Ardent Reverie - BESTeam Featured Artist

"Two crazy sisters", Melanie and Meghan Mina, have put their "two crazy styles" together to create exciting handmade designs that grab your attention, and tempt you to buy.  Their Etsy store Ardent Reverie has lots of great items in a variety of mediums. Being a jewelry fanatic, I was immediately drawn to their garden mosaic necklaces and their solid perfume necklaces.

The necklace above features flowers, pearl, Czech glass and amethyst artfully arranged on a square pendant. This is one of the garden mosaic necklaces available from Ardent Reverie.

Another spellbinder, is this Solid Perfume Necklace.

This item is totally different from the jewelry and so beautiful.  This Crane Hairclip is an origami design in printed fabric designed to wear in the hair.

Wear this elegant sophisticated Holly Shawl to a party or an afternoon tea.  The crochet work in this is exquisite and the large buttons are a fabulous design element.

Melanie and Meghan also have a website, Ardent Reverie.  You can find out much more about these two sisters and their creations there.  They belong to BESTeam, an Etsy group dedicated to promoting one another's shops and helping each other learn more about marketing on the internet.  If you have a blog and an Etsy shop, please think about joining us.

Jewelry with an Oriental Flair - BESTeam Featured Artist

My featured artist introduces her shop on Etsy as "a modern version of East meets West".  Her shop Blue & White Wear is truly a meeting of the orient and modern USA.

One of the things I find truly delightful about this shop is the unique descriptions of each piece of jewelry that tells the story of the piece. This Tibetan Mandela Necklace is an example. Look at this piece in her shop and learn of the significance of the brass mandela.  This one was purchased by the artist on her recent trip to Tibet.  Fascinating and beautiful!

Fans are frequently decorated and used in oriental art.  The fan in this Oriental Fan Necklace has Chinese characters on it, but is soft and subdued and goes well with the smoky quartz and bronze color chain.  I see this as an east meets west piece.  Casual but very unique.

If you make jewelry representative of the orient, then you will surely include pieces made with jade.  The artist did just that with this colorful jade necklace, Burmese Beauty Jade Necklace. The soft green jade elephant pendant is wonderful, and notice how the artist continued with the soft green for the beads at the front on the beads that are close to the pendant, and then changed colors as she moved up the sides, then back to the green to provide balance.  The artist explains that jade has a balancing and harmonious effect.  This necklace certainly elicits such a response.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't share one of this shop's blue and white pieces of jewelry with you.  This gorgeous necklace combines blue and white porcelain beads with white freshwater pearls.  Click on the link to this Pearls and Porcelain Necklace and learn about the porcelain beads, how they are made, their history, and their meaning.  I think you will be glad you did.

There are many more treasures to capture your heart at Blue and White Wear.  Shop for something special there today.

You can find Blue and White Wear at the following locations.

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Blue and White Wear is also a member of BESTeam on Etsy.  This team promotes and supports the Etsy sellers who belong to the team.  If you are an Etsy shop owner and also have an active blog, we would be happy to talk to you about joining our team.  We are a friendly group, but we are also serious about developing our Etsy business and promoting it to people everywhere.

Queen of Redeem! BESTeam Featured Etsy Shop

Connie Haskell refers to herself as the "Queen of Redeem" in her profile of her Etsy shop, Redemption Art.  Connie specializes in recycling, upcycling and redeeming especially items with a Hawaiian theme or history.  Connie is located in Hawaii, and much of what she does reflects the Hawaiian spirit and culture.

Enjoy this cookbook which provides Hawaaian recipes gathered together.  It was published as a band booster for Kalani High School and includes many Hawaiian dishes.

This beautiful red Hawaaian hula newborn outfit is enchanting.  The rich red contrasts with the white flowers for a beautiful set.

Another lovely vintage piece is this Hula Apples Product Label.  It brings back an earlier era.

Hawaaian Apples

Connie and others join together for fun and to promote one another's Etsy shop through the BESTeam, and Etsy team of sellers and bloggers.  If you like to blog, sell and create, please join us at BESTeam on Etsy

You can read more about Connie and other crafter at her blog.

Creative Grandma Dreams of Retirement - BESTeam Feature

Her name is Agnes, and this lady is a busy person who crafts, spends time with her six grandchildren, works a full time job, and is doing a countdown for the time in a few years when she can retire and do the HAPPY DANCE!

This week I want to take you to Beader Bubbe's creative world.  Her shop on Etsy reflects her style and love of crafts.  She makes jewelry, and she finds that much of her jewelry goes to family and friends before she has an opportunity to post it on her Etsy site.  Here are some of her pieces that made it to the Etsy shop.

The first one caught my eye right away.  I like hearts .... a lot!  When I used to do decorative painting, I found myself painting hearts into many of my designs.  This Hearts of Glass pendant is simple and elegant.  It features red hearts on a pink background encased in smooth glass.  Beautiful!

This Unakite Accent Beaded Bracelet will accent your wardrobe any season of the year.  The oval unakite beads are rich with both greens and oranges.  So nice!  Sometimes unakite semiprecious stones are mostly green and don't offer the contrast that this bracelet has in it.

Beader Bubbe is also featuring the work of SuzieQ.  SuzieQ has hand painted this tote bag with Dora, and the bag is loaded with goodies for the sweet little girl you buy it for.

Agnes of Beader Bubbe also has a blog and a facebook page. Visit her there.

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Join Agnes and others as a member of the BESTeam (Boosting Etsy Shops Team) on Etsy if you have an Etsy shop and a blog.  We are a nice group of people who take seriously promoting one another's creative endeavors through our blogs and other social media.  Stop by our BESTeam blog for a preview of our work.                      

Oh, and by the way,  I am also one of the wannabe retirees on the countdown.  I could create jewelry and write blogs all day long if I had the opportunity. Happy arts and crafting!

LeAllyson

Featured on ArtFire Daily Collection

I am so excited.  My Aqua Necklace was featured prominently today on the Artfire Daily Collection.  This is an email collection that is sent to subscribers each day.  I feel very honored.

Have you ever been featured when you did not know it was going to happen?  How did you feel?  Did it help your business?

I welcome your comments.

LeAllyson

A Welcoming Place - Our Home to Yours ~A BESTeam Feature

Our Home to Yours is a welcoming and inviting Etsy shop run by the mother/daughter team of Debbi and Amanda.  Each of these ladies bring special talents to their arts and crafts.  They both like to try different crafts, and hence have sold different types of items.  All of their crafts are one of a kind designs.

I enjoyed looking through the things for sale at this shop, and also looking at the things that have been sold in the past.  They are happy to recreate something that they sold in the past, if possible, should you like one of those items.  I noticed that they made some lovely crocheted items that they sold, but now they are focusing on jewelry.  So please look at both the sold and for sale items in their shop to get the full picture of their talents.

A number of the pieces of jewelry stood out to me.  Debbi created this lovely Orange and Pewter necklace.  It is so appealing with its cool pewter pendant and the warm orange beads.  There is something so engaging about placing cool colors with warm colors like Debbi did here.

Have some fun with these Funky Fuzzy Lime Green Fun Fur Flip Flops.  Very affordable!  Kick up your heels with these!

It's wedding season, and we all enjoy watching the child who is the ring bearer coming down the aisle.  The pillow on which the ring is laid will have even more significance if it is a hand crafted Crocheted Ring Bearer Pillow.

If you explore Debbi and Amanda's sites further, you will find on their blog page, All About Us, that their faith and relationship with God is extremely important to them.  One of their creations that expresses that is this Beautiful Blue and Gold Cross Necklace.  This lovely large blue cross features gold detail on a blue background.  The beads in the rest of the necklace are a perfect match to the blue and gold in the cross.

Amanda and Debbi are members of the BESTeam (Boosting Etsy Shops Team ) on Etsy.  This is a team that mentors one another and promotes one another to help us be successful with our Etsy shops.  If you have an Etsy shop, please drop by and see our team on Etsy.

 You may also catch up with Amanda and Debbi at their following websites.

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Sparkly Bedazzling Crystals

For many years I have been designing jewelry, and often include a bit of sparkle in the design because I think it perks up the jewelry and adds a bit of drama. Do you ever use Chinese crystals when you make jewelry?   For most of my pieces of jewelry, I used Swarovski crystals.  However, recently I have seen a vast improvement in the quality of Chinese crystals.

Swarovski crystals are known to be just about the finest crystal to use in jewelry. The crystals are leaded glass that are precision cut. The facets of these crystals catch the light and sparkle with a gorgeous fire.

I continue to use Swarovski crystals in my fine quality jewelry usually in conjunction with sterling silver and other fine gemstones and pearls.  This necklace features Swarovski crystals.

But what about Chinese crystals?  Are they inferior and unacceptable to use in our beaded creations.  I say resoundingly that they are wonderful to use in our jewelry.  Due to the improvement in quality and the affordable price, I use them frequently, and the sparkle is bedazzling.

The green and yellow Chinese crystals in this strand add lovely sparkle.  The blue Chinese crystals are a little softer, not so much sparkle.

Fabulous rich red Chinese crystals add beauty to this Dragonfly Necklace.

There are many lovely strands of Chinese crystals available for purchase on Etsy.  I created a treasury with some of those crystals on it.  Please leave your comments below.  Do you prefer to use Swarovski crystals or Chinese crystals?