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!

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. :)

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!

Best of the Year

Since I have some time now while I wait for Team Fortress 2 to finish installing on my computer, I thought I would go back and post some of my favorite pieces from this year. I've been into beading/jewelry making for about three years, but it's just during the last few months (since August) that I've really started to devote myself to it and earn a decent amount of money. My wonderful friends have been very supportive and I'm glad they have my back and are willing to boost my ego from time to time. I see many other artists who are way better than I am; sometimes it's an inspiration, sometimes it's disheartening. But my friends have been there for me to tell me when I suck and when I don't suck, to become addicted to my jewelry, and general just to be amazing. One friend went so far as to pierce his ears just to wear a pair of me earrings; that was quite the ego boost!

So here are some of my favorite pieces from the last year. Many of these are still for sale in my shop, Eclipsical Jewelry.



Luckily for my absolutely terrible wire-wrapping skills, these beads came the way they are. This was a pretty easy piece to make, but it's one of my favorites to look at. The beads are connected via small silver jump rings.



My loop-making skills got a lot of practice during the three or so hours I spent on this bracelet. The beads are just glass pearls I got from Walmart a few months ago after hunting for them for almost a year before and not being able to find any simple black beads I really liked. The charm is gold-plated pewter, and I bought from a site I can't seem to find again. My hands were aching and locked up after working on this piece, but it's really one of my favorites.



This is a more recent piece. I have fallen in love with gunmetal lately, and when my friends in Scotland sent over that beautiful bead mix featured in the picture, I just new the two would go well together. It was fun to make, and I really love the box clasp and the chain.



These stars are hands-down my favorite beads ever. Unfortunately for me, they are near impossible to find in Ohio, so my friend in Canada has to send them to me, or I have to order them via Ebay. If I could have anything in the new year, it would be a steady supply of these in colors other than white/gray, white/red, and white/purple. I love how colorful this bracelet is! The colors are eye-catching and it gets a lot of compliments when I wear it. I intended it to be a gay pride bracelet, but anybody could wear it. It's a very comfortable bracelet, and I love anything to do with stars, so of course this is one of my favorites!



While bracelets are my favorite thing to make, I do love a good pair of earrings! These recently sold, but that won't diminish my love for them. I used simple loops connect the beads together and dangled a pewter snowflake charm off the end. There was not a lot too them, I'll admit, but I think this is the single prettiest item I have ever put up for sale.

You can see many more items at my shop, and take advantage of the 30% off sale going on now! Many people are saving at least $5 off their orders and if you're in the US, shipping is free! Check it out now!