Love At First Sight #1!

Oh. My. God. This listing has inspired an entire blog series with one look!

Do you guys remember those Perler beads from the early nineties that you would stick to a spikey plastic thing and fuse together with an iron? I forgot about them completely until I found this shop just now: Argenta Collaborative!

Took me back INSTANTLY. I used to make all kinds of nonsensical patterns with these things when I was about 8 years old, but Game Boy magnets? SOLD!

I've always been fascinated with pixel art, but this takes it to a whole new level! In love!

Treasury love: Turquoise!

I'm by no means a pro at treasuries, I've seen some that are absolutely amazing. But they are a great deal of fun and a really neat way to show love for other crafty people. Here's my first, featuring products that are variants of my absolute favorite color! It was a lot of fun to put together!



Maybe one day I'll get better at this :D

Vital steps in curing resin!

What we like to see!

Okay, so I recently almost destroyed my entire stock of jewelry after getting a resin kit and becoming so excited about using it to church up my existing pendants that I skipped a bunch of steps! Don't do what I did! Avoid my mistakes and guarantee yourself a quick curing!

WARM YOUR RESIN!
Even if it doesn't feel cold, make absolute sure you sit your bottle of resin in warm water for about 40 minutes! I found out that since I hastily skipped that step, I made it harder to get an accurate measurement of resin, which is absolutely essential for it to cure properly! You need EXACTLY the same ratio of resin to hardener, and thinning out the resin will make it pour more evenly in your cup.

DON'T BE STINGY!
NEVERNEVERNEVER mix less than half an ounce of resin and hardener combined! You're pretty much guaranteeing yourself that whatever masterpiece you just crafted is never going to cure! Also, it will cost you more product in the long run if you have to keep trying to pour resin over and over!

STIIIIIRRRRR!!!
Very important. It's recommended that you thoroughly stir your mixture for about two minutes, taking care to scrape the sides and bottom of the cup, then let it sit for five minutes to get the bubbles to dissipate!

More complete instructions can be found here. These are just the major steps I missed in my excitement :c You can bet I'll never be skipping steps ever again!

Happy crafting!

Resin issues :c

Hey guys, I had to take a bunch of my Etsy listings down. I had originally made the pendants with something called 3D Crystal Lacquer, which left a lot to be desired, so I bought some actual resin to do the next batch with and figured it couldn't hurt to add a layer to all the existing pendants. Somehow one of the batches I mixed up didn't turn out right and the resin is refusing to set! It did, however work *perfectly* on the "Birthday Cake" necklace, so that one is now all by its lonesome in my shop!

I'm determined to figure this stuff out, though, and will definitely relist them when they finally turn out! I'm not going to sell crap products to you guys! I wouldn't be able to live with myself!

Sorry if anyone was planning to buy anything, I'll definitely let you all know when I finally get the hang of this stuff!

Thanks for understanding! <3

Crafty goodies and EtsyRAIN meetup!

It's my official first post! Hooray! I figured an awesome way to kick things off would be to share a site my Gramma found and show off the resulting project I put together this last Wednesday afternoon!

So, the site is Home Jewelry Business Success Tips, which is full of useful information on everything from marketing your jewelry to displaying it to motivating you to get your name and jewelry out there (it worked for my Gramma, who has been putting it off for around four years!)! My favorite part was the tutorial on making your own necklace display bust, which I immediately got to work on and went to town heavily embellishing with some leopard fur I had left over from Halloween a few years ago:

Pretty stoked about it! This is a dirt cheap and incredibly easy way to display your goods if the standard-issue black velour just isn't your thing.

I'm so excited to start selling my jewelry that I'm kinda diving head-first into this amazing community of crafty people. My long-time friend Rachell of No Mark At All invited me to attend an EtsyRAIN meetup that she hosts at her work this last Tuesday. It was a whole lot of fun and everyone there was super awesome and talented in their own way. Rachell has a post up about it at her blog here!

That's about all I have for now. Until next time!