The Plaid Barn Review

I was super excited to finally receive my package from The Plaid Barn! 

http://www.theplaidbarn.com/deals/tiny-chrysanthemum-cabochons-80-off/

When I saw this pop up in my email, I knew I had to pick it up. If you read my blog, you know I love stud earrings, especially using flower cabs. I had never bought chrysanthemums in the past, so I was  super excited. Especially for approx. 40 pieces for $1.47? Amazing.

I ended up buying 15 sets so my total with shipping was $25 flat. It took a little over a month from order-arrival.

EARRING TUTORIAL: KITES

I like making shapes out of seed beads. Usually they are tiny triangles or circles, little playful accents. 

I was experimenting with making the shapes 10x bigger and seeing if I could do anything with them. I came up with a playful 'kite' shaped earring, which is easily customizable.

You will also need pliers + wire cutters, as usual.

(Also don't mind the insane amount of saturation on the non-collages, eep...)

A couple work in progresses

So usually anytime I go somewhere different/travel, I like to hit up two places: bead stores and thrift stores. 

While I was in Rochester, I did both (:

I went to Bead Breakout and bought a couple things that totalled to about seven dollars. If you're in that area, I would recommend the shop. Tons of different items, decent pricing, great customer service.

I bought these 'evil eye' pearl beads. They're drilled through. I bought six, but one of them broke when I shut the door on the bag :( So I'm out one pair, I'm going to have an odd man out that I might have to make into a cuff?

JEWELRY BASICS

This is a long overdue post.

I'm not a jewelry expert. My older sister taught me the basics when I was in middle school. Eight or so years later, and I haven't really strayed far from what she taught me. It's those techniques I use to create all my earrings/creations, so they have worked well for me and hopefully will work well for you (:

Also, I apologize beforehand about some of the explanations, I don't know exact technique names haha.

A housewarming gift...

Hey everyone!

Its been a busy past few weeks. A week or so ago my older sister visited because she's off to Tanzania for two months. (Wish her luck!) Right now I'm visiting my alma mater in Rochester, so I haven't had a lot of down time until now.

Before my trip up north, I stayed at my good friends apartment in D.C. I thought I would make her a housewarming gift because she hasn't been living there long... And who doesn't like handmade, useful gifts? Haha.

As you guys probably know, spray painted dollar store dinosaurs are all the rage these days. I'm constantly surfing craftgawker and truebluemeandyou tumblr so I decided to smoosh Spray-painted + Plastic dinosuars + Magnetic paint + Storage rack all together into one final project. Seriously, every element was taken from a different tutorial, this was not at all original haha.

I know chalkboard paint is a lot more popular than magnetic paint... But I hate the sound and I don't like getting the dust everywhere. I know, I'm in the small minority. I really do like the look of chalkboards, it's just not my cup of tea for daily use. Plus for this necklace display I thought it would make more sense to use magnetic paint. This way, my friend can just attach things using magnets.

Anyway, on to what I made!

THE PLAID BARN: Tutorial

I've recently discovered The Plaid Barn, a daily deals site for craft items. The package above is 'A POP OF COLOR' . I ordered six sets, and they came all together in this wrapper. 

PACKAGING: Simple, just an envelope with the supplies. Oddly, no invoice or anything about The Plaid Barn.

SHIPPING: The fine print said it would ship on or before April 19th, I got it on the 26th. A little longer than what I'm used to with US shipping, but that's okay.

QUALITY: I'm not a cabochon expert, but the quality doesn't seem like anything to complain about. Same goes for the finding quality. As you an see in the picture before, one of the cabs isn't perfect. 

Earring backs were included, which was unexpected and appreciated.