The Great Gremlin Giveaway!

Update: I am extending the entry for the gremlin giveway until midnight (EST) Friday! Apprently, I have an art show and a fireman's dinner to attend that evening so everyone gets some extra time to enter! Good luck!

It's that time of year! Time for a blog giveaway! I have had such a great response to my gremlins I'm going to give two away! Post a comment between now and Friday and I will pick a winner on Friday evening. The winner will receive a gremlin ornament and gremlin brooch (not the one's pictured). My only rule is that you live in the US or Canada. I dont think these guys will make it anywhere else in time for the holidays. Good luck!
In addition to making a gazillion gremlins I took another metalsmithing class. This time I spent 6 hours enamelling. Well actually, I spent the first hour discussing my ideas and watching Sue make an example. After watching her I decided to just experiment and I'm glad I did. They came out so well!

Both copper ovals were sawed by hand then prepped for the enamel. It took me forever to decide what colors to use because she has an entire box filled with them! After several hours with the torch, I had two finished pieces. I also have a new appreciation for enamelling.

I hope everyone is having a great time Christmas shopping. I'm almost finished with mine but if you are still looking, here are some more Etsy sellers I recommend:
Woodmouse

http://www.woodmouse.etsy.com/

Adorable wooden toys and ornaments. I bought this cute pink squirrel and a custom ordered pink mouse.

Tulips to Kiss

http://www.tulipstokiss.etsy.com/

Clever sterling silver jewelry.

Puzzimals

http://www.puzzimals.etsy.com/

Wooden puzzils and ornaments.

Good luck and happy shopping!

Shop til you drop!

I have officially made the decision not to open my Etsy shop at this time. I don't want to rush into something I wasn't fully prepared for. I would rather wait until I have the time to run it properly. Sorry to anyone who was anxiously awaiting its opening. Now on to the fun stuff...

The gremlins started as a joke and have now officially taken over Christmas! I spent 2+ weeks making the first group of gremlin ornaments, yes the FIRST group. I now have to begin work on the second group. I believe I need at least 6 more. I also embellished a stocking with a gremlin applique. I had ordered a stocking for myself online and was disappointed when it arrived so I took matters into my own hands. I'll have photos of the stocking this week.

Since I wont have my Etsy shop open for Christmas I thought it would nice if I share some of my favorite shops with you. These are just some of the places I've had a great shopping experience with:

Hidden Haven

http://www.hiddenhaven.etsy.com/

I love her unscented lotion. It's perfect for sensitive skin.

Jennifer Morris Beads

http://www.jennifermorrisbeads.etsy.com/

Amazingly detailed polymer clay jewelry.

The Funky Bag Lady

http://www.thefunkybaglady.etsy.com/

Wonderful bags and purses. My mom loved mine so much she made me to buy her one!

Humble Beads

http://www.humblebeads.etsy.com/

Polymer clay bead sets and finished jewelry. You have to check out her snowmen pendants!

Holly Jolly Holiday's

http://www.hollyjollyholidays.etsy.com/

A stocking I wasnt dissapointed with. Very well made and shipped super quick! Colin loves it!

Maggie J's

http://www.maggiejs.etsy.com/

Excellent quality metalsmithing. I gave my mom and Colin's mom necklaces from here for Mother's Day. They love them.

Join me next time for my latest adventures in metalsmithing. I had a 6 hour class today and I signed up for another on Saturday! Happy crafting and shopping!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! For those of you going out into the craziness tomorrow, good luck and don't get trampled! I'll be doing more of my online Etsy shopping tomorrow and perhaps a trip to Michael's for more craft supplies (you can never have too many).

A quick note about my Etsy shop, it will not be open tomorrow. I made a dumb dumb and didn't realize how a Paypal seller's account worked. I'll be making a trip to the bank on Saturday to open another account specifically for Etsy.

I'm off to grandpa's now. Stay tuned this weekend for photos of my Christmas gremlin ornaments and more! Have fun everyone!

The Holiday's are Coming! Ahhhh!

The holiday's are coming and I'm really trying to have the Etsy store open for Black Friday. I spent several hours photographing pendants yesterday and I think I have at least 7 pendants that are ready. I have so many more to photograph. I'm hoping when I get out of work early on Wednesday that I'll have some good lighting. If i don't make my deadline that's OK. I don't want to open and do everything wrong.

I've also been busy making Christmas versions of my gremlins. They are red and green with bells hanging from them. I have three done and at least six more to go! I'm also planning a special gremlin for my best friend and a Hanukkah (blue and white) gremlin for another. Colin's family is getting the first set of them on Thanksgiving since my parents are out in the southwest this year. Almost forgot, I'll be trading a large gremlin with a member on craftster.org for a plush she's making for me! I love trades!

I know this post is short but I have so much to do so I better get back to work. You probably have a lot to do so get back to it! Hehe!

A Busy Month

November has turned out to be a busy month. At work we're trying to get all the audits done in a short amount of time due to the holiday. I've been coming home exhausted but that hasn't stopped me from crafting. I think I've made more things this month than in the last few!

As you can see above, I finished my dog pendants. For some strange reason they all came out in orange tones. I did NOT plan it this way. Maybe the fall colors finally got to me? I'm considering turning one into a beaded necklace. I have lots sterling silver wire and some nice orange agate beads that would compliment the pendants nicely.

I've also been making several stuffies and have posted photos of them on craftster.org in the toy section . There is another bunny and several gremlins. I enjoyed the gremlins so much that I'm going to make miniature ones in green and red for Christmas ornaments. I'll post those here when I'm finished with them.

Hmmm what else have I been making? Well, there's the batch of lip balm I made which turned out smooth but a bit greasy and kind of an ugly color. I have a revised recipe I'm going to make tomorrow.

There's also all the copper wire I've been destroying...errrr...playing with. I love the look of kilt pins but the ones at the store are all silver-plated (yuck). So I practiced on copper and after a few mistakes (can you guess which is the mistake, lol) I came out with a decent kilt-pin! I still need to finish hammering and filing the point but otherwise it's done. I think I like them better in copper than in silver.

Time to get back to creating!

(Mis)Adventures In Glass Fusing and More!

(Disclaimer: This evening's post is filled with sarcasm. Read at your own risk.)

Before I show off my "fantastic" glass cabochons I thought we'd start off with my project from last night. I made "Stitches" completely by free-hand (like you couldn't tell, hehe). I drew out a pattern on some cardstock and went from there. I love stuffies and I had the urge to make one. I had no intention of finishing him right then and there but once I started I couldn't stop. "Stitches" took about two hours and was a ton of fun to make. If I have time tonight I'm going to work on another bunny but this time with a slightly different shape. If you want to make a "Stitches"-like bunny, all you need is felt, buttons, embroidery floss, a needle and some stuffing. Now on to the fusing!

Colin and I have been playing with our kiln for a few weeks trying to find out the magic formula that will allow us to have fantastic fused cabochons. The horror that originally came out of the kiln has now been replaced by pieces that cant be used but are very encouraging.

We have learned over the last couple weeks that firing at too high a temperature and for too long causes the glass to come out with sharp or uneven edges. This first batch you can clearly how some have strange edges (not to mention the horrible color combinations).

During another of our kiln runs Colin managed to make the dichroic glass inside shatter. It looks cool but the cabochon is useless. We keep all these rejects as examples so we can learn from them (it's a what-not-to-do show and tell).

After all these uglies, we finally started to see a major improvement. Now don't get me wrong, you wont see these "beauties" for sale in my Etsy site...ever. But after all the disappointment we were quite pleased to see round edges. Who would think a person could get so excited over round edges?!?

So tonight's lesson is that imperfect handcrafted bunny's are cute and if your projects aren't coming out how you expected, practice practice practice!

Adventures in Wire

I didn't mean to go over a week without a post but well, I did. Last weekend I went to a juried arts and crafts fair at the Morristown Armory and ordered my wedding band and bought Christmas presents. The wedding band is being created by Finestra (http://www.finestradesign.com/). She had this fantastic gold band that I loved but I wanted white gold so she said to give her 4 weeks and she'll have it ready. I'm going to try to not get too excited since the wedding isn't until July, lol!


So besides shopping I've also been creating lately. A few weekends ago I was playing with some tiny charm blanks and made these little ladies. Once my sterling wire order arrives I'll be turning them into earrings. I really enjoy making earrings, especially as gifts. It's funny, because even though my ears are pierced I hardly ever wear earrings. My friends never get tired of receiving them.

And since I'm getting ready for my wire order to arrive I've been practicing making earwires out of copper wire. I love copper because I can mess up over and over and it doesn't cost much to replace. I also attempted to make the pin base from Sharilyn Miller's wire book. I dont think it was bad for a first try. I didn't put any beads on because I didn't want to take the time to remove them if I messed up horribly.

Well, that's all for now. Join me next time when I post about my misadventures in glass fusing!