I Don't know How It Happened!!

I started out making jewelry innocently over 10 years ago. My love of all things sparkly soon took over and before long my "jewelry studio" looked like this.....

This USED to be my desk. 

The dresser is filled with more beads. The bottom drawer, that's now broken, is filled to the brim with pearls. The rest is miscellaneous. Gotta love miscellaneous. hehe!

 

These bins are filled with gemstones, sterling, gold-filled, etc. (LOTS of etc.!)

See, the thinking behind all this "stuff" is that you never know when you might need something. The trouble is that I stopped being able to find anything long ago and so just kept buying MORE! And, these days, though I still love making jewelry, my focus is on making beads. Where to put all the beads???

As much as I'd love nothing more than to open a bead shop, hubby doesn't care for the idea of getting further into debt, so sadly I must part with some of them. I've therefore opened up a 2nd ArtFire shop, LAJewelryDesingsDestash for destashing some of my beads and findings. I'm slowly stocking it so please bookmark it and keep checking back. I'll be uploading new listings to my facebook page so please friend me if you haven't already done so.

Go Pro With ArtFire for $5.95!!!

ArtFire is about to exit from their beta status & is offering $5.95 per month memberships to the 1st 20,000 people that sign up. I already have an AF shop, but I've elected to sign up for another one so that I can have 1 be Certified Handmade Artisan, which means that everything in that shop, LAJewelryDesigns, will get the recognition that 100% of the items in that shop is made by hand by me!

The new shop which I just opened, LAJewelryDesignsDestash, will be reserved for destash items from my jewelry making days. One look in my basement will tell you that there's LOTS of destash items coming! But don't delay! Once those 20,000 spots are filled, that's it! ArtFire only announced this new pricing opportunity a few days ago and over 4,000 of them are gone already. Check out their Group Deal for the specifics and to sign up!

Do All Artists suffer from ADD??

Today I had a plan. As soon as the temps went below 90, I would go outside and work on testing for CIM (Creation Is Messy). CIM, for non-glass folks is a glass company that produces fabulous glass rods in 104 COE (coefficient of expansion) in dozens and dozens of yummy colors, many of which are not available from other glass companies.

My testing glass, all 2.5 lbs. of it, arrived earlier today so I was gung ho on getting on the torch to play. Well, by the time the temps were low enough to torch I had thought of some other things I wanted to work on. I had wanted to make something special for a dear friend. Then I eyed my leaf press & decided with fall around the corner, wouldn't it be fun to make a nice set of leaves? And truthfully, I no longer remember what else is in there, except that I did manage play a bit with the CIM glass (oh so beautiful!) & hopefully tomorrow morning when I open the kiln I will be rewarded with some lovely beads!

Flowers On My Mind

So I didn't get my mother's green thumb and a gardener I'll never be :-( but I'm lucky to have great natural lighting in my house or my indoor plants would die as well. ;-)

What I can do though is make GLASS flowers! And they last a lifetime without watering!

Here are 2 sets I just uploaded to my Etsy and ArtFire shops. Tell me what you think.

500 Facebook Fans!!!

WOOHOO!!!! 500 fans! Cause for a celebration! With every purchase from either my etsy or AF shop for the next week, you can select a similar or lesser value item for 50% off! Sale ends a week from today, on Memorial Day, May 31st!!!

Must include "500 fans" in the notes in order to get the discount! Will refund the difference thru paypal!

LA Jewelry Designs on ArtFire
LA Jewelry Designs on Etsy