Exploring the Beach Treasury

My sweet little holly berries are getting a lot of exposure these days! This time it's thanks to Second Seed's exploring the beach Treasury!


So many fun, unique treats! Where else could lava & snails play together? I do love both...perhaps due to my overwhelming obsession with Hawaii. Mom can confirm the sighting of the gargantuan snail we discovered motoring around outside Grandma & Grandpa's hotel room one summer vacation. I think our plan was to disrupt his itinerary by taking him hostage in a plastic pail, but he outsmarted us and disappeared before we could return with the bucket (or "bukkit" for you LOLcat fans).

Getting back on track, here's my featured photo of my Fallen Holly Berries:


And since I can't get enough snails & lava, here are some fabulous finds from two other featured sellers in Second Seed's Treasury:


Handmade Snail & Patchwork Elephant from While She Naps by Abby Glassenberg. I pretty much want everything in her shop - it's all handmade wool-stuffed animals made from fabric. Dad would be getting the hens & rooster for fathers day if I could afford to get all of them - they're amazing! I tried my hand at a Galactic Turtle once...it didn't come out quite as planned.


Lava Touch Ring & Lava Touch Necklace from Jealousy Jewelry & Designs. She's got a ton of great pieces, but since I'm stuck on lava today I decided to feature two of her many designs that include lava rock. I was eying some lava beads at the shop across from Hubby's office but wasn't quite sure what to do with them. After seeing Jealousy's pieces, I know the answer to that is ANYTHING!

Marmalade Skies Treasury

I'm in a Treasury! The Happy Possum featured my Clementine Earrings in this fabulous aqua & tangerine treasury!


There's the pic as promised. Lovely color theme, & I'm always honored to be featured.

Wednesday's Child is in the Showcase

I've got another slot in the Earrings Showcase today, so I thought I'd feature a couple other items that were keeping mine company this morning. The first earrings that caught my eye were the Branch Bamboo and Roses from Michael S. Levine Studio (Kate Levine):


I love the red and green together! I've been stuck on coral lately, and I haven't seen roses like this before. I'm usually not a fan of floral designs, but I like the simplicity of this one. I think it's a great contrast in shape, color, and texture.

Next up we have the AIR earrings from Ashley H Designs:

Wonderfully soft color on the faceted Amazonite; I can only imagine how lovely these would be in person! The stones look perfect paired with the pinched sterling silver teardrops - so light & fluttery! Browsing her shop, we seem to have a similar aesthetic, which, of course, I very much like.

May many sales come to both of these fabulous artists! Be sure to check out everyone else participating in today's Earrings Showcase! Just follow the link, and then select "Jewelry Earrings" from the drop-down menu at the top right-hand side of the display.

More Treasury Love!

Another one of my Fallen Holly Berries photos has been featured in a treasury! Here's the photos from the "hippos and nail polish" treasury as selected by theGlassOnion!

The treasury features warm, textured grays and deep reds - I love it! I also must say I'm a fan of theGlassOnion's jewelry as well - great designs, & great photos!

Here is one of their featured items, the Lonely Urchin Necklace. I'm a sucker for almost anything ocean-life-related, and this is no exception. Love the color, love the texture, and it makes me wish we had tide pools around here - I haven't seen any so far, just tons of weird little squishy jellies washing up on the shores of Jones Beach. This necklace is much more pleasant.


Speaking of beaches, I would much rather be heading off to the beach tomorrow instead of heading back to work after my forced vacation. I did bake some cupcakes today - the intent was Pink Velvet, but my food coloring failed pretty hardcore and I ended up not with "fuchsia" as advertised, but a rather unappetizing mauve that would be far more appropriate applied to shag carpeting as opposed to cupcakes. They taste pretty good, but I had to camouflage them by dunking their little frosted heads into a bowl of shocking pink sugar. I might take pics if there are any left after tomorrow.


As a reminder, I'm offering FREE SHIPPING all weekend through Monday in honor of Memorial Day in my Etsy shop, along with some other discounts. I'm also proud to introduce my new favorite photo prop - THE SNOW CONE HOLDER! After I bought the set of 4 for props, I couldn't resist the $18 electric ice shaver. I'm going to try to incorporate ACTUAL SNOW CONES into some of my photos for summer. We'll see how that goes.

Memorial Day Weekend SALE!

I'm all set for my Memorial Day Sale in the land of ElloPoppet! I'm offering FREE SHIPPING (which I am convinced is not actually "free" unless you write it in all caps), $5 off orders of $30 or more, and $10 off orders of $50 or more! I'll be running this sale through Monday, May 25th. Everyone cross your fingers! Or, better, yet, uncross them an buy something! I kid, I kid....sort of.

More Pearls!

I'm trying to expand on my pearl cluster earring selection, as they seem pretty nifty for weddings and such, and I've had some good responses. Here's the new peachy pink version, with sterling silver:


Love these little plump pearls! I do kinda feel bad that these aren't vegan friendly, but I am working on non-pearl beaded clusters with lovely stones and maybe some plastics for the vegan crowd .

Aside from listing these beauties, yesterday I trekked out to Best Buy with what I thought was a failing power cable for my laptop and had the Geek Squad order me a new cable. For the last 36 hours I've been using alternate computers and have not been able to access things like my printer's memory card reader. I was desperate to retrieve a photo this morning, and decided to try it out one more time, and low and behold, my charger works! I'm not sure what the problem was, but I think that after the guy tested my laptop with a different cable, it may have realigned the pins or something. Or shoving the cable in my laptop bag somehow squished or un-squished the wiring into place. Either way, the new cable didn't cost anything and will be arriving in 3-5 days. Thank you, warranty!

Belated Mother's Day

For Mother's Day, since I couldn't hop on over to CA for the weekend, I had Mom design some earrings for herself based on my Eridani Pearl Cluster Earrings, which you can see here:

We decided on a combination of Sterling Silver (which I am overly enthused about lately) and ice blue freshwater pearls. I'l have you know I went to 5 different shops in an attempt to find exactly what we were looking for. The ones I found were a touch larger than I had anticipated, but they were very consistent and got the job done. Here is the final result:


Above: Natural light atop one of my original black & white photos.
Below: Yes, I flashed these, I know it's a no-no in the world of product photography, but this actually shows the color a bit better, as well as showing how deliciously shiny the sterling silver is. So :p.

Mom does read this occasionally, and yes, she has already seen these photos. Yes, she likes them. I mailed them off and they should be arriving safely within a week. I will probably be making some for my Etsy shop, but I'm kind of out of 3mm jump rings, so I can't really do that just yet.

Cosmic Acorns

My new Cosmic Acorn Series is here, just in time for Graduation!

Sterling silver and an assortment of vintage & new beads combine to create these darling little futuristic acorns! I made them in 6 colors so far:

Cosmic Blue, Loquat, & Orange

Charcoal, Jalapeno, & Coconut

You can find them all at ellopoppet.etsy.com.

'tini time

I made a treasury! After an hour of stalking this morning (not counting a failed attempt a couple says ago), I managed to snag a treasury spot. Here it is!

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=58663

It will be gone in a couple days, of course, but I think it's nifty for the time being.

In The Beginning...

Welcome to my first blog post. I've been in New York for just over one year, at my job for nine months, and a dog owner for six months. In the last 30 days, I've set a wedding date, baked my first batch of Red Velvet Cupcakes, and officially opened my Etsy shop, ellopoppet.etsy.com.

According to The Knot, I have 535 days left before the ceremony. I shouldn't be taking the planning too seriously yet, but I bought another wedding magazine this afternoon anyway. I'll be counting that in my Art Supplies budget.

I'm hoping that by that date I will have sold at least enough items on Etsy to replenish my art supplies fund. I'm pleasantly surprised by the community support I've already experienced. Though I have yet to make a sale, I remain confident that my work will find its place in the handmade marketplace.

My goal for now will be to post on a weekly basis and each time I update my shop.

More to come soon!

<3 Sara