Giveaway!

It seems like every time I have a jewelry party I totally crash afterwards. After 3 months of non-stop jewelry making, and weeks of building up for the party, a large sigh of relief often takes shape in not opening my craft room door for several days. Unfortunately, add to that starting a new job where I work 30-hour shifts weekly (hospital chaplain = love it, hate the hours) and suddenly making jewelry isn't so relieving anymore. So I inquire of you, friends: How do you balance your personal and your work life? How do you find energy when you come home from a draining day? As of late all I can do on the weekends is nap and maybe watch TV to decompress. Not fun! So, Bead Up buddies, my apologies for being so MIA lately. I have lots of new items to add to Etsy and custom pieces I have made here and there to share with you - which will happen - as soon as I can figure this balancing act out!

Meanwhile, Bead Up is co-sponsoring a GIVEAWAY! My sorority sister Kari of 2DogsAndABlog is giving away one of my dainty necklaces!

Click here to enter -- but hurry! The giveaway ends on the 27th!

200 custom made-to-order necklaces in 5 days!

It goes without saying that, by the looks of my blog, I have been quite MIA. Ask my craft room and new home in Kansas city if I have been MIA and they would give you a quite different answer! A few days before my husband and I packed up the car to move from Los Angeles to Kansas City, I got an e-mail from someone on Etsy asking if I could create 30 copies of my "Hope" necklace for a graduation her institution was hosting. Wow - 30! That was perhaps my largest order to date! Though I knew I wouldn't be able to make 30 of the exact same necklace, I searched around a found some comparable components and offered a wholesale price to the buyer. 30 soon turned into 50, and not only that, but the buyer wanted to substitute the pink bead for a purple trumpet bead. After adding trumpet beads to my to-buy list for the project, the buyer asked that we up the number of necklaces again to 100! WOWZA! I frantically tried to find the chain and charms that I needed, and as I was on the road to my new home, the buyer asked for 200 necklaces! HOLY JUNK! Sign me up - I think?!

So in addition to trying to move into my new home and prepare for a return trip to LA for the husband's ordination, I searched far and wide for the materials I needed to make these bad boys. In the past when I have made custom jewelry I have had little problem finding the amount of components I need. That was before I was looking for 200-800 of certain pieces. When I went to order 200 of the HOPE charms from one of my favorite sites, FusionBeads, turns out they only had 14 in stock. Ooooh. Next, when I went to order the heart charms I had offered to include on the necklaces, Artbeads only had 25 in stock. Hmmm. Next when I went to Michael's to buy 50 (yes, 50) packets of chain, they of course only had 3. So what's a girl to do? Whine to her husband and have him help! While I searched frantically online for other distributors of the Hope charms, the hubs called EVERY Michael's store in 3 counties and 2 states in and around Kansas City to see who had them in stock. I then spent a whole day driving around my new city and visited 5 Michael's stores within 3 hours - whew. Thankfully I found the bulk of what I needed, though had to settle on a few packets of chains in a slightly different style. AND my VistaPrint order of new business cards was not going to arrive before I needed them because, oh, did I mention that the buyer needed these all within 5 days? 


The factory worker in me got to work with whatever I had in stock as I waited for the supplies I ordered online arrived. I first cut 200 18" strands from 50 packets of 4' chain and attached them each to spring rings from Artbeads (click on the link to read my review of the product). 

Anxiously waiting daily for my supplies to arrive in the mail, I went to work on the purple trumpet beads that I bought on Etsy from Allthingsbeaded:

Each one needed special attention, so I lined them up and put a head pin in each. Of course they each needed to be trimmed,

And then curled...

The next day the Hope charms I ordered on from Fusion Beads and HipChickBeads came in the mail (thanks to a nudging call to the distributor by the hubs!)...

And finally, the day before I needed to mail the finished products (and the day before I was to fly back to California), the heart beads I ordered from Etsy seller CLBeads in Canada arrived - whew! That was close!

The buyer wanted 160 of the necklaces partially packaged so she could easily put them around the necks of the graduates at the ceremony. The hubs painstakingly punched, prepared, taped, and packaged each kit while I finished the necklaces until 2am that night. That's love, I guess!

So, 4 roles of tape,

5 internet orders,

5 Michael's store visits,

50 packets of chain, 

200 spring rings,

200 Hope charms, 

200 head pins,

200 business cards, 

200 trumpet beads,

200 heart charms,

400 hole punches,

410 ziploc bags, and

800 jump rings later, we had these:

We rushed to the nearest Post Office (I had to google map it since I had yet to search out my local post office!) to mail the finished box of necklaces off to the buyer in Colorado. While in LA, I was thrilled to get an e-mail from her stating that she not only received them in time, but also loved them. Whew! I can sleep now!

So, there you have it folks - how Bead Up (and her husband!) made 200 necklaces in less than 5 days. Hope to do it again soon - no lyin!

I exist - I promise!

It's been far too long since I have blogged, and I hate it :( I knew that moving cross-country was going to get in the way of my schedule and, more importantly, my Etsy-ing. Now that we have landed safely in Kansas City, things are starting to get back to normal... sort of! I have been super busy unpacking boxes, trying to find a job, and make this very new place feel like home. Furthermore, I am still working on details for my husband's ordination, which includes the programs for the service and also my necklace for my outfit!

But most interestingly, I have been working like crazy on my most massive Etsy order yet -- 200 custom necklaces! A few weeks ago, a gal messaged me on Etsy and asked if I could make 30 of my "Hope" necklace. I told her that I don't have 30 of any of the components in stock, though I could find something comparable. Well, 30 turned into 50, which turned into 100, which turned into 200! So I have spent the last week trying to find all the supplies on the internet and get them shipped promptly, since these are due next week! Good thing I am unemployed! 


I will be back in touch soon - and with pictures of my 200 creations! Here we go!

Mustaches are HIP to the STER.

Several months ago my high school buddy turned entrepreneur John admitted something. He was obsessed with mustaches. His own, his brothers', his dog's. It didn't matter. John asked when Bead Up would be making mustache jewelry. Bead Up thus looked EVERYWHERE for mustache-related jewelry components to help make John's mustache wish come true. Along the way I found some pretty rad mustache paraphernalia, including bags, headbands, coffee mugs, etc (not made of mustache hair, of course, but rather featuring mustache silhouettes)! After each find I would tease John by posting the items on his Facebook page, which only led him to ask, "Where is the Bead Up mustache necklace?" John has even gone as far as to send me postcards that simply say "Bead Up needs to make mustache jewelry." When John visited us in LA a few months ago, he came sporting this fine, um.... thing. Which I of course had to model for the camera... Well, John's day has finally come. After months of searching, I finally found a mustache charm that I thought was Bead Up worthy: Of course John bought a few already ;) Can you blame him? John already blogged about it: "ok, this is the coolest thing to happen to me in this lifetime. my friend christyn has an etsy store. she makes a bunch of great jewelry and even does custom orders. somehow, we started this game where we’d pass on links of mustache jewelry and other mustache related goodness. i’ve always told her that the day she makes a piece of mustache jewelry, i would be the first to buy it. today, the 15th of mustache march, i did just that (if there’s a bigger creep out there who bought it before me i’m a little scared). since i don’t have anyone to give this to, i guess it’s time to start wearing jewelry." Click here to see the Etsy listing - and note that they are available in both gunmetal/antique silver and bright silver! (While you are at, you should really take a look at John's online store of college-related clothing and accessories. The dude in your life will thank you for it!). John even has a doggie blog and did an entry about Ping, my new doggie, a few weeks back :) Do you have a concept/idea that you would like to see Bead Up carry? I really dig these kinds of requests -- though to be fair, it may take a few months for me to find the parts! If you have a request and I successfully am able to carry it on my Etsy site, you will get a copy for FREE (unless it's one-of-a-kind, then I will include free shipping instead)!! So... leave a comment on this post or e-mail me at christyn.beadup@gmail.com ! The next featured item could be yours (and could even be free)!

Do It Yourself: ARTSY Jewelry Displays

For awhile now I have been saying to my Hubs, "Wouldn't it be great if I could figure a way to create a clothes-pin line kind of effect to hang some of my necklaces on?" We wracked and wracked our brain as to how to exactly do this - do we create some kind of upstanding beam that can hold the two ends of a wire? Do I nail holes in the wall? Do I gut a large frame? Do I hang them from a few table lamps? Hubs and I walked around Lowe's aimlessly a few weekends ago with a pad of paper and my sketching pen at hand - though had no idea how to even begin this crazy project. Finally we left Lowe's disappointed that nothing had sparked our creativity and that we would have to find another way to display the dozens of necklaces I had already mounted on business cards for the party. Next, while walking around Michael's, I found the cutest little clothes pins that would have been perfect for the project. Having already given up on it, we walked through the painting section of the store and had a revelation: use the back of a large canvas! I already had a simple wooden easel that I bought from IKEA years ago at home and that has been aching to be used... so it seemed perfect! Here's how we created our latest jewelry holding device!...

So we started with my trusty (and inexpensive!) IKEA easel, a 2x2' piece of plywood ($10), and a package of 2 2x3' plain white mounted canvases ($8 at Michael's)... you might recognize the dowels from last week's T-stand project where we put Oriental Trading Company to shame.

We then mounted the canvases against the piece of plywood so they don't fall over (especially once stocked with products!). We nailed it from the back so as to best preserve the canvas itself in case I ever want to paint on it (which, one day, will happen!).

We measured the height of each business card (3") and figured they each needed at least an inch of wiggle room for the mini-clothes pin. I then took some cheap floral wire I've had sitting around for decades and wrapped it around the nails to create my "clothes line."

We must have wrapped the wire around each nail a dozen times or so!

I had been packaging many of my Fall Line and silver dainty necklaces on vertical business cards and included the materials used and price on the back of each card. Then I started adding them to the canvas... And them added some more!

And before you knew it - we had another jewelry display on our hands!

I am really happy with the result, especially since it cost it less than $20 and can be used again in a different capacity. And best of all, it is light, east to store, and holds 48 necklaces! Whadaya think?