How to Find Out When Etsy Treasuries Open

There are a lot of great features on Etsy. One of which is the Treasury, which is a collection of 12 items that anyone with an Etsy account can pick, and if you're lucky enough to time it when the Treasury opens to new items, you can have posted.

Trying to time it correctly is problematic. Just lurking on the Treasuries, waiting for the number of current Treasuries to drop below the magic number of 222 for the Treasury West, and 333 for the main Treasury, at which they open, is time consuming and nerve wracking. There's a better way, which I'll now divulge. (-:

Just go to http://www.craftopolis.com and click on "Treasury Clock". It will tell you how long before the Treasuries open. One work of warning. I spent a pretty boring and annoying time when the Treasury West was supposed to be opening any minute, because it was at 222 Treasuries. But since the next Treasury to expire wasn't going to do so for 4 more hours, I had a long wait. So open 2 pages on the Treasuries, and use one to click on the link "expiration" on the upper right of the Treasury page. Then click on the last page to find out when the next Treasury will expire. It could be hours away.

Once you've determined a Treasury will soon be opening, leave the page up on the Treasury you're waiting for, and don't refresh the page. Things will happen very quickly once the Treasuries do open. The page will update itself, so just sit tight. Of course, sometimes things don't work out, and for some unexplained reason even though you're diligently watching, the Treasury opens and closes and you don't get a chance to act. That's part of the game, and one must soldier on!

Why the interest in Treasuries? They're fun to make, you get a chance to help promote other Etsians, find out about some of the lovely things for sale on Etsy, and hopefully generate a little buzz about your own shop, too. And a major plus is that if you're very lucky, your Treasury could make it to the Etsy Front Page.

It's a nice courtesy to send a convo to the people you put in your Treasury. You can list one of your own items, and 11 other shops items, plus 4 alternates, which won't appear on the Treasury, unless something sells, then one by one they'll move over to fill in the blanks. Not everyone does send a convo, though, so there is another way to find out if you're in a Treasury.

Go to http://www.craftopolis.com and click on "Treasury Hunt". Then enter your shop name in the field provided, and you'll find out if you're currently in a Treasury.

If you haven't made a Treasury yet, I hope you'll give it a try! I'll be posting next about how to make a Treasury. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Art and Gift Show

I've just been accepted for my first Show, and I'm really excited about it. My parish is having an Art and Gift Show for Christmas shopping. We're a pretty big parish, around 4,000 families, so there should be a lot of people there.

It will be at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Batavia, Illinois. If you live in the area and are interested in selling there, you should contact the parish office, just google to find out the phone number, or send me a message. It's very reasonable to sell, they provide you with an 8 foot table, or two tables if you need them, it's indoors, in the Church hall, and only 25$ for the table, plus 20% of your profits after you subtract your overhead. It's going to be the weekend of Nov. 13 and 14.

If you'll be in the area, please stop by and say hello, I'd love to meet you! I will only be there on Sunday, between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

I'll have all my jewelry from Dalkullan Jewelry, plus I'm crafting a lot of new earrings just for the Show. I've never had to set up a display before, and would appreciate any ideas from you about cheap yet beautiful displays.

Thanks so much!

Lord Of The Rings

Dalkullan Jewelry has expanded it's jewelry line, with lovely new rings, so perfect for stacking! With genuine gemstones, hand faceted (not by me), aren't they sweet?

Of course, the rings are completely hand fabricated by me. I started with sterling silver stock, and lovingly crafted each ring. I'll make yours for you, to whatever size you desire, and in your choice of the following gemstones: White Topaz, Sky Blue Topaz, Peridot, or Almandine Garnet, which is pictured above. Just specify which gemstone and which size ring you prefer in the customer comments section when ordering.

I hand set the gemstones in a sterling tube setting, and the bands are hammer textured. The two rings pictured are in size 7, and I made them for myself. The ring in front is the White Topaz, and in back is another view of the Almandine Garnet ring.

As always, each ring comes gift boxed and wrapped in lovely Swedish paper, making it perfect for gift giving. With Christmas coming soon, why not order your rings today?

Celtic Earrings -- Mixed Metal

The new creation on the Dalkullan block, Celtic Earrings, are completely hand fabricated. I used my trusty shears to rough out the brass triangle shapes, and then trued up the edges starting with a coarse file, then finer files, and finally with sand paper.

The next step was doming the metal with a wooden punch and dap set. I didn't want to use my metal daps, because I only wanted a slight doming. My wooden dap set is made for watchmakers to smooth out the dents in watch backs, and has a gentle curve, Having a bit of a curve in the metal gives the earrings a
pretty look, don't you think?

Next I moved on to making the center motif, which I constructed from 20 gauge sterling wire, carefully coiling up 3 swirls for each earring. I soldered them together to form the motif, then hammered them on my bench block, and finally dapped them in the same dap I used on the brass triangles, so that the two curves would match exactly.

A final soldering mated the sterling motif to the brass triangles. I used a hand drill to pierce the holes for the earwires, which I'd made earlier, and then popped the earrings into my well loved tumbler for a few hours of polishing.

I'm planning on doing more Celtic designs, they're certainly classic, and I like the flowing lines and beauty of them. Hope you do to!

Sterling Buds -- Earrings

The newest creation, Sterling Buds, is up at my Etsy shop. I took the photos of them using my new lightbox, which I made myself from directions I found online. It's turning out to be very useful, because today is cloudy and rainy, without the lightbox I'd have been stuck as far as photography goes.

I've been learning how to set stones, so far I've done bezel setting, which involved carefully pushing around the rim of the metal cup the cabochon is nestled in, to rub over the metal and hold the stone in. It's definitely harder than it looks to do, and takes a surprising amount of force. That's how the lapis cabochons in Sterling Buds were set.

Yesterday a box of supplies from Rio Grande, a wonderful source of jewelry making things, arrived. I'm excited about it, but also have a certain amount of trepidation, because I'm going to branch out into a new method of stone setting, tube setting. It involved drilling out the end of a tiny piece of sterling tubing, just the right size for the gemstone to sit down into the hole, and then rubbing the rim down over the edge of the stone. I'm going to be working with 3mm faceted gemstones, which are pretty tiny, so please wish me luck, and steady hands! I'll keep you posted how things are going.