Wow, Busy Summer

Wow my summer got busy, I was doing various markets and let my internet stuff fall by the wayside, but I'm back and trying to get back in the swing of things. It helps that the kids are back in school. I've got tons of new items to list, lots of new cell phone charms, an insane number of earrings, lots of pendants, necklaces and bracelets, so stay tuned. Meanwhile here's everything I listed last week, enjoy!

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Doggy butt floss, how funny and cute. Sold by Fanimals on etsy.

Daily Geekery

I bought one of these cool little Voodoo Doll Pin Cushions, I love it. It glows in the dark and looks awesome with all my pins in him. I think I'll name him Larry. Get one from batgirl93's etsy shop.

Daily Geekery; Two For the Price of One

I didn't get to post my daily geekery yesterday, the family went to Knotts Berry Farm. So here's double your pleasure of geekery awesomeness.


Less Than Three Ring by metalsmitten.


Nerd Dork Epresso Cups by trixiedelicious.

Daily Geekery

Robots! Lots of neat robots in tofu nutloaf's etsy shop.

Daily Geekery

Not many of you may know this but I'm kind of a geek (my husband's laughing "kind of?"). I like sci fi and Star Trek. I read comic books and my cats name is Harry Dresden. My friends LARP, talk about D&D and play Magic the Gathering.

I love being a geek and I love finding geeky things, so I will share my geeky finds with you. Every day! Hope I'm not getting in over my head here.

Today I bring you Specimen No. 110 (Gerber), who I found in Specimen 7's Etsy shop. Is he awesome or what?

Give it Away, Give it Away Now

Did just date myself with that title? Well you guessed it I'm doing a giveaway and a raffle, of sorts.

I'll start with the raffle. I learned how to make these nifty little scratch off cards, so I decided it would be neat to make some for my one year business anniversary. At first I was going to give out tickets to each customer and one lucky winner would get some big prize, but I would have felt bad for everyone who didn't win, so instead everybody wins! Well every one of my next 30 customers.

I made 30 of these nifty scratch off cards with varying discounts. Some are for 5% off, 10% off, or 15% off. There is also one each of 25% off, free shipping, and $25 off purchase of equal or greater value. But wait, there's more.

If any of my previous customers would like a ticket,just email me with your info, user name, email address and what you ordered and I'll send you a ticket.

Now for the giveaway. I will be giving away this lovely Tao 3 Pendant and Earring set:

Or this set of Mobius Stitch Markers:

To enter for a chance to win one of these lovely prizes, all you need to do is leave a comment saying which prize you would like to win. Make sure you leave a away for me to contact you so I can let you know if you've won. I'll be accepting entries for this contest from now until April 2nd, 2010.

Was that to easy for you? Want more chances to win? You got it. Please leave a comment with links or other pertinent info for your extra entries

1 Extra entry if you grab my button and add it to your blog or website.
1 Extra entry if you follow my blog.
1 Extra entry if you follow me on twitter.
1 Extra entry if you tweet about this giveaway.

I entered Tora Jewelry's Giveaway! #giveaway @torajewelry blog here –> http://tinyurl.com/y8n5t7s

1 Extra entry if you fan my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/torajewelry?ref=sgm
1 Extra entry if you Stumble my giveaway.

2 Extra entries if you go to my etsy shop and comment what your favorite item is.
3 Extra entries if you blog about the giveaway and post a link to your blog post in the comments below.
5 Extra entries if you purchase an item from any of my shops, either on etsy, artfire or my website

I will notify the winner the following day! You will have 48 hours to claim your prize or I will have to pick another winner. Winner will be chosen through random.org, so the more entries you have, the more chances of winning! You must leave a way for me to contact you, or your entry won't be eligible. You cannot leave several comments for extra entries, you must earn your extra entries by following the different things you can do under my Extra Entries section. You are responsible for knowing what is allowed to be shipped to your country. If you enter a giveaway and win something that can't be shipped to your country, your entry will be disqualified and a new winner will be chosen.

Thanks for participating in this giveaway!

Fun Trip and Awesome Stuff

Last Saturday the family and I went to The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. The kids had so much fun. If you haven't seen their dinosaur encounter show, I encourage you to go, the kids were amazed and loved it. Here's a link to a video of what it is if you haven't heard of it; video. It's basically these really cool lifelike dinosaur puppets that walk around and make noise, amazing.

They also had a pretty neat bug exhibit, we touched some Madagascar hissing cockroaches. There was a replica t-rex skeleton you could put together and a fossil "dig" site for the kids. We had a lot of fun.

I also wanted to mention some awesome perfume I bought from an etsy seller. The shop is called Wiggle Perfume and has the most amazing smelling perfumes. I bought myself 20 samples to figure out which one to buy in a large size. This didn't work out so great as I love them all and still don't know what to buy.

My husband was no help either. This man is insanely picky when it comes to smells and I have barely worn perfume in the past ten years because it's so hard to find something he likes. He loved all the perfumes I ordered, except for maybe two. I think I may have to just order them all and wear a different smell everyday.

I ordered some 27 Men's Fragrance for my hubby and he wants me to thank Wiggle for coming up with this intoxicating scent, since I can't stop sniffing him every time he puts on, which usually get's us all hot bothered and well I'm sure you can guess the rest.

Try out some of the perfumes, you'll love them, trust me.

Lot's of Stuff Going On

Lot's of stuff going on this last couple weeks. I got some new gift boxes. I love how they look. I think they look more professional than my origami boxes, and they go with my brand better. It also takes my way less time to add the ribbon and logo to the boxes than to make boxes.



I also listed a ton of new items in my shop check them out.



I'm especially proud of my Graduated Full Persian Set, I think I'm going to have to make one for myself. It took a lot of time to make, but the end result was definitely worth it.

And last but not least, I spent this last weekend cleaning house. My kids usually help, but baby girl was overwhelmed with the laundry and passed out in the basket.

Handmade Tuesday

I'm late!! I'm late!!

Would you believe I totally forgot it's Tuesday? Well I kind of did until right now, good thing I had my stuff ready.

I've been designing jewelry for some time now and I never thought of using wood. I'd seen wood used in jewelry, of course, but it never appealed to me. Then I joined The Handmade Artists Forum and met the jewelry designer who runs Jewelry by Janelle50 and saw her amazing work with exotic wood. Check out these two beautiful pieces and then go check out her shop.

New Stuff

Here's some new stuff I've recently listed in my shop. Starting from top left and working my way around clockwise we have: Stretchy Half Persian Bracelet, Purple Crystal Romanov Necklace, Rosettes Bracelet and Double Spiral Necklace. The stretchy bracelet can be customized with twelve different colors of anodized aluminum.
I'm loving the double spiral necklace, I almost don't want to sell it. If the crystals in the heart were blue I'd never be able to part with it.


I also finished my elfweave bracelet with the lapis lazuli. I love how this one turned out. The bronze of the rings really brings out the gold streaks in the stone. It's just amazing.

I'm working on a lot of earrings right now. I made some polyhedrons and some tao 3. I'm going to do a few pendants and then some bracelets. I've got a pile of pictures to get ready to post and then in a few days I'll list some new items. For now I'm off to bed, right after I finish this next bracelet.

Monique

How I Got Started

I've started this blog to document my progress in starting a business. I make jewelry, I've always been a crafty person. I started crafting at around age 10 when my grandma taught me to crochet. I was raised under the belief of "why buy something when you can make it yourself?"

Next I learned embroidery, sewing, scrapbooking, beaded jewelry, woodworking and knitting. I've jumped back and forth over these various crafts over the years, learning as many techniques as I could.

I started making my own jewelry at age 14., I loved it and my bead collection grew over the years. Fast forward 12 years to last December, I was searching through etsy and came across a chainmaille bracelet. I loved it! It was amazing and I delved into the subject of chainmaille jewelry.

Being the planner that I am I began researching chainmaille and chainmaille jewelry. The art of chainmaille is over 2000 years old, with it being used primarily as armor. There are european, japanese and persian weaves, but the celts, romans and the Norse were the original proprieters of maille. Much later around Shakesperean times chainmaile began being used as jewelry.

In January I bought some jump rings, pliers and taught myself chainmaille. The first thing i made was a japanese 12 in 2 weave choker. It took me a couple hours to finish, and by the time it was done I had a new passion. I started weaving like crazy. I loved it more than any other craft I've done over the years.

I soon had my jewelry box overflowing with chainmaille. My friends and family got lots of chainmaille. One day my husband came home and saw me working on yet another piece and said "Why don't you try selling that stuff?" Why don't I? A few weeks later Tora Jewelry was born.

The name comes from my love of tigers and japanese art. Balancing starting a business and caring for my children, ages 2 and 5, was difficult at first, but with help from my husband I'm off to a pretty decent start. I'm mainly focusing on my internet shop for now, but I am planning on scoping out local Farmer's Markets and other local places to sell.

Wish me luck,
Monique