Jellybug Featured on Friday Finds!

“Wine and cheese go great together, so how clever to make a serving tray out of a wine bottle.”

My etched recycled wine bottle serving tray was featured on Friday Finds, a new weekly spotlight of Etsy artists by architect, photographer, and wine lover Erin Garrison. Erin sells prints of her original photographs in her Etsy shop. My personal favorite is Rome Architecture -- I love the way the tight circle of the skylight widens into the rings on the dome walls, then reflects across the border between wall and ceiling to curve the other way toward the statue. The photo has wonderful movement.

Erin's favorite of tray is the etched sweet pea tray. I also sell plain bottle trays with a cheese spreader or a decorative gift bag in a variety of colors. All of my trays have hanger so that they can be displayed on a wall or in a window when not in use! They make great entertaining, housewarming, and thank you gifts, and they're perfect for wine lovers!

My Glass Work Featured in an Etsy Treasury!

My cactus glass dish was featured in an Etsy treasury by EVY Designs! This spritely conversation piece would be an excellent gift for your favorite hard-to-shop-for person!

Holiday Shipping Fun

I think my postman rues the day that the postal service instituted free package pickup!

Glass Squiggles - Hot Off the Candle Flame!

I'm gearing up for my winter show -- the annual Festival of Lights in Greenbelt, MD this coming weekend. Display boards, gift bags, stickers, cards, new tables for a new booth size, oh my! At the same time, everyone on the internet seems to have discovered my Recycled Wine Bottle Serving Tray at once! Eek! They're flying out the door like very heavy hot cakes, and I'm piping them through my kiln as fast as I can.

Horde of Squiggles

Of course, I'm also trying to build up some new inventory for the show! I'm making a few batches of my signature squiggle pendants. I've just finished bending a horde of squiggles and polishing the soot out of all the wee twists and turns. Any requests for background colors? :D

MALL is a Four-Letter Word!

The Capital Region Etsy Street Team (CREST) is holding a Black Friday/Cyber Monday CREST promotion. The following stores have contributed items for a Gift Box, which will be given away through a random drawing. Several stores are also offering discounts.

To enter, post a comment on the CREST blog (not on my blog this time!) along with your name and email address. The winner will be announced on the afternoon of Friday, December 5th.

I'm personally offering $5 off on every $25 spent at my shop with free shipping on orders of $50 or more.  Shop at Jellybug Artworks on Friday, November 28th through Monday, December 1st, and save!

This holiday, MALL is a four-letter word!  Buy handmade, support your local artists, and give a one-of-a-kind gift!

Participating Stores

Athena's Olive Tree
Gift Box Contribution:Layered Candy Cane Soap Bar
Discount Offer: I've placed 42 items on sale and will be giving away a free item to a random person who purchased from my shop in the month of November... and i'll be giving 5% off any order placed ON black friday! Ends Midnight EST.
babus
Gift Box Contribution: I am offering up one of my wet-felted wool scrap yarn balls. Multicolored ball about 2 1/2 inches in diameter.
Discount Offer: I am offering free shipping on all items.

Bella Tote
Gift Box Contribution: an attractive reusable tote!

Bette's Bags
Gift Box Contribution: Small fabric wallet or credit card holder.
Discount Offer: Free Shipping
DearSophie
Gift Box Contribution: I am offering up a pair of new jade and sterling silver earrings. Valued at $8.
Discount Offer: free gift wrapping on all items, free shipping on orders over $30. Early bird special: Make it a gift set! Limited number of free earrings with the purchase of a necklace.

Designs by Erin
Gift Box Contribution: 2 knitted bangle bracelets: 1 light green & white cotton yarn, and 1 baby blue acrylic and blue Lion's Brand Homespun yarn

Elizabethan Creations
Gift Box Contribution: Set of 4 yo-yo coasters in blue
Discount Offer: 20% of everything in shop

French Roast
Gift Box Contribution: a pendant (value $15)
Discount Offer: free shipping to the US (discounts overseas)
Generations Tie Dye

Gift Box Contribution: A 12"x60" hand-dyed blue and gray silk scarf

herban lifestyle™
Gift Box Contribution: organic holiday cookie sugar scrub
Discount Offer: 20% off all items in my store

Jellybug Artworks
Gift Box Contribution: a fused glass pendant.
Discount Offer: $5 off on every $25 spent at my shop with free shipping on orders of $50 or more.

jetsy
Gift Box Contribution: a small redecorated spice tin ("Warm Fuzzies") that the recipient can fill with glitter, bath salts, powder, or tea, spices, etc.

Katie's Kritters
Gift Box Contribution: a duo of Christmas pins, Santa and Mrs. Claus

Mishutka Design Studio
Gift Box Contribution: Victorian Pink Rose Tags (Set of 6) Delicate roses and lovely pink ribbons are perfect together in these Victorian style gift tags. Delightful vintage tags to decorate your gifts! Or use them for scrapbooking and as bookmarks.

mloartwear
Gift Box Contribution: Original upcycled bookmark and an original watercolor Christmas theme card
Discount Offer: Free shipping

oblinaknit
Gift Box Contribution: On The Go Pouch - A cute little japanese fabric pouch to stash you stuff!
Discount Offer: 15% all items in my shop

Silver Dot Jewelry Designs
Gift Box Contribution: Crystal Rose Necklace A faceted rock crystal quartz briolette is accented with a lovely rose gold vermeil charm and suspended from sterling silver chain. Necklace length will be made to customer specifications. Necklace retails for $33.50
Discount Offer: BOGO Sale - Buy One item and get lower priced or equal value item at 50% off.

Shelby B's Designs
Sale: 10% off all sales, and a free stitch marker to match your yarn purchase! Gift box: Skein of worsted weight yarn, in colors of the winners choice!.

Undefined Village
Sale: Buy one get one 1/2 off all prints 8x10 or larger.
Gift Box: 5x7 photographic print, matted and signed

Wild Honeysuckle Creations
Gift Box Contribution: A pendant or ornament.

Happy Shopping!

Flower Sale!

I'm running a new themed sale every week through the end of 2008 to help you with your holiday shopping. If you would like to receive a weekly email listing the items that are on sale that week, please subscribe to my Weekly End of 2008 Sales newsletter.

This week's theme is flowers!  Through Sunday, November 22nd, enjoy a 10% discount on any of my work that features or looks like flowers, including glass millefiori!

http://www.jellybug.com/store/category/flower-sale

Here are just a few of the fun things that are presently on sale!

Retro Tunnel Vision Fused Glass Pendant
Retro rounded squares of bright, juicy green and blue are topped off with a large dollop of millefiori.

Visit Jellybug Artworks for more pictures and a chance to own this item!

Unakite and Hill Tribes Fine Silver Jewelry Set
Three strands of marbled unakite, accented with pewter suns and flowers, and a Thai Hill Tribes fine silver pendant.

Matching earrings feature a cluster of dainty unakite beads on handmade fine silver ballpins. Hill Tribes fine silver blossoms dangle below, and the earrings hang on fine silver earwires.

Visit Jellybug Artworks for more pictures and a chance to own this item!

Beach Blossom Necklace
This is a fun, kicky necklace. The green shell pendant splendidly complements the conical golden shells that frame it, and the green and gold theme is repeated throughout the necklace. Also featured are frosted sea glass, lime turquoise, and brass suns.

Visit Jellybug Artworks for more pictures and a chance to own this item!

Glass Blossom Candleholder
Colored glass is gently draped into a flower blossom shape that is perfect for tealights. The ones pictured are just a sample -- I can make this in any color, and I have swirly multi-colored glass, too!

Visit Jellybug Artworks for more pictures and a chance to own this item!

Winner of the Fused Glass Pendant Contest

First, I want to thank everyone who entered. It was so wonderful to read the lovely things you said about my work!

The lucky winner, randomly selected using Microsoft Excel technology (tee hee), is Jen, who chose my Psychedelic Sun pendant. Unfortunately, this pendant was sold long before the contest started, so I'll be contacting Jen to make a second choice.

If you didn't win, that means the pendant you chose is likely still available! Run out and buy it now!  :D

If you'd like to be notified the next time I have a giveaway, please sign up for my Contests and Giveaways newsletter!

Starting Sunday: First Weekly Jewelry SALE!

I'm going to run a new themed sale every week between Sunday, November 9th and the end of the year to help you with your holiday shopping. If you would like to receive a weekly email listing the items that are on sale that week, please subscribe to my Weekly End of 2008 Sales newsletter.

The first sale, starting this coming Sunday and running through November 15th, will be off 10% all jewelry that reminds me of food -- frosting, candy, chocolate, and fruit!

http://www.jellybug.com/store/category/food-sale

All of my jewelry comes in complimentary gift boxes.

Here are just a few of the fun things that will be on sale starting Sunday!

Artist Spotlight: Maggie Sue Designs

Fellow Capitol Region Etsy Street Team member Meredith of Maggie Sue Designs was kind enough to include one of my pieces in an Etsy treasury she created. While writing a blog post about the treasury, I was nosing through her shop, and I found so many fabulous things that I just had to share!

Meredith is a seamstress who makes awesome cup cozies and handbags.

Coffee Cup Cozies

Meredith's fleece-lined coffee cup cozies are right up my alley -- bright-colored and fuzzy! Being a frequenter of Starbucks and the coffee bar at Whole Foods, I'm totally in the market for one of those. The three at left are my favorites, but she makes them in a huge variety of colors and patterns.

Handbags, Purses, Totes

Meredith also makes adorable small purses in vibrant colors. As you might guess, I'm a sucker for vibrant colors. My favorites are her vibrant patchwork bag, her Manzanita Modern Bag, and her Red Crazy Squares Front Pocket Bag.

I usually go without a bag, but when I'm pocketless, I like a cross-body bag that isn't huge -- just big enough for wallet, phone, and keys. I've been looking for an appropriately-sized bag, and I think I've find the source!

Three of My Pieces Featured in Two Etsy Treasuries!

The Capitol Region Etsy Street Team is having a sale this week, and the girls are going wild snagging treasuries!

The Surfing the CREST treasury features earth-toned swirly things and includes two of my pieces: handblown Murano glass earrings and a fused glass pendant.

The Do You Love a Good Sale? treasury is Maggie Sue Designs' favorite CREST pieces and features my Rock Garden Symphony necklace -- a red stone pendant on hand-wrapped agates.

The Maggie Sue Designs shop is so interesting that I'm going to have to devote a blog entry to my favorite pieces of hers!

Win a Fused Glass Pendant of Your Choice!

I've just discovered a wonderful blog: Etsy Giveaways! Every day, they post links to contests where you can win free handmade gifts from Etsy artists! This sounds like so much fun that I want to participate.

The Prize

One lucky winner will receive a fused glass pendant of his or her choice from my website or my Etsy store! I make my pendants one at a time, designing, cutting and assembling them by hand in my tiny studio at my house in historic Greenbelt, MD. I use all compatible 90 COE glass, heat it to thoroughly scalding temperatures, then slowly anneal it for strength.

How to Enter

Pick your favorite pendant from my website or my Etsy store, and leave a comment on this blog post with your choice. Be sure to include your email address so that I can contact you if you win!


The contest is open through the end of Friday, November 7th at midnight eastern time. On Saturday, I'll choose a winner at random from the comments and contact that person by email. If I don't receive a response within a week, I'll pick another winner! Shipping in included with the prize; due to the high variability in worldwide shipping costs, this content is only open to residents of the United States and Canada.

Update: The contest is over and we have a winner! If you'd like to be notified the next time I have a giveaway, please sign up for my Contests and Giveaways newsletter!

Can I interest you in some cats?

Morning

During a conference call, someone asks, "Do I hear cats screaming?" Why yes, you hear Lazarus and Elvira tearing across the living floor, leaping on each other, wrestling and caterwauling. It's all in good fun, but it doesn't take much feline screeching to be too much!



Lunchtime

I hear a suspicious tinkle and look into the kitchen to find Elvira licking the butter which I have left out on the counter between slices of toast. As I am chasing her up the stairs threatening her with dire consequences, Lucius takes the opportunity to drink from the bowl of soup I abandoned while pursuing Elvira.



Evening

"Meer!  Meer!" You had dinner an hour ago. "Meer!" That is utter nonsense, I have it on good authority that you had two breakfasts. "MEER MEER MEER!" No, PETA will not take your side in this discussion, and you're not tall enough to reach the phone anyway!

When posting new pendants I've taken photos of, I go in search of a particular one to measure it for the product listing. I know I left it on the counter ... but it's gone. If you were 12 inches tall and very furry, where would you hide your stash of stolen sparkly objects?  I locate a flashlight and look under the stove. Aha! Something glittery under there! I fish it out with a ruler, and it's a pendant all right -- but not the one I was looking for!

Sale in my Etsy shop! 10% off all week!

Have you started thinking about holiday shopping? Next week might be a great time to start. CREST -- the Capital Region Etsy Street Team -- is holding its first group sale! We have over 30 shops offering special discounts for one week: Monday, October 27th through Monday, November 3rd.


All items in my Etsy shop will be 10% off the listed price next week. After you place your order, I'll send you a revised Paypal invoice with your discounted total.

You can find items from all of the participating shops by searching for the EtsyCrestSale tag on Etsy.

Happy Shopping!

Packaging for Pets

The UPS man brought me a box from Delphi today, and the cats have been gaily pouncing and sliding in the resulting mound of packing paper!



Don't tell me that your kitchen isn't full of wine bottles soaking in buckets to loosen their labels?

Among my new toys are a wrought-iron lantern frame, a wooden box with an insert for a decorative glass tile on top, and wrought-iron bowl stands. Time to branch out!

Foray into Luxury

Usually, I shoot for a balance between cost and splendor.  It's a tough economy, money is tight, and people without large pocketbooks should have fun jewelry, too. Lately, though, I've been dipping my toes into the pool of luxury jewelry. Not AAA-grade faceted rubies embedded in gold, but finer components and pricier stones, and I think the higher quality of the materials shows!

Prehnite and Silver Bracelet

I nabbed these luminous nuggets of prehnite at the bead and gem show I went to in August. I'd never used anything like them, but they were so juicy and delightful to hold and look at that I couldn't resist. I've wrapped them on fine silver ballpins that I made myself and hung them on a sterling cable chain.  To add color and texture, I interspersed the prehnite nuggets with tiny cultured pearls and spheres of azurite-malachite and jade-colored quartz (known as Malaysia Jade), also on handmade fine silver ballpins. The clasp is an ornate pewter S-hook.

Visit my store for more photos!

Amazonite Teardrops

I've been holding onto these amazonite teardrops for months, waiting for the right use to present itself. Here, I've hung them on intricate sterling floral bails threaded on twisted sterling rings. The earrings hang on fine silver earwires accented with tiny cultured pearls on handmade fine silver ballpins.

Visit my store for more photos!

Rockfield Manor Wine Festival

I just spent a long, hot, sticky weekend at the Rockfield Manor Wine Festival in Bel Air, MD. Sales were slow for both artists and wine vendors, but I used the downtime to weave a couple of long byzantine chains. I had purchased some antiqued silver rings, and I combined them with the bright silver rings I usually use for a two-color chain.

New records were set for setup and breakdown! I was able to park the car next to my spot for unloading, and we managed to go from a full car next to an empty patch of grass to ready for business in 50 minutes. Breaking down was even faster -- 30 minutes to pack up all my wares, displays, tablecloths, packaging, and tools; break down the tables and tent; and stack it all back in the car (a process now known as "Tetris").

My new roadie is handy with a camera and took this photo of me weaving a chain, reflected in my booth mirror.

Photo by Thomas McKenzie

A Restaurant to Visit

I had the good fortune to be placed next to the best food vendor at the show -- the Bliss Coffee and Wine Bar. While other vendors offered hamburgers and polish sausage, the Bliss folks had seafood stew, lovely asian pulled pork sandwiches, and pasta salad made with penne and fresh veggies. I took the opportunity to peruse their menu, and they're actually a full restaurant with an awesome-sounding menu. Also, the chef has nice tattoos. If you're near Bel Air, I recommend stopping in for a meal!

Next Show

My next show is in two weeks: Saturday, September 27th at the Crofton Country Club in Crofton, MD. Visit my show list for directions and hours!

Wire on Fire!

I've just finished making my own ballpins using sterling wire and a butane torch! This may not sound exciting, but I'm quite titillated. I use tons of ballpins in my cluster earrings, and finding them premade in a gauge you like is difficult.

Below, a short clip of me making one. You'll see a thin piece of wire -- 24 gauge -- come in from the top, turn red hot, and then pull up into a ball on the end.

New Toys

I love bead shows. They're exhausting, both mentally and physically, but they're chock full of wonderful things. I went to one a couple of weekends ago and came home with a bag of beautiful treasures. Sometimes I think I really just like looking at them, and I make jewelry because I can't afford to keep them all. They'd make wonderful wall treatments.

Here's a sneak peek at the lovely new gemstones that will be soon making their way to a website near you!

Dreamy chrysocolla


Gorgeous turquoise


Luscious pink crazy lace agate


I've forgotten what this is, but it has beautiful veins.


Nearly-edible ocean jasper


Turquoise pendants

I'm still giddy.