Woo-Hoo for you!

I have two necklaces that I created for a charity called Nest (www.buildanest.com). I signed on with them about 3 months ago and I am so proud to report that within the past 3 months we (me the maker and you the buyer) have earned $80 for Nest. Thank you so much for your support.

This is a wonderful nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the lives of women in developing countries through the provisions of small loans used to provide sustainable art- or craft-based entrepreneurial businesses. The funds for these loans are generated through the sale of a unique line of clothing, accessories and merchandise for the home produced exclusively for Nest by a group of artists and designers.









The necklaces I created are available through my website, my Etsy shop and the Nest website (which is currently being updated so may not be available today).

psst....these are on sale ($23 to $79)

Did Santa (or UPS) bring you everything you wanted?

What an incredible Christmas this has been for me. I think the mad rush is dwindling and I actually survived.
Thank you to everyone who purchased a little "sumtin sumtin" from Chocolate and Steel for your gift giving. You have made this one of the best Christmas's I have ever had. What a joy it is to be doing what I love.
Now, on to planning for Valentine's day, and Mother's day, and of course the baby shower season. I can't wait!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from my family to yours.

Heather Scholl has arrived!!!

I love the artwork of Heather Scholl and you can imagine my delight when I learned that she was opening a shop on Etsy. Until now you would have had to be living in Los Angeles and go to a gallery to see her artwork. But for those of us in the "not quite able to purchase original art yet" crowd, you can now purchase prints in her Etsy shop. So head over there and buy some gifts for yourself and your friends and your grandma. This painting reminds me of my grandma. She would go to church and talk about everyone she saw. She called it her "prayer chain" we called it gossip.

Boutique Coquette....even the name is elegant

There is this great new website called Boutique Coquette. They sell pieces that are all made by independent artists (this indie artist being one of them). They are still adding new pieces everyday, but be sure to check out the jewelry. There is some really beautiful jewelry listed. I particularly love the sea glass rings by ISea Designs. Support handmade and shop Boutique Coquette. Here's a little picture of one of my necklaces they sell.

Check out my Little Monster Market finds

I had such a good time at the Little Monster Market last week. I was able to get some Christmas shopping done on top of it all. I'll try to get pictures up later, but my favorite thing I got happened to be a trade from Kokoleo. It is the cutest! 3 eyed monster in overalls. I have it stored in the back of a closet in James' room so I have to be really sneaky to get it out and post a picture of it. I also bought some adorable aprons from Beansoup. And here...the only thing that I have a picture to show of is James' christmas outfit that I bought from Eenymeanie. I got the shirt, vest and tie from them. Here is a picture of James in that outfit going to see Santa Claus. Santa asked him what he wanted for christmas and he said, "Dog Treats". hmmm

I wish I were in Philly...

Go!!! if you're in the neighborhood. Sounds like so much fun.

Shop Update

I have posted some pieces in my shop and will continue to post a few more throughout the week. Not to TOOT my own horn, but everytime I look at this necklace I laugh. Why is it so funny to me? She's Crafty. I know so many crafty people that I can give this too. Hope you do too.

My shop has been very busy, so if there is something that you are interested but don't see listed, please email me. I probably just haven't relisted it. I'm trying my best to stay up on these things.

Heather and I survived the "Handmade for the Holidays" show last weekend. It was...hmmm....good. I met some really nice people. Our neighbors were Hearts and Laserbeams. You know them.....they have the crochet cupcakes. Those cupcakes are a real show stopper!

Dave is teaching James how to make pizza. James rather enjoyed being allowed and encouraged to hit something (the dough). He's punching the dough yelling "hit the dough"!

Do you have a little monster? I do!

I'm so excited! I got accepted into the Little Monster Market. woohoo! This is such a cute show filled with some of my favorites designers. If you are in the area I'd love to meet you at this show. Some of my favorite artists selling there will be Mod Mom. Check out her mid-century toy box. Gosh, I love that! Another favorite is Pookpack. If you've had a child you can understand the importance and necessity of having some sort of carrier. My son had to constantly be held (and he was NOT a small baby - 9 1/2lbs at birth, yikes). So anytime I find a cute carrier I'm intrigued. Ok, so since this market is geared towards children and their mothers, I think this is the perfect time to post a picture of my super sweet adorable little monster. James will be 2 years old tomorrow. SHOCKING! It has gone by so fast. Every word that comes out of his mouth amazes me. I can't believe that two years ago this little bundle of craziness was not in my life. What a wonderful change he has brought. So, here's to you little man, Happy Birthday!!! My how you've grown.

All things Handmade

Check out this GREAT new blog I found. Again, you all know how much I LOVE ETSY and now here's a fantastic new way to browse. All Things Handmade is a blog that has been created by two Etsy sellers and run by several other volunteers. Here's what it's all about:

"All things handmade.
It's a simple concept, a beautiful one too. Take the world of arts, crafts and handiwork and put it all in one place for shoppers to see.

Etsy.com (the place to buy and sell all things handmade) has done that by building a website where an artisan creates an online store to reach buyers and sell their work.

Those of us who use and love Etsy have taken the idea further by building a showcase where many shops within a category can be viewed simultaneously.

These unique galleries of handiwork are not only stunning and easy to navigate, they are also live and constantly changing."

ok, so go now and check it out. There is some really beautiful stuff on there (like my stuff!)

My First Craft Show

Yesterday was the Anaheim Ballet Craft show. I met some really great fellow Etsyans. I have a long list of things that I'd like to buy now. My absolute first purchase will be these Beastie Balls for James. If you know my son, you know he likes to throw things. And what could be cuter than these guys by MayaBella.....

And next on my wish list is stationary from In-vita Paper Studio. I love the clean and modern designs of her stationary. And to add to my super obsession with owls she had this great card that said HOOT-HOOT and had owls on it. I love it. Visit her Etsy shop to see more great stationary like this:Oh my gosh, I almost forgot to show off my craft show set-up. This was my first one so it was great as a test to see if my display and set up worked. Here it is:What do you think?

Have I mentioned yet that I LOVE Etsy

Love, I mean serious love! I am constantly amazed at some of the incredibly talented artist on Etsy. If by some crazy chance I haven't proclaimed my love for Etsy to you, let me proclaim now. Etsy is a website dedicated and created for artist who specialize in handcrafted work. You may immediately think of the potholders you made when you were 8, but it's way beyond that. Here is one of my favorite sellers - working class heros - this is a cover/case for a laptop.

One of my other favorites is an artist who makes these very intricate cards. Her name is Tracy Chong. Can you even imagine hand making these cards. It must take so much time.

So, I LOVE Etsy. And you can imagine my sheer joy when I found out that I was featured on Etsy's homepage. Wow! what an honor to be among such talented designers. I actually didn't see it on the front page, but this is what it looked like. That's me there towards the bottom. "Sweet Drops of Rain". What a way to start a week!

New in my Shop.... What do you have to say?

I recently got these teeny tiny metal letter stamps that I am obsessed with. I can say anything with them! Any recommendations for funny sayings for a piece of jewelry? Leave a comment and let me know. Here's one of my first creations with the stamp.

the monkey and his keeper

Happy Halloween everyone! Here is Dave and James doing a little trick'o'treating. James is probably still too young for candy, so we may have to be responsible parents and "dispose" of it ourselves.

My website officially launches today. I hope you all get a chance to visit my new website and take a look at the new stuff I have in my shop. Don't forget about my special November sale. Read the rest of the blog to find out.....

My first publication

I'm really excited to share this with everyone. One of my necklaces was used in a photo spread with Kelli Garner ("Aviator", "Thumbsucker", "Lars and the Real Girl") for Men's Health Magazine. It's my very first published piece, and hopefully the first of many. Men's Health now, InStyle next (oh please, oh please). The necklace is called "Dear Rose...." and is available in my shop. I did a similar piece for a bracelet for my mom too. Take a look.

I'm in a Commercial

Wow! Talk about press lately. I feel like luck has been on my side. I am doing one of my first craft shows ever in November (Handmade for the Holidays) and they have a really great advertising campaign going. One of the things they are doing is a commercial that will air on MTV, Oxygen, Food Network and HGTV. So, check it out. If you look closely you will see this pendant of mine:

A tiny fire in the sky

I just had to share this picture with you. I'm in Los Angeles and the air has been awful since the fires. The heat that you see is real. It has been very hot and the air feels heavy with soot. These are pictures of the sunset last night from our roof.

Special Sale, just for you

So, as a thank you for reading my first ever blog posting, I would like to extend a 20% discount for the month of November to you, my first blog fans!!! Wow, even I'm excited about that sale. So, visit my Etsy shop and in the "Notes to Seller" section type in this discount code:
#1BlogFan (not case sensitive, hehe)
I will refund you the 20% savings.

Plan ahead - remember all those people you love or like for birthdays, anniversaries, birth gifts, Christmas, Hannukah, Ground Hog's Day.

Please remember to sign up for my mailing list on my website so you will be the first to hear of sales, specials, new stuff, big promos. I promise not to flood your inbox.

New Website

Check out my new and super improved website (thank you Molly). I hope that you have lots of fun browsing through it all and thinking about all of the wonderful people in your life that you'd like to buy gifts for. Is it too soon for a shameless plug?

So along with my new and super improved website comes this here fancy blog. Although there's nothing fancy about the word blog. Really? They couldn't come up with a better name than blog? It sounds like a typo. I'm getting the feeling that this may be a great forum for me to just ramble on, so in an effort not to anymore, let's regroup…

Here is a tiny bit about me. I am a jewelry designer (I know, I know, isn't everyone??) with big dreams and lots of ideas and busy hands. I worked as a clothing designer for several years and retail management for several more. I've always yearned for some sort of creative expression. That yearning has taken me down several paths. And this is where you find me today. I specialize in working with PMC (precious metal clay). Maybe you've heard of it? But for those of you who haven't let me explain the magic of PMC. Metal clay was originally invented by Mitsubishi (not sure what their plan was…). They took the teeny tiny particles of silver which film negatives are made from and combined it with a binder, like a glue essentially. The material that resulted was metal clay. When metal clay is fired at a super high heat (roughly 1750F degrees) the binders burn into thin air and the fine silver particles join together making Fine Silver (99.9% silver). See, I told you, it's magic! Is it still confusing? Maybe you're a visual person. Here's a before and after: