My First Ever Etsy Treasury

Just created my first ever Etsy Treasury. It's loaded with beautiful butterflies from wonderful crafters who sell on Etsy.I've gotten such a wonderful response on it. Here's the link.
Etsy Butterfly Treasury/

The Color Edition

If I had to choose one source of inspiration for my jewelry designs, I'd have to say color. Big, bright, bold delicious color. I love combining shades of color that are unexpected and aren't typically paired together but somehow really work. Color wheels work well for some, but I get  my best results when I just experiment by arranging beads and stones next to each other and see what pops out at me.

I went through my photos and here are some color palettes I'd  like to use in my work.

These Adirondack chairs were sitting in front of a store that I found on a trip to the Jersey Shore (yes, that Jersey Shore). The individual colors are nothing special alone, but when grouped together, they really work well. I like.

This shot below is is of my outside deck taken last summer. I love arranging  baskets and pots of flowers and grouping them together on funky outdoor tables or whatever I can get my hands that have various heights. There's nothing like sitting out there and staring at the colors. Perfection. It just occurred to me that I buy my flowers the same way I buy my beads; get an assortment of color and hope they all work.

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Here's a simple stretch bracelet I just made with bright orange and lighter celery green colors. Love the combination of colors, plus I feel brighter as soon as I slip it on.

What are your favorite colors to work with? Inquiring minds want to know. Have a great, happy and colorful day.

Happy Easter, Happy Spring

It's Easter Sunday, the sun is shining here in Jersey-land, my friends came to visit for
the weekend, and life is good.

To celebrate the day, I've rounded up a few of my designs with great spring colors. Color is one of the reasons I love making jewelry; the possible combinations are limitless. I've been using a lot of metal and pastels together because they're unexpected and provide contrast to each other. When I combine colors that I really wasn't sure would work together and then they actually do, well I'm a happy camper. 

Here are some of my combinations. The weather today is spectacular so I'll be outside looking for more colorful inspirations.

Rock.Stone.Tween Treasures?

Deciding whether to tap into the tween jewelry market so we've created some designs as prototypes to test the waters. Those tween girls are a tricky bunch. Here's what we have so far.

My tween son thinks his contemporaries will like these, but then again, maybe they won't. Decisive much? So we're test marketing to our target demographic to get opinions right from the horse's mouth. Any opinions of your own? Please share.

I'm Featured on a Beautiful Blog

What an honor to receive an email from artist and fellow Etsy seller Gracie Wieber telling me she included one of my bracelets on her blog Artists/Artisans. It's part of her Karma Collection, a weekly feature of artists selling on the web.

This is a first for me and to say I'm excited is, well, ridiculously understated. I'm ecstatic. Please read it and browse her fabulous paintings and jewelry made of fibers. Great stuff.

Thanks Gracie!

The Whole Bead Show, NYC

Internet Inspiration

In my quest to figure out the perfect social media marketing plan to sell my jewelry, I've come across some super-talented people who are not only great crafters, but savvy marketing experts as well (those with the right and left brains that are actually in sync). Many of them share their success tips and offer up words of wisdom to the rest of us out here.

Bess Callard, a graphic designer from Vienna, Austria has a blog I'm absolutely crazy about. It  has a mellow and peaceful feel and her writing style is sparse yet filled with little gems. Read it here --The English Muffin Blog and be sure to check out the cool little zebra on her page.

Crafting an MBA is written by Megan Auman who is an artist, crafter, athlete, teacher and small business guru. She does a great job reminding her readers that it's one thing to create a great piece of art or a unique new craft, but in the process you also have to think like a CEO. Yup, we've got to have a plan and she's can easily guide us through that. Reading her blog is a must for getting your craft biz off the ground.