SALE First Friday Art Walk

Hey Guys!  This month I am participating in the First Friday Art Walk in my etsy shop.  Coupon Code BOCFFAW gets you 10% off your purchase at www.artisanclay.etsy.com I added this new pendant to the shop this week.

As well as this one....

Welcome to my Work, Studio, Home, Garden!

First things first! Welcome to my Blog! Welcome to my Studio, my home and my garden!

I am super happy to be participating in the Beads-of-Clay Blog hop again!

 Don't forget to stop by all the "live" blogs from 1-4pm today for their "live" giveaway 1/2 hour windows! A few of us are participating in the hop, but are not doing the "live" posting.... in these giveaways, you have a longer comment window in order to be entered to win. My giveaway winners will be announced on Monday.  We all have specials going on in our online shops for a limited time.

Use coupon Code BOCOPENSTUDIO gets you 25% off your order and special Spring Cleaning HANDMADE BEAD SURPRISES IN YOUR ORDER

Here is a little sample of some of the beads that I make.  I use mostly stoneware clay, but sometimes work in porcelain or whatever suits my mood...    This week I have been working on a few new pieces inspired by my friend and jewelry designer Staci Louise Smith.

and this leads me to Giveaway #1.....  Hot out of the kiln...

A lovely spring flower.  Comment on this post for a chance to win the piece shown here.

The kiln shed is a mess from a winter of working to load and unload the kiln, but the cold and my schedule chasing me out while leaving tools lie.  Mice have made their winter shelters and yard tools and summer toys are piled high.   

My Daughter Sonya (6) is almost finished painting her Enormous Fairy Statue.  We often work together.  She tells me that one day she will have a shop and sell my work.  That would be a lot of fun. 

And also still warm...

My second giveaway!   Again leave a comment below... leave one comment leave six comments... I don't care.  Let me know you came :-)

I have been feeling the Spring coming and I feel the pace of life changing.  My messy home has been driving me crazy and stubborn as I am, I have tried to find a way for everyone to better clean up after themselves.  I totally understand that I make HUGE messes in all the crazy things I do..... and that's more reason for everyone else to clean up after themselves, right?  Picking up after myself alone is a full time job!  ha!  So here's the improved system... See the different cube bins?  Everyone has one, even the dog. (Our dog Samson's box is turned around so that he can't open it with the handle-- because he was quite obsessive about doing just that) This replaces the large containers to the right which used to house all the winter hats, gloves etc.. for the entire family.  Maybe we can handle keeping track of personal property better than rooting through communal property?  Maybe?  I hope so.

  The kids and I are still working on their room.  My goal is to get rid of the toy box.  We have a place for dress up clothes, a place for each girl's jewelry and make up, a place for Lego's and barbies and horses... and we're still working on it.  I have to wait for more shelves to arrive at the store in order to finish the job.

Spring means gardening to me.  I grew the beans and potatoes picture last year and I will replant with them again this year.  I'll be outside planting peas and sugar snaps and snow peas and lettuce and bok choi and potatoes and onions the weekend after St Patricks Day.  I might not be able to wait that long to start planting onions.  And there is starting seeds inside as well.  Very soon indeed!   I love planting veggies! I plant my yard to the max and my mom and I have 2 community garden plots.  This year I will also be planting a garden that is grown for a local pantry.  I don't know where I am going to find the time, but I always do in the end.

I did a little experiment this winter... I planted and relocated a few things as I was cleaning out the garden for the winter.  I put a sheet of glass over the bed and I peeked in every once and a while to see what happened.  Even in the snow and not shoveling the snow off the glass for a week or more sometimes-- things still grew.  It was great to have these little babies out under the snow.... but a little rodent found them and moved into my little salad bar during the snow storms and ate quite a bit of what had grown bigger.  It was a fun experiment and new sprouts keep popping up even now.  I took the pictures here yesterday.

If everything goes well with the family today, then I will be listing the extra flowers pictured above in my etsy shop while we do our normal Sunday night routine.... PBS-- Nature and Masterpiece Theatre... I don't even know what they will be airing this evening, but I hope to be relaxing on the couch and listing on etsy by then :-)

Thanks for stopping by!  Thanks for your comments!  I don't always get back to everyone who comments, but I do really appreciate when you let me know what you think!

SALE TIME!

SALE! It's Beads-of-Clay Open Studio Blog Hop time again! COUPON CODE BOCOPENSTUDIO gets you 25% off your order and special Spring Cleaning HANDMADE BEAD SURPRISES IN YOUR ORDER! ~Now through Sunday March 6th.~


I will also be posting my Open Studio Blog Giveaways and Spring themed posts on Sunday Morning. 2 Winners will be announced on Monday. Tons of great Ceramic Bead goodness will be going on by many of our Beads-of-clay members.

There will be new work added to the shop this weekend, but not til late afternoon on Saturday and mid-morning on Sunday..... There's actually a little bit of a bead shortage around Artisan Clay land... even though I keep making more, much of it is promised out already.


I did get the kiln loaded up yesterday and start to fire as soon as I can get the nerve to go outside in the dark cold of this end of winter-- so close to spring- morning ;-)
 
I have been packing up beads to head out to Heather Powers for her Bead Cruise at the end of the month-- WOW-- It's fun packing them up, but it looks like I only made 50 or so disc beads in my last firing... time to make some more :-)  
 
So....SALE and new work coming to the shop this weekend... then probably there will be less new work in the etsy shop for a time while I make things for trunk shows, and get my jewelry retailers restocked and I do a bit of traveling-- ok for me it is a lot of traveling :-)  4 trips before June-- how am I going to pull that off?  It should be fun.

Trunk Show EXTENDED! And Open Studio BLOG HOP SALE this weekend!

Philly folks!

  The Artisan Clay Trunk Show at The Bead Garden in Havertown has been extended for one more week! 

Get 'em while they're hot folks!  After this week my beads will be packed up in a big box heading to Kansas City, MO...   So, if you are in the Philly area... go to the Bead Garden... If you are in the North Kansas City area.... check back for more details about my next Trunk Show scheduled to begin around Mid-March....

And if you are nowhere near either of those areas..... come by this blog and my Etsy Shop this weekend and SHOP my BEADS OF CLAY OPEN STUDIO BLOG HOP SALE AND GIVEAWAY EXTRAVAGANZA!    ha!

If I'm really hardworking and I don't get dressed and don't stop for food ( for either myself or my children) than I might have some really fun experimental beads to share with you... on Sunday..... to giveaway.... maybe. 

And if I don't then I will still have a killer sale and great bead studio spring cleaning surprises in every order.

Birthday SALE!

It's my birthday on Sunday and I'm having a sale to celebrate!  Sales are fun!
I am really excited about the year ahead of me.  Things really turned around for me in the second half of the past year, and I'm really happy. 
Here's the sale part.  Use coupon code 31YEARSYOUNG and get 31% off your purchase this weekend. 
As long as things are selling, I will continue to trickle new items into my etsy shop over the course of the weekend.  Quite a few people already noticed my sale and I thank you!   If you want, you can purchase items through out the weekend and pay at the end....   I would like to mail any new orders out on Monday.
Thanks!

Last day for my SALE and GIVEAWAYS

I added all these items to my Etsy shop this week.  Today is the last day to get them for Buy One Get One Half Off.  and get a surprise smokefired bead of my choice with every 2 items purchased. 

So--- you are warned.  Also enter my 2 giveaways TODAY if that sort of thing interests you :-)

The one giveaway os on the Color Chip Challenge post, and that is for a set of my disc beads (kinda sort of similar to the style I used in the Urban Midnight necklace)

And the other Giveaway is for a $25 gift certificate and a pile of smokefired beads and a pile of great Stone Donut-ish focals from Rings and Things.  That one is Titled Cyber Sale and Giveaway. 

I may or may not add more charms and disc beads to my shop this evening/later today.   I will see how family life plays out.  We are excited to be headed to a Organic Farm for purchase our reserved Lamb and make Gyros for Dinner!  Whoo Hoo Meat!  I'm hungry!  I am used to my husband hunting and I avoid the meat section of the grocery store so this is WAY TOO Exciting for our family.  Ha!  I'm a freak!

I hope you are having a great day!
-k

Staci Blogged about my sale!

Here is her loot!   http://stacilouise.blogspot.com/2010/12/taking-advantage-of-these-holiday-sales.html

GIVEAWAY and CYBER SALE!

CYBER SALE! BUY ONE GET ONE HALF OFF SALE IN MY ETSY SHOP!

(not including gift certificates) 

Enter to win everything pictured above by leaving a comment on this blog post below.

That  includes a $25 gift certificate, A pile of Smokefired Art beads valued at @$100 and Four faceted funky Stone Donuts from Rings-n-Things.  I received these stone pieces as part of the Rings & Things blog program.

 There's more-- you will get one free smokefired bead of my choice with every 2 items purchased.  Buy 2 items, get one smokefired bead-- buy 4 items get 2 smokefired beads,.... buy 10 items get, 5 smokefired beads--- ALL while getting the buy one get one half off sale pricing.    Why?  I just love surprise giveaways!  They make me smile-- that's why!

Also you will get one giveaway entry for every item purchased now through Sunday 12/5/10.

There is no purchase necessary to win, just leave a comment below.  If you would like an extra chance, you may leave a comment linking to your favorite item in my etsy shop or you may share the news of my sale on Facebook, twitter or your blog :-)

So there is about a million and one ways to enter for ya! 

All of these items have been photographed and will be added to my etsy shop in the next day or so as family responsibilities permit me to do so.  I will be adding as much work as possible to the etsy shop during the duration of the sale which will run now through 12/5/10.
  Thank you!
I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Giveaway and SALE coming up......

I am going to be having a giveaway and Cyber Monday sale later this week.  I am so THANKFUL FOR YOU!   I hope to post it on Thanksgiving and let the giveaway run through the weekend..... 
Thank you for being a friend!

Last day for 20% OFF SALE!

Today is the Last day for the 20% off sale in my etsy shop.....  Just thought I'd let you know :-)

Who won?

First of all--- Thank you so much for stopping by my blog!

I started off by listing everyone's names on a big piece of paper, dividing up the international entries from the Bead Box entries.  We ended up with 41 comments for the bead box and 3 comments for the grab bag!  That's a lot of entries!

When I won the box, it happened at a time when the good news was plentiful.  I felt the beady world was smiling at me and I was smiling back.  I think that the Bead Box Goddesses sensed that again because my instant reaction to learning the winner was..... "Some girls have all the luck"

The next stop of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Beads Box is New York State and the home of Lorelei Eurto!  Congratulations Lorelei!   Katie Nelson stocked the box with TONS of Art beads from many different artists prior to my turn with it and now the box is HEAVY with Artisan Clay beads. 

The winner of the Artisan Clay Grab bag is Maria from Edinburgh, UK!

Maria--Please contact me via my http://www.artisanclay.etsy.com/  shop or send me an email thru blogger with your address

 I really enjoyed the freedom I felt by cleaning up and destashing my work area!  I get the feeling that there is still going to be tons of my beads in that box all the way to it's last stop..... which is OK if you like my work.

I feel like I am allowed to fire up some more beads now..... and make some new jewelry with my great new stuff!     I am free!  and inspired!  This is such a great idea!  I am so glad you started this Heather!

So... Thank you for stopping by!  and while I have you here, I'm going to let you know about some fun stuff that I am involved in :-)

We are having a big Open Studio Blog event over at The Beads-of-Clay group this Sunday!

A large group of Ceramic Bead Makers are having special sales and giveaways on their blogs and websites from 2-5pm!

I am not officially on the list since I will not be home on Sunday, BUT I am still going to be posting for the Open Studio and holding the same giveaways.  My winners will be chosen on Monday and my SALE is going on now thru Sunday.  

The destash feeling from the Bead Box is wonderful and I have decided to mark EVERYTHING in my Etsy shop at 40% off their regular prices!  I see some of you noticed the sale prices even before I got a chance to announce it :-)  Thank you!

I will be adding new work to my etsy shop over the weekend at the sale pricing and if all goes well I will be adding some WHOLESALE LOTS and GRAB BAGS as well :-) 

Last but not at all least--- Check out the Best Little Bead Box project and follow along on that bead box's travels before it is finally divided up to benefit Beads-of-Courage....  this week it is headed someplace pretty fancy if you ask me!

OK commercial over..... back to the beads :-)