What's new in the studio

This handmade beadwoven and gemstone necklace is my newest piece. I used agate and rose quartz first, weaving frames around them in colors that set off the stones. Then I created a necklace from seed beads and pearls, Czech glass beads, and more. When it was nearly done, I stitched the agate and quartz pieces into the piece. I then wove many more rows to hold them into the design. Fun! :D

It's for sale in my Ruby Plaza shop. Thanks for looking.

Giving Away a Handmade Beaded Bracelet

Wow. My Facebook page is up to 100 fans. I'm thrilled!!!  I am going to give away a bracelet to celebrate. Not just any bracelet either - I wanted to pick a special one. This is a brand new bracelet. It hasn't been for sale in the online shop....I just got it made.  Because it's the holidays and I want to give everyone time to get in on the game, I'll keep this open for one week. Next Thursday is the drawing; here's what you need to do. Visit my shop's Facebook page and make a comment under the post about the giveaway. I'll use a random number generator to pick the post that wins.

Here's the bracelet:

It is made from Swarovski crystals in 2 shades -- green and clear. Thesilver-plated pewter clasp and the focal flower both have tiny crystals on them too. Please visit my page and enter the contest! :)

The Perfect Jewel 4U Free Shipping Today!

I'm offering FREE SHIPPING today and tomorrow, they're the last days for regular mail to be guaranteed for Christmas. Please use the links to the right to visit my jewelry shop; also, sign up to follow my blog or my Facebook page so you can keep track of the specials! ;)


Click photo to visit site:

DIY Jewelry making kits; make 2 pendants for $5.

Tons of pendants to choose from. $7

Custom photo pendants; choose your family - friend - pet. 

$25

Back of pendants. Choose antiqued brass or bright silver plate finish.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ThePerfectJewel4u?section_id=10292184

Holiday Email Overload

Do you have a holiday email overload, as I do? If you do a lot of online shopping, you'll automatically be put on  email lists. Work-at-home, self employed individuals have to really watch their time - - and checking email can take away a *lot* of time that could be used more productively.

I follow the Getting Things Done plan, so I have folders set up in my email to dump things into. I sort them into projects by title, someday/maybe, and Waiting on (something). But the onslaught of emails kills me; instead of having no new mail in the inbox, which would indicate that I'm caught up, there are 96 in one and 226 in the other right now. The sheer thought of it overwhelms me.
I think that my email box must be closely related to my snail mail, which also can get overwhelming in a hurry.
I used to only allow myself 15 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes in the evening to answer emails. That was in the olden days. Now that everyone uses email for everything, you can't even wade through the titles in 20 minutes. And I resent 30 minutes, twice a day because that's an hour I could be beading.
I do use gmail, which cuts down on spam; you simply don't have it in gmail. There's also a way in gmail to create filters; if Cousin Bob always forwards jokes, make a folder and label it Jokes. Set up a filter, and Bob's jokes will always land there, where you can browse them on Saturday afternoon.

Anyway. Here is an article that suggests some ways to prevent this overload issue. Give them a try and see if you can become more productive. Now -- I'm off to do some aggressive unsubscribing. :)

Craft Show Display

Thought you might like to see the photos from our show. It was not very successful (read: abysmal failure). BUT the 3 of us who did the table together came away feeling as if it was a great learning experience. There weren't that many visitors -- it had been moved from the original location, plus there was another big craft show nearby that day. We don't have control over any of that. We *might* have done better in the main room, rather than a side room... no control over that either.
Also we'd been told our booth was 10X10, so that's what we planned for. Ros and Ken brought the tables, Mickey and I brought the cloths, step shelf, and wire "walls". Mickey had even drawn a layout in some fancy computer program. So we get there, and the space is 9X12. Yikes! Our tables won't fit! We figured it out though, and the sponsors even made tables and chairs available to everyone. All in all it was great fun. There were 43 vendors all total.

Roslyn with her jewelry

This table is mostly mine, with Ken's wooden items on the left end.

A customer checks out our glass cases

Moi!

OK I'm not so photogenic.

Some of my multi-strand necklaces - $20 for 10 strands.

My jewelry show goals are killing me!

People are always asking me what my goals are. Since jewelry – making is something I’ve decided to keep as a HOBBY I try not to have any. But it’s so my nature to approach things like a business: what are your goals? What are the steps to achieve that goal? What are the sub-steps? What supplies do you need to make that happen? Aargh. I drive myself nuts.

This week I actually do have goals, and I’m not meeting them. I feel like there’s an interruption every 10 seconds. It doesn’t matter how important it is – it’s something that draws me away from my craft. And since I’m actually doing my first craft show this weekend, these goals are important. At least to me. J

The show is in Rogersville at the Armory on Saturday. It’s from 10-6. I’m sharing my booth with Roslyn, who is RazzleDazzleMe on etsy. So I emailed her today and said I have 200 pendants, about 100 other beaded pieces, and maybe 50 sets of earrings. And I told her how I feel so far behind. I could feel her laughing in her response: its plenty, don’t worry, we’ll have fun. And yes – we will. If I can just get those other 50 earrings made…….

Here are a few pieces I plan to take with me:

 

                                   

Wednesday's Photos: Chalk Art

OK so I'm a day late posting :) This is chalk (sidewalk) art. I found the first few when I looked for Tampa, FL and their annual chalk art festival. Then I did a search for more. There's some r-e-a-l-l-y amazing chalk art out there. Take a look:

Artists, in order of pictures: Julian Beever (Muses and Coke), John Akers (heron), Ellen Reilley Marshall (cow), Mic Knight, and I believe the final close-up is also Mic Knight's. If you like those, you might also enjoy these spectacular 3-D works: http://www.tracyleestum.com/portfolio/3d-street-art

New Glass Tile Pendant Kits

Hurray. I finally got my kits together for sale. I have pendant making kits with the round cabochons (like the Halloween ones, I'll post a few here ....). They're for sale. I've made both

regular style with various pretty papers, and

Christmas style with a red/green assortment. I'm posting listings for 2, 4, 6, and 10. What do you think? Is that enough, or too much? Should there be a kit for making 1? I'm trying them on both eBay and etsy.




The instructions for making the pendants are in a previous post, here, and I'm including bails and ball chains (and of course the glass cabochons) in the kits. For some reason it's taken weeks to get these together! I hope they work out.

Friday Finds

Today I've been making jewelry and playing on the Internet. :) I find the computer quite a distraction - tomorrow I think it gets moved to the floor while I bead, as there's less than 3 weeks to go until my first craft show.
So - I'd like to feature a lovely find every Friday. Here's one from a favorite shop on etsy. It's a set of hand blown glass beads. They're so organic, so nature-y. If I didn't have a whole cabinet full, I'd have already bought them:

The seller's name is MermaidGlass. (Click to see these and other scrumptious beads!)

Have a happy Friday!

Beaded Bead Necklace Completed, and a Feature

As promised, I will show you the necklace I made with the most recent beaded bead. It took so long because I  did the middle section, then tied it in knots and let it sit on my desk, waiting. I couldn't decide how to finish it.... couldn't even seem to just try something....finally I said, finish it dummy, and if it doesn't work take it apart.
It was done within the hour. I just had to get mean with myself. ;)

Here you go:

And -- here's a lovely collection which features moi -- my pendant is in the top row, second from the left:
http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=collections&op=details&cid=27885