What I've Been Up To - May 12 - 18

Here's my weekly update from my jewelry desk...

Another busy week here!

I had my first craft fair this year on May 11th and a lot of this week was putting all my supplies and displays away and then catching up with online orders for that weekend. I'm still trying to catch up and I have a whole mess of stacking rings to finish on my desk right now.

I did manage to take photos and list my floral pattern wire and hammered wire bangle bracelets in my shop. Here are some pictures:

Floral Pattern Sterling Silver Bangle Bracelet - available for sale here

Hammered Sterling Silver Stacking Bangle - available in my shop

And I also took better photos and listed my Dragon's Blood Jasper and Garnet Necklace. I love this necklace! It's so dramatic looking.

I also played around with a larger cabochon cocktail ring style and made this Sterling Silver and Moonstone Cabochon Cocktail Ring. It's going to be one of a kind because it is a strange size of cabochon and I could only find one.

A wonderful box with a brand new propane torch arrived this week as well. This will replace my (highly overkill) MAPP gas torch as my larger project torch. I tried it out a little and it seems great! It has three tips for three sizes of flames and it attaches directly to a barbecue propane tank and uses ambient air. I will still probably use my little butane torch the most - it works great for the things that I make the most, like stacking rings - but this is a great addition to my tool box.

I also had my very first teaching experience yesterday with my Wire Wrapped Earrings class at Beadworld in Seattle! I only had two students in this first class, but that was a very good thing because we all learned that each earring project could be its own class. We ran more than an hour over the class time and I had to send them home with only one earring fully finished for each project. Luckily, they said that my project instructions (the ones that I had to scramble to finish last week!) were very clear and my directions in person were helpful and they would have fun finishing at home and making more earrings. 

Unfortunately the Bird's Nest Pendant class was cancelled due to low attendance. The weather has been too nice here for people to want to sign up for an indoor class! 

Still, teaching was a success. My wire wrapped donut class in June is already sold out and Beadworld has asked me to come back and teach classes for the next quarter - my two earrings projects - split into two classes, wire wrapped donuts, and a new wire wrapped cabochon class.

I'm also currently trying to transfer all of my pictures and shop documents over to a brand new laptop because my old one is becoming increasingly unpredictable. I decided I would rather spring for a new computer slightly early, rather than wake up to a Blue Screen of Death and have to scramble to recover all of my documents. I can't say I'm completely sold on the new Windows 8 yet, but I'm adapting.

That's it for my weekly update! I'm headed down to my desk to wrangle a whole bunch of stacking rings and get them ready to send out.

Support Handmade! Shop Etsy Team Handmade

One of the teams that I participate in on Etsy is Team Handmade. We are a group of artisans on Etsy with the mission of supporting handmade artists and raising awareness (on Etsy and off) about the importance and value of artisan handmade products. We are 1000+ members strong - representing nearly every form of art and craft: jewelry, knit, crochet, miniatures, fine art, pottery, embroidery and much, much more - and committed to "keeping the hand in handmade."

If you would like to help support my fellow teammates or are interested in keeping up with the other members of Team Handmade, check out all the places we are taking over the web:

• Explore the newly launched website: Team Handmade Shops
• Ogle the beautiful new items shared on the group Flickr stream: Flickr: Handmade Team
• Like the team on Facebook!: Handmade Team on Facebook
• Or if you have a handmade shop on Etsy and would like to join the team, apply here: EtsyHandmade - Etsy Teams

What I've Been Up To - May 5 - 11

Updates from my jewelry desk for the last week...

Another busy week! I spent the week preparing for my Saturday craft fair - painted my displays, finished up putting price tags on everything, and got everything packed and ready to go.

In between all that, I made a half dozen sterling silver bangles - one with wide patterned wire and the rest hammered thin bands. They are still packed away from the show, but I'll share pictures as soon as I can dig them (and the camera) out.

And in between that, another big pile of stacking rings for Etsy orders. 

The Snohomish Gift and Craft Bazaar was a success. I made a good amount of sales, got a lot of good feedback, and quite a few people took a business card to check my shop out later. 

Here was my table:

I'm pretty happy with my display. I'm sure I will tweak it a bit for each craft show, but I have room to add more jewelry to the 8 foot sized table but I can still shrink it down to a 6 foot table without having to remove anything.

And right after I got home from the Snohomish show, I found an acceptance email in my inbox for a holiday show I applied for! 

So clear your calendars for November 2nd, 2013! I'll be at the Woodinville Holiday Craft Fair at Woodmoor Elementary School. I'll update with more info as we get closer to November.

Up for next week is getting ready for my wire wrapping classes at Beadworld in Seattle. I never did find the papers that I wrote some of my directions on, so I have to sit down and "virtually" make the earrings in my head so I can write it down step by step.

What I've Been Up To - April 20 - May 4

Busy! I've been busy!

But not with actually making any new jewelry. I've been making custom rings and things for orders from my Etsy shop, but other than that, I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and make anything new.

I spent quite a bit of time last week getting ready for the Snohomish Gift and Craft Bazaar on May 11th. I ordered a whole bunch of table cloths and display components and I sat down and price tagged all of my inventory. I don't like any of the earring cards or display tags available from jewelry suppliers, so I ended up designing my own and printed them on cardstock. I also went the less expensive route for my booth sign and printed out a color 11x17 and mounted it on foam board. I think I'll eventually get a vinyl sign for future craft shows, but I wanted to wait a little while for it.

My husband also built me a custom earring card rack - which I painted to match the necklace displays he made me last year.

Everything about that rack is handmade... The jewelry, the display card, the rack itself!

He is still going to make me one more riser display stand then I should be pretty much done with my display. I have the "table" set up on my living room floor right now. We don't have any 8 foot long tables in the house, so I just laid out my table cloths and am pretending that the floor is a table. It works for me!

I am also trying to put the finishing touches on the handouts for my wire wrapping classes at Beadworld, too. But I managed to misplace the step-by-step directions that I wrote out for one of my classes. Think good thoughts for me that I'll find it in the next few days!

I have some last minute things I want to make this week to beef up my inventory a little bit. Hopefully I'll have enough time to get to them!

What I've Been Up To - April 21-28

Here's an update on what I've been doing at my jewelry desk for the past week...

I got some gold-fill wire and made my popular set of mixed metal stacking rings in sterling silver, yellow and rose gold-fill wire. A bit of a pain to get rid of the copper that comes to the surface when heated (don't want to sand too much because, gold! Intimidating to sand off gold.) But gold fill wire has a nice feel to it and it's nice that it won't tarnish - compared to copper and brass.

Gold Fill and Sterling Mixed Metal Skinny Stacking Ring Set - for sale HERE

I finished a bezel set cab from the stash that I brought home with me from Oregon. I LOVE this pendant. It just calls for being strung on a sterling silver viking knit chain, but I don't know if people would want to pay the money for that, so it's in my shop for sale with a thinner snake chain.

Red Moss Agate and Garnet Pendant in Sterling Silver - for sale HERE

And I literally just finished this necklace as well. I had the setting done earlier in the week but then I decided it needed a matching beaded necklace instead of just chain and went on a bead shop expedition yesterday to find the right beads. I haven't had a chance to get a good set of pictures yet, but here's a quick shot from my phone.

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the necklace is dragon blood jasper and garnet to match the teardrop stone and small cabochon. I'm really happy with how this turned out. I also realized how HARD it is for me to do bead stringing. I find it so much easier and faster to whip out a sterling bezel setting (even with having to go to the garage to use my big bead torch) than figuring out what colors and patterns of beads I want on a string. And don't get me started with crimp beads and crimp covers! (Grrr....)

I also experimented a little bit in between finishing those two pendants.

It it the cutest little snake? I'm not totally happy with the placement of the eyes (looks like cute cartoon snake, rather than realistic) but I like the shape and design of it. I haven't taken pictures to put it in the shop yet, but that's on my radar for tomorrow.

I also got confirmation that I will be participating in the Snohomish Gift and Craft Bazaar on May 11th, so I am trying to build up some inventory so that my table doesn't look so bare. That's the problem with offering so many custom items on Etsy - I don't actually keep anything in stock. I've got almost two weeks to go though, so I should have a good quantity by then. This will be my first "real" craft show (I don't really count the fundraiser show I did last year - nobody sold much of anything) and I'm still trying to work out how my table will be arranged. I ordered some displays from a source online - beige and linen instead of black or white. I could only get a black tablecloth, but I also got a chocolate brown organza topper, which will match the my color scheme pretty well. I'm also going to bribe my husband to make me a few risers and an earring display stand out of scrap plywood and I'll paint them the same bronze color as the previous displays he made me.

For next week: I still have some silver pattern wire that I ordered that I want to make bangle bracelets out of. I also have a half dozen stone cabochons that I want to design settings for. Not that I could do all of them in one week!

I also have to get some non jewelry things done as well (shopping for my husband's birthday present, cleaning the house!). But next week I'll probably have some preliminary set-up pictures of my craft fair table to share - and hopefully more shiny things as well! :)

I'll be at the Snohomish Gift and Craft Bazaar!

Anybody in the Seattle area? I'm going to be participating as a vendor in the Snohomish Gift and Craft Bazaar on May 11th. That's the day before Mother's Day and it will be a perfect chance to get the mom in your life a nice gift! (Have I mentioned before that I make pretty, sparkly, shiny things?)

More info on the bazaar here: http://www.facebook.com/SnohomishCraftBazaar

Spam!!

Don't like it! Either version...

My blog has been discovered by some very persistent spam-bots and I'm getting sick of having to delete their comments. So sorry if there are any real human beings who may like to someday leave comments on the blog, but I had to turn on the annoying word verification thingy to post comments.