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