Customer Christmas Photos

Here's my first post after a crazy Christmas! To ease me back into blogging here's a big photo post of pictures customers have sent me of their Oh Someday purchases over the festive season! I've got big plans for this blog this year so stay tuned!

Renegade Craft Fair

Last weekend (November 7th and 8th) I was at Renegade Craft Fair in The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, it was so much fun and so great to meet some lovely customers and other crafty folk! I didn't get around to taking many photos but here's the few that I did:

Here's the booth I shared with Juream Box and Lili Price

Juream Box's wonderfully colourful dip dyed items!

This photo of a load of us representing the Brighton Etsy Team is actually stolen from Karli from Designosaur, from left to right: I Like Cats, Woah There Pickle, half of Designosaur, Hello Dodo, Juream Box, ME! and the other half of Designosaur

Favourite Customer Photo: August

This photo is from the very talented Victoria (aka Pukepie on Instagram), the front of the necklace reads 'que trépasse si je faiblis' which roughly translates as 'I shall die if I weaken'.

Women In Business: Brighton Style Magazine

I have recently been featured as one of Brighton Style Magazines Women In Business, you can read the interview below or head on over to their website to take a look at all the inspiring women who have been featured

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Kate Holden is the woman behind Oh Someday jewellery. She makes personalised jewellery and sells them through her Etsy shop, having taken her business from part-time to full-time in 2013.

Here’s what happened when we caught up with Kate to find out more about her recent leader role with the Brighton Etsy team, and where she finds her inspiration.

Oh and BTW, we just had to buy one of those Be Brave and Be Kind bracelets.

Tell us a bit about you and Oh Someday..

I set up Oh Someday Jewellery in 2012 and I’ve been running it full time since the end of 2013. Before this I had a part time job alongside the jewellery making, it was quite scary to leave behind the security of my other job but it was definitely the right decision and I haven’t looked back!

Have you always lived near Brighton?

Yes, although I’ve actually never lived in the city, throughout my life I’ve never lived more than 30 minutes from Brighton! I’ve recently become a team leader for the Brighton Etsy Team where alongside some other team members we organise talks, meet-ups, events and markets. I think Brighton is such a wonderful and unique place and will find any excuse to spend time there.

How would you describe the type of accessories you sell?

I mainly make personalised pieces out of brass and silver at affordable prices- so everyone can have a truly individual and personal piece of jewellery. Every piece has been made using traditional jewellery making techniques, I saw out each piece myself and they are all hand finished too meaning every piece is slightly different and unique.

When did you start actually creating jewellery?

I started making pieces of jewellery for myself when I was in school but didn’t truly discover a passion for jewellery design until I signed up for evening classes to learn silversmithing about 5 years ago now. Learning about different types of metals and gemstones and how to work with them was so exciting to me and made me realise the design possibilities with jewellery are endless.

How did you find your niche?

I think really just by trying new things and seeing which pieces my customers responded to the best. When I first started out I had no intention of making personalised jewellery but through customer requests over the years it’s now the main part of my business and the thing I enjoy doing the most! I love hearing the different things people would like put on their jewellery and finding out the story behind why they would like those particular words is always really special.

Where do you get your inspiration from?

The jewellery I make is heavily influenced by music, nature and the people around me. I’m a bit of a daydreamer so most of my pieces are thought up when I should be in the middle of doing something else, or late at night when I’m trying to get to sleep!

Most of my favourite pieces have been commissions that customers have asked for. I loved making a pair of rings with the words ‘Noli Timere’ on them which is Latin for do not be afraid and were the last words of the poet Seamus Heaney.

What tips do you have for others wanting to set up a local business in Brighton?

I think my main advice would be to just go for it! You can spend too much time thinking about doing things rather than just giving it a go.

I would recommend joining a website like Etsy where it is relatively inexpensive and simple to set up a shop. There are great communities on there that can help you with every aspect of your business.

Joining the Brighton Etsy Team has been really valuable for me and my business and I’ve met some really lovely people through it too. Going to the meet ups (which you can find out about on the Facebook page www.facebook.com/brightonetsyteam) is also really useful as everyone has tips and advice to share.

Etsy has also given me the opportunity to reach customers all over the world, which I think is really exciting!

Find out more and Kate and her jewellery here:

Website: https://www.ohsomeday.etsy.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohsomedayjewellery

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/_oh_someday_

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ohsomedayjewellery

My Favourite Customer Photo: July

I love this photo by Decoherent_blue of one of my Be Above It bracelets!

Instagram Giveaway

I reached 1000 sales on Etsy, which is a bit of a milestone for me! To celebrate I'm doing a giveaway over on Instagram to win a personalised piece of Oh Someday Jewellery of your choice. If you'd like to enter head on over to my Instagram page, a winner will be picked from a hat on Friday 10th of July 

My Favourite Commisson: April/ May

I made this necklace and swapped it for a 12" single by Residence La Revolution called This Is Paint. It comes with a hand painted sleeve by Lee 'Scratch' Perry. It's made from thick hand cut and hand stamped brass and hangs on mint coloured vegetarian suede with a handmade red tassel.

You can only get this record by bartering with something you've made. It's such a great idea, being able to do trades is one of my favourite parts of having a creative business!

You can find out more about the project here: Residence La Revolution

My Favourite Commissions: March

I couldn't decide which was my favourite out of these two silver necklace commissions from March so I thought I'd share both! If you've got an idea for a piece of jewellery you'd like feel free to get in contact :)

Oh Someday Is Three!

Oh Someday is three today! To celebrate I'm offering 20% off all orders in my Etsy Shop until the 5th of April

Engraving Weekend

Last weekend I went on an engraving course at the wonderful West Dean College. In case you've never heard of West Dean College before it's a pretty amazing place, it was set up by Edward James in his family mansion on the South Downs as a centre for the study of conservation, arts, crafts, writing, gardening and music. They put on lots of short courses, as well as some full time ones, every year including specialised jewellery and silversmithing ones.The house itself is so interesting to explore as Edward James was a surrealist art collector who was friends with Salvador Dali, the college has one of the famous lobster telephones and a Mae West Lips sofa in one of the hallways which they collaborated on together. There's art and extravagant taxidermy down every corridor.

 

The engraving course was taught by Wayne Parrott who is an excellent teacher and so knowledgable and helpful, if you're interested in learning about engraving I would highly recommend taking a course with him. Here's some examples that Wayne brought in to show us:

We were shown how to transfer designs onto metal, told all about the different tools and equipment you can use, including being shown how to make our own gravers and punches, and taught the basics of how to get started with engraving.

I learnt so much over the three days but it's a skill that takes a lot of practise. I'm going to carry on doing it now I'm home and hopefully be able to include it in my work in the future. Here's one of my finished pieces:

You can find out more about West Dean College and the courses available HERE

My Favourite Commission: February

This necklace is stamped with the Lyra constellation and was made for a new father to give to his wife as they'd just had a baby and named her Lyra. It's so lovely when customers let me know the story behind the piece they're buying.

The necklace photo was taken on a page of the book Stories In The Stars an Atlas of Constellations by Susanna Hislop, one of the most beautiful books I own and I'd highly recommend getting a copy if you're interested in the night sky! I thought the quote by John Berger went really well with the story behind this particular commission :)

Let Me Show You Around

I moved into a new workshop at the end of last year. It needed a bit of love but with it being the run up to Christmas I hadn't managed to find the time to give it a makeover until last weekend. So after a good clean, a lick of paint and my first experience of using a power drill I thought I'd show you around.

My trusty peg and letter stamps:

My favourite tools:

A vintage set of stamps I found a while ago:

The workshop is based on a working farm, here's Tommy one of the four cats that live there:

Two lovely donkeys that greet me as I drive in:

One of the many chickens that hang around outside and the bell for the farm shop that sells local produce next door:

I love animals and being in the countryside so it's kind of perfect for me, the only problem is that it's so remote I don't have any wifi or phone signal there - but that means I get a lot of work done when I'm there due to the lack pinterest, instagram and twitter shaped distractions :)

My Favourite Commission- January

Most of the pieces of jewellery I make are personalised items for customers or commissions, which I really love making, so I thought I'd share my favourite one from each month on this here blog. 

This Lyra constellation bracelet was my favourite from January, the customer who it was for really loved it too and said "(It was) a surprise gift for my husband and it has turned out absolutely beautiful! Thank you so much for all your input and making the most wonderful of items for me. Love it, as will he!"

I'm thinking about adding it as a regular item to my shop too so let me know what you think!

Style Tribes

Vanessa from Green Brick Vintage in Brighton, who stock a selection of Oh Someday Jewellery, was recently featured in The Telegraphs Style Tribes article. If you look really closely you can see that Vanessa's wearing a commissioned necklace I made for her (called The Nessa) made from Lapis Lazuli, brass and sterling silver. Here's a close up photo of it:

The Telegraph visited four of Britain's most creative and interesting places, to celebrate a small slice of what makes up British style today.You can see the rest of the feature here