Artisan Made Jewelry: My First Giveaway

Before our little Wee Nut was born with a Heart Defect, and before the economic Recession, I was a full time jeweler. Like every day to keep my sanity, obsessed, driven to create, gotta touch my beads and make something new, kind of full time jeweler. I did a few shows after Owee was born, and even won Second Place for Best in Show at our local Apple Days show that kicks off our Fall Foliage festival. By the time the Holiday shows rolled around the economy crashed so hard my head hurt from worry. The first big crash was right before Owee’s 2nd surgery and I remember sitting in the PICU after his surgery and looking up at the news and thinking holy crap, did they just say the market fell 700 points(or what ever huge crazy number it was) And then I remember thinking this was gonna be a bad season for selling jewelry. And it was. Bummer.

I decided to take some time off from selling jewelry at markets and shows and focus on my freelance writing. William also needed me to be home with the kids on the weekends so that he could work on the addition. He always cherishes his alone time with the kids on Saturday mornings when I would go and do a local Farmers/Artisans market. I thought that by this summer I would be back into selling, because well, the addition would most likely be done by then and all of our appointments with Peds Cardiology would have slowed down by then. Except that summer is over, and the addition is not done, and oh yeah, we had another baby. So really I don’t know when I am going to get back into vending my jewelry at shows again.

I have been trying to decide what kind of Giveaways to have, and I think a piece of my own jewelry is the perfect idea. I love making jewelry, really it is my passion, it is something that keeps me sane. It is something that I have not done on a regular basis since Wee Nut was born almost 17 months ago. So if I can’t set up my table and sell my jewelry I might as well give it away, someone deserves to have it. My plan for now is to have one giveaway a month. I guess I will do this first one and see how it goes. I might stick with jewelry,or I might give away something else that I have to offer.

So here is my first give away. Since September is almost over, I will go into October a bit and say that it will run until October 10, 2009.

In honor of Autumn, I have chosen some great fall colors with Chinese Carnelian. This is not the actual necklace, this is a picture from my website of a necklace that I made years ago, but I still use the same sterling silver bali beads for this design. This necklace is 17.5 inches long and had a basic 8mm spring ring clasp. This is a piece that I made last year for the Holiday shows and it did not sell…because well, not much of anything was selling last year. It has been stored in my studio for almost a year, but it has been kept safe.

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