New homepage?

Yup. I decided to give flavors.me a try. I really like it so far; it's a great way to keep all (or almost all) your links in one place. Mine is flavors.me/eclipsical.

I will have photos to post soon. It takes ages for me to wake up lately, it seems, so I'll post them this evening with any luck.

Clearance!

I have a new Clearance section! This jewelry is marked down and ready to go to a good home! There are lots of great bargains for the jewelry lovers on your gift list! Plus, you can use any discount coupons you have up to 50% off. :) Don't have a coupon? No problem. Send me a message and I will give you one!

 C L E A R A N C E 

H O L I D A Y   C L E A R A N C E

 Please check them out, and spread the word! 

Hard work and no play keeps one busy!

Today I've uploaded lots of new jewelry. I'll post a few pictures below. I'm also trying a new thing with the store. At the bottom of each item's listing, I'm adding a "Why we love it" section, I guess to try to get across what I see in each piece. Maybe it'll work, maybe not, but I need to come up with some way to get my products selling. :/ By the way, you can use coupon code "BLOGDEC15" to have 15% taken off your total at checkout until the end of the month. Use the code as many times as you like! Store link is at the bottom of this entry if you need it.

Advice is welcome.

Now the new pieces!

All together now: Oooooh!

I'm super proud of this one. It took me ages to get all the links uniform in loop size, but it was great practice for me. I think it looks a lot more grown up. The downside is that it's kind of busy (I think) and I don't really like pieces that aren't outrageously simple, but I think it's still pretty to look at.

Snowman!

I was just kind of experimenting with shapes here, and I hit on something that I liked enough to try to sell. :) I think the way the beads sparkle just kind of makes it.

 Jingle bells, jingle bells~

This bell makes the cutest little sound. :3 I love it, and the crystal, and the lights of the tree behind my wife, who is modeling for me.

Look, it comes in green too!

I kind of like the green better, not just because I like it more than red, but for the differences between the shades of green of the flower and the crystal.

  What a shine!

This necklace is all pearl, all the time, except for that super-cute gift pendant. That's pewter with antiquated gold plating. This necklace was also an excuse to practice with simple loops.

  Ice cream, anyone?

Its name is "Neapolitan" because that's what it makes me think of. Sweet strawberry, golden vanilla, and sexy, sexy chocolate are represented by the colors of the pearls. I think I'm getting kind of hungry just looking at it. The toggle clasp is  an odd to "twist" flavored ice cream.

I'm nuts for this set.

Speaking of pearls, let's have a look at my favorite creation! I call it "Lady Like" because 1. it's lady-like and 2. I'm a lady, and I like it. It's so soft and feminine without being annoyingly girly and overly pink and frilly. It's simple, but it keeps your eyes busy, plus I've never seen another set of earrings like those. The clasp, for me, is what makes it. It's nice without it, sure, but I think it wouldn't look quite so awesome without it.

  So green~!

Glass butterflies and light blue cats eye go really well together. For me, the best thing is that you can wear it year-round and it won't look out of place. It's light enough for winter, green enough for Yule or Christmas, perfect for spring and summer, and works well with the traditional autumn color palate. Awesome!

You feel happy looking at this, don't you?

I don't think I've ever had a bracelet that made me happier to look at than this one. It's just glass hearts and dark blue cats eye beads, but the contrast and colors are so cheerful that I can't help but feel happy when I look at this. :-)

That's all for today. I injured my back rather badly at Kohl's last week, so I've been working hard on jewelry at home instead. 

Don't forget to to check out the shop! You can use coupon code "BLOGDEC15" to have 15% taken off your total at checkout until the end of the month. Use the code as many times as you like!

Product Review time!

Well, I've been trying to find a chance to get this up for about a month now, but when school wasn't getting in the way, Thanksgiving was. Excuses, excuses! Yeah, I know!

I haven't been able to fully finish playing around with all the beads - partly because the two separate projects I had planned didn't work and I ended up combining them. Let's start with what I didn't use, shall we? I'm a big, BIG fan of Artbeads' glass bead collection, especially their Swarovski crystals. So when I tried the 6mm jet bicones, I knew I was going to get nothing less than the best. I was right, of course, but it's hard to find a lot that I have that these go with. :/ I'm planning on putting them into a future steampunk project, since they ended up not working this time. Ah well. It happens!

The other beads I tried and didn't use were both pressed Czech glass coins. The green tiger's eye beads are great to look at, but I'm not liking the shape too much. I think 12mm was a bit big for me. I also got them in jet/red stripes. I think these aren't quite as pretty as the green, but that's just a color preference issue. Maybe I'll use them for a holiday bracelet.

Now for the finished project! At first I was going to make two different necklaces. Both would have a pendant as the focus. The first necklace would be gunmetal and silver and have a handmade drawing as a pendant with crystals dangling from it. The other would have a leaf-shaped pendant and the coin-shaped beads.

Well, that didn't work at all. Here's what I came up with after a long, long time:

All together now: Oooooooh!

I combined the two pendants. One is a frame, the other is a leaf that I absolutely fell head over heals in love with. I'm very proud of the frame pendant. I did all the designing and coloring myself, and I went through about 7 designs before I found one I liked. I'm not much of an artist either, so this is a huge accomplishment for me. To put the picture onto the frame, I used a tiiiiny bit of glue, and then Glossy Accents to embellish it. It protects the picture really well, and it was easy to put on. However, I think I'm a little bit fail because it's a tad uneven in places, so I need to go back and fix that.

Some of the other bits of art I almost went with.

Twisting chain together to create color and accent worked really well for me at Matsuri Con with my key necklaces, so I thought I'd try it again here. I like it, and think it works well. :) The base metal chain is super sturdy, and it doesn't bother my neck at all.

As an aside, I think this blog is going to become a bit more active. I'm trying to decide what kind of content to add. We'll see. :)  

(Let's go ahead and put the legal stuff here, shall we? I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received the above pictured items free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in these photos was bought and paid for by me from other locations.)

Indecision

I am terribly indecisive tonight. Do I post in my blog? Do I work on jewelry commissions? Do I sit and read or work on homework? Of course, as soon as I go to do something, I immediately change my mind about it. :/ Irritating.

Speaking of jewelry, I re-listed some old items that I have the ability to remake. :) You can check them out by clicking on the title of this entry. I'm also definitely taking commissions, because I need the money.

I also think I've finally chosen what to do for the Blogging for Beads post. I just... need to actually finish it. ^^; I'm super slow, I guess. Thanks, school.

Creative slump?

Well, yes and no. Admittedly, school does make it pretty hard to get anything accomplished and a girl has to have her priorities. I feel like none of my designs for Blogging for Beads are working out correctly this time around, but that's okay. :3 I have a couple of pearl necklaces I'm working on instead. Why force creativity, right? It'll come to me in time.

Instead I've been focusing on organizing my office/guest bedroom into something orderly and kind of homely. It's kind of working.

My darling fiancee and I are living in her mother's old house at the moment because 1. it's nice to not be homeless and 2. her mom can't just leave it empty and abandoned, and it's enough of a dump that nobody will buy it. Not in this market. So we've been trying to fix the place up a bit. When we moved in (nearly four years ago) there were bible pages stuck to the floor and mold everywhere. Those are gone, but the floors still have some damage we can't fix.

The office was one of the worst places. It goes through cycles as a storage space, but it's mostly cleaned up for company next week. Necessity begets creativity, I think.

I'm probably rambling a bit because I just woke up, I think, but what I wanted to say was that display pieces for art booths make the best decorations and furniture. :D If only we could afford paint for the walls, my office would be kickin'.

Two things!

1. SALE! I haven't had one in ages, so I guess there's no time like the present! Take 20% off Winter Holiday items and 15% off regular items! Sale lasts until October 31! Limit four discounts per order.

2. After a long week (I had five tests this week. FIVE. What the hell, college?!) I finally got a paycheck worth celebrating (in that it was more than $7, for the first time since June) and so I had to go to the bank to deposit it. Which is in Walmart.

Is it just me, or did America take a stupid pill this morning? I nearly got hit four times: once in the garage at school, once turning onto Ludlow, once in Walmart's parking lot, and once turning into my neighborhood. I can't count the number of kids who were screaming and running out of control while their parents looked on with bored faces or just ignored them. I heard a million stupid questions asked ("Hey there, guy in Walmart uniform wearing a Walmart nametag, putting away a cart full of merchandise. Do you work here?" /facepalm).

I witnessed one child hiding in a display of boxed (very large) TVs on the floor, fiddling with the security devices and trying to push the 72" TVs over. I told an employee, but the brat got away with it.

The screaming and yelling gave me a headache.

My request? It's this: Parents, control your damn kids and take responsibility for them or do us all a favor and keep your legs closed and don't reproduce. If you don't have the brain power to discipline your kids and force them to behave in public, then FFS, DO NOT HAVE THEM WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU AMERICA?!?!?!

/deep breath

Wooo. Just needed to get that out.

A Beginner's Guide to Throwing Pottery

Step one: Wedge up a small ball of clay, but do it badly.
Step two: Don't realize this until it's on the wheel already. Get up, re-wedge it.
Step three: Put it back on the wheel and take ages to get it centered.
Step four: Spend about half an hour trying to get some height out of it once the floor is made.
Step five: Give up at just shy of the six inches you need to get for class, because it's a cute shape and it'll collapse if you go any higher.

That's my Tuesday and Thursday nights. o_o

Oh geez...

So I haven't even looked at this thing in forever, and I'm thinking of using it to post about more than just jewelry, otherwise it won't get used. Just a quick life update will do for now, I suppose, as I'm waiting for Chloe to get out of her Horror Lit. class. My German class (and therefore test) was canceled for today. \o/

Well, here's what's been going on:

1. school: got a B (somehow) on my first algebra test, and a 98 on my first German test. Love all my classes, but it's a toss up between Zumba, German, and Ceramics as to my favorite.
   
2. work: i want to kill half of my students. ~_~
   
3. home: still living in the same place, unfortunately.
   
4. car: needs an oil change and the power steering and transmission checked out.
   
5. cats: are still fluffy and adorable.
   
6. love: it will be five years for Chloe and I on November 1st. That's awesome. We're talking about getting married anyway and then suing the state of Ohio to recognize the marriage... but that sounds hard and time-consuming and we'd like our primary focus to be on our grades.
   
7. health: i've only had one terrible 'attack' with my stomach lately. :D that was yesterday, and i had to call off work AND miss math, so I'm basically fucked.
   
8. art: the only time I've had to do any kind of art is in Ceramics. I've had no time for jewelry. :( But in class I'm making a steampunk box that can be a candle-holder or something. Hopefully it comes out super-cool!
   

Hope you guys have been good. :)

Just a quick note!

FYI, the shop will be closed from June 24th until probably the end of August and all stock is coming with me to the conventions. If there is anything in the store you really want, I recommend getting it before then.

Sale!

Before I forget, let me tell you about this, and our first ever contest!

Half-off sale! Buy any item and get half off of any other item of equal or lesser value. See site for details. Tell me how you've spread the word about the sale in comments, and two lucky people (chosen at random) will receive a $5 off coupon or free earrings (winners' choice).

To see the items, just click the title of this entry, or any other link on this page.

Little Irritations

Do you know what really bothers me? Though I consider myself to be a well-educated woman, knowledgeable about many topics, I, for the life of me, cannot learn anything about cars or car repair. It's not that I haven't tried; I have, really. My Uncle Wayne and all of his boys are geniuses with car repair, and everyone considers them to be the family mechanics. My cousin Kevin is usually the one who works on my car, but he doesn't do any of the things I need done this time around: the check engine light is on; the brake light keeps turning on for some reason, only to turn off when I actually brake; the oil needs changed; the AC is screwed up (and have I mentioned that our heat index is regularly hitting 100F here?), and I have a squeaky belt that needs changed.

All before Otakon.

Finding a mechanic in my budget is frustrating and time-consuming. I need this car to make it to Baltimore and back, and I need to still have the money to garage it in the city after the repairs are made.

So I guess what I'm saying is that any advice on mechanic-shopping would be appreciated.

I was going to post pictures of the new items for the conventions today as well, but my camera is completely dead and its beautifully bright green emergency replacement isn't here yet.

Utter boredom?

I think I've finally hit the lowest point of boredom physically possible. Right now I'm sitting in my BIS class. It's called Intro to Word, Excel, and Power Point.

We're learning how to highlight text.

Yeah... I've been able to do that since PCs first came out. Tempted to sit back here and work on friendship bracelets from Otakon.

How are you guys?

Artbeads Product Review

School's out well, until tomorrow, the bees are buzzing, the leaves are back on the trees, and the cardinal that likes to sit outside my bedroom window and tweet loudly at 6am is back: summer must be close!  This time around I'm all about earthy tones and using materials and colors that reflect my mood for the season. Example:

 Exhibit A

This bracelet was made using copper chain and jump rings from a local store, and the beautiful copper-plated pewter charms. When I think of summer, I think of earth tones, animals, and all the irritating insects nature can throw at you (as you can probably tell, I'm not really an "outdoor person"). I also used Artbeads.com's swarovski crystal pendants. 

A lot of time went into making the necklace, and I think it ended up with kind of an awesome steampunk feel to it. I twisted the chain a lot, and left some loops at the end to add more texture and character, and I think it worked out really well. I like it a lot better than the chain I was originally going to use. The smaller chain added without overshadowing the charms and crystals like the textured chain would have done. 

As for the Artbeads products themselves, I am especially impressed with the charms. I don't usually like copper (I associate it with dirty pennies) but these charms are very cute, very shiny, and very sturdy. The plating seems to be staying on rather well, despite the fact that I wear this thing every chance I get. I'm pretty hard on my jewelry too, so it's important to me to have sturdy, well-made charms like this. I am also head-over-heels in love with the crystal flower pendants. They're so cute, so fashionable, so hard to break, and they just work so nicely with the copper. The only problem I had was getting a small-size ring onto them to attach the charms to the chain. 

One last photo (because I want to show off my raku vase):

Isn't it beautiful?

(Let's go ahead and put the legal stuff here, shall we? I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received the above pictured items free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in these photos was bought and paid for by me from other locations.)

A Haiku

The sale is ending
Have you gotten your good deal?
I hope you will buy


It ends tomorrow, ladies and gents! You'll save a lot with this one, especially because I marked down a lot of the stuff in the Lucky 13 category.

Photos will happen probably next Friday. I had planned for this Friday but it turns out I have to do grocery shopping after work then run all the way to my mom's house and then run to Fairborn and then go to the Zombie Walk. It will be a terribly busy weekend and I still have to find time for homework. :/

A Few Changes

You may have noticed that I've taken the word "Jewelry" out of the title, and the reason for this is that when I blog about my jewelry during the school year, there's just too much going on for me to actually post. However, if I have a place where I can write about my life as well, then that means I'll likely update a little more often.

Likely.

We'll see, right?

This weekend has been a crafty one, thus far. Earlier in the week I got my latest order of beads from Artbeads.com, and I'm working on putting together my blogging for beads project. Then Friday, my darling future wife and I went over to my parent's house for dinner, a trip to Crafts 2000, and then my mom taught me how to make these cute hair bows she knows how to do. So now I have a bunch of ribbon and cutting to do to get these bows ready for summer conventions.

But first, I suppose I should buckle down and get through my school work. I've got a ten page research paper on the morality and ethics of stem-cell research to do, and then I need to pick a Latino woman who works in entertainment and prepare a 400 word paper and presentation on her for my Spanish class.

Thankfully, this batch of classes will end in about three weeks. Of course, once that's out, summer quarter will start three days later. Oh joy, right?

Hurray!

Yesterday while I was out with my future wife, we stopped in at Jo-Ann Fabrics because there is a super store conveniently placed behind our favorite restaurant. Since we're going to Otakon this summer, I was really excited to find some Asian-style charms and findings on clearance. Today I made a mountain of cell phone charms out of them.

It totally made my day. :D

Blog death?

Not so much. The blog isn't dead; its owner is just buried under a pile of schoolwork.

We'll return you to your regularly scheduled jewelry postings after this degree is earned.

@_@

Yeah, school's killing me. I did make a couple new items, and I want to post them, but my brain keeps trying to revert into Spanish or into business terminology when I write. It's killing my creativity, ladies.

Product Review

Hello, readers! I hope everybody enjoyed their weekend. I have some new items to show off today, though none of them are as of yet available in the store. These items were all created as part of a challenge to show my interpretation of Spring.



This item was created using swarovski crystal beads in the shape of butterflies. I absolutely adore these beads. They are only 6mm, so the charm is kept thin, and the crystal is very durable. I also used a cell phone strap from Artbeads.com. I like the jump ring straps, and purchased them in gold and silver. I'm only going to show the silver here.

The jump rings are easier to open and close than the ones with split rings, and they're very durable. The strap is very thin which made it easy to add onto my cell phone charm collection.

The other type of bead I used are 4mm twisted sterling silver beads. I love, love, LOVE these beads. They are durable, cute, and add a fun element to the charms.



I've had a thing for cameos lately, and I'm slowly falling in love with copper. This piece uses a cameo from Artbeads.com as well as copper-plated chain and copper leaf bails. The setting came from Cathy's Jewels on Etsy.

The bails look great, but I have some doubts as to their durability. One of them broke in the mail on the way to me and I had to have it replaced. The replacement broke a little as I was very gently putting it on my other cameo set and had to be epoxied into submission.

Aside from that, I really, really love the bails. And the chain. And that cameo, oh my goodness! The chain is slightly textured, which is pleasing to me, because I think it adds to the beauty without taking away from that gorgeous cameo.


That's all I've got for now. There's a big gray cat on my lap who keeps looking at me as though she's wondering why I'm typing when I could be petting her instead.

Since it's spring break, there should be more photos coming soon. I have two more bracelets and a necklace set to show off, and my wife and I just went to Trader's World where I bought necklaces to take apart and recycle into other, cuter jewelry.


Legal stuff: I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received the above pictured items which I am far too lazy to list at the moment free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in these photos was bought and paid for by me from other sites.

Busy, busy!

Later today I'll be putting up the new Blogging for Beads photos. Right now I'm busy dealing with my partner's now-ex employer.

Been awhile, huh?

With finals just around the corner and all of these last minute projects, papers, and speeches due, I'll admit that I just haven't really had the time to photograph any of the jewelry I've got made, much less make a ton of new stuff.

No, my friends, that will happen during Spring Break. I have all the Artbeads stuff done and ready to post, I just fail at having free time.

But you can expect to see a preview of the stuff for the summer conventions at which I'll be selling.

I am proud to announce that Eclipsical Jewelry, in conjunction with Espirit Studios, will be going to Otakon in Baltimore, Maryland and Matsuri Con in Worthington, Ohio! Otakon is the last weekend of July, Matsuri Con is August 13-15. There are a couple summer festivals I'd like to sell at, but I think I may have my hands full just prepping for these two big events.

So if you don't here from me for awhile, it's alright. I'm just up to my ears in work.


One last thing, and that is that I am currently having a 30% off sale until March 20th. Order and get 30% off your total!

Well, I picked my specialization, which I guess means I'm settled on my major.

It's Human Resources Management.

I must hate myself. Starting next quarter I'll have practically no time for jewelry, so I'm trying to get a ton of stuff made by spring break that I can just release on a weekly schedule or something.

I'm doomed.

Big sale time!!!

BUY ONE GET ONE HALF OFF, ALL WEEK!!! Purchase any item in the store, get the second item (of lesser or equal value) half off! Gift certificates may be used as the first item, but not the half-off item. This sale also applies to commissioned items. Limit 3 half-off items per customer. Sale ends Sunday, Feb 28th, at 11:59pm EST.

Just click on the title of this post to go to the store!

3 New Items!

It's been awhile since the last time I added any new items to my shop. We're having lots of snow though, so that makes it a lot easier to find the time to work though the cat on my lap makes it harder to use the keyboard. All of these items are eligible for the current sale which is 15% off of your order. This sale lasts until the 13th.

Without any further ado, here are the new items!


"Old Fashioned Lady"

This bracelet is made from cherry quartz puffed coins, glass pearls, and lots and lots of love. I think I'm getting really fond of using jump rings and seed beads as extenders on pieces now, and it's terribly fun to do.




Above: Gay pride earrings

I love making pride pieces. I think it's important to have a way to express who you are and do it as colorfully and tastefully as possibly. These earrings are subtly and not at all "in your face" just in your ear, hahaha!. They're very beautiful and I love the way they reflect the light. At the right angle these earrings look like they glow!


Flower Cameo Bracelet

Finally, we have this stunning new cameo bracelet. The cameo is from Artbeads.com and the bracelet setting was purchased on Etsy. This is the first time I've really played around with settings, but I found it really fun - except for the several times I got glue on my fingers and got them stuck to other things. That part was not enjoyable. This will definitely be an item for art shows and displays because I can customize something quickly for a customer with it. It's also my new favorite bracelet.

As always, you can find sale information and all these listings at my Etsy store. Please take a look and don't forget to tell your friends and family about the sale! Thanks for reading. :)

I need to take my cats to the vet, so...

I have two cats that need shots. The store usually pays for that kind of stuff, but I must be made of some kind of fail since that plan isn't working. Therefore it's time for some shameless self-promotion


Exhibit A: Saiga


Exhibit B: Kakei

There is a 15% sale going on until 2/13. Details at the link below to this special offer:

If you order $10 or more worth of jewelry by 11:59pm EST tomorrow night (2/4), I'll throw in discount coupon for 40% off one item on your next purchase.

I just want to take my kitties to the vet. :)

Why yes, I am feeling rather silly today.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled homework time to announce a new sale! Yes, folks, that's right; Eclipsical Jewelry is having a 15% off sale on all bracelets! Most customers will save $1 or more per bracelet! Buy as many as you like, use any coupons you may have!

Sale ends January 31 at 11:59pm EST.

Actual jewelry update will come later. I have new items to post but I'm so tired from school that I can't get myself to do it. Maybe Friday or Saturday. I have a new jewelry set, a new bracelet, and a new pair of earrings.

I am having way too much fun with jump rings.

Back to learning!

PS. I was wondering if anybody knows when the time is each month that we get to pick out products for Blogging for Beads?

Earthquake Relief

Just a quick post to say that I will donate $1.00 of every item sold this week to the Red Cross to help provide disaster relief to those in need. Please stop by the store and take a look!

Product Review, part two

It's been a while since part one, but I've been pretty busy with school and work. Finding time to take photos has been difficult. There are still a couple items I have not been able to use yet. I'm not sure why, but ideas for them aren't coming and when they do, they don't work out. I need find ideas for these sterling silver beads. The ones in particular that I'm having trouble with are these sterling silver square twist tube beads. With the glass beads, I am having trouble with the 5000 6mm faceted rounds in peridot and indicolite. I'm trying to work these in somewhere, but right now they just aren't working for me like I thought they would.

From what I have tried, I can tell you that these beads are beautiful and they seem pretty durable (I drop stuff on a regular basis, and they've held up fine). I think if I had them in larger quantities I would have an easier time using them.

I did manage to get through everything else, and I have a few new pieces to introduce.



This is a beautiful necklace made from more of the glass cube beads. I really love the way the montana blue and the amethyst look together! The gold does a great job of tying all the colors together, and the faceted focal beads were well worth the money I spent on them. I wish I had a fancier clasp for it, but I'm completely out of gold clasps, so I had to make do with a spring clasp and jump ring. I almost prefer them though; spring clasps just seem to stay in place better than toggle clasps.

Having a chance to practice with simple loops is nice. Once I have this mastered, I can move on to more complex techniques. I feel like I'm getting pretty good at it, but only if the eye pins are thick enough. If I'm using anything smaller than a 20 gauge I feel like the pins are brittle and break or slip out of my pliers too often.

Let's move on.

I like making gay pride jewelry and once I find a group I'd like to donate to, I'll be giving a portion of my profits from those jewelry sales to help them out. Here are the two new designs. They're very simple and they catch the eye very well. I made them using crystal glass cube beads and jet glass cube beads. I really like the way they came out. I think that the cubes do a great job of highlighting the color of the seed beads.





Legal stuff: I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received these items (GC-CRYS5, GC-JET5, GC-LTAMY5, GC-MON5, 5000-PER6, 5000-IND6, SS-LX72) free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in the photo from Artbeads was bought and paid for by me months ago.

You may find all these pieces and more photos at my Etsy shop.

Product Review, part one

I got one of my jewelry orders in today. This one is the jewelry sent to me by Artbeads. I was surprised to get this one first since I got the shipping notice last, but I was not disappointed. At this point I've only used about half of the items because I have plans to use the remaining items in projects I can't start until I get my other two orders.




This first piece was fun to make. I've been wanting to try multiple strand projects using something actually made for that purpose for a while. I really like these 3-Strand Multi-Strand End pieces. At first it was intended to be either a necklace or part of a necklace, but I ended up changing my mind about halfway through. These end pieces are great. They seem pretty durable and I had no issues looping the wire through at all.



All of the Valentine's Day stuff is already out in the major stores, so I thought I'd try something in the traditional colors. I used rose glass cubes and ruby glass cubes with some white seed beads I had on hand. These glass beads are some of my favorite beads ever. I have a lot of them in multiple colors that I'll be playing with and posting pictures of between bouts of studying and going to class. These beads are durable and fun, and very beautiful to look at. :)



These earrings have been nothing but a pain today, and I think it's because of the thinness of the eye pins and head pins. I'm going to have to buy some sturdier ones at Walmart later in the week. The item being used here is this end piece. It's very beautiful, however, the back is hollow which the website doesn't seem to tell you (unless I missed it, which is possible). That's a bit of a disappointment, but these earrings aren't meant to be looked at from behind anyway. I do like the end pieces, regardless of the back. I thought that first they would be really flimsy, but so far so good!



This is the last piece for today, and it's just a fairly simple bracelet, but I love the way the colors work together. The products being used in this item are sapphire glass cubes, emerald glass cubes, and 4mm seamless sterling silver beads. I am, of course, utterly in love with the cubes and I knew I would like them before they even arrived. The sapphire cubes were a color haven't used before, however, and I have to say, I think they're my favorite. These sterling silver beads are amazing as well and I definitely plan to buy some myself when I have the chance.


At some point later in the week I'll be able to post the last bit of items I still need to use. I'm just waiting on my other shipment from Artbeads.com and my shipment from Fusionbeads.com.

Legal stuff: I am not being paid by Artbeads.com for my opinion on their items. I have received these items (ssr577, gc-em5, gc-sap5, ss-msend1, gc-ru5, gc-ro5, ss-msend3) free of charge and am reviewing them honestly. Anything else in the photo from Artbeads was bought and paid for by me months ago.

New Items!

I hope everybody recovered alright from their New Year celebrations. This is the first year since I moved out of my parent's house that I haven't had a drink to toast the new year, so that was rather strange. Instead I spent a good amount of time making jewelry. I've been trying to get ahead on producing more items because classes start tomorrow and I'm sure the course load will be mind-boggling awful.

Before I show off the pictures, I wanted to point out that I have added gift certificates to my store on Etsy in amounts of $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100. They are good for my store only.

This new line is called "Aurora Borealis" because of the brilliance of the colors (and in keeping with an astronomy theme). A friend of mine in Iowa sent me these beads, and I'm hooked on them now. I hope you enjoy the photos! All are for sale in the store.




I have plans to copy this design with different colors though I think I'll like this one more. It's just head pins, seed beads, and chain on an earring wire. It was a tad time-consuming, but well worth the effort.



I had a dream about this bracelet last night, so I woke up and made it. It was great how it just flowed out of me, and I love it a lot.




:) These are the same design, of course, just in different metals. I went with a color contrasting theme for these.



This picture really doesn't do the set justice. It's a bracelet and earring set, and there are much better pictures on Etsy.




I will admit to taking a bit of inspiration from Harry Potter for these. The themes are Ravenclaw and Slytherin. These two gave me the most trouble, to be honest. I was dropping beads and jump rings all over the place. These two are also my favorites. I love the way gold and blue work together, and silver and green are just such a nice combination. They look far more elegant than I could have ever hoped.

For more photos of these items, head over Eclipsical Jewelry on Etsy and take a look around!