Silver Lining?

Silver cored European charm beads!

An unlined huge chunky bead!

That's all that's new and exciting around here lately. Donated more than 50 beads to Beads of Courage for Bead Challenge Day last week. Not much else happening. 

Etsy Shop Shipping Policy Change

Effective 9/12/2012, all orders placed in my Etsy shop will ship anywhere in the U.S. for a flat rate of $3.50, which includes insurance and delivery confirmation on all packages. Any orders $50 or more will have free shipping via Priority Mail, including insurance and delivery confirmation.

That is all.

New Big Hole Beads

This is the only bead I listed yesterday that didn't sell. I listed three others that sold to a follower :)

Now it's just about 3:15 in the morning and I've been awake thinking about beads for the last two hours. Before that, I'd been asleep for less than two hours. Today is going to be a long day. 

Hallo-weenies

I've been lazy and have neglected to list anything this week until this morning. These two sold right off.

I listed a couple others. A basic black bead and a Halloween big hole bead. 

Have a bunch of lentils and things that I'm thinking about wiring up into pendants before I list them. Here are a bunch I made a few days ago. Except the weird orange square bead. It was in my jar of beads to be cleaned, so I let it be in the picture anyway.

Also, I'm supposed to be working on a bunch of Pandora spacers in Christmas colors for a custom order, but it isn't pre-paid and I don't wanna do it, so that's on the back burner for now. 

Here's a link to my Etsy shop, and here's a link to my facebook business page. I'd recommend the facebook page because each new listing gets posted directly there. 

That's all I've got for the moment. Thanks for stopping by :)

Projects

I got a new lentil press and spent last night trying to work out the mechanics. Here's what I had in the kiln this morning.

The purple on the top left had a thermal crack the whole length of the back. The top right chipped badly during cleaning. The bottom left went with my grandmother's hairdresser this morning, and the bottom right also cracked during cleaning. If I can get around the problems that come about during cleaning, I can likely figure out dimpled holes and should soon have focal beads and wired lentil pendants listed on etsy soon.

Aside from that, I only made a few beads last week. Some organic bhb's:

But in my non-torch time I did rename and redesign my etsy shop and had new business cards made. I had another big sale and the same person put in a custom order at the same time, I've got a custom bracelet order from a neighbor, an order to design business cards, a bracelet order from my cousin, and a couple pendant orders.

Also, I'm participating in an earring exchange on a lampworking forum I frequent, and I have an idea for some bracelets and pendants I plan to make.


On top of that, Husband and I have a new ten-year project. We're going to be completely rebuilding a 1953 Mercury and making it into a hot rod. We plan to have it done in time for Gabe to take it to his senior prom. For now, it's just a hulking rusted metal monstrosity sitting under a tarp in my driveway. It was my dad's, and he planned to do it but never got a chance before he died. I told him ten years or so ago that I wanted the car when he died. I didn't anticipate it would be this soon.

So that's what's happening here. Thanks for stopping by :)

Creative Nation

Just a few minutes after I posted my last entry, I had an etsy sale that doubled what I made in ALL of last year. Today I've gone through and changed a bunch of my listing tags and titles. Husband found a work-around for the Etsy links that won't post to facebook, so we put a bunch of updates on my business page.

Also, I changed the business name on both Etsy and Facebook. Just because. I was going to have new business cards and stuff made up anyway, so I decided to change the name before I have new cards and marketing materials made up. I'll probably be looking into my own independent website soon, partially because Etsy is... well, Etsy. Mostly because I'd rather do things independently and make a real name for myself.

Recently, I've decided I'm going to start making finished pieces in addition to loose singular beads and loose bead sets. I also got some new bead presses (brass tools that squish the hot glass into a specific shape) and I've got some good ideas on how to make those beads into finished pieces. Here are my first trial and error beads using a bead press. Pardon all the bead release and yucky stuff. I was so proud of them not being all crazy wonky that I had to take a picture right away :)

At the moment I'm working on both beads and a Halloween scene cuff bracelet. I've got lots of ideas for cuff bracelets and lots of bracelet armature blanks, so hopefully they'll be coming to life over the next few weeks. Here's the start of the first bracelet. 

So that's my exciting crafty-related news. Thanks for stopping in :)