Wreath, heart shape, dried roses and seashells - $29.00

A 18" twig heart wreath decorated with seashells, sea glass and mini pink dried roses accented with lavender and eucalyptus. Created in a smoke free home.

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Photo frame, nautical beach home accented with seashells and sea glass - $12.00

3.5" by 5" photo frame embellished with blue sea glass and seashells. Perfect gift for the beach lover. Photo frame can hang on wall or stand on table top either vertical or horizontal. This photo was taken in Rockport, MA.

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Shop feature - Kristine of Gulickkr on Etsy

Hair-pin/Shawl-pin

Purple and white amethyst pendant

Kristine of Gulickkr on Etsy has been creating beautiful jewelry since 2008.  It started as a labor of love and a way to support her dad's new-found hobby.  Her dad was inspired by a TV show and decided to go mining for gems.  He found many beautiful stones but also found that it was very expensive to have the stones cut and set into jewelry.

Sterling silver wire wrapped purple pendant

 To save money, he decided to join a rock club and took a lapidary class where he learned to cut cabochon out of stones. A cabochon, from the Middle French caboche (head), is a gemstone which has been shaped and polished as opposed to faceted.  He learned how to cut the stone slabs and grind and polish the stones into beautiful one of a kind pieces.  Kristine, along with her dad, then took a wire wrapping class.  Together they created beautiful jewelry.  Dad continued to make the cabochon pieces and Kristine developed her love of wire wrapping.

Sadly, Kristine's dad passed away from cancer in 2010.  She still has a few gems that her dad created but now she buys all her stones from fellow Etsy stores, rock and mineral shows, or jewelry suppliers. To honor her dad's memory, and to help raise money for cancer research, Kristine donates 10% of each sale to the American Cancer Society.

I asked Kristine, what advice she had for new Etsy sellers:
"Advice that I would give someone new to Etsy is to be patient and committed. It takes time for your shop to get noticed. It is frustrating waiting especially for that first sale, but it will come. Just believe and it will happen. The biggest thing that I learned since opening my shop is that it really is a full-time job. It takes time to make items for your shop, but it takes even longer to commit to marketing and getting yourself known. It is so important to invest that time in your shop."

Plum crocheted shawl

What's new in Kristine's shop?

Gemstone wire wrapped gemstone tree

"I  have started a few new lines since opening my shop. Since November, I have launched a line of chainmaille ornaments (seasonal item only), gemstone trees, and hair/shawl pins. The hair/shawl pins have been really popular, so I would like to continue adding more styles of these pins to my shop. Also, to compliment the pins, I just starting selling crocheted shawls (as of two weeks ago). I have loved crocheting since I was a little girl, and am having so much fun working on shawls now. So that is the main focus of my shop right now (building up inventory of the shawls)."
I have chosen just a few of the beautiful listings to feature here.  I recommend you take a moment and check out  Kristine's Gulickkr shop on Etsy. Click here for Kristine's facebook page  and here for twitter.

Daily Dose of Handmade

Just a quick post to introduce my special offer on Daily Dose of Handmade.  Daily Dose of Handmade is a relatively new site that offers daily promotional deals.  Here is my Daily Dose of Handmade offer for today March 25th.  This beautiful heart shaped twig wreath accented with silk flowers is $5.00 off.

Daily Dose of Handmade Special Offer

Each day they promote three or four Etsy shop listings on their blog.  Check out their blog to view the other special deals and sign up to get notifications for future deals. They also recently started an Etsy Daily Dose of Handmade team which I also joined.  Not that I needed another team but maybe you can't have too many teams. Unlike some of the teams I belong to, the discussion threads seem to be fairly active.   I hate it when I am in a team and you never hear anything from the leaders or you post something in the threads and don't get any responses for days.  The team leaders at Daily Dose of Handmade seem to be invested in spending time promoting the team and the members.  The captain is Julie of JulieEllynDesigns.  Here is one of her listings and you can check out her other one of a kind jewelry creations here:

Wire wrapped pendant from JulieEllynDesigns

and the leaders shops are  Sweet Pea Boutique

Needle felted hearts by SweetPeaBoutique

and Cylene of TheLovelySmith 

Sterling Silver Knot Ring by Cylene of TheLovelySmith

So kindly take a moment and check out the special deals at The daily dose of handmade and if you are considering a team you might want to check out the Etsy daily dose of handmade team too.