Of My Favorite Things and Other Updates...

Finally got back on the bandwagon of setting a blog posting schedule (yay!)! So I'll jump right in, then. Can I just say how much I love Beaducation's website, products, videos, books, EVERYTHING?! I mean, I first found a few of their videos on YouTube when I was looking for some metal stamping hints, but then I started looking at all the goodies on their site and WOW. I want ALL the things. All of them. Seriously, this is probably one of the best sites for metal stamping supplies I've seen. Other sites concentrate on maybe one particular area, like stamping sets, and that's great, especially for price comparison, but Beaducation is just awesome for a comprehensive, one stop, here's-everything-you-need-to-get-started metal stamping source.

And I finally bought some stamping goodies from them a few weeks ago! Can't wait to buy more. I had to limit myself, which was VERY difficult, as it is when you're bombarded with tons of your favorite crafting goodies. So, what am I loving from Beaducation, you say?

Well...

Design stamps! I love design stamps and had NONE, so I bought my first design stamp, a heart!

I decided to keep it relatively simple and went with one of the basics for my first design stamp. This one is the Tiny Heart design stamp, and it's one made by Beaducation. It's so adorable!

I also bought some flat copper wire, which I'm going to use to make a bangle bracelet as soon as I acquire some bracelet bending pliers. For other stamping blanks, I kept it *mostly* simple to start with. As much as I love all of the fun and different shapes, I could just see myself buying a bunch of my favorites and them letting them sit and collect dust for ages because I can't think of anything to stamp on them.

So, I got a couple aluminum rectangles that I can either use for necklaces or i.d. tag-style bracelets (and I'm posting the listing pics here because it's way clearer than anything I'd be able to take right now):

Can be found here

An aluminum banner (I have a feeling I'm going to LOVE this one):

A small copper connector that is going to be a Doctor Who bracelet =) :

A copper spiral blank:

And I did go a little funky with two lightning bolt blanks (the other is brass) that I'm going to use for--you guessed it--Harry Potter necklaces. It's going to be awesome:

I also bought a pack of Pro Polish Pads, which I used when I stamped the oval tag for a Doctor Who bracelet, and that thing is as shiny as a brand-new penny. They're amazing. I even used it on the aluminum banner after darkening the letters and I didn't know aluminum blanks could be so shiny. I love these things.

I also finally bought a 1lb brass hammer from Michael's, and was able to use a competitor coupon to cushion the price. What a difference it makes in stamping! When I was trying out my heart stamp, I was having to tilt and tap the stamp in order to get all the edges and it still wasn't turning out the way I wanted! With the brass hammer, I hit it twice straight on, et voila! That's the result in the picture of the impression that I took earlier. I also finally found a decently priced screw-down hole punch at Hobby Lobby this weekend. I'm just so glad to be finally building up all the supplies I should have had when I started.

Can't wait to order some more goodies off my wish list (which, by the way, I had to make in order to ensure that I didn't go overboard!)!

What are some of your favorite suppliers, or supplies? If you're a stamper, what are some of your favorite blanks? design stamps? letter sets?

Bead Soup Blog Party Reveal!

Okay, so I meant to post a teaser pic, and to post a lot of other things as well, but I feel like the last month has just been nonstop going going going...aaaaand so the blog fell by the wayside, as it does.

Before I get to the posting of the pics, here's my process basically after I opened my bead soup from Patricia (see her blog here). I oohed and ahhed over all the pretty colors and patterns and shapes, then got flooded with about sixteen different ideas at once, so I set them aside before I went completely crazy and burned out the creativity right away. Then everybody started travelling, including me, and I was going to job interviews and designing email newsletters for TEN3 and going to appointments, and landed a job (yay!) and that brings us to this week with the pretty beads still waiting patiently. Then I panicked. A little.

I had originally thought I would make a necklace using as many of the beads as I could. I got to looking at it though, and didn't think I had enough to make a necklace as long as I wanted, and I didn't want to use my usual "cheat" of adding chain at the top near the clasp. I also didn't want all the pretty beads to get lost in the whole thing. So....I made a bracelet!

I also didn't feel like messing with it too much when I took the picture (ahemthismorning). But as you can see, I didn't let the pretties go to waste! I threaded 18ga wire through the black heart, which I assume was the focal (idk, it was the largest bead), and kind of wire wrapped the ends. Then I started adding other beads. I didn't really have a specific process for putting colors/other beads together, I just made sure to grab a couple of the smaller beads to bracket beads with holes too large for the headpins. That blue heart is still probably my favorite! The clasp is just gorgeous, too! And I was thinking when I was surveying all the polka dots, that if I didn't already have the perfect Mother's Day present for my mom, she would love this! So I guess I'll just have to keep it ;) And make myself some earrings with the leftovers, and if I can think of something creative, maybe a necklace using mostly chain and a couple beads that wouldn't work on the bracelet. 

Here is the permalink to the list of all participants: http://www.prettythingsblog.com/2014/05/welcome-to-8th-bead-soup-blog-party.html

Happy blog hopping!

Bead Soup!

Well, I probably should have posted this a week ago, but that didn't happen, obviously. I got my goodies from Patricia at Bangles and Brew last week, and am now getting the chance to show them off, along with the beads I sent her, since she got my soup, too :)

Here's the box I got, which had a tulle bow tied around it with an adorable orange lampwork flower:

All the individual goodies that I just can't wait to make something with--LOVE that blue heart. And those COLORS!

And one last overhead shot:

Here's what I sent Patricia:

Overhead view of ALL the goodies

 And then packaging:

Now let's get crafting!

Bead Soup Sneak Peek

I'm so excited that I get to be a part of the Bead Soup Blog Party that Lori Anderson hosts every year! Last year was my first year doing it, so I still feel like a bit of a newbie, only better prepared, if that makes any sense. Anyway, my partner for the swap is Patricia over at Bangles and Brew. You should also check her out on Facebook and on Etsy. Her lampwork beads are just gorgeous!

Here is a little sneak preview of what I sent her (and I may have gotten a little carried away with all the filters, but I'm not sorry xP):

Being Crafty...sort of

Last weekend, we were up at my grandparents' house, and I had said something awhile back to my dad about making some holders for my metal stamps. The two sets I have aren't made in the USA or otherwise shiny and expensive with their own handy holders, but I'm thinking, "it can't be THAT hard to make your own, right?"

One of Beaducation's stamp sets

Well, technically no, but it *is* time-consuming with all the holes to drill. So I brought my stamp sets and a couple blocks of wood, and while we were there last Saturday, we made use of my grandpa's drill press. And sander. And table saw and probably something else, too, but I'm not a tools person so I have no idea what to call the rest.

Of course, when I say "we," I mostly mean my dad and my grandpa. I already had a block of oak (I think it was oak) that my dad had just been messing around with in the garage and had given me to see if I could use in stamping. It just so happened to be the right size to hold some stamps. My grandpa cut the other piece of wood (which apparently was also very very hard) into a block shape and I think sent it through a planer.

Now, the thing with my metal stamps is that they're square. And drill bits are round. So we were literally fitting square pegs into round holes here. I have three different sets total--a set of 27 lowercase letters and an ampersand, a set of 36 uppercase letters, numbers, and ampersand, and a set of nine punctuation marks/symbols. The set of nine and 36 were the same size, stamp-wise. The set of 27 was a little bigger. We started with deciding that 45 stamps would fit on one block of wood, and drew a little grid on the block to space them out evenly.

My dad drilled three holes in the first block for the 45 stamps before I stuck one of the stamps into it (he was trying to hand it off to me so I could continue drilling, I think, but I was suspicious of the size of the holes). It didn't fit. So the next size up that my grandpa had fit the set of 27 perfectly, and also ended up being the size we used for the 45. My dad just threw out the idea of evenly spacing them at that point and decided to eyeball it while I drew the grid on the other block of wood for the 27.

Once he finished drilling, my grandpa sanded it really fast and then I stuck all the pegs into it, just to see how it looked. There's definitely plenty of room, and a couple pegs sit lower than the others, which is a little weird since my dad had it set to stop at the same depth every time, but I like it. I basically had all of the 36 stamps laying flat on a clipboard.

The set of 27 looks pretty good, too. A couple of the holes seem to be a little snug for the stamps, but there could just be some extra sawdust in there. I'm just glad that I don't have to dump all of my stamps out on the table or floor or wherever just to find the right letters.

I guess I need to start stamping again now that I've got these handy holders for all my stamps!

Art Walk Etsy First Friday treasuries

I try to participate in the whole First Friday treasury-making that goes on each month, but I've forgotten the last two months at least...made sure I remembered this month, though!

Here's my treasury:




And here are a few other FFAW treasuries by other AWETeam members:








Enjoy!

A bit of news...

Recently, as you can see from the last couple of posts, I've taken up metal stamping. Mostly because I've always liked the freedom to customize a piece for my own needs, and because it looked fun. But all of my stamped metal pieces clash with my beaded pieces, and even though I love beads, I've finally decided that I'm going to start phasing my strung pieces out of my Etsy shop.

What this means:

For those pieces I have that haven't sold, I'm either going to mark down or leave them be, and if they still haven't sold by the time they expire, they stay expired.

I may also either start a destash shop or at least a section to try to get rid of beads that I know I'm never going to use in a piece for myself. I'm not getting rid of every bead I have (horrors!) because I'll probably continue to make things for myself, or if my dad needs a last-minute gift for my mom like he usually does XD.

What this doesn't mean:

I'm not going to completely discontinue every piece of strung jewelry in my shop. The only pieces I will keep in there are my Once Upon A Time pieces, because I love doing those, and I am going to continue making those pieces.

I enjoy making these stamped pieces because I can let off some of my fangirliness (that's a word now) about my favorite things, like Doctor Who, and Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, and Shakespeare, and on and on and on. And I know other people like to have things like these that are from their favorite fandoms, and this brand just suits me better than trying to rationalize why a necklace fits with a fairytale theme.

Now as far as all this jewelry goes...I hope I'm not going to be stuck with too many pieces after it's all phased out, but if I am...thoughts on what to do with it all?

January-February Listings

Here are my latest listings for the months of January-February (one or two might actually be from December though...). 

Doctor Who?-- SOLD

Come along, Pond--SOLD

As You Wish

Always...

"After all this time?" "Always."

Mischief managed!

Bad Wolf--SOLD!

Hello Sweetie--SOLD

Turn to page 394.

I am and always will be the optimist

(End of) October listings, and other various updates

Well, it's been an interesting month, as I decided to teach myself how to stamp metal. My dad had a set of stamps that are, well, kind of small, but they're serving their purpose for now. The only anvil he's got is a piece of railroad track. I turn it on its side to use it. If I just carried it up and down the steps for a couple minutes, I could get in a serious workout for the day. At any rate, all I have is the alphabet in all caps, numbers, and an ampersand. Which means if I want to do a quote or anything like that, I have to be careful to not pick one with any sort of punctuation. I kind of faked it when I made an "Allons-y!" (sans exclamation point) ring by turning the capital I sideways, since the font isn't a serif font.

I experimented on a sheet I'd already tried a few months ago when I didn't have the railroad track. You can sort of see in the "Allons-y" square where the "S" got messed up. That's because I did exactly what you're NOT supposed to do and hit the stamp twice, which shifted the letter slightly and caused it to blur. It's probably a good thing I did it on the scrap. I don't have any liver of sulfur lying around and probably won't as long as I'm jobless, but right now the Sharpie-and-rubbing-alcohol method seems to be working out just fine. Here I was a little hesitant with the alcohol, so it's a little messy. I also accidentally turned the "O" sideways when doing "Doctor Who" but I think it actually kind of fits.

I saw this idea on Pinterest, and it caught my attention right away since I like to collect these stamped pennies whenever we visit somewhere new. It's a much more creative idea than just buying a book to shove them all away in. I had a metal hole punch that I bought when I bought the stamping supplies, but the pennies were probably a little bit thicker gauge than the punch it made for. It still works just fine, but it was a little difficult to use on the pennies. Apparently we visit our local aquarium too much, because I have three pennies from there. They have awesome designs, though. The Pepsi store is also in my hometown, and I discovered a little while ago that they expanded their store and added a penny machine, so this weekend when I was downtown with some friends, we made a little stop in there and I got another penny. I had to use a shiny 2013 penny, too :).

Then I decided to try doing a longer stamping project. I found a quote I'd pinned on Pinterest that didn't use any punctuation and sat on the floor, hammering it out. Yes, I've been doing all this stamping on the floor. The railroad track isn't exactly made for tabletop use. I was going to be all uber-serious about this and use tape to mark some straight lines and even spacing, but that would have taken too long, so I just eyeballed it. I like hand-stamped things to not be perfect, though. It shows that it was handcrafted, not machine stamped. Now, this is still a little too off for me towards the bottom, but I blame the fact that it was my first huge project, and I was watching a TV show at the same time and kept stopping and looking up. I was also a little impatient, but at least I didn't turn any of my letters sideways. I've started laying out the stamps in order now (as much as I can with repeating letters, anyway), which makes the process much faster and easier. I probably need to mark the letters on the stamps at some point...

 These focals were already cut and hole-punched for me, so I went right ahead and stamped a couple significant quotes. My "process," as you can see, for the lettering is to color in the words with a Sharpie. I was a little hesitant with the stamping when I was doing these, so the letters are a little shallow and therefore not as dark. I think the only one I wasn't afraid to stamp was the round copper one. I got a little nervous, I think, because I told myself that I was going to actually use these in jewelry, no more practicing, time to get this show on the road, that sort of thing. The silver diamond at the top says "I will always find you," Snow White and Prince Charming's sweet little catchphrase on Once Upon A Time. The copper circle says "Bad Wolf," the message Rose scatters through time and space for the Doctor on Doctor Who. And the gold diamond says "Not all who wander are lost," a line from Bilbo's poem about Aragorn in The Fellowship of the Ring. Of course, I realized later that it's missing a word, but I know I'm not the only one to write the quote like that, so I'm okay with it. Sort of.

Here is the necklace I made with the "Bad Wolf" piece. The blue bicone I added isn't the particular shade of blue I wanted, but I think it could still pass for something close to TARDIS blue. Maybe. Just go with it, okay?

Rose is one of my favorite companions, and there aren't really a lot of individual quotes for each companion (not that I've seen Classic Who, so I'm basically talking about companions with 9-11) that I can think of off the top of my head. Might be why I like the phrase "Bad Wolf" so much. It signals the Doctor about Rose, but it's also a sign that shows who other Whovians are. I have a "Bad Wolf" ring I got on Etsy, and it hasn't revealed any fellow Whovians, but I still wear it, hoping. Now I've added a necklace. This one, of course, is for sale in my shop for...ahem...others to partake of.

And this is the Once Upon A Time-inspired necklace I made out of the "I Will Always Find You" pendant. I would have thought I'd have a lot more green beads since it's one of my favorite colors, but I really had to dig to find this one. The green is to represent the peridot ring that Charming proposed to Snow with, which we know his mother gave to him to give to his true love. Or that love followed the ring, or something. They found each other (see what I did there?). Okay, I'll stop.

The only necklace I haven't put together yet is the "Not All Who Wander Are Lost" one. I want to do sort of the same theme as with these two: simple chain, a bead dangle that matches the fandom, and metal pendant. Lord of the Rings is tough, though. What color represents LotR? I could go off the extended edition movie cases, but that gives my green, a reddish brown, and blue. Pretty colors, but I don't really think they'd go well together as beads. I don't have any sword charms, or ring charms, or any other charm that fits the theme well, either. I thought about just stringing it on some leather cord and leaving it like that, but it seems a bit plain that way. I'll come up with something eventually, I suppose. Any thoughts? Ideas?

September listings so far...

Here are this month's Etsy listings so far...
Enjoy!

Once Upon A Time Aurora-inspired necklace

Ruby red dangly earrings

Winter is Coming dangly earrings--SOLD OUT

First Friday Artwalk!

Enjoy this treasury featuring members of the AWETeam on Etsy!

Official!

It's official!

My Etsy shop is now officially Fairytales & Fandoms! I've got a cool new banner and logo, and I rearranged ALL THE THINGS last night into new categories, so now I'm ready to go!!

Screeeech.

First, though, whilst moving listings last night, I noticed that I *still* need new photos for some of the different things. SO. Before I add anything new (which, basically, is not much...), I've got some photos to retake. But after that, it's Add New Stuff time!

I particularly want to get some fandom-themed things in, since that IS part of the shop name. We'll have to see how it goes. I need to dive into Season 2 of Once Upon A Time to see what kind of awesome jewelry Regina has there. I love her costumes. She always looks awesome. But I digress.

Head on over to the shop and tell me what you think!

It's about time...

For a shop overhaul, that is. I've decided to start making and selling the things that are geared towards my own interests (which is what I should have been doing in the first place). I sort of had that going on with all my Once Upon A Time-themed jewelry, and that's definitely going to continue. I like those things and gear them towards others who like those things, and that means those things sell. So I'm renaming my shop (the blog and twitter handle will stay the same, don't worry) and putting anything that doesn't fit into my new shop stuff parameters on super clearance. Don't ask me what that means, because I haven't gone through all the things yet. I've finally decided on a shop name, though...

Fairytales & Fandoms!

Fits perfectly with the OUAT jewelry I love, and the jewelry that it's inspired, and leaves room for me to sell other things inspired by other fandoms. This, I'm hoping, will be fun. I've already redesigned a simple logo and will be incorporating it into various things shortly.

So, what do you guys think? Like the name? Hate it? Anybody else seriously overhauled an Etsy shop before? Speak words of wisdom to me!

BSBP Reveal!

Here, at long last, is what I made from the soup that Crystal sent me! I was a little stressed this week and I've got another project with the glass mix she sent me on deck, but I whipped this up using one of the toggles and the focal since that was the important part for the reveal!Be sure to check out my partner's blog as well (linked to her name), and happy blog hopping!

I used some coral ovals with peridot chips and green crackle glass rounds and strung it all up together..I was going to add a little extra sparkle with some of the clear glass faceted rounds Crystal sent me, but I just couldn't get it arranged right...

 And of course I didn't have nearly enough peridot chips to go with the coral, but luckily the crackle glass matched it well enough...

Only had four pieces of the coral, so I added the chain after I ran out to finish it off and put the clasp on the side--really liking that style right now...

I've got a bracelet in the works with the other pinkish purple mix Crystal sent me, but I just didn't have time to do both. Maybe I'll post picture in the next reveal date? Or sooner ;) Check out Bead Soup Blog Party for the complete list!

My soup from Crystal

At long last, I finally remember to update! I've got some pictures of the soup that Crystal sent me, and hopefully they've turned out because I honestly can't remember what they looked like when I took them. Oh well. Here goes:

First, the toggle. There's lots of little drilled holes at the bottom and I feel like I should branch out and do something with them, but my mind is drawing a complete blank. I suppose I'll think of something...

On the left here, I've got some fire-polished glass faceted rounds that are full of sparkle. I like sparkle XD. And on the right, THREE toggle options (!!) and a pretty bronze filigree pendant/charm.

 Some fire-polished red faceted glass rounds....

A totally awesome mix of glass beads that I am totally digging (I have a focal bead that goes with this color combination PERFECTLY)....

Some little man-in-the-moon beads (at least that's what I've been calling them)....

And an overview shot of everything minus the focal. Great soup, thanks, Crystal! Reveal date is March 30, so tune back then! (Point of interest: that's also the day Doctor Who returns all-new and I'm SO EXCITED)