Custom work coming

The plan is to post some new items this week, but as I will be working on several custom pieces for a bride and her bridesmaids, the posting may have to be pushed back until next week. But as it is, I have some beautiful earrings and necklaces that are ready to go. And if there is a little bit of time, I am going to use the freeform black garnets from my last purchase too. I have already decided to pair them with some textured hoops and call them Claudia so I hope there will be time soon!

New inspiration

I stopped by Country Beads, my favourite Vancouver bead store, on my way to seeing Macbeth last night and left with some beauties. There are smoky quartzes, chalcedonies, iolites, pearls, and a sugilite. There is also a pair of ruby zoisite, which has grey instead of the typical green mottled background. And a pair of freeform black garnets. I can't wait to turn them into earrings!

Treasury: Kirsten

One of my pieces has been featured in an Etsy treasury! What is a treasury listing? It is a member-curated gallery that is usually done with a theme or a colour scheme, and it has a very short lifespan. This treasury is called Innocence and was chosen by Crocheted4Kids. It expires on Sunday (July 26th) and here is a screenshot showing the Kirsten:

Batteries recharged

My self imposed break from jewellery making hasn't gone very well since I managed to complete another pair of earrings over the last ten days. Waiting to be posted to the shop are the Rochelle, which features prehnite briolettes from Seattle, and the new Tabitha earrings, which have pale pink chalcedony coins.

The next piece will be the amethyst, aquamarine, and peridot earrings I wrote about last time, but the style will likely be much shorter with the addition of iolites and maybe another stone. And then I have a cluster necklace in mind that should be very pretty. The stones I am thinking of using include iolite, spinel, aquamarine, kyanite, tanzanite, and grey topaz. It looks like my attempts at recharging during the break worked so watch for some new additions to the shop soon!

Aquamarines and peridots

The Rochelle earrings are finished now and I am moving onto my next design. I have yet to decide whether to include an amethyst at the top, which would make it a little like the Kirsten earrings except the stones will not be clustered. There will be a lot of labour involved since all of the aquamarines and peridots are briolettes, but the end result should be fabulous (and fabulously expensive)!

What's going on

Although I had planned to take a short break from making jewellery, I find there is a mysterious force drawing me back to my beads... I already have two earring designs in mind and an idea for a necklace that I will probably start working on this weekend. The earrings are temporarily called Valerie and Rochelle, but who knows if they will end up with a different name. So much for the break!

EotW: Demelza

The new Earrings of the Week are the delicate Demelza earrings. Named after a character from the Harry Potter books (just like the Romilda), they feature tiny smoky quartzes and olive tourmalines above unusual kite-shaped beer quartzes:


In other news, the craft fair props and supplies are almost all packed away, which means it is time to refocus on the shop. I am working on two custom modifications and will be posting the Carissa, Jen, and Ulla soon.

Don't forget the free shipping deal during Celebration Week expires after tomorrow! The deal applies to shipping to anywhere in the world whether it is to Calgary or Stone Town.

Celebration Week

The Salmon Festival Craft Fair was a success and some of the items that sold include the Monique, Jill, Shandra, and Anisette. The shop has already been restocked so it is running again...

... Which leads me to the special deal that began on Monday, June 29th. Since there are two national holidays being celebrated this week (Canada Day today and the Fourth of July on Saturday), there is free shipping on all items at the shop at aileen.etsy.com. The celebration week special lasts until the end of the day on July 6th!

Local vs. international

Preparations for next week's Salmon Festival Craft Fair are well under way. All of the earring display cards have been cut, scored, pierced, and labeled - they only need to be folded before earrings are inserted and displayed properly. All of the bracelets and necklaces have also been tagged, which means I am almost ready for July 1st! Here is an in-progress picture of the earring display cards, two of the free-gift-with-purchase items for the first ten customers, bracelet and necklace tags, and bagged earnuts, along with three pairs of earrings that will make their debut at the craft fair (L-R: Carissa, Charla, Jill):


I also wanted to mention how wonderful Google Analytics is at tracking website traffic. I added it to the shop in February and it tracked visits from as far away as Tehran, Iran! As for this very blog, there have been visits from 39 countries and here is a map of the visitors' locations:

Warm hearts, warm bellies

My workplace held a fundraiser for the local food bank last week and I donated these smoky quartz and iolite earrings to be sold:


The Orleya proved so popular that I had to make second pair, which was fantastic because it meant the food bank got even more than expected!