Latest News and Events

My Latest Creations

Here are five of my most recent creations:

Square Teal, Brown and White Circle-Square Cufflinks, Silver Plated
Square Autumn Shades Swirl Cufflinks, Antique Bronze
Square Purples and White Circle-Square Cufflinks, Antique Bronze
Large Round Blue and White Abstract Cufflinks, Silver Plated
Large Round Purples and White Circles Cufflinks, Silver Plated
Click here to see more new designs...

What's on my work bench - June

Hi again everyone, I'm wonderfully busy with commissions this month.

My first is a necklace, being given to a bride by her sister, to wear on her wedding day. I was sent some photographs of the wonderful black and red 1950's style tea dress she will be wearing, and was asked to include copper, as the wedding was taking place at a copper mine.
I created a wirework collar necklace with a spicy red Jasper heart held at its centre. Fossilised Coral, Magnesite and Quartz in reds/deep terracottas, grounded by faceted black Onyx, was bound together by sinuous rose gold plated copper wire. Even the clasp was handmade. I hope the bride loves it.

Second was a Celebration Wreath, I use a rustic heart shaped twig wreath and embellish it with country style fabric hearts hand embroidered with the details of the celebration - on this occasion the names of the bride and groom, and the date of their wedding... Yes, purely by coincidence this is the same bride I made the necklace for! What an honour to be so involved in their special day!

Third is a birthday gift from a wife to her husband. They've just sold their family home, and seeing my 'House' paintings at a show recently, they asked if I could paint their house for them. Of course! Then I got an unexpected visit from the wife. She wanted to commission me to do the painting as a birthday surprise for her husband. The only twist was that I had just 6 days to take photos, plan and complete the painting - here it is in progress on my work bench, with 3 days left to finish it.

If you would like to commission me, then send me an email to info@byrebecca.co.uk, or hit the 'Contact' button at the top of the page.

Love
Rebecca xx

Exciting Commissions

I've been given some really exciting and challenging commissions recently, sterling silver jewellery as a special gift, bespoke Country Angels to fit beautiful home decors and a portrait of a stunning horse. So I thought I'd share this one with you today.

Sunny is a very handsome young Friesian (think of the amazing black horses ridden by the Musketeers in the BBC drama series) x New Forest gelding. His owner spotted me doing some illustrations for my gardening and pet blog Pumpkin Becki, while I was at the hair salon one day. She fell in love with the guinea pigs I was drawing, and commissioned a portrait of Sunny right there and then.

The owner sent me lots of reference photographs to work from, and choosing one of her favourites I used various weights of graphite pencil on A3 Archival quality cartridge paper, to try to capture Sunny's spirit.

It was such an honour to take on this commission, and I really hoped the owner would be happy with the final result. Nervously, I sent her a sneak-peek photograph of the portrait via Facebook, and almost immediately she replied

"That's perfect, you've made me cry, it's so lovely x"

Perfect!!

If you would like to discuss a potential commission, be it jewellery, home decor or a portrait of your beloved family pet, simply send me a message via the 'Contact' button, or on the Facebook page. I look forward to hearing from you.

Love
Rebecca xx

New... 'For Him'

Here's a teaser of my new 'For Him' range of bracelets - oh yes!

Uber-cool, stackable bracelets in larger sizes perfect for any man in your life; son, brother, nephew, grandson, dad, boyfriend, husband, partner, friend...

What a great Valentines gift idea!

Be Unique. Rebecca xx

Website Upgraded

Today we have upgraded our website so that we can offer you some fantastic new features:

1) Combined carriage costs, based on size and weight, giving you the smallest carriage charge possible - yay!! This was my top priority for you.

2) International carriage charges given (you don't need to email me to order!)

3) Holly's Friends Country Crafts products now visible on the Jewellery by Rebecca website and vice versa.

4) The Blog is now a fully integrated part of the website, find it here. I will be posting on this regularly to tell you about dates of shows, new products, trends and special offers.

I'm so excited! This newly upgraded website is entirely the handywork of my husband and webmaster. He has worked so hard on this, and his achievement cannot be underestimated. I owe him a huge thank you x

Be Unique!
Rebecca xxx

So... What Do YouThink?

I'm always really pleased to receive your comments and see photos of the items you've bought from me 'in situ'; and, with your permission, post them here on the blog or in the gallery.

Here's a photo of the lovely Lucy's fireplace, displaying the short Heart Garland as part of her Christmas arrangement.

Thank you Lucy, and thank you for the photos xx

Isabella

I was approached before Christmas by a lady in America. She wanted a bespoke ragdoll for her daughter, who was at Boarding school here in England.

She also wanted the ragdoll to become a family heirloom, and had a list of special little details that she wanted me to include. She had seen my ragdolls whilst doing an internet search, and said she really liked my style and the level of detail I include on all my ragdolls.

Here's what this special ragdoll needed to include:

Lavender (dried and added to the stuffing)
Blue and cream check fabric
Light brown hair
A little pocket for a family locket
A secret pocket for a note from Mother to Daughter
Somehow include fabric from a blouse belonging to the daughter's Grandmother (sent to me all the way from America!)

And here she is!



When the daughter received her at Christmas, she decided to call her Isabella, her grandmother's name... funnily enough, I had the name Isobel in mind when I was making her. The little rabbit was an additional extra of my own. Although I put lots of French Lavender inside Isabella, once she was dressed, you couldn't really smell it unless you gave her a good squish. I thought about adding a lavender filled pocket to her pinny, or making her a little bag to wear. I did some research to see if there was something simple I could do.

Suddenly, inspiration struck! She needs a little toy rabbit!... and I could stuff that with lavender!! Perfect! I designed the pattern myself, and cut it out of brown felt. The eyes and nose are hand stitched. Before I packed up the ragdoll for shipping, I sewed the rabbit to the inside cuff of her sleeve. That way, the rabbit won't get separated from the ragdoll, and also, it dangles in a pleasingly 'Winnie the Pooh' way when you pick the ragdoll up to hold her.

The Grandmother's blouse turned out to be a very old silk scarf, which had been hand sewn into a clever little top with collar and buttons. However, silk becomes very fragile with age, and this severely limited my options.

I decided to sew a band of it onto the bottom of the petticoat, so that the silk was fully supported. You can just see it peeking out from under the blue and cream check dress. The lace trim on the bottom was sandwiched in between the petticoat and the silk.

You may just be able to make out the pocket for the locket in the tabard of the petticoat. It keeps the locket close to the ragdoll's heart.

...and the secret pocket for the note from Mother to Daughter? Well, that's a secret isn't it...

This is me holding Isabella before she went off to America.

Lots of Love
Rebecca xx

Where on earth do I start!!

Starting this blog is going to be a fairly MAHOOSIVE task.

As you will gather from my first post, I've been crafting for most of my life. I think what I'll have to do is show you all my archive photos in separate posts by category, so that you can see what I've been doing up until now, and then as I create new things, I put them into their own posts. I hope that makes sense.

Many of my photos are actual photos on photographic paper...yes people there was photography before the birth of the digital camera. So I'll have to scan these in and add them on when I can.

Hope you like my creations

Rebecca xx

I've been crafting for a very long time!

I think I started out when I was really little, cutting up old Christmas cards, adding some glitter, punching a hole and threading it on to ribbon to make gift tags for the following Christmas. I still love playing with glitter!

My next foray into craft was jewellery making. My friend and I discovered a bead shop in the village of West Malling, Kent, and promptly spent all our pocket money on wonderous beads and findings. I added to my stash by buying old jewellery at jumble sales, breaking them up and making them into something new and unique. I used to sell quite a lot of earrings to my school friends, but was never confident that my necklaces would stay in one piece, so I steered away from them.

I took a GCSE in Textiles, and loved it, and learnt a lot. Art Foundation was similarly messy and fun, and then I took a BA (Hons) degree in Interior Design which was much tidier and formal.

After graduation I began working part-time at a craft shop, where I learnt all about hand painted furniture, and decorative paint effects. Soon I became one of the course tutors, running sessions from basic paint effects, to trompe l'oeil. I loved every minute of it, but my work as a Senior Interior Designer for a local company was taking over, so I had to stop.

In addition to teaching courses, I also spent any free time making greetings cards, creating hand painted decorative items, fabric decorative items and cake decorating, and over the years have sold a lot of my creations, which makes me very proud.

I wanted to share my range of work with a wider audience though, and after the success of my gardening blog pumpkin-becki.blogspot.co.uk, I thought I'd launch Holly's Friends Country Crafts.

Why Holly's Friends? Well, Holly was the first little Country Fairy I made. She was so perfect I was inspired to make lots more, and all are completely unique.

I hope you like what I do, it keeps me busy if nothing else. I'd love to read your comments or questions. I will do one off designs, or personalise fairies and ragdolls, so please ask.