Jewelry care tips

Most of the pieces I create are made of sterling silver. If not cared for properly, sterling silver will most likely tarnish. To prevent this, it is a good idea to limit exposure to air as much as possible by always storing your jewelry in plastic or cloth pouches (I like to use small zip lock bags for all my sterling silver chains and wires, which work great in preventing tarnish).

If your silver does tarnish, you can use a polishing cloth to bring back the original sheen. I've heard that the 3M Tarni-Shield Silver Polish is good, though I've never tried this personally so I can't vouch for its effectiveness myself. You can also find silver polishing cloths at jewelry stores - Tiffany has a really good one that works very well on my sterling silver jewelry. They are available at Tiffany stores and come in a pretty blue envelope.

Finally, avoid rubbing your jewelry pieces against each other by keeping them in their separate compartments.

These will ensure that you will enjoy your jewelry pieces for years to come!

New shop item: aquamarine clusters

This new item is an aquamarine cluster necklace called "Nikki", named after my very cool cousin whose birthstone is aquamarine. The stones are really pretty - translucent and pearly, in varying shades of white, brown, blue, and light green, carefully hand-wrapped in sterling silver. The cluster is approximately 2" long. As you can probably tell, the cluster design is quickly becoming my favorite.

Nikki is up at the shop now so check her out!

A NOTE ON CUSTOM ORDERS

I've had several people ask about items that have already been sold, so I think this is a good time to put an announcement up here and at the shop about custom orders. If you guys see stuff that you like that are already in the 'Sold' section of the shop, just send me an email or a "conversation" on Etsy about it. If I have the supplies, I will gladly make another one for you. And since everything is handcrafted, no two necklace will be exactly alike, but they will be similar in style and color so you can still claim your individual piece as unique! Some of the beads were found in bead shows so those won't be repeatable, but some will be, so just let me know and I will check if I can repeat the design.

I've had requests for another order of Abigail and Celia, two styles that seem to be very popular, so yay! I've also had a request for a style similar to Sophie, except a silver chain in place of the blue ribbon. I also will be posting some more earrings just as soon as I fix a couple of pictures that didn't come out right.

Super duper Tuesday

I had a rather late night today so I'm going to scrap my plans to add another item to the shop (it usually takes a while) so I can catch up on Super Tuesday results.

Before I do that, though, I wanted to report that Abigail has been sold! Whoo hoo! My sister bought her today. Thanks, sis - you rock!

Also please visit the Etsy CREST street team page. If you click on "Favorites" and then "Favorite Sellers," you can see the shops of the members who belong to this Etsy team (yours truly being one of them!). And I actually don't know if the "Favorite Items" will change periodically, but right now it looks like Kate has been featured as one of the favorite items. Yay Kate!

I now have a total of ten hearts! Thanks to heathersbeadshop, bisquee, YStudio, and my very own friend Meridith for hearting Hazel Designs. I heart you back!

Lastly, I scored these adorable vintage owl beads from an Etsy vendor. I have big plans for them - are they cute, or what?

Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

New shop item: turquoise necklace

This necklace, "Meridith", is a reworked piece from a while back (it wasn't originally a fan favorite, so I decided to simplify by making it into a straightforward choker). Hope it works better this time around! The stones are really gorgeous - the green is so vivid and fresh.

You can check out "Meridith" at the shop if you click on her picture on the left-hand bar.

Turning to some TV talk, does anyone else watch the Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles? Mr Hazel and I love it. I think the best part, at least for me, is that the Terminator - the one originally played by Arnold's character - is a woman! Or, more accurately, a slender slip of a girl who looks like she's anywhere between 17 to 25 years old. And She.Kicks.Ass. Literally and figuratively.

I also love Sarah Connor's character, who's a mix between a sexy biker chick and a warrior queen. She and the Girl Terminator are the central characters, more so than John Connor, and I love how they're the ones who are protecting John and not the other way around. They're smart, strong, fiercely capable women who can take care of their own shit and kick the bad guys' collective asses, all while wearing low-slung jeans and leather jackets and looking damn good doing it.

The best line of tonight's episode (Sarah to her son): "If you want to be a hero, you'd better learn how to drive stick!"

Priceless.

Lastly, I wanted to send huuuuuge congratulations to my friend Stephanie, who just became a new mom over the weekend! Best wishes to the new family.

New earrings

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally added earrings to the collection. Yay! This first offering is "Mandy," a companion piece to the "Mariel" necklace (see, I told you guys a lot of my friends have names that begin with M!).

"Mandy" has been added to the shop, so check out the rest of her pictures.

And, last but not least, a huge, huuuuge thank you to Mom2Amara for her purchase of "Rowan"! Thank you so much for your never-ending support!

Revamped!

I revamped my store by taking brand new photographs, some with new backgrounds. I dug up my violin sheet music (thank you, Bach!) and bought five different kinds of scrapbook paper (I had to stop myself at five because they were all so pretty that I couldn't decide which ones to get.)

I'm really loving this new camera, especially the super macro feature. After a rough start I think I've got it under control, and if you compare my first few photographs from when I first started this blog, to now, I think you will see a vast, huge improvement on my photography skills.

I decided that for the "front page" pictures I would do an extreme close up of the piece, sometimes not even showing the whole thing. I found that when I browsed on Etsy, the pieces that were extremely close up were the ones I would click on because I couldn't tell what the whole piece looked like. I was intrigued. So I hope this happens with these new photographs as well.

Here are are some of my favorite shots.








I was a busy bee today and there are lots of new goodies going up in the shop within the next few days. I'll give you a hint: EARRINGS!

Etsy find of the day

The Etsy site is literally a treasure trove of cool, unusual, and unique things and it's so easy to get suckered in for hours looking through them. I've hearted about fifty shops on here - which reminds me, thank you so much to bannerbee and xenya for hearting my shop! That was much appreciated. I get so giddy when someone hearts my shop - I now have a total of five hearts! Yippee!

Recently I joined the Etsy CREST street team, both to expose my shop as much as possible to the Etsy world and to meet my fellow Etsy sellers.

One of the members of Etsy CREST, xenya, has a shop of photographic works called Forgotten Beauty, and I was blown away by some of the photographs on here. I love her concept of taking pictures of forgotten things and places, which sort of has that flea market, antique-y, distressed vibe that I love so much. Her work is just gorgeous.

I found two photographs that I'm thinking of buying and I'm just trying to decide between them:

I think these would look amazing with a wide white mat and a black frame. They also come in different sizes. What the heck, maybe I'll just get them both.