Etsy front page treasury

Featured on the front page of Etsy :) I found this screenshot at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28488923@N05/ which is great, as I didn't know there was a Front Page photo pool, or any archive for front page treasuries at all. Good to know, eh? :)

Front Page Feature!

I checked my Etsy page this morning as usual and noticed I have far more hearts than I had yesterday! So I visited craftopolis.com to see if maybe one of my items had been featured in a treasury. I was so surprised to see that TWO items were in treasuries - this Honey Button Ring and also a little button bracelet of mine called Cloudy Skies. So, I thought YAY!

Then I realised the treasury that the ring had been featured in had been selected to go on Etsy's FRONT PAGE this morning! Woohoo! It's all very exciting. Thanks to DigitalPerfection for featuring my ring in her pretty pretty treasury, "Kiss Me Honey Honey".

Halloween Party

Wow, what a great party!

We had over 25 people in the end, which was perfect! Everyone made a great effort with costumes, and there was a huge variety. We ended up with a bit of a fairytale theme, with me as Snow White, Zoe as Rapunzel, Vanessa as Red Riding Hood, Claire as Dead Riding Hood, and Conor as the wolf! Great fun.

At the last minute I got some gold heart jewellery to finish off my outfit, and accessorised with my bluebird and a sparkly apple Christmas decoration! It wasn't very tasty, and possibly was really poisonous...

I followed the makeup instructions on Michelle Phan's Youtube video exactly, and I think I got the Snow White look pretty much right. I wore red glitter lipgloss over candy red lipstick to really set of the pale skin and rosy cheeks. I did have to keep re-applying though, but it was worth it :)

We made the Tru:Blood very successfully, and though it tasted a bit like Benylin, it was pretty good! We made six bottles, labelled up to look like the real ones, and then refilled from the giant jug of mixture we'd made. It was rasperry vodka with grape juice and a dash of cherry soda. It looked perfect! Ruth also made up a tiny vial of "V juice", which was really one of her contact lens bottles filled with red food colouring. Mmmm!

Here I am making my best Snow White face! See my lil birdy?!

Happy Halloween!

I can't wait for Halloween this Saturday. This year we'll have our sixth annual costume party!

We've been gathering decorations and making our costumes for weeks now, and the invitations have all been sent out. Every year, people make more and more effort with costumes, so this year is going to be fantastic! Alot of people will make their outfits, or cobble together bought and found bits and pieces to come up with something great. Or creepy. Or hilarious. Or downright terrifying!

We also usually have a themed cocktail or punch, and this year the drink of the night will HAVE to be Tru:Blood! Ruth and I have been researching the right bottles to use and I'm going to print out the label templates I found here. Yay! We're making a mixture of raspberry vodka, grape juice, cherryade and red food colouring. Mmmm. I'll post pictures when we have it made and bottled.

Now, back to the costumes! I'm Snow White this year, and my costume is just about finished. My mom and Ruth pretty much made the dress for me, and I've sourced and made all my accessories. (The perfect black wig; red hairbow; blue princess shoes; a lil bluebird to perch on my finger; and of course a flawless red apple)

I have to figure out the best way to create the doe eyes, innocent face though! I think the makeup is really important fo bring the elements of a costume together! This is the look I'll practice tonight - I think it could work really well :)

The last thing I need to do is make some cute apple themed jewellery for myself. I'd love to find a red enamel apple charm that I could use in either earrings or a pendant. If not, I do have some juicy little red beads that will look sweet put with a little silver bow, or maybe some blue crystals to match in with the colours of the dress. I was also thinking of making a little detail for the fronts of my shoes, either beaded or just a fabric bow. Pretty pretty pretty!

New camera

I'm loving my new camera - taking tons of pictures of new jewellery coming soon to my etsy shop :)

It's a Fuji Finepix Z30, and the macro setting is brilliant! I spent ages in the shop choosing the right camera for the job of photographing my jewellery. Look how close I could get to these earrings without blurring or losing detail! >

I'm pretty impressed as my old camera would never have been able to handle this.

Getting used to blogging

I'm off work for a few days and trying to be more proactive and interactive online :)
Hence, the blog!
I need to take a look at more blogs to get a better idea of how to do this though!
Anyone who wants to offer help to a newbie, please comment!