another edition of why I love my customers

It's been more than five months since I put together my last post about custom orders. I'm excited to show you the pieces that I've made per special request this winter and spring.

This winter I got a request to make matching earrings for this fringed bracelet that I made quite a while back.

 I get a lot of questions about why I don't make matching earrings for all of my bracelets. The truth is that it's hard to know what designs and color palettes will do well and what kind of earrings people will want with them. In many cases, it is easier to make an occasional pair that a customer works with me to design. For example, this customer wanted sterling silver earwire. Even if I had made a pair back when I made the bracelet, I still would have ended up making another pair for her.

I love the final result for this design. There are so many possibilities for it with different color palettes and different beads. Of course I love the hearts, but there is no reason that I would have to limit it to hearts.

I get a number of requests for re-makes of older pieces. In some cases (including this one), they are for pieces that I sold as far back as three or four years ago. I can't imagine that most people are scrolling through my sold items. I think that most of the ideas come from favorited items on Etsy, my Flickr photostream, and Pinterest pins.

Since this request was from an older piece, I made it old school style like the original without any beads or tiny buttons. I would love to keep this design in stock, but brown is not the most popular button color. There is an abundance of white buttons out there but not nearly as many brown or black.

One of the many reasons that I enjoy custom orders is that I get great suggestions that I never would have thought of on my own. Turquoise blue, yellow, white, and brown is a fabulous color combination that I wouldn't have put together myself. The customer wanted earrings that coordinated with another jewelry piece that she already owned.

I completed this order a couple months ago, but I finally got my act together and got a pair listed in my shop this week.

I put together a big custom set this spring for the same lady who ordered the heart earrings. Her late step-mother left behind a sizable collection of buttons, and she wanted to keep them in the family. I made a bracelet and a pair of earrings for each of these four color palettes.

Finally, some of the custom requests that I get are as simple as a different kind of earwire or slight change in color palette. The customer picked out these earwires, and I made a very minor change to the original design to decrease the length slightly.

 

As always, if you ever have an idea for a custom piece based on something that you saw here or in my jewelry shop or that fits your interests / personality / tastes, don't hesitate to contact me. I love custom orders!

Have you been working on any custom orders lately?

Friday Feature: rainbow picks

Inspired by one of my newly listed Etsy items (and my never ending passion for brightly colored things), I put together a rainbow feature today. Enjoy.

Beaded Bracelet - Silver Chain Links - Bright Colorful Multicolored Rainbow by randomcreative

Rainbow Chevron SLR Camera Strap - Free Shipping by seelorisew

Rainbow Polka-Dot Wavy Rimmed Dish - Colorful Pottery Serving Piece - Made to order by chARiTyelise

Rainbow art print, inspirational quote, colorful print, rainbow poster, multicolor art by PrintsByStellaChili

Rainbow Recycled Art Note Card - Mosaic Quilt Collage OOAK Blank Inside by Fuffalumps

6/0 Opaque Rainbow Luster Mix Czech Glass Seed Bead Strand from beadsandbabble

Rainbow Mini Clothespins - Set of 12 by 1PixiePlace

Have you been loving any bright multicolored items lately? Share your favorite links!

Get It Together With Tangerine Orange

I'm sharing my latest EBW Challenge piece in a slightly different format than usual.  I'm participating in Janet's Get It Together link up and sharing some other accessories and fashion picks that coordinate with my new piece.

The July EBW Challenge is Tangerine Tango for the 2012 Pantone Color of the Year.  This is such an inspired choice!  You can read more about it here.  I'm sure that many of you know how much I love orange.  I put together a bangle design similar to my 80's inspired A Material Girl's True Colors bangle that I created last year.

The sandals pick up on the orange without creating too much of a "matchy" look.  I love the deep red and the unique style.  You can dress these up or down for anything.

I picked a more casual skirt for summer that you can throw on without even thinking about it.  Isn't the little bird cute?

I try to branch out in my features and not pick the same sellers over and over again.  But I had to return to Madelynn's shop and select a set of stacking rings.  The orange bangle is so vivid that you don't need to overwhelm everyone with more orange jewelry.  Instead pair it with some other bright colors.

You have to click through to the listing to see all of the ways that you can style this versatile black wrap.

I continued to mix up the colors for this outfit with a purple necklace from one of my newest favorite shops.


The skirt and wrap will match so many different types of summer tops.  I have a hard time finding tank tops on Etsy that aren't really skimpy so I opted for a simple blue tree t-shirt instead.

I finished this outfit off with a rich green leather messenger bag.  Isn't that a unique piece?

My tangerine bangle is available on Etsy right here.  As always, if you'd like something similar in a different size or color palette, don't hesitate to ask.  Voting for the July EBW challenge starts on July 9.  Check back here then for more details.

Have you ever worked with tangerine materials?  What have you been creating lately?

I included this post in Michelle's Delicately Constructed Friday 6/29/12.

a mystery unveiled

The distinctive camouflage markings are barely visible through the thick underbrush.  Most people pass right by them without even stopping for a second look.  The person who is meant to find them is the only one combing every square inch for a tiny glint of metal or sun reflection off of the glass.  The thin camouflage piece has a silver key and a bottle with a message attached to it.  The bottle holds a seemingly meaningless scrap of paper.  Only the intended recipient will be able to decipher its message.  This message will lead the recipient to the door that requires the key and that is hiding away the treasuries just beyond it.

The June EBW Challenge is Mystery.  You can read more about it here.  I love mysteries and was excited about the narrative element that this challenge could include.  It took me a couple weeks to put together this concept and then a couple more weeks to create the piece.  Putting together the concept was the real challenge for me for this piece.  And yes, it does include one of my new bottle charms!  I'm excited about that.

Like all of my wrap bracelet/necklace pieces, this can be worn as a bracelet or necklace.  Both charms are detachable, giving you the option to wear it with both charms, one charm, no charms, or any other charms of your choosing.  While the charms add a substantial presence to the piece, they are extremely light weight.

This piece is available for sale here.  As always, if you're interested in something similar but with different colors, charms, size, etc., don't hesitate to contact me.  Voting for the June EBW challenge will take place the beginning of June.  I will post all of the information about it then.  To get a sneak peek at the current entries, search EBWC on Etsy.

What have you been working on lately?  Have you taken on any new challenges?

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I included this post in Michelle's Delicately Constructed Friday - 6/1/2012.

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Going Nautical

The May 2012 Etsy Beadweavers theme is Nautical Inspired.  This is a pretty straight forward theme, but you can read more about it here.  While April's Seed Beads Only challenge was a lot more fun than originally anticipated, I am glad that this challenge and the next one are much more open ended.

As many of you know, I frequently find inspiration from color.  I did a little nautical color palette hunting online to help me figure out where I was going with this theme.

Nautical Colors of Port Jefferson, Long Island

This post has several great palettes, but I've always liked light houses, so I went right for the one with the rich red.

I went for blues and grays that were a little lighter than the original palette, but I didn't add any other colors.

I loved adding the lampwork discs to my skinny wrapped design for my nest piece and decided to use this technique again for my nautical piece.  They don't represent anything nautical in a literal sense, but the colors tied together so well.

I got these beads from Jen of blueseraphim a while back during a big pre-holiday sale.  I try not to purchase in one of a kind beads like this without a project in mind, but Jen's beads are so versatile that I always find a use for them pretty quickly.

I love this embellished addition to my wrapped bracelets and will most likely make more in the future.  As always, if there are any color combinations that you're like to see, let me know.

This piece is available for sale in my Etsy shop right here.  Voting will take place on the EBW blog in early May.  Check back on my blog the week of May 9 for all of the voting details.  To get a sneak peek at the other entries already up and running, search EBWC on Etsy.

Has anyone else created nautical items?  Share your listings and blog posts!

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a brand new bangle design...in purple!

I know that I'll get questions about this so I'll put this out there now.  I did not make my coasters, wedding art, and bangle this past week.  I simply got them all up on my blog this past week.  I have actually spent most of my creative energy this past week on a time-consuming customer order and spread out these other projects over the past month.

The April EBW Challenge theme is Seed Beads Only.  As part of the EBW mod team, we had a difficult time putting out a definition of the term "seed bead" and what the perimeters for the challenge would be.  This would seem like the most straight forward theme ever, but there were a lot of questions about whether non-beaded clasps would be allowed and what shapes and sizes of seed beads could be used.  I will spare you all the details, but suffice it to say, that I was pretty happy with the final decisions and decided that I did want to participate.

I have moved away from using beaded bead clasps for bracelets, as customers have really preferred button and metal clasps.  Since neither of these options are allowed, I opted for a bangle.  All of my bangles thus far have been based one of the most standard bangle designs out there.  I decided it was time to break way from that and do something new.

One of the final stipulations is that 20% or less of the final design can be non-round seed bead shapes (hexagons, triangles, cubes, etc.).  Yep, this involved doing some math before I started beading.  I thought that some would be interested to learn that the final piece has over 1,500 seed beads.

This is a variation of my skinny wrapped peyote design.  I had wanted to make a purple version of this design for a while and decided to convert it to a bangle.  I've always used right angle weave for bangles.  For those of you who beadweave, you know how easily it converts to a bangle.  I honestly didn't know how peyote would go.  It is not as flawless, but it's pretty good.  I chose to complete all of the wrapped embellishment before I joined the two ends, as I didn't know if the beadwork would allow the design to flip or not.  It turns out that it is flexible enough to flip so if I do this again, I may join the cube base, which will make the bangle conversion more flawless.

As always, it was really hard to put together a well blended purple combination and photograph is accurately.  Bangles are not my favorite type of jewelry to photograph anyway, but I'm fairly pleased with the result.  Purple continues to be a very popular color combination so it's well worth the effort.

This piece is available for sale here.  Voting for the April challenge will take place on the EBW blog April 9-15.  Check back here that week for all of the voting information.

Have you been working on any new designs lately?

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Bead Trends March magazine feature

My second Bead Trends feature for 2012 is up and running!  I'm so excited that I can say that.  If you missed my post about my February feature, check it out right here.

As always, I got my two free copies of the magazine.

I also got another $20 gift certificate.  Believe it or not, I haven't spent any of these yet.  I need to make some online soon to do a big bead shopping spree at Fire Mountain.  For anyone wondering, I already checked with the site about using multiple gift certificates for a single order, and you can use 5 at one time.

I was pleased see with the feature that they actually photographed my whole item instead of just taking a couple artistic shots of it.  Anyone interested in making this project will have a decent shot at it.  They also clearly didn't have any better idea than I did how to capture this color palette very accurately.

This piece is now available right here in my Etsy shop.

I have revisited different variations of this color combination a few times over the years.  I'm sure that I'm not done with it yet.  These first two pieces are available in my shop.  Click on the photos to go to the listings.

In the comment section of my last Bead Trends feature post, Edi shared a great tip about submitting ideas to magazines:
Magazines are generally looking for ideas 3-6 months ahead of the current trends and season.  When you submit ideas, you should be in this mind frame, too.
Thanks Edi!

Any other tips about magazine submissions?  Share them in the comments!

I am included this post in Michelle's Delicately Constructed Friday - 3/9/2012.

Bead Trends February magazine feature

I have the privilege of starting 2012 with two features in Bead Trends magazine!  I am especially honored because Bead Trends is featuring a lot beadweaving in 2012.  Some of you may remember that I had my first feature with the magazine this time last year.  They were apparently impressed enough that they remembered my work and contacted me to see if I had any new designs to submit.  I sent about eight ideas to them, two of which they picked for early 2012 issues.  Talk about an ego boost!

Bead Trends featured artists always receive two free copies of the magazine.

I'll be honest: I don't love their featured photos.  The lighting and props are good, but the photos are very artsy.  That's fine for a feature that doesn't include a tutorial.  However, theoretically people should be able to make their own versions of these pieces based on the photos and written directions.  The photos make this process tough because they don't do a great job showing the pieces in their entirety.  However, the photos are still high quality, and it's always interesting to see how other people will photograph your work.  Hopefully my written directions are enough to get people there.

You don't receive any money for being featured, but you do get a $20 gift certificate to Fire Mountain Gems.  That's even better, right?  They definitely know what will appeal to their artists.

 

This piece is now available right here in my Etsy shop.

I really love this color combination.  It's a very unique neutral.  I used a similar palette for these earrings.  I also used a similar palette for my piece that will be featured in the March 2012 issue.  It includes one of Kristie's ceramic donuts.  I'll have more information about that when it's released.

For those of you who have also had magazine or similar features, do you have any advice for those who are interested in getting started with this pursuit?

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