Keeping fish hook earrings secured

I create dozens of earrings a week.  One thing I have found is the earring findings that I purchase never have anything to secure them.  I know that customers like it when I go the extra mile.  I am ordering these safety backs to go with all of the fish hook earrings that I sell.
These are an awesome deal.  Only 1.49 for 144.

There is also the style below for 2.18 for 144.

My CrAzY earring creating binge today

Today was TJ's last day of school before summer vacation.  After dropping him off for a half day, I managed to create 25 pair of earrings.

 I was into trade beads and crosses today.  I will need to be placing another Fire Mountain Gems order soon!

Hopefully I will get these listed in my shop by the end of the week.
Check out earrings in my shop here.

My designs vary depending on the day's mood.
Sometimes I go with kitschy vintage plastic gumball charms and other times it Swarvoski crystal or genuine gemstones. Here are a few of my recent color mixes.
Check out my etsy shop to see what I created with these beads!

Beading Contests

With all of my excitement last month you would think that I would have gotten my various submissions for upcoming deadlines together, but I haven't. Beyond my original couple of days of planning and creating a few things, I haven't given my Bead Star submissions much thought. I sent an email to Bead Trends with a few submissions for the August 2010 issue only to find that their in-box was full! I guess that is what I get for waiting until the last minute. I am still not sure if they received my submissions, but I would have heard something by now. I managed to sell one of those bracelets on etsy already anyhow.
I have had a very productive month both creation and sales wise. My etsy sales seem to be growing exponentially and I have continued to find more time to create. I have been making more strung and memory wire creations as opposed to my usual charm bracelets. The charm bracelets take much more time, so obviously I am able to produce more product than if I was doing all charm bracelets. A typical JunQue Jules charm bracelet takes at least three hours from starting to select the beads to creating and placing the charms.
I am happy about my recent etsy success because it is sometimes too easy to yearn for my former eBay days when I could easily sell 25 bracelets in one weekend; some going for close to $200, if bidding got intense. I also miss the excitement of watching the bids climb from minute to minute. I am still happier with the pace and community I find at etsy.
Another positive this month has been the creations done by my (almost) three year old son. He has gotten really good at stringing plastic pony beads on leather cord. I am wearing one of his necklaces today. He sits on my lap and beads while I bead. I am loving this, but I am forgetting the beads awaiting me to pick up under my design table right now.

Pearls and Oysters

Since I first heard about the Bead Star contest and magazine I have been brainstorming ideas for the nine categories. My work is quite eclectic, so it will be easy for me to come up with entries for most of the categories, or so I thought.
I looked through my recent creations and selected my entry for "plastics" and a possibility for "metals". My plastic entry is one of my popular bauble bracelets. I love how lightweight and sparkly they are.
Today I decided to create something similar to the copper talisman bracelet that I was intending to enter in the metal category. I was second guessing myself on whether or not it had enough metal. Loving beads as I do, I tried to use restraint on my second creation, but ended up with even more beads on the second bracelet than on the first. I am thinking about using it as my "stone" entry now.
I am really happy with my "pearl" entry. I will post a photo later. Speaking of pearls, I was quite delighted to find fresh in the shell Louisiana oysters at Sam's Club yesterday. I plan to lightly coat them in cornmeal and fry them up for dinner later. They are so sweet that way! My brother stopped by last night and shucked one and said they were fabulous. If you haven't checked out his detailed blog, What's Eric Cooking?, you should. It is the blog I would write if I had more time. He photographs every step os his cooking process.
Maybe I will find a pearl while I am shucking. Does that really ever happen? I still remember reading The Cay in high school. That is really my only knowledge of how pearls are found; beyond my finding them at Lima Beads or Fire Mountain that is.