Sites to sell and network in

It's been a bit of a whirlwind couple of weeks down here on the farm :) My daughter broke her arm a few weeks ago and after numerous trips to the Base Hospital (140km away) the cast is now off. Yay! My inlaws have been away so husband has been doing lots of extra running around looking after their property and it seems the children have had extra curricular activities all the time!

But not one to rest on my laurels, I finally did what I have been meaning to do for almost two years and that is open an Etsy store. Yes, you heard me - TWO years. Three days off it in fact. That's pretty awful isn't it. I was spurred into doing it by a great little networking group that has now officially become an Etsy street team called eSMArts. Cool, eh. Check out my *new* Etsy store here.

AND I joined an Australian Etsy-like site called Made It and have a few items listed there too. And of course I've been on the Canadian version - icraft - for a couple of months now.

I'm sure you remember me mentioning Posh Mama, that great social networking site for mums and Everything Skwiggle for the creator in all of us. Well, I've found a couple of more - Divapreneur and Indie Inspire Co.! I'm also a dedicated member of a couple Aussie networking sites too - the WAHM network at the BlogWhammy group. I have met the loveliest people through these sites, found the most interesting blogs and made quite a few customers too! One blog that I was checking out today was EP Designs. I'm not really into shabby chic but Elena does it with style!

Golly. It's a wonder I have any time to create at all!

But I do :)

Above is a pair of simple yet stunning earrings. Beautiful flat nuggets of aquamarine hang from sterling silver earhooks. Simplicity at its best.

Have a great day!

Autumn, the Great Art Grid and a quiz for every day

The cooler weather is here and I can see my loungeroom being re-arranged very soon so that we can access the fireplace! (We have a 'summer' set up where the lounges face outwards to look at the view and a 'winter' set up where we turn away from the cold and face the fire. Does anybody else do this?)

I have been busy making things for Ironfest which is rapidly creeping up on me. I have received some new stones lately too which are proving to reveal themselves as very one of a kind pieces of jewellery :). I have included one of them above - it is grossular garnet and is a beautiful deep green with sections of the cut stone falling away into crevices where the skin of the crystal shows through. A very 'honest' piece in its rather natural state, it looks like it has just been found on the bottom of the ocean where some goddess or nymph happened to drop it. Matched with some beautiful, glowing, olive green freshwater pearls, it is truly a bold, statement necklace.

Lots of things have happened in the last few days - I have taken on a new 'bonus partner' Dream Candles. The idea behind this is to provide little gifts and items for each other's customers, so I am looking forward to receiving Michelle's little packages soon. I have also joined the iCraft community and set up a little shop there to make me a little more accessible to those on the other side of the world! It is a similar idea to Etsy with lots of very talented artisans already populating its pages.

I must tell you about a great idea that Corinne from Day Dream Art Studios has going. She is currently creating a "Great Art Grid" of small pics of fellow artists/artisans work and her aim is to get to 100 - she is well on her way to her goal. The grid is very beautiful to look at and should you be an artist or artisan, why not participate!?

Of course, even though I have been pretty busy, I always manage to find some time to 'surf' around my favourite blogs. I noticed a post on the Tall Poppy blog that asked what sort of goddess you were with a link to a site to find out for yourself. Well, what a treasure trove that link turned out to be... it looks like there are hundreds of quizzes there on all sorts of topics. One of my favourites was Are you right or left brained? (I'm 40% left (organised) and 60% right (creative) which explains a lot about my workspace!!!) There are so many fun ones to do, I bet you can spend quite a bit of time there trying them out. Have fun!