Shamrockin'

On this St. Patrick's Day will you be celebrating your Irish heritage? Or are you going to enjoy being "Irish" for just one day? Either way, I have a few new pieces this year for you to check out.

These green and gold Shamrock Earrings on gold filled ear wire and head pins are light weight. The green shamrock beads sit between textured gold colored glass beads.

Shamrock Earrings

Caps from Guinness beer bottles were recycled into a Glittering Green Shamrock Pendant and a Shamrock Love Pendant. Both pendants come with a complimentary ball chain.

Glittering Green Shamrock Pendant


Shamrock Love

TILT!

This month's featured Etsyblogger team member is Theresa from TiLT Creations and her second Etsy shop, TiLT Too.

Theresa is a creative stay at home mom. When she's not busy with her two boys she is painting, sewing, or cooking. As she says, she has been into art since she picked up her first Crayola! She studied art and art history in college and creating art has become a big part of her life.

I absolutely love her handbags, totes, and messenger bages. She is having a sale right now, buy one get one half off. The sale ends February 28th, so you better hurry!

This Janet handbag with geometric print is unique. The straps are a cotton ribbon of laddered circles matching the pattern on the bag.


This FUNdamental tote combines her eye for fabric and hand painting talent. The yellow compliments the patterned fabric nicely and the hand painting matches the print.



She sells some left over fabric and patterns in her destash shop, TiLT Too. She also sells patterns for bags, clothing, and crafts. This pattern is cute; it's a pattern to make children's soft fabric books.


Visit Theresa at her blogs:
TiLT's Creations
Crafts, Kids, Home, and Life

Heart ♥ Health

The month of February is not only a month for love and valentines, but also for heart health! Cardiovascular diseases, including strokes, are the leading cause of death in this country. This scary statistic prompted an entire month being dedicated to raising heart health awareness.

You can improve your heart's health by:

• Reducing risk factors
  
• Exercising
• Following a healthful diet
  

You can't improve your genes but you can reduce other risk factors that contribute to heart disease such as smoking and stress. Try mediation or relaxation techniques. Have your blood pressure checked at a routine doctor appointment.

Like the other muscles in your body, your heart can be strengthened with exercise. Some of my favorite heart strengthening activities include cardio kickboxing, hiking, biking, snowshoeing, and hitting my punching bag (which is also a stress relief). If you require low impact exercise, or currently suffer from heart disease, walking, a slower pace on an elliptical machine, or pilates might be better for you.

Heart healthful foods include those that are low in saturated fat and cholesterol, and high in fiber. Did you know fiber helps reduce your LDL, also known as your bad cholesterol? Try making small adjustments like replacing sugary cereals with high-fiber ones, mayonnaise with mustard, or chips and dip with veggies and hummus. Here is an easy recipe for hummus:

• 15 oz. can garbanzo beans, drained (keep the liquid)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp. of lemon juice
• 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 can of beets (for the beet juice)


Combine garbanzo beans, garlic, cumin, salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil into a mixing bowl. Put the contents of the bowl into the food processor and blend on low speed, gradually adding about 1/2 cup beet juice and 1/4 cup of reserved garbanzo bean liquid, until the desired consistency is achieved. It will have a purple color from the beet juice. You can use it as a sandwich spread or dip veggies or pita chips into it.

How do you promote heart health?

Winter Photo Contest

I entered this photo taken on a snowshoe hike of Pilot Knob Ridge into a local photo contest. It is a gazebo on the ridge from which you have a beautiful view of Lake George. Votes appreciated, especially since it requires you to make a username and password!



Also submitted, was this amazing picture taken by Sister of a waterfall at the Lake George Recreational Park. Vote for her if you prefer!

2010 Valentine's Day Collection

I've recently been busy making my Valentine's Day 2010 line, but even hard so, finding a day off in which there was good lighting to take pictures! I have finally listed all my heart items, just in time for February! So if you'd like to do some shopping for your valentine or buy some stuff for yourself to celebrate yourself, mention in your Message to Seller during Etsy checkout "Be Mine" and receive 10% your purchase of any Valentine's Day item listed in this post! Offer good through 2-14-10.

Heart of Glass Earrings made with ceramic heart shaped beads and gold filled findings:


Poisonous Love Bottle Cap and Glass Tile Pendants, each with a complimentary chain:



Hot Lips Bottle Cap and Glass Tile Pendants:



Triple Stranded Heart Necklace featuring a quote from Walden by Henry David Thoreau:


Have a lovely Valentine's Day!

Nico Designs: Home Decor, Crib Shoes, Totes, and More!

This month the EtsyBloggers are featuring our fellow member, Erika, of Nico Designs. She has been a member for nearly two years now!

I think what makes Erika stand out amongst the many other sellers of hand sewn items is not only her great talent, but her choice in fabrics as well. For example, check out this tote bag. While Christmas is over, it's not to early to shop for next year, especially since it's on sale! It shows off a mix of patterns in the stripes that blend perfectly together and a cute gift-giving snowmen fabric separated by a simple red ribbon.

How wild are these crib shoes? The Heidi Grace fabric was embellished with felt flowers and then was lined with flannel material. They are made without buttons, sequins, and seams with the safety of the child in mind. If only my feet were small enough...

This lady bug pin cushion, as well as other select items, will be shipped to you for free in her current sale which is ongoing for the next couple weeks!


Visit her blog!

It's a New Year...

... and the EtsyBloggers team is blogging about it. Given a choice between talking about 2009 or looking ahead to 2010 I chose to go forward, as this year will be much more exciting.

The fun begins with a late winter long weekend in Puerto Rico for a wedding. Unfortunately, I'll be going without my husband - but with a ride to the airport and a free place to stay, I couldn't pass the opportunity up. Plus I get to see a good college friend get married!

The highlight of the year will be in the late spring when we go to Ireland. We will have a little over a week there with a rental car bouncing around the southern part of the country and staying in bed and breakfasts, but our first night will be in a castle!

The remainder of the year seems unremarkable at this point. I'd like to climb at least 7 high peaks which will put me at a dozen, and of course Sister and I will have a party now that we have our Fire Tower Challenge badges in hand!

Now that I've gotten my first arts and crafts show out of the way, I hope to have another one under my belt in 2010. In a post holiday crash I have put jewelry making on a temporary hold. Time to get busy again...

CalKat Love

As a jewelry designer myself, I have great admiration for the work of CalKat. CalKat is actually a great duo, Kathy and Carrie, and they make one of a kind jewelry, beads, and pendants.

I especially admire their work with silver, such as this pendant on their Capricorn Zodiac Necklace. They carefully chose stones that are representative of the sun sign, complimenting the sterling silver pendant.



This gorgeous multistranded Citrine and Pearls necklace mixes citrine chips and ties in the matching sterling silver pendant with a faceted amethyst and citrine inlaid.


This bead is awesome! It is a bisque bead layered over several days with pure silver precious metal clay (PMC) striped with a 24K gold PMC swirl effect.


They have quite a variety in their shop such as book marks, bracelets, necklaces, and beads, each organized into sections of "love".

Check out what CalKat is upto on their beautiful blog, creatively designed with a great play list of music and useful widgets!

Soopsee!

I'm giving soopsee.com a try! It seems like a slightly more customizable website that leads your customer back to Etsy.

Pros:

• Helps get your name out there

• Easy set up for a more customized web page than Etsy alone
  

• One page can links to your Etsy page, blog, contact information, other websites
  

• It's free, to a point, and therefore worth a shot!
  

• If you don't know how to build a webpage, it is an easy to use web hosting program

Cons:

• You still must use Etsy checkout (meaning users must still create a username and account through Etsy)

• You must pay to use the more advanced options and obviously to create your own domain

• While there is an ability to slightly customize your page, it is less of a blank template than other web hosting programs.

• I don't really see how the free version is that much different than using just Etsy. Perhaps it will be just one more username and password to remember...
  

Unlocking the Color Combination

There are many arguments in the debate of Art vs. Craft. As discussed before, my stance is that there are elements of one in the other. One can say that making jewelry is a craft, because it is. It requires materials and tools. Anybody with some cord can string beads, tie it off, and call it a necklace; however it is the color combination, design, and inspiration that make it art.

If you browse my shop, you might correctly suspect that my favorite color is any variation of the color teal - turquoise, blue-green, aquamarine. I am particularly fond of a teal, black, and silver color combination. I'm also partial to blue-green with earth tones.

Pacific Horizon is a necklace that reminds me of the ocean. Russian Amazonite beads were used in combination of silver and black, making each blue green amazonite bead stand out.





Silver and turquoise go well together even without black. These tear shaped turquoise howlite beads were hugged with silver, and turned into Hot Air Balloon Earrings. Turquoise howlite is actually howlite dyed blue-green, in this case a little more blue than green.



My Betel Nut Stretch Bracelet uses bicolored beads - one side teal and the side black. It's a perfect color combination, and the beads are earthy by nature!



Turquoise colored glass beads were mixed with shades of brown in the Metamorphosis Choker. The pendant is made from a coconut shell and the choker is symbolic of metamorphosis from egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, to the adult butterfly.