Round Up | 2016

I love reading round ups, and especially putting everything we have achieved in as a brand in one big list! What I don't like is creating these posts as they take FOREVER, so I really hope you enjoy this. You'll find a mix of things we did with friends and family as well as everything accomplished with designosaur 2016... so pleased this post only has to be created once a year!

We started the year off going to London Lumiere - festival of light, it was a city wide exhibition of light installations and it was EPIC.

We were invited to Sussex University to run a jewellery making workshop alongside other Brighton Etsy Team members, the heavily pregnant The Pigeons Nest, and the ever so lovely Georgie St Clair.  Photo Credit | Juream Box

Meet Lulu, the Orca we created for the World Cetacean Alliance to raise money for this endangered species.

We finally got George a girlfriend! Georgette met George and they fell in love, you can read more about their story here.

We held the first ever Brighton Etsy Sample Sale, where we've never seen customers like it! You all queued before the venue opened and then ran to the table to get your hands on as much as you could! It went so well we are currently organising this years event!  Photo Credit | Oh Someday

We created our second collaboration with i Like CATS 

The collaboration came from writing the prompts for Toby's #yayeveryday2016 hashtag project. This Banana sketch is one of Jacques' #yayeveryday2016 drawings.

We went to Florida for three weeks! It was the first holiday Jacques and I have been on alone, and it was SO. MUCH. FUN. Here's us on a Fan Boat in the Everglades. 

The collection we released on returning was inspired by the art deco architecture and the alligators we saw!

We also couldn't go to Florida without going to Disney World and the NASA Space Centre. Here's Jacques in a shuttle... maybe we were a little inspired to create space dinosaurs too!

May is when the Brighton Artists Open Houses are held and we were part of the exhibition 'Gifted' at Unlimited. We're still stocked in Unlimited now too!

May is also the Brighton Festival (and Fringe!) the best thing we saw was this Dr Blighty projection onto the Pavilion, just look at the colour!

In the summer we were commission by Laurie Winkless to create this epic future skyline commission, for her to wear at her book launch.

Then whilst promoting her book Laurie wore her commission piece on Sunday Brunch!

We did a few Cult Milk workshops at Patterns. They are always loads of fun, and the cheapest workshops we run. Hopefully we'll be back again this year.

We designed the totes for Blogtacular with Hello DODO... Photo Credit | Courtesy of Mollie Makes© Will Ireland

But we were unable to attend the conference because we were at Sonar Festival in Barcelona! This meant we did some cultural stuff too, this is the Sagrada Familia, if you haven't been - you should go!

We celebrated Pin Club's first birthday by collaborating with them in August and creating a flamingo floatie pin!

For my Dad's 60th Birthday we went to Barbados! So much sunshine, so much rum punch, so much fun.

We held our first Hen Party workshop, with the wonderful hen Tanya - their party was Superhero themed and they all created awesome dino necklaces.

We went down to Cornwall to visit friends and practice being wholesome/ getting really drunk.

We designed our first pair of socks! There's more of these coming, hold tight!

My third European Captains' Summit, this time in Paris, and my ninth Summit in total! As always it intense, informative and I got to see all my captain friends.

We were stocked in Le Bon Marche, Paris thanks to Shop at the Museums Pop Up Concession.

We were at Renegade for our fifth year! It was so fun as the Brighton crew had a whole section to hang out in!

Our first BUST craft fair, the entertainment was AWESOME! Love these girls! Marawa's Majorettes!

Our third Etsy Made Local market, which we spend most of the year organising with the Brighton Etsy Team leaders.

We were back at Crafty Fox market in Peckham, our last market of the season, and then it was online orders all the way to Christmas!

As another year came to a close I wrote about if we'd achieved last year's resolutions and what we want to accomplish this year if you want to read that post you can here.

Lemme know in the comments, or send us a tweet or a message on instagram or wherever you want to say hello, let us know what you got up to and HURRAH it's well and truly 2017, HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Karli x

my ring collection

If you know me, you know I have a problem, I have SO MANY RINGS! People always joke that I need more fingers, and it's getting to the point that even with rings double stacked on every finger, plus midi rings I probably have enough rings to wear a different set each day for a month, that's a ring for almost every day of the year...

It all started after designosaur, before designosaur I was the statement necklace queen (I still am kinda) but as a small business owner wearing your own jewellery is a great conversation starter, and people are really disappointed if you're not wearing your own jewels! So rings are a good way of wearing loads of beautiful jewels by other makers, as I can wear them all at once, including a few designosaur ones too! 

I wanted to share some of my favourites from my collection, so here goes!

More than thirty rings right here! The bigger the better, I find sterling silver or plastic rings the best as they don't discolour from hand washing! (always keeping it real)

From Left to right | Me and Zena - Spin the Bottle Ring | Lazy Oaf - Fun Ring | Little Raymond - Tutankhamen Ring | Partially Obscured - Green Fused Glass Ring | 

N2 - Leopard Ring 

From Left to right | Cheap Frills - Eye Ring | Rock Cakes - I'd rather be watching TV Ring | Spirit Level Ring - Carolyn Forsman

From Left to right | Me and Zena - Rainbow Knuckle Duster | designosaur - Unicorn Ring

From Left to right | Pylones - Liquid Ring | Me and Zena x Saatchi - Paint Can Ring | designosaur Lichtenstein inspired Ring | Me and Zena - Monkey Ring

From Left to right | Pussy Home Boutique - Bells Ring | Little Moose - 'Don't Be Square' Ring | designosaur - dinosaur stacking rings

designosaur - Bauhaus inspired ring

I have no idea who any of these are by! Help!

designosaur - Enamel Dinosaur Ring

From Left to right | I Am Acrylic - Cheese Ring (made especially for me!) | Rock Cakes - Squirrel Ring and sat infront of that, a little nut ring, also by Rock Cakes! (sterling silver, rose gold plated)

THE END. 

I hope you enjoyed having a nose at what hangs out on my fingers, do you have a large jewellery colleciton? We'd love to see it!

ROAR!

Karli

designosaur workshop at the university of sussex

Last week we were invited to the University of Sussex Students Union to run a jewellery making workshop alongside some other Brighton Etsy Team members.

It was a drop in 'crafternoon' as part of Refreshers Week and we set up for the day in Room 76, a fancy new bit of the Union which definitely wasn't like that when Jacques and I were there! (it used to be a dingy nightclub called 'The Cube')

We took along pliers, snips, findings, chain and hundreds of tiny coloured dinosaurs to make some of dinosaur charm necklaces.

It's fun giving people free reign though, as some people made bracelets, or pendant necklaces and not one design was even similar to another one created on the day!

We are very excited that we have lots of new acrylic colours so expect some new designs and maybe even some charm necklaces hitting the shop soon!

Want to see more of what went on? Take a look at the Brighton Etsy Team blog.

ROAR!

Karli

Photo Credit | JureamBox