Thursday, November 27, 2008

Thankful for Etsy :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Now, I know, that only counts for those of us in the USA  - but it's still an excellent reminder to be thankful for all the good things in our lives.  I, for one, am extremely for having found www.etsy.com! To give a little back story:

I love jewelry, despite the fact that I grew up a tom-boy! I first learned how to do wire-wrapped jewelry around 10 years ago, and I remember spending hours and hours working making chains of links, and dreaming of someday selling in a craft fair or open market.  I never really thought it would happen though.  At the time I still wasn't very coordinated and it took me a LONG time to make a bracelet or necklace!

Fast forward - time goes on - and I learned some new jewelry techniques and began to seriously dream of selling jewelry.  This was about two years ago.  I wasn't really sure what to do though.  I had some friends and family really encouraging me, but I didn't have any idea how to start!  Plus life was really busy.

Then, about a year ago, I started getting really sick. That's a long story, but the result was that I had a lot of time on my hands where I ended up making jewelry, because it was something I could do sitting still.  After a few months of that, one of my friends introduced me to etsy, and the rest was history!

Ok, not quite, it's been a lot of hard work and I've learned a LOT since I opened up shop in May. It's hard to start making a dent in the jewelry world, because there are a lot of other artists out there, but I have had sales on etsy!


I'm really thankful for having this opportunity, especially since my health problems have continued! I'm also extremely excited, because I know I've learned a lot in the last year about my craft - here's a few of the pieces I'm the most proud of!







I know I have a lot more to learn - but see - that's something else to be thankful for! Because I have another year ahead of me with lots of opportunities to learn new things, expand my business, and make new friends!

Want to know what else I'm thankful for? Check out what I said on my other blogs!

Thankful for friends.
Thankful for family.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

New Jewelry Designs

Happy almost Thanksgiving! A bunch of new jewelry items up on my site today, the two pictured here are just a sample. I had an extra incentive to get them photographed and posted since I just sent out my holiday special offer email to everyone on my email list! I always mean to send my email offers out more frequently but tend to just do one in the fall or winter. I've heard that more frequent (without being annoying) is more successful but I never seem to get around to it.
Even if you weren't signed up for my email newsletter this time around, you can still benefit. I'm offering free shipping on all orders to the U.S. and Canada until December 7th! I also have a bunch of jewelry items on sale in an effort to clear out a bunch of inventory to make way for next year's designs so this is a great time to shop.
For those of you in the U.S., enjoy turkey day! I know I will be taking a moment tomorrow to be thankful for so many people and things in my life. The holiday spirit has already hit me enough that I think it's time for me to do a little giveaway this week... Post a comment on my blog about what you're thankful for and I'll enter you in a random drawing to win a sweet little pair of sterling silver earrings featuring my ceramic charms for you to keep for yourself or to knock one more gift off your list! Comments must be posted by this Sunday the 30th (Pacific time) to qualify. I'll get a photo of the earrings up once I've come out of my turkey induced food coma...