We now have a Black Friday / Cyber Monday promotion going on at our Etsy Shop. Currently we are offering 25% off all our merchandise via a discount code at checkout.  Visit our store for more details.  Our sale will run through 12:00 AM EST on 11/23 to 12:00 AM on 11/27. Happy Holiday Shopping!

Week 22: Self Promotion Week!

Oh goodness, I am late as hell this week.  That's OK though, because this is the most time consuming week of all.  It was the dreaded website week!  I did finish all my projects by 9/16, I just haven't gotten a chance to post them until today because this is when I took them all live.  I didn't want to spoil the surprise!  Also, before I published them my backlinks would have led ya'll to nowhere.

So this week is the week of shameless self promotion.  I've been working on a lot of projects to maximize my "internet presence", mostly to get some traffic to my Etsy Shop, where I sell a variety of the handmade jewelry that is featured here on my blog.  Firstly, I created a Facebook Page for Mazikeen Studios.  You should totally like us!  Right now there's a very small number of fans, which means that when I start doing giveaways and promotions you'll have a better chance of winning something awesome.  <3  I usually post pictures of my creations, so here's a quick preview of our FB page!

That's one project down; the next project was to build a Mazikeen Studios Website!  This is going to be a place where I can update folks about upcoming craft show appearances, new jewelry collections, and other cool stuff I hope to be doing in the future.  It's also a place for me to collect and display all my designs in one place, with minimum rambling (unlike here, hehehe).  I also want to use it to promote some of the artists I love, which I do on my "Favorite Things" portion of the website.  I love giving shout outs to other folks in the craft community so if you'd like me to pimp your site, etsy store, or anything else just leave a comment and I'll be happy to do so!  There's also a shop bio to let people know who I am and where I'm coming from.  Quick picture previews are below:

Favorite Things Preview

Home Page Preview

Photo Gallery Preview

Shop Bio Preview

I'm counting each page as a project because I put a lot of time and effort into making each of them unique.  And that counts, right!  Right?  Also this is the first time I've ever done any web design, and I experimented with some out of the box photo alteration (at least for me) when making banners, icons, and other bits of each page.

In addition to all that, I also designed a business card for Mazikeen Studios:

Mazikeen Studios Business Card

Finally, there is the layout and format updates to this very blog!  We no longer look like a reject page from the days of Geocities.  We have a clean new layout, a new color scheme, and a few new widgets to play around with.  I'd include a picture of the final product, but you're looking at it now.  If you didn't see the old blog you'll have to take my word on the update as a project this week; I refused to keep any photographic evidence of the old blog around!  : )

I'll be back to my usual handmade jewelry and accessories crafting goodness next week.  : )  Thanks for stopping by!

Week 13: Birds of a Feather

This week is a celebration!  First, one of my Etsy shop's items trended hot on Wanelo for like a minute. I was very, very excited.  Then it sold!  This marks my very first Etsy sale.  Woohoo!  To celebrate, I decided to make the medium I used in the item my weekly theme.  And lucky for me, it was peacock feathers!  I'm super into peacock feather jewelry right now.  On to the show!

Peacock sword feathers under microscope slide glass, topped with a tattered silk bow.

Peacock eye feather in a glass locket.

Peacock eye feather and pheasant feather in bead cone on a long (29'') silver chain.

Fancy glass tube filled with peacock sword feathers, plus a rhinestone!  Am I in heaven or what?

Peacock sword feather pad (I think it was meant for a hair piece) with a button and a bail = a big funky necklace!

Peacock feathers in a bottle!  This time it actually turned out how it wanted it to; with all the feathers facing the same direction instead of getting all knotted up like in Bottle Week.  Success!

And peacock feathers in tiny little earring bottles!  Ok, I know the last two are really similar, and that's almost breaking a rule but I'm too excited right now to care!

Wanelo is pretty darn cool; it's like Pinterest but for shops and items for sale!  I imagine I'm going to use the hell out of it for christmas shopping this year.  Like Pinterest you can have groups, follow people, and gain a following yourself!  For anyone interested you can find me on Wanelo here, and Pinterest here.  That does it for this time, have a great week!