Lots of Love :: SALE!

Valentine's Day is near, which means one thing -- buying jewelry for the one you love! Let Bead Up help you! Enter "2142011" upon checkout for an 14% everything in the shop!


Here are a few hints, gentlemen ;) Click on any image for a link to the corresponding Etsy listing...

<3

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!

Valentine's Day Custom Heart Jewelry

This has been, by far, my most amazing Custom jewelry story to date. A few months ago I made what I called an "& LOVE" brass necklace. I loved them so much that I kept one for myself (a rarity, I usually like to share my jewelry as much as possible!) and put the other on Etsy. It quickly sold to a guy named Rob, who said he was buying it for his girlfriend because "she absolutely loves anything and everything, so I searched for 'ampersand jewelry' and this item came up. It's really a beautiful piece and I know my girlfriend will love it!" A few weeks later Rob wrote back saying: "My girlfriend absolutely loved her & Love necklace for her birthday. It was her favorite of the five thoughtful presents I got her so that says a lot :) On a separate note, I was wondering if you happen to take requests. I was wondering if you would be able to make some earrings using the same ampersand charm or something similar. Your work is so good that it left me wanting more!" Thankfully I had a few ampersand charms left, and was able to send him these matching earrings in time for Christmas.Rob wrote that his girlfriend "LOVED the earrings. They look absolutely amazing on her. She's been wearing them a lot during the holidays for big get togethers with her family!" He even included this sweet picture of himself and Hannah wearing the new earrings :) But wait, it gets better! Rob is quite the romantic. Right after the New Year he wrote the following: "Well, I'm already looking ahead to Valentine's Day, and I have another request. Here goes... When we're in public and want to tell each other we love one another without being all mushy and saying it all the time, we put our index fingers at the top of our heads and wiggle them. It's our cute little thing. Well, once, she drew a heart in the frost of my car window and added little antennas to it, matching our little "I love you" motion. Now, that's sort of our mark that we draw on letters, fogged mirrors, etc., so I was hoping to have a piece of jewelry that had our "love logo" on it... My thoughts were that I would love a necklace with this on it. Because you are the creative genius though, I would leave it up to you to decide what piece of jewelry would be best and what style would be best. The only thing I require is that our love logo is the focal part of the piece." Rob included the above picture of the heart with antenna ears that his girlfriend drew on a fogged up car window. Isn't that super cute? I told Rob he better start giving tips - he sure knows the way to a woman's heart! I was totally thrilled about the project, and immediately started thinking of ways to incorporate the "logo" in a necklace design. I went to Michael's and, to my amazement, the actually had what I was looking for! After a few more e-mails back and forth to Rob telling him what I planned to do, I got to work with some 26 gauge wire and and a solitary heart charm.My method was to wrap the heart from the bottom and sides up: And then make an antenna by poking some wire up, then up and down a few times in order to make a thick antenna, then I wire wrapped it like I wrapped the rest, and then continued down the rest of the heart clock-wise:Of course it took half a dozen tries and two episodes of 24 to finally get the thing to look similar to what I was going for: first I made them too long, then I tried to reuse some wire and failed miserably, then I tried to make the piece abstract on the right side and ended up with a half-@$$ed looking thing. Finally, I had this in my hands: The trickiest part was getting it on a chain as a necklace. I tried putting a jump ring in between the two antennas to hang from a chain, though the whole necklace just wobbled over to one side and looked thoughtless. Then I tried to look the chain in and out of the hole in the heart - the whole thing turned upside down when trying to wear it. Finally, I did a loop thing in the middle of the heart and got this! Though I was fairly happy with what I had created, I still needed to get the customer's thumb(s) up. I e-mailed Rob telling him that this is very preliminarily and that I can try other methods. He wrote the following: "I must admit that I had no idea how this was going to look when you told me your plan because I don't know much about jewelry. Let me simply say that I absolutely LOVE what you've done so far! It is so amazing. There's definitely no need to scrap the plans because it is exactly what I am looking for. I could keep going on and on about it." Whew! Mikey likes it! Rob also said that last time he gave his girlfriend a gift from Bead Up she immediately knew what it was based on the packaging, and therefore asked if I could wrap it differently this time. I sent him this little number: Rob wrote: "At the moment, she knows I am going to visit her in March for Spring Break but she has absolutely no idea that I'm going to fly out Valentine's Day weekend and surprise her :) Of course, I will be bringing this gift with me, so it just makes it that much more awesome that you're able to do this for her! I just know she's going to love it." I can't wait to hear how it went - I will of course post an update with Rob's story of Hannah's reaction as soon as I hear back from him!

I Love You, Wednesdays

Now that December is finally here I publicly proclaim my love for CHRISTMAS (What? I didn't tell you that I have been planning and crafting for Christmas for months now?! Why do you think my mom, who birthed me 4 days after Christmas, named me CHRISTyn?). Falalalalala! There are countless reasons why I love Christmas, one in particular being that we can spread the love to others with gratitude and gifts! This year, I have decided to buy most of my Christmas presents for my friends and family from Etsy, partially because I have some very specific gifts in mind, and partially because I love supporting the website that has given me the freedom to start an online jewelry shop of my own! One of the most nifty aspects of shopping on Etsy's homemade website is that you can bookmark your favorite items in a very unique, visual way. Every time you visit an Etsy shop, you have the option of clicking on "Add item to favorites" or "Add seller to favorites." Once you do that, the item or shop is saved on an interactive list for your future reference. As a seller, I can even see who "hearts my shop." I will admit, when I first opened my little Etsy shop last spring I was a bit obsessed with how many "hearts" both my shop and my items were receiving. I have been so pre-occupied with other Etsy things that I nearly forgot I had such an obsession until today when I accidentally click on "See Who Hearts Me." Turns out my numbers have gone up a bit since I last checked back in July - currently 163 Etsians "heart" me, and the 58 items I currently have for sale have received 78 hearts! Not bad :) Here's an image so you can figure out how to track items you have book-marked/hearted, and who hearts your shop/items in return! Feeling the "heart" love I figured what better way to spread the holiday love and promote other Etsy sellers than to go through the list of those who heart me and hand-pick a few items from their shops that I think would make GREAT Christmas gifts?! So here's my way of saying THANK YOU FOR HEARTING MY SHOP and also to SUPPORT HANDMADE - now start shopping!

ocstylescreations, lesleyanne, fabfabrique, knitsbywlsm12 AuntieDawn, BLinkDesign, KatieDydDesigns, lbolter PragyaK, DecemberLeaHandbags, soule, SusannahTucker

Visit their shops for great Christmas gift ideas!

So, what inspires you today? :)

Oh, and speaking of spreading the Etsy love, make sure you stop by Your Creative Way today - the author did an entry on Bead Up and this here blog! Thanks, Raychel!

I love you, Wednesdays = GIVEAWAY!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled I love you, Wednesdays with a special announcement.

Bead Up is hosting a G I V E A W A Y!

My good friends at Today's Giveaway featured Bead Up this week and are hosting a giveaway of two of my favorite products!

Green Amethyst Earrings or Laugh Silver Brushed Metal Tag Necklace

or choose between the words; believe, laugh, love, live, dream & hope. (There will be TWO winners - both winners may choose between the necklace and the earrings)

How exciting is that? Additionally - if you mention Today's Giveaway during checkout from Bead Up - I will throw in a free pair of earrings! So what are you waiting for? Head on over to Today's Giveaway to enter - you can enter up to 7 times and best of all, it's FREE! But hurry it on up - the giveaway closes on Thursday, July 30th at 11:59 PM (MST)!

Oh, and on a somewhat related, celebratory note, guess whose Etsy shop finally hit 100 hearts?