DIY 6 Easy Breezy Jewelry Ideas from eCrafty.com

Got a Minute? Make Anne's Sparkling Seas Crystal Charm Bracelet We love this idea! So simple and so pretty! Anne took one of our ready-to-wear aqua crystal rondelle bracelets SKU 430.2 and simply added a few of our new sea themed charms with some of our jump rings and came up with this wonderful summertime charm bracelet.

A Few of our Favorite Things Charm Bracelet
One of our newest, most favorite customer requested items is our 1151 Charms Mega Mix. Becky made a nearly instant charm bracelet by using our already assembled chain maille bracelets and attaching a few Mega mix charms with just a few jump rings. There are SO many themed charms in each package - it's easy to whip up a themed bracelet of your own in very little time.

eCrafty Charms Mega Mix Over 100 high-quality lead, cadmium and nickel-free charms sure to be a hit for quick jewelry and crafts. Great idea for troops, groups or girls' night. See ALL of our Mega Mix items here




Summer Seas Wrap Bracelet Here's what our friend Shenoa made with some of our   sparkle,  water-color and color-themed sparkling rondelle mix beads on memory wire. Just make a simple loop to finish each end. A great project to share with beginning crafters!



Pop Art Zebra Stretch Bracelet Look what our friend Becky whipped up with our new resin zebra beads and a few chunky lampwork cubes! So cute! These beads also fit well on our 1240Z ball chain necklaces (as do several styles of our new resin beads). See all of our resin beads here:



Coral Sunset Sparkle Bracelet Shenoa took the same bead combination ( our sparkle, water-color and color-themed sparkling rondelle mix beads)  as in the memory wire bracelet above and strung an easy breezy mixture on our add a bead bracelet cuff. Very easy - really pretty!

Make Easy Message Jewelry with our New Alphabet Beads



Here's an easy idea for crafters of all ages - use our new natural wood beads on our 1240Z ball chain necklaces to spell out your favorite inspiring phrase, your best friend's name, monograms, funny phrases, etc. Here we used our new 1216 natural wood alpha beads on a simple ball chain necklace. You can easily add larger holed bead from our 1155 Bali Bead Mix to dress it up.

How to Make a Chain Maille & Pearls Bracelet
I love this tutorial from Saved by Love Creations - we are sharing it here for you to try. This is actually a VERY easy process - whether you make earrings, bracelet or both -

eCrafty.com has Mega Mixes of both 1501Q Silver Jump Rings and White or Ivory Pearls - plenty to experiment with to get the look you'd like.

 

SAVE 20% through May 30 at eCrafty.com! 

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5 Summer DIYs to Try! Mini Terrarium Jewelry, Sea Glass Bottle Stoppers, Mother Earth Vases!

We've been having so much FUN with our latest shipment of mini bottlesin sizes ranging from 3/4" to 3.5". Here's some really FUN DIY ideas that our crafty friends (& coworkers) have made recently. Click on any image for a closeup view.

1 and 2: Mini Glass Terrariums 
Look what Becky and Anne made with our 1200L and 1204M mini bottles!  Becky used our smallest size to showcase her incredibly sculpted miniature mushrooms, while Anne used moss/lichen from her yard to make these wonderful charms/pendants. 

Mini terrarium jewelry is a strong trend on Etsy & Pinterest,combining Going Green with Handmade items ~ try some ~ make some ~ they're irresistable! Trust us!

3. Sea Glass Bottle Toppers 

Anne just made these the other day and they are irresistable. She made these very quickly using an assortment of our new mini bottle sizes 1200G, 1200S, 1200T and our Sea Glass Pebble Mixtures in Ocean and Aqua and some Weldbond or e6000 for securing the pebbles to the corks. Anne found that our new pebbles are perfect for gluing (magnets, bottle toppers, pendants) as they have many flattened sides. Consider these for wire wrapping, fridge magnets, jewelry making, and e6000 insta-crafting this summer! 

Made to mimic rare beach glass treasures - our man made sea glass beads and pebbles are made from earth-friendly recycled glass, tumbled into super smooth pebbles ~ sure to win you over with their glowing hues. You can see MORE of our Ocean-Inspired products here.

4. Mother Earth Bud Vases Made with our mini bottles - our crafty Anne drilled a log from her yard with 7/8" or 1" bit and inserted our mini bottles 1200S and 1200G, corkless, for an instant bud vase centerpiece. This is a great idea for summer time entertaining ~ if you've got a handy drill nearby - this is a very quick project!

5. Mini Bottle Piglet Charm ~ Customize with color! Our friend and coworker (and recent high school graduate!) Hannah fell in love with our mini bottle pigletsand quickly filled one with our $1 pink seed bead mix 417. The result? A near-instant, custom-colored pig charm! Irresistable!

Remember to use your newsletter member code JUNE2012 at checkout for an instant savings of 20% on everything in your cart before shipping. 

Click here to see ALL of our new arrivals! Save 20% with your subscriber promo code JUNE2012 on 

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code box at checkout, just E-us with the code or e-us with your ORDER number and code We'll apply your 20% savings as a refund to you when your order ships.

DIY Cobalt Blue Glass Glaze Recipes for Mini Bottles, Crafting and Mason Jars

Our shipment of over 130 NEW lampwork glass beads and bali style pewter charms just arrived ~ click here to see them all!

We've been experimenting with making our own cobalt glass bottles, using a variety of craft glazes and food coloring with our mini bottles. We found a great tutorial on Pinterest for DIY amber glass mason jars, (BUT, since we already sell amber glass mini jars) we thought BLUE would be a good color to try! You cannot find blue corked super mini bottles anywhere but ... you CAN make your own!

The basic project is very easy - you can tint our mini bottles with a simple mixture of food coloring (5 to 10 drops per tablespoon of glaze.) Mix into your choice of Mod Podge Gloss or Weldbond with a few drops of water, or drop directly into a tablespoon of 3D Crystal Lacquer, or Ranger Glossy Accents . Heavy on the coloring - it will dry darker than when mixed! Super basic: Try a tablespoon of white glue thinned with 5-10 drops of blue food coloring.

Use a small dropper, teaspoon, chopstick and / or painbrush to coat the inside of your bottle. Swirl your mixture and roll the bottle around in every direction. Shake out the excess.

Quick dry these upside down on a piece of parchment paper in either your oven (200F), or microwave on LOW for 30 secs to 1 minute. Take them out with oven mitts and let them cool off completely.

Art effects: The microwave producedsome bubbles in the finish which are really interesting, actually WANTED if you're doing an ocean themed or mermaid project. Just add our screw eye pins to the corks and you've got some intriguing little conversation pieces! Let us know what you come up with!

SEE our all NEW lampwork glass beads 10 packs here! Affordably priced, mix and match, have enough matching pairs for your jewelry projects without having to purchase full strands!

Also, see our new Millefiori mosaic butterflies and Millefiori smorgy 15 inch FULL strands! Customer favorites now in full strands! Great for matching pairs, earrings, jewelry making!

Also, tons of new Bali Style Silver Pewter charm and Pendant 10 packs with LOTS of great spring themes ~ Sea shells, mermaids, trees, fish, more!

Also, an exciting NEW set of incredible creations from Tim Holtz, the king of cool. See our 3 PAGE LIST for April 12 ~ here ~ check pages 1, 2 and 3!

Save monthly! ~ make sure you're on our e-mail list. We send out 20% codes to our newsletter subscribers ONLY ~ click here to get on the list and start saving. Our codes are good for a whole month!

Typewriter Key Jewelry Quick DIY with pre-cut alphabet and charm bases, glass domes

How to make typewriter key jewelry ~ nearly instant charms and pendants with our 20mm pendant/charm bases, 20mm glass domes, and our simple pre-cut typewriter alphabet sheet!

Microwave Your Way to Quick and Easy Glass Tile Jewelry + FREEBIE Cherry Blossoms Alphabet

Love is in the air and we have a sweet FEB Freebie for you! Our new Cherry Blossom alphabet - fit for 1" glass tiles and our small ovals. The light background works with either squares or circles. Open the file here - right click to "save as" to your computer. Your printer setting should be "fit to print" or print at 8.5x11 letter size. You can also import into MS Word and scale to letter size. Happy creating!

Here's some great quick crafts using some of our 60 + NEW items for Jan/Feb!

We also have a section devoted to Valentines. you enjoy these tips!

My best ideas seem to come to me at the last minute. So, I'm usually pacing while my glass tile art is drying. Sound familiar? Well, I've just crossed this last-minute frustation off of my list:

Here's how to stop ink jet art from running under glass domes and tiles while the sealer is curing..

The secret is as close as your microwave!

Take a few of our glass tiles or glass domes. Cover the back 1/2 the surface area with thin layer of 3D Crystal Lacquer. Press firmly onto your photo or print out and swirl lightly to get a thin seal, bubble free.

Microwave your sealed art (glass ONLY no metal) on low for 3 minutes. Repeat. Finish for a minute or two on medium.

Your customized glass tile will be fully dry and ready to glue into one of our many bezel cups, pendant, charm bases or key rings. You're done!

To review, here's the magic steps to working with our favorite sealer, 3D Crystal Lacquer, for all of your glass tile and glass dome jewelry and craft projects:

• 
  
  Apply thin layer 3D Crystal Lacquer on center 1/2 to 2/3s of the back of the tile
• 
  
  Then do the smoosh down and swirl around to get a thin layer with no bubbles.
• 
  
  COOK them in the microwave on low, several rounds, several minutes.
• 
  
  This keeps the ink jet ink from saturating the paper and prevents running.
• 
  
  Glue into our bezels, charm bases, pendant bases, key chain forms, or apply a magnet to the back with a small dollop of our e6000 craft adhesive.
  Glue into any of our charm, pendant bases or bezels with e6000 adhesive. Think ahead - great for Mother's Day and Father's Day! Easy for children to make!
  

Jewelry Ideas Made with our "In Black and White" Freebie Collage Sheet

Beyond Black and White! 6 New Inspired Projects for You!


Wow! We had an amazing response to our "In Black and White" freebie download collage sheet from the July newsletter and Facebook post. We hope you find these 6 projects as inspiring as we did! Click on any photo to for a closeup.

First up, Kristine Richards joins us as a regular contributor and creative force extraordinnaire. Lucky us! She works in many mediums - this time she used polyclay along with our clear epoxy domes and favorite inks, wire and crystal faceted beads to transform our "In Black and White" freebie download collage sheet into the gorgeous necklaces you see here. Hang on to your collage sheets ~ there's more to come! This is probably do-able for a medium-level crafter. For a detailed project sheet (PDF format - printable instructions) on Kris' necklace, just e-us.

Next up, our friend and coworker Hannah Greenberg came up with a different rainbow interpretation of our "In Black and White" freebie collage sheet - using watercolors on a black/white printout. She trimmed and rolled the colored squares of paper inside of our mini glass bottle charms. The results are gorgeous - and probably just the right level for beginning crafters.  For a detailed project sheet (PDF format - printable instructions) on Hannah's' mini bottle charms, just e-us.

For our bead loving readers, our friend and co-worker Cheryl Satterlee came up with two ingenious ways to incorporate our ball chain necklaces with our spunky black, white and pink lampwork beads. Her latest creation is a new twist on a beaded necklace and chain using 20 gauge wire and assorted glass pearls.


Here is another variation on this new technique from Cheryl. She chose the focal bead with the largest hole for the centerpiece of this pendant. Again using 20 gauge wire she threaded a mixture of focal beads, spacer beads and metal bead caps onto the wire. But this time she created a loop at the bottom and threaded the wire through the center bead twice. The tops are just loops of wire connecting the pendant to the ball chain.  

For a detailed project sheet (PDF format - printable instructions) on Cheryl's ball chain technique, just e-us.
Last but by no means least, our friend and co-worker Shenoa Satterlee (Cheryl's granddaughter) made a beautiful necklace for Grandma Cheryl in all of her favorite colors. Here she used one of our Batik Focal beads as the center of this design. She created a pattern of beads and chain for this necklace. Try one of ourJewelry Makers Mixes in your favorite colors. A few findings of jump rings, headpins, chain and clasps are all you need for a gorgeous new necklace.

If you're still reading this, then you are a die-hard crafter indeed! Don't forget to use your 20% Newsletter Subscriber coupon code SEP2011 in the promo code box on the payment page at checkout. You must be signed in for this promo code box to appear.
If you cannot see it, or you bypass it at checkout, just e-us in the "comments" section on your order - we'll arrange a discount for you in the form of a refund when your order ships. Remember, SEP2011 in the promo code box saves you 20% on every order this month!

Thank you to our wonderful contributors this month:

Kristine Richards lives happily ever after in the mid west, taking time to smell the roses, create poly clay and lampwork beads and jewelry, attend craft and bead classes, spend time with her family, all the good stuff. There is probably a more accurate bio to write on her - but the newsletter deadline is near! We'll do a formal bio on her project sheets. Welcome Kristine! You are our fairy godmother of craftiness!

Cheryl Satterlee lives happily ever after here in Northern California with her family and grandchildren nearby. We're very grateful to have her help on EVERY front! Packing up your orders, looking after things that would normally slip thorugh the cracks, and creating beautiful jewelry in her spare time. She is multi-talented and enjoys beading, baking and babysitting for new family members!

Shenoa Satterlee lives here in Northern California just a stone's throw from Grandma's house. She is a bright, industrious middle schooler who happens to love absolutely everything about the theater ~ writing! acting! singing! lights! camera! action! She has helped us a lot over the summer here in the office. Thank you Shenoa!

Hannah Greenberg also lives here in Northern California, works hard in high school, love to dance, and does some amazing bending of wire and beading of beads in her spare time! We're lucky to have her here helping us and thinking up so many COOL new uses for our craft items!