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By inkdork, on October 2nd, 2011 I have quite a bit left over from the last craft fair, plus a handful of new items I beaded up over the last few weeks. Since Sheree and I will be sharing a booth, my space will be pretty limited, so I’m going to change a few things around from last time.
Things to DO:
- Smaller price tags, and no extra information on them. Just the numbers.
- Bringing in some higher-dollar items such as my Swarovski crystal stuff and my brick-stitch earrings.
- I may try to do a few more purses for this time. I did sell one and a lot of people looked at them. Depends on what I decide to do about my smaller pieces of fabric I have all over the dining room.
- Lots of bracelets. Those were my biggest sellers.
Things NOT too do:
- Not so many hot pads. They didn’t sell at all, so will probably just pick ten or fifteen and that’s it. I’ll try to pair them up in matching twos and sell them as pairs. Will offer a discount to hopefully move them out.
- No plastic bag caddies. No one even knew what they were- everyone thought they were water bottle holders.
- No bow-ties. Nobody really “got” those either. Most people thought they were for dogs, not people.
- No doggie coats. I sold one, but overall people were not impressed by them.
- No baby hats. The only people who even looked at my hats were older ladies who wants hats with big brims.
I would like to be able to do some tote bags, as a lot of people asked about those, but I need to move what I have and stop buying fabric for a while. I don’t have anywhere to put any more stuff.
I think that about sums up what the changes will be. Now I’m off to make a layout sheet for my price tags so I can print them the next time I go to Mom’s on some cardstock.
By inkdork, on September 16th, 2011
By inkdork, on January 18th, 2011 
Just added this to my Etsy.com shop. Its made up of beautiful Swarovski cystals and pearls connected to the bracelet chain by jump rings, anchored on paddle pins. Price is $15.00 plus shipping.
By inkdork, on January 4th, 2011 I got my order of 195 bicones today from Amazon.com. There are 13 colors, I think 15 of each color. A really pretty mix. There are two shades of pink, a purple, a red, two blues, a green, a turquoise, orange, clear, jet, a pinkish amber color, and something slightly yellow- its not quite cantelope. I’ll look up the color names later today to see what they are for sure.
Looking forward to getting my order form Fire Mountain tomorrow so I can get started on some stuff using these. I never did post what I ordered from FMG, did I? The stones I got were on sale for about a dollar a strand, so got a good deal there. I went with silver plated instead of actual SS for the res because quite simply, SS is expensive stuff.
 What am I going to make first? I am going to do a bracelet or maybe a necklace using the chain and the stones and headpins to create a chunky piece. Planning on using the three colors of stones I have pictures above and maybe some other stuff I have on hand now. Then I am going to do another one using the Swarovski crystals providing I can do a good job on it.
By inkdork, on January 3rd, 2011 I am finishing up the flat spiral stitch bracelet that was supposed to go with my necklace and earrings back in October. I should be finished with it before I go to bed tonight, and will be posting pictures of it soon. Of course right now I am wishing I had ordered enough of the Swarovski crystals to do a double-row of the stitch, so I may wait on adding a clasp and order more crystals to do so later. I know it will be gorgeous either way but it will really have some extra oomph if I do decide to double it up.
By inkdork, on September 27th, 2010 I just completed my second flat spiral stitch bracelet, this one with candy pinks, purples, and blues. Instead of using the 4mm beads to make the center of each arch, I set them into the ends of each arch. It uses twice as many, but I had to do it in order to use the big round beads I chose because the round beads have holes big enough to swallow my seed beads. I really like the way it turned out too.
The first picture isn’t terribly clear, but the second one you can see the details nicely.
By inkdork, on August 4th, 2010 I got my box in the mail today with the last of the beds I ordered, so not only can I finish up my bracelet I had to order beads for, I can work on other projects as well. I got some real pretty beads in the box, and some that I’m not sure I’m crazy about but sure they will find a place they belong sooner or later. I love the super bargains where you get a mixed lot of a type of bead (in this case it was mother of bearl) and its just a random grab bag of product. Sometimes I wish you could put in $20 and get a box full of stuff randomly selected, say a minimum of 10 items. That would be a lot of fun.
I turned in my final project I posted here yesterday and the teacher loved it. He said it was a crack-up and liked the comic booky fonts choices I made with the narrative. Now we’ve only got the final test to do on Thursday and the class is over. I am confident that I am getting a B in the class. After the first few assignments I was doing pretty decent on the assignemtns, an my quiz scores have a B average. Of course I won’t know for sure for a few weeks but I’m not worried any more. Not like I was at the beginning of the semester.
Back to beads, I did a rope necklace out of the 6/o Czech sed beads I got with the mixed earth-tone colors. I divided it up into three sections with some turquoise beads, and now I’m working on stithing poppy jasper chips to it o one of the three sections. It definitely makes a different in the design, and I may add further embellishment to it after the chips are all stitched into place. I’ll be posting pictures of it when I get it inished.
I may take a break though and work on the fringe for the Day of the Dead amulet purse for a while instead though, now that I have my fringe beads and can get back to work on it.
By inkdork, on July 31st, 2010 I have an absolutely gorgeous bracelet I made years ago, but didn’t quite finish. Unfortunately, between then and now, I sold off a large part of my bead stash, and got rid of some of the colors that I needed for it. I have two of the 4 colors of seed beads I was using for it, and I believe I still have more of the pink and yellow fire-polish beads (I think they are Czech fire-polish anyway) that I used as accents, but the other two colors I used on it are anyone’s guess.
I’m currently on my bead supplier’s website trying to decide what color the ones I need to finish this up are, but not having much luck narrowing it down to a final choice. One I have it narrowed down to three options, the other, I’m not even sure if the ones I am looking at are the right type of bead. I think it’s a color-lined bead, but I can’t tell if its a rainbow finish or not, and what if its a ceylon? I just can’t tell. I know, there are right in fornt of me, but one single bead of that color by itself is a mighty small sample to try to match from.
When my boyfriend comes in, I’m going to ask him what he thinks of the color. “Blue” is not taking me far enough in this, but I really want to finish this bracelet up so I can wear it with pride and not always feel like hiding the incomplete end under my wrist.
By inkdork, on July 3rd, 2010 
I was out at my Mom’s house Friday night and found some old jewelry I had made some time back. One of them caught my eye as the perfect thing to wear to the wedding I am going to tonight. It is a chunky necklace made out of fat wooden beads, and a strip of old t-shirt material. If you ever do any crafting, you probably already have everything you need on hand to do this.
The construction is super simple. Take an old t-shirt in whatever color you want your necklace or choker to be, and cut a strip that is about 6 to 8 inches longer then the length you want it to be, and wide enough to wrap around your beads twice. You don’t want to skimp on the width because otherwise your beads might fall out. If your beads have a circumference of 2 inches, you’ll want the fabric strip to be 4 inches wide.
Starting in the middle, lay one bead down and roll the width of the fabric around it. Take a piece of narrow ribbon and tie it in a knot next to the bead. Do this on each side of it. I left my tails long and dangling, but you could cut them off and secure the knots with a dab of hot glue.
Work your way along the length of the strip, adding beads and ribbon until you have as many as you’d like.
To wear it, just tie the ends of the fabric behind your neck.
You could dress it up using other fabric types too.
Excuse my really awful picture, I just got out of the shower when I decided to post this and I look a little like a wet rat.
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