what's new to me

My exposure to Etsy, "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade", has opened my eyes to a whole new world. The obvious is that I am open to all kinds of neat things to purchase. My purchases have included reusable produce bags, lip balm, note cards, a scarf, and some soap. I admire purses and totes, jewelry and paintings.

But Etsy and her sellers have sparked a renewed interest in craft. I have always wanted to sew and crochet, and I own a sewing machine for whipping up quick fabric creations. But I had never heard of "felting" before now, nor had I known that such adorable doodads could be made with felt. To me, felt is a material for school children.

But now I see felted bowls, needle felted beads...

fiveforty

artbydonnarose

3FUN

So much fun! So much potential!

True felt is made from a natural fibre, usually wool, through stimulation combining friction and moisture (or by using special felting needles). Essentially, the structure of the natural fibers is tangled and bonded...forming felt.

A New Piece

A NEW PIECE for emmsgems!

Be sure to read the story behind this "Ghost" of a gEM!

I foresee some matching earrings in the near future...

I love the red beads in this necklace! They have a matte finish, are extremely light weight, and are made from the Buri nut...which come from the Buri Palm tree in the Philippines. Beads aren't the only thing made from parts of the Buri tree. The trunk is used as a source of flour, and the palms are used to make hats!

my favourites

I just took a stroll through my favourites on Etsy, and I noticed a recent influx of the colour YELLOW:




Is it representative of the changing season?
Daylight until well past 5 p.m.?
Is it my cheery mood?

I think that yellow is often overlooked.

storing earrings

I don't know about you, but storing the earrings that I wear on a regular basis is a challenge.

For one thing, they get all tangled up in each other. It doesn't matter how many little compartments I have, I end up throwing them all in the same one. So compartments aren't a good idea.

Another problem is, just like socks...I can never find a matching pair when I want one! I spend so much time rifling through the tangle of dangles and hoops, that I give up.

While browsing through Etsy, I discovered this beautiful and seemingly handy piece:

Earring Frame from ParadiseHillDesgins

I might just have to buy this!

lip balm and cozies!

Never have dry lips again! Never lose your lip balm again!



I have a couple of these lip balms myself

You can get yours here: ShannonsIrishBliss
I don't have any cozies yet, but how can you wrong? I recommend Buttery Toffee Crunch flavour.

after Christmas...

Christmas is over, so that can only mean one thing...Valentine's Day is up next! I didn't hop on a "need to make Christmas product binge", but today, I began making PINK items!

I have started a Valentine's Day product launch and didn't even realize it. I was tidying up, and I found a stash of pink beads from a Breast Cancer Fundraiser that I donated to last year, and decided that I should make some PINK items.

Pink isn't usually in my repertoire, but I have to say, these sterling and pink earrings are pretty!

They will show up in my Etsy shop in a few days.

Sale on Turquoise!

It's hard to think of an original sale idea for Etsy...

But I just came up with this one on my own:

10% off all turquoise PLUS an extra .09 cents off to celebrate the new year!

I will be adding more turquoise pieces throughout the duration of the sale (which ends on January 10, 2009)