Snowflowers Bracelet

A 7 1/2" bracelet made with faceted Czech glass beads (matte finished clear & irridescent sheer icy crystal) Tiny opaque white flower cup beads accent the bracelet like tiny flowers poking through the first snowfall of winter. Available in my Etsy.com shop.

Snowflowers Bracelet

If you've been thinking about selling your handmade craft creations and have come to realize that eBay isn't for you, but you think that Etsy might be worth looking into, take a look at 5pm (EST) tonight.

Go to the site, (you may need to sign up, but there's never a fee to be a member)click on the "community" link, then click on the Virtual Labs link and find the vitual room holding the Newbie Chat.

Many of the questions a person thinking about selling on Etsy/or new sellers may have will be answered with explanations tonight. Etsy holds a couple of these Newbie sessions each week and probably will share many links to helpful threads for people just starting or those thinking about starting a shop on Etsy.
Check it out if you have a chance!

Green & Brown Sea Glass Earrings

This mini-stack is in my other shop, 1000 Markets.

Green & Brown Sea Glass Earrings

Now that the shopping frenzy over the holiday weekend is over, how did all the Etsy shop owners here on myLot fare? Let's here about how your shop did? Anyone with any sales? Did you even get any hearts or an increase in views?I'll start it off....

I added a couple of items heading into Thanksgiving. One sold the day before Turkey-Day. I had another item purchased on Black Friday and a 3rd item sold on Cyber Monday. I don't think I had a lot of views, despite doing a bit of promoting, but I did add several hearts on individual items and in my shop. Hopefully these hearts will turn into a future sale of two.

It seemed like there were an awful lot of shop owners promoting quite frequently throughout the entire weekend and the threads I promoted in, seemed to get buried to the second and third page within minutes and I was lucky to even receive a view in the threads I promoted in... the good thing about promoting was 2 of the 3 sales I made were made because of the promoting I did.

Things went much better over the holiday weekend, than the first yr... maybe I learned from my experience last yr.

So let's here fromthe rest of the shop owners on Etsy... how did your shop fare over the holiday weekend?

Gray Sea Glass Necklace

I'm very excited about this creation! Gray is considered to be one of the extremely rare colors when it comes to sea glass and this is my first Gray jewelry creation. I'll be adding it to my Etsy shop sometime today.

Gray Sea Glass Necklace

I had planned on adding Twitter for more exposure after the holidays, but a sick child at home gave me more time to promote, and create this week and after reading of Etsy members who have had some success using Twitter for their Etsy shop, I decided to see how tough it was to do.

Signing up for Twitter takes less than 5 minutes. Just some simple questions, a email confirmation and I was off. Now I have my shop linked to Twitter, so when I add an item to my shop, the whole community hears about it within the hour. Everytime I update my blog, the Twitter community hears about it.
So the results after one day...

My views on new items have gone up! Within minutes after setting my Twitter up and linkin it to my shop, my newest item in my shop was Twittered and my views shot up by 10 views. After adding the item to my shop and promoting the piece a few times, I only had 14 views after more than 24 hours. 2 minutes after the piece was Twittered, it shot up to 22 views (no, it hasn't sold, but it is getting viewed and anyone on Etsy knows that you can't sell your items if they don't get viewed) I added two new pieces yesterday and both had minimal views (6 or fewer) after the first half hour on Etsy and then when each was picked up by Twitter, the views more than doubled. So in the very short time it took me to sign up for and link my shop to Twitter, I have found a way to have new items viewed and bring potential new customers to my shop...all with a very minimal effort. It's a pretty cool promotional tool!

Amethyst and pink sapphire ring

Amethyst and pink sapphire ring

This is a lovely color combination of colors. A lovely marquise Amethyst paired with pink sapphires. It is sterling silver, and one of my favorite new pieces, I have done. I purchased the semi mount, and then set the Amethyst in the semi mount. Please share any of your new pieces.

Island Paradise Chainmaille Necklace

Island Paradise Chainmaille Necklace

I have been seeing a lot about chainmaille jewelry, and I thought I would try it. The lovely pendant came from Art Beads, and is Island Paradise. Then I made the necklace part using aluminum colored blue, and green jump rings. The result is this lovely necklace, available in my Etsy store. The aluminum jump rings, are new to the market from Fire Mountain Gems, and they are light, and not heavy on the neck. I will be making matching earrings soon. What have you created lately?

The Beaded Bezel

The Beaded Bezel

I am not a huge fan of beads. Most of the jewelry I make is with faceted gemstones, and standard jewelry castings. I gave wire wrapping a try, and I just do not care for most of it. I have some large cabachons that would be extremely expensive to set in a traditional setting, so I decided to learn how to bead a pendant around them. My first attempt was completely disastrous. 3 hours, and it looked like garbage. So I read and practiced some more. My second, and third attempts were so much better. Still not perfect, and not sellable, but I can definitely wear it, and show it off. It is a picture jasper free form cabachon, which made it that much more difficult because it has one straight edge rather than curved like the rest. I will use small beads from now on, I do not like the way the large ones sit, and I should have left off one row of the larger beads to show the design better. But still not bad, what do you think?

Pink Zircon Ring

Pink Zircon Ring

OMG JTV has had some lovely sterling silver semi mounts of late. I purchased the semi mount, and set the lovely 5.5mm trillion shaped pink zircon as the center stone. This lovely ring is a size 6, and can be purchased in my Etsy store.

Blue Chalcedony Pendant

Blue Chalcedony Pendant

I just listed this lovely pendant, in my Etsy store. It is a sterling silver, paraiba color blue chalcedony gemstone pendant. It has a very large bail, and would make a lovely gift for yourself or anyone on your list. What new jewelry have you been working on?

14k YG Red Spinel Ring

Red Spinel Ring

I do not do much with gold. Most of my pieces are sterling silver. I love this ring though. It is a 4.5mm round Red Spinel that I took out of another ring, that I broke. The result is this lovely ring.

Wire wrapped pendant, made by me, for a friend in Nevada.

Wire Wrapped Pendant

As I have posted previously, I am now learning to wire wrap. My mom gave me her rock tumbler, to tumble some rough gemtsones, for wire wrapping projects. I hooked it up last night, and have some stones currently tumbling. I just purchased some rubies to tumble, and have some Amethyst rough already. I am excited to see how they turn out. They take a very long time. Here is a Picture Jasper pendant I wrapped for a friend in Nevada. She donated to me a bunch of stones, she tumbled herself, and I made this for her to thank her. It is not real fancy, but I didn't want to hide the picture on the stone.

Apatite Jewelry

APATITE NECKLACE

I have been making jewelry for years using gemstones, and traditional castings, and semi mounts. I recently have started making gemstone bead jewelry. This is only my third piece, and I love it. It is rhodochrosite and neon blue apatite necklace. I want to make a bracelet, and anklet too with the blue apatite gems that were left over. I am still learning the art of picture taking, so don't mind that. If you make jewelry please share some of your work for all of us to look at.

pink zircon

pink zircon

I have been making jewelry for a while now. This is one of my newest rings. It is pink zircon with rubies inlaid into the sides.

Made by me, you can make one too

Huge Orange Murano Glass Pendant

I made this necklace using a huge 40mm Orange fire Murano glass focal bead. I used craft wire which is very soft and pliable to make it into a pendant then added it to the lovely goldtone chain. This is the first piece I have done in a while. I was so busy over the holidays I just did not have time to create. Please share any new pieces you have done.

My Bead Pen

Purple Bead Pen

I make my own jewelry, but am fairly new to beading. I use more traditional settings, with gemstones. I really find it very difficult to bead with those little seed beads, but I found a cool product, that uses larger beads. This is a pen, that you add beads to the barrel of the pen, to design a cool designer pen. It comes in different colors, and I chose purple. I will show you the finished product once the beads arrive, and I assemble it. You can get one of these at art beads. They would make an awesome gift for anyone on your list.

Brown Beach Glass Earrings

Brown Beach Glass Earrings

I've always loved walking on the beach checking out the shells that were left behind by the tides and one day I found a piece of beach glass. It was very smooth,rounded at the edges and had a strange frosting on it.

After finding my 1st piece, I was hooked and always look for pieces. Just recently, I took my crafting hobby to more of a part-time venture and have found there's a great demand for jewelry made with beach glass.

I haven't yet used one of my finds in my jewelry making, but I've found some very reliable beach glass sources and have made a few pieces of beach glass jewelry for my shop (some of the photos of these pieces have been added on this site)
Does anyone else work with beach glass in their crafts? Any collector's of beach glass?

Two of my favorite passions (beside my family) photography and creating wearable-art.

Cobalt Blue Sea Glass Necklace

Yesterday, I responded to a thread in the craft section and one of the FUROM members mentioned that she used to enjoy making and selling crafts, until "life happened" and she got away from doing it.

I have a similar story, both about crafts and life happening...

I used to work at a boutique, where I decorated shirts and sweat shirts and sold them to the tourists. I also made beach-type jewelry that we sold in the boutique. Stuff happened and the owner was forced to give up the boutique and I was forced to find a "real" job. Shortly after, I had my first child and crafting was pushed to the backburner. Life Happened and my crafting, which I really loved to do, was the loser. There was no time for it any longer, as the need for a real 40 hour a week job and my newborn son commanded every moment of my day.

Fast forward about a decade and I found myself knitting scarves for family members as Xmas presents, found people I work with wanting to buy scarves from me and I "got the crafting bug" again.

Since my situation is somewhat different, both of our sons are a bit older and my hubby is very involved in their activities, I found I had the time and energy to go back to crafting and creating.

It's something I really love doing, and while I do sell my creations, it isn't hardly enough to pay all the bills, but it does pay some of them and I'm having a blast creating again. I'm so happy to have the chance to get back to what I loved doing so much!!So, who else had to put something on the backburner because "life happened" and how many have been able to persue their passion once their lives settled down??

Cobalt Blue Sea Glass Bracelet

I've been selling handmade jewelry online for a little over a year now. I'm not about to quit my day job, but the money I make helps to pay the bills and is quite helpful now, since my hours have been cut at my full-time job.

Running a small online store is a lot harder than I imagined when I started... I thought I'd put my jewelry in and the people would just buy it...lol... between promoting my store and my items, answering emails, shopping around for the best quality supplies, at the cheapest prices, packaging, shipping, and finally more creating new jewelry, it's been pretty hard.

Has anyone else started their own online business where they are selling actual product? Share your experiences!!

Cobalt Blue Sea Glass Bracelet

5 wonderfully frosted pieces of cobalt blue sea glass adorn this bracelet. The sea glass is accented with mother of pearl polished shell beads. The sea glass used for this piece are all authentic pieces of sea glass and the only alteration to these ocean gems are the holes drilled to make the bracelet (and a warm water/mild dish soap bath after they were plucked from the surf) A beautiful bracelet...perfect for the sea glass enthusiast or anyone who loves the beach & the ocean!

(Enlarge your house with glue)

Sea Glass Bracelet

sea glass bracelet

This is one of the items I created this past weekend. I haven't been in a rush, because I really like this bracelet and I'd like to keep it around for a couple more days before placing it in my Etsy shop. But I'm kinda stumped as to what to call it.

Usually, I would go with something like "Cobalt Sea Glass Copper Bracelet", but in my opinion, this bracelet is so very pretty and it deserves a more creative name... and that's where I'm stuck. I haven't come up with anything that really jumps out at me and I'd like to give this one soemthing that pops off the page as much as the bracelet does.

So I'm turning to all my crafting friends here at myLot and asking for suggestions!
Anyone have an ideas?

Cherry Red Sea Glass Necklace

My newest red sea glass necklace. I immediately regretted listing this necklace in my shop, and now I'm hoping it does not sell because I'd like to keep it for myself. Red sea glass in this flawless condition are not found very often and I doubt I'll come across another as nice as this one (but I'll keep searching the beaches)

Cherry Red Sea Glass Necklace

A few weeks ago, a newspaper reporter interviewed a few local Etsy members for an article on how the internet has helped handmade artisans market their products.
I don't get the newspaper because I feel the use of the paper is a wasted resource and it's just as easy to turn on my computer and read the news if I want biased reporting (but enough of that)... Since it had been a few weeks since my interview, I thought either the idea had been shot down by the publisher or I had missed the article.

On Saturday, I was at the museum dropping off some consignment sea glass jewelry and I noticed the paper sitting on the table. I flipped through the front section and found the article on page 12...

http://app.com/article/20...

The article was centered around one main member who is located near the reporter and he went to her home with a photographer to get some images. The gist of the article was about Etsy.com works and how, through social networking sites, we promote our small home-based businesses. I get a brief mention at the end of the article (which was nice because a few of the others that were available to be interviewed weren't mentioned)Of course, I'm not happy that my age was mentioned (not many women would be...lol) but a link to my shop was included and from the online paper, I had more than a dozen hits at my shop from the paper's online site and the hits have continued to trickle in every day since. I also received a custom request because of the article, which will hopefully result in a sale.

My friend's at my J-O-B also either saw the article in the paper, or noticed the link to the article on my Facebook page and now I'm like a celebrity in work because many of the people didn't know I have this "second life" outside of work.

Hopefully the link is still live...it's a very good read and with Etsy's growing popularity, the eco-friendly theme that crafting portrays and the tough economy that is forcing people to look for extra income...it would be great to see other Etsians featured by their local newspapers around the country.

In all, my 15 minutes of fame ( lol) has been a lot of fun!