The Rest Of Our Zoo Trip

So we are now moving on to the Northern Trek portion of our zoo visit. And trust me its definitely a trek lol! Uphill the whole way and it just kept getting hotter and stickier! So our first stop once we stopped gasping for air was the bald eagle. He was definitely a majestic bird and was almost close enough to touch. What a magnificent bird! Bonus, the gift shop was air conditioned by this exhibit lol! We didn't buy anything but we spent a half an hour cooling off, I mean browsing. We passed this white tailed deer wallowing in a mud hole. He looked a whole lot cooler and more comfortable that we were. (and yes I was hot enough to be tempted lol). Onward to the polar bear. I love polar bears, they are stunning animals and HUGE lol! Did you know that their fur is really clear not white or cream colored? This is my first trip to the zoo in years where he was actually up and moving. I hope you have enjoyed my trip to the zoo, we did see a bit more but skipped several parts due to the heat and the need to get home and do some of the to do list that we dumped to go to the zoo lol!

Ajdjss Guild Contest and Promotion!

Don't forget to get your entry in! There are a lot of really beautiful prizes and you will have a blast checking out all of the shops! Go HERE for the info.

Easter Egg Hunt on Artfire

Go check it out there is an Easter Egg hunt on Artfire! Here is how it works.

Win some spending money !! Anyone can play ...it's free ! Starts on April 1st 2009 !

Easter egg hunt on Artfire.com !

(the entry form is at the bottom of his text)

What is this ?

Well hopefully it will be a very fun event that will benefit everyone in a different way.

Lots of Artfire studio's are participating and the Eatser Bunny is hiding an Easter egg in each of their shops. It's up to you to find them and fill your "basket".

How do you play?

You will find (on this blog) a form for this contest. This contains tips to help you navigate Artfire.com and find all the Easter Eggs.

When you find them all you will find that each egg has a letter on it ( or the word "space" ) !

Use all the letters to make a sentence.

The sentence has to be in exact order to score all points.

Even if you manage to assemble a sentence different from mine ( always a possibility I guess) with all those letters it will not be counted as correct.

When you start assembling the sentence you will see when it is correct :) ....( now that is a seriously big tip )

Fill in the answer form and submit.

When?

The Easter Egg hunt starts on April 1st 2009 and will run for 3 weeks ! You have plenty of time to find the answer.

The participating studio's will be hiding their eggs in fun locations around their shop...you will receive a hint to find them.

Don't start looking now :) The eggs won't appear until April 1st !

What can you win ?

highest score : 50$ giftvoucher

second highest : 20$ giftvoucher

third highest : 10$ giftvoucher

These vouchers can be spent in all the participating studio's ! So plenty of choice .

So while you're looking for the eggs you might as well look around for goodies you might want to purchase with your vouchers should you win one !

All participating studio's are looking forward to your visit and will welcome you with open arms ..and an egg !

Each studio has a "contact" button should you have any questions about the products they sell.

If you are not a member of Artfire you can make purchases without the need to register. It makes things a bit easier for you.

PS's

ps1 : if you find an egg with the word "space" on it ...use it ! ..it's helpful when you are assembling your sentence...you'll know how many words you have to find then.

ps2 : It's a bit like wheel of fortune... you can guess if you don't find all the letters ..but you get a higher score if you fill in the answer form correctly :)

ps3 : the answer form will be available on this blog on APRIL 1st ...no joke :)

ps4 : a list of participating studio's will be available when the hunt is finished, as well as the results. All answers will be submitted in a google document at the time you hit "submit" on the answer form. They will be date and time stamped . This document can be shared with anyone after the contest is finished, if you feel the need to check the answers and scores.

Here is the entry form!!

Treasure Hunt!

Today is the day! Start you treasure hunting now! If you have already answered the questions and written them down go to the link at the bottom and put your answers in!

Contest ends at midnight on Feb. 10th 2009

Okay here is a chance to win a $50 gift voucher to participating Art Fire Stores. This is a true treasure hunt and you will have to work at it but it looks to be a ton of fun! And remember, you could in fact win $50 to spend in any or all of the shops participating. It is free and you can enter as many times as you would like. Please go to the link below for details and to participate!

http://de.regenboog.googlepages.com/signuptoentertreasurehunt!

Jewelry Design Competition

Check this out! JewelryInTheNet is having a major jewelry design contest. It started on October 15th and voting starts on November 30th. They have an amateur and a professional category. You can submit up to 5 entries. I have submitted one so far but would like to submit another four. I am not sure which pieces though! If anyone wants to take a quick peak at my shop and give me some suggestions on what I should enter PLEASE comment lol! You can find most of my work here silverriverjewelry.etsy.com. I would really appreciate some votes come the 30th also lol! Although you should check out all of the competition I am sure there will be some awesome stuff!

Trip to Put in Bay Ohio

We decided to do a spur of the moment trip to Put In Bay as the last of summer is slowly moving out. This was of course a last minute decision and since it is a two to two and half hour drive to get to the ferry and a half an hour to get to the island we left it a bit late (we left our house at 1 pm lol). So we get there (the ferry was just pulling out as we parked, they run every half an hour.) and it is now three thirty. I'm asking when the last ferry comes back! They said 8:30 which was fine that is plenty of time to go to dinner and drive the golf cart around the important parts of the island. Off to the island we go. It really is a pretty trip over and it was a beautiful day. Not to hot and not too cold. Until you get on the ferry and get out on Lake Erie. Brrrrrrrrrrr! I was wishing for a jacket the whole way over lol! Fortunately the scenery was lovely and it is always nice to be out on the water. We get to the island and rent a golf cart for the remainder of the day. (got there about four so we got a discount on the cart Yay!) Headed over to the tourist side of the island to get some food at the boardwalk. (They are famous for their lobster bisque, which they make on premise). We then left the touristy parts of the island and just took a slow cruise through the residential areas (very slow, those golf carts are painful, I wanted to get out and push a couple of times lol) and checked out some of the great bed and breakfasts that are available on the island. We made a quick stop and Dairy Queen (gotta love it lol) and then decided that if we wanted to make the fairy we should at least head in the direction of the dock (since the golf carts are soooo slow lol). All in all it was a very relaxing and low stress day, and since it was my husband, me, my mother in law and my 18 year old son that ranks as an excellent day in my book! If you are ever in Ohio and close to Marblehead you should plan at least a day trip to this island.

Christmas in July Sale

Just wanted to remind everyone that I am having a Christmas in July sale until the 31st! Just click on the link Silver River Jewelry . Put Christmas in July in your notes to seller and I will refund you through pay pal. Also there are at 400+ other sellers on Etsy that are also doing their own Christmas in July sale. Just type in Christmas in July and you should pull up lots of shops that are participating. Now is a great time to get started on your Christmas shopping! Not only will you save some money but you will be much less stressed the rest of the year. I have 3 birthdays in August that I have to buy for before I can start my Christmas shopping but you can bet that I am checking out the sales on etsy for those birthday gifts.

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.

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.

Etsy Artist of the Week

PENGIES

I ran across this shop in the forums and just couldn't resist. These are little penguins made of fimo clay in an assortment of poses and colors. Her is what Caitlin says in her profile about her "pengies".

Pengies are little model penguins, made of a special clay called fimo. Each little critter has it's own personality, with a name & message to suit. They are bright & colorful, and they all need a loving home, so take a look & maybe take one home...

Now these are also customizable as far as names, colors, personality and sayings go. They come in two sizes. You can also request a holiday themed pengie by using the "convo" feature on Etsy.

What can I say?! These just caught my eye as being really cute and colorful and some of the expressions on their faces are great. Go check out her shop and take some home.

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!).

Etsy Artists

This week I am featuring two artists who have caught my eye in the forums. (Truth be told that is how I find most of the artists that I like. The posts in the forums also give a good indication as to what kind of person lies behind the art.)

stOOpidgERL
Well I have to say the name threw me for minute as it may throw you. I don't, however, believe there is anything stupid about Kim as her sales speak for themselves. Kim has a degree in fine arts/photography and has a wide range of mediums that she likes to work with. Some of those would be resin, collage and assemblage.
She has a totally unique point of view and if you are looking for something out of the ordinary this is the shop you want to got to.



MichellesCharmWorld
Michelle has some really cute, funky items in her shop that take me straight back to my childhood. Take this Barbie necklace made with charms that represent everything we love about Barbie. This takes me right back to the bedroom I shared with my little sister and the hours we spent on the floor organizing Barbie's accessories and getting her ready for her dates with Ken.
The Micky Bracelet is just fun. Talk about memories of those Disney vacations and the sheer joy of seeing Micky in person for the first time. Not to mention the great rides! For another taste of childhood fun check out Michelle's shop and forget about being a grown up for just a bit.