More Jewelry + FotoFuze for photo editing!

I was making quite a bit of jewelry months ago and it took me a while to get around to taking photos of them with my DSLR. I listed some of these in our new Tiny Moon shop on Storenvy.

I love these blue howlite beads look with the pearls. I'm probably going to make different color versions of this later.

Pastel oreo cookie earrings made by Crissy out of polymer clay. I only added some ear wires to them!

I'm obsessed with these amethyst stones so I'm always trying to not use them all at once! ;)

Blueberry cupcake ring made by Crissy out of polymer clay and it is modeled by my 4-year-old monkey. 

Wire wrapped elephant pendant and various glass beads with dyed howlite beads!

A "slave bracelet" with turquoise stone beads.

I'm probably going to do some more wire wrapping soon. Maybe some rings!

P.S. 

I edited these photos using FotoFuze. It's a free product photography enhancement application that removes distracting elements from the background and gives you a crisp plain background. 

I really like using it when I don't feel like using Photoshop (or when I just don't have access to it because I'm on a different computer!) so I'm always looking out for great browser-based photo editing programs. 

For best results, photos should be taken on a white or black background that is as texture-less as possible. I took my photos on a dark brown table that had a bit of texture to it and it worked well enough.

You can sign up via your Etsy account and grant the application access to your Etsy account to directly edit photos from your listings. Or you can just do what I did and create an account on FotoFuze and upload your photos into the application instead.

To select the product from the background, you use the yellow highlighter tool by coloring over all of the object. It needs to be entirely filled in or it won't render correctly. They have a "check for errors" box right next to your image that shows red on the possible problem areas. You can also use the eraser tool if you selected too much or on the wrong area. 

Another nice feature is that you can highlight some of the shadows behind the product and those will show up in your new fancy background. 

Do you have any favorite browser photo editing programs? I also like using Pixlr for basic retouching.

Etsy Shop Feature: Eten Iren

I might be a little obsessed with succulents. I've been trying to propagate some and it hasn't really gone well so far. Now I'm just playing the waiting game to see if any more will start to rot. Until then, I figured I'd check out some cute succulent stuff on Etsy.

When I saw the thumbnails of the succulent jewelry from the Eten Iren shop, I thought they were real so I had to click to confirm! But nooo, they're made out of polymer clay... which is great for people with black thumbs like me!

This shop is full of succulent and floral themed jewelry, hair accessories, and more.

Blue Purple Succulent Hair Comb

 I really love the colors on this one!

Green Succulent Stud Earrings

These are adorable -- looks almost flower petal-y.

Succulent Necklace

Another great color combination! Looks almost exactly like one of my succulents.

Big Blue Succulent Ring

I really like the idea of having a succulent ring because I can look at it all day. I'd love to have an anacampseros version!!

Now here's some of my favorite flowery ones, mostly pansies. I did start to like the color yellow more because it makes my brain all 'sunny' though.

Purple Pansies Flower Stud Earrings

Purple White Yellow Pansies Stud Earrings

Yellow Orange Pansies Earrings

Yellow Rannuculus Flower Stud Earrings

Which ones are your favorite? Do you prefer other kind of succulents, flowers, or other plants? Tell me about them! There are a lot of flowers and plants that I like but I have no idea what they're called.

Bracelets

For some reason I've been addicted to making bracelets with a design on the back of the hand with an attached ring. I get so much more inspired to create things when I can combine different materials together. I wanted to make a stretchy bracelet but also be able to have an unique pendant via wire wrapping.

I really like the one of a kind nature of wrapping crystals and stones, you just do what feels right for each piece rather than having a design in mind and following it exactly. That's what I was thinking about when I was making this butterfly bracelet.

Butterfly:

Wire wrapped butterly bracelet in purples and pinks 💘 #handmade #jewelry #butterfly #wirewrap #wirewrapped #beading #seedbeads #amethyst #boho #bohemian #bohostyle #hippie #gypsy #gypsyjewelry

A photo posted by Amanda🌙🐱 (@whimsywisteria) on Jul 8, 2016 at 12:24pm PDT

I tried using a mix of different type of beads in pink and purple colors. I also added some of my seed beads onto some of the jump rings for extra color but also of course to use up those leftovers beads.

I used the butterfly shape from this Butterfly Brooch tutorial as a reference to start and then improvised the rest to make it the way I wanted. Then I added the beads in the top wing parts by wrapping the wire onto the top outer corners and pulling it down toward the body, wrapping it all around that area to keep it secure. For the bottom wings, I wanted to do something a little different from the top so I attached a jump ring with seed beads on it. When I finished making the rest of the bracelet, I put the light pink crystal bead on the center of the body to make it pop.

Turquoise stones:

A simple bracelet with turquoise beads. #handmade #jewelry #turquoise #boho #bohochic #gypsy #gypsysoul #succulents #nature #handmadejewelry #beading #turquoisebracelet #wirewrapped

A photo posted by Amanda🌙🐱 (@whimsywisteria) on Jul 12, 2016 at 12:58pm PDT

This was inspired by this bracelet that I found on Pinterest. I wanted to make another bracelet with a ring but with the turquoise beads on the back of the hand. I also wanted to keep it a simple design (unlike the butterfly one!).

I just put the beads on a gold wire and wire wrapped loops on each end. I made the chains out of small jump rings and attached a clasp.

Mini Wire Wrapped Dreamcatchers

I've wanted my own dreamcatcher for a while and making one seemed like a great way to use up scraps of fabric, yarn, and extra beads. The only thing that really prevented me from trying to make them is not having any embroidery hoops and never remembering to buy them when I went to a craft store.

While I was looking for seed bead bracelet ideas on Pinterest, I came across some wire wrapped dreamcatcher jewelry. I didn't really consider wire wrapping a hoop before because I wasn't sure how well it'd hold up.

So I made a small one out of 20 gauge and 24 gauge wires.



I put some amethyst stones, various pink and purple yarns I had around, and a silver kitty on the moon charm on it.



I used a few of these pink/black beads in the center and at the end of the wires with the amethyst stones.



I really like the colors of it! I'd like to make a larger one but I'm going to wait for embroidery hoops for that. Just something this small about 2"-3" in diameter is such a wire eater. I don't want to use up all my wires in just a few projects. ;P

After I finished that one, I wanted to try to make smaller ones for more practice and also use up some of my earring findings & more seed beads. This time I put turquoise beads onto the wire while I was wrapping it. These are about 1.5" in diameter. I think if I were to make more earring ones, I'd make them even smaller than that because the yarn tickles my shoulder.





I'm a little obsessed with pink, blue, green, and purple color combinations.

What color combination should I make next?

Etsy Shop Feature: 10 Dollar Jewellery

I found the 10 Dollar Jewellery shop while I was browsing the Etsy forums. It's a fairly new Etsy shop that features beautiful simple jewelry for $10 and under. Carina's designs combine bronze charms and bronze findings with a minimal use of colorful beads.

I really love this dragonfly pendant chain necklace. The teal beads are perfect with the bronze pendant.

This cat pendant necklace is also cute! I've never seen one like this before, I must add to my collection of cat stuff. ;D

Aren't these bronze sunflower earrings lovely?! The yellow beads make it pop!

Check out the rest of her shop, Carina has a variety of beautiful designs!

Which ones are your favorites? ♥

I'm going to try to post Etsy Shop Features more. I love stumbling on new shops so let me know what you like and I'll see what I can find. :)

Amethyst & Turquoise Flower Bracelets

Hello! I started another project. I've been trying to use up my jewelry supplies that I've collected the past years because they're taking up too much space.

I switch between hobbies quickly so I have tons of seed beads for bead looming leftover as well as wires for wire wrapping. I also have some extra stuff from making my cosplay jewelry.

I really love these flower sliders from Michaels. I bought the set that had 2 purples and 1 champagne color months ago so I could make this bracelet to match an outfit:




I made an attached chain ring and wire wrapped bicone crystal beads.

I finally used the purple flowers this month to make this simple bracelet design. I had to go buy more findings and matching beads like these amethyst stone beads. So pretttty!!



Plus I had to get the blue flower version as well and it's matching turquoise beads. I tried to incorporate more of my leftover beads in these designs. I used some metal spacer beads & seed beads in turquoise, teal, and brown.






I try to not plan out every single detail or get too attached to an idea, since the point of this little project is to just use up my beads. If something doesn't quite turn out the way I wanted, someone else will probably like it I guess!

It gets difficult when I keep getting ideas and I don't have the materials I imagined it would have or even have the skills to make the design. I'm trying to not buy more supplies!!

Sometimes I'll just select a random mix of beads to make like a "scrap bracelet" or just grab the last colors of some leftover beads I have and try to put them together.

My goal is to make at least one bracelet or necklace a day!

What are you working on lately?