Treasury!

I have been featured in this lovely treasury called Treasures Washed Ashore. Lots of really pretty goodies in orange and turquoise with a beachy feel to it. Go check it out! And many thanks to LetThemEatKate for including my beads!

William's Gift Shop On Etsy

I have to tell you I spend wayyyyy too much time in the forums on etsy. Hours that may be better spent creating stuff but then again I have to say that they are probably one of the most helpful and nice forums to be found on the web. They have certainly provided me with a fount of information that has shortened my learning curve about online selling probably by years. And I have also made some great friends, found some fabulous artists and some people who are just consistanly kind, honest and down to earth.

Having said that this shop pretty much embodies what the etsy community is all about but the reason I really noticed this shop (other than the above mentioned accolades) is the fact that she make some seriously cool asthma inhalor carriers. My son has asthma and is constantly looking for a better way to carry his. So of course my interest was immediately piqued when I ran across BeaG in the forums. Check out the great variety of inhaler carriers that she makes! Something for everyone in a huge variety of colors. She also make lip balm holders, wine bottle covers, cell phone holders and more, many of which come with a key chain so they are easy to access and keep track off. Mind you this is just a tiny sampling of the items in her shop and she not only does wonderful crochet and knit items but also has some other items for sale including some eclectic jewelry. But if you want a glimpse of those you will just have to go to her shop here and check it. Hint, Hint, PERFECT for gift giving this holiday season.

Check out this website!

For those of you who are fans of etsy here is a website to check out every day. Sharon has devoted this website as a giant etsy show case of her favorite picks of the the day. Each day features a different theme with different items from all over etsy. She featured red the other day and was kind enough to put my stich markers, shown in the picture, in her showcase. What a a nice thing to do for us! Thanks Sharon! http://www.redladyart.com

So for all of you who are looking for cool place to shop for Christmas, birthdays, weddings, baby showers and everything in between go check it out every day. You are sure to find something for everyone on your list and you won't even have to leave the house.

Treasury!

I do love to make these treasuries. They are really quite addicting. I don't know what do you think, is it front page worthy?


I can never tell lol! None of my treasuries have ever hit the front page. Maybe I just don't have an eye for them or something. Anyway they are a ton of fun to do and a lot of fun to look through also. I am constantly discovering new shops this way. Go check them out! Feel free to click on the treasury here and leave a comment on the treasury there.

10 % Off Everyday

So I have promoted the heck out of lots of artists mostly on etsy, a couple not. So today I am going to do a very short promotion on me. I have added a lot of new stuff to my shop (I am up to 256 items as of today and have at least 15 more to list. In my shop announcement you will see a small line that says 10% off multiple purchases. I don't have it in big bold letters or anything (not really my style but maybe I should think about changing that lol). This has always been there but I don't know how many people actually READ the shop announcement. So I am just letting everyone know that if you buy more than one thing in my shop you will receive 10% off the total order (not including the shipping).

I will hopefully soon be getting together with another etsy artist to work on a logo/branding thing which will include the logo, business cards, earring cards, and things like that soon. I am also currently working with another etsy artist on a press release to be sent out to some magazines and online places. It should be an interesting experience and hopefully will bring an increase in business. I am also going to be doing a local farmers market from July to Sept. It is located in our downtown area and I am looking forward to sales there. I am working on putting together a display (its been a while since I did the craft fair circuit lol) and once I have it together I will post a couple of pictures and you can let me know what you think.

Artist Review - Imagine Studio

Imagine Studio

Marion has some stunning art. The first time I saw her avatar I knew I had to see more. This is another wonderful find through my forays into the forums on etsy. Canadian native LyseI am going to lift a paragraph out of her profile since she describes her techniques much better than I ever could.
"Through more than 30 years, my one constant expression in art has been Collage, and for the past five years I have been working on transferring this art form into the digital world. Layers upon layers of thoughts, emotions and research have been turned into transparencies, textures, colours, depth, emotions, portraitures, etc. This virtual digital world of seemingly endless possibilities has given me a new take on my artwork, allowing me to pursue even further my undying need to produce lyrical, evocative and sometimes provocative images."
I love the fact that she is using the advances in technology to further explore and create her art. Which is awesome! I am very drawn to the images in her artwork and she is on my list of people I want to buy from lol! Many pieces of her art make me feel as if the person in the artwork is wearing their imagination in all of its glorious color and texture on their skin. On the outside instead of the inside so to speak. I am looking forward to seeing more from this artist and highly recommend a look at her shop.

Judges Results for Beading Challenge 1

Okay so here is what the judges had to say about our entries. Keep in mind that there is no prize and the reason we started this was in response to the massive amount of threads on Etsy about people copying other people's designs. We wanted to see what would happen if 12 people recieved the same exact beads and how similar or different the earrings would be. You can see the results in my previous post.

EmmaRoseJewelry
They are different, but I can see where if they'd just appeared in someone's shop that someone else could say, "Did they riff that off mine, they're kind of similar or that one part is almost identical." It's a good lesson!

Love the variety and the surprise of several people using copper. Beautiful and unexpected (to me)!

I also love that within this variety that there are clear stylistic differences. I can point to every pair and think, "This is what my friend Kat would wear. Those are my sister's style. My niece would love that pair."

Due to the fine quality of the designs, this was much harder than I thought it would be to judge.

best use of beads
BeadyMonkey and StonesandStartlings

most original design
melaniehazen because she transformed the beads into an integrated design where you're not as aware of the individual beads as you are of the whole piece

most similar
Earthly Creations
Designed by Lucinda
TeaguesBeads

YadaYadaYada
As a judge for this contest, I vote as follows:

First Place: StudioHart wins for most unique and eye catching.

Second Place: SilverRiverJewelry for most creative and technical.

Third Place: blackcoral for best mix of materials.

Fourth Place: StonesandStarlings and sleepingcatbeads tie for most use of the beads.

Good job everyone! I had a tough time judging!

Marelle

Best Use of Beads: Sleeping Cat Beads
Most Original Design: Beady Monkey
The two designs that are the most similar: Designed by Lucinda and Teague's Beads
Thank you for this opportunity to participate as a "judge". I was most interested in seeing the distinct individuality even when similarity existed.
Marilyn


The House of Worn
thanks for having me as a judge. Her are the catagories you asked for:

best use of beads:
melaniehazen

most original design:blackcoral

two designs that are the most similar:
DesignedbyLucinda
TeaguesBeads

As you can see there were several designs that were very similar and several that were completely different. No one saw what the other people were making including me (I made mine before all but the first design picture was sent to me. And I had already sketched out my design at that point. This just goes to show that at first glance something may indeed be very similar or even almost an exact copy. Before we jump to the conclusion that someone has stolen our design or copied us, maybe we should slow down and realize that it could just very well be a coincidence and the fact that the other person may just think like you do. I am not saying that copying does not happen because we all know that it does. I am just saying that you need to thoroughly investigate the issue before jumping to conclusions.

Stay tuned for Beading Challenge 2. We will start this on Friday, March 28th at 1pm Eastern Standard Time. This contest will be open to the international community as well and DesignedbyLucinda is providing the beads and shipping this time around.

Beading Challenge Part 2

Well we posted out challenge on the Etsy forums in the Business and Marketing section (Thanks Rob for the go ahead on this). It took less than 7 minutes to fill the remaining eight spots. We are doing twelve total with the idea of trying to get a Treasury when we are done. I will be listing the 12 people who are participating with links to their shops and also the judges with links to their shops at the end of this post. The beads are going out by Monday from SantiamDesigns
(thanks again Kira). Contestants have until the 24th of March to finish their designs and list them on Etsy for all of us to see (and hopefully they will sell also lol!). I will of course do a blog post with the finished products for everyone to browse also. Keep in mind that there is no prize so the speak just the fun of the challenge. Here are the beads that are in the challenge. What would YOU make?

So here is the list of participants making the earrings.

DesignedbyLucinda

SilverRiverJewelry

EarthlyCreations

BlackCoral (yes she does jewelry too)

byrobinlynne

virtuallori

DesignedbyLara

TeaguesBeads

SleepingCatBeads

melaniehazen

stonesandstarling

studiohart

And here is a list of the judges

YadaYadaYada

marelle

theHouseOfWorn

EmmaRoseJewelry

Beading Challenge

Well I was browsing through the Etsy forums ( which is extremely addicting, if you haven 't checked it out I highly recommend it, it is open to both sellers and buyers) the other day and there it was, another thread about "someone copied my stuff." Which of course started a debate on people coming up with the same design independently. Which happens all over the world all the time no matter what category of product you are hand producing. I am not saying that people don't copy, plenty of them do. I am also not saying that no one ever has an original idea because they do. However there are really only so many ways to make a circle out of metal, put bead on a string and make a tote. It's all in what you do with it as far as color, materials and that little something that is you and no one else. So I ran into a friend of mine on Etsy who happened to be chatting in the same thread (http://DesignedByLucinda.etsy.com) and I after some friendly banter I said something like "wouldn't it be neat if a group of us got together and using the same beads each came up with a design so that we could see how similar or different each persons design would be?!" Cindy said yes that would be so cool and then Kira (http://SantiamDesigns.etsy.com) said "Hey I would be willing to provide the beads and ship them to everyone". (Like anyone is going to turn down free beads to play with haha!). A couple of other people chimed in and said that they would be interested in joining us so the three of us decided that we would go ahead and give it a try. Not only would it be an interesting and fun thing to do but it would also be a good way to promote our shops. (We are really hoping for a storque article out of this). So Kira is providing the beads, Cindy is organizing and in touch with Rob from Etsy on the appropriate way to do this, and I am going to be updating our progress as we go. I will also post pictures of the finished products. I believe we will have a couple of judges although there is no prize in this challenge other than the satisfaction of seeing the outcome. (And free beads to play with). If this is successful we may decide to do it two or three times a year with a different person contributing the beads each time. So we will be posting our challenge in the Business and Marketing portion of the forums with Rob's permission and I will keep you updated on what happens next.

Do You Need A New Banner? Check out this Etsy Artist

Well I have decided that with all of the talk about branding and making a statement that has been going on in the etsy forums that I would go ahead and give it a try and see if it helped my sales any. I spend a good amount of time browsing the many talented designers on Etsy who make things like banners and avatars, not to mention business cards etc. I finally decided to go with Callista's Design Shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5353905. I convo'd her at about 10:49 pm and she responded immediately. I explained to her what I wanted and said I would check back the next day. Less than 24 hours later I had my new banner and avatar. Did I mention how pleased I am with them?! I have also shown a small sampling of custom banner designs that she has in her shop and she also does blog headers etc. Go check her out!

I will also be finishing my series on how to cut rocks very soon and will do another update on the puppies soon. We are down to three right now so we are making progress lol!

An Etsy Seller and Fellow Blogger

I know that I usually do a post on an etsy seller and link to the blog on the sidebar but I am going to do this one a bit differently. There are lots of sellers on etsy who also have wonderful blogs and it would take years to post everyone of them.

BUTTERFLISLM
This particular etsian has added to her blog a very long list of beautiful shops that you can find on etsy. If you want to check some of them out you can go here http://butterflidesign.blogspot.com/
I am guessing that you can spend several days checking out her list alone. And it is a chance to see some really talented artists. So I was browsing thru her shop and came across this very cute and practical crocheted scrubby. Now my sister's, husband's grandma makes me a couple of crocheted scrubbies every year for Christmas and I love them. They work really well and they wash easily in the washer. However Stacy has gone one step further and has crocheted hemp yarn in the middle of hers. This means MORE POWER to clean my stove and countertops. (My teenagers can leave a horrendous mess and walk away. Three hours later when I come home from work I practically need a flamethrower to get the dried on gook off the stove). So I suggest you check out her blog for lots of cool etsy artists and check out her store for some great crocheted items. (She does more than scrubbies lol!).

Edition Three of My Favorite Etsy Artists

Well it's time to check out some more great Etsy artists. The more time I spend in the forums and browsing the treasury, showcase and time machine, the more wonderful work I see. I have a feeling that there are going to many more editions featuring Etsy artists. Here is this weeks list.

FujiiroFae
Cassandra makes the most beautiful hair ornaments using a Japanese technique called TSUMAMI KANZASHI. Tsumami is the technique of using squares of silk to make flowers, birds or butterflies and is apparently a very old technique. I think the bright colors of the silk and the delicate petals are very unique and charming. These would make a wonderful gift for the holidays so go check her out.

JaredArt

Jared In Kansas

Jared is a multi-talented guy. Not only does he do original drawings and paintings he also takes beautiful photos. (more on those in a minute). I am totally drawn to the simplicity <---and passion and the use of color in these pieces of art. Then there is the photo side of the equation ha ha(read his profile you'll get it) which also rocks. Two sides of the same coin equal some really great talent in both the paint and pencil arena and the photography arena. Definitely worth the look.

Those are my two artists for this week. You can check out there shops by following the links on the right side of my blog. I think I will keep this to two or three artists a week instead of aiming for four or five due to the holidays rapidly approaching. I will have an update on the puppies in the next couple of days.

Another Edition of Etsy Artists

Well I am a bit behind this week due to the puppies being born. I am quite tired so I haven't got as much done as I would have liked. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the two artists I have picked this week.

FLAMEWORKS
I purchased a bar of her vegan soap in a scent called Goddess.
I also purchased a jar of the sugar scrub in the same scents. Can I
tell you how pleased I was!?! It came packaged in a beautiful green box and she sent a sample of another fragrance with the order. The soap is very creamy, smells divine and left my skin feeling super soft. The sugar scrub was also a big hit and I think I am going to have to hide it from my fourteen year old daughter. (or buy her her own lol). Smelled great and between the soap and the scrub I did not have to use any lotion or perfume. Needless to say I will be a repeat customer as finances permit and look forward to trying some more of the scents and goodies in her shop. Pamper someone you love with a gift of hand made soap.


MORGANSILK



This artists work is on my wish list! She hand paints all of her scarves with watercolors and they are truly wearable works of art. She does go into some detail in her profile as to materials (silk charmeuse) and how she makes these lovely scarves. She also is dedicated to making her scarves affordable for every day people so her prices for this kind of item are quite low. Here's a hint from her profile about washing this type of art! Wash in lukewarm water with shampoo and rinse with creme rinse. She states that silk is an animal fiber and this works the best. I didn't you could wash silk with shampoo and creme rinse and I bet you didn't either! Check out her shop for some really elegant Christmas gifts for that special someone.

More of My Favorite Etsy Artists

More Etsy Artists!

HellloCrafty

I ordered a bar of doggy soap from HelloCraftya couple of weeks ago and

LOVED it! Not only was the soap really easy to apply (way better than the liquid shampoo) it smelled great, was really easyto rinse out (I have dogs that have a heavy undercoat so this is a real plus!), but our oldest has skin issues and after using this on him he didn't scratch for a couple of days. (miracles DO happen lol). It also left their coats super soft. I was really pleased with this product and will most definitely purchase more. I will also be purchasing some soap for myself!

SimplicityInteriors

I found this shop while I was in the forums (I actually find a lot of really cool shops and people in the forums). I just loved the color and pattern choices that Christie chooses for her pillow covers. Particularly the one on the left. I really like the idea of pillow covers. They are washable and easy to change if you decide to switch color schemes or if you change things out for the holidays.

Begurple

Lauren makes the most beautiful, elegant and fun hairpieces that I have seen in a long time. Anyone have a wedding coming up? Talk to Lauren, I bet you'll have the most beautiful hair pieces in town. Mardi Gras or Halloween or maybe just a fancy piece for going to the opera or out on the town this is the shop to check out.

YadaYadaYada

Hilary and her husband Asher make the cutest embroidered

t-shirts and onesies for little ones. I believe Asher is responsible for the original artwork and Hilary is responsible for converting the design into the finished, embroidered piece.They have a large selection to choose from and every time I check out their shop I wish mine were still little enough to let me dress them lol! I guess I will just have to wait for grandkids although I have them marked if I need a baby shower gift.

My Favorite Etsy Artists

I will be writing some short notes on some of my favorite artists on etsy.com once a week. Etsy is an online marketplace for handrafted items. It is NOT and auction site and everything except for the supplies and vintage section are hand made. They have some fabulous artists on this site and I will writing about some of them regularly. I have added four to my list of links today.

CassaroCreations.

She makes some truly awesome lamp work beads.As you
can see from this example the detail work on her beads make them trueworks of art. I am looking forward to making some purchases from her shop soon!


GlitterCritter


Please check out her awesome wire work at her other shop on http://www.wireworks.etsy.com/


I know her best thru her glittercritter shop (see below) but I am totally blown away by the the creativity and the amount of time it must have taken to perfect this kind of technique. I do a little bit of wire wrapping myself but am just a beginner. Examples like this inspire me to work harder an keep practicing so that some day I too will have work that is this awesome.

She has some beautiful supplies and sells some really cool do-it-yourself tutorials for the beginning wire worker. These can be found in her glittercritter shop. I highly recommend that any one who is thinking about learning to wrap wire or just wants to see what it is like to make something with this technique, to purchase one of her tutorials. Also, she has always been very willing to help out all of the newbies on site with their questions for which I, for one, am grateful. Her prices are great on her supplies and I am hoping to snag the one in the picture when my self imposed "you can't buy any more supplies til you use some of what you have" is done.

Jadelaine Designs

Beautiful photographs and prints. She also has some outstanding

original artwork. Definately worth taking the time to check out! I look forward to seeing more from her in the future.






StonesInMotion

Ed makes the most beautiful cabachons from raw rock. This is something that I am also learning to do so I know how many hours of sawing and shaping and grinding and polishing this really takes! Each stone is unique and whether it is a subtle pattern or a bold explosion of color, it always amazes me that something as common as a rock can be turned into something so beautiful.


Well that is my list of favorites this week. Look for a new list once a week from now until whenever I run out of great artists to feature. (Don't count on that happening any time soon, last time I checked there were over 80,000 sellers on etsy, most of whom do lovely work)