Creativity In A Nutshell

Dearest Readers,
I hope you can accept my sincere apology for having not written in the past... age and a half. I have been very, very busy between classes and work, and have been dealing with a few personal issues on the side. I hope you have not forgotten me... and I can't wait for the next blog - a tutorial on a fantastic spring necklace! Yes, yes yes! Spring is in the air!
On to unrelated news... I will be heading to a Feminist Youth Conference in Washington DC this weekend, but will return for Spring Break - time to get caught up on projects, blogging and all that shtuff that makes me happy!
I hope you are all well!
Love,
Callie

Good Afternoon Readers

A month and a half ago, my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew moved to Texas. I have been missing them ... especially today, when it is sunny and beautiful outside, and I would have take thn the kids outside and gone sledding...


On more bead and jewelry related things... ...

I have joined the Dirt Road Artists Team (DRAT!) on  Etsy!
I have found it to be a super supportive and fun group of crafters, looking for more members.
Check out some of the other team members:

• Montzuma Mudd
• Ginpins
• LifeShades
• StainedGlassAngel
• AzJude
• PWOriginals

Phyllis (Montezuma Mudd) created this fantastic treasury (see my Sterling Silver Flower Drop Earrings?)

Jude (AzJude) created this delightful treasury (see my Computer Lady Upcycled Necklace?)

Many people who are just starting to make their own jewelry ask me where I buy my supplies. For a long time I ordered from Firemountaingems.com . They have great wholesale prices and some fantastic deals. However, lately I have been unable to spend as much in one shopping trip as I would need to in order to make it worth while to shop there - considering the large quantity of their packages and the added cost of shipping and handling. I have been shopping around, mostly at artbeads.com and a few other places.
I needed to stock up on a few silver plated findings - since I am an idiot and left my big old container of findings at school, and I checked brightlingsbeads.com.
I recalled I had purchased several things from them before, so I thought, eh, why not? Here's where it gets interesting. Maybe I just didn't remember, or maybe I always spent more at brightlingsbeads in the past... They say they have free shipping on their page, so I just grabbed a couple things and whent through the checkout. I guess I wasn't paying enough attention, but they charged me for shipping. I looked back through and it does say, somewhere, that it's only free if you spend $25 or more. Now, this is not at all unreasonable. I was just really really annoyed at myself for not seeing that - I could have gotten what I needed from artbeads.com and not even had to worry about shipping and handling. Whatever. I got over it.
My package arrived yesterday and last night I thought I would have a go at finishing some of my new earrings. I went to bend the silver plated wire for the earrings and. it. snapped. I swear, I wasn't using too much force or something like that. It didn't bend at all -just snapped. I am sooooo annoyed now. I needed those darn eyepins for these earrings and now I can't finish them and I really wanted to get them done now! That is my rant for the day. :(

These fun Chinese inspired earrings are a gift for my friend Kali's 25th birthday! I first met Kali when I was working at Hallmark, and we've been good friends since then. I really hope she likes the earrings!


What's The Plan, Stan?

• I'm giving you these earrings too! Just follow my step-by-step tutorial and you can make them for yourself.

Ingredients:

• Two antiqued brass Chinese coin stampings
• Two Chinese character antiqued brass findings
• This is the closest I could find to the talisman I actually used for these earrings... Firemountaingems.com does not seem to carry the orriginal anymore :(
• Two gold plated earwires
• Two 6mm pale green glass beads
• Two gold plated fluted bicone beads
• Two small wooden beads
• Gold plated 22 ga wire
• 6 8mm gold plated jumprings
• 4 4mm gold plated jumprings

Tools Of The Trade:

• Chainnose pliers
• Roundnose pliers

Process:

• Create a wrapped loop using gold plated wire through two of the brass coins.

• Connect two 8mm gold plated jumprings to the earwires.
• Using another 8mm jumpring, connect the large coin charm to the 2nd of the jumprings

• Using a 4mm gold plated jumpring, connect the talisman charm to the 2nd 8mm jumpring.
• Create a dangle: place the green glass bead, then the gold plated bicone on a headpin. End it with a wrapped loop.

• Using a 4mm gold plated jumpring, connect the wrapped loop of the dangle to the 1st 8mm jumpring.

C'est Fin!

• Earrings for Alex
• Bali Silver Earrings Tutorial

As I was perusing Etsy this evening, looking for ways to get more involved and build a stronger community ... I discovered the concept of Teams on Etsy. I am not exactly sure how these work and exactly what you need to do to create one... however, I would like to look into creating an Etsy Team for College Student Crafters. I think that students who are also attempting to craft and sell their work face unique challenges, and it would be helpful and interesting to work with college students from all over the US. This is something I intend to look into ... soon :)

Today has been all about the Business of Beading... blugh. I love making jewelry, making beads and creating fun tutorials. The reality is that I have to make some money doing it at the same time... Today I was able to make this necklace: the second item in my Indie Expression Series:

Tree Girl Handmade Scrabble Tile Necklace and Earring Set


However, I have spent the rest of my morning/early afternoon photograping jewelry to be listed on Etsy, or photographs to update items I have already listed. I have realized that since I have started selling my jewelry on Etsy a few months ago I have gotten much, much better at figuring out the best way to show my jewelry, so I'm going back over some of my previous pictures, realizing that what I thought was pretty good then, really could be that much better. For Example, check out the new pictures for my Sparkling Wine Necklace and Earrings Set


Check out some of my new listings:

Key To My Heart Necklace and Earrings Set



What's The Plan, Stan?

• My next step, once I am done photographing, editing photographs, editing and updating Etsy... I am going to sit myself down and make a... dun dun dunnn Business Plan! I realize that since I am taking this jewelry making seriously, and hope to go far with both my blog and my Etsy... and it's already become quite and investment of time and money, I need to set down some short and long term goals.
• One of my short term goals is to create a line or series of jewelry that I could market for a gift shop at an apple or other fruit orchard. I live in rural New Hampshire where these kinds of farms are all over the place. A lot of them have quite nice gift shops, but any jewelry they have in there is tacky. My goal is to create several designs that would be apropriate for those kinds of shops and then see if I can't get a couple businesses to sell my jewelry there on consignment. I did consignment a couple years ago before I really knew what I was doing. I am older, wiser and honestly a much better jewelry artisan now.

It's been qutie a hectic and crazy semester for me back at school. One great thing was moving into a new dorm room with my old friend Olivia, and my new friend, Alex. We just got grades back and Alex did oober fantastic for her first semester at college. I've made her some congradulatory earrings, and I think they're pretty swanky :)



What's The Plan, Stan?

• I'm going to give you a sneak peak of what went into making these adorable earrings
  

Ingredients:

• Solid Copper earwires
• 6 soild copper headpins
• 4 mauve freshwater pearls
• 2 indigo freshwater pearls
• 2 8 mm solid copper jumprings
• 6 glass seed beads
  

Tools Of The Trade:

• Wire snips
• Round nose pliers
• needle nose pliers

Process:



C'est Fin!

First I want to apologize for my lack of super de dooper fun and excited tutorials. I have been quite sick in the past few weeks, and with two jobs on the side and full time classes - well, finding time to blog has not exactly been easy. This morning, I checked my email, prepared for the usual things, ads from beading websites, some crafting newsletters, maybe some spam. And all these things were in fact there, but I was also pleasantly surprised by a gem of an email, informing me I had sold a necklace on ETSY - and another saying payment had been made! I swear to goodness the Hallelujia corus was blasting from my ears! I jumped, I ran, I thundered down the stairs, banged on the door and whooped.

So, this may sound like an overreaction - but with the way things have been going lately, it is so wonderful just to know I have any kind of the smallest success in this whole jewelry crafting thing. Just one sale - one sale is enough to remind me that I am good at what I do, that this is worth all the time and effort.

So, thank you, mystery shopper. You have no idea just how much your purchase gave me.