another edition of why I love my customers

If you've been following my blog for at least a few months, you most likely know that one of my favorite parts about running my randomcreative business is custom orders. I love so many of the suggestions that I get from customers and enjoy sharing them here.

One of my recent custom orders was for my long time Etsy friend and teammate Linda.

Linda wanted a custom button charm bracelet with the charms of her choosing. She ordered the charms that she wanted and sent them to me.

I put together a custom color palette with plastic buttons and glass seed beads to coordinate with her charms. I kept most of the pink palette lighter with a few darker / magenta picks in the mix.

I don't work with pink nearly as much as most other colors so this was a good push for me to explore this color combination. And of course the best news is that Linda loves her new piece.

I also recently got a request to re-make a design that I last sold nearly two years ago. It's one of those designs that I couldn't re-make at the time and kind of forgot about until now.

It was so refreshing working with this color palette in February. While I had this bead mix in my beading bowl, I went ahead and made a second one so I can add it to my shop again.

One of the most interesting things about posting these final pictures elsewhere this week is that I got as many comments about the photography job as I did about the piece itself. Honestly I'm not sure which I'm more proud of at this point.

If you ever want a custom order, don't hesitate to contact me!

Have you been working on any custom orders lately?

almost WW: Girly

the bead mix

the finished product, in two sizes

a red/purple addition and in the works this week

While I was reworking some older red/purple designs this fall, I decided to make a brand new piece with this color combination, too.

It's available here.  Before this fall, I hadn't made a wrapped design in quite a while.  It's been fun to revisit it.  And I love this color combination.  It is a tough one to photograph, but I'm pretty please with these pictures.  I don't have any more wrapped cuffs planned right now, but as always, if there's anything you'd like to see, I'm open to suggestions.

I've been hard at work on my November challenge piece.  Here are a couple shots of the completed base of the piece.

Remember my shot of the fringe beads?  After I completed the base, I went back and added two rows of embellishment all the way up and down the base.  I also added a focal with a large glass leaf bead and a piece of drilled sea glass.  One of the things that I love about this design is that the focal can hang as the center of the piece when it's worn as a necklace or it can hang as a charm when it's worn as a bracelet.

I'm planning to list this piece later this week so I'll have more information about it here next week.

In my recent pursuit to remake a lot of my made to order pieces, I've been working on a new button charm bracelet so I can update this listing.

I added coordinating seed beads to the bracelet as well.  I'll update the listing sometime in the next week.

In between other projects, I've also been working on some my button bracelets that I planned out earlier this month.

As I've done so many EBW challenges this year, I've put a lot of time into building up the higher end stock in my shop.  It will be good to have some new lower price end pieces for the holidays, too.

I included this post in Delicately Constructed Friday.

slow sales, purple and yellow

I finally wrapped up all of my sales. Unfortunately there haven't been any new ones. I'm trying not let it get me down. Hopefully there will be more soon, right?

I tried the button clasp idea that I was talking about a couple posts ago. Listings are going up soon! I also got on a purple kick and then a yellow kick this past week - so unlike me! I love pretty much all colors, but normally I favor turquoise, green, and red. I have my purple pieces listed:




Purple is so hard to photograph so the colors come out looking as rich as they do in person. The first picture shows the colors nicely, the second two don't really do the pieces justice. Hopefully they still give you a pretty good idea what they're like, though!

Yellow pieces and button clasp pieces will be coming soon. :)

trade

I received my button cuff from KreatedbyKelly today! She received her button bracelet in the mail earlier this week and left me wonderful feedback about it. Here's the cuff that I got. (This is one of the pictures from the listing. My wrist is smaller than that haha.)


I sewed an extra clasp button on it because it was a little big on me and now it fits perfectly. I love it! I also really like this cuff from her shop:


Kelly very generously included a small Ziplock in my package that is packed full of beautiful yellow, green, blue, and purple buttons! What a wonderful surprise! I know that they will be a great addition to my collection for the making of some beautiful button charm bracelets. I would also like to try using some bigger buttons as bracelet clasps, too. I have a number of bigger buttons from Kelly, as well as from my button order from kellwood and my vintage collection from my mom's stash (which includes buttons from one of my grandmas and one of my great-grandmas). I have seen some beautiful bracelets with button clasps like this one, but have not attempted it yet myself. I will be sure to post the results when I do. :)

buttons and other randomness

No word yet about the boutique unfortunately. I am working on a custom order for a friend, though. I've done button bracelets thus far, and she wants a button necklace. Exciting! We finally settled on the button and jump ring/toggle colors tonight. I'm going to start on it tomorrow. I also traded with someone on Etsy this week. I'm getting this pendant from yjja123 exchange for this bangle. We mailed our items yesterday so they are still in transit. I can't wait to see the pendant in person. I'm still debating whether I want to simply string it on a silver chain or if I want to make a beaded chain for it. Any thoughts? Please check out her shop. She has lots of other beautiful pendants as well as necklaces and other fun things. Also, to other Etsy sellers: I am always interested in discussing trades like this one. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you're interested. :)

Going back to the subject of buttons, I haven't posted any pictures of my button bracelets yet. I've made both button bracelets and button charm bracelets. I'll post pictures of the button bracelets and save the charm bracelets for another post. I'll also have to post a picture of the necklace when it's finished.

I made this one for myself. I've since shortened it a little bit:
There isn't one in this color scheme in my shop but if you'd like one with it, let me know!


I'm a sucker for the black and pink color combination. I also made a peyote cuff with this color scheme.


My school district's colors are purple and turquoise. I got inspired haha. Again, if you want one like this for yourself, let me know.

I made one very similar to this for my friend Linsday who originally introduced me to Etsy this past summer as a small way to say thank you. I liked it so much that I went ahead and made another one for my shop.

And finally: