created it. Fingers crossed that it gets me some business!

Silvering!

WE had a lovely day the other week at Morano Silver on Nics Silver clay course, learnt loads, but of course putting it into practise is more difficult, I now have a nice collection of little silver balls!
I am enjoying making molds, made a really nice spiral shell which i managed to break about 3 times, once by running over it with my chair! the finished result is pretty though and i will post pics when the whole piece is finished. I also made a star with the mold from a swarovski crystal and a couple of hand stamped tags








This necklace is called wish on a star











and i made this little tag with a blue topaz dangle









and now ive used up all my clay and had to order more! gets very addicitive!

Friday 24 April 2009

Blog giveaway at Mourano Silver

Visit Mourano silvers blog for a chance to win some of her amazing silver work

well actually dont, because i want to win it hehe

http://muranosilver.blogspot.com/2009/04/blog-giveaway-for-england-st-george.html

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Bring on the bling






At Wedding Fairs, i quite often get asked for more sparkle and more bling, so I have been working on a design to get as much crystal and bling as possible onto a tiara, and a bit of movement so it catches the light more.








It has so much swarovski on it, its actually heavy!







The earrings come in Long and Longer!





Monday 30 March 2009

who's looking

Do you ever wonder who looks at your blog or your website? I often think i'm talking to myself on here and if anyone actually reads it.

On my webstats today 57 people from holland looked at my website and 22 from Finland. I wonder what happened in Holland to make 57 people look? wouldnt it be nice to know who they were?

131 people looked at my site from a review that a customer put on a wedding forum, and 79% of visitors put my site on their favorites. That would be amazing if they all turned into customers!

fascinators!!






Here are some pics of the ladies day fascinators, taken in the new fangled light tent, which scares the life out of me every time i take it out of the bag it lives in, it's like one of those exploding snake tins that kids used to have!








Thursday 26 March 2009

Ladies Day at Aintree



It's ladies day at the Grand National meeting very soon, and it seems despite the "recession" that ladies are going all out in their outfits, jewellery and head wear. My Daughter, Francesca is wearing a black dress with a feather effect, purple satin shoes and bag, so of course now she wants to the fascinator and jewellery to go with it. I have made a fascinator with a black flower that matches the feather effect with black coq feathers with a purple tip and she is going to have a gold wired necklace with amethyst swarovski and purple freshwater pearls on.




I've told her she better be handing out business cards for me!




So then that got her friends interested and Im making a set for Sarah, who likes classic jewellery, and had a great time playing with my box of jewels. She is wearing black and ivory, so I have made these to go with her outfit. We had a play around with the fascinator and luckily she likes lots of bling so it will be a grand affair. Then she spotted my heart of pearl necklace and wants one as a focal point for the fascinator!! There just arnt anough hours in the day lately.










New packaging



At long last my new packaging has arrived, really exiciting opening the boxes and seeing what was in there!






Feels almost like a "proper" business now. To be honest not sure i can part with any of it!!






Saturday 14 March 2009

last minute wedding fair .... again

I got the offer of a very late last minute wedding fair this morning, must be completely mad. Luckily i keep most of my things boxed up ready to take out to consultations. So I will be at Crabwall Manor Sunday 15th March from 12-4pm !

Think that will be the last one of the wedding season, then it all starts again in September.



I had a commission for a headband for a little girl which was a burgundy butterfly with white feathers on the side, must admit it was incredibly difficult to do but am quite pleased with the results and the customer seems very happy with it too.

Next commission is for a hair comb with rows of clear and fuschia crystals, thought that would be easy but was quite tricky really to get the crystals straight but to bend the comb too!





I never seem to get a straight order from the website, every one wants a variation! But then i suppose thats my fault for offering the service! Silly me!

I have orders for jewellery and fascinators for the Grand National meetings at Aintree, ladies day is really popular around here, with the women going all out with their outfits, it's lovely to see everyone so dressed up. I have also to make a fascinator for Francesca, she is wearing a black dress with purple accessories. Found some lovely coq feathers on ebay so will make something with those.

Wednesday 11 March 2009

New blog!



Welcome to my new blog! No idea what im going to do with it as yet but here goes.




My name is Gail Bell, I live in the Wirral and have a little Tiara and wedding jewellery business called Rocks For Frocks. It all started when a colleague at work was a bridesmaid for her friend and was looking at wedding jewellery on the internet and i said - "I can make that!" and so i did, make the head dresses and jewellery and I really enjoyed doing it. So then i did a tiara course at a place called Beady-Kate in Wigan and had a fab day, just sitting with other women all fiddling with bits of wire and crystals and pearls and came home clutching a lovely if somewhat wonky tiara - the one pictured, but since then i have gone on to sell it successfully, i think the wonkyness is part of the charm!


From then on, I made up a small collection and my Daughter Francesca, who had just completed a design degree, said she would make a website. This proved to be a real labour, as neither of us had the technical knowledge to do it, I ordered a ready done template site, but really it wasn't what we were looking for, I had a definate idea in my mind on how I wanted the site to look, the colours and the branding etc. Luckily this is Francesca's strong point, she came up with the name and the colours and the logo, which I love.