Image is Everything!

I always shoot my etsy shop photos on the ledge of the small balcony outside my kitchen window. I like the look of the vintage beads and chain against the urban, industrial background...the antithesis of shabby chic! And the natural light shows off the colors truly. A few months ago, I had several new necklaces to photograph. I plopped the ones I wasn't photographing down on the ledge and after I finished taking the traditional pictures of the first necklace, I noticed that I liked the way the other necklaces looked casually dropped into a heap. You could see the colors and complexity but it looked "unplanned" and "authentic"...which fits the way I want people to view my necklaces...as pretty, unique pieces that don't need a lot of fussing to wear or money to purchase. It seems to be working. The items I list with these new photos as the primary image are getting more views.

What's In A Name? More Than You Think!

Sometimes, the name for one of my jewelry creations comes to me before I even start working on it. Sometimes, the name comes to me while I'm putting the beads together and sometimes the name comes to me only when I go to list the necklace or pair of earrings in my etsy shop. My newest necklace, which I ended up calling Hint of Nostalgia caused several days and one sleepless night of thinking...about colors, inspirations, memories, phrases in common use, song titles, movie titles, places I've been, places I haven't been...you get the idea. To me the name of my pieces should give an idea to customers of my creative process and because each of my pieces is unique, their names should be too. When I've been completely stumped, I've run "naming" contests on this blog and I've been fascinated to learn (duh?) that what other people see in the finished product sometimes has little or nothing to do with my idea or inspiration.

I almost called this necklace Midnight at the Oasis (song), Black Butterscotch (????), Chelsea Evening (place) and Corner Candy Store (memory). Since the black beads reminded me of licorice sticks and the butterscotch colored beads reminded me of bit o' honey candy I thought of all those stops I made on the way home from school to the corner candy store to purchase bonomo's taffy and jaw breakers and red hots and pretzel sticks and egg creams and comic books.

Then I realized those kind of stores don't exist anymore....hence, Hint of Nostalgia.

Long, light, eco-friendly, affordable and SOFT!

About a year ago, I started seeing scarves made out of t shirt yarn on etsy. I liked the fact that they were made out of recycled cotton t shirts and that they were soft against the skin, especially the skin at the back of the neck! I found some wonderful suppliers of t shirt yarn and started fooling around with using pieces of it to anchor vintage beads in my necklaces. The only thing it limits me from doing is including several heavy beads in any one necklace....but I don't like "heavy" anyway. I have plenty of fun, colorful vintage plastic beads that are very light in weight and I can also include some of my favorite handmade felted wool beads which are light AND soft.

I now have enough of these necklaces listed in my etsy shop to create a special section for them. Please take a look. They make great gifts and are particularly popular with teenagers, college folk and anyone who likes casual, affordable, eclectic jewelry.

Inspiration ~ NOT Barbara Bush

No offense intended! Barbara Bush is the admired matriarch of an admired political family. She radiates "warmth," "charmth," traditional style and common sense, like June Cleaver and Donna Reed and other 50's moms. Several of the vintage beads I have acquired over the years are "plastic" pearls in various sizes, shapes and colors that came from broken vintage pieces. I decided to create a trademark "pearl" necklace with a quirkier design for the modern mom (or non-mom or teen!). The beads aren't graduated or symmetrical...hey, they don't even match! And that's exactly why I like the way it turned out...it's unpredictable, it's casual and it's fun. I decided to use recycled cotton T shirt yarn (a modern material that fits my overall creative mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle and repeat) to anchor the beads instead of vintage metal chain!

For the rest of July, I am offering FREE SHIPPING on the "Not Barbara Bush's Pearl Necklace" and everything else in my etsy shop!