So, yes, I disappared. At the beginning of November I joined NaNoWriMo, and tried to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Failed miserably but did hit a personal best of just over 28,000 words.

Then over the past week I was preparing for my first craft fair, which I then went to yesterday (Saturday).

Got there and found I had been shoved in to the social club room with three other people, the main hall had all the other stalls. Apparantly they normally opened up some bigger doors between the two but when they went to set the hall up last night they found that the the doors were blocked by the social club so they couldn't open them and so we were slightly stranded. They put up big signs but FFS who generally reads such things?

So it didn't look like it would go well. I managed to get everything set up within 40 minutes and then sat there with my bead kit and made a few more earrings, and went over the polymer clay ones I made over a year ago so the little loops in the headpins were much smaller (I've definitely improved :D) while I waited for the whole thing to start. I was sharing my room with a charity stall, someone who makes their own honey, and a brother and sister that were selling "collectibles" (not good enough to be antique, too good for a car boot sale). Some other stall holders drifted in from the other room, and when they saw my jewellery mentioned that there were 6 other jewellery sellers out there!

But I managed to sell a decent amount. Two girls from the charity stall bought earrings, and then other people wandered in. Everything I sold was under a fiver, most were around the 3 pound mark. I sold 4 cards (need to buy more letter stickers as I had a few "Don't suppose you have an "I" one as my sister is Imogen, but I didn't have any with me), 3 phone charms (heart ones with crystals), a bag charm my Mum made, and 8 pairs of earrings. None of the bracelets were sold but I don't mind :D

So overall I have got back my table cost, my lunch, the box of Celebrations I bought so I could offer them to people, and the bacon roll I bought, and then with the decent amount on top of that I reckon I have also got back my petrol and all my bead costs for the stuff I took along.

Mum and my eldest little sister came to visit and Mum said that the other jewellery out there did not look that great, some of it was quite expensive, others looked a bit gaudy, and some just looked a bit odd (one person I noticed was selling bracelets with quite large square glass beads and small crystals and it just didn't look right). I probably would have made more if I had been in the main room XD

All in all, a nice day, even though I left early due to the lack of people towards the end, and I'm very happy that I managed to sell more than one thing!

Last bracelet and earring pair has gone up today, now I need to buy more beads before I make and list more jewellery XD

Bracelet:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16509253

Earrings:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16509238


I also managed to land me a Treasury! I was planning on a theme around the upcoming Bonfire Night (we're not big Halloween fans in the UK, instead we love the bloke that tried to blow up Parliament), but then just as I was browsing Etsy a news item popped up on TV, today is the start of the Poppy Appeal here in the UK. The poppies are made by injured servicemen and women, and the money goes towards helping them, and the families and dependants of soldiers that don't come back alive. Chuck a few coins in the pot and you get a little paper poppy. I always end up buying several as I lose the first one I get XD I must remember to take a safety pin with me as well as the normal pins they give tend to stab me.

Anyway, I chose to change my Treasury theme, from a nutter with gunpowder, to poppies. And here is the result:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=16684

To continue the normal theme of entries, I'm currently watching Futurama.

I'm on a bit of a card making spree at the moment. I made 5 yesterday, all of which are being sent to various people from an LJ community I'm part of. Then I've made two today, this time to sell. They have a letter on so you can buy a "B" for Beth, or "H" for Hannah, got more letters left so I'll be making a few more at some point ^_^

Two more bracelets!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16478084

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16472482

After much fussing and at least one laptop reset (mental note: Laptop cannot handle .tiff files!) I have been able to edit the photos my Dad took yesterday while I was at work.

I have 6 new items. Two have been uploaded today, two tomorrow, and the last two on Thursday.

First ones to today were a glass pearl bracelet and matching earrings:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16436812

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16436678

I seem to have talked about TV in most of my other entries so I won't make today an exception. Right now I am watching the Simpson's movie DVD I got last Christmas.

Only a few weeks until my birthday! 13th November, I'm going to be 23!!! That's a scarily big number.

I didn't blog yesterday as I didn't craft. Haven't done any crafting yesterday but I'm posting anyway as I have some really good news!

I now have a Master of Arts degree!!! In Ancient History, the study of ancient Greece and Rome.

I get another graduation next July and I now get to put "MA" after my name if I want to be pretentious, or if it's on my CV.

Not sure what to do next. Thinking about teacher training, which is another year in education. There are only 2 places that do Classics teacher training, Cambridge, and Kings in London. I'm actually going to try to apply for a place at Cambridge!!!

This morning started off slowly. Sat down at the dining room table with my beads and couldn't settle on something to make. Top Gear was on, again (I watch a lot of Top Gear in case you can't tell) , and I was half watching that and just playing with the beads. I've got some dyed pearly beads in a lovely soft pink and blu-ish green but they're all incredibly irregular in size and shape and I couldn't find any that matched enough for me to make earrings with.

But then I dug out my glass pearls and made two pairs of earrings, one each to match the bracelets I made. I was about to do the same for my shell bead bracelets and then I realised I only had three spacer beads left XD I could use seed beads but then they won't match the bracelets. So I'll have to check how much is in my paypal account and then go on Ebay and buy some more.

My Dad is going to take the photos of my new items on Sunday and then I'll be uploading them over 3 or 4 days. Might do one on Monday night after work, depends on how long it takes me to resize them and the like. Which reminds me, I need to get the Photoshop disc off my Dad and reinstall it on this laptop.

We're going to the circus on Sunday afternoon. Me, Dad, and my sisters, my brother will be at work and Mum doesn't like circuses so neither of them are going.

Not sure what to do this afternoon. Might make some birthday cards.

For those of you wondering why I work in the dining room, instead of my room, it's because my room is very small, very cramped, and very dark. It used to be my brother's room and my Mum painted it a dark-ish blue for him when he moved in to it. Then when I left for university we swapped rooms. 4 years on and I still have the same blue on the walls. The window is a small skylight in the ceiling, and one of the walls has a weird wooden window thing that actually just goes in to the corridor, when this house was built it only had two bedrooms but it was extended at one point by a previous family and rather than brick up the old window they just took out the glass and replaced it with a pair of shutters.

Anyway, it doesn't get much natural light and what light it does get itsn't exactly reflected by the colour of the walls. My desk is an old fold-out wallpaper table that sags a bit in the middle and it really only there to keep all the stuff I used regularly off the floor, or out of the boxes that now reside under said desk. So I tend to work in the dining room where we have a big solid table and big windows and it's nice and light.

When I'm in a financial position that allows me to look for a flat I am definitely going to be looking for one that has a room I can use for crafting. And I'm going to buy a proper table/desk for it.

So this year I am planning on making Christmas cards. I have only been card making for 6 months so this is proving to be an interesting challenge.

I am using clear rubber stamps as that is a medium I've wanted to get in to for a long time, if only clear stamp sets weren't so expensive XD

The other day I hand stamped 79 images and since then I have been colouring them in using Whispers brush markers. The brush markers are nice but there isn't much room for subtle shading.

So last night I tried colouring in a few mittens and socks with my colouring pencils and managed to get some of them looking very nice. Still doesn't quite work with the socks but the gloves look very nice. Not quite sure where to progress from here, either do some batches of cards with pencil colouring and some with pen and have seperate packs for each or have mixed packs where some cards are pencil colour and some are pen.

Decisions, decisions.

Aah, the first post, hopefully it will not be too disappointing.

This is my third try at using Blogger, hopefully it will go better than the last few times (third time's a charm and all that jazz).

Today I have:
- Cut out a bunch of stamped images for Christmas cards.
- Browsed Ebay for more beads.
- Made three bracelets.

I am particularly proud of the last one, there were two episodes of Top Gear on and I decided to just sit and work while they were on. The end results was two shell bracelets and a glass pearl one. Photos will be posted eventually, I need to get the family photographer to dust off his camera.

Currently watching Azumanga Daioh, might go and browse Ebay a bit more.