Tuesday, November 30, 2010

MysticWynd Jewelry!


Tuesday - BESTeam Mosaic
weekly shoutout to the dedicated workers that like to help other handmade artists...

MysticWynd on Etsy... Today I want to introduce to you all, Karen from MysticWynd on Etsy. A very hard working and enthusiastic handmade jewelry artist, and along with Elizabeth of ParidisePurls is great team leader for the BESTeam. Running another two shops TheCraftersCabinet (destash and supplies) and MWElegance (bridal) as well as moderating the BESTeam blog, Karen is one busy lady! For her wonderful colorful jewelry you can check out the mosaic below or click the title link to go straight to the heart of her store and check out some of the beautiful and affordable pieces she creates. There is LOADS to feast your eyes upon and every piece is captured stunningly. You won't be disappointed! Some of my favourites have to be her gemstone beaded pieces, especially the turquoise Rosary and Cho Oyu Necklace!

I totally respect busy bloggers, fully well knowing how hard it is to maintain regularity and consistency (including awesomeness!) with all that appears on the page. For MysticWynd her blog is more than just amazing, I consider it to be one of a few handmade blogs that looks like it has big things coming for it in the near future. I know of her grand efforts maintaining the BESTeam, and I can imagine that the best of her efforts goes into nurturing her page, keeping it fresh, unique and full of interesting content for fellow handmade artisans to read. This is a fab blog for both discovering great talent, and to keep up to date with her store. Well worth following!

For those of you with a passion for handmade, and you have a blog that is in need of a consistant weekly post to drive your traffic and help fellow artisans by doing the same. Come and join the BESTeam!


All items are clickable and will take you directly to Turquoiseangels' listings...

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Pink and Black Glam


Monday Magic... Glam!

carrienashley
BlackMagnolia
diabolica
JaneMichael

Lynx007
Hollywoodbabe
Gviolet
blushdoll
GalleriaDiGiani
ablastfromthepast
orderabandon
seasonedantiques

Introducing my 59th installment of my weekly feature Monday Magic, showing off the gorgeous glam items from these newer artists to Etsy in time for the Holiday season.

All of the sellers names can be typed into the navigation bar on your browser followed with ".etsy.com" (dot etsy dot com) to take you to their stores. Otherwise click on an image to go directly to their listing!


I am now taking requests for next weeks Monday Magic Expo. If you would like to be a part of it, you are required to have 0-19 sales in your Etsy store, and the theme is 'Food' Contact me via convo @ http://moonangelnay.etsy.com to send in your requests, plus a link to your suitable item :)

Trip to Santa


Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

Blog's 'Fourth Giveaway' winner! Congratulations to "BananasAreGross". You have won yourself a custom made adorable mouse headband! I have contacted you via email :)

Trip to Santa! ... I was in a bit of a stressful polava yesterday trying to navigate my way through stationary human traffic in my City Centre through what is quite possibly the busiest shopping day I have ever dared set foot in... ever! And boy did I wish I didn't after a few hours lol! We were there from 11am to 5pm and I really couldn't believe how much shopping time we had in those hours. It was so bad we actually spent more time squashed between people at the Frankfurt Market trying to go from the museum to the Bullring then we did actually browsing any market stalls (of which we only managed to glance at about 4) and shopping down the high street. It was absolute chaos! My poor kids were freezing as it had plummetted to -7 degrees celcius in the day which is highly unusual for Birmingham at the best of times, and everyone had that 'ploughing mentality' where they just look at the floor and bowl themselves through the crowds. My son who was being a very good boy despite everything was being knocked all over the place, and trying hard not to loose the Christmas spirit I was feeling pretty crappy about why we hadn't forseen such a thing coming. We decided to cut the shopping short in the end and I'm going to go back, armoured and ready for the crowds to do a bit of people ploughing myself and finish my Christmas shopping when I get my last orders out of the way. I wouldn't put my kids through that again, it's disheartening to think that people can be so rude, ignorant and cruel knocking a 3 year old to the floor many times without apologising, or half the time even noticing when all we did was courteously make way for people trying to set a good example to the children. *Sigh*

At least the best part of the day was spent when we had initially arrived into town and made our way to the Museum and Art Gallery to have cultured morning looking at the exhibits and to visit our favourite Santa that always sets up his grotto at the Museum every year. It was so wonderful. Because he had only planned to be there for 2 days, we expected to be queuing for ages upon arrival but we were actually pretty much first in there!

We were greeted by a Christmas Fairy who was very sweet to my son who at that point had melted away all of his brave Santa list chatter and gone very shy, and managed to coax us into the lovely little grotto that we could hear Santa Ho Ho Ho-ing in to himself. This being my daughters first Christmas was an extra special occassion and Santa was very sweet picking up on that and having a discussion with my son about it. My son at the best of times when he is in shy mode tends to just stand glued to the spot but was very quickly warmed to this lovely man's kindness and way with words which made the whole experience very exciting for him, and gave him that bit of independance and confidence that we crave for him when it comes to talking to other people. He can sometimes be heavily reliant on us for being as shy as he is, so was a revelation for him in his ability to be a big boy and talk about his little sister and wishes with confidence. It was the perfect trip! And after we had a wander around the museum and let my son direct us to all of his favourite exhibitions like "the Cry" bronze sculpture and Ancient Egyptian area. I guess things always work out that way just to balance things out. Well... despite the hullaballoo in town, my kids are in fab spirits today, so I think seeing Santa was enough to keep everything positive for them this weekend :)

Regarding work I am super busy with hat making this weekend as Black Friday has been and gone and my Babamoon sale is going on until the 13th of December anyway so people have started getting their Christmas orders in. If you are interested in purchasing a hat from Babamoon this weekend then there's 25% off everything! If you want a further 10% off, join my Facebook Page and look out for my FB Fans Coupon Code on the page :) Note that I am not running this sale in my photography store.

Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com



That's it for now. Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Friday, November 26, 2010

Squeaky Giveaway


Saturday... Giveaway #4 11/20 - 11/27
CLOSED!
The winner will be announced tomorrow in my Sunday Coffee and Cake Post!


little mouse gray and pink crochet baby headband portrait
A while back I came up with this design when I wanted to do something quick for my daughter to wear at Halloween, as we were having a bit of a simplistic one and I wasn't really prepared to spend loads on a commercially made costume. I also thought that it'd be nice to introduce her to the handmade Halloween that my son is already accustomed to each year. Well I ended up spending a few hours on it and had to sacrifice making a few chocolate treats due to lack of time (there was plenty anyway!), and once it was complete I was extremely chuffed as I had successfully managed to get the ears to stand in place without evening trying. I can't remember what inspired the mouse initially although I have probably written about it on the blog somewhere, but anyway to get to the point! Today I am offering a custom made mouse headband in this weeks giveaway.

The Prize...

little mouse grey and pink crochet baby headband looking upI do make this for baby and have sizes that go up to 3T but I can happily make a larger or smaller size if the winner requires it. With the Christmas season coming up, I thought it would be cute to offer up this headband before introducing my final giveaway which will be one of my more festive hats (TBA)! When thinking of mice and Christmas I always think of the fabulous ballet, the Nutcracker! But unfortunately the Birmingham Royal Ballet aren't performing it this year :( My little boy called my daughter Angelina Ballerina a few times which was sweet! For any budding mousling I guess this is a place they can start :) They're very cute and I hope that the winner's baby or friends baby will enjoy their new ears for a few months of wear :)

It is crocheted with 100% acrylic yarn. You can check out my store to find out more about the materials used!


little mouse gray and pink crochet baby headband close up
HOW TO ENTER

I have been wondering how to do this to make it interesting and say if i had a large set of entrants, to give you all good chance of winning!

This giveaway is international and will run from today until the 27th of this month. That's 1 week for your chance to enter! When the giveaway closes I will announce the winner in my Sunday Coffee and Cake post on the 28th of November.


Each entry will be counted in my BLOG COMMENTS so you will need to submit each entry there to qualify also leave me an email or some form of contact so i can get hold of the winner easily! Just following these steps. Remember you don't have to do them all, but you have a greater chance of winning if you do!

  • 1 Entry - Visit Babamoon.etsy.com and tell me which of my baby items you love best in a comment beneath this post
  • 1 Entry - Visit moonangelnay.etsy.com and tell me which of my prints you like the best in a comment beneath this post
  • 1 Entry - FOLLOW THIS BLOG, and tell me in a comment that you have. If you have followed me before then still mention it in a comment!
  • 1 Entry - Tweet about this giveaway making sure you include @moonangelnay in the tweet so I can verify your entry AND tell me in a comment beneath this post so I know you've entered! (Only once please)
  • 1 Entry - Follow me on Twitter and tell me in a comment below
  • 1 Entry - Share this giveaway on Facebook and tell me in a comment with the link to your facebook page
  • 1 Entry - Like me on Facebook and tell me you have here in the comments.
  • 2 Entry's - SUBSCRIBE TO MY BLOG - Do tell me in a comment
  • 3 Entry's - Grab my Saturday Giveaway button from the sidebar, and put it in a blog post or your own blog side bar and post the link in my comments below!
  • 5 Entry's - BUY SOMETHING FROM EITHER OF MY STORES - Tell me you have in the message to seller on Etsy and in a comment here so I know who's who!
Good Luck!

Love Nay x

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Thursday Blog Hop Link Party #9

ADD YOUR BLOG TO MY LONG WEEKEND BLOG HOP!
Thursday - Sunday


Hello and hope you all have a fab Thanksgiving today! This is my 9th blog hop and I've made somewhat of a change due to loading times etc! I expect my blog will be quiet today but for those that do stop by please share your blog links :)

Remember to add your blog to the "linky" and not just in the comments (although comments are appreciated)! This hop is growing by the week so thanks to those of you who have grabbed my blog hop button or the ones that have put the linky code on their own pages! The more you all share this linky, the more opportunities people have to find and follow your blogs! Lets keep this up! I try to follow everyone that lists so to maximise everyone's chance of gaining followers try and follow as many as you can give time for :)


moonangelnay thursday blogspot link party blog hop

Grab This Button!



Here is how you can take part!
  1. Follow my blog!
  2. ADD YOUR LINK TO THE LINKY BELOW
  3. NO ETSY OR OTHER SHOP LINKS! This is a BLOG hop. Please contact me if you are interested in taking part in other features, but this is exclusively for blogs :)
  4. EITHER copy and paste the Linky code at the bottom of this post into YOUR OWN blog post OR Write a blog post including the Thursday Blog Hop button above (it's size will be 125px) OR Link to me using the Blog hop button somewhere on your blog.
  5. (not mandatory but it helps) I know not everyone can, but if you have social networks like Twitter, Facebook etc send a message out about this hop to help spread the word about all the fab blogs people can follow!
  6. Follow at least 2 or 3 others on the list and send them a blog comment to let them know! That way they can follow you back also :)
If I feel your entry isn't family friendly (ie: adult related, gambling or something else distasteful or spammy) I will remove your link.

So submit your blog into the linky tool by clicking on the submit text and you're on your way :) This tool will expire on Sunday night and is accessible using the top navigation of my blog! Happy hopping!

Blushing Beauty


Wednesday...Gratitude!

No.37 ... Today's one is bite size and lovely! I love being a part of Etsy Teams, but my favourite team that I do spend more time nurturing has to be the growing strong BESTeam. I find it is the epitome of everything I stand for when it comes to helping out the handmade community, and it's members are always so busy helping eachother out. This week a team member curated a treasury for some of us and my gratitude theme is based on the beautiful rose hues chosen :) These are some of my favourite handmade items, from the kind Etsians that have featured my work in the past week for both my photography store and my baby knits store.


My favorite treasury! 'Blushing Beauties Gift Guide' by 'iknitandbead'


TREASURIES AND FEATURES


Etsy Seller - iknitandbead Hand Knits And Beaded Jewelry
Treasury East - Blushing Beauties Gift Guide and BESTeam Blog Mention


Item - Las Vegas - The Horizon
Etsy seller - elinay Bird Photography And Drawings
Treasury East - Kiss me, I'm IRISH!



Thanks again for the features everyone :)

moonangelnay x


Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Chasingthenuns Knits and Textiles


Tuesday - BESTeam Mosaic
weekly shoutout to the dedicated workers that like to help other handmade artists...

Chasingthenuns on Etsy... This quaint little shop by chasingthenuns has quite the mix of textile items be it stitched or knitted. I think the item that stood out the most to me was the awesome turkey hat which I'm sure would make a great last minute Thanksgiving gift for those that may be in time for purchasing. I also liked the look of the Hip Bag with it's bold colors and spacious look. I'm one of those people that take everything but the kitchen sink out with me so spacious bags are always a must! The seller herself is not only part of the BESTeam but also the Midwest Treasury team which says to me that their creative output extends far beyond their shop and I always admire people that like to help others in the handmade community. Also part of the Etsy Knitters team, Chasingthenuns certainly has a talent for her knitted items which look extremely well made and I was very pleased to have visited their store. Custom orders are welcome, you need only to ask her :)

For those of you with a passion for handmade, and you have a blog that is in need of a consistant weekly post to drive your traffic and help fellow artisans by doing the same. Come and join the BESTeam!


All items are clickable and will take you directly to Turquoiseangels' listings...

Monday, November 22, 2010

Chilly!


Monday Magic... Chilly!

BabyDobbins
MoonlightAcre
ironsidephoto
BrooklynBlue

OliveStudio
povermoye
Endlessp
FreshJewelryDesign
UncommonAlchemy
TheBloomingThread
BlingAroundRosies
OooooPretty

Introducing my 58th installment of my weekly feature Monday Magic, showing off the cool handmade chilly items from these newer artists to Etsy in time for the Holiday season.

All of the sellers names can be typed into the navigation bar on your browser followed with ".etsy.com" (dot etsy dot com) to take you to their stores. Otherwise click on an image to go directly to their listing!


I am now taking requests for next weeks Monday Magic Expo. If you would like to be a part of it, you are required to have 0-19 sales in your Etsy store, and the theme is 'Glam' Contact me via convo @ http://moonangelnay.etsy.com to send in your requests, plus a link to your suitable item :)

Sunday, November 21, 2010

It Takes Two!


Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly mommy babble and handmade goings on...

It Takes Two! ... I am quite familiar with that number this week as it been encompassing a lot of the goings on in plenty of the situations befalling me. Like my spam happy commenter has stopped using their old alias to riddle this blog full of crap (number twos... ho!) and started using a NEW one... for which I dont even want to dignify with naming it... I wouldn't want to give them a fighting chance in the searching engines, they've ticked me off too much now. That's the most negative number two of the week thankfully. The remainder has been a much more positive with double the effort I make in the day to run my Babamoon store as I now find myself constantly nurturing both the Etsy one and my newer Artfire one. Still haven't done the Zibbet one although I will do eventually. I think that I'm going to try and strenghten the presence of my Artfire shop first both outside and in. I am really happy with how it's working out but I have needed to tweak all my imported listings which is time consuming, although having said that it has made me evaluate how to try improving on my listing SEO. I have also made two new headbands this week that are very cute. Two hearts, one red and one green. Perfect for Christmas I think :) The intention was to make a host of colors, but realistically I think a project like that is best saved for over the holidays when there's less of a Christmas panic! Speaking of headgear, I also purchased two new pinks in the Sirdar Snowflake yarn that I normally make the animal hats out of in response to a customer that was looking for a softer pink for a potential order... but couldn't decide which was better, and for one of my orders in the week I had to make 2 bear hats which isn't usual as i normally find the bunny hats dominate my orders. Then there's been my two children and spending more time than usual in their comapny as my partners has had a busier than normal week working. That's been the nicest part as although I am with them all of the time anyway, just having that little bit more has given more thought as to how to spend the extra time together so I figured that as my daughter is more alert now I would reintroduce baby signing into the household. So out came my sons old DVDs and I got a fab app with all the BSL signs that are helpful on hand for doing this with children, and I've been signing away with my sons help trying to teach her how to communicate with us along with speech. She's taking to it well, although rather than trying to sign she's doing an amazing job of copying sounds which is wonderful, and in all of this she has worked out how to say Dada and associate the word to her Daddy :) It's really cute, whenever he's in the room she'll give him the biggest smile and say "Eyo Dada!" I tell ya, he's been on cloud 9 all week... she loves saying it to him. She's 6 months old today so I'm really pleased with her achievement :)

Well that's it for now although I just want to quickly mention that the is 10% off everything in Babamoon until 11pm GMT tonight! If you're looking for Christmas gifts for baby then this is one opportunity before Black Friday to take advantage! Best wishes everyone and Happy Thanksgiving for those that will celebrate on Thursday. Ta ta!


Recent Altered Photography And Baby Accessories
Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com and babamoon.etsy.com...







Have a great weekend all!


moonangelnay x

Thursday, November 18, 2010

iDesignDreams Custom Photo Cards


Friday Finds... iDesignDreams


Interview # 52
With Christmas now just around the corner, you may be considering the perfect greeting to send to your loved ones that has that little bit something extra. I have featured some brilliant cardmakers on my blog before and today is no exception, iDesignDreams offers fantastic designs throughout the store and offers a great personal quality to the cards for the ability to customize each step in the process of ordering. Not only do you have the option to have your card file available to print at home, but you can ask to have the design professionally printed which you can be invoiced for. I mentioned the Christmas holiday approaching of course, yet there are other options available to you such as birth announcements, and save the date. I think if you want to find the perfect digital printable cards this year that use your images then a visit to iDesignDreams is a must. Check out their interview for today!


(Just click the images to go direct to the listings)



-- Tell me a bit about you! (Name, Age, Location, and give us a random fact whilst you're at it.) My name is Jamie Dennis (age 24) and I live in Greeley, CO (about an hour north of Denver, CO). I also happen to be a vegetarian of two years!




-- What is your business about then? As of now, I make custom holiday photo cards that are modern and fresh. Because I just opened up shop and it so happened to be right around the holidays, that was my main focus. Soon, I will be designing photo baby announcements, save the date cards, birthday party invitations and more! You won't find any generic photo cards here!


-- How did Etsy come into your life? I discovered Etsy awhile ago when doing some personal shopping. I never thought I would actually become a seller. When I decided to start designing custom photo cards to sell, I remembered Etsy and thought it matched well with my personality and style.



-- Are you working a day job too? Yup! I work as a full-time Graphic Designer in the corporate world and have been for almost 5 years now, even during the time I was still in college getting my Bachelor's degree in Graphic Design.


-- How long has the artist in you been 'unleashed' for? Corporately, quite some time as I've mentioned. I've always done wedding invitations, my own holiday cards, logo design, etc on the side. It wasn't until a couple months ago that I decided I might actually be able to design photo cards to fit other people's personalities and styles as well. So, I started designing some cards here and there, as I continued and ideas came easy to me, I decided that maybe I had a "nack" for designing photo cards and then I just went for it, listing them on Etsy!



-- What has been the inspiration behind your business? Never being able to find anything online that fit what I was looking for. Being a designer, it's hard to buy a photo card someone else has created without NOT wanting to change something about it. It's just engrained in us designers. :) I also find it freeing to be able to design outside the corporate world, without having limitations or rules to follow or someone else to have final say. Now, that final says is ME!


-- If you could describe your products in three words, what would you tell me? Beautiful. Modern. Fresh.


-- What would an average working day for you be like from dawn til dusk? Stroll into office at my full-time day job at 8:00pm and get off at 5:00pm. Go to CrossFit (gym) right after work, get home around 7:00pm. Cook dinner for the hubs and I. Shower. At 8:00, if I'm lucky and the hubs isn't using the computer, design a couple photo cards and list on Etsy. Then, it's time to "take care" of my social networking accounts on Facebook and Twitter and try to maintain a marketing presence. Crash around say 11:30pm, any later and I'm worthless the next day. :)




-- What's your favourite material and techniques to work with? I absolutely love paper and printed "things." However, because I only design and sell digital photo cards, the only material I use is my computer. I design in Illustrator and edit photos in Photoshop.


-- What is your ideal vision for the future for you and your work? I'd like to have a full line of holiday cards, baby announcements, save the date cards, birthday party invitations and possibly even creating some "frameable" artwork as a spin-off of the card designs. For instance, creating baby announcement posters for a baby room using the baby's name, date of birth, weight, height, etc that can either match the announcement card or the room decor. Same thing for the save the date cards, etc. So many ideas and only so much time; it's good that the possibilities are literally endless. I'd like to have a consistent customer base, creating a "hub" if you will for all things photo cards that customers look at first before going anywhere else.


-- Away from work, what do you like to do for fun or to wind down? My husband and I are addicted to CrossFit. You can find us there most nights after work and on the weekends. We also love to play outdoors; snowboard, bike, run and hike. We do live in Colorado after all. We attend a lot of concerts and movies and are always trying out new Vegetarian places in Colorado. We love to travel (or should I say I love to travel and take the hubs with me) and are into modern home decor (go figure, right)? :) We are blessed to have great families, friends and a wonderful life!




-- What are you likely to search for on Etsy? Unique clothing, design inspiration, modern wall art and the next new thing!


-- Any last words? Of course, I have a Facebook and Twitter account that I'm on regularly. Like me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greeley-CO/I-Design-Dreams/140885742625843 Follow me on Twitter @i_Design_Dreams You can find me on there promoting my products, keeping you up to date with the newest designs and interacting with my followers. I try to keep the self-promotion contained and help promote other unique finds on Etsy as well.

And of course, check out my Etsy shop. www.iDesignDreams.etsy.com