the blue button charm bracelet is back!

Two out of my five sales/trades on Etsy have been blue button charm bracelets. I also made one for someone as a gift that was very well received. I felt that I really had to make another one to list. Here it is:


In other Etsy related news, I joined the Awesome Chicks of Etsy group this week. I'm very excited to be there!

treasury feature

beadsandblooms included my warmth right angle bangle in her I'm so Tired of Being Cold treasury!


You can visit it live until Friday, January 30 at 5:06PM EST by CLICKING HERE !

Please be sure to check out beadsandblooms' Etsy shop, too. She has lots of wonderful items like this bracelet:


Thanks again! :)

bead woven favorites

I finished a couple new pieces this past week! I will photograph and list them over the next week. Only 2 more pieces until I reach 100 now.

I was going to do a Top 10 Favorite Bead Woven Pieces from some of my favorite fellow Etsy sellers, but I had too many goodies in my favorites list to choose from. So this has turned into a Top 14. I really have even more than that but I decided to limit it to one per seller. Enjoy! (These are in no particular order.)

Piano Man - Peyote Beadwoven Cuff/Bracelet by time2cre8

Cream Bargello Ribbon Peyote Cuff by SandFibers

Curls of Gold Cuff Bracelet by arosebyname

Pin Stripes and Flowers Bracelet by GrandmaMarilyns

Pink Mix Bracelet by adri33

Blue Butterfly Cuff by ThreeFatesDesign

Snow Flake - Peyote Bracelet by totallytwisted

Purple Square Stitch Bracelet by AzitasSurprises

Purple Woven Bracelet by eversoDear

Icy Blue Bracelet by beadsforever

Drama, Beadwoven Bracelet by RegalBeads

Mardi Gras Bracelet by Balanced

Honeydew - Bracelet by LiciaBeads

Flippy Floral Bracelet by oceanhouse

blogging promotion ideas

All of you fellow bloggers should check out Be Jeweled by Candi's post 25 Ways to Promote Your Blog for Free. I am already doing some of these things, but not nearly all of them. What a great "to do" list! Thanks!

I got my first heart on Etsy from someone who found me via Entrecard! I'm glad to see that it's paying off. :) Thank you so much to all of you who have been clicking on my site regularly!

I am slowly working on some new pieces. For now, here are my newest listings:

tutorial, closing in on 100, skinny bracelets

Timothy Adams posted a great tutorial yesterday about tracking time trends, one of the many amazing features of Google Analytics. I highly encourage all of you to check out Google Analytics if you haven't already. Timothy Adams has posted other information about it on his blog if you're looking for more help. There are many great Etsy forum threads about it too for additional help. It's really an amazing tool.

I'm 12 listings away from having 100 listings. I have 8 more items to list right now and 1 that is still a work in progress. That's a definite motivation to keep working on my jewelry!

I posted the last two (out of four, as of right now) super skinny square stitch bracelets yesterday and today.

Valentine's Day

I listed my two Valentine's Day items this week. I think that will be it for this year, especially since I haven't found a balance between cross-stitch and jewelry making yet and have been only cross-stitching the past week. You would think I'd be super excited to dive right into all of my new supplies! I have a little bit. I tend to get fixated on one or two hobbies at a time, though. I'm certainly not done with jewelry making to say the least haha.

EBW January/February Challenge

EBW Challenge time is coming up again! I'm entering it this time. It's my first challenge entry. I felt very humble listing my entry today because the three other entries already listed are AMAZING. My bangle is very very simple in comparison. But it's colorful and fitting for the theme nonetheless. I know I don't have any real chance of winning, but if I get any votes I'll be pretty excited.

Voting will be from Feb. 9-15. I will post reminders again when it gets closer. For now you can admire (and purchase) my tropical holiday bangle here:

This weekend I met Justin Vining in one of the chat rooms on Etsy. He's in law school right now at Valparaiso University, which is where I went for undergrad. I'm always excited to meet fellow Valpo people, especially now that I live in Iowa where hardly anyone has even heard of the school. He's a painter. This is my favorite item in his shop right now:


He also had a Facebook Page for his shop like I do. Please go check it out by CLICKING HERE .

I was looking around the Valpo page for a bit after I posted the link. I was excited to discover that their new union is up and running. I knew that it had been in the works for a while, but only follow Valpo news so closely. The union looks beautiful. I don't get back to Valpo very much, but hopefully I'll have a chance to see the campus again at some point.

I've listed a couple new items this weekend.

I've indulged in lots of new beads over the last couple weeks. I'm going to try to hold off on anything but little items (i.e. jump rings, clasps, etc.) until my birthday now (which is late March). We'll see if I can make it!

I don't have too much else to report aside from some new listings. I'm very close to 100 items (80 listed currently) and am looking forward to pulling out my cross-stitch again this weekend.

I have already gotten a couple wonderful comments about this piece.

I freaking love how this turned out. My two current jewelry obsessions - bead weaving and buttons - came together perfectly.

This is one of Jake's (my husband) favorite pieces right now.

We are currently getting 1-3 inches of snow in the Iowa City area so I will most likely be spending most of tomorrow indoors working on crafty activities. :)

back to work, sale, handbag giveaway, new listings

I had to go back to work yesterday so I will be posting a little less frequently pretty much until the summer haha. I never look forward to going back, but it'll be all right. I counted up my Christmas break pieces yesterday, and I officially made 25 pieces during the break. I also did a ton of promoting. Hopefully it will pay off!

I sold another blue button charm bracelet to my friend Becky yesterday. She was having trouble settling on an item from my shop so I went ahead and made another blue bracelet, listed it as reserved, and she bought it right away. Now I need to make another one to list. Out of the 5 items I've sold on Etsy, 2 of them have been that bracelet so I think it's worth making again.

There is a fabulous handbag giveaway going on right now on designsbyvanessa's blog. The bag really is awesome. I highly recommend going over there and entering the giveaway. There are several ways to get multiple entries, including blogging about the giveaway so feel free to continue the posting yourselves.

I've listed several new items the past few days. I'm waiting until a month before Valentine's Day to post my new holiday items, but I did post one pink one today. :)

Another lampworked beads piece:

This is the first piece that I've listed like this:

Here's my pink piece:

Entrecard

Thanks to Anna's post about her top droppers yesterday, I decided to sign up to Entrecard . I now have my own drop box on the right side of my blog. It is completely free and very easy to use. I know that some of you already use it. If you don't right now and design to sign up at some point, please let me know so I can be sure to start dropping on your site.

My listing today was a simple one: another double stranded right angle bracelet. I loved making turquoise dotted dream so much that I decided to use the same Czech seed bead mix to make this lovely creation.

blog feature, New Year's project, new listings

Happy 2009! I hope that this year has gotten off to a good start for everyone. :)

I am LillyEveDesign's Etsy Shop of the Month for January! Please go check out her blog and her shop. She is a very new seller and needs some sales and support!

I decided to start the new year with a new project - skinny square stitch bracelets. I have attempted square stitch bracelets before, but have not made any that I was this satisfied with before.


Watch for the skinny bracelets to get listed over the next couple weeks. I have listed a couple new items for 2009. The first one combines three of my loves - turquoise, lampworked beads, and right angle weave. The second one is a monochromatic explosion cuff. I had so much fun with my color explosion cuffs that I decided to try a black and white one, too.