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.