Unique Vintage items at JENSCLOSET

If you are looking for vintage collectibles that you can also use, JENSCLOSET is the place to go. She has an amazing collection of vintage Dinnerware, Milk Glasses, China, Jewelry, Clothes and even Vintage Linen! She's also got a lot of fun stuff listed for 10 Dollars and under.

Jen ships each item gift-wrapped with a beautiful ribbon. So when you receive it, it seems like you are receiving a gift for yourself. She is also very keen on receiving feedback on what she sells - positive or negative. In her own words, "I take pride in my shop and if someone is not 100% excited about what they receive from me I want to know why!"




Jen's daughter Lindsey too shares her mom's interest in all things vintage and lists quite a few vintage items in her jewelry supply store - deerlyneeded - that she has recently opened on ETSY. I checked out her store and she's got some pretty neat stuff listed - vintage and non-vintage.


Please visit Jen's shop, I am sure something will catch your eye there. In fact, she's said that if you convo her that you visited her store after reading this post, she will take 10% off any item in her store, that you order.

Gerbera Daisies again!

Here's the completed order for Melanie! I really do hope that she likes these flowers. I am kind of nervous :). These flowers are labours of love. I shall await your feedback too. You can see more photos on my ETSY shop.

Melanie wanted different shades of pink and yellow. So, I made some pastel shades and some near pastel shades. Together, they seem to go very well. 

Bowled over by these soaps!

I got to know about sunbasilgarden, when she 'hearted' (marked me one of her favourites) my ETSY store. Like I do, with everyone who has 'hearted' me, I visited her store too. And I was stunned. As soon as I earned some money, I ordered soaps from her. They are so cute! I just had a great bath, thanks to her Rainbow Razzle soap (pictured) ! It smells fresh, looks great...

The person behind sunbasilgarden is the very friendly Lauren. What she does with her soaps is amazing! She's got some unique designs. Some of her soaps like the ones pictured on left look pretty edible, don't they? I think they'd be great for kids. And for us adults who are still kids at heart :). Lauren's work has been featured multiple times on ETSY's front page. You can look up her shop on ETSY. Additional creations can be seen on Flickr.

PS: With every order, Lauren sends in samples..... so, go ahead give her a try! You won't regret it.

Yasmin's Glass Flower Buttons

Yasmin Sivan is one of the awesome talents I discovered on ETSY. This is one of her creations. She makes these from glass. Its a technique called lampworking. I think these buttons are cute! I have provided a link to her shop, go check out her work.

Yasmin is from Israel and she sells her work at a craft fair in Tel Aviv. Her work is also available online on another website, where you can experience her growth as an artist.

Gerbera Daisies for Melanie

This post is dedicated to Melanie of melaniescrafts. As I mentioned in the previous two posts, she inspired me to make daisies. And here are the results. They are still incomplete. They need to dry totally, before I can insert stems. But, otherwise, they are ready. I made the dark pink one first. The center is smaller and is surrounded by smaller petals. In the orange and yellow daisies, the center is much larger and there are no smaller petals. The orange daisy is quite large. Almost 3.5 inches in diameter :). Making the center appears to be the most patience-testing task, until you come to the petals :). Each petal is individually crafted and then texturized, then attached to the center, before it can dry. Hah! It sounds like a lot of work, huh? It actually is.... but it is also a lot of fun. And once complete, these flowers look gorgeous.

 The thing about Gerbera Daisies specifically (and clay flowers in general) is that, they look good individually, but great in a bunch or an arrangement. Once stems are inserted, I could do a couple of things, tie the flowers together with a pretty ribbon - making a hand-tied bouquet. Or, I can leave them as they are and they can be arranged freestyle in a clear or opaque tall vase. If stems are cut short, these daisies can also be used in arrangements, but I think, an arrangement has to be pretty large to accommodate daisies this size :). 

My day today was again really busy. Had to go shopping for veggies, then cook and then rush to send papers for my parents' US visa application, so that they can visit us. This is the first time in two years that my super-busy dad has managed to get leave sanctioned to make this trip! I hope their visas are granted. More than anything, we want them to see our new home in Arizona. Anyway, after finishing the job of sending my parents the visa papers, I went to my Ikebana class (I am no good at it, but my teacher says that I am improving.... today, another student actually took a photo of my Ikebana arrangement! Wow!). And then, I went swimming for an hour. Then I came home, took photos of these daisies, and uploaded them to my computer. And here I am now, writing this post and wrapping up my day...

Let me know what you think of the flowers... Give me ideas about the color combinations and the various ways I can arrange them. As I work with the colors and arrangements, I shall post more photos. But I really do need your feedback. So, please feel free to write in.

Tiring Day

Morning started off pretty tamely. I made a cute yellow gerbera daisy (Thanks Melanie, you've got me hooked on to daisies now). In the afternoon I taught a make-and-take session. It was a lot of fun. Another DECO Clay instructor - a very graceful lady by the name Betty Phillips -dropped in too! I had two students in the class, and they made two flowers each. It is always wonderful to watch someone you are teaching, make lovely flowers! Betty too decided to take a class!!! It was funny really, because she is an instructor too, just like me. And I didn't really teach her anything, but we shared some tips.

When I came home from the class, I was in for an unpleasant surprise - my earlier computer which had started flickering (which led to this new one!) had gone totally dark. On a closer look, we realized that with great difficulty, we could see SOMETHING. We ran and got ourselves an external Hard Drive to transfer all the data from the old laptop to my new one, before it went totally black. Also have a  backup in the Hard Drive. Now, I am in the midst of the data transfer from the HD to my Mac. How interesting! I really had no idea that it would be so exhausting...

Coming back to the work front, I sent my parents links to the posts about me. They were very happy to read those. Really, there are some nice people who have written nice things about my work. Maybe another daisy then, just for the encouragement they have given me :).

Oh! Just before I end, please look up Sarang's post on www.passionforcinema.com . His first post as an 'author' there. As usual, it is very insightful. He's even received a feedback from the director of the film whose film he's written about. He's delighted :).

If you are wondering what this photo is doing here, well I have decided to show you something new today. I usually do flowers from clay, but I have also made this dress as a part of our instructors' curriculum. The dress is about 7 inches tall. It has got a lot of detail work and took hours to make! See the tiny corsage? That is the kind of intricate work this dress has got. Let me know how you like it. 

ETSY and my experiences with crafters there...

When I started out on ETSY, I had no clue that my work would lead me to so many wonderful people. But ETSY has opened my eyes to so many awesome people from all over the world, who also happen to be terrific artists! I have also made 3 sales so far through ETSY and I haven't even completed one month on the website.

People have such wonderful, encouraging things to say. Because of them, I have sat down and created flowers specially for them - so that I can send them photos and make them happy. One such person is Melanie from melaniescrafts. She was my first buyer. And ever since buying a hibiscus hair pick from me, she has been telling me that she would love to see me make some gerebra daisies. Now those daisies, are a lot of work! But this past Sunday, I sat down and made one. It took me over an hour, but the end result is worth it :). Not only that, I realized I could use a different technique from the one that I had originally learnt. 

Other people from ETSY who have been super-supportive are Donna of dzfantasy and Mel from Melsdolls. They have featured me on their blogs with wonderful write-ups about my work! There's also Mary from ElegantbyDesign who has been very supportive of my venture. She has been giving me tips too. Didn't I say that there were many wonderful people that I met on ETSY?

And all this is because of my friend Andrea of TinyCrafts. She is the first one to have featured me on her website. And that is when I wasn't even selling. I had just become a qualified instructor and here she was, encouraging me with great write-ups. She was also the one who guided me to ETSY. I really can't thank her enough!

I also HAVE to mention two other people - Incidentally, both are Soap artists :). One is Lauren from sunbasilgarden. You just have to check out her shop. She's superbly talented. I have never seen soaps this cute. Another person is Bianca of decor8me. She is from Australia. She also makes jewelry in addition to soaps. Her soaps are very unique too. There are some that look like cupcakes. I placed a custom gift order through her and she was very very helpful in guiding me and helping me out. She gift-wrapped my soaps for free and even made a card and wrote a little note inside it. Can you believe it? 

I look forward to meeting more wonderful people like the ones I have already met. As and when I do, I shall keep you posted. 

This post is incomplete without talking about my husband. If it were not for his encouragement, even at a time when we were struggling for every penny, I wouldn't have made it to where I am ..... Here's what I want to tell him through this post: "Sarang, whatever I have achieved, is because of you!"

That is it for today, but its just a start. Keep checking once in a while....for more interesting stuff!