New Items Listed in Etsy

I've been busy listing items the past couple of days and I wanted to share some of them with you. I have been working a lot with copper as well as some of the vintage beads I got from England this fall. The beads in the two pictures are vintage plastic beads. The earrings are copper wire coiled into shape and then hammer finished. Then I use Liver of Sulfur for the patina.

The orange ones look beautiful with the copper rings. The rings are soldered and hammer finished and patina applied with Liver of Sulfur.





These are a pair of bracelets and matching earrings made from vintage plastic beads. The solid light blue beads almost look like cat's eye beads and the striped ones have a striking dot in the center almost like an eye. The bracelets are about 7" and are on stretch cord for easy wearing. The ear wires are sterling silver.


I'll be posting more items as I get them finished, photographed and listed. Stay tuned!

Funky Finds Spring Fling!

I've just signed up for a new craft show. Its sponsored by Funky Finds and will be in Ft. Worth at the Will Rogers Memorial Center on April 25th. I'm really excited about this show as it will be well advertised and should draw a big crowd. Of course I will be expecting my local friends and family to come and see me! I will have a booth to myself this time and will have lots of beautiful things to see. Also you will see some other familiar faces from the Jingle Bash show as I expect several EtsyDallas members to attend this show. Check out the Funky Finds site and see who else will be there, and mark your calendars! See you there!

Finally!!!

Whew! I finally got some pictures done and more jewelry listed on Michele Cook Designs. Go and check it out. I'm still working on a lovely PMC pendant that is made in a similar way to the Wizard's Eye pendant I listed today. It has a beautiful green dichroic glass cab with vines and leaves. The Wizard's Eye pendant is also done with Silver clay and a dichroic glass cab with a textured background and hand formed bezel for the cab. It was finished off with a free form squiggle design that seemed to add energy to the piece. Now it's back to work for me, so much jewelry, so little time...

Vintage Jewelry

I never thought I would be interested in vintage jewelry but my Mother-in-law came to visit us from England and brought me several bags of beads and jewelery from England. There are some great beads in the collection as well as several really nice pieces to make molds from for Silver jewelry. I will be posting some really exciting stuff to my Etsy store in the next couple of weeks. I'm also nearly finished with my tables and displays and will post pictures of them soon. Stay tuned everyone.

Also, I had my 2nd sale last week!!!! Yeah!! I sold my As Blue as the Ocean bracelet and earrings. I'm so excited! On my way, watch out!

Here is a little preview of the next few things I will be listing on Michele Cook Designs.

Check out my Treasury!!!

Hey everyone, I got chosen for a Treasury on Etsy by Etsy Texas Crafters of which I am a member! Thanks Liz... I really love the color green. You can see my work as well as 11 of the best that Texas has to offer at http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=10193.

New stock coming up, stay posted!

Grand Opening-Michele Cook Designs

Ok, everyone has to check it out! I bit the bullet and opened a new Etsy store with the name Michele Cook Designs. The link is http://michelecookdesigns.etsy.com. I've got some new stuff listed and lots of pics in the camera waiting for treatment so they can be listed. I'm getting geared up for the Christmas season and a show in Dallas at Hermann Hall on November 22nd. I have added a place on the left margin to list shows I am attending so everyone will know when I will be where. I've been working hard on my display tables and will have pictures to post in a week or so.

I am also signed up with the Indie Collective which is a collection of independent artists. I'll be listed there as a seller also so check it out at Indie Collective.

I am also signed up with ProPay to accept credit cards so if anyone wants to buy something but not use PayPal I can process your credit card with ProPay.

I did actually close the michele38 Etsy store because it was getting confusing so if you have that address bookmarked or had given it out please give out my new store. If you go to Etsy.com just type michelecookdesigns in the search for user names. Be sure to type it as all one word, no spaces. I feel as though I am really officially a full time jewelry seller. Help me spread the word!

Check out my fellow eSMArts team members

Check out this luscious collection of jewelry from my talented fellow jewelry designers in our eSMArts Team!

Etsy eSMArts Team Treasury

Too Much Computer Time

I've been spending so much time on my computer trying to learn the business of running a business I haven't been paying much attention to my business! I have been accepted to the EtsyDallas show Jingle Bash which will be my first show. I will have to get busy making lots and lots of jewelry to take with me. Plus figure out how to take credit cards, get packaging supplies.... on and on. I hope I make enough money in the show just to pay for getting there! Whew! But I have some great ideas for new pieces and I have also been working on getting better pictures of my jewelry. I have a new display thanks to my daughter. As soon as I finish painting it I'll dress it up and show it off!

I will be blogging more regularly now and I'll give everyone sneak peaks of my new creations. I have some great new cabs to wrap and a couple of new wrapping techniques so stay tuned!

My daughter and grandsons were here for Labor Day weekend. We had lovely weather and my daughter and I did some shopping. We checked out a really great shop in Dallas called The Rock Barrel. They have great stuff. A really good place for tools also. If you are like me I prefer to see the tools and hold them in my hand before making a decision. This place was great and the people running it are very helpful. The do have online ordering if you are not in the Dallas area.

Well, back to the workbench to create some more spectacular jewelry items!

Up and Running Again!

WooHoo! My hubby worked his magic again today and got my blog set up to use my domain name. So now you can go to Michele Cook Designs and you get my blog. You have to create a CNAME with your domain registrar (what ever that is) and then go into the settings for your blog, click on publishing and choose custom domain. It takes a bit for all the servers to update and for it to work right, but I think it should work fine for mine now. He also created an email for me at michelecookdesigns.com and set it to forward to my regular email so now I also have michele@michelecookdesigns as an email. I can use that on my business cards and will have some continuity.

I've also been working on the pricing for my new jewelry and will get it listed on Etsy tomorrow, I hope. Whew! Its been a busy day but I'm glad to be back on track. I even ordered some wire from Lois at ABeadedAffair. She has this great copper wire in square and half round. You should check out her Etsy store here and see her great stuff. She has the most beautiful wire wrap jewelry, chainmaile, beads, etc. Her blog is great and she has a wonderful triple strand of pearls with blue sapphire beads shown there. They are also in her Etsy shop. Check her out, you won't be sorry!

Once I get that wire from her I will be a wrapping fool! I have a beautiful Black Onyx cab that I want to wrap. I saw one that Lois did in her store that she did in copper wire and it is beautiful. I'm going to try that. I may try wrapping it sideways this time and see how it comes out.

Its been a while I know.....

Ok, sorry I've been gone so long. I really didn't mean to but this past couple of weeks have been pretty hard. Anyway, I'm back on track. I've been working on the pictures of the new jewelry I have been making. I have been having trouble with lighting and have been working on several options. I finally have some decent pictures so I'll be listing them this week on Etsy. I've also been doing some research on local shows and what I would need to have to get started but I really think it will have to wait until spring. There are 2 or 3 good shows I could do locally this fall but I need a tent, tables, banner, stock...... And I don't have those things yet. I think I'm going to concentrate on just making as much stock as I can and get ready for the new season next spring. There are several shows in the Dallas/Ft Worth area so hopefully I can get a good start then. When ever I am getting ready to design new pieces I try to look at as much jewelry as possible in the Yahoo Groups both Wire Wrap and Metal Clay and magazines. When ever I do I can go back to my stock and see more possible ideas. Here are a few of the things I have been working on this week. I already showed you my copper and green disk earrings. I also have a necklace with a hand formed S clasp. It turned out really nice. I had the idea of making a zig zag of sorts with the copper wire over the round beads. I really enjoyed making this set. Another set I made recently is a beading set with these lovely blue and white swirl glass beads. I grouped them with some lovely blue seed beads in a larger size and some irridecent purple, blue small seed beads. I made coordinating earrings also. That's it for the preview. If you want to see more you will have to go to my Etsy store at Michele Cook Designs.

Check out my new creations!

My daughter sent me some beads the other day to make a necklace for her. She included some other beads that she saw and thought I would like. Since I have been working with copper wire lately I was working with the other beads she sent me. They are flat lentil shaped beads about the size of a nickle as well as some small oval flat beads. I had been looking at some wire wrapped beads the other day and the next thing I knew this idea popped into my head.

After some experimentation I came up with 2 pair of earrings and a necklace and earrings set.

I even had to make a clasp for the necklace as I don't have any findings in copper.

As I have said in previous posts, I have never thought of myself as "creative" just talented. I can't draw but I have always been able to work from a pattern and make clothes, quilts, knitted products etc. But when it comes to working with wire or metal clay these ideas pop into my head. I try to sketch a quick picture of what I am thinking of and I also cut out pictures from magazines to remind me. The pictures are usually better as I come back to my sketch book and sometimes can't figure out what I was trying to draw! :)

Flower Gardening

I love all flowers and if you asked me what my favorite one is I would have a hard time making up my mind. The first flower that comes to mind when I think of a favorite is the simple old fashioned violet. I loved searching our yard for them when I was a little girl. That translated into a love of violet dishes. My grandmother collected them and I inherited her collection after she passed away. I have since added to them. So the violet will always remain my "first" favorite. However, I really can't think of a flower that I don't love. I don't always like all the colors that breeders come up with, I tend to be a more traditional person. When we moved into our house almost 3 years ago I started working on flower beds. I really haven't done anything in the front yard as I want to do all of it at once since it is in the public eye. The back yard though is a different subject. Over the past 3 years I have put in 2 beds, one is along the back fence and one is a kidney shaped bed in the middle of the yard. I love the unstructured English Cottage Garden style. Here in Texas I have to make some adjustments as anything that I plant here needs to be FULL sun only. I have very, very minimal shade in the back yard and it faces south. I learned early on to use perennials as annuals really have a short life here. Since we have flower beds now and we have put up bird feeders and a hummingbird feeder we have lots of wildlife. We added a whiskey barrel fountain for water and I used a big saucer for a plant pot with rocks in it to make a small water feature for butterflies, and a "fishing spot" for our Gnome we brought back from England. Its a really cool lime green ceramic saucer I found at Ikea. Because we have birds and squirrels who scatter seed about in the yard we now have some volunteer sunflowers coming up. No one can be sad when they look at sunflowers! They always look so happy and cheerful.

I find a lot of peace when looking at the garden, and even the simple act of pulling weeds, deadheading spent flowers or harvesting vegetables from the garden brings a sense of contentment that is hard to find anywhere else. Everyone should try to find their own little piece of contentment whether it is a flower garden, vegetable garden, container garden or just sitting down in the grass and looking up through the trees. It will bring you peace and contentment, even if just for a bit, in the midst of our hectic, chaotic, and frankly sometimes disappointing life. Look for it, you will be glad you did.

Uploading Pictures

I've been busy all afternoon uploading pictures of my jewelry items for sale to Etsy. My wonderful husband has created a sort of watermark for my photos with Michele Cook Designs going across the picture. It looks great! Even though I have my Mini Etsy I still want to post some pictures of my designs here for everyone to see. I'm really happy with how the Copper Spiral bracelet has come out. The spirals take a while but are worth the effort I think. Its a way of using heavier beads like the glass ones without the whole bracelet getting too heavy.