Etsy Front Page 1/25/09

Just found out that my necklace was in this beautiful treasury that made it to the front page of Etsy today. Thank you so much Sunnyspot5 for including me in this lovely treasury.

Fine Silver Hammered Rings

Ok so I have really had a time trying to learn this craft. Asked for all the tools I would need for Christmas. Then went out and bought the ones I did not get because I so desperately wanted to get started. I acquired a book in the beginning of December and read it and read it again. Could not wait for Christmas to come so I could try it out. Finally Christmas had come, I had gotten some tools and was ready to try my hand at fusing fine silver. Followed all the directions precisely. It went as expected.

I had read that it would take lots of practice. Still I was very proud of what I had done. The next day I messed with it a little more and then my torch stopped working correctly. I was very distraught. Refilled it with butane, waited 5 minutes and nothing. I could hardly get it to light and when it did the flame was barely visible. So I waited until it cooled off and tried refilling it again. Same thing happened. So, life happens and I got busy and was not able to fool with it again until last night. Also I guess I should mention that my husband filled it with butane for me. So, last night when I went to light my torch it worked beautifully. I was so excited. I started out by making ball tip headpins. I was very amazed at how well they turned out. Decided I would try again with fusing the fine silver into rings. I have a hard time getting a flush cut even with the Lindstrom pliers…not sure why. So I wrapped my wire around a dowel, made some cuts, sanded the edges and began to fuse the rings. To my surprise they fused beautifully. I proceeded to use up the rest of my wire and hammered my rings. I washed my steel shot and added it to my tumbler. I put my newly fused rings, my first batch of rings, and my headpins in my new tumbler and turned it on. The 30 minute wait time took forever. Of course I had a bazillion things to do, that should have already been done, to take up my time though. After my tumbling time was up I took them out and was so thrilled. To me they, being the newest fused circles, looked perfect. Now if I just had some more wire.

I was not able to capture there beauty or shine, but believe me they sparkle!

New 3 Column Blog

So I have had several people ask me where I got the layout for my blog. Thought I would let everyone know. Someone from Twitter originally pointed me in this direction. I got it from Blogger Buster. Here is there link http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/08/blogger-template-downloads.html They are free templates and super easy. I tried for months to change mine only to have error after error. You will need to say all your widgets separately before adding the new layout and then reinstall then afterwards. Not sure if you will encounter the same problems but I learned that what I was doing wrong was I needed to download Winzip to unzip the file and then extract the xml and save that. Then I would upload the saved xml and it worked perfectly. The one I chose is Butterfly, and it was created by Amanda you can check it out here (http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2007/08/blogger-templatedownloads.html) I really liked these because they came with the blogger tool bar installed. If you are interested in changing yours you should definately check out the site.

How to Add Etsy Mini to Blogspot

I have seen a number of forum posts about people needing help adding their Etsy Mini to their blog. Hope this little tutorial helps you out.

•At top of blogger click on DESIGN

•Click on Add a Gadget

•Scroll down until you see the one that says “HTML/JavaScript” and click on the plus sign

•Go to Your Etsy

•Scroll down to Etsy Mini

•Click on – items from my shop – thumbnails – 2 columns – 4 rows (or however you like)

•Scroll to bottom of that page and highlight the javascript version

•Press Ctrl C on your computer to copy

•Go back to your blogger box that you opened for html and press Ctrl V to paste.

•Add a title such as Etsy Mini and click save.

Mrfatface

My husband just opened up an etsy shop. You can check out all of his beautiful art here. He has a very unique modern style. He uses all different kinds of mediums from acrylics, oils, paint markers, spray paint, to newspaper and tissue paper. Very much one of a kind!

http://www.mrfatface.etsy.com/

MADE IT TO THE FRONT PAGE!! Whoo Hooo!

I am beside myself. Just discovered that this treasury I was in as well made it to the FRONT PAGE of ETSY today. I am just delighted. Thanks ITSABEE for including me in your treasury!

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2009! Really don't want to think about New Years Resolutions, but would love to hear from you all.