Crafty Things!

Hello all!

This isn't bath/body product related, but I just thought I would share a little snippet of my life because I have been super hyped up about this! But little background info about me... I am a bit of an artist at heart and I studied Northwest Coast art for my undergraduate degree. I love weaving and have tried my hand at a bit of carving. And I love to create things in general. There are so many things I want to learn how to do! I want to learn how to knit/crochet. I want to learn how to work with various types of metal. I want to learn how to bead. And a bunch of other things that are less reasonable with all of my other interests!

But one thing I do make time to do every week is to make earrings. I don't do anything too fancy - just make combinations that I think would work. But it still allows me to be creative and make beautiful pieces of jewelry. And creating things is so rewarding and has been good for my soul. I also love looking for new beads and materials that I often find in old pieces of jewelry at yard sales or thrift stores that I deconstruct for crafting. It makes everything an adventure and often my pieces are one of a kind.

Here's a few pairs that I made yesterday. Sorry that they're not the most professional looking photos - I took these on my iPhone and posted to my Facebook account.

The thing is, I think my skills are getting better in this process. And this is where the excitement comes in. I want to move on to the next level and start using more technique. I have reached a point where I am starting to feel limited on what I can do because I have all of these ideas, but do not have the skills or tools to bring my ideas to life. And so, I have decided to take the time and money and invest in what I want to do next: wire work!

I am really excited about this next stage. I have already bought a book on weaving and wrapping coil and look forward to actually testing it out. I need to wait a bit before I can buy the other tools and wire I would need. But in the meantime, my mind is racing with a bunch of different ideas and I am super excited! I absolutely love when I am feeling inspired!

And more exciting stuff... I don't just make earrings. I sell the earrings I make. So far it has all been locally and I have made enough money to cover the cost of supplies with a little bit of profit. My problem is that I keep on wanting to buy more and more beads even if I already have quite a bit! It's really just to feed my crafting addiction!

Anyway, I have been posting photos of my creations on Facebook and quite a few people have been interested in my work. I am thrilled that people are liking what I have been creating. I already sold the two pairs above within hours of posting photos! And I have a lot of people asking if I have an online shop, so that is also going to be my next step. I am going to work towards opening on online shop to sell my earrings.

And I am super hyped up about these next steps! Getting into wire work and improving my skills AND opening a shop to sell my work. I got less than 5 hours of sleep last night because I kept having dreams about earrings and waking up with great ideas. And I just had to share with you all because I can't stop thinking about it. I tend to gush about things when I'm excited! :)

I have also been wanting a drill that I can use for drilling glass. I have access to a ton of beach glass and that would be super cool to incorporate that into my pieces. But I have to do things one at a time here! But soon, I will have that drill in my hands! :D

I hope you all have been enjoying the weekend! I need to stop thinking about crafting and focus some of my energy on homework! But I will keep you posted on when I have that shop open!

<3 Alyssa