Things with the Acrylic necklaces seemed to be moving along nicely; the colours chosen, the shipment on its way, the designs realised (well, mostly :P), location for the event organised and flyers in production to be distributed. 

That was until we came to sorting out the price of the chains to which the pendants would hang...who knew how expensive it would end up!?

To cut costs there are 3 options that I can see:

1) Make some of the pendants into broaches, keyrings and hairpins as the backing pieces are much cheaper.

2) Use ribbon/velvet/leather thong - It may compromise quality but lets face it, we're doing this on a shoe string and if employed well it could make a nice feature...maybe if we display the same pendant on two different chain/fabric thongs they could show more options for our customers :)

3) make them into chokers and have them stitched into fabric/lace

I think I'm probably going to employ all three of these options as it will shrik expenditure and add some variety to my range.

This course so far has taught me to worry about EVERYTHING! >_<

necklaces

instead of chain, how about we use organza ribbon? 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/10m-x-7mm-Mono-Edge-Organza-Ribbon-23-Pale-Lilac_W0QQitemZ120376496147QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Crafts_Cardmaking_Scrapbooking_Ribbons_Fibres_EH?hash=item120376496147&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_trkparms=72:1683|66:2|65:12|39:1|240:1318#ht_600wt_907

Note: added later - http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=130287107916&category=150064&_trksid=p4340.m212&_trkparms=algo%3DSI%26its%3DI%252BC%252BS%252BIA%26itu%3DPSS%252BCRS%252BUCC%252BUCI%252BIT%252BUA%252BSI%252BUS-BWR%26otn%3D4%26ps%3D56#ht_1011wt_907 this is 10m grey/silver tiger tail jewellery making wire. Useful?

bought the acrylic

Right, I've taken on the comments made so far and as we need to order mats fast to allow for postage I've ordered some A4 (3mm thick) sheets of red, black, white and mirrored acrylic sheets as my wages have gone through that we're all free to use for the project. I looked at the colour way you put up Steph but there simply weren't any matches that I could find >_<

I've gotten some other colours for myself (as I didn't wanna pay multiple postage on several orders on my pitiful wage) that you're free to use if you need to, please be sparing though as its my personal stash :P

These are blue, red tint,light n dark blue tint, clear, purple and pink (the pink I'm happy to lend out as I dont particularly like it but I figure 'princess' type girls will flock to it :P

I dont know how people want to sort out a combined kitty type fund for mats? As we haven't discussed anything yet, I'm willing to pay for the 4 main colours that we all use if someone else gets the chain? (and would I be able to take any scraps of the main colours?

suggestions would be great :D

acrylic sources

I've probably not given people a chance to read through the past post (pleaese read it! :P) before moving onto this one (so much work to do!) but here is an idea for buying in our mats..

http://www.hindleys.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=7_57_60_61_62_70

These bulk packs would mean getting a range of colours and still keeping our costs low. These fluorescent ones (above) seem to be the cheepest so far at £15.48 for red, yellow, green, blue and orange (5 colours).

The transparent Acrylic pack (below top) being £19,38 for red, yellow, green, amber, blue and smoked (6 colours).

The standard Opaque colours are slightly more at £22.06 for red, yellow, green, blue, orange and purple (6 colours)

All these packs are for acrylic which is 600mm X 300mm and 3mm thick. I hope this helps :)

This was for the benefit of my group as illnesses etc have been striking people down by the dozen! :O

Right, I'm just updating this as a few people (half the class! :P) haven't been in for a while so, as we have to have several things ready by next Wednesday, (25th feb) here's what's been going on: (Not sure what people know so here goes) 

1. We've decided to go with acrylic necklaces and other easily made jewellery pieces, some variety might be nice :)  

2. As we dont have class on wednesday, due to the open tour thingy, we're using this to our advantage and need to have 5-6 designs each, mounted and impressively presented to show to prospective students to give us some market research. We will also need a questionnaire asking what people would people be willing to pay, what other designs they'd want and colour options etc. Would one of you guys mind working that out between you? cos I've already done quite a bit in the group and tbf, we're getting marked individually and it would be better for your mark too if we did bits with everyone contributing? For the record, thats not a nag, its just that I have other projects to be getting on with too and this is taking up too much time >_<

3. I've set up a date for all our work to be completed by: MONDAY 16TH MARCH!

So it's gonna be tight. we're all gonna have to talk to our teachers about skipping that day >_<
This was so that it coincided nicely with Red Nose Day and has good, heavy traffic in the SU...we'll have a stall for our pieces and enough space for the 1st year girls (the other group, I realise you're 1st year too Steph but I don't know the other lasses names) to set up their racks for the Swop-a-top idea.

4. If anyone sees Alan Phillips can you grab him and ask him if he knows of any cheep suppliers of chain through the uni? I went to see him today but he wasn't in and I'll catch him on friday, its just in case you see him :)

5. any ideas of what colours we want the acrylic?
the 2 sites I'm thinking of ordering the plastic from are
http://www.theplasticshop.co.uk/plastics-index-614-0.html
http://www.hindleys.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=7_57_60_61_62

6. One of us need to be looking to be making flyers that can be produced in Artlab? that is, the flyers in Victoria building want to be produced on silk/fancy mats to show off our skills as textile students (this can probs be used later on in our portfolio to show what we've been involved in) with cheep posters for the rest of the buildings in the uni and at the SU reception desk...Ruth has already said we can use her colour printer so that should cut costs :)
This will have to be co-ordinated with the other group though as its more urgent for them then us..but it'd be nice to have flyers that mention us both :)

7. Also, i thought as we're all in on monday, we could get together and show our ideas to each other before we have to present on wednesday? just so we're more prepared? it'd only be over lunchtime but would help a lot :)

take care babes :)

I hope to hear from you all soon! :D
xxxxxxxx

ideas

Inspirational pieces

The top two images are from WGSN in their own inspirational research section and the last three are from http://www.luckydeviljewellery.com/ :)

Also, following such a good result from my photoshoot this week and becuase I'm bragging about it everywhere, why not here? :D

http://mistress-domia.deviantart.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x-Br6bj8BU&NR=1

As we have set ourselves a deadline of the 25th Febrary to have 5-6 sample ideas and a professional quality sample to present to prospective undergraduates and customers for our product, I have been investigating in future colour trend to invest our work in. During my research I stumbled across the work of Burlesque dancers (Don't ask! :P) and the work of Millie Dollar in particular who makes her own costumes :D (link above) She's given me loads of ideas incorporating the blues/turquiose/petrol colours in the jewellery we'll be designing :D

I'm just posting a link to the other people in my group to give an idea on the directions we are all going in as a whole

Stephanie Lloyd

Vespertine Cosmos

and Aimi Haworth who we need to find on here first :P

Following my first photoshoot, today I'm most heavily influenced by the theme which was Living (dead) Dolls. Now, I'm already a huge fan, spouting a tattoo of a Living Dead Doll and wings on my back but today made my little obsession come rushing back. I originally intended to wear a gas mask for some of the photos based on 'Toxic Molly' from series 9

Unfortunely I couldn't get hold of a mask in time (I will in a couple weeks! :D) so I decided to base my character on Sadie or Bedtime Sadie as I have her as the plushie character. She featured in some of my pics! :D

Since our group is looking for a motif to place on our product as a brand perhaps it could be something doll-like with influences from this?

www.livingdeaddolls.com

These images, firstly, from Kate Moross designed for topshop and the Chandelier from Hotcakes, give me ideas as to the product idea generation that will be persued following my Creative Business brief in the research stage.