My Favorite Place to Shop

I love to shop on Etsy! Right now I have to window shop as funds are tight, but I like to put the things I love in my favorites and look at them from time to time and think about what I might like to get first. Most of these are just fabulous finds to me. These under $50 that just thrill me because they are handmade, creative and created with love and care. I am going to post some of my favorite things here but before I do that I want to find out a few things first. I also want to post a few of my favorite shops. I don't want this to turn into one of those rolling, scrolling places where everyone's shop is listed though. I want it to clearly be just MY favorite shops. I have looked on other shopping sites, I am not an Ebay person, I just don't like the way that is set up. To me it is messy and disorganized and I always find TOO much of everything and NOTHING that I really want. Etsy just suits me. It's clean and organized and pretty and creative and full of very talented people all just trying to get their art out there for people to see and buy so that they can do more of it. A really nice shopping experience!

Why I Make Jewelry

There is more to this question than I am going to address in this post today, but the primary thing is that after I found out how much I love beads, the earthiness and organic nature of beads, I realized that I love making people happy by giving them my jewelry. I would prefer to give it all away and if I were a rich person then I suppose I could do that. But, making jewelry costs money and so to support my habit, I sell my jewelry, some of it anyway, at what I believe are pretty reasonable prices so that people can buy it and I hope be happy wearing it. While I know that "things" do not make us happy, I also know how much pleasure I receive from some of the simplest things that have been given to me or that I have purchased in my life. They are usually not the expensive gifts or purchases. I'll give you an example: about probably 15 years ago now someone beaded for me an anklet at the request of a friend of mine. It was really a nice piece of work, done on a loom with seed beads. It was an unusual anklet at the time and hand little brass clamshell beads that hung down by my foot and jingled just a bit when I walked. Well, I love unusual things so it suited me very well. As you may have already guessed I still have that anklet. I still love that anklet and I am still grateful to both of them. I get a thrill whenever I pull it out of the jewelry box and wear it. A simple thing yet it gives me great pleasure. It doesn't make me happy, but it adds to my happiness for that day. Also it was one of those times before I started beading when I realized what a very cool thing beads were. It reminds me of the Native American beading and how awesome their designs and beading is. Anyway, enough for now. That is a large part of my motivation for beading. JOY!