Saturday, February 27, 2010

ARTFIRE CRAZY TRAIN RIDER SCARLET IMPRESSIONS

Good Saturday Morning!  I'm actually sort of cranky this am - with about 1hr of sleep the people above me went stomping around and woke me up.  Then just as I was walking away from watering the plants in my bedroom some guy walks past the window and just stares right in!!! That's just rude!  but, I digress.

Wow - jewelry - Artfire has jewelry.  Lots of jewelry by a variety of jewelry artisans.  And the cool thing, it's all different which still just amazes me.
Scarlet Impressions has necklaces, earrings, bracelets, sets, for him, for the kids, and even has gift certificates!! What a great idea, that way if you want to get a gift for someone, but don't know quite what to buy them you can get them a gift certificate and they can choose their own wonderful handmade jewelry piece.
Wire wrapping fascinates me, especially if it's well done like this Lilac Turquoise Copper Wire Wrapped Pendant.















And for him, or her, this Brown Czech Glass Bracelet
















And for the kidlette, these pretty Pink Flower Earrings .  Oh wait a minute, I want those!!! There are necklaces for the little ones too!
















So, you can get something for just about everyone in the family in this unique shop - and shop in your jammies while sipping on your hot chocolate or coffee on this cold Saturday morning - who wants to go out  in the snow anyway!  Not snowing here, yet, just cold. 
Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

ARTFIRE CRAZY TRAIN RIDERS GIRL SEATTLE AND IL MARE

If you are looking for some unique and beautiful jewelry pieces, these two shops are full of such jewelry.

Girl Seattle does some intense creative wire wrapping - such as this Gold Mosiac Necklace. with tiger eye and black onyx. 

















This Vintage Filigree and Gemstone Necklace is one of my favs from this shop.  It's made with brass belt buckles (yeah) and a variety of stones.  Love those leaves on the chain!

If you are into gold jewelry, Il Mare is a great shop to visit,  This Rose Quartz and Sapphire Necklace is quite lovely. Love all those dangly beads with this.


Or, these Amethyst, rainbow moonstone, and white topaz earrings are really pretty.  I love the bunches of dangly beads on many of the pieces in this shop.
Spring is coming soon - that means Mother's day, prom, Easter, spring flings, just because it's spring and  time to buy something new to wear with all those pretty spring outfits!!   so, if you are looking for a unique and pretty piece of jewelry, visit these shops, you won't be disapointed!  








Monday, February 22, 2010

ARTFIRE CRAZY TRAIN RIDER MOONLIGHT ETERNAL

My apologies to those that I have missed, I'm not going to try to catch back up - I'm never going to get caught up -so I'm just going to try really hard to stay up with this - I just have my days where I just can't accomplish much.
Jewelry - I don't go shopping much, but it seems like most of the jewelry in most stores (unless you're going real high end) looks a lot a like - but not so when you get to handmade!  Which is pretty amazing considering we are all basically buying from the same sources, but it just all depends on how it gets put together.   So, if you want something unique check out Moonlight Eternal.  These little Faceted Rings are so cute, and if you don't like blue, she has them in other colors too!




These Rainbow Moonstone Dangle Earrings really caught my eye.  I like dangly earrings, and I love moonstone.  Pretty aren't they!














Check these Black and Ruby Spider Earrings out!  I found these in her UnValentines Day section, a collection of spider earrings, skeleton items, black roses, a bloody hands necklace, well you get the idea right!










Now, can you honestly tell me you can find earrings like that somewhere in a brick and mortar store this time of year???  maybe, but this way you get go shopping in your jammies! (or no jammies)
Want some unique jewelry - pay a visit to Moonlight Eternal, and have fun shopping in your jammies!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Featured Artist Tuscan Road Designs

Holly, creator of Tuscan Road Designs went to Italy and learned how to make lampwork beads!  I'm jealous!!!!
I'm just kidding -
but, she did go to Italy, and she did learn how to make lampwork beads, but she didn't learn how to do them in Italy!  She just got hooked on them in Italy!  I guess there are worse things she could have gotten hooked on!!!
Holly's aim is not to follow the trends but to create her own unique eclectic and assymetrical pieces.   Besides making her own lampwork beads, Holly also loves Swarovski Crystals,  semi-precious gem stones, and works with sterling silver, Bali silver, African silver, copper and brass.   Enjoy some of Tuscan Roads jewelry!
This lovely Spring Bracelet is made with lampwork beads along with Swarovski crystals, and Pinapple quartz - love those lampwork beads.















Besides blue, I admit it, I'm a sucker for just about anything garnet - such as this awesome Pearl Necklace with Garnet Locket











so, go ahead, I know you want to, go take a peek at Tuscan Road Designs on Etsy, and/or visit Tuscan Road's blog! and have a great day!

Monday, February 15, 2010

ARTFIRE CRAZY TRAIN RIDERS

I'll probably get caught up just about the time I'm going to take another trip to Colorado, but I'm going to backtrack a little bit.
Mother and daughter team jewelry designers 2BellesandaBead make some pretty jewelry such as this Silver Circle w/Copper Heart pendant with silver chain.













These Rusty Pink Freshwater Pearl Cluster Silver Earrings look like they would be fun to wear.














Hosslass Art, original watercolors & functional art creations, has some beautiful paintings and cards made from original paintings such as this "Desert Runners Tres" or








"Springtime Fishing" blank note card - she has some great cards that would be perfect for the man in your life.  And she also has free shipping on her cards and a few other items that are perfect for the "hosslass"!







GlasstasticTreasures is one of my favorite shops on ArtFire with her fantastic lampwork beads and other glass creations.  These Kisses Chocolate Drop Lampwork Beads are too cute!













This Captured Love Heart Pendant is one of my favorites, love that swirly red  glass.
















BrokenWing Designs does metalsmithing, mostly in copper, such as this Copper Cuff with Pink Stone and also carries some pretty awesome vintage silver jewelry by Native American Jewelry artists








check out this amazing Santo Domingo Turquoise and Silver Concho belt.  Wow, that would be a nice one to have!











So, vintage or new you have some pretty cool choices of some great handmade jewelry, lampwork beads, and original art or artistic note cards on ArtFire so the next time you are looking for that perfect gift for a loved one, or  want some new jewelry for yourself or your walls, need a note card, I highly recomend you take a look at some of these artists.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

HAF TEAM SPREAD THE LOVE

I'm so far behind on many things, so I'm going to play catch up a little anyway. I got back home from Colorado Jan17th,  by the end of the week I had a backed up bathtub.  Doesn't sound like a big deal, but it turned into a major thing!  Briefly, I ended up with 2 maintenance guys coming over one day, the next day I had 2 plumbers here for about 6 hours resulting in a hole in the wall, along with a major mess in the bathroom from one of the maintenance guys plunging the drain with the overflow cover off.   Not a pretty fountain at all!  I also have a large former headboard in the hall where the hole got cut, so that was sitting in my living room for over a week by the time the maintenance guy came over and patched & painted the wall.  Then I had a rather mismatched wall, so I painted all the hallway walls & 2 doors, cleaned my carpet, cleaned out the headboard/cabinet & put it back.   Did I mention that I had dirty water sprayed all over the bathroom?  yeah, ick.  Big big mess. 
I've been trying to get things made for my dear little granddaughter that needed to go up with a friend yesterday.  More on that later.
I really like being a member of the HAF Etsy Team - it's  a pretty active & supportive team.   Here's a few of our members:
TollyKit makes some pretty cool creations with chainmaille and even has a new little felted creature.   This is Emerald Fire who is a forest dragon and protects the forest and all the creatures there! 











This is Helm, a chainmaille and wirework dragon.  Pretty cool dragons aren't they?













Another chainmaille artisan is Tora Jewelry who created this fantastic Spiral Crystal Drop Chainmaille Necklace - what an amazing necklace!














Check out this awesome Dragonscale bracelet - chainmaille just amazes me - and both of these artisans do some excellent chainmaille.














On the softer side of chains we have Trendy Craft Creations who makes some pretty cool creations with essentially chains of yarn!  These Oreo Style Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are just too cute! 











This yarn artist makes some really neat play food along with some other little goodies, but speaking of goodies, check out these yummy looking Amigurumi Crocheted Strawberries!  She makes cupcakes too!









Back to the jewelry dept, we have T.Rusk4u who not only makes some really pretty beaded jewelry, she does some pretty wire wrapped pieces too, such as this Wire Wrapped Marble love that color! Pretty aqua marble and wire!








OOOO this pretty Sea Mist Glass & Pearls Bracelet is on sale!











One of our local stations was showing some items people might want to get for their sweethearts for Valentines Day, and I thought, you know it's really too bad that more people don't know more about Etsy or other venues that sell handmade items.   I know I would much rather have something that is probably very unique  made by an individual artisan than something that was mass produced and a thousand or a million other people will be getting also.  Wouldn't you?
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.