Makers' Boutique - 16th April

Sporting attractive money belt and trademark crap smile.

 A few snapettes from yesterday's Makers' Boutique, held for the first time at The Unitarian Church right in the centre of town.  The amount of people through the door, or 'foot fall' as it seems to be known, was phenomenal!

CHOCOLATE

I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself - Shark Alley's next market appearance only coincides with a CHOCOLATE FESTIVAL IN THE SAME STREET.

Yup, the amazing Makers Boutique is holding its first market at a different venue, the Unitarian Church in New Road, Brighton and right outside the door The Chocolate Festival will be going on.  
 http://www.festivalchocolate.co.uk

Makers Boutique on Saturday 16th April at the Unitarian Church, New Road, Brighton BN1 11am-5pm

It's going to be hard to stay at my stall and not be lured outside to drool at stuff, but hopefully it will attract lots of lovely punters to the vicinity.

Bead Maniac & Professional (?) Photographer

It feels as if I'm spending as much time photographing my work as making it these days.  What with maintaining the Shark Alley website and uploading product images to retail website Giftwrapped & Gorgeous ( http://www.giftwrappedandgorgeous.co.uk/supplier_14027-products.htm ) a huge amount of picture-taking is required and they need to look professional, which requires some creative making-do in the dining table studio.

Dining table studio

Hence fishing out a white sheet (AND ironing it), a mirror to act as a reflective screen, a rubbish anglepoise lamp and the most useless tripod EVER (from Singapore circa 1980s and currently mostly comprised of gaffer tape).  All of these are endeavouring to make the images look as if they were composed in a studio.

Thank crikey for Photoshop is all I can say.

Short beaded necklaces

I'm really getting into making the knotted bead necklaces at the mo (no less than 18 made this week) mostly based on the fact that when GW&G posted some of my images on the Press Loft website (a massive product photo bank for journalists), the bead necklace one was downloaded moments later for Burda magazine.  Hopefully it will get published, so I'm making lots more JUST IN CASE.

The downloaded necklace

Selection of eight new wraparound necklaces

Green & turquoise

Black & white

Brown & turquoise

Green

As a result of this, I've been spending a lot of time (and money) in Brighton's two Sydney Street bead shops . . . and today I discovered a third; http://www.bigbeadboutique.co.uk  (BONUS: It's just down the road from me).
They have a fab selection of beads and they're very reasonably priced to boot.  No doubt I'll be finding an excuse for another visit soon . . . roll on those necklace sales!