We're Getting Creative

Hello All,

Welcome back!

Here at the Amethyst studio we are once again putting our thinking caps on, designing and creating new pieces.

Sara has been hard at work making new sparkly jewellery creations using her beautiful wire wrapping technique - the new rings she has made are just fabulous - See below -  and pre sale orders have flooded in. We soon hope to have these available through our Misi store - the link for the shop is found at the side of the main blog posts but you can click HERE for a quick link too.

Wire Wrapped necklaces by Sara Young 2014

 

These pieces will look stunning with summer wear, evening wear, party wear - you name it! 

Wire wrapped ring by Sara Young 2014

This ring is one of several new creations, pre orders are coming in thick and fast! 




Our focus at the moment is on getting new summer stock ready for the Milton Keynes Museum Children and Families weekend which is being held on 14th and 15th June this year.


The Children's Literature/ fairy tale theme is a great excuse to make some fabulous costume pieces and for Paula to get in touch with her inner child and create some themed art pieces too

This piece - The Queen of Hearts is being considered for producing as prints -

Would you like to see this produced as a print? - let us know. 

we welcome any feedback you might like to give us about these ideas, so please feel free to leave us a comment or get in touch with us via the store if you have any requests.




We will have a stall at the event, which Sara and Paula are organising through our sister company Cerulean Sky Ltd, Stall holder enquiries are welcome!)  we would love to see you there so come and introduce yourself - we would love to meet you :)

Until next time..

The Amethyst Team x

Exciting News From The Amethyst Sky Studio.

Today, we are excited to be able to announce the latest news from the Amethyst Sky studio.

This coming year we will be involved in several fabulous Arts, Craft, Vintage and Handmade fairs, not least of which will be the 'Summer On The Lawn' event, which is taking place at Bletchley Park on 3rd and 4th of August 2013!

We have been excitedly (and a little nervously) taking stock of all of the items that we have - both those for sale and those currently in production - and talking with our sister company Cerulean Sky Ltd (who are helping to organise the event!) about the marketing side of things.

The last fair we took part in was held at Milton Keynes Museum and covered 3 weekends in the run up to Christmas 2012. This event was a great success and, as you can probably imagine, the amount of visitors that the location attracted also brought many people to our stall.

The Christmas Craft Fair which is held there each year offers unique, handmade Christmas gift ideas for anyone looking for that special something that is a 'little bit different'. It seems though that last year, due to increased promotion of the event, the expected footfall at the venue was slightly underestimated, which was great!

However, this event seriously depleted our stock to the point where demand almost outstripped our supply.
This is an enviable position to be in to say the least, and we were astonished by the amount of sales we were making. Luckily, we were able to create more pieces during the event as we had already decided to make this event our priority for these 3 weeks, and had no other clients work or commission pieces booked in.

Having discussed the upcoming Bletchley Park event with our marketing team, it has come to light that the expected footfall at Summer On The Lawn  is expected to be somewhere in the region of 2.5 to 3 thousand people over the whole weekend.

This is fantastic, and not entirely unexpected since the venue is so fabulous and attracts many visitors, for varying reasons, all year round. However, this has presented us with a few small - and lovely - problems. How much stock do we need? and, how much should we take with us?

As a result, we are furiously working on new pieces to add to our summer collection, and putting extra effort in to completing works currently in progress. We have given ourselves some quite ambitious deadlines and goals for the next couple of months.This is so much easier cope with when you are as filled with excited anticipation as we are, and love to engage in the work that you do!

Cerulean Sky Ltd have also informed us that, along side the Arts, Crafts and Handmade goods on sale at the event, there will also be a farmers market, children's entertainment, re-enactors and demonstrations of Heritage artisan crafts by local practitioners. So if you are looking for a great family day out in the summer holidays, look no further!

One of the other participants this year will be Nick Packham, a local Smithy who is well know to us at the Amethyst studio. He will be demonstrating his blacksmithing skills for visitors and will be selling some of his fabulous sculptural work  - you can see some of his pieces here: http://www.ngp-artist-and-blacksmith.co.uk
(Nick is also an assistant curator of the Tecton Gallery in Milton Keynes - go check it out if you can, you won't regret it!) http://www.tectongallery.com

If you are interested in booking a stall at the event, either for your own crafts or for your produce, get in touch with our marketing team at:
http://www.cerulean-sky.co.uk - they will be able to send you more information and an application form to book yourself a stall!

You can follow us on twitter via @AmethystSkyArts, where we will also be posting updates and promoting our new pieces whenever possible.

Look our for updates and more information about the event on the Bletchley Park website too:
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/calendar/event_detail.rhtm?cat=special&recID=680644

Most importantly - if you can - do come long to the event, we would love to meet you.

P
x

A quick introduction to Amethyst Sky.

Hello there! and welcome to our brand new blog.

 Here we will be showing off some of our latest work and designs, as well as keeping you up to date with all of the goings-on in the Amethyst Sky studio's. We will be posting pictures and links to both things we love and things we sell, and hopefully we will have a few guest bloggers joining us soon to talk about their work, their experiences and what they do to promote their work. 

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?

u=http%3A%2F%2Fhadrianus.centerblog.net%2F67605-andre-kohn&h=YAQFvrAI3

The painting above is one of the latest works by resident artist Paula Harris: 

I was inspired by the work of Andre Kohn, who originally painted a series of  vintage Chanel pieces ( see link above) - This one in particular caught my attention and I decided that I would try my hand at at using a palette knife to paint with instead of a brush - this is only my second attempt at painting this way and I have to say, I am quite pleased with the results. I get a real sense of satisfaction from being able to push the paint over the canvass rather than direct it with the brush. 

This painting will NOT be available in our shop, as I fear it may infringe on copyright laws ( even though it is by no means an exact copy), and also because, I would quite like to keep it. Sorry.

My first palette knife painting is this one:

 

Which is available to buy in our online shop : folksy.com/shops/amethystsky  I also have plenty of ideas for new pieces now, thanks to experimenting with this way of painting, so if this style of art appeals to you, keep an eye out for more in the future.

Sara Young, our resident Jewellery Designer and artist has also been working her fingers to the bone (Almost literally! - jewellers wire can be a harsh task mistress sometimes.) creating some fabulous new jewellery pieces. This statement piece set, pictured above, is one of my absolute favourites (She won't let me keep this one though, :( . ) The Crystal and Blue piece below is another absolute triumph - it looks fantastic in the picture, but even better when you get to actually wear it!

 

If you like these, and would like to see more, follow the link above to our shop, and see what you think.

We regularly attend and sell our items at craft fairs, flea markets and bazaars. This is by far our favourite way to market our work, as we get to meet the people who will be enjoying our pieces, and find out more about them. We will also be posting here about any upcoming events which we will be attending, and letting you know how to get there, and any costs that are involved for entry to venues, parking etc, so  if you want to come along and see us keep an eye out for our regular updates. 

We hope that you find something you like in our store, but if not - and you have something more specific or personal in mind, we are happy to consider commissions. You can get in touch with us through the store, or comment here and we will see what we can do for you. 

Happy Shopping!!

Paula xx