August Featured Etsy Blogger

This month's featured Etsy blogger is Edi from memoriesforlifesb.
Edi has been papercrafting for over 12 years and has some truly awesome things in her shop.

This wedding guest book made from real flip flops is one of my favorite things for her shop.



Equally beautiful is this hand cut Baby album which can be customized with any name.



This is a very fun and extremely creative shop. Why not go and have a look?

Great Summer shop

As part of an Etys Bloggers team assignment I went off in search of a shop with hot summer items. I came across Ezylife and her shop is what summer is all about. It is light, bright and airy. Her dresses are beautiful and come in a wide array of styles and colors. There is something there for every woman. An added bonus is that her prices are very reasonable.





Ezylife is a new seller, but she as perfect feedback and glowing reviews.

Featured Etsy Blogger for July

The Etsy Bloggers team has chosen miesmama as the featured blogger for the month of July. Take a look at this colorful shop for a variety of handmade felted finds. You will come across such things as:

Headbands

Keychains

Garlands

and much, much more.

Christmas In July Sale

Morning Sky Jewelry will be participating in the Christmas In July sale on Etsy from July 8th through July 23rd. I will be offering free shipping on any purchase. I will also offer an additional 10% off any purchase if you read about my sale on this blog. Simply enter BLOG10 in the message to seller and the 10% will be refunded through PayPal or, if you prefer, send me a convo before you pay and I will send you a revised invoice through PayPal.

A New Selling Venue

I just started listing my items on a new handmade website that I found called Zibbet. I know that there are a lot of them out there, but I really liked the look of this one and the ease of listing. It is new so it doesn't have a lot of features yet, but they are sure to follow. You are allowed to sell handmade, vintage and supplies.

Click here to check out what my Zibbet shop looks like.

If you decide that you would like to become a seller on Zibbet I would really appreciate if you would click on the banner below and sign up from there. Zibbet offers a great referral program for its users.

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One of my favorite features in the shop performance stats. They show you how many visits you had to your shop during the month, how many times your item was shown on Zibbet, either on the home page, search page, someone's favorites or somewhere else around Zibbet. Some of my items have been displayed around Zibbet over 200 times.

While I don't have any sales yet I am being patient since this is a very new site and I have just started listing.

Yart Sale with a Bonus

My shop is participating in the Yart Sale on Etsy. From today until midnight Eastern time on Sunday I am offering 15% off any of the items in my Yart Sale section.

As a bonus for blog readers I am offering FREE SHIPPING on ANY ITEM in my entire shop for the duration of the Yart Sale. Just mention "Blog" in the message to seller and I will refund the shipping through PayPal.

June Featured Etsy Blogger

This month's featured Etsy Blogger is Tricia from Lazy T Crochet. If you frequent the forums on Etsy then I am sure that you recognize the name. Not only does Tricia do lovely crochet work, but she also give excellent advice and also seems willing to help someone out.

While all her work is beautiful, the bright green on the Cloche Hat and Net Scarf grabbed my attention right away.

My Favorite Birthday Present

This month's Etsy Bloggers assignment is to write about a favorite birthday memory or gift. This one is very easy for me, but it needs to be preceded by a short story.

When I was very young I was scared by a dog. Although I don't remember the incident, I do remember being terrified of dogs. All dogs - any shape and size. Another fact from when I was young is that I adored my grandfather and when I was about 4 he got a dog. A black dachshund named Fred. He gently assured me that Fred wouldn't hurt me and he was right. I fell in love with Fred. I soon found myself feeling more and more confident around dogs and decided that I wanted one of my own, but it had to be a dachshund like Fred, only a different color.

About a week before my fifth birthday my father came home and when I ran to greet him what did I find down by his feet, but the cutest little dachshund which I promptly named Peanut. I had Peanut for 16 wonderful years and can remember the day that I got him (40 years later) like it was yesterday.



I would love to hear some of your favorite birthday memories. Please leave a comment.

Wonderful Wednesday

These eggs, made by Ukrainian Eggs, are truly remarkable. Some of you may be familiar with Pysanky, but these eggs are made with a twist. The colors are from hundreds of tiny seed beads.





Here is the arttist's explanation of Pysanky and Her Pysanky:

"Pysanky are made to be given to family members and friends. To give a pysanka is to give a symbolic gift of life. Each of the designs and colors on the pysanka has symbolic meaning--the colors and designs are typically chosen to match the character of the person to whom the pysanka is to be given.

About My Pysanky:

I use beads instead of the typical beeswax designs because I prefer the focus to be primarily on the egg's colors. The beads are very small and each egg can take anywhere from one week to several months. I started making these eggs as gifts for family members and began my "store" as requests came in for specific colors for specific people.”

This one is made from an Ostrich egg. I can't even begin to imagine the time and the amount of beads that went into this work of art.

Lucite or Plastic?

I bought some necklaces at a flea market a few years ago. They came with a tag on them that said "Original Lucite by Dupont". I recently took them apart and started to make some jewelry pieces with them. Shown below is a bracelet I made using some dark teal marbled beads and copper oxidized wire.



I decided that before I listed them for sale I wanted to do a little research to make sure what I had was genuine Lucitie even though the tag said it was. Almost everything I found indicated that Lucite is heavier then plastic and doesn't have seams. Well, the beads I have are light and do have seams. I did find one source that said that newer Lucite beads were lighter and could have seams. Since I only found that piece of information in one place I don't feel comfortable listing these for sale as Lucite.So, I guess I will be wearing the pieces I made myself. If I can find a definitive answer in the future I have plenty more beads to make many more pieces.

If anyone has any information about Lucite beads that they can share, I would love to hear your comments.