After the Flood

I found the pendant for this necklace awhile ago, but never could really find what I wanted to pair with it. The pendant made me think of the great flood story as told in the Old Testament, so I wanted to pair it with something that reminded me of water. This turquoise came and was perfect. Its a combination of blue and green that made me think of the ocean and the shape was different.

Now I have the idea out of my head and can rest. What do you think of the combination? Does the necklace tell you a story?

Five Reasons to get Organized

I just finished organizing all of my beads and tools. Before this, I was working out of 30 gallon tubs and trying to be organized, which wasn't really working. So, I picked an office space in the basement. Cleared all the junk out of it and made a space for my beading. Now, I feel like as weight has been lifted off my chest. I've only made a few things in the past couple of months because it was just too much of a hassle to drag everything out to find what I wanted/needed.. Last night after I finished the organizing... I made four new items!

#1 - It just makes things easier when you can find exactly what you're looking for in a few seconds

#2 - You will find stuff you completely forgot you had. I found a bunch of beads I didn't remember when I went through all of my things.

#3 - Somehow, being organized takes up less space. It seem kind of odd to me, but what was taking up a HUGE 30 gallon storage container before,  now is neatly tucked into 3 storage containers on my desk. I still have tons of room to work on the desk as well.

#4 - It reduces your stress level (at least it did for me). Clutter annoys me and I always felt like my living room was cluttered before. Anytime I needed to work, I had to drag everything out of the storage container and it ended up spread out everywhere.

#5 - Referring back to #1... not only does it makes things easier, it makes them quicker. When I was crafting last night, I spent maybe a minute looking for the items I wanted versus 10 minutes before. That's a huge time savings!

Basically, getting organized boils down to being more productive. We all have a lot of demands on our time and chaos increases time demands. Yes, getting organized does require time and effort. But once it's done, maintenance is as simpled as putting things back when you are done using them. I promise you, it just feels better to be organized!

4 Reasons to Treat Yourself

I recently decided to buy some beads to make something for myself. To be honest, even though I love most of the jewelry I make, I never have kept anything for myself. Or even made something with myself in mind. I love the act of creating jewelry, but typically view the items as off limits. I decided it was time to treat myself and purchased some semi-expensive beads to make something fun for me. See the beads below:

So, back to the title of this blog. 4 reasons to treat yourself:

#1 - If you're anything like me, you do tons of stuff for other people in your life but often neglect yourself. If you do something nice for yourself on occasion, it makes it easier to keep giving to those other people in your life.

#2 - You work really hard and deserve a treat! Regardless of your profession, whether you work from home or are corporate cubicle dweller, we all find more and more demands being placed on us. Companies and households have been cutting back with the current economy and I imagine most of us are working harder now than we were 5 years ago.

#3 - Because you love yourself. What better way to show yourself that you're valuable than giving yourself a treat? It doesn't have to be expensive or lavish, but I think doing nice things for yourself is important.

#4 - Because it's fun! Buy yourself something that others in your life wouldn't. No one I know would buy me beads because it's kind of an odd gift. So, sit back and think of something you would love to have that no one else would think to buy you. Then, go out and get it for yourself!

Happy shopping!

Newest Necklace

Made of lovely African Jade!! I love the mix of greens and browns in this stone. I used 3 different shapes to give this necklace texture and dimension.

Reminds me of mint chocolate chip ice cream... yum!

So many stones...

so little time. The more I shop for beads, the more variety of stones I find. Most of them are classified as semi-precious.  The selection gets overwhelming at times. I see so many that I like and I can't buy them all, so I have to work on picking out what I think will appeal to others.

Recently, I decided to try something new to me. It's called African Jade and the colors are really pretty. But I know its not really jade, so I decided to find out what it is. Thanks to Wikipedia, I found out it's grossular (which doesn't sound very pretty at all). Basically, African Jade is actually a member of the garnet family. I never would have guessed that from the coloration of the stones, minty green to forest green with some brown accents.

I'm including some pictures of the stone below.

I think the colors will go well with silver or copper findings. I am planning a necklace and will post soon.

Paper Bead Project

As promised, today I worked on the paper covered beads. I bought a kit at the craft store because I wanted to try this out. It was not as hard as I thought it might be, but is sort of tedious. The starting materials are pictured below:

The kit included the 18 wooden beads, the various papers, and the paste. All you need is scissors and a paint brush. The first step is to cut the pieces of paper into smaller pieces that measure 1.5 inches by 2 inches.

You measure these around the bead to make they will wrap around the bead without overlapping. If there is excess, you trim it off. Then you cut the paper so that it looks like a child's drawing of a Christmas tree.

You then coat the backside (non printed) liberally with the paste. The instructions say you can use a paintbrush, but the paste is too thick for that. I used my fingers as that seemed easiest. Then, you wrap the paper around the bead with the jagged edges facing the bead hole. You smooth the paper so that the seam where the edges meet is almost invisible.

From there, you can either trim the excess off or stuff it down the bead hole. I elected to stuff it in the bead hole using the small end of my paint brush. My results are below:

As you can see, my bead is not perfectly smooth. However, for my first try I figure it wasn't too bad. You will also note lots of paste smeared all over the table. This is not a neat project. Once the glue has completely dried, I will be spraying the beads with an acrylic sealer to protect them and add some shine. I will try to remember to post the completed project!

So I signed up for craft show...

Yup, you read the title correctly. I signed up for a craft show or an art show, whichever you want to call it. It's on the 4th of July in the small town I live in. It's only $35 for a booth, so I figured to give it a shot. This is really pushing me to make some big leaps on my business. So far, I've only tried to sell things online and it's mostly been what my mother would call "half-assed", meaning I haven't done nearly as much as I could.

While the show scares me, it's also very exciting. I ordered a lot more mats, which means I'm out a good bit of money. As the old saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. Even if the show is a bust, the money I spent on materials is not a complete loss since I'll still have tons of materials and finished products.

My distribution plan for the show is something along these lines :

75 necklaces
25 bracelets
25 pairs of earrings

125 stretchy bracelets (These are going to be made from very long strands of different colored glass chips that I've had for a couple of years, but never used). I plan to sell them for $1 each. This help clears out some stock I have no other use for.

I am going to keep taking pictures of items to add to my portfolio if they do sell or to add to my Etsy shop if they don't.

On another note, promoting on Facebook is going well. The Craft Show has sent tons of new likes my way. While none of this has led to a sale, it has caused increased traffic at my store. Yay!

That's all for now. I'm exhausted. And waiting, impatiently, for new materials to arrive to keep myself busy.