Reign/Rain in Battersea Park

For a good few weeks, we'd been super excited about setting up a stall with Etsy at the party in Battersea Park, for the Jubilee.  What with the totally glorious weather we've had, we were so sure it would be a beaut of sun filled day.  Alas no..

After a 4am start, a delightful coach ride, and quite a long walk to Battersea in the drizzle we arrived at the Park wondering what we'd let ourselves in for... but by the time all the other lovely Etsy traders had arrived and we'd set up our stalls, the rain had lessened.

Here's my stall, looking just the right amount of damp and windswept:

It was so great to see so many people had made the effort to dress up, with many in red, white and blue, waving their flags for Liz...

I was busy selling when the flotilla started, but darling Gazmatron managed to get some snaps...

He was lucky enough to see the Queen go by- she's the speck of white on the boat in this photo.

While Gary saw Liz float past, I saw my first real life Pearly King & Queen... Totally brilliant.

Makes me want to cover EVERYTHING in my entire wardrobe in buttons.

I caught up with my fab friend Tina at Tobyboo, who kindly gave me this rat-licious sticky tape...

Go get some NOW- it is truely ACE. Click here for the link.

Bought two hilarious and kinda creepy finger brooches, one for me, one for my sister from the cute www.miwary.com

 You can buy your own extra finger here.

It was a truly bonkers-ly (yes, that is a word) busy day, where at points, the stall was 4 deep in customers. 

Here's a picture of me finding something quite hilarious, whilst serving 8 different customers all at once on the stall...

So at the end of the day, with my pockets full of hard earned cash, I treated myself to this gorrrrrrrrrgeous cowboy cushion from the super Sally Nencini

Take a look at Sally's knitted delights here- I'd like one of each please.

 

And to thank my dearest Gazmatron for helping me out on a rainy day, treated him to some much hankered after vintage saddle shoes...

What a lucky boy!

Anyway, off to continue enjoying this lovely long Jubilee weekend

Royal lovings

xx

Commission Missions

I regularly get asked whether I make commissioned pieces, and the answer is yes, I do! In fact, I generally love doing one off pieces, as its usually designs I'd never really thought of, and sometimes inspires a whole new train of thought. So here's a little story on how commissions come about...

Recently I was contacted on Etsy, by a sea-loving lady called Breezy Brenda, who had been looking for a mermaid necklace for some time. Having discovered Love From Hetty and Dave, she decided commissioning a mermaid was the way forward...


Brenda gave me some ideas of what she wanted: aquamarine or seafoam colors with maybe peach, mango, kiwi, silver or gold accents, flesh tones for arms and face, light brown hair, flower in her hair etc. and she wanted her to be flashy with sequins and pearls, in a horizontal swimming mode instead of a vertical one.

So the next step was finding an image to work from, and putting together a selection of colours...
This was what I came up with:


The metallic aquamarine snake print leather was perfect for this project.

Next I cut out and stuck the leather pieces together, to make up the basic mermaid shape:



At this point, I had the design okayed by Brenda, and then it was time for the stitching and embellishment to commence.

It's surprising how different it looks after stitching:



So now, this little Mermaid is leaving the seaside in Bournemouth, to live on Brenda's neck in Nashville, Tennesee. And as a jeweller herself, Brenda will attach a chain of her choice once she receives her mermaid, so I look forward to seeing her photos of it all finished.

So if there's something special you would like made up, don't be scared to contact me to commission a one-off personalised piece. Just send an email to zoelarkins@googlemail.com

Here are some more examples of bespoke pieces I have made, to get you excited...

A lovers handbag...


'Faithful' and 'Unfaithful' keyrings. Not sure what the story was behind these!


Cupcake brooches for DJs Amy & Susan


Wedding date keyrings

Commissions start from £25 and up.

Bespoke Lovings

xx