Sela Designs Jewelry: hope.purpose.love

Monday, December 3, 2012

WINNER!

Hello All! We have a WINNER! I apologize for the delay. I had a show on Saturday and then my husband and I were in a live nativity Saturday & Sunday(Joseph & Mary). It made for a very busy, but fun weekend. Anyway, onto to the important stuff...

The Winner is comment #6! I used a random number generator, but for some reason the picture of it would not upload. So, comment #6 was from Ann Marie Luckow! Congrats, Ann! Please contact me with the colors of tagua you would like on your necklace!

Thank you to everyone who played along! Enjoy this wonderful month of celebrating with friends, family and all those you love.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Christmas Sale & a GIVEAWAY!

Hello All! I'm excited to announce that I will be part of the Artisan Whimsy Market 2012 Holiday Collection! As a bonus, I'll be offering 10% of my entire etsy shop with the code AWHOLIDAY. The sale starts Friday, November 23 and ends Friday, November 30. This is a great opportunity to buy those custom gifts for friends, family and other loved ones. As always, all profit will be donated to charity - mostly an orphanage in Mexico and another in Madagascar. Let's make this Christmas the best ever for the orphans! If you've seen something on my facebook page you like and can't find it in my shop just message me on Facebook, leave a comment there or email me.

And now for the really good part - a GIVEAWAY! I'll be picking one random winner who will receive a 3 piece tagua necklace in the colors of their choice! Some examples are pictured below, but you can design your own if you'd like. You can be entered in the drawing up to 6 times by doing the following:

Follow my blog and leave a comment telling me what you are most thankful for.
Share a link to this post on Facebook, twitter or your blog and then leave a comment here to tell me where you shared. (one entry per place)
Share your favorite photo from my Facebook page on your wall and tell your friends all about it.
Go to my etsy shop, favorite my shop, plus favorite at least one idea and then leave a comment here with a link to the idea you favorited.

Thank you so much for all of your support this year! I am so thankful for how God has blessed this business and how many lives have been changed because of money donated. I'm excited about how many pairs of shoes will be purchased for children in need this Christmas, as well as food, water, clothing and shelter. Together we are helping people around the world! THANK YOU!

Visit more people participating in this Holiday Market:

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Good news all around!

Well, life is busy as usual. Yesterday was Henry's first birthday! He's such a beautiful little guy. People stop us all the time to tell us he's pretty - it's funny how they hesitate to say a boy is pretty or beautiful but there's just something about those sweet little eyes that scream beauty. I'm a proud momma, obviously!

Anyway, his first birthday was great. We had a mini party, but the whole family is coming on Sunday after church to celebrate. The mini party consisted of us, my parents & my nephew. Henry was literally doing a little dance when he opened his new handmade, wooden cars & trains. He moves them along and makes noises for them. I can't help but wonder how at the age of 1 he knows how to make car sounds - the mystery of being a boy! He had a great day!

On the jewelry front, I just heard from Stringing Magazine that they accepted 4 of my 6 subscriptions for publication. I'm pretty excited as this was my first submission. I'm not sure why they rejected the other 2 pieces, but I'm not going to let myself be upset about it because seriously, 4 pieces getting published is pretty darn cool!

I had a show last weekend at a high school about an hour away. It went well. I had a great response from people. I was a little bit surprised though by the fact that a lot of people weren't buying. Other vendors also mentioned this - people seemed hesitant. I'm not sure if it's because it was so close to the election and that makes people nervous? It's weird because I would never buy or not buy because of an election but I guess I'm not normal. In the end I had a few great sales and then a bunch of small ones so I exceeded my goal and had a good time. I love getting out and interacting with customers!

Enjoy your weekend. It'll be a busy one for us with family coming in from NY to celebrate our little Henry. Here he is...

Friday, November 2, 2012

Chuggin' Along

It seems like things are moving very sloooowly lately. I'm lacking motivation to get up early and stay up late. I tend to work myself to the bone and then hardly work (on jewelry that is) for a bit. It's like my recovery period. I work of mindless tasks that require little brain power.

Anyway, I'm babbling about nonsense. It's time for me to get back into the swing of things full speed ahead! I have a show on Saturday! Here are some of the things that have come together:

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Hurricane Sandy Relief

For those of you who don't know, my husband's entire family lives on the east coast. We are so thankful that they are all doing fine, have electricity, and have had mild repercussions from Hurricane Sandy. The same is not true for many others. I have heard stories of families whose homes and vehicles are under water, churches that are completely destroyed, single moms who have nothing but their children left, and on and on the devastating stories go.

Despite being far away, we can all do something to help. From now until Christmas I will donate all profit from jewelry sold when you mention "sandy relief". This includes custom orders! Christmas shopping this year can not only be about a great gift for your loved one but also a gift for someone whose life has been completely turned upside down by this terrible storm. The only exclusions are leather bracelets (the profit from them will still go to buy shoes for children in dire poverty) and the Hope for Haiti pieces (the profit will go to support job training for women in Haiti). Everything else can be purchased to help the people in our own country.

If you have any questions, please comment here or email me - seladesigns1 at gmail dot com. Please take some time to look through my shop - Sela Designs or view my items on Facebook. You can also email any custom orders directly to me. Please share this information with as many people as possible. Every dollar counts!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Fall Fever

It's been a weird week - first I was sick and then my husbands car broke down (same bad part 3 times!) so he's been taking mine everyday and we've had a lot of rain. All of these things have led to me and the boys being cooped up in the house all week. We were really hoping to go for a nice "nature walk," as Liam calls it, today but the weather had other plans. I kind of feel like a trapped rat about now.

So, what's a girl to do? I honestly haven't gotten very much jewelry made at all this week. I did a few custom orders and I'm working on a few more, but nothing else. I've spent way too much time trying to order supplies. I really hate ordering supplies because it takes me forever! I always want to order as much as possible so I don't have to pay for shipping constantly, but I seem to forget something every time and then I get mad. I always feel like I have to shop around for the best prices and then end up buying from the same place as the last time. It's a vicious cycle, I tell ya!

Good news is that I'm hoping to get the essential supplies for soldering! If I can learn to solder I think a whole new world of possibilities will open up to me. I'm excited about that. Not sure I can spend the money right now though. Christmas is just two months away and I've set some very high goals of how much money I want to raise for different charities.

Speaking of charities, I recently received a bag full of rubble from Haiti that is intended for jewelry making. I'm so excited about this as my parents and sister spent time in Haiti and know exactly how horrific conditions can be there. I will post more about it as soon as I get some jewelry together. All profit will go to support an organization that is teaching women to make jewelry & give them a sustainable income! How cool is that?! Well, I better get to it...

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Mismatched Art Bead Earring Hop

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my blog! I apologize for not having this post up earlier. I spent last night in the ER with 102 fever, severe neck pain & a headache. Turned out to be dehydration & a migraine, not meningitis. Thank God! Anyway...

I only have the earrings I made to show you today because unfortunately, my partner thought this was just a fun way to receive a free pair of earrings and didn't feel the need to reciprocate.

I had this really cool glass art bead that I wanted to use because I had just one so it was perfect for mismatched earrings. My mother-in-law got it for me at a local glass house. I paired it with brass rings & arte metal from Vintaj, one of my own faceted polymer clay beads, adventurine and coffee jasper. I love the look of mixed metals for Fall!