See what's new in my Etsy shop

This is what I did over the long weekend. I made new jewelry. These Marrakesh earrings in sterling silver and carnelian are the perfect summer accessory if you like big and bold. They are so comfortable to wear and have a definite Bohemian/Moroccan bazaar type feeling to them.

My new custom stamps

I've been waiting for these stamps to arrive for months, and they're finally here. Custom made alphabet stamps in a font that I specially chose for the sort of medieval quality it has to it. Something about it reminds me of the awesome Bayeux Tapestry that I saw when I was in Normandy, France a few years ago.

Here's a picture of what the stamp set looks like in its holder. I ordered 2 sizes, a large one to stamp messages on bracelets, and a small one to stamp messages on pendants and inside rings.



Here are a couple pendants I worked on this weekend.


I'm taking custom orders, so if you have a quote that's special to you that you'd like to see on jewelry, please contact me :)

My facebook story made national news

After being without facebook access for three weeks, I finally got my account reinstated last week. In the meantime, I took my story to the media and was interviewed by a reporter in New York for the Associated Press. The story she wrote has been appearing online on various national news outlets and I've heard from people who've seen it in print newspapers too. Here's a link to the story on the ABC News website.

I like the article, but if there's one thing I could change about it, I wish the reporter would have stressed the fact that while I was irritated at losing contact with my social network on facebook, I was more upset by not being able to access the facebook fan pages for my jewelry business. I've made many contacts and have had more than a few sales through my fan page. From a business perspective, it's a lesson learned that while facebook wants you to market your product through their platform, they can also effectively shut you down without good cause, without warning, and without a real communication channel to work out a resolution. If facebook had been my primary marketing vehicle, like it probably is for some businesses, I would have been in big trouble losing access to my facebook pages for almost a month. Fortunately it's a small part of my online presence that includes facebook, my own website, this blog, twitter, and Etsy.

As for the social networking part of it, being locked out of my account was annoying in the beginning, but after a few days I got used to it. It was great to see all the support from my friends in the facebook group they started. And their enthusiasm for my cause is really what fueled my email and letter writing campaign to the facebook executives. In the end, it was a fun experience and I'm glad to be back on facebook.