I'm home!!!

Hubby and I went up to visit his mom over the holidays, with the dogs! That means we had to drive from San Diego to northern California - which is a drive of, at least, 10 hours. It was 10 hours up since we hit very little traffic outside LA and few "plugs" on I-5 in the San Joaquin valley. I decided, after the slow drive back down, that trucks create a lot of the plugs. We left on a Sunday to head up there and there are a LOT fewer trucks on the road on Sunday than on Thursday when we came back down. We enjoyed the visit with his mom, but the drive back was MUCH longer. I also dropped my cell phone at our lunch stop on Panoche Road. I didn't realize at the time but after calling it a few times and not hearing it in the car I realized I dropped it. I kind of remembered the road name and definitely remember that there was a restaurant called Apricot Tree so after a quick internet search I found the name, phone number and address of the restaurant. When I called them up they were very helpful. The manager, Carlos, had one of his crew, Jorge, look for my cell phone as he was emptying the trash cans in their parking lot. Jorge called me as he was looking in the park where I walked the dogs to find out more about the cell phone. As I was describing it to him he found it!! That was so nice of them to look for it for me! So ... if you're driving up or down I-5 in the San Joaquin valley take a rest stop at the Apricot Tree restaurant and give them some business. Nice folks need to be thanked and rewarded with business. Their apricot pie has some rave reviews from my mom-in-law and others on the web. I immediately shipped off two thank you cards with some reward money to them in appreciation of them taking the time to look for my phone and then helping to ship it to me.

Next up - another blog promo for a 90-blogs in 90-days Etsy seller ...

Featured ETSY artist #7 of 90 - SimplySaidBySarah

Sarah is the graphic artist behind SimplySaidBySarah. She has some wonderful sticky note pads in her store. Here is a great one for the holiday season:



And here's a fun memo pad, sticky pad and pen gift set all packaged up and ready to go:



You can see more of her graphic design items in her Etsy store at http://simplysaidbysarah.etsy.com

And if you want to see what she's up to read her blog at http://simplysaidbysarah.blogspot.com

Featured ETSY artist #6 of 90 - Celticgoddessjewelry

Andee is the woman behind Celtic Goddess Jewelry and she describes herself as a "Buddhist pagan living in the Orlando area. I sell celtic and pagan inspired jewelry, art and bath and body products."

In perusing her shop I found several beautiful pieces of jewelry. One is these "Ohm" earrings: . Isn't that just a wonderful, irridesent blue in the beads?

I'm also a big fan of charoite and just love the focal and wirewrapping in this necklace .

If you find these interesting you can see more at her shop at Celtic Goddess Jewelry @ Etsy

Want to learn more about Andee? Then check out her blog at http://buyindie.blogspot.com

Featured ETSY artist #5 of 90 - Indigoluna

I'm behind in my Etsy artist features so it's time to do some catch up! I'm featuring Rachel Kitterman who is Indigoluna on Etsy. She creates many varieties of art. She creates wonderful mandalas like this one:


She also creates gorgeous quilts such as this one:


She has been doing art with fabric for over a decade and in her own words she is an "art addict". She also "love paper, altered art, mixed-media, knitting, crocheting, jewelry, artist books, photography...pretty much, if it will hold still, I'll make art out of it." If you want to see more of her art that is for sale visit her Etsy store. If you want to know about Rachel read her blog at http://indigoluna.typepad.com

My Holiday Boutique Setup

I did my first Holiday Boutique last week. Here is my setup at the boutique.




It was an interesting experience though not profitable. But with all the inventory I made I'll be able to list many things in my Etsy store and put more on consignment at Gilianna's in La Jolla. So keep on eye on my website for frequent new additions!

Pictures of my home show setup

Well the home show turnout was not good - but I did remember to take pictures of how I set things up! I put an extension into my table and set everything up on that. Here are the pictures ...




Next pictures will be of my setup for a Holiday Boutique where I'm selling this Thursday. I'm laying things out now to figure out how much more to make and of what so back to the bead room for me!

Featured ETSY artist #4 of 90 - Earthcharms

You can read about Salyx' interests in many places on the net. She has a web page http://www.salyx.net/facts.html, a blog http://www.earth-charms.blogspot.com/, a myspace page http://www.myspace.com/salyx (but she does let you know myspace isn't her thing - LOL), a flickr account Salyz@flickr and, OF COURSE, an Etsy store Earthchamrs @ Etsy.

Salyx makes some fun and beautiful jewelry. This kyanite necklace is beautiful
.
And these earrings are airy and girly in one package
.
She has a LOT of chokers in her store as well. Heck - she's got 99 items in her store so you'll have lots of things to choose from no matter what you're interested in!

Featured ETSY artist #3 of 90 - Summersea

The next artist in this continuing series is Summersea aka Tracy from Massachusetts. If you like herbal then you should definitely peruse Summer Sea Herbs. I started smelling lavendar just by reading the description of the Organic Dried French Lavendar she has for sale.

And, with the cold and flu season upon us you can give her Cold and Flu Care Organic Herbal Loose Tea a try.

Tracy is a certified Herbalist and a practicing Green witch so she is very concerned with using high quality organic ingredients in her products. In her own words "Your body and spirit needs good, clean energy!".

In addition to making and supplying herbal products Tracy is the founder of the Etsy EarthPath Artisans Street Team. This is a group of Etsy sellers who have common spiritual beliefs. You can read more about Tracy in her blog at http://www.summerseaherbs.blogspot.com/

Featured ETSY artist - KreativeMindz

KreativeMindz is another Etsy store that features several artist. Aly and An-G sew and Beau (Aly's hubby) does woodworking. Their store has many different types of clothing and accessories. Do you have some aches and pains? Well they've got several styles of hot packs and my current favorite is this snowflake patter hotpack
The cover is removable so you can wash it when needed.

If you like goddess wraps (their term for very stylish and colorful hair wraps) then you can choose from a large selection in their store. I particularly liked the colors in this one .

And, of course, don't forget the wooden creations by Beau which you can view in the wooden kreationz sections of their store.

Want to see more? Check out the KreativeMindz Etsy store. Want to learn more about them? The check out their blog.

Featured ETSY artist - ContasBrasil

A bunch of Etsy folks are doing a blog challenge to learn more about one another and to help promote each other. The goal is to blog about a fellow challenger every day. As I read the list I was drawn to the name ContasBrasil since it's just an interesting name. Turns out this is an Etsy store with 4 designers! They are Suzy Wortberg, Bebê de Soares, Ana Vilas Boas and a new addition Sandra Fukelmann. As I browsed their store - ContasBrasil on ETSY - I was absolutely delighted by the wonderful colors they use. Check this out:


3V-Lagoon

Isn't it just gorgeous!

And if you love green (I do!) here's another beauty:

Green/Lavanda FIELDS

These are just a few wonderful designs from some very talented women so check out their store if you want to see more wonderful designs! And if you want to learn more about these women and see who they're featuring go check out their blog at http://contaskoeln.blogspot.com

Home show flopped but I'll be selling at a Holiday Boutique on 12/13!

My home show flopped. I think folks got very busy for the holidays since very few showed up. However, before the home show I heard about a local holiday boutique and was thinking about selling there if I could get enough inventory built up. Since I have a LOT of leftover inventory from my home show I'm definitely going to sell at the holiday boutique. If you're in San Diego and want to do some Christmas shopping here are the details:

Sunset Hills Elementary School Education Foundation
Annual Holiday Craft Fair
Thursday, December 13, 2007
5PM - 8PM
Sunset Hills Elementary School
9291 Oviedo Street
San Diego, CA 92129

Currently there are 20 vendors but they are actively recruiting for more!

Hope to see you there!

I've got a LOT of jewelry to photograph and list in my online shop. One of my latest creations is this bracelet made with beads from Ghana. A friend of mine was visiting her family in Ghana and brought back a bunch of beads. She didn't know what to do with them so she offered them to me and in trade I made a necklace/earring set for her and her mom using some of the beads. Here are the necklaces I made for her:



and here's the bracelet I just finished which uses more of the Ghana beads



It is currently for sale in my Etsy store.

The holidays are rapidly approaching!

Hmm - not sure why I thought my jewelry party was on 12/3 - it's on 12/2. I've got quite a few designs done and more in progress. Here's one of the latest that I finished and sold:



It includes my favorite color - PURPLE!

I've got quite a few cute dog beads and I'm going to make some dog "stuff" since I'm a dog lover! Here's one cutey I bought recently:



I'll either use him in a necklace or a bracelet. I just love the expression on his face. I got him from Etsy seller EvolutionArts http://evolutionarts.etsy.com

Keep tuned for more news on my home show!

It's time for another jewelry party!

I'm having another jewelry party on 12/3 so I'm cranking up "production". I did get 3 bracelets and 4 earrings made over the weekend so that's good. One bracelet is a custom order but they all turned out beautiful. Here's the custom order I created for a 2nd cousin's daughter. The gorgeous lampwork pillow beads are from chtdesigns1 on ebay and those fun lampwork discs are from Serena's Beads. It was one of those designs that practically made itself! I love it when my brain puts things together before I'm even aware of it (and that doesn't happen often enough for sure!)

Etsy Handcrafted Arts Holiday Sale!

The etsyBEAD street team sale is over but other Etsy street teams are actively promoting for the holiday season. The Jewelry On Etsy Team (JET) is having a holiday sale as well. The sale runs from November 1st to December 16th so you've got plenty of time to get your shopping done before the holidays!

I'm a member of this team so I'm participating in this sale as well. In my shop, cserpentDesigns, I'll be offering free shipping and I'll have a section containing sale items. To take advantage of the free shipping enter JET or HOLIDAY SALE in the comments section when you checkout. I'll send you a modified invoice or, if you pay immediately, I'll refund the shipping charges. Items in the JET Holiday Sale section in my shop will be marked down in price already.

To see other participants check out the myspace page:



Each person is determining their own sale terms but generally they offer either free shipping or they'll have a section in their shop with sale items or they'll be offering a percentage off items in their store.

So have fun shopping for HANDMADE items for your friends and family for the holidays!

Fires are under control, but air quality is up/down

We were evacuated in our neighborhood but, fortunately, were never in any danger from the fires. It took us several hours to pack up all the things we wanted out of the house and then we headed over to my mom's house to spend the night. We got the evacuation call at around 9PM and got to my mom's house at about 1AM. Since the fire was not near us we were not in a big hurry. The evacuation notice wasn't officially lifted for 2 days, but Tony spent the next night at the house since we did NOT have any police patrolling our neighborhood to make sure no vandals started exploiting the situation. The dogs and I hung at my mom's house until the it was officially announced that we could return. From what I could tell not too many people actually left, but quite a few folks had things packed and ready to leave. But we're back at home now, everything is unpacked and put away. As I was looking for things to take I found a LOT of things I need to get rid of so I'll be sending many boxes to Goodwill and the dump.

Fire Watch and estyBEAD sale!

Well my plan initially was to post information about the etstBEAD street team Holiday Kickoff sale but the San Diego fires have taken priority over the sale. So far we're safe and I'm thankful of that. The fires that were almost due east of us yesterday are now north of us. We had massive amounts of smoke and ash yesterday - so much that I thought our canyon was on fire. It turned out that all of the smoke/ash was from the fires in Ramona. Some friends of mine evacuated from Ramona last night and lots of friends in Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Penasquitos evacuated early this morning. Today it's actually a bit clearer at our house but the ground is covered with black ash just like it was 4 years ago during the Cedar fire. If the fire continues to stay to the north we'll be safe from evacuations but with the wind whipping the way it still is all we can do is keep an eye on things and start packing up the critical items in case we have to evacuate at some point.

If you want web based information on the San Diego fires the local paper and news station websites have pretty good up to date information. For the local paper check out http://www.signonsandiego.com, for one of the local news stations check out http://nbcsandiego.com. The local emergency website is sporadically accessible and doesn't seem to get updates any faster than the other 2 sites I mentioned but if you want to check it out go to http://www.sdcountyemergency.com. I've had regular problems accessing this site and its links - but in the last hour it has been more accessible - maybe because more people have been evacuated?

Now - about the etsyBEAD Holiday Kickoff Sale!

Here's the flyer with details:



My shop cserpentDesigns@ETSY is one of the participants in this sale and the more you buy the more you save! A full list of participating shops can be found at the etsyBead Street Team Blog. I've got some new listings that are perfect for fall so check out my store!

What's happening!

OK - I've been delinquent in posting - but I got busy! I had a bunch of consulting work to do, had to finish up some jewelry for some customers and for an auction, went to a Reno/Reneau family reunion in Texas where this bracelet/earrings set:


were part of the silent auction to help pay for reunion expenses. Last year this bracelet and some matching earrings were in the auction and went for starting bid :(



I was SOOO glad that this year that were bid up close to the retail selling price - YAY!

And while at the reunion I found out about some more famous cousins (distant cousins - but hey we're all in the family!). One couse was Major Marcus Reno who survived the Battle at the Little Big Horn. Another Reno cousin (don't recall his name) is the reason we have an extradition treaty with England/Canada. He headed up the Reno gang (and a movie was made about this gang!) which killed over 200 people, took over a town in Indiana and were basically some very BAD relations. Apparently the head of the gang escaped to Canada (which was then part of England) so the US government got an extradition treaty setup so they could bring him back. I'll need to do some more research to find out what happened to this Reno - I'm betting he was hanged since that's what they did to criminals back then.

So - now you know some of my extended family history!

OK - gotta get some pictures taken of my latest jewelry creations. Those will be up on my jewelry website cserpentDesigns

The Jewelry Party Setup

These aren't the greatest pictures in the world but I didn't want to leave this setup in my living room forever so some were taken at night and some when the sun was shining in. Here are shots of everything gathered on my coffee table:





At the party they were spread out around a dining room table (with a couple of mirrors of course!). My mom gave me the silk scarves to use (they date from her working days at a bank) and she placed them in strategic places to dress things up - she has such a great sense of style!

The pics show the various display items I used at my jewelry party. I bought the 3 tier bracelet stand, revolving earring display
,
acrylic hand and ramp from Nile Corp.


They have real reasonable prices on all their display items. I used some 18G wire to create hooks so I could hang spiders, bracelets, cell phone leashes, ... on the earring stand as well. So one side was all earrings (it was full before the party - LOL!), one side was bracelet/earring sets and one side was a bunch of misc items like spiders, key chains and cell phone leashes. I left one side empty to make it easier for everyone to see what was available.

The shelving unit I got at Michael's for $5!!! It was in a closeout section and it folds up for storage which is really neat! I cut some leftover pieces from curtains for liners on the shelves. I displayed pens, letter openers, some bookmarks and watches on the shelves. I put the bust and hand on the top shelf to add height and interest to the setup.


I bought a set of 3 frames for about $7 at Michael's as well. For this show I just used the largest frame and ran a piece of wire in it to hang necklaces and earrings. For the next party I'll put a reflective background behind it and probably chicken wire or such so I can hang more items from it. I'll do the same for the 2 smaller frames as well.


I got the necklace display in a closeout sale from jewelrysupply.com. I also brought a book along to show what the book thong/bookmarks are for since some people have never seen them.


I grabbed some OLD wine and used those to display the wine charms and used a new pair of crocs to display my croc charms. I've emptied the wine bottles and cleaned them out so I can use them for future displays.

The jewelry party was a success! Of course I didn't take a single picture - doh! However I did take pictures of the setup at home so I'll post some of those. Need to download them from the camera first. But now - time for lunch!

Getting ready for a jewelry party

I'm still working hard to make more designs for my jewelry party (and my mom has made a few too!). In addition to making jewelry and other beaded "things" I've been pricing and packaging everything. I got more display items from Nile Corp including earring cards that hang on a rotating earring stand. To give the earring cards a personal touch I made earring cards out of paper with my logo. I'll take pics to show how I'm attaching them to the hanging earring cards since I think it's a pretty good idea and seems to work well. I'll know for sure after the jewelry party on Saturday! Stay tuned for pictures!

My latest Etsy purchase

I'm a jewelry designer and participate in several Etsy street teams. One of those is Bead Unique . We do a monthly swap of some type of bead or material and July's swap theme was ceramic and pottery beads. I've seen some of the gorgeous Greek ceramic beads with various metal coatings so I went on a search for those. I found some beauties at Petite Spoon's Etsy store. Here are the colored ceramic disks I bought:



and here are the gorgeous fine silver plated disks:



I'm working on a design using the silver disks right now so once I've got it finished I'll post it.

So if you love those ceramic beads you may have seen in various jewelry pieces check out Petite Spoon's store!

My Etsy poster!

On Etsy they're having a poster contest. Make a poster and submit it and they will pick some to use for advertising. I just LOVE the look of copper and found so many gorgeous copper items on Etsy so I chose that for the theme of my poster. Here's a screen shot of my picks:



All these items are for sale and the seller name is on the poster so if you see something you like buy it and support Etsy - an online venue for all things hand made!

Hello out there!

I'm starting to get some inventory up. I've finished several bracelets and a pair of earrings. As I get them photo'd they're showing up in my Etsy shop so check out my latest items there.

I'm baaaaccckkk....

Well I started the blog then promptly got busy and forgot about it and my password. Now that I can get back in I can add more to it...

I'm starting to crank up "production" of jewelry in preparation for a jewelry party. One of my soccer buds is hosting it so I need to have plenty of styles and choices available for everyone. I actually finished a bracelet and some cool earrings last night. I'll be adding pics to my flickr account and will post a few choice things here. See more at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cserpentdesigns/

Thanks!

Welcome!

Hi - I just joined blogger with a little push from my Etsy friends at CCCOE (california crafters club on etsy). I've got to figure out this blogging "stuff" so I can make this a more interesting place to visit!

susan