Everything I learn is from the Internets.

I said that yesterday to Rebecca aka Smelly Rhino and it took her fancy. It was true when it came to craft shows though and I participated in my first one yesterday with the Etsy North Georgia street team. We had a holiday bazaar at Jan aka Pamper Pantry's house and I thought it was fantastic. I definitely want to do more and I learned a lot from the experience.

Katey aka Snarky Design shared a table with me and our minds work brilliantly together I must say. She had the purple fabric and boxes for giving everything different height on the table. The Friday night before we were randomly talking about holiday decorations and she told me to bring my wee lil tree and we ended up putting earrings on it.



I had also seen a blog post by Galleria Linda on custom earring cards. She had a photo from a friend who had made some tent cards so they would be able to write on the back, etc. I picked up some of the same cardstock I've been using with the eco-friendly theme (it is also 70% recycled content) and that's what I used for the flat part of the table.

These were a great idea and really worked well for people. They were able to pick up the whole card and touch the earrings and easily take them out to try them on, read the back for the materials etc. without a lot of hassle. I will definitely do that again and would recommend it to anyone who likes to do their own packaging.



Although the tree with earrings for ornaments was a cool idea, in practice it didn't turn out to be as effective. The way people would scan our table was to start at the left with the pyramid bags that Katey had made and then down to the earring display cards. I would have to point out the smaller pyramid bags under the tree and the earrings on the tree. I think the reason was that people are used to seeing trees as decoration and we were using it out of that element so it was a disconnect. Once people were shown how the tree was being used though then they had no problems with it.



Janine from Girl Sew Pretty had a really lovely way of displaying her bracelets and necklaces with what looked like willow branches in a large glass jar (and forgive me because I should have snagged a photo) so something to keep in mind for the next show!

I felt very prepared from having read some other online info about what to bring to a show including a mirror which got borrowed by quite a few other people at the show. The traffic wasn't overwhelming and it was good to be able to talk to the other team members as well. We are definitely going to do these more often!

Night off from jewelry? Sort of.

I spent some time tonight getting the house straightened and cleaned. I really neglected it during the week of vacation but I can't get too mad at myself right? It was a vacation.

I promised myself yesterday that I would take a break from any actual jewelry creation tonight and just write down any ideas that came to me or work on something completely different. I got online briefly and checked the Team NorGa forum and realized the deadline for entries for the current flier contest was tomorrow.

When thinking about what I wanted to include, I didn't really want to showcase my jewelry nor did I want to randomly grab stuff from other team members' shops. I went around my work room and picked up some items to photograph, hoping that would give me some inspiration. I started with some wire and hammers but had a difficult time getting a good set-up. When I started working with the yarn, that's when the idea hit me.

The materials we work with may be fantastic in their own state but what sets them apart are the people who take them and meld them into art. Click here to view the four variants I submitted. I hope at least one of them gets picked!

Rejuvenating weekend.

I was fairly focused on only accomplishing a few things this weekend but everything I was able to do I feel good about. It was a nice change of pace from either feeling very manic or just plain down. I spent a few hours on a copper wire project on Saturday night that I didn't finish but am not giving up on, it just involved a lot of bending and hammering so my wrists and hands needed a break today. I want it to be 100% handmade so I did all the jump rings etc. so it's taking a bit. Right now it's a mess...from that mess will come order! Well, enough to enjoy it.

I also joined the Etsy North Georgia Street Team and I'm excited about being more involved with crafty folks in my area.

As far as successful weekend projects go, I whipped up three pairs of earrings that turned out so well I put them up on my shop. I also made myself a pair of the Water Gears ones with smooth washers and a non-matte glass bead.

All earrings in the shop are buy two pairs, get one free!