Love to Learn

I have always been the type of person that loves to learn new things, I have a very curious nature. The good part about this is that it makes me more open minded and well rounded. The downside is that I can be so indecisive and I get bored very easily. I just looked through my shop today and had to laugh at how many different types of things are in there. I wonder sometimes if I will ever find my niche. I'm sure it will come in time. But for now I will just keep on trying out new things. After seeing all the cool knitted items when I was working on my last treasury, I now have this strong desire to learn how to knit! I've always wanted to learn but never had the patience. It is so strange because all the beading that I have been doing has taught me patience in completing a project so now I think I might be ready to finally learn how to knit, lol.

Treasury I Created for the Indie Free Spirits Team

Good morning everyone! Last night I created my first treasury for the ifsteam, it was a lot of fun and I wish I could buy everything on there! I especially like the green crochet mary jane shoes and book necklace:) Creating treasuries for the team gets your shop mini featured on the ifsteam blog. Have a great day:D

http://www.etsy.com/treasury/4ca18fea0d0c6d91b728d99a/heading-into-fall-indie-style

*HUGE CLEARANCE SALE IN MY SHOP*:D

Hi everyone, I have decided to clear out most of my older pieces by offering huge clearance discounts. Come by and check it out. If you guys could pass this information along to your followers too I would really appreciate it!:) Thanks and have a great day!:D

http://www.etsy.com/shop/JKarma3

Working with Sterling Silver Wire

Hello folks, today I got my 22 gauge sterling silver wire that I ordered off Ebay. I ordered 5 feet and thought I was going to get quite a bit but when I opened the package I was like "This is it?!" I was only able to make 4 wire wrapped rings! I kept 1 for myself and will list the other 3 in my shop tomorrow. I really love the quality of sterling silver, much better than the copper and aluminum wires that I have been using! My only complaint is that I bought the "half hard" wire which was not very easy to wire wrap and caused my fingertips to become very sore:( It kinda hurts to type right now actually, lol. Next time I will buy the "dead soft" version and see how much better it is. Until next time!:D

I Just Joined the Indie Free Spirits Etsy Team:)

Just a quick update, I am now a member of the Indie Free Spirits Team on Etsy:) I am excited to to work with the team! I think it will give my shop some good exposure in reaching my target audience. One of the things we get to do is create treasuries to promote the team. So from time to time I will be creating treasuries with items from members of the team. The nice thing about being on a team is that I still have my level of independence but with the added support of a team:)

I have also decided NOT to create a 2nd shop so bye-bye Trashy Treasures, lol. I asked a question in the Etsy forum about the pros/cons of opening a 2nd shop and the majority of the people think it is best to just stick with one shop and open a section for upcycled items. They said it was a lot of work handling 2 shops. Right now it would be impossible to juggle another shop since I have a day job as well!

Recycle/Upcycle Anyone?

Happy Monday, my favorite day of the week, WHATEVER! I had a pretty busy weekend so I didn't have time to make anything new. I participated in an autism awareness race on Saturday, a cause that is very near and dear to my heart because my 7 year old son has autism. All proceeds go to help educate, inform, and raise awareness to this rapidly growing disorder!

My 20% off everything in my shop promo was a bust but I did have a couple of people mention that they will purchase in the near future when they have the money:) I finally decided that I am for sure going to open up another shop and sell strictly recycled/upcycled items. Don't know yet if I am going to call it Trashy Treasures but that is my top choice:) I really enjoy "refurbishing" old items and making them into something new but I don't think it fits with the new creations that I am selling in my shop. Another plus is that my husband likes to take stuff apart and create new things, he loves his Make magazine, lol, so this could actually become a joint venture:)

Hey Look What I Just Made=D

Check it out you guys, I just made this recycled soda can tab bracelet just like the one Kristen Stewart from Twilight wears. It was very easy to make, I just went on youtube and watched the tutorial. The only material you need are the soda can tabs and an old cut up t-shirt. I cut up an old orange t-shirt of my son's and yanked off 7 tabs from the empty soda cans I found lying around the house. It took me less than 10 minutes to make! I want to open up another shop to JUST sell recycled items, that would be so much fun! I would call it "Trashy Treasures" lol. If you guys are interested in making one of these bracelets the youtube video is called "Bracelet in style of Kristen Stewart". Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJZEgU2ZkyY

Until next time!:)

I Love a Good Bargain

I can't believe it is practically Fall already! One of my favorite seasons:) Last Friday I stopped by an antique mall to check out the goods and see if there was anything worth buying that I could take apart and re-create. Well there wasn't and everything was kinda pricey. I think a better place to go would have been a thrift store. Later on that day I stopped by a coffee shop that sells very cute things and ran across some handmade jewelry. I asked the girl at the counter about it and she said that they do buy handmade jewelry and then handed me the owner's business card to contact. I am far from ready to talk to any shop owner about buying my stuff but it is nice to know that I have that option if I decide to try this in the future:)

I did some experimenting on polymer clay. Check out the rings I made in the pic. Yeah I know, kinda irregular in some parts. But these are just testers. I usually end up giving away my tester pieces as part of my free gift with purchase.

I also got some great deals on higher quality charms and gemstones that I am going to work on this weekend. If anyone knows of a good website that sells good quality materials for cheap, I would really love to know about it!

New items I posted this week are charm necklaces. It helps me to get more stuff made when I have a theme to work on each week:) I posted 3 new ones and will post 2 more tomorrow. Good night Blogland...zzzzzz

Sunday Blog Hop

You Break It, You Buy It

Today I went to the library to pay off a fine to replace a book that I returned with bad water damage. They originally wanted me to fork over 27 bucks but when I got there they let me off easy with a $10.00 fine and even let me keep the damaged book. So now I own this book "The Big Ass Book of Crafts" by Mark Montano. I'll admit I didn't like the book at first. I just skimmed through it and let it sit in my car for weeks. But now that it is mine to keep I really like it, LOL. Maybe I was meant to keep this book for inspiration or something. There is definitely a lot of crafts to try out. Things like how to make your own lip balm and facial scrub to stationary and envelopes made out of recycled magazine pages. There are even some weird crafts such as making a paper weight out of a baby doll head...yeah I wouldn't want to try that one either.

Thank you to those that wished me well when I was sick:) My ears are still ringing! But at least the vertigo is gone. This week has been kinda rough because I am trying to catch up at work from being out sick for 2 days last week.

I hope I was able to follow everyone back that followed me on the blog hops. It gets hard for me to keep track sometimes because blog hops are so fast paced! I'll probably only do it twice a week for now. I do find it to be a very useful networking tool. A blogger this week actually asked me a question on an item in my shop.

I haven't had time check in at the Etsy forums at all this week, I think I'll go there right now! Until next time...