Last year second S had sent out a questionnaire to find out what people thought of our website and to get more ideas possibly to put on our website. One of the questions was what type of handmade craft item do you like to purchase and we gave several possible suggestions plus an open space to be filled in if the selections were not enough. Well a lot of people responded back that they purchase a lot of handcrafted jewelry. I had been resisting the idea of doing jewelry for 2 reasons: 1) the market was already saturated with handcrafted and handmade jewelry and 2) I knew if I started I would have a hard time stop making the jewelry. But with the results of that questionnaire in hand second S insisted that we make a small sampling and put them on our website. So we purchased a small batch of beads and I started making the jewelry. They were put onto our website.
Well since that initial investment into jewelry making I have made quite a few more pieces. However they have not been put onto our site since my sister (second S) has a limited amount of time to photograph them properly (she is the main caregiver to our mother who needs help due to her health). And also second S is in his senior year of college and very, very busy with school work. Meanwhile I have been making necklaces, bracelets and earrings like crazy. I spent some time recently over at my mom’s to help out with the care giving duties but instead ended up making jewelry. And making jewelry is very contagious since second S has now been designing the layout and the easy part of stringing the beads (I do the hard part of tying and fastening the clasps etc.). Then my middle sister came to visit and she got into the act of designing jewelry. Beads have become an addiction for us girls it seems. My sisters even started to dream of designs for new jewelry pieces.
Most of the beads used are glass but there are some that are semi-precious stones and metal. I am using magnetized clasps to close the necklaces but my sisters like the lobster claw clasp so the more recently made necklaces were made with lobster clasps. I also like the ring & bar clasps so there are several necklaces made with that style also. All earrings use the J-Hook findings (except one that I did just recently which is a clip style) and the bracelets are on stretch cord. The lengths of each piece varies.
If you are interested in seeing what jewelry I have designed so far you can check it out on our website: http://vkssholidaycrafts.com/ Enjoy our site and be patient with us while we try to get the new jewelry onto our site.



