Plans

I apologise for the lack of posts lately. I'm feeling a bit out of the swing of it all. My trip to Cardiff has generally been good so far, but today is a fragile day, for reasons I won't note. Just, wherever you are and whatever you're doing, have a really good day :)

I've slowly been making pieces for Sparklerose Designs, and I've been working on the website. It's going to need a LOT of work, and I'm way behind my deadline, but I'm getting there. I also have plans for the blog, so expect some changes.

In the next entry, I'll be showing off some new pieces, promise!

Love,

Fiona x

PS. Don't forget to enter the giveaway! Ends monday :)

A Catch Up

Hello everyone!

I seemed to disappear over the weekend. I was rather ill and trying to recover quickly for my Cardiff trip (I'm in Cardiff until the 3rd March now. yay for holidays). Thankfully I did feel much better by the time I was sitting on my train on Monday ;) and the journey seemed to fly by.

I have plenty of comments to read, and plenty of blog posts of others to read also. And hello to the new followers, thankyou for being a fan :D

I'm pleased to say that I've brought my jewellery making supplies with me, so there will be new pieces very soon. I also have my camera, so I'll be able to show them here, yay!

I'm in the process of starting to de-clutter my old bedroom today, I'm a hoarder by nature and I've kept alot of things that need to go now. I think living away from home made me realise exactly what I want/need in life. I've noticed quite a few people creating blog sale posts. Do you guys reckon they're a good idea?

Love,
Fiona x

PS: Don't forget to enter the giveaway! Ends next monday.

Decorative Jar

Sadly, I'm feeling pretty under the weather today, ick. I'm relaxing before my shift at work later, hoping it'll fade away.

Inspired by Jessica at Such Pretty Things, I decided to create my very own cupcake case jar (you can see her post about it here). I have no intention of using the cases, I just wanted something decorative. But Jessica, who bakes alot, finds it useful for storing the cases. I think it's an excellent idea, decorative or practical :)

I used an empty glass coffee jar and lots of little multicoloured paper cases :)

Love,

Fiona x

PS. Don't forget to enter the giveaway!

Cupcakes!

I wanted to show the cupcakes I made for Valentines, they're not actually that Valentinesy at all, but there we are ;)

I used a recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook, but I sorta got confused between bicarb of soda and baking powder, ahem. The sponge was literally, sponge, in the 'boi-ing' sense, but it was hilarious. At least they looked pretty :D The lumpy bits are marshmallows, so they were actually meant to be there, ha. I can't say I'm the best at baking these days...

But the meal we had was fab in general, thankfully my boyfriend is an excellent cook :P

Hope everyone's having a good week so far!

Love,

Fiona x

PS: Don't forget to enter the giveaway!

V-Day Giveaway - CLOSED

*CLOSED*
I'm holding a "V-Day Giveaway" as a thankyou to all my lovely readers/commenters. As I'm slowly starting to build up my jewellery business, and making general positive changes in my life, your support means the world to me.

Sooo... here are the goodies up for grabs :)

One lucky winner will receive:

♥ Soap & Glory Sexy Mother Pucker lipgloss

♥ Soap & Glory Clean On Me

♥ Nails Inc nailpolish

♥ Primark sequin hairbands, one in pink, one in gold

♥ 'Candyfloss' pearl earrings, Sparklerose Designs

♥ 'Pastel Passion' trirose sparkle ring, Sparklerose Designs

How to enter/rules:

♥ You must be a follower of this blog
♥ Just comment on this entry saying you'd like to be entered :)
♥ I'll email the winner requesting their address to send the goodies

The deadline for this giveaway is 28/02/11 at midnight, so you've got two weeks to enter :)

Good luck!

Love,
Fiona x
*CLOSED*

Happy Valentine's Day

Hope everyone's having a lovely Valentine's Day so far. I had yummy breakfast in bed made by my wonderful boyfriend, complete with a red rose sitting on this month's cosmo, I'm a very lucky girl ;)

We're having a homemade three course meal this evening, he's made the starter and main, and I'm providing the dessert. I'm planning to make some marshmallow cupcakes as the main bit, with some bits of fruit etc for dipping into melted chocolate after. Yumyum. I shall try to remember pictures.

Here are some of the new pieces I mentioned in my previous post. My plan was to pop these to the boutique today but I'm deciding to wait a little while. I'm seemingly taking on alot lately, it's hard to keep up ;)

Garden Bird Of Paradise Charm Bracelet - On Hold

Dream In Cupcake Earrings - £5.00

Spring Showers Cupcake Charm Necklace - £6.00

I started creating my general packaging last night, for things that won't be boxed. It'll be ideal for the stall.

Isn't it cute? I love polkadots :D

If you're interested in the items above, please comment or send me an email to sparklerosedesigns@live.co.uk as they probably won't be listed on my Folksy store until after April (depending on what sells at the stall).



I'll be making another entry later today (before this evening) about my V-Day Giveaway! It's featuring some Sparklerose Designs jewellery, plus extra goodies.

Love,

Fiona x

Maybelline Volume Express Lift-Up Mascara

I've been a huge fan of my wonderous Rimmel 100% waterproof mascara for years and years now. Everytime I've decided to treat myself to something different, it's always backfired on me. I love something with a bit of volume, and some curling, plus something that isn't going to smudge all over me. The only mascara that provided me this was the above, until a week or so ago, when I found a new eyelash friend :)

I was re-buying my basics in Boots when Maybelline had a 3 for 2 deal, so I decided to pick up one of their mascaras, the Volume Express Lift-Up, which was labelled as 'new'. I'm not entirely sure how long it's been 'new' for, I live under a rock most of the time where make-up is concerned. But I have to say, expecting it to be pants, I was pretty surprised by the results.

It's in a lovely black casing with shiny pink writing, I think the packaging is lovely and girly in ways.

The brush is curved slightly to follow the curvature of the eyelashes, so it catches the end ones too. I just need one coat of this for a decent impact (I think if you applied loads it would start to clump).

It's not very clear but my eyelashes are bare in this photo, there's just some smudged eyeliner around my eyes.

Here are a few photos demonstrating the lengthening power of this mascara. I don't curl my eyelashes anymore, so the curling and lengthening properties are really useful for me. I notice a change almost immediately after applying, which is also pretty good.

I'm usually a good girl and remove make-up before bed, but I've always had a bit of a panda going onthe next morning. With this mascara, the panda is minimal. Just a bit of black smudge under my eyes, and that could be from bits of eyeliner that didn't come off the night before.

All in all, I'd rate this mascara rather highly. I've never tried anything too fancy, but in terms of drugstore brands, I'd say this is a winner.

***

In other non-mascara news, I'm hoping to show off Sparklerose Designs goodies to a boutique (hopefully on monday), so I've been beavering away making lots of new items. I'll be posting pictures of them in my next entry.

And also, as a thankyou to my wonderful readers, I'm planning to hold another giveaway (they're so fun!) It'll begin on monday, with a semi-valentine's theme ;)

Hope everyone has a great day tomorrow!

Love,

Fiona x

Jewellery Studio

Good morning! :D

I thought it'd be fun to show you all where the sparkly magic happens...

Overview

It's a small desk space, but it's all I need for my creating. We live in a flat with sloping ceilings, so this little desk sits in the very corner of our living room. It means I can sit over there and focus because the living room is behind me. It works a treat ;)

It consists of two drawer sets, some tins and a jewellery holder that I put recent pieces on. The grey drawer set contains beads & charms, the blue/cream one has completed pieces inside. The pink Sanrio tin holds all my ribbons and the blue tin holds all my findings :)

Floral drawer fronts

This grey plastic drawer set was a really basic piece from Asda, I think it was £4.00. I decided to spice it up a bit by using floral paper in the front, it makes the set look neater and saves everyone seeing what's inside each drawer. Each drawer is relatively organised so I know what's in each (on a good day..). But it would be great for storing make-up in.

Sneak peek

You can just about see some of my newest supplies for new collections towards the summer in there. I'd also say that these drawers are really roomy.

Cream & blue drawers

Sadly I have no idea where this came from, my Auntie passed it to me years ago. I store all completed pieces in these drawers that are lined with soft tissue. It has the cutest rose handles :D

Few goodies

A few earrings that are currently on Folksy are sitting in here. As you can see, I'm slowly running out of space to store completed pieces, and with the stall coming up there's going to be looooads..

Hope everyone's having a good weekend so far (if you're an early bird like myself and awake by 10am, ha!)

Love,

Fiona x

Primark Jewellery Finds

While I was in Cardiff for the week I did a small amount of shopping. I popped into Primark for a browse around, and got these lovely beauties.



The earrings were £2 for the set of six, bargain! I got them because I loved the pink roses and the little floral cameos, but I'm sure I'll get round to wearing the others too. I also bought the huge floral ring, it really is huge, one of the biggest rings I own. I think it was £2.50 but I can't remember. It's not adjustable but I picked up a size large for fitting on my middle finger. I think that's the only finger that could pull off such a giant! And lastly, I got the gorgeous sparkly elasticated bracelet, I adored the purple rondelles and loved the cluster look. I'm pretty sure this one was £2.00.

I've got so many things that would go with these items, so I was very impressed :)

What are your latest Primark jewellery purchases? :)

Love,

Fiona x

Valentines Sweets Jar

With Valentines Day less than a week away now, my brain is running through ideas for the boyfriend. Usually we do a handmade something, it's good for saving money and it's sentimental also. But this year we live together, which removes some of the mystery.

I think our plan is going to be him cooking a meal and me providing the dessert. I'm thinking plenty of pink and plenty of hearts, and probably cupcakes.. ;)

I thought I'd share the gift I made last year, as I reckon you can adapt it to suit anyone.

Valentines Sweets Jar

What you'll need

♥ A glass jar (you can pick them up in home departments in supermarkets, or even in charity shops)

♥ Sweets! (I used a pick & mix bag, purposely picking colourful sweets, but you could use a red/pink theme)

♥ Red ribbon

♥ A heart shaped lollipop

♥ Heart stickers (and a large one for the front)

♥ A load of blu-tac

How to

♥ Firstly, wash out the jar so it's all nice and clean, then leave to dry until it's totally dry.

♥ Fill the jar with sweets, in my case I tried to avoid the same colours/sweet sitting together.

♥ Once you've put the top of the jar back on, tie red ribbon into a bow around the neck of the jar.

♥ Fix a huge heart shaped sticker (mine was from a card making set) on the front of the jar.

♥ Use a load of blu-tack in a line on the back of the lollipop stick and fix at the back.

♥ Dot around heart stickers on the jar, as much or as little as you like :)

I came up with the idea after finding out that my guy absolutely loves pick & mix sweets. But you could use anything, perhaps your SO loves... jellybeans, you could fill a jar with those. Now that would be colourful...

Love,

Fiona x

New Items

Hello there! What a lovely freezing day it is today.. haha.

I'm back from my trip to Cardiff, spent the weekend catching up on things, then I started making the stock for the stall I'm hoping to do in April. I thought I'd show the pieces here :)

Filigree bases finished with mauve roses, pearls and Swarovski rose hearts.

Lemony beads complimented with amber coloured Czech glass, mini flowers and satin bows.

Deep blue sparkly earrings, I'll hopefully be making a matching necklace for these soon (as below)

Deep mauve sparkly necklace & earrings set

Turquoise sparkle necklace & earrings set

I haven't yet worked out the pricing of these items, but if you're interested in finding out/interested in purchasing, leave a comment with your email and I'll get back to you :) Snap them up while you can :D

Ideally, I'll make a few necklace & earrings sets. I tend to make individual pieces but I think given my audience at the residential home, sets might be appropriate :) I will have some specialist pieces to take there though. I haven't made any charm bracelets yet, I have so many pretty beads and charms, just having trouble finding the antique bronze plated chain that I use, rather annoying..

I keep forgetting to mention this everytime I write, as I'm still getting used to the technology of it all, but Sparklerose Designs is on Facebook :D

Become a fan for realtime updates and exclusive offers/info.

Love,

Fiona x

Hello!

It's been a while since my last post, eek!
I'm currently staying at my home #2 in Cardiff, which means lots of seeing family and spending time with my Dad :)

I've also ordered loads of supplies to arrive here, as it's easier than getting post sent to our flat. And I've been shopping in Cardiff, so I picked up some supplies there. Expect lots of pretties to follow the next few weeks :D

I'm due back to Lincoln within the next few days, so I'll resume normal posting after the weekend. I also have loads of lovely blog posts to catch up with reading ;)

Hope everyone's having a nice week!

Love,
Fiona x