Giveaway!

So my shop has hit 350 sales! I am so close to getting to 500 followers on Facebook too! I decided to do a giveaway. Not just one item but a whole basket of handmade goodies! I went with the winter blues, I just love blue. In the handmade knitted basket I have included a blue sea glass key chain, sea glass and wire work snowflake pendant, blue sea glass mini hoop earrings, blue wine bottle light with battery pack lights and light bulb wine decor and set of six matching wine glass charms supplied by my sister Bethany. Also included are two ornaments, one open ball with glitter blue star and one silver, blue and green crystal snowflake. Would be great to win all for yourself or could make some great gifts this year! Retails over $188!
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Handmade

    I had a minute to write and thought why not. Between the actual creating, listing, craft shows and my best shot at marketing my work. I have another job, Mom. Yesterday, was a rude awaking that these two worlds of work and home collide more an more. My daughter was home sick and I had loads of work that needed to be done. I think I juggled it fairly well. I started a giveaway, listed a few items packaged up a huge package to a consignment shop and photographed some new work. I was worn out at the end of the day. I have tossed around new ideas of what to do next and the ornaments I have to get ready.....yes ornaments.....in October. I actually have to start them by summer to even have enough for my craft shows I attend in the fall. I stay up late and squeeze in all this and try my best to take care of my little ones. Which leads me to why. Why do all this? I love the creative aspect and designing something fun and functional!  One thing I have learned over the years is how one piece leads to another great idea or piece. I love seeing others work as well because it gets me inspired as well as supporting others who are in the same boat as me. Sure I could take a 9-5 job. But who would have wiped away my daughters tears yesterday and picked up my son and take him to therapy and find out that he had a great day at school. (Which is far and few) I love the flexibility that this job has given me.  Sure the pay is not great, but the friends I have made along the way and the love or creating has me happy I chose handmade. Please consider buying handmade for the holidays and supporting us!

Summer Art Show Pieces 2013

I submitted three works of art to the Art Ventures Show again this year. This year only two made it through the jury process. "Waves" and wire work and sea glass bangle bracelet. "The Pond Series" A set of earrings and pendant necklace using PMC silver and resin hand painted, knitted
wire work necklace. The piece that did not make it was a sculpture  "Choice" Wire knitted snake and apple. I wanted to create another sculpture that was like the "Fire Wire " Piece I made last year. Next years is already in the works. I love the versatility of the wire and how you can make something from a mess of wire.

Copper Crazy!

I have been working on new wire work as well as trying out copper wire in some of my work the last few weeks. I am teaching myself some new techniques and trying to find a way to incorporate them in new pieces. I just received a box full of new tools today and am super excited to get to use them too! I will try to update the new ideas but it is as it always id a waterfall of ideas! I am going to share here some of the new copper pieces and the design on the earrings is by Aniko Sandor. I modified the size from her design to be smaller by 3/4". Her original design was larger and I am always trying for smaller work. Although if you look at some of my pieces they can get super bold! I was trying to tame it down. I tried her design in three different wire silver, copper, and gold filled. I also went and played with some gems I have been collecting. All are teardrop shape, but some are faceted and others smooth. I had fun playing around with the colors of the stones and thinking about the light reflecting through them and how they look with certain wire colors. I am currently working on a original design for three of these earrings to have pendants that can go with them. I will definitely be using the wire weaving technique and some of my own flair this time! I do enjoy pushing myself to try new things and her earrings really spoke to me to try and see what I can do with this new technique.

   

It is definitely why I have been super excited to be a part of the wiredteam on Etsy. I love seeing all the new ideas and we push each other to do our best and help each other.  In January I won the monthly challenge for the theme "Be my Valentine"

Monica chose my piece and  said, "My favorite is Melissa Eager's sea glass pendant. It feels so alive and I can almost hear the heartbeat."

Red, Orange Amberina Genuine Sea Glass Hand Knitted Fine Si...

by CreativeArtbyME

 

On into the New Year!

A new year means a new beginning or a fresh start and like so many new years we always are full of new ideas. I just hope I can manage to find the time to do even half of them. I am going to try to focus on more knitted wire pieces as well as the wire tree frames. I still have a bit of metal clay I will play around with too.  Of course sea glass will still be a focus in my jewelry pieces. I have a few leather pieces I am working on as well as starting to use copper wire.  Last year I did a few gold filled or plated items and really didn't see a whole lot people interested in them. I guess time will tell, I did add a few gold filled earrings this year to my shop.. But the new addition of copper I find exciting. I also have been working thru some ideas for some larger knit pieces like the basket pictured  here.  Although these are prototypes that are helping me get to the next idea, I rather like them. I was trying to figure out a frame and how big to go with loops and wire gauges for a bowl idea I have. I will try to keep you updated and see what happens!  You can always follow me on facebook and I tend to keep this page updated with what is new and what I'm working on too. https://www.facebook.com/Creativeartbyme
 I have not added the baskets to my Etsy shop as of yet, but will be trying to figure out shipping on these.  In the mean time I will still be creating and trying out new things. I hope the new year has been good to you all so far and it only gets better!