Think Spring!

Well maybe it is still a little early but these earrings make me think of spring.These are a newly listed version of the same design we have in purple too.

Double Pink Vining Flowers and Tendrils Czech Glass and Sterling Silver Earrings

Yes it is a mouthful but I have a theory that having all these descriptive words in the title helps stuff get found in the Google search.

The pictures came out well and then I just clicked on the auto contrast/color enhancement button for photoshop and it really sharpened the whole thing in that top picture. The one below didn't quite come out as well.

New banner,new shawl pin and valentines candy

Today we finally changed the banner for our Etsy shop. We have been using the same one since we started the shop in May of '06. Our pictures were crappier back then and the items we had featured aren't particularly big sellers now. So it was time for a change. I'm pretty happy with this new design. It has a nice fresh spring feel to it. Unfortuantely Shipwrecked Beads (my main source for the glass beads)seems to be out of those exact same color green glass leaves that are on the pink flower earrings in the banner but I've got something close that I'll be able to use in the future.

I just listed today this new shawl pin design. It may look familiar because it is a variation on my Dancing Swirls Sterling Silver Earrings. This is the Dancing Swirls Light Weight Aluminum Shawl Pin

On to the cute kids...

Iraqi voter or sticky nasty blue candy eater?


Wild sugar high.

Henry methodically examines his Valentine's Day booty from the school party yesterday while Max sits back and takes it all in.Luckily for me they have more of an interest in the disgusting junky candy than the chocolates. So I got the chocolate.

Facebook Fun

We've been wasting a lot of time lately hanging out and catching up with old friends and family on Facebook. It's been fun and huge time sucker. We also have a Facebook business page for our jewelry. It is Nicholas and Felice. (What a surprise-eh?)
Here is a link to the page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Philomath-OR/Nicholas-and-Felice/89993020021
We've had it for a while but I was never able to get our Etsy "Mini" up there. Finally we got some great instructions and now have a nice big Etsy Mini gallery on our Facebook business page. When time allows I'll be updating it. Especially when we add new products which doesn't seem to be happening very much lately. But it will!
So if you are on Facebook give it a look and become a "fan".

And here are a couple of pictures of my boys just to add some cuteness to this post:

Crazy eye Daddy squishing the boys

Henry took this picture.

What is this?

So I've had a little time to screw around with some ideas. So far none have been all that successful but it's all a "process" as the artist types like to say. I've always wanted to make more useful objects that are pretty but functional. This is one of the latest experiments. What is it?


It's made using the same 9 gauge aluminum wire I've been using for everything-hanging vases, ornaments, jewelry, shawlpins.



The original intention was a soap dish. But it is oddly shaped and too small for a conventional soap bar.


Your special leaf holder? Trivet? Nick suggested it could hold one ball of yarn.I'm thinking that there isn't a large market for such an item.
I'll keep working on the soap dish idea and I'll take any new ideas out there.


On the home front Henry has been really enjoying the wii. Max doesn't seem to really care much about it. It's too hard for his little 3 year old mind and hands to work well.But he has been obsessed with drawing in his new Justice League coloring book and markers from Aunt Michelle.


Pay no attention to the filthy house surrounding my kids.They don't seem to mind.

Max likes fruit!

A little too much! This was one of those terrible parenting mistakes.One that I should have known better about given what a mess this kid is all the time.
Note to self-never leave a 3 year old with a bowl of berries unattended. He also peed all over himself and the couch at the same time.


This was the icing on the cake of one of those parenting days where I found myself screaming in the driveway at one point like a lunatic Mom whose kids won't just get in the car but have decided to do everything else possible to dawdle and make us later than we already are.
Good thing they are do darn cute!

slow down... a little

Things have slowed down in our Etsy shop. It's been a nice chance to do some catching up and take some breaks. Of course old insecurities creep in that maybe we won't keep doing well but then another order came in this evening.
We've been spending some of our hard earned money this week. We bought a new entertainment "center" to hold our future new big flat screen TV. Here is Henry helping Nick put it together with his Bob the Builder Hammer.


And then we bought a wii! It's been a lot of fun! I really want the wii fit stuff now so I can burn off some of the holiday chub. I rediscoverd the well known truth that if you eat all the cake and ice cream and yummy food you want and don't exercise you will gain weight. Now that school has started again and I don't need to work constantly I've been getting to the gym more. We'll see how long that lasts.
I might even finally finish the last of the "Twilight" series this week. I've never been much of a vampire book fan but these have got me hooked. In fact I never thought I'd ever enjoy reading something like this. But they are addictive and I'm in the middle of the last of the 4 books of the series.So now I am going to read. What a concept!

The long overdue blog post

Where to even begin! It's been quite a busy crazy month! Our Etsy sales were phenomenal and kept us so busy we barely had time to rest. And then the weather decided to make things more tricky. We rarely get snow that lasts more than a day here but this was a big one. And the temperatures stayed cold and icy for over a week. This made our trips to the post office dependant on our awesome and wonderful neighbors Chris and Shelley and their studded tires. On Tuesday December 16th Nick mailed 61 packages at our little Philomath post office! About 10 to the midwest were delayed causing much stress. About 3 have still not arrived.
Our sales at the Eugene Holiday Market were down quite a bit which made us even more grateful for our wonderful Etsy customers.I had to skip selling on Sunday the 15th because the roads were too icy in the morning and they called for more snow that day (which didn't actually arrive until the night which was irritating!) We packed the whole thing up two days early . I'm a wimp when it comes to driving on ice and snow.


Brrrrr.Nick's face says it all.



Henry had a little fun but Max wanted nothing to do with it. "It's too cold", he said. I'm not much of a snow fan myself. It's nice to look at through the window but I don't need to touch it.

And then there was Christmas.After working so much we spoiled our little guys with lots of material things.

Henry got lots of new Geotrax and insisted on taking a picture to send to their website.

Max is a big Spiderman fan and he really enjoyed his new Doc Oc figure. He went to sleep with it last night.
Things have slowed down a little here but I'm amazed that people are still buying our stuff on Etsy. I'm NOT complaining. We feel very lucky and blessed.
Happy New Year!

Broken Pliers Update

Just wanted to share that today we received a brand new replacement pair of swanstom micro chain nose pliers from Rio Grande.
We appreciate the excellent customer service!

My Little Nerds

The game gets tense.

A pooped Batman takes a break.

Life has been very hectic here as our Etsy sales have started really picking up. iIguess people are Christmas shopping. Then yesterday we had the pleasure of being mentioned in Anne Hansons' Knitting Patterns Knitspot blog thanks to Deb of FearlessFibers who sent her our Celtic Budding Spirals Aluminum Shawl Pin. We've been getting tons of orders from her lovely readers who came and visited our Etsy store and have been buying lots of shawl pins and jewelry.

This weekend we start the Holiday Market in Eugene. I had planned to have lots of stock but alas, I have the bare minimum. At least the cold and cough from hell is slowly abating.

Back to work!

You know you've been working a lot when....

you break your top of the line, $30 something Swanstrom pliers!My favorite ones too!


yep, the other part is in there.


I called Rio Grande (the company I bought them from) and they said to send them to their Returns Dept. and they'll see if they meet their warranty replacement criteria.
I was just using them on my 9 gauge aluminum wire when, SNAP, they broke. Luckily I have another similar pair but the handle is longer so I don't like them as much and the tip is narrower which makes me worry they will break soon too.
We've been getting lots of orders which is great but both Nick and I are stricken with a nasty cold that has sapped us of energy and filled us with gooey phlegm and aches. My voice is now going too. I just hope we get over it before next weekend when Holiday Market starts.All my plans of making lots of stock before the market seems to be slipping away. Luckily the kids don't have it (yet- knock on every piece of wood and good juju superstition that might save them and us from this virus.)

Hammering away

Work, work, work

I finally got my big wholesale order finished and delivered. Yay!Now I'm going to try and focus on building up stock and replacing the stock I took from our Saturday Market inventory to fill the order. The Holiday Market will be starting soon and I'm not ready yet.Etsy sales are up and down. The day after the election it was dead but today was very busy.Hopefully our low prices will keep people shopping with us during this tricky economic holiday season.

Henry has recovered from his 24 hour stomach flu on Monday and is now back to his usual boisterous self.

Happy Day After Halloween!

Yesterday was quite the busy day.I took Max to Henry's kindergarten class for their Halloween Party. Here is my little sailor and batman having a hug -sort of.

Henry after much deliberation decided to be a sailor. The costume fell into place perfectly. Grandfather Nick had sent us his Brooks Brothers sailor shirt from when he was a little boy. It fit perfectly. I picked up a real sailor hat from the Army/Navy Surplus store.

Max methodically decorated his pumpkin cookie with candycorn and "M-m-M"'s

Happy sailor boy.We wanted him to carry a can of Spinach and be Popeye but he would have none of it.

Enjoying the cookies.

At the board doing some learnin'.

Lisa the teacher's assistant looked great!

Ms. Kampfer aka Hannah Montana read to the well behaved class.

It was a lot of fun and it was great for Max to be part of the class too for the day.

Nick will be blogging later with the evening trick o treat festivites.

We are all now sticky and covered in candy. We have chosen the eat it all now and get it over with parenting technique.Henry tends to take it slow and hoard his candy. Max eats it all up. They were giving out candy at the Post Office and they told him he could take more. I said- "Oh he has plenty. He has candy issues".

Max said- "I don't have candy shoes!"

New things!

We've had some great ideas from our customers lately. Yay customers!

I had a potential customer ask if I could make a shawl pin using my Celtic Knot Infinite Swirl Cross Ornament design. It was a great idea and this is what I came up with.

Celtic Knot Infinite Swirl Cross Aluminum Shawl Pin/ Hair Pin

She liked it and bought it and it is now a regular item in our Etsy shop. We already sold one to someone else too!

Our buddy Liz asked us to make this Chinese Character for "True" Pendant.


And the Chinese Character for "Beautiful" Pendant.

Mimi and Moe's Mom aka Karen asked us to make "Infinity Symbol " Earrings. Another great idea and we already sold a pair to someone else too!Thanks Karen!

This another sort of new design. I reworked my Fancy Loop Hoop Earrings to give it a teardrop shape. This is called:

Teardrop Fancy Loops Sterling Silver Earrings

I really liked my Fancy Loop Hoop Earrings ...

but realized that I prefer a longer teardrop type shape for my own particular face shape.

That's all the new stuff this week.
Busy ,busy ,busy...

Muddy Creek Corn Maze

Last Sunday we went to our local Muddy Creek Corn Maze. Since we went last year also I guess it is now an annual tradition.

The kids had fun in the corn pit. Henry gave Aidan a nice corn shower.

Aidan returned the favor.

Max led the way with kettle corn on hand.

Soon the energy level died down a bit and Ryan pushed 3 lazy boys in the deluxe stroller.

Nick's shadow...

Three boys on a hayride.( Henry actually was happy despite the odd picture.)

Max surprised and kind of disgusted us by eating this raw corn he took from the maze. he is actually the pickiest eater and hardly eats anything but he really got into this old nasty corn.

good times....