Tribal Fusion Belly Dance

For some reason I had gone off the boil when it came to making tribal fusion belly dance costumes in the last couple of years.  Actually, I think a bunch of stuff had happened, not least that I moved home due to relationship breakdown and I've had to shift my ideas about a lot of things in my life.

Anyhow....after making a conscious decision in the last month to re-embrace the whole sphere of creating costumes for dancers I re-vamped my Blackwillow Tribal website and I'n currently re-assessing my supplies and then this week this happened:

It's the most opulent headdress I've made yet, dripping with beads and metal and feathers.  I'm definitely going to be making more of these and once I get another stash of coins and stuff I shall make an accompanying costume.

The other things that happened this week was that I got myself a new patroness - I had a long email conversation with her this week and she wants to send me some of her stash of goodies so that I can play with them for her and make lots of new things.  She's already bought some jewelry from the shop and she want MOAR!  I love it when a customer sees jewellery as art.

There's also a new costume waiting to be discussed with the awesome Lily Devla, a most passionate and engaging woman and dancer.  I'm looking forward to getting together with her again for that project.

And so now the weekend, I hope, is given over to the opulence of romanticised 20's style headdresses.  Given that the weather is less than inspiring outside I might as well cosy up and get making.

And I have had a music epiphany - after struggling for months to find music I like to listen to and could imaging myself dancing to I am smack bang in the middle of a gorgeous Soundcloud, currently listening to Jeff Stott.

Making a Website.....

Ok, if the truth be told it's not that new a website but here's the story. Once upon a time I used to sell via www.blackwillowtribal.co.uk where I offered tribal belly dance costumes and accessories.  I would import bits and pieces as well as pick up things here in the UK and incorporate them into well made and affordable costumes for those who weren't interested in making their own.  The site brought me a lot of work, particularly custom orders for headdresses which I absolutely adore making.

After my son was born some three and a half years ago I found that the recession bit deep and hard and although my site was looked at as often as it always had been, the orders were dropping off.  I also wanted to add things to the website that I couldn't unless I paid my hosts more to do so and the more I weighed up the costs of running it and the pros and cons of other websites the more I felt in favour of getting rid of it.  So last September I closed the website down and ever since I've needed to get in touch with all of those linked to me and let them know.

I'll try and cut this a bit short.....I'm currently rebuilding the site but with a slightly different slant as I sell via Etsy now when I'm not at events in real life, plus there is Facebook and Twitter and blogs and.....well, you get the picture...but I want people to know that I'm still here and that I'll happily make them a bespoke tribal belly dance or fusion belly dance costume or just a headdress.

This weekend I had a go at manually changing my A records (with a new registrar as the previous registrar had Detagged the site cos I didn't know then what I know now about claiming your domain) in order to point the domain at the new site and today was a little annoyed to see it still wasn't live until DOH!  I realised looking over everything again when the kids were in the bath that I had missed out one number of the new IP address.  Silly me!  I've rectified the mistake and hopefully by the end of the week www.blackwillowtribal.co.uk will be back up and running again.  Fingers crossed.

Crystal Headdresses

I have a huge bag of old chandelier crystals so today I am having a go at making gorgeous crystal headdresses.  My fingers are a little....ragged shall we say from wiring them together, but sometimes my pain is your beauty!
Obviously the next task will be to photograph them and do them justice, but for now I'll just keep on making and we'll see what happens.

Bye bye eBlogger....

I'm quite sad to go really, I like eBlogger.  I like the set-up, the ease of use - it feels friendly....

BUT.  I also like having things in one place.

So I'm off to pastures that are not as new as they were....and that I'm slowly getting my head around....

Make sure to come join me at the new Twinkle Twinkle Shiny Things blog.

xx

Streamlining #2

So as part of my streamlining process I have finally decided to do away with my www.blackwillowtribal.co.uk website.

It's been a part of my life for some time now but as more and more of my sales and enquiries are coming via the Etsy shop I think I am wasting my money in keeping it going.  So I am starting to shift everything over and then when that's done I shall shut the website down.

SO.  If you have www.blackwillowtribal.co.uk bookmarked then you should hot-foot over to www.blackwillowbellydance.co.uk instead and go bookmark that one instead.  And hopefully you all go take a look at the Etsy shop anyway?  And if not why not? 

It makes so much more sense to have everything in one place.  And I shall have to think about transferring this Blog over to the one that's integrated into that website - again, it makes more sense to have everything in one place although I'm loving how easy this blog is to mess around with and configure.  I'm really not that technical (I'm sure I must have mentioned this before?) and the other blog bamboozles me a bit but hey, just need to make my life a little easier.

I still have a pre-schooler with me until January next year and as I generally only have evenings to get things made, practice dance and prepare for classes as well as all the promotional stuff that goes with being a teacher and designer - well, I just need a couple of places to go each evening when I'm doing webwork rather than 5 or 6. Luckily the little man was out with his dad this morning and I've had a good couple of hours on here whilst he's been relaxing so I've been able to back lots of things up, do a bit of SEO work, tweak things here and there in readiness for all the switch-overs.

I'll keep you posted with everything that's happening so that you can pop over and subscribe to stuff as it's happening, and hopefully you'll all come and see me over on the other blog and the other wbsite and then I'll make sure that I go and subscribe to everyone I like to keep up with in blog-space so I don't miss out on anything.

I much like Mucha

My next little project this week is to make myself some new page icons for the blackwillowtribal.co.uk site.  I recently purchased a CD of images from www.lunagirl.com and amongst them are some lovely Mucha images that I shall play with - maybe this evening?

 Image courtesy of Lunagirl.com

It's that beautiful, flowing, organic movement that I and many others love.  His use of colour is just sublime.  I think that Mucha paintings and drawings are always flavouring the things I make when it's appropriate, and so I'm very much looking forward to adding the new icons to my website when they're done.

More importantly though, I have custom orders to get started on.  Icons or sewing?  Maybe I'll toss a coin or do a bit of both once the children are in bed.

Sneak Peek

I have a couple of vintage items that will go up on Etsy in the next couple of days, two of them are vintage Banjara anklets, usually used by Tribal and Fusion belly dancers these days as other body costume parts.  There's also a really delicate lapis necklace.  And for the non-vintage lovers I have a new cuff and will soon have another in the same fabrics and lace but with extra embellishment......

Oh, and there's a headdress that I need to get a good full headshot of.......

Fly Fishing Materials

My new favourite search term on the Net is "fly fishing shops".  They contain a whole new world of feathers that I never knew existed and had never considered until recently.

It came as something of a mild shock to discover that I can also buy dyed squirrel tails, bird wings and sometimes even complete bodies.  I don't want to though, I'm too squeamish for that. 

To take a look at what I'm talking about (feathers, not the squeamish stuff) then just take a look here.  Prices are a little breath-taking, but ooooh, aren't they pretty?  And, yes, I've looked at shops in the UK too but there's no-one in the UK that has a range like this.

Development of a style....

Once upon a time I used to make symmetrical headdresses.  Flowers on either side were well matched even if not exactly the same.  Used to add a bit of jewellery, but not too much.  Still made the bases in the same way that I do now in terms of basic construction, but I used to add less stuff. 

For the most part I would make what I thought people could afford, and to be honest, that worked because everything I made got sold....

The next stage was to make things that weren't so symmetrical, flowers one side, feathers and other things on the other, with the addition of the beaded yarn tassels that I love to make as they add so much drama to a piece as well as lengthening the neck for everyone who wears them.

And now?  Well now I just add whatever I can.  Soon I shall throw caution to the wind and just go wild with something, but for the moment I still err on the side of affordability even if prices are higher than they used to be.  Any I do try and make sure to add in a few pieces that have taken less work, less time to construct in order to offer a range of items with a range of prices.

But beauty is as beauty does and even with caution, things can get out of hand, too beautiful to bear, and although I'm still always happy to see an item go to a loved home, I'm sad to see it leave its place on display in my home.

The above headdress can be seen with more pictures here and there is a further new headdress here.

Coming soon!  How to make a fabulous headdress for yourself!