Handmade Bracelet – Bead Yarn & Spatula

Etsy Shop Update

My Etsy Shop has been open for just about a month and so far so good. I’ve made three sales, added some bead, crystal & pearl snowflake ornaments and had to adjust how I do my listings. I still haven’t fine-tuned the latter, but I am sure I’ll get it eventually. This is the issue… the necklace from my first sale came in different colors, I thought by listing each of the colors when one was purchased that color would be eliminated from my inventory, unfortunately I had listed my quantity as 1 so the necklace was then sold out, so I had to readjust the listing and the others that I had set- up similarly. I had a similar issue with my following sale of 2 snowflake ornaments… I had to manually remove them from my inventory. So, I have some research to do on listings.

I also ran my first sale over Black Friday weekend and promoted Small Business Saturday. And that’s pretty much where I am.

Here are the Snowflake Ornaments:

If you’re interested in one of the ornaments or are looking for a piece of jewelry for yourself or someone else on your list check out my shop: CraftedByFran

Etsy Shop – CraftedByFran

After making jewelry for a few years and creating pieces to give as gifts, sell to friends and at a few local craft fairs, I finally decided to open an Etsy shop. Truthfully, I’ve been thinking about it for a while but held back because I thought it would be difficult.

So, what did I think it would be difficult? Figuring out shipping costs for one. I did a little research and discovered that this stumps many would-be Etsy sellers. There were a few other things as well: the whole creating a listing, taking good pictures, do I have to give my pieces “names?” And a few other silly little things. In the end, I am opting to offer free shipping and decided not to give most of my pieces a name since they are one-of-a-kind. And after creating my first listing and learning how to navigate the process it became a lot easier and not as daunting. Let’s be honest, trying anything new is a learning process. Soon enough I’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. There is one thing that always gets me… Tagging. Which ones work best and which ones don’t. I have that same issue with my blog posts sometimes.

Below is the link to my shop. Feel free to like a piece, like my shop or maybe you’ll find something perfect for you.

CraftedByFran

Here are some of the pieces available now…

Christmas Wrap-Up

How was your Christmas? Mine was good… Filled with great times, great food and great cookies! As I’ve done in years past I had a Christmas baking marathon and baked various cookies to give as gifts. I took my last sheet of cookies out of the oven early in the day Christmas Eve. This year along with the usual rugelach and malted chocolate chip cookies, I made another batch of these vanilla spritz cookies along with peanut butter cookies and oatmeal cookies. YUM! And, there was also a batch of Gingerbread Men, one of who was a bit angry after losing part of his leg.

And luckily this year I got my handmade Christmas gifts done in plenty of time, okay, with about a week to spare. This for me is good, since it gave me enough time to wrap them with pretty ribbon bows. I made two Afghans and an earring and bracelet set.

The first afghan was made with Lion Brand’s Thick & Quick Yarn following their Cromwell Court Afghan Pattern. Here’s a pic of the start…

And the finish product…

The second afghan was made with Lion Brand’s Vanna’s Choice Yarn following their 5 1/2 Hour Throw Pattern… Truthfully it took me longer than the 5 1/2 hours and since it involved crocheting three colors together I opted to wind the three colors into a ball to make crocheting a lot simpler.

And the finish product…

And finally the earring and bracelet set that I made using tila beads, superduo beads, seed beads and crystals just using basic beadweaving techniques.