Made With Love by Kat

So after slight diversions for Valentine's chocolate souffle making, I managed to list everyone who had entered my win a bracelet competition... First I wanted to say that I was overwhelmend by how many people entered the competition. I know there were a few people who RTd lots of times and I was really sad that they couldn't all win. However, the final winner was... Yep, that's @trinket_box. If she could send me her details to made_with_love@rocketmail.com by Friday that would be fab. Huge commiserations to everyone who didn't win. As a consolation prize I am offering a 25% discount off anything in my Folksy shop . Just email me for the discount code so I can check you off against my list of entrants.

Lots of lovely press coverage in the last few weeks in Make Jewellery, the Manchester Evening News and Large Manchester. I've pasted a copy of the Large Manchester feature below - the others will follow when I've worked out how to get electronic copies of them. Unfortunately Large Manchester printed my website address as madewithlovebykat.co.uk, not madewithlovebykat.com but hopefully people will have the sense to Google me if they like what they read. The days are ticking down to the official website launch - hopefully it will all be finished by Saturday. Keep your eyes peeled for a special celebratory competition!

This month's InStyle magazine has a feature about the return of sailor chic (as if it ever went away!) They didn't ask me for my two penn'orth, but if they had I would have suggested this little lovely : Aptly, it's called Ahoy There!, and it's available to buy now. On a completely seperate note, for those of you who were wondering about the braised eel.. here it is:

I have decided to run a wee competition through this blog - you can win a pair of brass swallow and peacock pearl earrings just like these ones which are listed in my shop: http://www.folksy.com/items/30375-The-Mysterious-Gift?shop=yes All you have to do is sign up for my mailing list and confirm your subscription (sign-up form is to the right on this blog) Closing date is Friday May 1st - so go and enter quick!

Someone on the messageboards at Folksy was discussing inspiration and people's plans for 2009, which reminded me that a couple of weeks ago I promised to post some pictures from the notebooks which I keep pictures in I like and which I think might give me ideas for new pieces of jewellery. So here's a sneak peek... Because a lot of my jewellery is made from vintage brooches, earrings, keys etc, what I make depends very much on what catches my eye when I'm rummaging through car boots, flea markets and eBay. As you can probably see from the notebooks and my previous posts, I love the idea of old carnivals, so I couldn't resist buying these multi-coloured cloisonne earrings: They reminded me of the merry-go-rounds in Victorian fairs, or of candy canes. I was also lucky enough to stumble on these gorgeous Coro enamel earrings: I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet, but hopefully it will be very special. I also found this tiny sparkling bow brooch,. It ne...

Hey guys! For (hopefully) all the shoppers who love my things but don't want to buy in dollars, I now also have a shop on Folksy, the British-only version of Etsy. Look-see here: My Folksy shop

Oh my God how am I going to make any profit? I've spent a phenomenal amount (well it's up into three figures) on stuff, and so far made eighty quid. Pinning my hopes on things that are winging their way to me as we speak - including more vintage brooches, vintage chandelier drops, swallow charms, Swarovski crystals and pearls, amethyst beads, Georgian antique keys and I can barely remember what else. Three decent sales and I'll be in profit, but it's a nerve-wracking time. Christmas is just round the corner - at least if worst comes to worst my friends will be receiving some very nice Christmas presents indeed...

The Times has a really interesting article on how to wear statement costume jewellery - read it online here . I love, love, love the necklace in the picture. So - killer jewellery - where do you buy your favourites and what do you wear it with?