What's Up Wednesday - CONTEST!

It's time for a contest!! 

My 400th Etsy sale will be coming up soon and I want to share the love!  The prize will be a set of chunky squares like this:

in your choice of color. All you have to do is guess what date I'll reach 400 sales.  

I'm pretty sure that short of winning the lottery, free beads are the best contest prizes!

So here's the rules:  "Like" my facebook page HERE then post your guess (i.e. Feb 28th) ~ that's it! (If you already like me just guess) :-)  If you want more chances to win ask your friends to do it too (then knock them down and take their beads if they win!)  lol!  If multiple people guess the correct date, the winner will be selected by a random drawing.

I only need 37 more sales, so what are you waiting for?  GO GUESS!!

Featured Friday - Natural Illumination

Cool Handmade Stuff From Artists I Admire

Today's Featured Friday is Natural Illumination

My customer turned friend opened an Etsy shop yesterday!  She takes beautiful, tranquil photographs and incorporates inspirational quotes.   And she's super sweet!  :)

This one is my favorite!

Or maybe this one?!

It's so hard to choose!  But I've already placed a custom order ~ Yep, she will customize any photo to fit your favorite size, color tone, quote,and  picture combination. How cool is that!

What are you waiting for?  Go check out her shop!

Thanks for taking a peek ~ and check back next Friday for more fun, handmade finds!

What's Up Wednesday

What's up Wednesday

upcoming events, news, and interesting tidbits

Last night I remembered exactly why I make beads.  Money?  Nope.  Fame?  Nope. Power? Nope.  Happiness? YES!  Making beads makes me happy.  And what's even better than that is when my beads make someone else happy!  I got a convo on Etsy last night that brought tears to my eyes.  The customer was just so sweet  and so excited about my beads that she made me get excited about them all over again! I'm very fortunate to have had many customers like this over the years, and each time I hear from them I go back to the torch with renewed enthusiasm.   Well, the kiln is heating up, so I'm off to the torch to work on her special orders and maybe try a couple of  beads from the Motivation Monday post.  Before I go I would just like to offer a heartfelt  thank you to all the wonderful customers out there who make it possible for me to do this.  THANK YOU!!

What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday

I recently posted a question in the Etsy forums asking whether a single or a bulk picture should be used first in a listing for one bead with more available.  The majority of the responses critiqued my photographs and as this is the first time I've ever received constructive criticism on my shop,  I really appreciated it!  

So this week I've been working on retaking the pictures for all 152 of my Etsy listings.  At 4-6 pictures per item that's over 750 pictures!  Considering that I haven't found a reliable light source that's anywhere as good as natural light for showing the true colors on beads, this is going to take a long time. I have about a 1 hour window of time when the sun is up but not blocked by the fence or the trees in my yard at this time of year so I just have to hope that happens to be the hour there isn't any cloud cover! Anyway, here is a comparison

New picture

Old Picture

There is a HUGE difference!  I didn't realize how bad my pics were before and I'm extremely grateful to the people who took the time to critique me.

As to the original question: I decided I had to do what felt right to me, which is to use the single bead as the first picture.  It's not as dramatic, but I also don't feel like I'm being deceptive.  In the end, being able to sleep at night is more important to me than the number of sales.

Featured Friday

Featured Friday

Cool Handmade Stuff From Artists I admire

Because we have officially hit the single biggest Holiday shopping day of the year, I thought I would take a more relaxed approach and share some beautiful ornaments I've found.  Fabulous gifts for even the most difficult to buy for person on your list or something you will treasure year after year as you decorate your tree.

These beautiful snowflake ornaments are from TimberGreenWoods on Etsy.  Not only are these gorgeous little works of art, but this business goes to amazing lengths to be environmentally friendly.  From sustainable farming, to recycled packaging - they do it all! 

This ornament from WolfArtGlass on Etsy is stunning and elegant!  Made from recycled glass with a retro design, I can see this being a cherished addition to any one's Holiday decorations! This shop also uses environmentally friendly packaging, renewable wind energy and recycled glass. 

Thanks for checking out these great shops with me today!  Come back next Friday for more fun, handmade finds!  

Today's Featured Friday also happens to be Black Friday ~ so I would just like to say, whether you choose to shop on Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday, or any other day between now and Christmas (or any other day of the year); please consider the importance of shopping at small, locally owned and artisan businesses.  These are your friends and neighbors and the people who put their heart and soul into making your treasures. They are also the businesses that volunteer in the local community, donate to local charities and youth groups, and let you put your signs in their windows and your donation cans on their counters.  These businesses are run by people instead of corporations, they focus on customers more than bottom lines, and they care about the environment.  You just don't get that kind of heart from the big box stores.  Happy Holidays!

What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so this week I've been focusing on all the things I'm thankful for.  Foremost is the fact that I'm married to the perfect man.  He makes me supremely happy every single day, and he makes me laugh - loudly and often! But the most important reason I'm thankful for him is the way his love, kindness, support and respect provide my daughters with an example of what a husband really should be. I'm thankful for my daughters, three of the most beautiful people I know inside and out. Each of them is funny, sweet, smart, caring, imaginative - I could go on and on!  I'm thankful for my best friend, the one that listens when I need to vent, rationalizes for me when I screw up and just acts as a general sanity check. I'm thankful for my Dad whom I know I can always turn to for advice and encouragement. And I'm thankful for my grandparents whom I continue to learn so much from and my siblings who always make me laugh. I'm thankful for internet friends who seem to suffer from insomnia as much as I do :)  and I'm thankful for the fans and customers who  make it possible for me to do what I love to do.  What it comes down to is I'm thankful for people. It's the people in my life that make it worthwhile, and I appreciate every single one of them! I hope that each of you are surrounded by the people you are thankful for this holiday ~ Happy Thanksgiving!!

P.s. My new weekly schedule is working out well!  Ok, it worked well last week; we aren't counting this week since I'm hosting dinner and that kind of overruled the bead list!  

New Line of Beads!

So what do you do when you're super excited about a new line of beads!  It's so hard to decide - do you roll out the whole line (i.e. several at once) with hoopla and fanfare?  Or do you introduce them one at a time?  One at a time will get more views in your Etsy shop - and we all know views equal sales.  But all at once makes a more dramatic entrance!  I voted for all at once for this line, I'm just too excited about it to only do one at a time!  So what am I talking about?  

CHARMED DREADS!!

Color and motion drawing attention to your hair!  The charm lets me add elements that I would ordinarily not be able to create on a bead - like dragonflies for instance, I can never get those right! I hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoy making them!  I'm headed to the torch to see what else I can do with these - I think today I'll make one with a lizzard, but who knows?  The possiblities are endless!

Random Thoughts

I have been on a roll lately! In the last two days I delivered over 140 beads to my local bead store The Sun Dog Bead Co. Two torching sessions per day have really boosted my production, and the cooler weather has helped a little. I'm still working my way through a huge pile of beads that aren't currently listed anywhere for some reason or other. I must often put them in the boxes that correspond with where they are listed before they actually make it on the site! Some of that pile will be made into jewelry for my 1000 Markets shop, but most will be listed on Etsy and ArtFire. There is only a week and a half before school starts so we're headed out of town for a few days, but come September - Look Out! I'll actually be able to torch full time without any interuptions! I'm planning to update my blog once a week starting now (wait, now - no, now) :) and I'm also working on a tutorial! More on that soon. There is so much to do when you're a one man show!! Have a fabulous weekend and I'll see you next week :)