I laughed the other day when I read a description of me as a “struggling artist”. Now I don’t like to brag, but last Saturday I had a stall at a craft fair and made ….

…(drumroll)…

MINUS TWENTY THREE POUNDS!

(Clue: The stall fee was £25.)

In my defence, it did start to snow and sleet shortly after I arrived to set up the stall. So actually there weren’t many customers there to not buy my wares.

If there had been any customers, they might have been interested in the new pieces that I have been developing for Mother’s Day. I’ve been experimenting with inkless handprinting kits (like these), and have made things like phone charms…:

laser-etched handprint wooden charm
This is my actual handprint! On a tiny piece of wood

…and mini (1cm diameter) stud earrings:

laser-etched handprint earring
My other hand! On an even tinier piece of wood

How would a handprint get onto the wood? Here are the basic steps:

Step 1 Wipe someone’s hand with the special wipe

Step 2 Press the hand onto the paper, and marvel at the result

Step 3 Scan the handprint and email it to me

Step 4 I etch it onto a piece of wood

I can even do double-sided pieces of wood, so there could be a message on the other side (or even another hand):

message on back of handprint charm
message on back of handprint charm

This is a sneak preview only; I haven’t put any on Etsy or my website yet. But if you are interested please contact me and I’ll be happy to make one for you.

And don’t worry by the way — although the craft fair didn’t go very well my craft business is actually paying my bills at the moment, and the rest of 2013 is looking very promising :)

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