2 More Days!

Hey party people, you've got two more days to enter in the huge handmade giveaway that Blue Star Butterflies is co-sponsoring on TryHandmade.Com!!  What are you waiting for?  Get yer booties over there and snag a chance to win some awesome handmade goodies.

HUGE HANDMADE GIVEAWAY

I mean HUGE!  There are more than a few different sponsors for this giveaway that I am participating in.  TryHandmade.Com is running this fantastic giveaway and I'm donating a Cozy Cowl from Blue Star Butterflies in the winners choice of color.  Go check it out, have some fun and browse the other fantastic shops in this giveaway.  

Featured Artist - Risky Beads

I recently made a purchase from Lori at Risky Beads.  With the Artfire buzz growing, I set up shop and wanted to go through the buying process myself.  I looked around a little while and quickly found Risky Beads.   I was surprise that I hadn't run across her shop on Etsy, but we all know how crowded Etsy is!!  Lori sells on etsy at RiskyBeads.etsy.com and has a destash bead shop there as well RiskyStash.etsy.com  , also on artfire RiskyBeads.artfire.com  and at 1000 Markets 1000markets.com/users/riskybeads

She has been selling on etsy for nearly 18 months and has a fantastic shop with stellar photos. She has even written about her experience in a little book you can find in her shop.  I look forward to reading it soon.  It's full of helpful tips and her great personality.   She's a true artist all the way around.  From intreaging write ups for her work to creative photo set up.  She is what I hoped to be when I started putting my etsy shop together, slowly, last spring.  

I purchased a couple pair of earrings ( here and here ) from her and was extremely pleased with my experience.  We had good communication and my package arrived quickly.  The contents were cutely wrapped, it was fun to open each little item.  The package was full of goodies, business cards, suggested sellers, a calendar magnet, and some other surprises!  I think Lori at Risky Beads has got it going on!  If you are a seller of handmade goods on line, you can learn something from her.  And if you are a buyer of handmade goods, you are going to love your experience.  If you are both, like me, you really can't go wrong!   I am really enjoying my new earrings, there are exactly what I was looking for.  Thank you Lori!

Lori has a very cool blog (included on my bloglist on the side) which you can find at riskybeads.blogspot.com  in addition to her other artistic abilities she's a fantastic writer.  I highly suggest popping over there for a while!  She is currently running a huge Artfire giveaway.  You won't want to miss it.

Wordless Wednesday

Lauren Alexander

On the hunt

I am currently searching out sellers I'd like to feature here on my blog. I hope to get a list together before the new year and have one seller a week all set up to go for the full year. There are so many GREAT shops out there I don't think I'll have any problem. I also want to find other related blogs with helpful and interesting info to feature articles from. And lastly, I am going to try and take more photos of the creation process of my items for Blue Star Butterflies as well as including a 'Wordless Wednesday'.

The holidays have been absolutely wonderful and I am enjoying the visits from family who are normally far away.

Let me know if you like the new layout!

Hippity Hop to the Yarny Shop

Boy do I love shopping for yarn. The fact that I can't buy it all may be the only part I don't like. I like walking through the store to see what's new, checking out all the fantastic color combinations. Some are old favorites and some are unexpected and interesting. I like to imagine what a funky little skein of squishy hand painted yarn might become. Would I combine it with another yarn? Or let it be fabulous all by itself. Would I use an old favorite pattern or whip up something new... Oh the possibilities.

My fellow fiber fanatic friend and I headed out to the craft store and yarn shop this morning to hunt down this and that and find a much needed yarn fix. We dropped the 'older' kids off at preschool, grabbed a latte to-go and took off in the snow and iced over roads. At the yarn store our little ones came upon some good fortune. A knitting group was meeting and they brought treats! I think us ladies feel compelled to feed cute kids yummy things. They were in heaven. We putzed around the store for quite some time. As usual I bought too much yarn, but, how could I not?? While the shop gal put my yarn on the ball winder my friend finished up her picks.

Later this week at Blue Star Butterflies you will find several new colors of cowls. Dark pink, light powder pink, butterscotch, taupe brown, black, and light blue. I also found the softest yarn ever to start a luxury line of cowls! I am starting out with three colors to offer in my Etsy shop and will build from there. I can not wait to work with this new yarn. It's so soft, I want to sleep on a bed of it! I also got some fun pink speckled yarn and soft merino wool to make scarves, I think... I need to get some more scarves in the store, the cowls are taking over. That's ok though!