K S Jewellery Designs Give Away

A friend, fellow blogger, and jewelry designer, Kristin Smith is doing a blog giveaway this month. The drawing will be next Monday, April 27th. Pictured here is the spiral pendant that Kristin created that will be given away in the drawing. I think it is quite lovely.

I can personally attest to the quality and craftsmanship of Kristin's work...I have a couple of her earrings. So, I'm entering for her drawing and hope that you will check out her blog about this drawing and maybe even her Etsy store.

Happy creating all!

Featured on Made for You Blog

Today I'm featured on another blog, Made for You. Catherine Dooley is the owner of this blog and she also has an Etsy store called dreamland's crafts. If you have a chance, click on the link to Made for You and you can read a little more about me. You need to scroll down as she has another Colorado artist featured in this section.

Crinklized Dichroic

Coatings by Sandburg (CBS) has come out with a new addition to their line of dichroic glass, crinklized dichroic. I ordered a little of it and my shipment arrived a week ago. Last weekend, I did a small test firing to see how this looked and I like the brilliance of it after being fired.

This first photo is after the firing and my pictures are not as good as the ones CBS has on their website. It does have a very nice crinkle texture too it. And it is not rough as one would think, so I feel it will be very nice for jewelry. I plan on wire wrapping these pieces.

The second photo shows how it looked before it was fired and it looks just like ordinary dichroic glass.

I plan on doing a little more experimenting with it. CBS recommends that you take it up to at least 1475 F and you can go even higher to have more of the crinkled effect. They say it is meant to be uncapped, that is, no need to put a clear glass cap over the top of it as I like to do with other dichroic (for depth). But I may just try a sample to see what it looks like. If it is capped, it won't crinkle and that does defeat the purpose of using the glass.

I do enjoy trying out new products. I think this is a wonderful addition to CBS's line of dichroic art glass.

** As a footnote regarding my results from the Etsy showcase yesterday, it didn't generate any sales yet. I did see an increase in traffic, in people who marked my shop a favorite, and in number of views for some of the items I featured. For now I'll continue to chalk this up to gaining exposure and perservance.

Etsy Celebrations and Glamour Showcase Today

Today, I'm in one of Etsy's Showcases. This one is called Celebrations and Glamour. I took this screen shot this morning where I'm featuring one of my larger wire wrapped pendants, "My Lady". Throughout the day, I will probably change out which pendent will be my main item, but I thought I would start out with this one to keep with the theme. There's LOTS of gorgeous stuff in this showcase today, so I think it's well worth a look.

I decided it was time to purchase a couple of these time slots in Etsy and see what happens. I've been reading their blogs and feature articles about Etsy success stories and it seems that these showcases help promote your business. So I'm going to continue to try this approach for a while and see what happens. Wish me luck! :)

Report on Esty Valentine Showcase

I took this screen shot of my Butterfly Heart and listing on yesterday's Valentine Showcase on Etsy.

Unfortunately, no sales were generated from this attempt to be noticed on Etsy. I know it's tough, especially in the jewelry section, because there are so many talented people with great items. I didn't even notice that the number of views for any one item picked up that much either.

I do think I will try something like this again, just to see what happens. I'm not ready to rule this out as an avenue to generate sales on Etsy yet.

One good thing to report is another Etsy artist, Dawn E Bryant, put one of my hearts in her Treasury. I'm still learning my way around Etsy. From what I can tell, there are 333 Treasury selections that will be rotated on Etsy's main page. Great way to get noticed, especially when another 'Etsian' puts you on their list of Treasury favorites.

I've put links to Dawn's store and her treasury in the previous paragraph. Please click on these links and check them out, it's my way of returning the favor to Dawn. Thanks.

Off to the glass room to continue work on the piece I started yesterday. Ideas are flowing again. Gotta love that! Took me a while to get started on what I wanted to do, did a few drawings, searched for the right glass. Now the color combinations and ideas are flowing...gotta strike while the iron is hot!!! Happy creating everyone!