Cyber Monday, 10% off!

For those of you who missed the Black Friday sale, Cyber Monday is here! 

10% off EVERYTHING in the Shoppe!

Including new items that were added this weekend!

{ Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe }

(Regular posting will begin momentarily. Keep your eye open for tips on photography, how to make a charm bracelet, and more!)

How to Make Painted Washer Necklaces

The latest DIY (do it yourself) tutorial is how to make washer necklaces!

{Check out my tutorial on decoupage washer necklaces made with fun paper or artwork!}

These necklaces are pretty popular... I've had so many people ask what I use to make them, because the paint shimmers so beautifully. I always feel kind of sheepish and kind of genius when I say, "It's just fingernail polish!"

You will need:

Fingernail polish in fun colors

Clear fingernail polish

Washers 

Toothpicks

Paper towels to keep your workspace clean

My sister painting her washer necklace

 Step one is to put down a base coat. Feel free to do textures-- they work beatifully. 

You can rub the polish on smoothly, dab in little circles, create textured lines...

Some textures

Your base coat can be two colors, like the one my sister was working on!

Once the base coat has dried, paint with another color and add polka dots, stripes, etc. I like go go through with a toothpick and do a painting or bit of calligraphy.

You don't even have to wait for the base coat to dry to put on other colors! Here you can see a wet base coat with colorful polka dots. I then used a toothpick to blend the colors in for a fun and spunky pattern of swirls!

Next, and this is very important: once the paints have dried, coat your entire washer with clear fingernail polish. This protects the paint from chipping off.

The front...

Silly me forgot to take pictures before the craft fair, so I snagged these real quick. Click to enlarge and see our designs!

...and the back.

To put the necklaces on a cord, string some cord through the washer and tie it off. Then come through with your chain, using the cord to attach it. I didn't explain that very well, so just click to enlarge the picture above. The washer on the left, with the black and yellow cord, shows what I mean fairly well.

These pictures show how pretty the fingernail polish looks in different lighting. Both pictures are of the same washer!

Such a fun and easy project! Let me know if you try it! Leave a link in the combox (comments box) with a link to your own blog post or to a picture! 

Black Friday Sale

It's that time of year again... with people trampling through stores like a pack of angry buffalo hungry for a sale.

It's also the time of year to start thinking about Christmas presents for all of your friends and family!

I'd like to pass on the buffalo, if you don't mind. But you still get the sale. And some fun, unique Christmas presents (if I do say so myself).

That's right-- I'm doing a Black Friday sale!

How would you like 10% off everything in Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe?

The sale will last all day on Friday, November 26th. Everything means everything... including all the brand-new, one-of-a-kind items I just uploaded!

Do you like my Evenstars? Get 15% off on Black Friday!

 
(Because I have a Basic account on Artfire, I can't automatically make the Evenstars 15% off. You will have to contact me via Artfire or my new email ShealynnsFaerieShoppe [at] gmail.com. I will manually mark down the price for you. Please note that if you do this, it might be Sunday or Monday before I am able to do so. So long as you contacted me on or before Black Friday, you get the 15% off.)


Please note that this is the first time I've tried to do a sale... so let's collectively hope that nothing explodes. K? :)

Visit Shealynns-Faerie-Shoppe's ArtFire Shop

Your regular crafting posts will begin momentarily...

I'm Impressed at the Stats... :)

I'm really excited that so many people are interested in my blog!



I've got this little widget at the foot of the blog, which keeps track of how many times people look at my blog. I've had over 8,000 pageviews!!!!!!!! Of course, some of that is you, my dear followers, who check my blog regularly. But, still! I'm so excited! :)









Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe

My facebook page has 80 followers!!!
Don't forget to fan me on facebook. I'll keep you updated on new events, giveaways, and sales on my Shoppe! Don't worry, I don't spam-- lately I've only been posting once a week, and I make it a point never to post more than once or twice a day.

Fan, soon, because you'll find a giveaway there in the near future. ^_^

 The RSS feed has 40 subscribers...




Look over to the right, in the sidebar, and you'll see the Blogger Followers widget. 29 fellow bloggers follow my blog!!!

Look over to the right, in the sidebar again, and you'll spot more options for following, including receiving email updates!

Again in the sidebar (sorry, some of these widgets are Blooger built and I can't move them inside my post) you'll see my Popular Posts (the posts with the most pageviews). I find it funny which ones are so popular... The drawing of Hermione's Dress somehow got ranked fifth in Google's image search for queries such as "Hermione Yule Ball," "Yule Ball Dress," and some others. (Thank you, Blogger Stats, for letting me know that! lol!) Actually, I get ALOT of people coming through Google searching for things like "Elvish crafts." Hopefully they will be pleased with what they see here at Shealynn's Faerie Shoppe!


Anyways, I just had to share that. Back to regular crafty posting soon... :D

My First Craft Fair

My table display, set up in our school room.

A few weeks ago, my Mom forwarded me an email from a homeschool group: they were having a craft fair!

"You might want to think about doing this," Mom said.

Of course I wanted to do it! And thus it was that last Monday we drove out to this funeral-home-turned-gathering-center with a Rubbermaid tub full of... well, every jewelry that I have made and didn't plan on keeping. :)

The tables were free, and it sounded like it would be a mix of cutesy little kids' wares and parents' crafts. My six year old sister, Adelynn, made her own "Shoppe"-- "Adelynn's Princess Shop."

The day before the craft fair, I took over the homeschool table and made a beautiful little display. (See the results above!)

I wasn't expecting round tables!

The real deal!

(Please excuse the picture quality. Silly me forgot the camera's memory card! Mom snagged these with her phone camera. You'd better thank her for remembering that, or else you, dear readers, would have no pictures of any quality!)

Please excuse how crazy I look and see how pretty my little sis is. :)

I didn't really know what to expect; after all, this was not a real craft fair. When we arrived, I was surprised at how many people came to sell items.

Most of them were cute little kid crafts-- some very creative. For instance, marshmellow guns? Rings made out of brads? Pretty cool. Some people made soaps, some made tote bags, my co-op's art teacher did calligraphy... one lady had some amazing "good deed bracelets" (sacrifice beads made into a bracelet!) Mom bought this thing called a rice bag from someone-- it. is. awesome. I'm going to make some myself and do a post on them. ^_^

So the craft fair turned out rather well; I made five or six small sales and nearly everyone took one of my business cards. Adelynn sold two things and promptly spent that money on two little things from two other little girls. :)

I did notice that the only people there were the people selling things and their families. Most people came with full tables... and left with nearly full tables.

Packing everything up!

I certainly got a lot of experience from this craft fair! One important thing I learned: never forget hyperallegenic ear wires for earrings. I missed out on two sales because of that... In the future, I will always bring some gold plated, silver plated, and niobium ear wires for people who want them. :)

Have you ever been to a craft fair? Which displays and wares were your favorites? Have any tips? Please share in the comments box!

I am now officially hooked. I shall keep an eye out for craft fair opportunities-- and I might even bring some original artwork and some prints!

Do you want me to do a post on how I displayed the jewelry? I've already taken things apart, but I can show you the *drumroll* secrets. (I would make a terrible magician, lol!) For instance... I spent $0 on it!

Flower Fairies

Or, What I was Doing When My Camera Broke

A flower Elf. Arwen, maybe?

Revel in the beauty of that picture. T'was the last my nice camera ever took.

Some of you may remember the post where I explained that my camera had broken. It was a fluke, really; I was holding the wonderful camera, taking pictures out in the yard of my flower fairies, when the camera slid from my hand and hit the dirt. (What gets me is the fact that it managed to fall despite the fact that I had wrapped the strap around my wrist!)

Dad says that I managed to jiggle it's insides just enough and in the only way that it can't be fixed. It was a very, very nice camera. T'was an old Canon of my grandparent's. RIP awesome camera.

Anyways, that was a long time ago. I'm back to using the 10 year old Olympus (again from my grandparents!) It's a nice camera, but it's starting to get old age lines. For example, the memory cards? Soooo outdated. Startup time? Sooooo long. Macros? Sooooo difficult to take. Thankfully I've learned it inside and out, so I can make it do what I want. And if it can't do it, well, I've got Photoshop now!

Now that we've got the camera story out of the way, want to hear about the Flower Fairies?

My aunt (or grandparents, I forget) gave me a book/kit from somewhere (Klutz, maybe? I forget) for Christmas (I was nine or so.... I forget). I spent hours making these little fairies and teaching my friends to make them. (Thankfully I have not forgotten how to make them...  heehee)

I made these three, the Water Lily fairy, the Lord of the Rings Elf fairy, and the Bride fairy, (along with a bajillion others) in 4th grade when I was home from school for a month due to two surgeries.

I made alot-- these are just the ones that I didn't give away. ^_^

Not content with fairies, I made a mermaid.

Click to enlarge

I've thought about making Wedding flower fairy sets for my Shoppe. I would make it all custom order, with the hair the color of the real people, the wedding dress in similar style to the real one, and using the colors in the actual bridesmaid dresses. Wouldn't that be sweet?
What do you think?

Oooops! Business Cards

I just realized that I put the wrong URL for my Shoppe on my business cards!

In case you got to my blog from the business cards, the real Shoppe address is:

{   www.artfire.com/users/Shealynns-Faerie-Shoppe   }

The link on the cards pulls up a 404 Not Found error.

Incorrect Link to the Shoppe

I'm so sorry for the confusion!

Apparently I had forgotten to type /users/ on the card. (Which is strange, because I totally remember not having that in the URL, but oh well!) Now I've got some 20 leftover cards to fix. I might just stick little stickers on the back so I don't have to waste perfectly good cards. :)

Yes, I am weird...

...as can be seen in these pictures.

What You Can Do With Charm Bracelets

My first charm bracelet. { HERE }

I've made two charm bracelets. They are, without a doubt, some of my favorite bracelets, ever.

They are so playful!

Wear two on one wrist!

Bored? Mess around with the beads!

I can't help but jiggle my wrist when I wear these...

Get creative...

Attach the clasps of the bracelet to the clasps of a chain for a fashionable necklace!

And go bold!

Two bracelets and a chain-- overboard? Not so much!

You've got creative and bold... Go unique!

Just two charm bracelets attached together make a great choker necklace.

I've seen this style around somewhere...

It's called layering.

Bored? You are never, never, never ever bored when you've got glasses with magnetic sunglass clips... and charm bracelets.

Muahahaha. Can YOUR glasses do that?

...and, for all that, the only way I usually wear charm bracelets is one on a wrist. The normal way.

(Well, I do stick it on my glasses an awful lot... You know, during long, drawn out games of Monopoly?)



*Check out my new tutorial on how to make these charm bracelets!

Lack of posts? I'm Writing a Novel.

I wrote this post on the second day of November. Since then I've realized that I will not be able to keep up with the 30,000 word goal I originally set. I likely will change my goal to 10 or 15 K and only work on it during the weekends and Thanksgiving break. There is something called school... and major tests... and life being busy...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is the Ultimate Challenge. Every year, thousands of writers sign away their sanity and aim for the goal: 50,000 words in 30 days!

The goal is to get you writing... just writing. Leave your inner editor behind the in dust. Revel in typos. And never stop writing.

{Go to NaNoWriMo.org for more info}

Last year I participated with my first novel, Nevdroonia. It was, um... a bit of a flop. I had no idea what I was doing. Never before had I written anything longer than 3 pages, and here I was shooting for 175.

I was also not prepared. My goal was to write what came to me.... Nevdroonia began as an imaginary land that I made up, and my friends and I spent long afternoons jumping off the neighbor's retaining wall, swinging on the rope swing, and landing in a war-torn fairyland. Nevdroonia, the Novel (lol) was my attempt to combine various adventures we had in my backyard. I slapped on some characters and thought I was ready to go.

I had no plot.

That's bad news for any writer.

And did I mention last year was a flop? I finished my 50,000 words and left it.



This year I am going crazy again-- but not to the same degree.

YWP NaNoWriMo (can you tell these people love acronyms?) stands for Young Writer's Program. It's for those 17 and under, and lets you choose your own word goal.

{Go to YWP.NaNoWriMo.org}

I'm starting with a goal of 30,000 words. However, I'm seriously considering lowering that, because I have so many other responsibilities keeping me busy.

Priorities are no fun. Look what order mine are in:

1. Getting caught up in schoolwork
2. Doing OK on all my midterms this week
3. Exercise
4. Settling into the new city
5. Staying ontop of my Shoppe
6. Writing

Family time gets to trump all of that, since we've had so little family time while we were trying to move. My parents are trying to convince me that "cleaning up" belongs at place #4 or 5. And sometime in there I need to sleep.

I'm still not prepared... But at least I have a plot. I am working on my novel Colored Eyes, which I planned out over the summer for the Inkling's Resolve. Unfortunately, the Resolve kind of dissolved after a couple of months, right about the time that I became insanely busy with life.

I found a fun plot and make character sketches... I scribbled down 5 pages of notes...

September came around and all my friends on the Fairy Tale Forum started getting hyped for NaNoWriMo. I loved my Colored Eyes story and wanted to do NaNoWriMo, but knew I was too busy.

I found the Young Writer's Program, and on one fateful October day signed away all my free time. (I mean, I'm still free to quit. But that would be giving me guilty free time. :D )

I did no planning in October. There's something called life and it happens and keeps you from having days of free time. I DID review my notebook, however.


And now it is November! I've been writing during most of my free time (I have writer's block/headache at the moment, which is why I am posting on my blog.) I'm behind because of my first couple days.... I'm seriously concerned about how to advance the plot...


But it's all great. Someday I'll have a novel to show for it.

(Oh, and did you know that my 9-almost-10-year-old-brother is doing the YWP, too? His goal is 2,000 words [aLOT for him] and he is writing about him being the youngest astronaut to go into space. His story is very, very awesome. I'm trying to convince him that I need to be an alien princess who kidnaps him for ransom. He's still thinking about it.)

And the Winner is...

The winner of my blog's very first giveaway is Jessie. Congrats, Jessie! 
{ Check out her blog here-- she has some very creative crafts and has used some of my tutorials! }


Thank you to everyone who entered! I was especially touched by all the loverly comments you left about my blog... You made my day!

 Allow me to quote R.A.'s beautiful comment:

"My favorite thing about your blog is that is so inspiring to see a teenager making such beautiful and well-crafted things!... Because we live in an age where people will settle for ugly, badly made things because it's easier that way, it's so great to see someone making beautiful quality art! It inspires me to work harder at my crafting. :)"

Needless to say, that made me very happy. By the way, have you seen R.A.'s blogs? She has a beautiful medley of { poetry } and { paintings }.


For those who didn't win-- Don't worry! I'll be doing another giveaway pretty soon. Time for a vote, though. Leave a comment suggesting the next giveaway item! You can suggest anything that you have seen on my blog. 

Jessie-- please leave a comment with your mailing info. I moderate my comments and promise not to publish it. If I do not hear from you within a week, I will pick a new winner.

Faerie Hair Clips

Here are some more fairy hair clips that I have made!

These were made for my friends at my Masquerade Party!

Click to enlarge

They took forever but are so fun.

I used up every clippie I owned-- and some of my sister's, too. :)

As I mentioned in a recent post, I am going to make a "gallery" of each design on that design's page, in order to keep my blog from being uber cluttered. 

Here is the gallery of "Fairy Hair Clips." Check back often for new clips! 

If I ever do a tutorial on this, it will be found on this page.

My original hair clip. See my old blog post HERE.

And again.

The second hair clip. See it's old post HERE.

Comic's Behind the Scenes

 I thought you might be interested in seeing what goes into the making of a Shea and Bergen comic. On the other hand, you might not care in the least, in which case you may go ahead and skip this post. :P

{Shea and Bergen is the comic I write for Ink and Fairydust magazine. It's about a fairy and a dwarf in the real world. I&F is a free e-mag full of faith and creativity, check it out!}



The first step is the hardest-- finding something to write the comic about. Something funny... unique... hopefully ties into the season or the theme of the issue... Yeah. Not easy.

Step two: Sketch it. This is my favorite part. Shea and Bergen is drawn in a semi-realistic style, the easiest for me to replicate month after month. ^_^ If I've got my idea picked out and the "boxes" organized in my head, then the sketch is sooo much fun.

Click to enlarge

Step three: Ink it and erase the pencil lines.

Click to enlarge

Step four is coloring the comic. This is where I usually ruin my drawing.... lol! I forgot to take a picture half-finished coloring. I use my little pack of artist markers (hard to use with limited colors!) and my favorite Prismacolor colored pencils.


Want to see what the finished comic looks like? Check out the November 2010 issue of Ink and Fairydust! 


My photograph is on the front cover, too! :D

{Look out for a post about this "NaNoWriMo" thing in a couple days!}

Support "The Shadow of the Bear Movie"

Click to go to the Fundraiser

Remember how I mentioned the "Shadow of the Bear Artfire Fundraiser" a little while ago?

Well, we reached the halfway mark and then things started to die. Elena, the director, really needs this software as quickly as possible in order to finish editing the film before the premeire this summer.

Here are a few of the items that I made for the fundraiser (click the images to go to the listings). 100% of the sale goes towards the movie!

Those three designs haven't made their way to my Shoppe yet... They would make perfect Christmas presents, and you'll be supporting a great film, besides. :) And making some die-hard fans very, very happy.

(Did you know that those earrings are handwoven out of silver plated jumprings? Such a special present for a friend, or even yourself!)

Check out the awesome things that other forum-ers have made:

Want to donate, but don't want to buy anything?

Go to "The Shadow of the Bear Official Movie Blog" and click the button the the left-hand side!

THANK YOU! It is because of YOU that this movie will become a reality by this summer!!!