Christmas Gift Ideas - Handmade Jewelry - Upcycled Scrabble Tiles

As we move into the Christmas buying season, the Etsy shop has picked up some.  We are excited to have some great Christmas gift ideas for all different interests.  That's one of the reasons we enjoy making the Scrabble bracelets so much.  We have something for gardeners, animal lovers, foodies, dog lovers (of course - our "original" line), music, Christmas jewelry and so much more.  We keep thinking of fun ideas.  Rarely, do we not have an idea for a new bracelet or two.

Gardener Scrabble Bracelet

Bird Lover Scrabble Bracelet

Degas Ballet Scrabble Bracelet

Italian Greyhound Scrabble Bracelet

Australian Cattle Dog Scrabble Bracelet

Then, we have our vintage art dog picture frames.  Now, those truly were the original of our items.  That's where it all began.  I still love making them, and now after making hundreds of bracelets, it's comforting and calming to take a day or two to make frames.  We don't have many for this season, but we'll get inventory back up in the New Year.

Boston Terrier Picture Frame

Sheltie / Shetland Sheepdog Picture Frame

When it comes to Christmas gift ideas, one of the best places we have found for ideas and to share our products is on Pinterest.  I have a personal Pinterest page where I have garden, home and other personal interests, as well as a Christmas gift idea board that my family and friends can check out if they need ideas for me, and they can order most of them right online if they want!  There are so many cool things on Pinterest.  Definitely something to look through if you haven't already.  We have just started to pin our products on our business page.  It can be checked out by clicking here.  It's really great when we run across our products from other people pinning them.  That makes us happy to see.

At any rate, things are doing better for the holiday season.  People seem to be turning to us for some of their Christmas gift ideas.  We'll hope the trend continues on like it did last year and the year before.  Hopefully, everyone remains calm and pleasant, and doesn't get the holiday crankies.  

'Til next time...

Come visit our shop for some cool and original Christmas Gift Ideas!

Slow Start to Holiday Buying Season

It's been a slow start to the buying season.  We've kept track of each week's sales for the past few years, and this year is by far the slowest start.  However, it has picked up the last few days.  We've had more views of our Scrabble jewelry and vintage art dog frames.  Even views had been slow up until then.  It's been an odd season on Etsy.  We were cruising along, but when we were used to sales picking up, they didn't. Scary...to say the least.

At any rate, these things do happen when you have your own business, but it's always disconcerting because we count on holiday traffic to make it through the year and to catch-up on things.  We are confident that sales will continue as they did this past week, but there is always that little worry-bug.

Thought we'd share some of the favorite Scrabble bracelets that people seem to be liking this year:

Anne of Green Gables Quote Bracelet

Thanksgiving Jewelry - Scrabble Bracelet

Greyhound Dog Scrabble Bracelet

Cook's Gift!  Foodie Scrabble Bracelet

Our quote pendants always seem to be popular.  They are so fun to make!  The beads add a little pizazz to them.  We have plain bail pendants as well, but we enjoy embellishing them with the beads.

Jane Austen Quote Pendant - "You Pierce My Soul."

Ralph Waldo Emerson Quote Pendant - "Scatter Joy!"

Our dog items generally do well. 

Dachshund Pendant

Well, that's it for now.  Maybe we'll get so busy that there will be no time to write until after Christmas! 

Christmas Jewelry with Vintage Sheet Music

As a handcrafted business, we are always experimenting with new ideas.  One of the things we're working on this year are bookmarks...for good old fashioned hard copy books.  We read a lot that people think paper books are on the way out, and it makes sense environmentally to produce less in the way of material objects like books.  However, we believe there will always be people who want to hold a book in their hands to read, like to wander through actual bookstores, and there will always be the books already printed.  So, we have enjoyed experimenting with fun Scrabble tile bookmarks.  Next time, we will show you what we have come up with.

For this post, we wanted to share an idea that we worked on the last couple of years and with the Christmas holidays right around the corner, it seemed like a good time to share these.

We use vintage sheet music that is no longer useable due to missing pages, torn, etc. and create Scrabble bracelets out of them.  Sometimes, we make inspirational bracelets that are faith-based, others are just inspirational with words like smile, dance, and play.

The ones were going to focus on today are Christmas song bracelets.  They are so fun!

We use vintage songs that are Christmas carols.  So far for this year we've made three.  We hope to make more, but they are a little more time-consuming because we have to look through all our old music books.


Here are the three we've made so far:

Jingle Bells Christmas Bracelet

This is a Jingle Bells bracelet.  The tiles on the inside spell: WHAT FUN

Santa's Reindeer Christmas Bracelet

 This is a Santa Claus Reindeer Scrabble Bracelet.  It has all the reindeer on the music (except Rudolph).  The inside spells:  DASH AWAY

Christmas Carol Lyric Bracelet

This is the classic Christmas carol lyrics that read, "Peace on Earth.  Good will to men."  This one spells: REJOICE

Just a fun idea for that old sheet music!

Bookmarks next time...

Banned Books Week - September 21 - 27

BANNED BOOKS WEEK

Right to Read

September 21 - 27, 2014 

Celebrate your "right to read" and to choose your own books.

 

For the past three years, we've created a new Banned Books Scrabble bracelet to celebrate the week.  This year the titles included on our Banned Book bracelet are:

 

1984
Animal Farm
Catch-22
Clockwork Orange
Slaughterhouse Five
All the King's Men
The Great Gatsby

 

New Banned Books Bracelet 2014

Banned Books Bracelet

This year's Banned Books Week will run September 21 - 27, 2014.  It gives us the opportunity to celebrate our freedom to read!!  Banned Books Week began in 1982 and each year libraries and bookstores help to create an awareness of challenged books. 

Here is the top ten list of frequently challenged books from the Office of Intellectual Freedom for 2013:

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
   Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
   Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
    Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

To view and download free lists of the most challenged books, you can go to the American Library Association website.

Click here for lists of the most challenged books at ALA.

If you would like to read more about Banned Books Week...click here.

 

Here are our other two Banned Books Scrabble Bracelets:

Banned Books Bracelet

Banned Books Bracelet

 

 

 We are fortunate that we have the right to read literature of our choosing.

Celebrate the FREEDOM TO READ not everyone is so fortunate!