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Lately I've been fashioning a few new earrings and, at the same time, toyed with the idea of opening a second etsy shop ... yes I'm STILL contemplating this. There is just one thing that prevents me from doing so and that's etsy's reluctance to set up their site to allow sellers to have multiple shops under one email account. Etsy must have some logic in dragging its heels on this but seems to me that there are so many other things that etsy could give its sellers rather than circles and "tinker-toy" features. Why am I so against setting up a new email account ? Simple hardheadedness perhaps. Toggling back and forth from one account to the other is worrisome and I fret about the possibility that I may miss or over look a customer's inquiry or, horrors, an order !

photos above and below ... My handmade yellow berry beads were used in this pair of  golden earrings.  The ear wires are not made by me but are 14 kt. gold filled and I did embellish them with a Swarovski crystal.



My etsy shop has a few pieces of my handcrafted jewelry but since it is supposed to be a supplies shop I want to keep the ratio in perspective and keep the jewelry down to a bare minimum. So I've made earrings and now I've got a few pairs sitting on my desk wanting to be displayed.

photos above and below ... Love these oh so sweet lampwork beads.  Here I've used my own handmade sterling earwires embellished with 4mm, cats eye beads.   

Recently I listed these sweet little Art Glass Bead earrings (photo below).  Named them Dewdrop, as they remind me of the sweet little dewdrop flower.  They have my own handcrafted sterling silver earring wires that I've embellished with a crystal bead in a soft shade of opal green.  Absolutely adore the flower shaped pewter bead caps !  Can not believe that after a couple of days of being posted on etsy and on facebook, they've only received 4 views, one of which was myself, so in reality only 3 people gave them a look.  It was hardly worth the effort of listing them ... or the 20 cent etsy fee !  lol

From Out Of The Rubble ...

Some of you may recall my post about too many inspirations coming from a cluttered tray of assorted beads and findings.  I promised to post about the resulting products and I did manage to blog about a pair of black and copper dangle earrings that turned out wonderfully...so much so that I ended up keeping the first pair made.  : )

Not all things work out as one envisions them and for the past few days I battled with an idea that just refused to come out the way that I saw it in my mind's eye.  I haven't abandoned the idea but I have put it aside and will attempt to create it at a later date, using a different method of construction. 

However even before this battle of wills with those reluctant beads, I did manage to complete a sweet little pair of fun and sassy earrings using 2 of my  handcrafted beaded beads.  

One strand of zircon blue briolettes had a few brios that had shorten tips to them (somewhere along the line in manufacturing the briolette tips had been chipped but then were honed and polished, so this truncation of the tips had been done before I acquired them).  By using my perky yellow beaded beads like bead caps to cover the shortened tips and with the addition of a crystal rondel  in citrine yellow and a firepolished Czech glass bead in the same zircon blue as the briolettes, I had created a pretty dangle...perfect for an earring. 

All that I needed was to craft a pair of sterling silver ear wires, to which I added another zircon blue firepolished beads and voila !

You may notice that the silvery wire on the dangle has been twisted, I did this as there wasn't enough space to use a substantial gauge wire and so 26 gauge was used. Since 26 gauge is rather fragile I doubled it all the way and created a twisted wire to form the loop and wrap with. I may decided to change this out as I can't decide if I like it or not. ?  What do you think ?  Should it stay or should I change it out and use a smoother look ?

We Are All Valuable Resources...

Recently I've had the honor of working with a very imaginative and creative Etsian by the name of Ros whose shop, designsbyros , features her handcrafted wire work jewelry.

Photo above...One of Ros's lovely chain and wire worked necklaces. Love the colors in this masterpiece!

Ros was interested in a set of my handcrafted beaded beads that I call, BubbleBeads. Which I will discuss later, now however I wish to focus on Ros. As I mentioned she is a very imaginative young lady and she came up with an amazingly brilliant idea: She would make a pair of her hammered wire, handcrafted earrings with my BubbleBeads and place a link in her etsy shop announcement to my etsy shop and I would place a similar link to her shop and the earrings that she created using my beads. What a lovely win win situation !!! Sometimes the simplest and most effective means of promotion is right in front of us and that is using each other as resources. Each of us are indeed valuable commodities and excellent resources for both information and promotion.

Photo above...Ros's hand hammered wire holds my lemony yellow BubbleBeads making for a sweet and fun pair of dangly earrings.
Photo below...My BubbleBeads. These are in pale lemony yellow but I also have some in pale light green.

Photo below, and another view...

The design of the BubbleBeads is not of my origin. I'm sure anyone can go online and find many different version of this little bead, unfortunately the instructions I came across must have decided that this tiny piece of art would only be looked at, never worn, never handled. My first attempts at creating my first few beaded beads were less than stellar...the beads fell apart almost instantly. I understood why but had tried to have faith in the instructions which were...shock and disbelief...WRONG !!! Anyway I adapted and did what was necessary to create a structured and strong beaded BubbleBead. I love them and when they are topped with a jaunty Bali sterling silver bead cap...well what can I say but that they are adorable.

Photo below...Shows different beads capped by beautiful Bali sterling silver bead caps. These lovely caps always remind me of flowers and the dangles pictured below feels like a garden of fantasy flowers.

Ultimately I think we should all keep in mind the high value that each of us has and the vast potential that we can offer one another. Ros of designsbyros I thank you for shining that light my way. :)

TO VISIT DESIGNSBYROS CLICK ON ANY OF HER LINKS ABOVE OR CLICK HERE: http://www.etsy.com/shop/designsbyros