Thursday Top Pick

“Jewelry Works by Kim”, is today's “Thursday Top Pick” .  Her shop boasts some gorgeous items which I hope you will all take a look at.  You can find her shop here………

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6946343

These pictures depict a couple of her favorite items…….

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forest Canopy Earrings

 

                                                                  

Icy Leaves Earrings

 

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO OPEN AN ETSY SHOP?

I have been making jewelry for over 12 years.  I had only sold my pieces at boutiques and craft shows.  I did have my own website up until last year, but getting traffic to it was almost impossible.  Over the past holiday season, I met up with a former boutique owner that used to carry my jewelry.  She and I got to talking about Etsy and how we were both planning to open a shop on Etsy.  So, here I am with my very own shop on Etsy.  I have since closed down my other website.

WHAT KIND OF ITEMS DO YOU SELL IN YOUR ETSY SHOP?

I design and make handcrafted jewelry.  My favorite metal to use is silver.  I like to combine natural stone and glass beads in my pieces.  I would describe my jewelry as “Modern”.

WHAT IS THE NAME AND LINK TO YOUR FAVORITE ETSY SHOP (OTHER THAN YOUR OWN) ?

While hunting for items to put in a treasury I was making (I still have not been able to snag one), I came across this wonderful artist named, Melissa Moss.  She creates awesome paintings, many of which have a leaf or tree theme.  (A girl with the same love of leaves as me).  Check out her beautiful artwork.  One of these days when I am finally able to get a treasury, she will be featured.           

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5039797&ga_search_query=melissamoss&ga_search_type=seller_usernames

A big thank you goes out to Kimberly for being so cooperative in getting this feature up and running.  As usual, any comments you leave are muchly appreciated.  :o)

Two Sales

I was blessed yesterday to have had two sales in my Etsy purse shop.  It always feels good when something sells  because that means that my creations are marketable and being enjoyed by other people.  Naturally, we like the things we make, but it just means a lot when other people like them too.  I started a beach bag yesterday.  The outside is going to be navy and white stripes (wide) and the inside will be navy blue canvas.  I have a cotton web belt that I bought at a second hand shop which is navy and white.  The belt will be the straps.  I wish I had some of the white nautical rope, but I don’t, so the belt will work well.  My idea is to have a solid, navy canvas square on the front of the bag with a white anchor designed in it.  I have the anchor drawn and just need to do the appliqué.   I hope it looks as good finished as it does in my mind.  I decided to relist this bag today as I won’t have the beach bag finished until later today.  I like to list or relist something every morning. 

This is a “Travel Doggie Bag” which is rather like a babies diaper bag.  Everything shown comes with it, and it sure would make traveling with your pooch much easier.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  I am wondering what happened to the warm temperatures we had been enjoying.  Brrr, when I got up at 6:15 AM I was quite cold.  It was even warm yesterday morning, but halfway through the day we were busy closing the windows.  I confess to breaking down and turning on the furnace around supper time.  I talked to my brother that lives in south Dakota on Sunday.  He said they had a day last week that the temperatures were in the 90’s last week and then they plummeted and it was in the 40’s there on Sunday.  Crazy weather.

I will be featuring another Etsy shop tomorrow for the “Thursday Top Picks”. I have been enjoying the hunt for shops to feature and have found shops I might never have seen if not for this venture.  I hope my readers are enjoying this new addition to my blog.  Remember, I love to read your comments and ideas.  If anyone would like to recommend a shop or seller please leave their name and their shop link in the comment section of my blog.  :o)

Tuesday Top Pick

As promised, today I am starting a regular feature on my blog which will be known as “Tuesday & Thursday Picks”.  I will feature various Etsy shops and share a little information about each shop owner, as well as posting a couple items from their shop.

The first Etsy shop I will be featuring today is called “Serenity Art “ {Real Fantasy}.  This beautiful shop is owned by Rhiannon Strobel.  She has some amazing artwork and you can check out her shop here:   http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5292039

Here are a couple of her favorite pieces of art.

“Mother Mermaid”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Purple Fae’

 

WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO OPEN AN ETSY SHOP?

* My friend was selling soap and body products on Etsy and she was really enjoying herself.  I had my own website for awhile, but got very little traffic.  My friend suggested I try opening a shop on Etsy, which I did and love it.  I have found that an Etsy shop is much easier to maintain than a website.

WHAT KIND OF ITEMS DO YOU SELL IN YOUR SHOP?

**I offer many different types of art, but the three basic types of oil paintings I create would be first of all, “Fantasy Portraits”.  A custom “Fantasy Portrait” allows you to choose which kind of fantasy character you would like to be.  You would also choose the colors as well as anything else you would like included in the painting.  The second type of art I sell is called “Intuitive Art”.  This type of art involves dream symbols and intuitive feelings that I have painted on canvas.  Thirdly, I paint what is known as “Intention Art”, which is like a prayer in oil paint.  I use symbols and images to capture your goals and dreams in paint on canvas.

WHAT IS THE NAME AND LINK TO YOUR FAVORITE ETSY SHOP (OTHER THAN YOUR OWN).  ?

***My favorite Etsy shop is called “Sylvia66”.  Here is the link to her shop.  http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5088567&ga_search_query=Silvia66&ga_search_type=seller_usernames

I would like to thank Rhiannon for participating in my new venture.  I hope everyone will be sure and check out her shop.  Please feel free to leave comments about today's post.  :o)

Starting a New Blog Element

I have decide to start something I call, “Tuesday & Thursday Top Picks”.  Every Tues. and Thurs. I will be featuring an Etsy shop which will include a couple of pictures and a little bit about the artist.  If any of my readers would be interested in being featured, please leave a comment and I will contact you for information.  I am excited about this as there are so many wonderful shops offering such a variety of products.

I forgot to mention that  this past Thursday evening at dinner, Nick bit into his sub and started screaming about his front tooth.  At a glance, I could see that it was bleeding a bit, but did not tell him as he totally freaks out if he thinks he is bleeding.  His tooth was so loose that it had to come out or he would continue to be in pain every time he tried to eat.  Now this is the second tooth he has lost and the last one was pulled by the school nurse.  I asked him if I could pull it and he said that only the school nurse could do it.  I told him that mommy is a nurse (which I am) and I could work at school if I wanted to.  He kept screaming and crying and then he says in his really sad voice, “But I LOVE this tooth”.  We had all we could not to laugh which would have made the situation worse.  Finally he decides to trust me to pull it.  I got a hold of it and told him to let me know when he was ready for me to pull.  He nodded and I pulled.  It popped right out and he let out a blood curdling scream and kept proclaiming loudly, “I can’t believe you did that to me”.  After I get him to rinse (the whole time he is crying), I told him to look in the mirror.  Once he saw that gaping hole in his mouth he was perfectly fine.  Here is his now look.  :o)

Sore Muscles

My arm muscles are screaming and rebelling against the yard work I did yesterday.  Despite the pain in my arms due to the raking I did, I am very satisfied with what our family accomplished yesterday.  The kids and I got the winter trash, sticks ect. picked up off the lawn and raked the flower beds.  We got three receptacles full to the top with all the stuff we gathered from the flower beds and the yard.   What a great sense of satisfaction to have that job finished.  Of course we still have to do the yard work at our campsite, but we will wait till the water has been turned back on so we will have bathroom facilities while we are there.  Steve worked on getting the back porch de-winterized.   He has hard plastic panels that he puts up around the back porch every year and then we store much of our porch furniture out there and it doesn’t get snow on it.  He got all of that taken down and the porch washed off as well as some of the furniture washed.  Bradly also helped Steve with this project (Brad is a great helper).  All in all it was a very productive day and we are all feeling quite good about that.

I just finished re-listing an item from my Etsy shop that I am going to promote today.  This “Man’s Tattoo Messenger Bag” was my choice for today.

 

 

Tomorrow I am headed back to my studio to work on a new creation (not sure what it is yet), but first I want to make a change on a couple of bags I have already listed.  I love the look of this purse, but now that I have made one for myself, I realize it would be so much better if I added a closure at the top.  It is quite annoying to have stuff spill out of my purse every time it tips over.  Here is a pic of one that I need to add a closure to.

Here is one of these bags that I made a smaller version of and added a velcro closure.

 

 

 

A huge improvement I think.  I would love to know what my readers think about the addition of a closure to these bags.

 

Today we are planning on taking it easy.  I do want to get the rest of the porch furniture wiped down and the cushions added.  We are throwing a few strip steaks on the grill and making a chef salad for dinner as well as the left over Greek salad I made yesterday.  I made the Greek salad with wheat spiral noodles and it was awesome.  Sounds like a yummy but easy dinner…..right up my alley!!  :o)

Free Blog Bling

I found this awesome blog that offers some really great bling to dress up your blog.  She offers buttons and blinkies, blog background and headers.  The most surprising thing about this great find is that it is offered to you free of charge.  Here is an example of what she has to offer, plus if you notice a few additions to my blog, I also got them from this site.   http://www.shabbyblogs.com/button.html

In case you were all wondering, I did leave some fabric at Joann fabrics yesterday.  LOL  It was really difficult to manage some restraint as they were having a fantastic sale.  Much of the fabric choices were on sale for 50% off and many others were 30% off.  When I can get fabric half off, it would be really easy to go crazy.  I have to give my hubby credit because he never asks if i really need it or will I actually make something with it.  Steve is usually the one who encourages me to buy a fabric when I am hemming and hawing about whether to make a purchase.  I bought some cute, Debbie Mumm fabric with monkeys and some more of her fabric with different dogs plus a coordinating fabric for the lining.  I got a couple of solids for only $1.49 per yard  and I used my half off coupon for 4 yards of web as I am going to try making collars for Chloe and Karli, our dogs.  As you can see by the pic, thread was also half off, so I bought 4 spools.  McCalls patterns were .99 cents each, and I couldn’t resist a few of them.  Whew, don’t you think I did great limiting my purchases to these few things?  LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a gorgeous day here and the temperature is supposed to be in the upper 70’s.  I have a plan forming in my brain that if Steve and I and the kids really attack our yard, maybe we can get it looking presentable by the end of the day.  Because of our back problems we will need many breaks, but we really need to get this done.  We also need to do yard work at our camp site, but that will not be done today.  :o)

A Trip to Joann Fabrics

Oh Yeah, I am off on an outing to Joann Fabrics (my home away from home).  LOL  I confess to having a bit of a fabric addiction and whenever I go to the fabric store ,I have to restrain myself to buying just what I know I will use.  In reality, I would love a yard of just about everything they sell.

While we are in by the mall, we are going to  go to “Pet Smart” to get some puppy food and then we are probably going to “Red Robin “ for lunch.  This place has the best swiss, mushroom burgers ever.  They have started offering a wheat roll in place of the white one and you can exchange a chef salad for the fries.  Now, their fries are the best ever and they are great with a side of the homemade ranch dressing they offer, but their salad is so good, I really don’t miss the fries (to much anyway).  It is all about choices and it feels good to make better food choices and be able to eat out occasionally and not totally blow my diet.  Speaking of which, I was down another 2 pounds this morning so I am psyched.  :o)