Spread the Love

The wonderful folks at the Handmade Artists Forum have been involved in a campaign called "Spread the Love." Basically we're trying to get attention for all the artists who are on the site by blogging and tweeting and anything else you can think of.

Today's artist is a fellow chainmailler! Monique is based in California and has some beautiful items in her shop: ToraJewelry You can check out her blog as well :)

Busy Before Holiday

Lots of things to get done before I head to Las Vegas on the 16th. Will be seeing Cheap Trick perform the Beatles Sgt Pepper album and am very much looking forward to it. Am seeing two performances! Yeah, I love Cheap Trick ;-)

More items added to Artfire and Etsy, several new earrings, Jens Pind and Byzantine combinations.

New business cards have been shipped and I'm looking forward to their arrival. Hopefully will arrive before I fly off to Vegas!

Busy Summer

Well, summer has been and gone, what little we had of it here in Toronto. It's now Labour Day weekend and wouldn't you know, the weather is gorgeous. Could have used this weather a lot more in the past two months!
Have been creating items for my two shops, Etsy and Artfire.
Have uploaded new items to Artfire and will upload to Etsy over the week.
My favourite new items are a pair of earrings made with the chainmaille pattern Jens Pind which have Lt Amethyst Swarovski crystals dangling on the end. I think they are just so pretty and might have to make them up with a few more Swarovski colours. The other item which is gorgeous is a sterling silver bracelet made with 19g wire and woven in the Full Persian pattern. It's full name is Full Persian 6 in 1 but it's also known as Foxtail because of the appearance of the weave.




More items are available in my shops!

It's the Way of the World

Someday you start out thinking you're going to make one thing and what you end up with is not quite what you imagine.
I thought I'd try the Rings of Saturn pattern but I didn't like how the rings were laying after I followed the instructions. So I started tinkering with it and ended up with looks like a combination of Rings of Saturn and Helm Weave, at least to my eyes.
I'm calling them Way of the World earrings as I was singing my favourite Cheap Trick song as I was creating them :)

New Items!

Been busy with learning some weaves. Finally had the right size rings to try the Double Spiral Weave, I love the feel of it. Can't wait to make a full bracelet as it's so supple and slinky. Earrings are done so bracelet will be next.

The other weave I've mastered is Barrels which I've done in both bracelet and necklace.

Etsy and Tags

Well it seems like there is a huge kerfuffle going on at the Etsy site right now as the admins at Etsy have decided to highjack the titles that we use to list our items and put their tags in front for Google searches. Which means people aren't finding our own stores on Etsy because Etsy tags Handmade by Etsy instead of my tags, ie. Sterling Silver Japanese Flower are coming up instead. People are outraged and rightly so. Artfire puts their tags at the end of our titles and Etsy should do the same.
Why should I bother to continue to list on Etsy if nobody is going to be able to find my items in Google searches? This issue is being talked about all over the web so hopefully Etsy will listen and fix the issue pronto!

Japanese Flower

Have finally taught myself the Japanese Flower chainmaille weave. It's such a pretty weave and perfect for earrings. Will be making a pair of these for myself. Can see them paired with a lovely summer dress and the sun will make them sparkle :-)

Google Analytics

Have just found a great tutorial for adding Google Analytics to your Etsy shop. Was slightly confused about the process until I watched the video on Timothy Adam's page. Very easy to follow along to set up Google Analytics for your shop so you can track the views on your items :-)

New Inspirations!

On Friday I found out that the Toronto Jewellery Gem and Mineral Show was going to be held just 10 minutes walk from where I live. Heaven! Went in Saturday and fell for some gorgeous glass, lampwork beads that one designer was selling. One set was cranberry glass and the other was a purple/green lampwork, slightly floral looking. Immediately thought the purple/green beads would look fabulous with some dark amethyst beads. Went home and starting creating!
Two bracelets were created from the cranberry glass beads, both with sterling silver. One is a byzantine weave and the other I matched the beads with tiny stamped barrel beads, and I mean tiny!
The other bracelet was the purple/green lampwork beads which did indeed look amazing with amethyst beads, added a bit of sterling silver for some accent and voila, bling!

New Items

I've added two new items to my store, well, one to Etsy and one to Artfire, have to spread the wealth ;-)

They are both sterling silver earrings done in chainmaille weaves. The one at Etsy was created in the Full Persian weave and I've added a Swarovski pearl to dangle from the end.

The earrings at Artfire were created using the Boxchain or Queens maille pattern. Boxchain does describe the look of the earrings but Queens maille just sound so much nicer.

New Items!

I've just added my first items to my new shop at Artfire.com

My shop located here and I've added a pair of sterling silver earrings done using the Mobius Flower pattern of chainmaille. The other item is a sterling silver bracelet with a Swarovski Cosmic Ring Crystal. The chainmaille pattern for the bracelet is Wiggly Chain.

Check them out!

Twitter

Well, I've just joined Twitter but not sure what the heck I'm doing! My good friend Ioan, one half of the fabulous UK based photography business Celynnen Photography, has persuaded me to sign up. Though I'm not sure why people actually Twitter, it's all new to me. I'm sure he'll tell me!

I can be found at twitter@lasuzcreations

It's Been Too Long

I can't believe how many months have passed since I last posted. I was busy planning and working out for a climb up Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania which I did in February. That plus a safari took up most of February and coming back to work, the one that pays the bills, found us in a new part of the building and with a new schedule. I'm only now coming to grips with the schedule which consists of mostly evening shifts. Finding it hard to get myself out of bed in the morning in order to create jewelry!

But here I am, with the tumbler running in the kitchen, back blogging. I've just coiled some new rings, sterling silver and gold-filled, and they are being work hardened as I write so that I can cut them later on. Three sizes of rings so I can create lots of different items with different patterns.

I did create a new bracelet using the chainmaille Wiggly Chain pattern. It's a pretty easy pattern once you've learned it and I combined a Swarovski Cosmic Ring in the pattern for a bit of sparkle.

Stay tuned for more creations!