Alice Stories Designer Handmade Jewellery

Well, I’ve finally done it!  Its been a few years now that I’ve been playing around with making jewellery.  My first encounter with handmade jewellery was through  my boyfriend when I was at high school.  Ian was at design school and one of his modules was designing and creating jewellery.

On Valentines day  Ian gave me a heart shaped pendant necklace  that he had made himself.  It was the best present ever!  I still have it, to this day.  I couldn’t believe how clever he was to have made it himself.  From that moment on, I was curious to try making jewellery myself.  Then a couple of years ago, my friend Leonie gave me a book on creating jewellery. It was a very thorough book and it had folders and how to diagrams.  This book is a journal on jewellery making and its where I keep my stash of notes and scrapbook of inspiration.  This is my essential manual and it goes every where that I go!

I just adore making jewellery.  It is extremely satisfying to dream up my own designs and then turn them into reality!  I recently started up again, making jewellery.  I am now building on my collection while I look for a local craft fair to attend.

To attract a wider audience, I have spent a lot of time lately researching online for virtual shopping arenas.  There are a variety of options.  There is trademe, and ebay, and etsy.  Of course you can sell direct from your own website.  It has been difficult to choose which way to go.  Having researched what some other traders are using, I found the facility on facebook, with a free cart application.  So I have now got on my own virtual shop on facebook, under my brand name “Alice Stories”.

Free give-away

Alice Stories designer handmade jewellery is a contemporary collection of fun costume jewellery and elegant fine jewellery.  To promote the page, we’re giving away a pair of earrings of your choice, with free postage to anywhere in the world!  How can you enter our competition? Simply “like” our page at http://ow.ly/8IPRi. Once we get to 100 likes, we will have a draw. The winner will be selected at random using random.org!  SHARE, with your friends and lets get as many entries as we can! … simple and easy to enter!

Talking about musicals, including Annie get your gun, Gigi, and Singing in the Rain, will bring to mind their composer Andre Previn.  In April 2009 BBC Four screened an interview with Andre Previn and others who knew him. Previn was very modest in the interview and understated when he says “im just very pleased to be a musician, …whatever the branch … it’s a wonderful thing to be”. He is a remarkable classical and jazz pianist, composer, and conductor. Previn was described as one of the world’s great living conductors.

As a child Previn was considered the little genius, but he simply said “I did grown ups work at child prices”. At the age of 16 he was part of the music team at MGM which Previn describes as similar to working in a toy shop because there was so much going on. This was a great honour for the young Previn to conduct the orchestra for MGM. In his time there he associated with famous celebrities including Elizabeth Taylor.

When Previn was not even 20 years old, he composed the soundtrack for MGM’s biggest stars, Lassie. The Producer asked him to do music for the whole movie. Previn explained that there was very little dialogue, but there was a lot of barking! Previn’s stint at MGM came to an abrupt end in 1951 when he was called to national service. He remained in barracks for 19 months stationed near San Francisco.  During that time Previn became immersed in the San Francisco jazz scene. Previn played jazz and performed in the Andre Previn Jazz trio. He sold a million copies of the jazz record on My Fair Lady performed by the Andre Previn Jazz trio.

Previn was heavily involved in classical music which he travels across the world conducting. Previn also composes operas. He composed the opera ‘Street car named desire’. Street car named desire has been staged all over the world, and has been one of the most popular operas of all time. For more details please refer to Previn’s website by clicking <here>.

Free Piano Sheet Music

Reblogged from Alice Stories:

I was complaining to a friend about the problems I have with eczema and how my fingers get quite sore.  She recommended I go into ‘Lush’ that sells natural soaps and skin creams.  So I went in there over the weekend, and came out very impressed.  I walked out with soaps that have been fabulous, one is ‘honey’ flavoured, and the other is fig and something else.  The staff were very friendly and most helpful.  They even gave me a sample of a skin lotion. It has been three days now since I started using …

I’ve tried so many different creams. The one from Lush worked for a while but later started to irritate.

I’ve recently discovered a new cream that is working wonders for me at least. I’ve used it for the last 12 months and it has proved a success in keeping the eczema on my hands under control! This latest one that I use now, and have done for getting onto two years, is a Manuka honey hand cream. As my eczema is on my hands, the hand cream is important, and something I take with me everywhere. The manuka honey hand cream is made by Wild Fern and is called Manuka Honey Hand & Nail Cream. You can buy it from the website by clicking <here> or for more details view the website by typing in the web address “huka honey hive” [dot] com.

I always buy mine direct from the shops. Either at the Honey Hive shop in Taupo (New Zealand), or from any touristy gift shop, like the ones in the travel centres where the national buses depart.

 

 

Reblogged from Alice Stories:

Tuesday 18 May 2010 Today I was back again at Keddleston Hall on a field trip for my photography club.  We were very fortunate to have very good weather.  The sun was disappearing and returning as the clouds came and went and so the shade changed constantly and it made it a little more difficult to prepare the lighting.  We had our reflectors with us, and I was practising using the ISO, the aperture and the shutter speeds.  It was good fun putting into practice what we had been learning in the class …

Do you recall the article I posted a few weeks ago?  The puzzle I gave you was the popular business one called “Join the dots”.  How did you get on?

After the Museum we found our way to Soho. I was looking in vain for the Italian restaurant where I had had the most scrumptious cream donut, but after about an hour of searching with no luck we gave up. We did find an Italian cafe in any case, but they didn’t sell the donut I was looking for so I settled for a mint and chocolate icecream that was very refreshing. We resolved that next time we come to London we really must remember to bring our A-Z map with us. However one good thing about getting lost was that you find things you didn’t plan to. Such as music shops. There was a little shop specialising in just Saxophones! It was already closed by the time we reached it, but it was still a feast to the eyes to just stare from the street through the shop window. There were colours of saxophones that I had never seen before. They even had miniature sized saxophones made especially for children, that were so cute. The prices of the Saxophones sat at around £3,000 so they were not cheap.