For all you bead lovers, especially vintage beads, I've compiled a list of online shops where you can find vintage beads, and other general jewelry making supplies. It's an ever growing list, that I hope will be useful to some. Please feel free to share your favorite sources, online or not, by leaving a comment. Sharing is nice and brings good karma to all that practice it. It's on my other blog, The Glass Onion. Rather than copy the entire post, here is the link. Enjoy...
Oooh how I love Basic Grey. Every one of the paper lines that they have put out is worth buying. They are so unique and unlike any other. I just learned that they have introduced some new lovelies for winter 2008. There are oodles of new papers, so I'll share my favorites from each line.
Boss man, Rob, (Rokali) announced in a Storque article that Etsy received 27 million dollars in funding from 2 of their existing investors and from a new investor, Jim Breyer. Mr. Breyer will hold a place on the board of directors. Rob explains how this money is needed to allow Etsy to keep up with it's increasing growth, and also exactly how some of the funds will be used, in the article.
2 days following this news, Rob had another announcement that generated a lot of buzz, mostly happy buzzing, regarding a separation of handmade goods from supplies and vintage. The plan is to exclude supplies and vintage from the default search, with the ability to opt them into a search, from the drop down menu. Read more about this change here, and the discussions from the community here.
I am happy for these changes, personally. It's great to see Etsy making this distinction, allowing handmade items to be brought to the front, rather than buried amongst the supplies and vintage items for sale. I am all for both of these non-handmade items having a place on Etsy. I am just glad to see some solution for separating them from the handmade goods that people expect to see from a place that boasts, "You're place to buy and sell things Handmade."
Oh how I wished I could sew. I just saw Amy Butler's latest fabrics which will be available in April. Take a look at her Midwest Modern line:
I see a lot of similarities from her previous patterns. But I like the new colors and always like what she comes out with. Since I don't sew, I am still holding out for the paper that will hopefully soon follow. (fingers crossed.)
Until I received my order in the mail, I assumed Stamp Francisco was actually in San Francisco. Apparently not! Not that it matters, much. Except that I had planned on visiting since I live in the Bay Area. It comes to find out that they are located in Washington and don't have a brick and mortar shop, anyhow. None of this matters, though because I was plenty pleased with what I discovered from their online shop. I am always on the lookout for good rubber stamps. I like to find new and original ones, as do most people, I am sure. This shop has just that. I spend ages browsing their stamp selection and ended up buying 4. And I will definitely be going back for more. They offer such a selection of great stamps, which most were new to me. You can buy mounted or unmounted in most of their stamps. The savings is considerable if you opt for the unmounted. It was tough deciding which to buy, but here is what I ended up with:
my favorite is the last one, the warning label. If your are into stamps, especially original ones, give Stamp Francisco a try, you'll like it.
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