Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

My demented kids


Max acting goofy



Max digging into his stocking.

Henry was begging us for the Lego Power Miners Thunder Driller. He was a happy boy.

Holiday stuff

It's been a crazy busy holiday selling season for us. We are feeling very lucky and overwhelmingly busy. We finally got caught up with all the orders and packaging and things are starting to wind down a little. Tomorrow will be my last day selling at the Eugene Holiday Market.
We did manage to do some of the holiday stuff with the kids so that they don't just remember their parents working all the time during the holidays. We've been basically spoiling them everyday with whatever they want. Celebrating both Chanukah and Christmas kind of feeds into that.

Here is a sort of freaky picture of Max and Henry lighting the Chanukah candles.

Nick and Henry cut down one of our many spindly trees on our property for our Christmas tree.

Pathetic Plea

Our Celtic Loops Spiral Cross Ornament has been nominated in Etsy's Vote for your favorite ornament contest. I am so excited and happy to be nominated! So if you have a chance scoot on over to the site and vote for me! Pretty please with sugar on top?

This should be the link to the voting part of the site:

http://www.etsy.com/voter_list.php?ref=voter&room_id=80

2 new shawl pins

I had gotten a couple of requests for a Fle ur-De Lis design and I finally got around to coming up with a good one. It was tricky. This one has some more hammering involved. I also thought I needed to add more color to our photos so I have been playing around with different colored books to use as backgrounds in my pictures.

Spiraling Full Circle Aluminum Shawl Pin/ Hair Pin

This is another new shawl pin although it is a take off on a simple design I have used for pendants and earrings. It suddenly dawned on me that it would make a good shawl pin too.

I have a couple of other new additons to our shop that I'll show y'all later.

Things have been busy here. We had our Chanukah Menorah Ornament mentioned in the Etsy Finds mass email on October 19th that brought tons of visitors to our shop. I discovered that that ornament is a pain to make and is underpriced. But I made about 25 of them in 24 hours and we are still getting orders for them.

I am no longer selling outdoors at the Eugene Saturday Market but we are gearing up to start selling at the indoor Holiday Market in Eugene starting November 21st. It's going to be hectic!

Happy Halloween!

Henry,Aidan Lauren and Max

More fun with wire

I had a customer contact us with a picure of a design she loved and wanted to know if I could make it into a hair fork.
I loved the design and became obsessed with it over that weekend.
Here's what I came up with. It's now a regular item in our shop .
Celtic Double Entwined Heart Aluminum Double Hair Sticks/Hair Fork Pin


























I also made it into a shawl pin.
Entwined Hearts Celtic Knot Aluminum Shawl Pin/ Hair Pin
I'm planning to work it into a pendant design too and see what I can come up with in Sterling Silver. I'm also toying around with the idea of making all of our shawl pins in Sterling Silver
but the cost of silver is quite high now and I'm not sure I can get away with selling a more expensive pin.
But it's a thought...

















Here's another design recently added to the shop-Celtic Looping Crossed Knots Light Weight Aluminum Earrings

















And after numerous requests we now have the Groovy Flower Power Big Light Weight Aluminum Earrings in our shop too.
So that's what's new and exciting here. I have to admit that I find it easier to add new items and info on our facebook fanpage than on the blog. So come on over and be a fan if you aren't already http://www.facebook.com/NicholasandFelice
But I intend to keep up with the blog and realize there is a whole lot of people who don't waste their precious time on facebook. Hard to imagine :)

Good times....

My parents came to visit two weeks ago. The weather was typically terrible and my Dad caught a cold on the plane (theoretically) and it got passed along to Nick.We still had a good time.

My Mom (Fran) Max and me.

Henry and Grandma Fran enjoying some cookies

It was an opportunity to get a rare family portrait taken at an odd angle so that Nick looks like he is a giant and his head is touching the ceiling.

My crazy kids pulled out the ironing board the other day and started giving each other massages.I don't wear they got that from. I'm assuming it was on some cartoon previously .

Good times....

Getting ornamental

I've been adding new ornametns to our shop in the past couple of weeks. I had a custoemr request a Chanukah Menorah Ornament. I thought it was a great idea and it was quite a challenge. here's what i came up with . She loved it and so do I. Either for your Chanukah Bush or on your Christmas tree if you celebrate both holidays like we do. Or just hanging around.
















Yin Yang Harmony Ornament
















Celtic Unfurling Tulip Ornament

Celtic Infinity Cross Ornament

I have a few more on their way just in time for the holidays.

Henry's First Day of First Grade

Today was Henry's first day of First Grade.

He is relaxed and said "this is so cool!"

Showing off his new lunch box filled with his usual fare of Ramen in a thermos and salami and a juice box. He hardly ate anything. He rarely does.

In front of the school before we go in with Nick and Max hiding behind them.

The excitement of using his new pencil case.

The excitement wears off.

Here is some of our summer fun. The boys both took swimming classess all summer long. Max got to acheive his dream of catching fish at our friend's creek in Harlan in the coast range.

New from the mind of Nick

Stating the Obvious Sterling Silver Arrow Earrings

State the obvious with these arrows pointing to your ear earrings.Uh-This is my ear.Here.

They are made from 24 gauge sterling silver sheet and measure about 1/4"(.6cm) wide at the bottom and 7/16"(1.1cm)wide at the widest part of the arrow and about 12/16"(2.5cm) tall. They measure a total length of 1 7/16" (3.7cm) from the top of the earwire to the bottom of the earring.

$20

New Hair Toys

It's been a busy busy summer!
We had a lovely customer request that we make some more designs in the double hair fork style. It was a great idea. The most successful one has been this Celtic Heart Double Fork.






Here it is my hair.


Celtic Loopy Bliss Cross Light Weight Aluminum Double Hair Sticks/Hair Fork Pin


Infinity Loops Aluminum Double Hair Sticks/Hair Fork Pin

Our Saturday Market booth and life

Most Saturdays for the past 18 years or so we have sold at the Eugene Saturday Market. We have had our excellent reserved corner booth space on the corner of 8th and W Park Street across from the Farmers Marker for many years now that we earned by doing all those markets and getting the points. And being there when the very old couple finally decided to retire from their spot who had it previously. I imagine Nick and I will be hobbling on our canes too when we finally retire from that corner spot.Luckily Etsy has come along and changed our lives so that we don't have to be there every weekend, especially the ones that are brutally cold or hot.
Now that we have Henry and Max, Nick stays home with the boys while I go to market by myself. (Until they are at least old enough to be somewhat helpful and not poop in their pants.That goes for Nick too.-just joking hun)It's a lovely hour long scenic drive on mostly back roads through the Willamette Valley from our home to Eugene.
I start most Saturday mornings with my old timer marketeer vendor girlfriends and coffee. It is usually the highlight of my day.


This year we revamped our Saturday Market booth display. We had been using the same display for more years than I can even remember.It is still basicly the same but we took off a whole top row of earrings so that I can now see over the top of the display and not be boxed in. We got rid of dud earrings that weren't really moving. We also got one of those new fangled light weight plastic folding tables instead of the super heavy plywood one we made back when we were young.

Those are hanging vases across the front top of the booth and we also have some on a display hanging on the other side of the booth. We love our EZ Up booth although I really think they should be called EZ Down as the process of getting those little metal buttons pushed into the top can require heroic efforts and leave me panting wiht exhaustion first thing in the morning.Taking them down is a breeze though.

I replaced the old ratty purple background on the boards with a crisper off white muslin. It's really improved the visibility of the colored stone and glass jewelry. We still continue to use the method of having lace sewn on the bords in rows that the earrings hang off of. I can't take credit for the idea as we saw it in a store display in Santa Rosa about 20 years ago. But it works really well for us and we get lots of compliments on it from customers.

The is the Aluminum earrings display board. Notice the signs above it say "Light Weight! REALLY! Pick them up!" "Light Weight Aluminum" "With Sterling Silver Earwires".

Perhaps the signs aren't large enough or bright enough but all day long I have customers say- "Wow those look really heavy . I couldn't wear those." And I say- "But they aren't. They are aluminum- pick them up and see."(with a pleasant smile of course.) "Oh my god they ARE light." and then they hand them to their disbelieving friend who says- "Wow, they are" as if I was lying when I made the sign or told them. Silly humans!

The boards all slide off the display and fit into a suitcase. The display is made in two halves that clamp together in the back.

These are Henry's Lego pendants. He came up with the idea about a year ago. He told us where to drill the holes and then told me how to put the wire on it. We have Lego earrings too. They are a huge hit at the Saturday Market where so far no one else sells them. There are tons of people selling similar lego jewelry on Etsy though so we haven't added them to our shop. We have an ongoing debate about it.Someday when Etsy allows us extra shop sections we might add them.

Nick made the folding pendant displays out of aluminum. They also fold up nicely into a suitcase.He's so good like that!

One of our ornamental mirror displays.

There is another one on the other side of the booth. The shawl pins/hair pins hang on that scarf next to it. It's funny how online they sell really well as shawl pins but in Eugene they are clearly hair pins.(And don't sell quite as well.)

We have price signs on the end of each row with an arrow pointing to the row under the price. After 20 something years selling at the market and craft shows we know customers want to see the price easily without asking.

Assorted stone pendants. We don't sell most of these on Etsy because they are each so different due to the nature of stone and would require new photos for each one.That would mean raising the prices on them and more time which I don't have a lot of.
All this stuff packs up in about a half hour into our trusty 95' Taurus wagon. Then I drive the hour home exhausted and get ready to keep up with my little hellions ( I mean sweet high energy boys) who still stay up way to late and get up much too early for any over 40 parent to endure.