The Bead Spot

( Jack Moreh / FreeRangeStock.com ) I have sold only one item on Etsy, but the upcoming fee increase still frustrates me. According to the notice Etsy sent me, as of July 16, transaction fees will jump from 1.5 percent and will be imposed on shipping costs. The shipping cost thing bothers me the mos t. I'm struggling to build up my listings, hoping what I do have listed might sell in the meantime, so I want to cut people a break on the cost of shipping. I do charge, but only the estimated postage amount. If Etsy were to take 5 percent of that, I'd be losing money on shipping. My options would be to raise my asking price or take the hit. A friend who makes and sells makeup bags told me that someone she knows had told her about another platform that charges a flat $10 a month, charges no listing fees and takes nothing from what users sell. That sounds a lot more about my speed as I'm trying to get my "craft store" up and running. I could spend $10 a mont...

© Kadrof |  Dreamstime Stock Photos  &  Stock Free Images After seeing a Facebook video last week on bar shampoo, I've been thinking about learning to make soap. The video argues that bar shampoo is better for the planet than traditional shampoo because users don't have a bottle to throw away. At first, I thought about buying bar shampoo; organic versions are easy to find on Etsy. But then I thought I could probably save money if I learn to make both bar shampoo and bar soap myself. It won't be as pretty or as creative as the Etsy offerings, but it would be cheaper and I wouldn't have to worry about paying shipping fees. So, when I have time, I've been looking at YouTube videos that show how to make and/or offer recipes for bar soap and shampoo. A few have made me a little afraid to use lye, describing it as caustic and recommending gloves and goggles, but I'm determined not to let that scare me off. Once I get the first batch made and cured, I...

For months now, I've been looking at some pretty awesome work members have been posting in a Facebook group I belong to called "I LOVE Peyote Stitch Beading." I haven't done a project in peyote stitch for a couple of years, but looking at all of that great beadwork made me want to do a project. I was in the mood for something simple, though, so I settled on a diamond-patterned bracelet. Everything went fine until my thread broke. For some reason, adding in the new string created a "bump" in the bracelet. Just look at this: See the crookedness? I've tried pulling and shifting the beads to see if I can work it out, but nothing I've tried so far works. I can't decide if I want to finish it. Part of me wants to keep going to see whether it's noticeable when I wear it. The type-A person who occasionally pops up into my psyche, though, wants to rip it apart and start over. What do you think? 

I love my mom’s beadwork. She has never said whether she ever beaded when she was a child, and oddly enough, it never occurred to me to ask until right now as I’m writing this. All I know for certain is that she began beading in earnest about 20 years ago. Back then, three of my four siblings and I had left home, and the youngest, my baby sister, was in high school. Suddenly, Mom had time for pursuing crafty hobbies. She began the way many people do, working from patterns in books she bought at Hobby Lobby and other craft shops. She started with earrings, the dangling kind that you often see in Native American patterns, and gradually branched out into making barrettes, dream catchers and headdresses. And at some point, she began creating her own patterns, and that’s when she really began to wow me. Everything she makes is in the Native American style (we’re Cherokee, my mom is full and I am half) even if she doesn’t use the traditional colors. Recently as I was looking at som...

Deep down, I knew my plan for the silver tube beads was iffy. Once I got all of the pieces for the bracelet I was planning to make — rectangles of beads linked together with the tube beads — I started putting them together, only to see the ratio of beads to tubes was way off. Smaller tubes would’ve worked much, much better. So I started going through some of my stash to see if I had anything that could work in place of the silver tubes. I found short black twisted tube beads I haven’t used in years, and they looked like my best option. Here’s what I wound up with: And that was just the beginning of the issues I had. For some reason, on two of the rectangular pieces, I skipped one silver bead in a corner, and by the time I noticed, I had already cut the thread and tied off the end. So I remade them, only to do the same thing again. I thought I could knock this thing out in about six hours, but instead it took me three days. I told my older sister about what a headache it wa...

Scrolling back through my earlier blogposts, I see I've been working on my three-row daisy chain bracelet for almost two months, and I'm just now starting to feel like the end is in sight. I haven't had much time, but I've been beading a couple of rows every night. If only I could bead a little faster. Here's what it looks like now: Just another three or four rows, and it will finally reach 7.5 inches in length. I haven't decided yet whether I want to list it on my Etsy site . I'll need a second opinion before I make up my mind; while I like the way it looks overall, I'm not sure it would appeal to most people, and I worry that the string is a little more visible than I'd like for it to be. I don't know if I'm being too critical. Is it really all that noticeable to other people, or is it noticeable to me? I need to ask someone whom I know will give me an honest answer and not just give me the answer they think I want to hear....

A few weeks ago, I went to a Joann Fabric and Craft store for the first time in years, and I found these two items: On the left are some connectors for making eyeglass lanyards, which have recently made my to-do list. One of my aunts used to make them, and back then, I used to think, "I just don't see why anyone would want that." However, now that I need reading glasses myself and realize how often a person has to put them on and take them off, I can see just how practical eyeglass lanyards can be. On the right are some clasps I found on clearance. I'm not sure how they work, or even if they work, since I haven't opened the package yet, but hey, they were on sale. On my to-try list is this item I found while flipping through a Fire Mountain Gems catalog that came in the mail, Tuesday: I am intrigued by this. I can't wear earrings for more than a day because they always irritate my ear lobes. But if this works as promised, I could wear my own e...