National Peanut Butter Day Treasury

January 24^th celebrates one of my most favorite foods - peanut butter!!!

On Etsy, its very difficult for me to get a treasury because you have to wait for the list to get below 333, and at that time I'm usually at work or sleeping. I got one, which has since expired, just in time before National Peanut Butter Day was officially over, and it was officially past my bedtime!


This necklace is from my shop, called Chocolate Peanut Butter Twist. It features a brown and tan jasper pendant with three strands of beads (milk chocolate colored beads and pale wooden beads) twisted and joined at brown round beads




To the right is a peanut butter soap cupcake by SoapKitchen. The mold for this soap was actually taken from a real cupcake, and is made with flecks of actual peanut butter!






The notebook in the picture to the left is made from the box of a Smucker's Uncrustables. IvyLaneDesigns' shop is filled with notebooks made from cereal boxes to beer boxes.



Peanut Butter Fun Facts
Peanut Butter Recipes

Pleasant Ending to a Long Day

Oooohhhhhhh what a day!

I'm a medical technologist in a hospital laboratory. I work mostly in microbiology but I do work in chemistry a few times a month. I'm most experienced in microbiology so I am somewhat out of my element when I actually get to work in chemistry. We are currently training on new instrumentation and simultaneously undergoing renovations, leaving the lab in a constant state of chaos. I volunteered to stay late to cover the department so that the evening shift would be able to learn how to use the new instrument, which only extended my long and stressful day by over three hours.

After work, I came home and checked on my Etsy shop to see if I had any sales. There were no sales, but the views on a lot of items had skyrocketed. Confused as to where these views all came from, I checked on my blog and freebird had left me a comment in this post saying that I was on beadingdaily.com! (I'm featured under post 2).

I was later informed by other Etsians that my Bird Nest Crocheted Choker was on the Etsy front page for a while today! (I'm not there anymore, and I'm somewhat disappointed that I missed the opportunity to admire myself there).

No sales but I had a ton of exposure!

Shameless Self Promotion, Or Selfishness?

Nothing is better than free advertising. Of course, hardly anything in life comes at you for free.

My best form of advertising is wearing the stuff that I keep for myself. That way, when someone says, "I like your necklace," I can respond, "Really? I made it" as I shove a business card in their face. I keep my duds, or I give them away, but I never really make something specifically for myself.

I work in a hospital laboratory, and I can wear anything I want except jammies, sweats, or jeans. I wear scrubs 99% of the time, as I hate everything about waking up in the morning, including getting dressed, and scrubs are the easiest thing in the world. However, if I have big plans after work I'll wear real clothes. For me, that's when I get most of my advertising in. I don't tend to wear jewelry with my scrubs because, it just doesn't look right.

I've had this metal pendant around for so long, I don't even remember where I got it. I got a good deal on some black and white bone beads and decided its about time I treat myself to a custom made for me piece. I'm just waiting for an excuse to wear clothes to work so I can sport it around. It's about the cheapest form of advertising, and I'll certainly get personal use out of it too!

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Make Bird Nests?

The idea for a bird nest pendant actually stemmed from a freak accident. I've been into playing with wire lately, mostly having fun with my wire jig and Coiling Gizmo. I've made a few patterns with the tools, but decided to try to free hand some projects. I was actually trying to make a circular pendant with another wire circle inside, and a bead inside that. My goal was to wire weave the inner circle to the outer circle and thread the bead through the center. The harder I tried, the worse it looked until finally I had my little temper tantrum and crushed the mess in my hand. I looked at it and thought, "That looks like a really mangled bird nest."

I salvaged the bead and threw out my hideous inspirational disaster. I decided I'd just go straight for the bird nest. As fate would have it, I had a few greenish blue egg shaped beads in my bead collection.

Having a wire pendant gave me an excuse to crochet another choker. Like all my crocheted chokers, it is adjustable up to a certain length, this one featuring a wire hook clasp that I made with matching brown copper wire. The choker is threaded with round beads that match the "eggs" and tiny teal colored seed beads.

It would make a nice present to put in someone's Easter basket or a gift to yourself to remind you that spring will be here soon enough.

Project of the Month: January

Vintage Kelly Green Bracelet and Earrings

The idea for the linked bracelet with matching earrings came from my Bead Style Beading 2008 a project a month calendar. January's project is a Linked Garnet and Vermeil Bracelet and Earrings project that calls for vermeil jeweled links with garnets from Fire Mountain Gems (shown on the right). Each link, however, when buying in the small quantity that I would need, it would cost $7.36 per link, making it an expensive bracelet. I came across these vintage kelly green connectors from EpochBeads on Etsy. They are green glass with flecks of gold and white, held in a brass setting. EB helped me pick out some matching vintage brass jump rings as well.

I eagerly awaited the arrival of my purchase only to find out that my mail carrier was boycotting our mail delivery because the snow was not cleared to her liking. After my husband placed a complaint with the post office, my package arrived, along with 8 days worth of mail bills. I now make a point of turning the mailbox away at a 45^O angle to make her job more difficult.

I digress, back to the project of the month. I made a bracelet with the jump rings and vintage green glass connectors, as well as a pair of matching earrings. The earrings have the same vintage connectors with green fire polish givre beads on wire. I posted the listing this afternoon and the bracelet sold in a record 15 minutes. The earrings are now lonely and would like to be bought as well. (hint hint)