Almost forgot, we have a new contact email if you want any information on anything that we do:
bloomandberry@hotmail.co.uk


Contact us if your are interested about buying something, confused, or just drop us an email to say hi!


Love
Bloom x x x

We're Back!!

Bloom here!
Well its been a very very long time since i last blogged, but I'm back now and ready to get you updated.
Bloom and Berry will be travelling to the far reaches of....WADEBRIDGE!! We are attending a random fair on the 22nd in the town hall, so come along for our little stocking fillers and Christmas accessories.
I have been locked away threading endless beads, twisting endless wire, and have made over £200 worth of rings. (Iv'e been using silver wire as it means I can sell them for more money!) Hopefully these will be a success at the fair, and any that are not sold will be sent to Essex, (a friend has family selling them up North and they want 20 more!), where they apparently are a huge hit. 
Our stall at the fair is going to be tres tres boootiful. Think sparkles mixed with Victorian tea party, and voila! you have us!! If you can't make it then we will definitely have pictures for you!
Well that's nearly it from me, all that's left to do for now is thank our lovely followers. Please tell your friends and family about us, and look out for our next post.
Love 
Bloom x x x

Mini Hiatus and Fearless News

Hello, everybody! It's Berry here.
Unfortunately it's been pretty hectic on my end; I haven't been able to keep you all updated with the things we've been doing! We've been a bit lazy, I'm afraid - we've recived some offers to attend some crafts stalls (if you visit the Wadebridge Town Hall on the 22md December, you might see us there) and have been sending off another batch of stock to Fearless, but haven't had much opportunty to blog about it! Luckily, Bloom and my favourite ho9liday is fast approaching... Halloween!
Bloom and I both love our fair share of blood-n-guts (zombie contigency plans and Dia de los Muertos recipes are our forte) and I for one am relishing the chance to make lots of Halloween-related goodies. I'm looking forward to making another Cut Out + Keep how-to on polymer clay skulls- yes, the collection is tiny because I am very, very lazy - and making lots of spooky crafts!
I'm also going to be dressing up as a sugar skeleton for Halloween and might make a tutorial for that, too. ;)
Also, our new MiniMoo cards are arriving soon and we'll be reviewing them when they arrive!
So for now, have a spooky week!

Craft Fair

Hello, everyone! This is Berry here.

Every summer, I spend around a fortnight at the Isle of Wight- and every year, there's a local fair. Anyone can set up a stall, and indie businesses abound.

This year, I spent the days leading up to the fair beavering away, creating new stock, and set up a stall for Bloom and Berry! Loads of people asked about whether we had a site, how I made my polymer clay items, and lots of other things.

Now, the reason I've been putting this post off it because I haven't got the pictures as of yet- they weren't taken by me and I haven't received them yet.

But I figured I may as well update you all on the goings-on and wait to update this post when the pictures arrive.

So, Lovely photos soon- hopefully!

Hello everyone,

Well finally I have some pictures of my rings for you!

I went into a fabulous shop in town called Cornacopia (it means 'A bit of everything') and the woman loved them. She bought 5 for £10 and is interested in buying more.

There are not many pictures but now I know what to do I will be uploading some more very soon!

Sorry for the long wait!

Love

Bloom x

What you can look forward to

Hello, all!

This is Berry here. We've had some news from Fearless about our stock, which is awesome! However this means that we still have no stock with us, boo hoo.

Recently I ordered some necklaces, which means I can focus on making nicer, bigger and more intricate pieces for pendants! We've also still got lots of findings so as soon as I can get those creative juice flowing properly you can look forward to new designs!

I've also uncovered some of my beading stash and am currently attempting to make a cute little dragon to guard my 'potions'! (more on that soon).

But where is Bloom, I hear you ask? Bloom's currently ono holiday, but she'll be back soon, don't worry!

Where to Find us

Hello, all!

Recently, Dready Derry Designs asked me where to find our stuff in Fearless.

Although you may have seen that Bloom and Berry is based in Cornwall, we haven't bragged about it much until recently, as our business (was) mostly internet based. But now that you can find our designs somewhere other than at our online shop, we thought we'd give a little run-down of our location, or stockist and where to find us.

We are based in Cornwall, in and around the Bude area, and Port Isaac is around 20 minutes drive away (Cornwall is full of windy roads and hills!)

If you ever visit Cornwall, I recommend Port Isaac - not just to see Fearless!- as it is a lovely town with nice eateries, hotels, and beaches. It's not been corrupted by tourism, either.

P.S Since I feel guilty just posting random question-answer-blog posts, here's a link to a super-cute giveaway from Messy Carla! No, don't thank me :P

Business Cards and Fearless News!

Hello, all!

I went down to Fearless yesterday, to show the shop owner examples of my stock.. And she took it all! She also gave me some nice 'secret' hints and tips, which I can use to create better work for everyone! I'm hoping that the lovely people of Port Isaac like my stuff and lap it up, haha.

Visiting Port Isaac? See if you can spot some lovely polymer clay things on the front desk-thing. :D

I'll be uploading some photos of things I sent down, as most of it was new and made for the occasion, and these pictures are much better quality, haha.

The second item of 'news' is that we're getting business cards, hopefully! I've decided to go with Mini Moo cards by Moo for their low minimums and unique card shape. I'll hopefully publish a review when they arrive!

But for now, here is a preview of our main design (and some alternate colourways)...

I hope you like them!

From, Berry!

xoxo

How-to!

I've just got an account at my favourite site, after a long time lurking.

Come check it out!

You have this blog to thanks for making me less lazy at uploading photos, which is essential for uploading stuff to Cut Out + Keep.

And, just for you, here's my first project!

See Flowery Hairpins! and 1000's of others - or share your own on Cut Out + Keep

New layout, again!

Hello again, guys!

Following my consignment-related revelation, I got all excited about B+B and got all antsy- looking up craft fair opportunities and designing jewellery packaging. And once again, the blog got a makeover! I wasn't too happy with the cavity-inducing sweetness of the old style, nor how the Blogger template design dealt with pictures. So, I think this design actually is here to stay! It fits in with us, and works properly. The colours aren't too pink, and go with our weird widgets and whatnots.

Secondly, onto the 'craft fairs' part of the news. I've found out about a local craft fairs, which I'll be attending from 26th- 30th of August if all goes well. Wish me luck!

I've got some pictures of the stock that I'm planning to send off to Fearless coming up soon... Plus, some sneak peaks of my display items for the stall.

But for now, I have no pictures to offer you! Sorry!

Exciting News and More pictures!

Hello again, everyone!

As you may have seen, in our last post we had invisible pictures. Not too cool, eh? Well, it seems that a bug has spirited them away, and since I don't have back-up of them, I'll be retaking the photos.

Secondly, here are some more recent pictures... I recently completed another custom order for a friend and also received two awesome packages.. My shrink plastic and my Converse!

I've already used the plastic to make a hair-clip, (below) and brooch (below) and two soon-to-be wing earrings (again, below). I've also started work on the custom Converse and can't wait to show you all the results!

And here are some more 'shoot'-style ring photos... With our gorgeous new model ;)

Annnd, now for the exciting new news...

*BEEEEEEP*

I'm getting my products in a bona fide store!

Yes, that's right! On a trip to Port Isaac today, I went into Fearless.

I'm talking to the owner and bringing samples of my stock down (which I need to feverishly bake to supplement: I've sold most of it! D:) and they're going to sell it through Sale or Return, or 'consignment'.

It's going to be a great opportunity to make contacts (the lady there runs a stall at Glastonbury and has Makers every year; I just missed out!) great for convenience, so less publicity making for a while, and great for getting my products out there!

I also love Fearless because of its funky atmosphere and products anyway, and it's one of my favourite shops in Cornwall. Having my stuff there on display will definitely make it better!

Here's the outside of their shop in Port Isaac (they also have a shop in Wadebridge);

From,

Berry xoxo

Rings Galore!!

Hey guys,

I have just recently been at a festival and managed to combine business with pleasure. I made 10 rings out of recycled beads and wire that I managed to 'aquire', that Berry may have mentioned earlier. Pictures soon!

They went down a treat.

Hippies were flaunting my hand made wares from the cabaret to the kids tent, the late night areas to the loos. It was amazing!

I sent my little brother off to sell them for, and after he used his boyish charms on a kindly stall holder, made a great business connection.

The lady had some jewellery boxes on sale which looked rather naked. They had very conveniant little sections for rings... Voila!

It was amazing.

I will be spending this summer making batch after batch which will soon be available for purchase for the general public (and not just for festival junkies!) , hopefully at craft shows and festival nationally, as well as on our site of course!

Until next time,
Bloom
x x x

Another large project and photoshoot pictures

Hello, it's Berry again! Bloom is currently away :( and I can't wait her to come back. She's finished a large batch of wire rings to add to our already growing selection of cute rings.

Speaking of which, I've finally got round to doing some display pictures of our rings. What do you think?

And yesterday was my friend's birthday. I reconned a silver necklace (which was adjustable, a bonus!) and added some charms of my own.

And last but not least on the news front...

My limited edition all-white Converses are winged their way toward me! I'm planning to decorate them in a similar fashion to my brother's Birthday Converse though hopefully a little better as that was my first attempt at it.

Bye for now!
Bery xoxo

Skulls, bows, and bloomers

Hello, everyone!

It's Berry, here. I've been working on a large custom order for a friend's birthday, and so I've been a bit busy. Bloom is, too- although I've seen some of her new work, and it looks awesome! She's made some lovely Roy-Lichenstein style lipbalms to go with my retro comic balm pot, and some lovely wire and bead rings. More info soon!

Here are some of the pieces in the custom order. My friend saw my skull necklace and wanted one of her own, and I was happy to oblige! :3

I've also made a 'ribbon' bow, a rose, a music note, a pear cellphone charm, a cloud charm, and their initial on a clay tile (not shown).

The pictured music note unfortunately broke, and so I made another in blue and reinforced the clay.

--

And here are my bloomers! I was very proud of making these, and they're just the thing to wear under a lady-pirate costume or to an alice in wonderland tea party!

I've put together an outfit co-ordination to wear them with, too. It's in the 'alice-style' lolita fashion.

Over and out!

Berry xoxo

Skully tee!

Yesterday, I decided to make a Skully Cut-out Tee... And I loved it!

I'm quite the skull-themed crafter, aren't I? I assure you, I'm not about to start spouting Shakespeare at you!

After a sumptuous beach dinner (or rather, not-so-sumptuous after the small children had stampeded ¬_¬)

I walked home and garnered a few nice comments from old ladies. That's me, the old-lady-cheerer-upper!

Anyway, here it is:

I apologise for the bad photoshoppery, but I like anonymity and my pose sucked. The skull is cut out of the back (to avoid boobage) and so could be worn by itself, if you felt like it.

You could also just sew some different material underneath to save you the trouble of layering tees, but I like the choice. I reckon you'll be seeing more cut-outs from me soon!

(P.S- I wore my skull necklace with this, as well! XD)

From,

Berry xoxo

Hey Guys this is Bloom here...

Woah Berry, I can't wait to start making some great LEGO jewellery!

So what have I been up to recently?

Well, yesterday morning I woke up to find the sun shining. I went to put on some most summery clothing to find...I had 'no shorts!! What could I do?

I took a pair of icky jeans that were far too non-skinny for me, ( I like jeans to be so tight they cut off the circulation to my feet!) took the biggest scissors I could find, and hacked off the bottom to them. No sewing included as the frayed look is soo in right now, and voila!

One pair of super cool, beachy shorts!

This got me thinking....yes the shorts looked great but what could I do to make them even better?

Ever heard of 'Paul's Boutique'? He took average, every day handbags, shoulder bags, purse bags and he glammed them up, big time!

So that's what I'm planning to do. Hack off the legs of my jeans, gather some random stuff that I find...and before you know it you will be finding gorgeous, vintage shorts!

Time to get crafty!

Love,

Bloom x x x

Another Quick update...

Woah, the updates are really flowing at the moment. This is what happens when my creative muse (more like creative hyperactive inner child) breaks down the barriers of procrastination and lets the world catch up to my creating speed.

Not!

Anyway, here's one of my other pieces which I created on a whim around a month ago. My brother is a LEGO nerd, and although I do love the brick myself, I'm usually more interested in the mini figures.

Tying them to parachutes, creating a Mary Shelley-esque monster from Leia, burglar and storm trooper parts, or making them into jewellery. I've been wearing this ever since I made it on my chain usually reserved for some other charm, which is at the jeweller's.

We're looking into having these available for B+B...

Unlike other mini figure jewellery, no pieces are cut, pierced, glued or drilled in the making of this. Of course, if you wanted to, you could add a body onto a necklace head charm and you'd probably be fine. But we'd make full mini figures differently to the heads.

Any wear on the skull in the photo is due to the constant wear and tear of LEGO play (my head came from a set, but only because it was for my own use) and because I've also worn it for a while.

From,

Berry xoxo

Finally, an up-to-date Craft!

Hello, it's Berry again.

Just wanted to say that Bloom's present part2 went very well. Unfortunately I don't have any finished pictures, but here's a snapshot of it as a WIP:

http://robo.to/Starspangled/395005

(Robo.to is like to vlogs what Twitter is to blogs, sort of. :3)

Anyway, she loved it lots and I'm so glad to have finished it! It took hours to make.

You'll notice that this is stitched with regular, as opposed to embroider, thread- that's because I was sewing a pixellated image and so had lots of 'pixels' layered on top of each other. Using embroidery thread looked messy.

And on to the actual, recent craft! In fact, I only did this a few hours ago... Making it the shortest time from creation-to-blog here!

Drumroll please!

~

A few days ago, I went to my county's biggest fair and show of the year, to sing with my choir. It was lots of fun, and between 'concerts' we were allowed off by ourselves. Of course, this meant lots of freebies! I scored- amongst other things- an awesome fake tattoo of a cupcake (spray-on, not transfer) a plain white baseball cap, and a cool '5-a-day fruit' oversized NHS tee.. As well as some cool pens. More on those things later.

One of the most boring but useful things I scored, however, was some promotional lipbalm. It has no 'nasties' in it, but it was packaged in a boring tin and is odorless and colourless. How can I spruce this up? I thought.

And this is where my hoarding habits finally become useful!

A while ago, I found an amazing vintage comic in my secondhand book store for only 50p, or something like that. I immediately took it home and cut up a few pages for future projects, saving the rest (after reading the storyline, of course). It was quite an obscure story which was badly-written and full of sexist images of women, so I don't feel too bad about defacing it. ;)

As it turns out, some of my cut-up pieces are magnetted onto my inspiration board, and I looked up just as I was thinking... And lo, and behold, look what was born!

From plain old freebie items, that any old boring person would have relegated to a manky old washbag- or worse, the dustbin- I have created a funky item that I would be proud to put in my handbag.

I hope that this inspires you to upcycle your own boring things!

From,

Berry xoxo

Moar Old-ish crafts!

Hello, everyone! It's Berry here.

A while back, I did a custom listing for a friend which consisted of an awesome dinosaur hoodie and a mudkip-style hat. Whilst I unfortunately don't have any pictures of the hoodie being modelled as of yet, I do have some of both projects in construction. I need to make some of these for myself! :3

These are some progress pictures I took for the customer, so excuse the pyjamas!

Spaaaaikes! I love these things, and can't wait until I can replace my old cookie monster hoodie with a dino-able one.

And here's a quick shot of the mudkip hat...

Over and out, everyone!

xoxo Berry

Hi Guys =]

Well, here I am at last! It's taken a while but I hope it's worth it. I'm Bloom, the other half of Bloom and Berry. First off, I'll tell you a little bit about myself...

I'm currently studying art and textiles at GCSE level and I hope to go on to do fine art at A level. My favourite things are music, drawing and clothes. I love dresses and quirky things...like X-box rings! I love my friends, family and my cat Tiger.

So, what will you be seeing from me?... Well, I do a lot of fabric printing so I'll be printing reams of quirky patterned fabrics.

I'm also undergoing practice in making wire and bead rings. They are very elegant and eventually I hope to branch out to necklaces, bracelets, etc.

For my GCSE textiles project I'm currently assembling large wire butterfly structures with a variety of patterned and textured wings. Once I have fully got my head around how to make them perfectly then smaller versions will be coming your way!

I'm hoping these especially will become a big hit as I really enjoy creating them! (I LOVE Butterflies =])
I'll let you know of any other projects that I begin and will put up pictures as I go along!
Thankyou so much for all the support.

Lots of Love
Bloom <3>

Hello, Again! Sadly no photos....

Hey again! It's Berry, here to announce some changes over here.
First off, Bloom is going to start contributing to this blog more regularly. To solve any confusion, we'll both be signing our posts from now on. This, unfortunately, means that I can't keep any craft-presents a secret on here...
So for the moment, I can't post Part 2 of awesome crafts for Bloom. :(

I will soon, I promise!

Secondly, we're also going to be looking into our first 'bulk' and proper photoshoot, showcasing all of our recent crafty makes.
We have so many ideas, but even those we finish take a looong time to make it to the public eye! >_<

We are also giving you the ability to follow us on facebook or twitter in the near future.

From,

Berry xoxo

General Store and Prototype rings of Fail

Today, I created an XBox ring.

A little backstory, here. Bloom (my partner) is an avid gamer and at the moment is obsessed with Gears of War. She and her brother, together against the Horde... Ah, fun times. Anyway, here I am- in the middle of May- wondering what to get her for a super-belated Christmas pressie. And the thought hits.

Super, one-of-a-kind customised Gamer Gear!

I made the ring twice. The first time, after 3 hours wrestling with the white clay (stupid bits of fluff and dirt!) because the XBox controller shape is a bitch to sculpt, my hyperactive oven burnt it.

Along with 3 other prototype pieces and 5 custom orders. I nearly gave up. T________T

But I decided to make the ring again! This time, there were no bits of dirt... But the oven again burnt the ring. Not that it should have, mind you. I had it at the same temperature you use to melt chocolate... It's a problem with either the clay or the oven. :/

But anyway, the ring wasn't that burnt, and I'm going to paint the burnt (white) bits with acrylic tomorrow. But for the moment.. Here's the ring!

And the website's nearly finished, too. But don't tell Bloom, 'cus she hasn't seen the ring yet and it's on the site.

Shhh! ^_^

From,

Berry xoxo

Slightly less old (but still outdated) polymer clay goodiesingsome

Just thought I'd show some more signs of life by uploading some of the (more) recent photos of my crafty exploits. These are a couple of months old, unfortunately, but I'm still quite proud of them all- even if they're a bit further down on my learning curve!

First off, we have my foray into dollshouse-made accessories - teacup charms. I've actually now got a selection of these made into rings, with different kinds of teacups and 'picnic blanket' fabrics.
I'm still making loads of these two favourites- people just love inedible treats! Though I like to think my craftmanship has improved, the basic design is the same. The burgers come with teensy ketchup bottles, too!

This was a one-off piece I originally made for a contest and.. Just to see if I could do it. I spent an afternoon demonstrating for my cousins, and they seemed to like watching the clay turning into yummy sushi! I'm not too happy with this looking back on it, but I'm glad I attempted it- I've learnt a lot about canes and boxes.

One of my other favourites is the apple charm. I always enjoy making this as each apple looks different, just like the real thing! I generally like sculpting fruit charms (my specialities being pear and strawberries), which I think is because of their simplicity and beautiful colours.

That's it for now, folks! I'll try to keep you posted :)

A New Year, etcetera...

Hello again. It's been a while, right? Over six months.

*twiddles thumbs sheepishly*

I haven't forgone crafting- oh, no. I've been doing lots of it. But I'm a bit lazy, and my 'best' recent creations which I could have used in my portfolio/showcase, I sold without taking pictures of them. Silly me! In fact, I haven't taking pictures of anything I've made recently.

But fear not!

This blog is now going to document the rise (or not) of my crafty business, Bloom and Berry, which I have started with my best friend. We're both art students- she specialises mostly in Textile Art, and I'm just an odd duck- and we thought that turning our hobbies into a business would be a great motivator. Hopefully, the 'business' side of things will indeed get our respective competitive and creative juices flowing, so you can look forward to pictures and crafts of better calibre than below.. I like to think we've improved a tiny bit, too!