Its curtains for the Jubliee Centre in Bowdon!

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Marce

Set of blackout curtains I made2013-03-08T14-58-09_13

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I have been busy making four sets of curtains and teaching my friend, Katrina how to use a sewing machine. She has helped with some sewing on the curtains and can now use her Singer sewing machine she bought from Aldi for a bargain price of £90, wow! Excellent beginners sewing machine.

This was my first attempt at making curtains, so quite pleased with my little self! Usually when learning to making curtains you start out by making mini-curtains! Making curtains was definately a learning curve and another handy money saving skill.

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Roll Roll up Its Market time in Altrincham!

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Marce

Hi, I will be at Altrincham Market on Sunday 18th November from 11am to 3:30pm. Come along and start your christmas shopping. Lots of lovely unique presents to buy and such a fun atmosphere. Stop by my stall and say hello. I will be sharing my stall this month with Ruth who sells wonderful dough creations. Looking forward to the market and hoping it will be extra busy. Bye for now, Marcella.

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How to make a necklace stand.

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Marce

how-to-show-necklace.html?showComment=1348751367573
I recently purchased 2 resin necklace stands, which are quality and cost £14. The stands are great for showing my necklaces off and look great in photos but still an added expense that could do without. So I had a look on the internet for craft display ideas and came across this article on how to make your own necklace stands. I think the result looks great and I will be making some stands myself and posting pictures soon.

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My New Shop on Etsy – Daisy Lace Designs

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Marce

I have opened a new shop up on Etsy called Daisy Lace Designs, how exciting!

I have a range of hand dyed lace jewellery with a vintage/boho feel. I have spiced my lace up by using a range of colourful dyes and have used silver and bronze chain to complement my jewellery.

My jewellery is unique, as no piece can be exactly same due the natural effect dye has on lace. I have managed to do a different colour on reverse side of a bracelet and necklace I have in my shop, so you get two looks in one, wow! This effect was a complete accident with the new non-toxic dye was experimenting with but I love the the two tone effect!

Hope you like my lace jewellery as much as I do. Will be adding more new items in my shop next week.

Bye for now.

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What I made with Earth Safe Finishes

Posted on September 6, 2012 by Marce

I have been busy trying out Earth Safe finishes on my plastic Sami & Marika Jewellery and I am so pleased with results. I used the epoxy and mixed some pearl powder into resin, so was excited to see what type of finish I would get. The final finish once dried was a wonderful gold shimmer finish, which gave my pieces an old vintage feel, which I loved! Great experimenting with new products and not knowing how they will turn out!

Thanks to Nancy from Earth Safe finishes who sent me my missing blue pigment and a load of free goodies, which included the pearl shimmer powder.

I also used fabric magic and dyed some pieces of lace, the range of colours I made were beautiful. The final finish is quality and ease of use was a dream, no smell and came off fingers with a quick wash of hands using soap.

I will post some pictures of my creations later on today.

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Madeline Faiella™ Designs uses Earth Safe Finishes

Posted on August 30, 2012 by Marce

Wonderful fabric paints used on these shoes. Will definatily be getting an old pair of shoes out and jazzing them up!

Fabric paints used to make this mask picture.

Madeline used the fabric paints on the box.

Madeline contacted me about Earth Safe finishes in response to post last week.

She said Earth Safe Finishes make the best NO VOC products around. They are ethical and honest and truly have been tested “free” of chemicals where some others simply say they are; ESF is!! Fabulous – I use them all the time. They have resins and epoxy and outdoor varnishes. None of it smells and I’ve used it all. You need to try this out. Truly American>

Madeline has sent me some pictures of her work using different Earth Safe finishes products. As you can see from the pictures the finishes are very versatile and can be used to get a range of effects on many different types of surfaces. If you would like check out more of Madeline’s work please check out her blog on:

madelinefaielladesign@typepad.com

I’m in the process of experimenting with the products I have and will post some pictures of my own work soon.

If you would like any more information on Earth Safe Finishes, I will be happy to send some information to you.

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I love Earth Safe Finishes Green Product

Posted on August 23, 2012 by Marce

I have been making plastic pieces of jewellery for a while using my Sami & Marika design and spraying them with Acrylic spray to seal from water damage. Acrylic spray has such a strong smell, which I hated. I was also concerned about how safe the acrylic spray was once dry. This is something the manufacturer could not verify, so this led me to a long search in finding a product I could use that was safe and didn’t smell. I eventually came across Earth safe finishes and was so excited to find their products, which ticked all my boxes. The only negative was no one in the UK stock their products, so I had to order from the USA. I went ahead and placed an order for epoxy resin, gel glaze and fabric paint. The customer service via email has been good and postage was $11.95, so quite reasonable. Package arrived in 18 days, so pleased with service.

I mixed some resin up but got distracted and left for longer than 15 minutes, so mixture was too thick. I added water to thin out a bit but was still quite lumpy. I still put some on my dragonfly and left to dry overnight. Next day dragonfly looked ok but not great. So tried out product again next day. This time I mixed a little too much but its trial and error with a new product and eventually you’ll get the hang of quantities. I re-covered my dragonfly pendant and few other pieces of plastic jewellery. I still had loads of mixture left, so remembered I had some blank pendant bezels that I could fill. Filled one with fabric and silver balls and a plastic flower. Decided to add a drop of the earth safe yellow pigment to resin and put this into a bronze bezel with some beads and made a few more bezels with the yellow resin. Amazed by the colour, how easy the products are to use and most of all the fact that they don’t smell and are safe for children, allergy sufferers and pregnant women. Its also great to find a product that has many uses, such as a coating on my jewellery and use the resin to incase trinkets, which I have been very interested in trying for quite a while but put off by the process and the toxicity of products.

Next day I was quite excited about seeing my pieces and they were all wonderful. The resin looked great on my plastic jewellery and gave them a protective gloss coating safe for children. The yellow resin had set hard and was lovely and bright.

I will put a link on my blog to Earth Safe Finishes and will keep posting pictures of my creations.

(Views expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not represent the views of employer)

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Come to Stockport Market on Sunday 19th August 2012.

Posted on August 16, 2012 by Marce

Flyer for Stockport Market.

Its market time again, comes around so quickly. This time I thought I would give Stockport Market a try instead of Altrincham, which is on the same day. It has been well publicised and there is going to be entertainment for children and has the added bonus of food stalls this time. Hoping this with attract lots of customers and create a fun atmosphere.

Stockport has been selected to be part of the Mary Portas regeneration scheme, which is excellent news. Her influence is massive and having a monthly market in Stockport will definitely make Mary Portas happy.

Look forward to the market and meeting lots of lovely people.

(views expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not represent the views of my employer)

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Producing and getting your fabric design printed.

Posted on July 26, 2012 by Marce

Last year I designed my first surface pattern design, called Sami & Marika. I hired a very talented lady called Emilia, to turn my design into a digital drawing, which I could print onto fabric and make lots of lovely creations. You can see my Sami & Marika creations in my Flickr portfolio. After doing this design I wanted to do more designs myself but lacked the knowledge and tools. I found a site called www.colourlovers.com and within this site there is a package called Seamless Studio, which costs $29 to download. Great software for creating pattern designs, which can be sent to an US based company called Spoonflower to print onto fabric. You are limited to shapes on seamless but the combinations are endless and the software is so easy to use and a bargain price. Great for a beginner but your unable to use your own designs, which may frustrate you. You will need some software like Corel or Illustrator to enable you to do your own designing.

I am in the process of a steep learning curve using Corel and my Intuos 5 drawing tablet. It’s great to be finally doing my own digital drawings and I am looking forward to creating and sharing lots of lovely fabric designs.

I have done a lot of research into finding the best fabric printing company to print my own designs and Spoonflower is the cheapest and the quality is wonderful. I did look at companies in the Uk but found them to be very expensive. Have done a little write-up below.

Spoonflower

US based Spoonflower (http://www.spoonflower.com/) Offer 10 premium natural fabric choices, no minimum order and prices starting from just $17.50 per yard (£11.14), you can even buy a fat quarter. You can buy swatches for $5 so you can check out how pattern looks and if you like the quality of fabric before committing to buying a larger quantity.

The shipping costs are based on weight and the international cost is around double the US shipping cost, around £2.50 a yard. Not as high as you might expect and definitely works out cheaper than getting fabric printed in the UK.

If you want to make money from your fabric designs you can upload them to the site and earn commission for each length of your fabric purchased by other site users.

You can also check out and order some amazing fabric from other designers. They have some really unique and quirky fabrics that you can’t find anywhere else on the internet.

Love these fabric samples from Spoonflower in cream aand tangerine.

The Fabric Press

UK-based The Fabric Press (http://www.thefabricpress.com/ ) offer a similar service to Spoonflower, you can order from half a meter of fabric printed with your own design. The price is £40 per metre with postage at £4.50 per delivery. They also offer a great service where you can get certain item including bags, cushions and tea towels made up in fabric of your own design. Prices start from £6 (for the tea towel purchasable in sets of 3, see image), Perfect for a unique gift. It’s good to see some of the creations using fabric designed by customers.

FabPad

Another UK firm offering fabric printing online is FabPad (http://www.fabricprint.co.uk/). Their prices start at £30 a metre, although if you order over 10m discounts are available. They offer a range of fabrics and you can even pay for them to design the print for you. They offer discounted prices for students and even run summer courses in London aimed on textile design. I found this site a little difficult to find prices not for students.

Bags of Love

www.bagsoflove.co.uk – Another UK company printing customer designs onto fabric. Their prices are £39 a meter and £3.95 for delivery.

There are a lot more companies compared to a year ago providing a service for printing your fabric designs. Seems to be the in thing to do in the creative world, at the moment.

Crafty Computer

You can also purchase fabric sheets from Crafty Computer in the UK, (craftycomputer.com), which you can put through your printer. They have a range of fabric sheets from cotton to silk. The results are excellent but you do need a quality printer. Good for small projects and printing photo’s onto fabric, very effective.

(Views expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not represent the views of employer)

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National Market Day – Stockport

Posted on June 26, 2012 by Marce


I received an email from the organiser at Purplesnail events only 4 days before the event, offering a free stall. An offer too good to refuse! Market was an outdoor event, starting at 9am to 4pm. I shared a marquee with 2 other stalls, Artsalvaged and a lady selling customised hessian bags.

Setting up from the start was tricky due to strong winds and heavy rain! My picture with a write-up about me got blown over and the glass smashed, great start! Chased my business cards and a few pieces of jewellery down the street! I was getting very cheesed off after a few hours and was getting close to leaving but I managed to hold out until 2:30pm. Helped having lovely fellow stall holders to chat to.

I purchased a fab flower-pot off Richard from Salvaged, have it placed it on my hearth. Going to get round to adding a plant to the empty space in the pot. I sold a pair of copper and lava bead earrings, so at least I sold something. I also managed to speak to Stockport’s MP and his wife about the SAA, the charity I support. They told me about all the stray cats and kittens they rescued, lovely.

So even though I didn’t sell much and the weather was awful, it was still a good day for meeting new fellow stall holders and spreading awareness of Society for abandoned animals. Also ate some amazing Indian and Thai food from the Gurkha Grill, yum, yum, chef was Master Chef finalist!

I did Stockport indoor market the following day on Sunday 24th June. Olympic Torch was going through Stockport from 8:15, so hoped this would bring lots of customers to the handmade market. The market was busy in the morning,sold a few pieces. One item being a Sami & Marika blue heart necklace with antique brass chain. The lady who bought the necklace was lovely and really enjoyed chatting to her about my jewellery. Afternoon did get quiet but had a few friends visiting, which was so nice. My friend purchased a gorgeous sterling silver necklace with a pink glass bead pendant.

I bought a crochet flower brooch from a very talented lady, her bags are lovely. I also bought a wooden mirror for my sister, which was a bargain price. It’s so easy to spend your takings at the market, as so many lovely items for sale!

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