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Bangle with red coral bamboo beads, gold plated beads and a gold plated charm - copyright Helen White.

Hand-crafted jewellery giveaway:Want to win a hand-crafted bangle with matching earrings? Then read on…

To celebrate the arrival of summer on our shores I am giving away this bangle and earring set. Find out how to enter the competition here.

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Polymer clay Steampunk clock pendant - copyright Helen White

Back at the bench at last – and an unpleasant clay surprise.

I finally returned back to my bench to create new designs but had rude shock when I discovered lots of dried out clay which needed rescuing.

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How to walk your cat – almost anywhere.

10 top tips on how to walk your cat safely almost anywhere. Based on our experiences with our cat Bobby.

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Landscape Pendant- Cave and Sea - copyright Helen White

15 things you can do to get your creative mojo back.

You probably heard of writer’s block, but, just like writers, artists and crafters can hit a creative block and you simply don’t know what to design next. So here are some simple ideas to get your creative juices flowing again.

Have notebook on hand – Wherever you are, whether at home, in bed or out and about, take a notebook with you to capture your ideas. Often I get the best ideas for designs when I can’t sleep, so having scraps of paper or a notebook next to you on your bedside table comes in handy. This is also useful when you are ill and have to take an enforced break.
Visit galleries and museums – This is not only a fun activity, but can also be inspirational.
Check out the work of your peers – Obviously this is not to copy their designs, just another way to get inspired.

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10 things you can do for your business, when you can’t create

There comes a time when a crafter is unable to create due to health or other reasons. I recently experienced this and had to limit my designs and production of new items to a bare minimum. To say that I was extremely frustrated (apart from being in a lot of pain) is an understatement, however I realised very quickly that I had to pace myself and avoid certain activities like anything that involves bending over at the bench and long stretches in front of the laptop. At the same time I also realised that I had to use my time simply for other areas of my business. I’d like to share with you the 10 things you can do when you can’t create your craft items.

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Hand-crafted jewellery giveaway:Want to win a hand-crafted bangle with matching earrings? Then read on…Back at the bench at last – and an unpleasant clay surprise.How to walk your cat – almost anywhere.15 things you can do to get your creative mojo back.10 things you can do for your business, when you can’t create

May 07

Hand-crafted jewellery giveaway:Want to win a hand-crafted bangle with matching earrings? Then read on…

Categories:

Jewellery

by helen

It’s May, the sun is finally shining, our cat is happy, my heating is off and it’s my birthday this month. And therefore I have decided to have a competition. On offer is this hand-crafted bangle and matching earrings worth £24.

Bangle with red coral bamboo beads, gold plated beads and a gold plated charm – copyright Helen White.

Both are made with red bamboo coral beads and gold plated beads. The bangle is one size and as it’s made of memory wire it keeps its shape.

Earrings with red coral bamboo beads, gold plated beads on gold plated ear wires – Copyright Helen White

If you like to win this jewellery set all you have to do is:

Sign up for my newsletter – either on this blog, my website or my FB page
Leave a non-spammy comment on my blog or my Facebook page

I will pick the winner at random with the help of our Bobby, once I have counted 50 new subscribers.

Please share this competition with anyone who loves jewellery and might be interested in entering.

Have a great May.

Tags: bangle, competition, earrings, Jewellery, May, red bamboo coral

2 comments

May 01

Back at the bench at last – and an unpleasant clay surprise.

Categories:

Jewellery

by helen

I finally managed to get back out there and work on new polymer clay designs – after many months of dealing with chronic pain in my shoulder and neck. The incredibly cold weather didn’t help either.

To ease myself in I made a few signature canes in Premo and Fimo – which is quite a time consuming activity as you have to extrude individual pieces that make up the letters for the cane. You can see how it’s done in one of my earlier blog posts here.

My signature canes made with Premo – copyright Helen White

Having these in different colour combinations is quite useful for different projects. However I don’t only use signature cane slices, I sometimes just sign using my Kemper tool and recently I bought a silver pen from one of my trusted suppliers Craft Cellar, which I haven’t used yet – you can write on baked clay (or raw, am not super sure) with it. So I have three different methods of signing my work, depending on the object.

Once I had these canes out of the way it was time to make something wearable. So I decided to continue to play around with textures, inks, acrylic paints, gilder’s paste, clay and charms I wanted to embed.

Cat Lovers’ Pendant – purple – copyright Helen White

Unfortunately I discovered that some of my opened Fimo clay was very dry and difficult to condition. I don’t know why, as I do my best to keep my clay airtight in a bag and a plastic container. So I had a look on the web to find out ways to soften the clay. One suggestion was to use baby oil. Haven’t tried that and won’t. Another one I saw a lot and tried is simply to use boiling water – pop the clay in a water tight bag and then in the water for a couple of minutes, check and see how soft is. This is a technique that works – but make sure the bag is really water tight. On one occasion I had an unpleasant surprise and water leaking into the bag – water and Fimo don’t mix well – it makes it slimy and difficult to work with.

Polymer clay swallow pendant – purple – copyright Helen White

Another thing to try is a food processor – but it didn’t work for me – I think it’s because the clay was simply too dry and I ended with lots of fine crumbs that didn’t stick together. Staedtler who produce Fimo sell their own clay softening mix which you can use to soften the dry Fimo, but you have to use it sparingly as it can change the colour slightly (it’s white stuff). While Sculpey’s “Mold Maker” is also very useful for softening clay – just sprinkle a little bit into the clay. Sculpey also sells “Clay Softener” which comes in liquid form. Again you have to use it sparingly. Another technique is simply sitting on your bagged up clay, as the warmth of your body should also to the trick.

Rabbit pendant – copyright Helen White

I managed to rescue some of my clay, but not all of it and some went unfortunately in the bin. Which taught me two things: make sure everything is really stored as air tight as possible and out of the sun and simply use up most of the clay in one session.

After rescuing the clay, it was finally time to get creative.

I hope you like some of my new makes which are now also uploaded on the website.

This time I didn’t seal the items with extra liquid clay as I found it in the past to fiddly and the results are too unpredictable.

Polymer clay Steampunk clock pendant – copyright Helen White

I hope you liked this post – let me know by leaving a comment below.

You can also subscribe to my blog via the subscribe button on the right panel.

Tags: conditioning clay, Fimo, Jewellery, Polymer Clay, Premo, sculpey

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Apr 23

How to walk your cat – almost anywhere.

Categories:

Animal behaviour, Animals, Bobby, Cats

by helen

Some of my readers will know that we walk our cat Bobby. We started this out of necessity, because we live next to one of Cardiff’s busiest roads and I have seen many dead cats on it. Our cat is very precious to us. She is not very streetwise and reacts really daft – for example when we cross a road and she just bimbles along only to stop and stand (or even lie down!!) in the middle of it! She has no awareness of the danger cars pose.

Bobby looking out of our car

We have therefore secured our garden as much as possible for her, so she can’t, in theory, escape. Next to our neighbour, who used to own cats, we attached netting along the wall, while our wall next to the lane has plastic spikes. You can order both netting and spikes online, but I can’t remember where we got both from, best thing is to check places like Zooplus – see link on the left – or search Google. The spikes might even deter burglars, (who knows), though I doubt it as we had stuff stolen from our garage.

Bobby getting out of the car

Cats can and do get into our garden. These are the more adventurous types and if they are not too fat they also can get out. Our moggie isn’t fat, just incredibly lazy and totally people focussed. She’s mostly interested in what we are doing and always seeks out our company (a bit like a dog), so she has no desire to mount the wall and disappear, which we appreciate very much. She is also easy to bribe with food.

Bobby also likes to explore the front garden and go for a wander. And this is why we got her quickly used to her harness from an early age, when she was still a kitten. First we started her off just with a collar – she hates collars and we had to give up on collars in general, but then she gets spot on treatment for fleas, so a flea collar is not necessary (and she doesn’t roam). When she wears a collar she just gets in a right old state of panic and begins to choke.

However we were very surprised to find that she took to her harness quite quickly – so in that regard we were extremely lucky.

After a few days of wearing it in, we ventured out into the back garden with her, to get her used to the leash. The initial leash was very short. When we started walking her in the forest we actually bought a re-tractable one for small dogs. At first we got the wrong size for medium sized dogs – she almost flew back after pressing the button! Luckily our friends were quite happy to receive the leash for their dog as a gift.

Bobby and me

When we walk her, we sometimes let her off the leash, until she wants to venture out on the pavement. She also loves to walk along our garden wall and then jumps onto my husband’s shoulders, which is quite cute. She prefers him to me in that respect, because I am quite small and she doesn’t like to jump on mine, so I always end up grabbing her gently and she meows and complains until I put her down, clip her on and we can walk along the lane.

When we tried to walk her in the forest for the first time she didn’t even want to go into the carrier. As soon as she was in the car, she was calm. When we arrived at the forest it took her a moment to figure out that we were somewhere completely different and she really enjoyed her first walk, which took about 20 minutes. These days we walk her for an hour. We always choose a remote spot and make sure we pick her up when we see dogs or horses approaching. I remember the first time she spotted a horse – her chin dropped and she was just staring at it in amazement! Once we encountered some riders who were equally surprised to find us with a cat instead of a dog.

Bobby exploring the forest

My husband once also tried one of the bigger local parks (Roath lake), but it’s way too busy – you really need a quiet spot, plus I’d be weary of the ducks and swans! He also took her to the beach, but she hated the open space and the wind and was very unhappy. So now we just stick to the Wenallt, but are always on the lookout for a new quiet spot to walk her.

Bobby watching.

The best thing about walking Bobby is the fact that when we come home she is just the happiest and most content cat in the world. She rubs everything and everyone and then falls asleep quickly, dreaming of her little adventure. And when she’s happy it makes us happy too.

Bobby happily asleep

Walking your cat in a nutshell:

Start as early as possible and be patient. Cats are not dogs!!
Choose a harness with breakaway buckles – they are easier to attach and safer.
Get your cat used to just wearing the harness in the house – this might take a few days, depending on your cat. Maybe you want to reward your cat with some treats.
Once your cat is comfortable enough and doesn’t mind wearing the harness, it’s time to venture out into the garden. In the beginning the leash that comes with the harness is enough. But as soon as you start going further afield it’s time to invest in a re-tractable dog leash (the smallest to avoid funny surprises) ours is a flexi comfort long 1.
Once she is used to the garden on the leash, you can start going further afield.
Cat walking is not the same as dog walking – cats love to hang around and sniff a lot and just sit and stare. It can be incredibly boring and you need a lot of patience. They also have one disgusting habit –when they can smell out the scent of another cat they tend to roll in it (yuk, I know).
Be aware of dogs – as soon as I see a dog approaching (unless it is considerably smaller) I pick her up. I don’t want to tempt fate here.
If you want to give your cat a real adventure and change of scenery – explore your local forests. Make sure you transport her in a safe carrier in your car and also use your seat belt to secure it.
Beaches – ours didn’t like the beach one bit – too windy. By all means, try it out, maybe your cat reacts differently.
Open spaces – cats hate them, because they are predators – always choose a spot that gives her a sense of security and being able to hide.

I hope these tips are helpful.

Please let me know how you get on in the comment box below.

Tags: Bobby, cat behaviour, cat walking, cat walks, Cats, walking with cats

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Apr 05

15 things you can do to get your creative mojo back.

Categories:

Business, Jewellery

by helen

Have notebook on hand – Wherever you are, whether at home, in bed or out and about, take a notebook with you to capture your ideas. Often I get the best ideas for designs when I can’t sleep, so having scraps of paper or a notebook next to you on your bedside table comes in handy. This is also useful when you are ill and have to take an enforced break.
Visit galleries and museums – This is not only a fun activity, but can also be inspirational.
Check out the work of your peers – Obviously this is not to copy their designs, just another way to get inspired.
Go on a course to learn a new technique or teach yourself – Learning and experimenting with new techniques can often spark new design ideas.
Use a material you haven’t used yet – I recently bought copper clay I want to play with. It’s a new material I have not used before and it will be interesting to see what creations I can come up with using this and my torch.
Go through your past commissions – If you are in the lucky position to work on commissions your customer will often be the inspiration. You could also look back at past commissions and think about how you can make changes to an already existing design to create something completely new.
Read magazines – Some of the magazines I occasionally buy, such as Making Jewellery, Art Jewelry and Polymer Café, serve as inspiration for new design ideas. I rarely re-create the projects, but occasionally get inspired to use different techniques and materials.
Read books on your chosen craft – I have quite an extensive library which includes books on wirework, metal smithing, bead work, metal clay work and polymer clay. I very much treasure these books as they always give me ideas, plus I learn a lot from them. “7000 Years Of Jewellery” by Hugh Tait (a Valentine’s gift from my husband) is a beautiful book with plenty of photos of jewellery – perfect for getting inspired and learning a lot about the history of jewellery.
Browse the net for free or paid-for tutorials – Again this is about learning a new technique. Once you learned a specific technique you could change it, adapt it and come up with something unique. YouTube has plenty of tutorials if you like watching videos.
Look at your own designs – What do you like about them, what don’t you like about them. Is there anything you would change if you would create one of them again? Use this as a starting point for something new.
Tidy or re-organise your work space – You might be surprised what you end up finding. I sometimes find abandoned projects, beads or tools I haven’t used in ages.
Go window shopping – If you love shopping for clothes and accessories- then use your shopping trip for research.
Or go for a proper walk in the forest or on the beach– Nature is always inspiring – certainly for me as I love animals and natural structures.
Have a break – Sometimes having a break can recharge your batteries and you find inspiration when you least expect it.
Books and films – A lot of film franchises eventually come with their own often naff merchandise – think Twilight, Lord of The Rings or The Hunger Games. Maybe you watched a film or read a novel which left a deep impression on you and you can use this as a starting point. After all it was Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights which gave Kate Bush her first number 1.

I am sure I can think of even more ways to get you creative again. I hope you find some or all of these ideas useful.

Let me know – I would love to hear from you.

To keep up to date with new posts you can also subscribe to my blog via the subscribe button on the right panel

Landscape Pendant- Cave and Sea – copyright Helen White

Tags: craft inspiration, creative block, creativity, jewellery books, magazines

2 comments

Mar 28

10 things you can do for your business, when you can’t create

Categories:

Blogging, Jewellery

by helen

Improve your website – If you have your own website you might want to re-evaluate how well it performs in terms of visitors and which pages get the most clicks. Maybe you find you need to work on your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) or you find that your website could do with a complete revamp. And if you don’t have a website you might consider building one. If you can’t do this yourself – hook up with a trusted web designer who specialises in SEO. That’s what I have done last year in September and since my new website’s online presence has improved.
Start a blog – or improve your existing blog – If you don’t have a blog yet, why not start one now as an add-on to your business website? Starting a blog is fairly easy – you need a host, a name for your blog and a free blogging platform such as blogger or WordPress. I use WordPress.org which offers plenty of free templates, plugins and widgets. There is also tons of advice out on effective blogging – just type successful blogging into Google and see what it comes up with. I only recently revamped my blog and you can read about this here.
Discover social networking sites you haven’t used before or very little – I am mostly using Facebook, but have recently read a guide about Twitter and am now making more use of it as well as LinkedIn. I also plan to pay more attention to Google+.
Ditch some of your social media – If you feel overwhelmed with it all and don’t want to be on all of them – simply choose to stick to those that work best for your business and ditch the rest. It can be liberating.
Meet up with real people – Working from home can make you feel very isolated and no social media network can replace a real person. So pick up your phone, ring some friends or join groups in your local community.
Prepare your tax return – Ok, I admit this is very dull and not something I like doing! But if you can’t afford your own accountant you’ve got to find a system that works and makes it a painless affair. So why not start now? If you already have a system, that’s great. I am one of these people who leave it fairly late and then spend at least one day sorting it all out, instead of just filing each receipt as it comes in. So note to self – better practice what I just “preached”.
Prepare a marketing plan – Now is a good time to sit down and create a marketing plan for your wares. Re-evaluate your marketing efforts – what has worked well, what hasn’t, where can you make improvements? For example – if you attended craft fairs only, but have had little returns for your effort and more costs, it’s time to move away from these fairs and try something new. Instead consider approaching galleries or shops. Do some research – what’s available in your own area, find out what they sell or show and how much they are willing to pay you, i.e. what’s their commission rate? Often it is 50% and unfortunately most galleries operate on a sale or return base. You can find a lot of free info about marketing online. Search Google or Amazon.
Make a list of all those projects you want to work on – Catch those ideas for designs, jot them down or if you do a lot of sketching – sketch your ideas. Once you feel better you’ll be grateful as you will have a valuable source of ideas – for those moments when you hit a creative block.
Read more books – If your health isn’t affecting your reading ability – start reading all those books that you keep putting off. I love reading, so I don’t see it as a chore – not even non-fiction how-to books. You can learn so much from them – even from badly written ones.
Take a break from it all – Yes, you’re reading correctly. Sometimes the best thing is to take a cue from your body and see it as a sign to just rest and take a break to recover.

As you can see there are plenty of things you can do that will help your business when you’re too unwell to actually make things.

I am sure I can think of even more things.

I hope this was useful to you – let me know by leaving a comment below.

You can also subscribe to my blog via the subscribe button on the right panel

Swallow pendant – copyright Helen White

Tags: blog, business, social media

2 comments

Mar 25

My social-media free week – update

Categories:

Blogging, Main Page

by helen

A week ago I decided to have a break from all social media to see how I manage without Facebook and co.

So how did it go?

I stuck to my plan, but forgot that my blog is connected to “Networked Blogs“which sends automated updates to FB and Twitter. And my page is connected to the “Fan of the Week” app which also automatically posted to my wall. So you could still see updates, but it wasn’t really me updating these. Apart from this slight oversight it went well.

I had more time to get things done and managed to tick off most items of my long to do list (see first blog post). I met with a friend in town for coffee, bought two new pairs of jeans, “Art Jewelry” and “Writing Magazine”, prepared and published blog posts, sorted tons of admin, prepared and edited interviews for UK Handmade and read some of my e-books. I also wrote two issues of my newsletter, one to prompt people to unsubscribe, and one which is going out today. I also finished a bracelet for a customer and sorted new cover photos for my FB page.

Saturday we spent the day with friends of ours and theire adorable dog Hattie (a rescue they adopted from 4Paws). We went to Barry and it was bloody freezing, but an enjoyable day out and nice to catch up, putting the world to rights and thinking up better ways to save the economy and the planet.

On Sunday it was time to go back to FB and co. Unfortunately I didn’t go back to the bench, because it was too cold and for the same reason we didn’t take our cat up the mountain for a walk.

I think I made good use of the extra time available to me, but I felt a bit lonely and isolated. I only received very few private emails. FB and Twitter really serve a water cooler function – and even though they can be viewed as a distraction and waste of time, it is sometimes just nice to talk to people about stuff you’ve read about or watched on telly. For example on Monday I watched Dispatches about rich pensioners on benefits and felt the urge to tweet about this. On Saturday I watched the documentary “Nim” about the appalling treatment of the chimp, which upset me big time and made me cry. I had to wait until Sunday to connect with another friend on Twitter who also watched it. There were several moments like this where I felt the need to connect and talk to friends on FB.

What about my stats?

LinkedIn – I received one add request by a fellow journalist and FB friend and another endorsement by another friend.
Twitter – I had follower notifications but the stats say I have now 176 followers (I know it’s not much).
Facebook – 1 new like on my page, 1 private message, 75 notifications
Google+ – As I haven’t been using it much I don’t know – I don’t think there was much movement.

I admit the experiment was rather short to evaluate it properly and I could extend it for a whole month, but though the one week off didn’t really affect my business negatively, it didn’t benefit it either. Plus I felt rather lonely and some people really seemed to have missed me.

How did I manage before social media took off? I spent more time on forums and last week I went back to some I am a member off. Forums however are not as fast paced as social media platforms.

I might repeat this “holiday” from social media, but in the meantime I will use it more sparingly so I can make more productive use of my time.

This week I plan to use Google+ more and finally go back to the bench (weather permitting).

Bobby looking up – copyright Helen White

So what do you think? Have you ever had time off from Twitter and co? Did you enjoy your time off or did you miss your virtual friends too much?

Let me know by leaving a comment below.

You can also subscribe to my blog via the subscribe button on the right panel.

Tags: FB, Google, LinkedIn, Nim, social media, Twitter

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Mar 22

My DIY glasses repair

Categories:

Main Page

by helen

Glasses are something I don’t tend to buy every year and I bought my last pair, which came with a free frame (the free is always misleading as you still pay for the lenses), about two years ago. Unfortunately one of my arms snapped – just next to the hinge. I thought this should be a doddle to repair for the company I bought them from (Glasses Direct). So I rang them and they sent me a free return slip to fill in so I can send the glasses off for repair. Two days later they rang me and told me that they neither can repair them nor replace the frames as they no longer sell them. But if I want I could take advantage of their latest offer and buy a new pair, but I would have to hurry.

broken glasses before repair

I still have a spare pair which I am wearing right now and simply don’t want a replacement as I am perfectly happy with my other pair. So I decided to repair them myself – or rather my husband offered to do it for me. I have plenty of different super glues among them E6000 and 2-part Epoxy, which I chose. My husband only needed to mix a tiny amount of it together, dab it carefully into the small hole the arm fits into, press it carefully together and leave it to set for a day before he screwed the arm into the hinge. And hey presto – my glasses are fixed.

Repaired arm

They are not perfect as the arm feels still a bit lose on opening and closing ( the other arm is stiffer) and my husband said that the tiny screw attaching the arm to the frame is a bit worn, but I hope if I take more care of these I can wear them for another year. If you know where to get tiny screws for glasses to replace the one I have let me know.

Repaired glasses open

Repaired glasses front

Did you ever decide to fix items yourself after you’ve been told they are not repairable? Let me know by leaving a comment below.

You can also subscribe to my blog via the subscribe button on the right panel.

Tags: 2-part Epoxy, glasses, glue, repair

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Mar 19

What I like and don’t like about my new toy – the Kindle Fire HD

Categories:

Books, Reviews

by helen

What I like and don’t like about my new toy – the Kindle Fire HD

Last Christmas I went over to the “dark side” and asked for a Kindle Fire HD as a present. My dad is a gadget fan and was surprised by my wish, but happy to buy it for me. He has an e-reader, but from a different company.

Thing is – I am not really much into gadgets. For me my laptop is a means to an end – it’s mainly a business tool. We bought a Wii for my parents-in-law two years ago, in the hope they would use it – but after three months of it sitting unopened in their cupboard they returned it to us. My husband mainly uses it, but we only have three games for it.

my Kindle Fire HD -locked

Up until a couple of years ago I was still using my ancient Nokia until it completely died (I couldn’t hear the caller at the other end anymore) and as I only use pay-as-you-go I ended up with the most basic entry-level LG phone – you can take photos with it and even access the internet but the screen is so small that I never bother. I am not very attached to my mobile phone and can’t understand people who are completely glued to their i-phones – apart from the fact that I find mobile phone addicts rather irritating when they text while walking and bumping into people.

So why on earth did I want a Kindle? Well – I love reading and a lot of books I read are non-fiction guides for business, craft, and marketing – that sort of thing. A lot of these types of books are available for e-readers like the Kindle. What’s more you can also upload – or side-load as it is called- e-books in pdf format onto the device. And at 32GB the Kindle Fire HD offers plenty of space for a lot of books. It frees up space in our house too and the books are also stored on Amazon’s cloud (so you can access them in case you delete them on your device). Amazon also offers the opportunity to just order sample chapters to see what the books are like before you order, there is always a special deal on and a lot of books can be found free on Kuforum.

The forum is also useful for general help (though I haven’t used it yet).

Another reason I fancied the Kindle was that I wanted to be able to access the internet when I am unwell or when my hubby is using the laptop.

So what is my impression of my new toy so far?

The sound is very good – I haven’t bought any music as I prefer to listen to BBC6 or my cd collection. So far I have one song on there “Let them all in” by “I am Kloot”, which was a free download, though I bought the cd anyway for my husband as a Valentine’s gift.

You can also find tons of free or cheap apps and games. I only have a few as a) I don’t want to get addicted to games and b) I want to keep most of the space free for books.

These are the games and apps I downloaded (some were already installed):

Solitaire, Stupid Zombies (really for my OH), Mahjong Dlx, Jumbline 2 (word game), Bejeweled 2 (which I actually bought) and Animals Puzzles (it’s cute – as you know I love animals)
ColorNote –it’s a diary where you can create notes and checklists –easy to use
Twitter
BBC News
HootSuite
Battery – very useful as it shows you how much leccy you still got left on your Kindle
Spirograph – I don’t use it much, but it’s free and you can use it when you get bored watching telly.
Doodling – similar to the Spirograph
SketchBookX – sketching app
MyFitnessPal – though haven’t used it yet
Avast!Mobile Security – my laptop has Norton so I thought my Kindle should be protected too.
Converter – useful tool for converting currencies, metrics etc.
Calculator Plus
Skype
Adobe Reader
Office Suite

The Kindle is sold with its own web browser called Silk and it takes a while to get used to it. I don’t find it super reliable and often I have to reload the page and wait (it might also depend on where I am in our house for signals) I am wondering if I can install a different browser such as Firefox or Google Chrome and might look into it.

Facebook on the Kindle is also very fiddly to use – often I click on a link and end up in the wrong section.

Another thing which is not ideal is the touch screen keyboard – I have bought a stylus (cheap for 99p on eBay) to tap the keys instead of my fingers (mainly to avoid fingerprints). I try to tap fast but often end up with lots of typos and it’s got a predictive text function, which I managed to disable. I prefer writing long emails, posts and articles on my laptop. So the touch screen is ok for basic and short posts.

Reading e-books on the Kindle is enjoyable. I haven’t even discovered all the bells and whistles but very much appreciate the bookmarks and being able to easily access the links when mentioned in the text. You can also highlight sections in the text. However when you read e-books in pdf and not the Kindle’s own format you won’t be able to bookmark the pages – which is a bit of a pain if the book has lots of pages. I have also noticed with one of the pdf books that I can’t click on the links, which is not so great (maybe there’s something I am doing wrong here).

my Kindle Fire HD book section

The Kindle has a camera, but I haven’t used it yet and from what I read it sounds like a lot of faff to create a decent image, mainly because of the way you hold it – the lens is looking at you (not sure how to explain this). But I didn’t want the Kindle for photography – I have a decent camera for this purpose.

Another downside of the Kindle is that while Amazon supplies it with a cable, they have skimped on the charger. I charged it up via the laptop which takes ages and bought a cheap charger from eBay (the cable is ridiculously short on that one). I noticed that it takes many hours to fully charge the Kindle and therefore I leave it on charge overnight so it’s ready in the morning. I also noticed that it does eat battery life! This is where the free battery app comes in handy – it shows you not only how much time you have left, but how much each task uses up – online browsing eats most of your battery ‘s life, while offline you can read for a long time. I tend to be mostly online though and don’t want to change my settings as it took me a while and several attempts (and searches on forums) to get it online in the first place.

Overall I am quite happy with my Kindle, because it frees up space and I discover books I might otherwise not stumble upon.

Would I stop buying physical books completely? No, when I want to buy books with lots of images, I will buy the “real” book. This is also true for instruction books for my jewellery. I just recently bought “Polymer Clay Color Inspirations” by Lindly Haunani and Maggie Maggio (more about that in another post) and wouldn’t want this on my Kindle as I can still read and follow instructions better from a book.

I hope you enjoyed this review and found it helpful (let me know by leaving a comment below)- and no I am not affiliated with Amazon – this is not a sponsored post.

If you want receive updates of my blog you can subscribe to it using the subscribe button on the right.

Tags: Amazon, apps, ebooks, Kindle Fire HD, pdfs

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Mar 17

Why I turn off all social media for a week.

Categories:

Blogging, Business, Main Page

by helen

One of the things I enjoy the most when we go on a holiday is the fact that I don’t have access to the Internet and social media. I don’t schlepp around my laptop on holidays and my phone is a very basic pay-as-you-go LG, which is not very internet- friendly. We are usually away for a week and because we are not connected it frees up an enormous amount of time to do stuff and experience things in the real world. So I decided that what’s good for me on a holiday is also good for me at home and for this week I shall turn all social media off. When this blog post gets published it still will be distributed via HootSuite and my FB page, after that I won’t be using HootSuite, but rely solely on my email/phone for communication with friends, family and customers, and on readers following my blog to simply spread the word.

Time is one reason I am doing this, but there’s more I want to find out during this week. As a small business owner we are constantly told how important it is to stay connected with your (potential) customer base via social media. Having a neat looking website and a blog apparently isn’t enough. So we have a Facebook page, a Twitter account, are LinkedIn and even getting used to Google+. Oh, and throw in other social media such as Pinterest. How effective your online presence is should be measurable simply in the sales you get out of your activities. Unfortunately, it isn’t as straight forward as that. It takes a colossal amount of time to keep up with it all. And, to me, there is always the danger that you simply overdo your marketing efforts.

Personally I don’t mind seeing the odd page trying to flog me their latest product – I can either ignore it or make an informed purchase decision. However, I get bored if the same page or Twitterer constantly just flogs their products or boasts a lot. Both things I try to avoid – only to get told my own designs need to be more visible. Thing is, if I don’t like it with other people, I don’t want to appear to be doing exactly the same thing. I am not a pushy kind of a gal and a firm believer in “less is more”.

Facebook has been the social media I have been using the most, but in the last 12 months I have noticed that Facebook fatigue has set in. People have closed or abandoned their accounts and are worried about privacy issues. Facebook is constantly tinkering with the website, especially the newsfeed, which means that I only see and communicate with a small number of the FB friends that I have. I also have noticed that my page simply doesn’t get much attention, because most of my “fans” are not customers, some have liked the page for reasons unclear to me, others because they wanted me to like their page and only a tiny fraction seem to be interested in my work.

I haven’t used Twitter much and in terms of communication always have preferred FB – I guess it’s because posts are not limited to 140 characters and the pace isn’t as fast. I haven’t made that much use of LinkedIn either; I’m on Flickr but not on Pinterest and am still new to Google+.

So during this week I won’t be using any of these social media platforms – including HootSuite.

With all the extra free time available to me I can already think of a lot of things I want to do:

Meet up with a friend in town and buy eye pins from the local bead shop.
Write a few blog entries in advance so I can keep up with my goal of publishing at least two posts a week.
Prepare two interviews for UK Handmade
Read even more books (I have plenty of non-fiction books on my Kindle)
Get back to exercising
Get back to the bench (if the weather finally gets warmer, but I have a heater) and create new signature canes and design new pieces of jewellery
try my hand at sculpting with polymer clay
Buy a new pair of jeans that actually fit.
Tidy my inbox
Sort out some general admin (prepare the dreaded tax return)
Meet up with friends to go for a walk with their cute dog and a pub lunch after or before.
Go for a walk with Bobby in the local forest (weather permitting – if it’s too cold she won’t like it and freezes very quickly)

This to me is already quite a long list of things I want to get done, so come Monday the 25^th of March I will let you know how I got on with it all and how I coped without the distracting noise of FB and Twitter.

I also want to find out if keeping a low profile is affecting the business in any way. Currently my Facebook page has 438 likes and I have 175 Twitter followers. So I wonder if my absence will result in more, less or the same amount of likes and followers and if I can make a sale this week.

Have you ever been offline for a longer period of time? Let me know how managed by by leaving a comment below.

If you liked this article, please share it. You can also subscribe to my blog via the subscribe button on the right panel.

Purple Nautilus Pendant – copyright Helen White

Tags: Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, social media, social media fatigue, Twitter

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Mar 13

New blog: why I revamped my blog

Categories:

Books, Main Page, Writing

by helen

I have recently read a couple of e-books about blogging and among them “299 Steps To Blogging Heaven” by social media expert Nikki Pilkington. The book is a few years old and some of the links no longer work but it is full of great advice for people new to blogging and people like me who want to get more traffic to their blog. I read the book in one sitting, made tons of notes and decided it’s time for a blog makeover.

So what has changed?

I kept “Graphene” as my theme, because it works well, has a neat slide function and lets me customise the header. However I have changed the layout – so now I have two widget side panels instead of one and I included a neat little widget that links to my jewellery website. I have changed the header image as the paw image from my old layout was difficult to see. I also decided to leave the background white instead of filling it with image tiles as it looks tidier this way.

You can now contact me via the contact page. I have also included a review page calling out for jewellery or craft suppliers who want me to review their tools and kits and a page calling out for guest bloggers. My about page has a slightly different wording and I also kept the page titled “My Jewellery” – this page is still a work in progress as I am trying to figure out how to create a neat photo gallery which works like a slideshow or similar to show off my own designs.

I also have now installed Google analytics for the blog and created a sitemap for Google to index it. And finally I have added a subscribe link to the right sidebar so you can keep up to date with my latest blog posts and news from my website.

And finally not so much a layout change but my decision to make the most of this blog and simply post more often (at least twice a week) and keep my posts entertaining, informative and useful. And for this I have started a blog list where I jot down ideas for new posts and when I want to post them. I also purchased Nikki Pilkington’s “30 Day Blog Challenge” which I intend to follow.

I hope you like my new and improved blog as much as I do

Please free to comment – and don’t forget you can now subscribe to my blog – see button on the right..

Tags: blog, guest blog, Nikki Pilkington, reviews

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Helen's Paws for Thought

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Back at the bench at last – and an unpleasant clay surprise.

How to walk your cat – almost anywhere.

15 things you can do to get your creative mojo back.

10 things you can do for your business, when you can’t create

Hand-crafted jewellery giveaway:Want to win a hand-crafted bangle with matching earrings? Then read on…

Back at the bench at last – and an unpleasant clay surprise.

How to walk your cat – almost anywhere.

15 things you can do to get your creative mojo back.

My DIY glasses repair

What I like and don’t like about my new toy – the Kindle Fire HD

New blog: why I revamped my blog

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