New DIY Bracelet kits at Risky Beads!

If you're a beader or an aspiring one, you know that spending money on beads is like a drug.  You walk into a bead store and see SO much potential and then you leave with an empty wallet.  One of my biggest challenges when I started beading was understanding how to work with all different shapes and types of beads.  I'm self-taught so I did A LOT of reading online and in books as well as watching tutorials on YouTube.  So while buying beads upon beads upon beads wasn't necessarily the most cost-effective way to learn, it did give me a chance to experiment with everything and figure out what I like, what I'm good at, and what I ultimately want to use in my work.

In that spirit, I'm creating some new DIY Jewelry kits complete with complimentary beads and charms, stringing material, and instructions on how to get started!  I listed 3 of them today...each of them is one of a kind.  First up is 'Autumn:'

details here

Next a Save the Gulf inspired kit!

details here

And finally, Make Love Last, a kit filled with some of the prettiest earthy mauve beads I've ever seen!

details here

Each comes packaged in a cute little box with ribbon.  They'd make a GREAT gift for yourself or the crafter in your life.  You can even have fun with these at parties for everyone age 6 to infinity!

I'll be putting together quite a few more!  Each is $9.95 or less and a great way to get your feet wet. You can view the rest of my shop here or just the supply section.

~Lori

Absence and Workspace Confession....

Where have I been for a week? Well, I'll tell you. Last week I was completely surprised (and honored) to be featured on Etsy's blog: Etsians Help Clean the Gulf. I've never been featured there before, and it took me awhile to figure out what was going on, lol. I had a small cluster of sales and then the cluster got bigger and then that cluster had a bunch of babies, and the next thing I knew, I was out of my crucial supplies, bubble mailers, business cards, packing tape, pre-made freebies, and ink in my printer. I had to go on a hunt to figure out where the publicity was coming from and eventually, I found the article and was like WOWZA! I ran out of EVERYTHING, lol. It was fabulous to be featured--beyond fabulous--and to date I've raised $115 for the American Bird Conservancy, and I'm not stopping! I'm fully re-stocked now. I generally like to spread out my overhead purchases such as mailers, ink, tape, biz cards, etc., but this month, that went out the window.

So, this morning I unpacked a ton of supplies that arrived and finally cleaned up my workspace a bit. Then I took a picture of it to remind me that I do in fact know how to keep it neat. Now, when I saw that this is my workspace, I mean that it's about 1/10 of my workspace because my 'studio' spans my entire apartment except for my bedroom and bathroom. Some day, I'll take a picture of a different section. I should do it today while everything's relatively tidy, lol.

Have a great day!
~Lori