Spring Spring Spring!!

I am so ready for spring....the redbuds and mountain laurels are exuberantly fuschia and violet, the coreopsis and primroses have started to peak out along side the roads, the days are growing longer and warmer. And my brown and black clothes - they are so last winter. I want color. I want pink, green, bright blue and yellow. Are you feeling the same? Are you yearning for the garden? I think I might have found just what you need to push you into the next season - an Etsy artist with a fine eye for color and texture - one of the beadweavers of whom I am so in awe - Cigarboxbeads. Check out her Cottage Garden Bracelet with a click on the image above.


Or try out her Twisted Garden Path Choker, braided into one "beauteous strip of color."

The founder of this shop is a retired Home Ec teacher, who loved what she did, but now loves what she's doing now.

Beadweaving is her joy, along with knitting, crocheting, sewing AND being with her twin grand daughters. Not at the same time though, they love to 'help', according to their grandmama! They do have 'crafting time' every day that she watches them, so she hopes she is instilling the love of creating in them. At the very least, she is creating memories for them that will last their lifetime. What greater gift?

Cigarboxbeads became a non-stop beadweaver when she purchased 3 vintage cigarboxes full of beads at a flea market---about 20 years ago. She is still using those beads, plus a 'few' more she can not help but purchase! I know how that goes!

She also knits, sews, crochets, decoupages and lots and lots of other stuff so some other goodies might show up at her shop, Cigarboxbeads, as well, along with beads! Check out her blog, too, for info about her creative life and her features on other Etsy artists.

And summer is just around the corner (especially here in SA, where it shows up about May!) - so have some lemonade!

Meowrrrrr!

Relatively new to the blogging challenge, Etsy jewelry artist Purrfectlydevine brings beaded creations to her Etsy shop when she's not working hard at her career in special education and spending time with her husband and three kitties.




Classic designs with beautiful bead choices and affordable prices means there's "something for everyone" at Purrfectlydevine. Check out her shop and her blog, too.

For the Love of Moose

I met Craftymoose back in August 2006 on Etsy when I joined a fun group of Etsians who met weekly in the Forums for one of JewelStreet's Creative Challenges. Now, I haven't participated in a Creative Challenge for some time - working too much, moving across country, excuses all around - but I was very glad to see her join up with us 90 Feature Folk in the blog challenge we're doing. Glad because she now has company because of the challenge, - haha, I think Craftymoose was the only reader other than family I ever had for my blog - thanks Crafty! Also more doubly glad because she has such fun and imaginative pieces in her shop - items you are not going to find just anywhere for sure, and that I'm very glad to write a feature for. Her beaded creatures/suncatchers have always been favorites of mine, and her French flowers blow me away - how do people work with those tiny little beads????


Craftymoose claims to have been crafting for as long as she can remember, is self-taught and has enjoyed painting, needlework, quilting, polymer clay and jewelry making. Most recently drawn to beads, she has returned to the art of french-beaded flowers. She also has one-of-a-kind beaded art dolls and suncatchers as shown here in this post. Custom requests are welcomed by Craftymoose, so if there is something you would like to see created with her singular type of craft, give her a contact either through her shop or her blog.

And if you're wondering, the name Craftymoose came about because of her love of crafts and her husband's love of moose. Her avatar is the head of a 4'+ tall moose she made for her husband one Christmas - now there's a loving wife!

Ode to the Etsy Challenger

Pippit Carlington, the instigator of all this Etsy-artist-90-day-blogging, also the beloved leader of the Art Jewelry Collective of which I am also a member, is a jewelry artist that describes her style as "contemporary tribal." Her organic aesthetic is a direct result of her diverse heritage of Iroquois, Hawaiian, Russian Jewish and French Canadian and her love of nature. Not content to only create beauty (which she does in spades), she also incorporates her social and political interests to inform her pieces to educate the observer. A formally trained artist, Pippit received her art education at Callenwolde Center for the Arts, The Atlanta College of Art, and Atlanta Jeweler's School and Studios. In addition to her jewelry, she works also in acrylics, watercolor, drawing, and clay sculpture, and has shown at numerous shows and galleries.

Diversity is not only in her background, but in her work as well, with something for all styles and perspectives in her shop at Etsy, Giftbearer. From classic simplicity as in the braided gold ring above, to modern ethnographic like the Many Muses Gemstone Hearts necklace also shown.





One of my favorites is her Fall Finery necklace featuring carnelian. Yummy. So many pretties - check out her blog, too, if you get the chance.