Isn't it nice when you find something you made featured in a blog? I love it! So this post begins with a big THANK YOU to the blogs that have recently featured my creations.
The first is a blog called The Missive Maven, written by a wonderful Etsian named Ilona. She's soooo nice and friendly (how many customers do you know who send you a thank you card?!?!). Well, I didn't realize it, but Ilona posted in her blog a couple of times about my Ravens cards. Her first post, in May, was about the cards themselves. And, like Ilona, I love using these cards with the Poe stamps available at the post office! (I ordered mine online, since most post offices don't seem to have them in stock.) Then she posted earlier this month and showed off a picture of a little raven label I had included as an extra thanks in her package!
Well, the coolest thing happened. Someone was reading Ilona's blog, saw the Ravens cards, followed the link included in the blog post, and bought a couple of sets of cards for herself! She also liked the labels, so even though they're not something I ever listed in my shop, I made some for her.
I still have one set of cards listed in my Etsy shop, but when those are gone I won't be relisting any more... they'll eventually be available again, but not from me. Someone else, a lovely Etsy seller named Allison, is going to be taking over all the Captioned Critters (as well as all my other stationery creations).
The second blog is called Brilliant Beads and is written by an Etsy seller named Gillian (aka Gillianbeads). She just featured my Crossword Puzzle cuff in her Wordless Wednesday post called Beautiful Beadweaving in B&W. It was wonderful to see my cuff there, particularly when it was accompanied by creations made by some of my beady friends. Thanks, Gillian!!
And although she didn't include a picture of any of her own creations in her post, this beautiful black lampwork bead would sure have fit the bill nicely. She has some GORGEOUS lampwork beads in her shop!!!
This week has been pretty consumed so far with gathering stationery supplies and files together so I can send them to Allison, but I've also been working on a very special beadwoven cuff for a custom order. The customer asked me to make a version of Maelstrom using aqua and chocolate colored beads so it would coordinate with the dress she's going to wear to a wedding on July 1. The very special part is that she's going to be wearing it above her elbow! That meant resizing it both in width (she asked for 2.5" wide) and in length (9.5") so it would fit around her upper arm. It's almost finished, and although I probably would have never thought to combine these colors, they're really lovely together.
Now it's time to get back to work. Or play. 'Cuz I'm going to be doing something else with beads, and that's definitely play for me!!!
:-)
I've been doing the happy dance for a couple of weeks now. (Only in the privacy of my own home, though, because my dancing scares people.)
One of my peyote bracelet designs was published in the June/July 2009 issue of Beadwork magazine!!! I submitted several different animal prints to one of the other magazines published by Interweave, and although they were initially considering all of them they ultimately just chose the lime green, dark red, and cream version of my leopard design. It's so cool to see it in print. My very first publication. I've been asked to submit a couple more designs, but I have no idea when I'll get them finished or when they'll be published.
The bracelet that was featured in the magazine is now listed in my Etsy shop. The editors of the magazine gave it such a cool name I decided to keep it -- Limelight Leopard.
The pattern published in the magazine article is the one shown in this version of the bracelet, but they've also published the other two versions I submitted to them (one in "natural" leopard colors and one in plum, red, and cream) are available as free patterns for anyone to download from the website.
While I'm writing about my 15 minutes of fame, I also have to send a big thank you to Lori Ward. She used my Crossword Puzzle beadwoven cuff in the May 21 Get Crafty Crossword Puzzle post!! Lori's from North Carolina (coincidentally, where I'll be living sometime in the near future), and she has a shop called Risky Beads on Artfire as well as a shop on Etsy with a similar name, riskybeads. I love her sense of humor... the fact that her banner touts "Accessories with Issues" just cracks me up. When you get to her Etsy shop, be sure to read her shop announcement for another chuckle.
Lori's creations are extremely varied, and I had as much fun reading her descriptions as I did ogling all her pictures.
Don't you just love creative people?!?
And don't you just love this bracelet, aptly named Three Bean Salad? What a hoot.
Okay, it's time to go do something productive. There is laundry to be done, boxes to be packed, and beadweaving to be beadwoven. Probably not in that order. hee hee.
I'm so proud of this new peyote cuff! Not that I'm not proud of my other creations (why else would I post about them on here all the time?), but I'm so happy with this one. I was trying to figure out a way to get squares that were actually square, using peyote stitch. If you've ever done peyote, you know just how tricky that can be; but I finally figured it out. As happy as I was to have figured out the way to get square squares, I was just as happy being able to design the perfect toggle for this new cuff, Crossword Puzzle.
So I posted some pictures to my flickr photostream, and some of my flickr buddies said nice things about it. Then I received a convo from Ann (aka FrancescasFancy) saying that she had featured it in a new Treasury. Ann's pretty new to Etsy (just a few months) and very new to the Etsy BeadWeavers group, but she's already building treasuries to feature members' creations.
Check out her Clue is Simply Black and White treasury!
Be sure to check out Ann's Etsy shop. She has some beautiful pieces listed, including this gorgeous
So while I was poking around on the internet, I decided to check out the Heart-O-Tron to see if I had any new hearts for my Etsy shop or for any of my listings. I love being able to check on hearts so easily, and I frequently use this tool to determine which pieces I might want to renew so they get some more attention. Particularly with jewelry, since there are so many pieces on Etsy (almost 680,000 of them right now), listings move down pretty quickly. Renewing them is a good way to move them back to the top of the list, and the $.20 is well worth the extra attention, I think.
Anyway, there I was looking at the Heart-O-Tron, and I noticed that my Smilin' Jack cuff had a bunch of new hearts today. Now even though he's my Bead Art Originals Item of the Week, that doesn't usually result in so many new hearts all in one day; so off I went to investigate. And just look where I found him!
There was a Storque article about pumpkin carving, and my cuff is in the little showcase at the end of the article. Yay!!!
Last but not least, I received a convo today from Ruthie (aka RoseWorksJewelry) letting me know that she had featured my Bebe Bois cuff in her blog. She's also a beadweaver and wrote a feature all about beadwoven bracelets. She has all sorts of goodies in her Etsy shop, and she's having a BOGO sale right now. Just look at these funky Punk Rocker Earrings!
That's it for today. A pretty cool day for me overall. Besides all that beadweaving goodness, I managed to get the yard mowed for what will probably be the last time this season. Now if only the elves would come and move the rest of the mulch pile from the driveway...
:-)
