Check Out This New Bead Auction Site!

I know I have been mostly absent lately, life has been really crazy since I started listing my beads on facebook.  Apparently, it wasn't me or my beads that was the cause of my lack of sales but the venues!   Anyway  here is what I wanted to share today.

If you are interested in great beads at a great price check out this new auction page. Can't afford the expensive beads? This is the place for you. Slightly imperfect beads for a perfect price. A dot might not be in quite the right spot, or the hole may not be a perfect dimple, or the artisan just didn't like the color combo. Come check us out! https://www.facebook.com/groups/perfectlyflawedglassbeads/

For Lampwork Glass Bead Lovers!

Check out this great auction group on Facebook! Artisan Lampwork Beads For Sale .  This is a closed group intended specifically for people who buy and sell glass beads. This is a great place to get to know the people behind the art as well as get some pretty good deals!

Lots of Changes!

So I have decided to close my shop on Artfire as well as the shop on Goodsmiths.  Once my year runs out on Zibbet, unless things drastically improve, I will be closing that as well.  I will be keeping a minimal presence on Etsy, mostly because I belong to a great group there and have some really good friends that I interact with daily, not because I am fond of what Etsy has become.  I will be concentrating on just my two stand alone sites, SilverRiverJewelry.com and SilverRiverGlass.com.  I am working on moving all of my inventory over to those two site.  Both sites take Paypal and I still accept Propay, so if you want to pay me directly via credit card you can message me and I will send an invoice.  I am actually really excited about this, as I will no longer be pulled in 8 different directions and will be able to concentrate totally on marketing just one shop for the jewelry and one shop for the beads.

I am also selling beads with a group on Facebook called Lampwork Beads For Sale.  It is a closed group, you do have to be a member to buy (or sell).  However, all you have to do is request membership to join.  Its a great group of people and there are beautiful beads by a lot of different lampworkers of all skill levels.  Come check us out!


The sister group to that group is Lampwork Beads In Action which is a group dedicated to selling things made from the beads from Lampwork Beads For Sale.  Since I make both I sell in both lol.  This is also a closed group, same thing, just ask to join if you love jewelry using lampwork that is artisan made.

The Truth About Handmade

I saw this on a social networking site today and had to pass it on.  I wish everyone understood exactly what handmade entails.  This is a great example of the what handmade truly is.

"A lady wanted to purchase a beautiful hand crocheted dress and spotted a crafter who did absolutely amazing work, but she charged a good price too.

The lady thought that her price was way too high so she approached the crocheter and in quite a brusk fashion stated "I want to buy a dress from you, but I think you charge too much." The crafter was a little taken aback but replied "Ok, how much do you think i should charge?" The lady replied “I think you should charge “X” much, because the yarn will cost this much, and ribbons this much, and buttons this much. I even factored in the price of scissors."

The final price the lady had calculated was a lot cheaper than the crafters original price, but she said "Ok, deal. You will get your dress in a week".

The customer is very pleased with herself and can’t resist telling all her friends what a fabulous deal she has negotiated and how smart she is, and that in a week she will have her gorgeous crocheted dress.

A week later her parcel arrives in a lovely packaged box. She opens it and inside is yarn, ribbons, buttons and even scissors.

Angrily she contacts the crafter asking “How could you do this to me? I asked you for a dress and you sent me a box of yarn, ribbon, buttons and scissors?!"

The crafter quietly replies "My dear, you got exactly what you paid for, if you think there is something missing, you need to pay for it. "

"Moral of the story, when you buy handmade you are not just buying the materials you are buying the crafters, time, effort, love and dedication that goes into making your items. "

Botanicals For Beauty Sent Me Scent Samples!

Well, that turned into an unintentional tongue twister!  My friend Laura from BotanicalsForBeauty sent me two scent samples.  They arrived the other day in the mail and I was pretty excited!  I may have mentioned before that I am a bit of a junkie when it comes to bath and body stuff and pretty much anything else that smells good lol!   So I got Bird of Paradise and Bora Bora.  Oh my goodness, they smell so good!  Lots of scent to these (which I love, if I am going to put stuff in my drawers to make my clothes and stuff smell good, you have to be able to, well, smell it lol.  Anyway, as I was sitting on the couch after opening these, I realized, hey, I don't smell dog anymore.  ( we currently have a dog and two cats so its a constant fight in my house to make it look and smell like we don't actually have a dog and two cats) Who knew animals manufactured the amount of fur that they do!  So I got a brilliant idea and stuffed this little scent sachet into my couch cushions.  Oh my, my whole living room smells good!  And its not that its super strong, its just strong enough to smell fresh and sweet.  Even when the dog is actually on the couch lol.  If you haven't checked out her website, go have a look, she has fabulous lotions and perfumes as well, and all of her ingredients have been researched carefully to make sure they are the safest for your skin.  Also no animal testing! They came in these cute little sachets, so not only did they smell delicious they are pretty to look at as well. If you didn't catch the link to her site above here it is again.

Botanicals For Beauty

A Little Bit of Chainmaille, A Little Bit of Wire Wrapping

This piece is definitely a statement piece!  Hand cut copper jump rings for the chainmaille portion of this project paired with some fancy wire work.  The flowers are handmade using wire and beads as well.  This one of a kind necklace will garner lots of looks and compliments!  You can find this necklace as well as other one of a kind pieces here.

Purple Flower Chainmaille Necklace

Ribbed Frit Beads

Pretty set of blue frit beads with a lovely ribbed texture. You can find these and more frit beads on my website.  SilverRiverGlass.com

Look at that face!

Just had to share this lovely face! And yes his eyes are gold and green!

Another Trunnk Show!

Okay this one isn't by me but is being hosted by my friend Holly of Holly's Folly.  She make glass lampwork beads as well and will have some real beauties up for grabs and some great prices!  I have my eye on a few of them for myself!  Click on the link to join the show so you don't miss anything!  She has a great variety of beads!  Show start on Dec 6th at 7 am and runs until Dec 7th at 8pm.

Holly's Trunk Show

Facebook Trunk Show Extended!

Tiger Striped Flower Focal

Lavender Shift Floral Focal W/Spacers

I have decided to extend my trunk show on Facebook until Monday evening at 8pm.  Since its Cyber Monday, I figured extending the show would be easier than running a new sale lol.  And honestly, my pricing for the trunk show is the lowest discount I have ever given and unless I decide to do another trunk show liable to be the lowest discount you will see from me ever.  Every single item in the show was made b

Lemon Yellow Lampwork Glass Earrings

Blue Green Rippled Heart

y me.  There are European charm bracelet beads (for a quarter of the price of retail beads in the stores, and completely one of a kind as well)  There are focal, pairs and sets in all colors with lots of different design elements.  I also have a fair amount of spacer beads.  Last but not least I have a finished jewelry as well, many pieces also use my beads, so if you love lampwork but don't want to make it
yourself, this is the time to get a great piece of jewelry at a fantastic price!

TRUNK SHOW!

Yes  I am doing a trunk show on Facebook the day after Thanksgiving.  It will start at 11 am (so all of you Black Friday peeps can get your shopping list taken care of then come home and relax with a hot cup of cocoa and maybe find a couple things your didn't have on your list!).  It will end at 11 pm on Saturday (for those of you too exhuasted from Friday's shopping!).  There will lots of lampwork beads and jewelry made from lampwork beads.  I might throw in some wine charms as well.

You can find my trunk show at www.facebook.com/silverriverjewelryandglassworks.com .  There will be the option to bid or you will also have a Buy It Now (BIN) option.  This will be a great opportunity to pick up some beautiful beads and jewelry for yourself or for the bead or jewelry fan in your life!

Lets Talk About Body Sprays

I am going to let you all in on a little secret.  I LOVE handmade soap, bath and beauty products, etc.  Okay, I love them all, and am not adverse to buying from bath and body shops but I really prefer to buy handmade.  That way I know what's in it, and many of the handmade items are far healthier for you than the commercially prepared stuff.  Of course, I like that fact that I am supporting an independent handmade artisan as well. Especially since I am one lol.

I received a body spray from Botanicals For Beauty and I will say that I am impressed! (not an easy feat truth be told, I am kind of picky!).  I will say I know Laura, the owner, and I know that she has put a ton of time and energy into researching all aspects of her products, as well as a lot of time testing them out before she offers them for sale.    Can I just say I love the spray!  Its silky, smells awesome (not too strong, but strong enough that I can smell it lol) and it lasts all day.   I got the Amber Romance (type) because that is generally the types of scent that I really like ( I am an earthy, musky, with a touch of flower kind of girl lol). Oh and did I mention that her prices are really reasonable?  So if you are looking for something that is natural to treat yourself with go visit her shop and have a look around!  She has lots of different beauty products to choose from and some great scents!

OceansBluePhotography

My husband has opened a shop for his photography.  His prints (up to 8x10's) are for sale on
OceansBluePhotography.com .  He will be selling postcards and various other items with his photos on them at zazzle.com/oceansblue.

Here are some samples of his work.

Stop by and have a look!  We will be adding a lot more to both sites so visit often.  The Zazzle shop is brand new and so bare with us as we add product as fast as we can!

Super Duo Two Hole Seed Beads!

These are Super Duo!  Love, love, love this color as well!  You can find these HERE.

Oh my gosh!  For you bead weavers out there have you seen the new super duo's and the super cool designs they are being used to make? The new issue of Bead & Button Magazine has several very cool designs using these beads and I can't wait to try them out!   I just got my first order of these beads from RoyalMetals.   Holly has really good quality beads and she ships super fast as well.  She also has a killer selection of Picasso glass beads as well as sterling silver, copper and gold filled findings.  Great prices and I have never been disappointed by anything I have bought from her.  So go, check out her shop and make sure you have something handy to mop up the drool with lol.

Holly's prices are some of the best short of wholesale and again, her quality and customer service is fantastic.

These are one of the Picasso beads.  They come in a wide variety of fantastic color combos.  I happen to have a lot these lol.  You can find these HERE.

 

 And these are sampling of the stones she carries.  This is Angelite and its just stunning!

You can find this one HERE.

from my friend Holly's shop

Silver River Glass

I have been working on moving as much of my stuff to my own website as I can.  I have a huge amount of inventory in both my jewelry and my glass shops.  Its almost impossible for me to pay the fees to list all of my inventory on a venue not to mention I dislike the fact the they can shut your shop down for no reason, or for voicing an opinion that does not toe the party line.  And we won't even go into the whole reseller's who pretend their stuff is handmade thing.

So, I have a website for my jewelry at www.silverriverjewelry.com.  And I have a website for my lampwork beads at www.silverriverglass.com.  If you want to have a look and let me know what you think, what you like, what you don't like etc. I would love to hear from you.  They are always a work in progress, and the glass shop is only a couple of days old, I still need to add my shipping and policies page but those will be up in the next day or so.

Purple and Ivory Glass Lampwork Beads

I have two sets of these up for sale.  One of the things I love the most about working with glass is that you never know what is going to happen, between the chemistry of the flame, and the chemistry of the glass!  This particular set of beads, the purple is reacting with the ivory, causing a thin black line between the two.  You can find these beads on Etsy here,  and on
Artfire here

I have added several new metal and stone rings to my shop.  This one is made from Ohio Flint that I dug out of the quarry myself and finished.  This is a large ring, a 10 1/2 and would make a wonderful gift for Father's Day!  You can find it on my website.  Definitely one of a kind!

Subtle Elegance With a Touch of Sparkle!

This beadwoven bracelet was stitched with a needle and thread, in a specific pattern.  I used beautiful Swarovski crystals to give it some sparkle, while the overall look is quite elegant.  Its not a large, flashy kind of bracelet, its more of a subtle elegance although the Swarovski crystals do give it some flash!  You can find this bracelet on my website SilverRiverJewelry.

Copper Etched Earrings

This pair of earrings started life as a piece of copper sheet metal and were hand cut into the shape of teardrops, then a design was hand drawn onto them and etched into the metal.

On Etsy

Extra Large Glass Lampwork Lentil Bead Rainbow Mist

This one is extra extra large and shimmers with pale rainbow colors.  When you hold it in the light it glows with golden colors.  This one is available in both my Etsy shop and my Artfire shop.

Sterling Silver Headpins with Lampwork Glass Beads

Something a little bit different today. These are sterling silver headpins that have pale sky blue streaky glass on the ends.  Finish of a piece of jewelry seamlessly with these headpins! You can find this particular set of headpins in my Etsy glass shop.

Gorgeous Set of Summer Lampwork!

I have lampwork beads for you today!  This stunning set of lime green and white glass lampwork beads are perfect for summer designs.  They bring to mind bright summer flowers, icy tropical drinks,  long days on the beach in the sun!  I only have one set of these which you can purchase here.  If you prefer to shop on Etsy you can follow this link instead.

Great Summer Earrings!

These long, chandelier earrings have a ton of movement and sparkle.  Perfect for a night out at the beach!

You can find them here in my Etsy shop.

Orange Carnelian and Moonstone Necklace

This one is currently for sale on Etsy!  Great sterling silver necklace with orange carnelian coins and stunning faceted Carnelian drop.  Paired with moonstone rounds and ceramic coins.

Purple Lampwork Glass Earrings Artisan Made

The purple bumpy dot beads are hollow and were made in my home studio.  One of my goals as a jewelry designer has always been to be able to make as many of the components of my jewelry myself, making my jewelry both handmade and one of kind.  In the process I have learned many different techniques, including making lampwork glass beads.  You can find this pair of earrings on my website.