Holiday Sale Starts

I am having a holiday sale starting Thanksgiving day and running until the 13th of December. Everything in my Artfire studio is on sale for 10% off. Enter the coupon code Holidays at check out and the 10% off will be taken off. Please note that if you want a custom order, I am currently at two weeks and my last day for Christmas shipping via first class mail is December 14th. After that I don't know if it will make it in time without a shipping upgrade or not. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving if you are in the United States and that everyone has a wonderful holiday season no matter what part of the world you are in!

P.S. The coupon code won't be valid until Thursday!

The Next Edition of Etsy Artists.

Well I hope that everyone had a fabulous Christmas. I am feeling a bit more relaxed now that things have settled down a bit. I will be doing an update on the puppies very soon as I have sold four and have four left. If your in the mood please pray for good homes to come soon lol! I am getting way too attached.

Here is my newest find on Etsy

CreativeDesignz
She is from Newcastle Australia and does some really beautiful work. I can't decide if I like her jewelry better or her photos. Both are beautiful and eye catching. She is the mother of two and as anyone who has kids knows, it can be tough to be a mom and still find time to be creative, much less creative and then sell online to boot. As you can see by the fine pelican photo, she takes gorgeous pictures. However this is not her only talent as you can see by the photo on the left she also makes beautiful jewelry. I happen to know that she is undertaking a new venture and will be listing some beautiful fused glass pendants in the near future so make sure that you check out her shop on etsy soon!

Metal Weaving

Well I wanted to share a new technique that I learned last week at my local labidary club. I took a class on metal weaving (yes just like weaving with wool with a few adjustments I imagine, I don't know how to weave with yarn or wool). I thought the end result was quite nice and now have a head full of plans to adapt, change and challenge myself to come up with new designs using this technique.

As you can see you do need some type of vise to hold the ends firmly in place. I use masking tape to protect the wire from being damaged by the vise. You also need to tape the wires at the bottom in order to keep them together and to mark which side is the front. Because you have to lower the pattern into the vice at least every other time you weave it is important to know which way is the front and which is the back. (trust me on this I am speaking from experience. While you can make an interesting pattern by swithching front to back if you aren't doing it on purpose it is a disaster!)

So once you get to the desired length you cut off the ends and take your frame wire and attach them together with more wire. This can be kind of tricky and does take some practice. Not too tight and not too loose. I will be practicng this with copper and plated metals until I have the technique down well. I actually find the

weaving part to be the easiest of the entire design. So from this point it is just a matter of wrapping and forming into the actual bracelet shape. You can of course make or attach any type of clasp that you wish. All in all it was two, well-spent Saturday mornings to learn this technique. It took about three hours to do the actual weaving and another three to finish it completely. I am hoping that with experience I will get just a wee bit quicker at it. I would also like to come up with some ways to embelish and play with it. Well that's it for now.

I will be posting another blog on some more of my favorite Etsy artists later this week and hopefully will have an update on our puppies (who haven't arrived yet by the way)