Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Glassredefined Giveaway

This giveaway is sponsored by the fantastic artist, Kim Novak of Glassredefined and KimCreative.

Kim has designed three beautiful pieces as prizes for this contest. Here are they are!





1st Place: Painted sea glass with Sterling Silver wire wrapping


2nd Place: Glass and Sterling Silver pendant


3rd Place: Glass and Sterling Silver earrings



Entering is easy. Visit both of Kim's shops, then come back here and leave a comment with your favorite item from each shop. If you comment on 1 shop, you get 1 entry. If you comment on both shops, you will get two entries.

Earn Bonus Entries!
*Earn 1 bonus entry: Sign up for my newsletter. If you have already signed up for it, just leave a comment here letting me know and you will get the bonus entry.

*Earn 1 bonus entry: Follow this blog! Leave a post here letting me know you are a follower.

*Earn 2 bonus entries: Blog about this giveaway! Then come back here and leave a comment with a link to your blog post.

*Earn 3 bonus entries: Make a purchase from Glassredefined and/or KimCreative. Come back here and leave a comment with the link to your transaction. Please tell her in check out that Raevyn sent you :D

This contest is open to everyone, you do not have to be in the US to enter. June 30th will be the last day to enter, and I will draw the winner on July 1st.

Etsy Featured Artist - glassredefined and KimCreative

Well I think it is about time for me to once again feature a fantastic Etsy artist. I actually met this artist on my Etsy Trade-a-holics team. Glassredefined is the name of her shop, and she specializes in hand painted and wire wrapped sea glass jewelry. Here are just two examples of her fantastic work!





She also just opened a supply shop called KimCreative. She really has some great things in the supply shop, and of course I am a total supply addict!

After spending a long time browsing through Kim's shops, I decided to ask her to answer a few questions for me, so I could do a feature on her. Here are the questions, and her answers.

Info
Name: Kim Novak
Age (if you don't mind): 44
Where do you live?: Pasadena, MD

You have two shops on Etsy. Please tell us about both of them:
My first and primary shop is Glassredefined.
Glassredefined is a creative glass jewelry business. Hand discovered seaglass is finely painted, then wrapped and designed in solid sterling silver or 14k gold filled wire. Handmade artisan glass is defined in quality wire as well.
Glassredefined recycles seaglass “gems” our local beaches deposit, promoting and supporting a clean environment .Recycled paper mailers are used in shipping these redefined works of art.

My secondary shop is KimCreative
KimCreative is a creative supplies shop, which at times will .also feature completed projects that a family member or myself have created, as well as the occasional antique. This shop was implemented to reduce, reuse and recycle, so that many may creatively express, both economically and responsibly. I recycle all shipping supplies from both shops back through this one.

What inspires you most?
Nature, I am in awe of the world around me, the textures, color, movement and abundance of life, which God created, deeply inspire me. Art is my passion.

What do you do in your spare time?
I paint in acrylics and watercolors, drink coffee, read and share pizza Goldfish with my Golden Retriever~Leo. I am also very active on the Creative Design Team of my local church .

Tell us a little known fact about you.
Green has ALWAYS been my favorite color. Even as a three year old, when other little girls liked pink and said green was yucky, it didn’t phase me. Always and forever a lover of the color green, that’s me!

Do you have a favorite piece? If you have pictures of it (or them), please show us!
I have two favorite pieces. This hand blown Peace Rondelle, and my Signature Waves piece, which is also my Avatar. I wear each of these around all the time, just not together :)








What are you working on now?
I am currently designing a Monochromatic Wave Series of pendants, to be introduced in my Etsy Shop, during the month of July. The designs will be painted on white seaglass and be similar to the piece featured in my Avatar. This line will showcase in the following four categories:
* Aqua ~ blues
* Mist ~ greens
*Coral ~ reds
*Twilight ~ black/grey
I am really excited about it!

Do you sell anywhere besides Etsy? Where?
In addition to Etsy, I sell locally at various art/music vendor events, and upscale home jewelry shows .


Do you twitter, flickr, facebook, blog..or anything else where people can follow you
or see more of you? Please feel free to list all of you "social networking" addresses
and websites.

I have a Glassredefined Facebook page, where I invite you to become a fan!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Glassredefined/55156566582?ref=ts
I do not twitter, flickr or have a blog as of yet, but a blog is something I hope to design in the near future!

SimplyRaevyn Gift Certificate WInner

Hello folks! The winner for the $25 gift certificate, good in any of my 3 shops, is Lily! Congrats Lily! And thank you to everyone for entering my contest. I have the next contest all ready to go, and it is a fantastic one. So stay tuned!

Monday, June 8, 2009

Etsy Promotion Project

Make sure to enter my giveaway! Click here.

Howdy! I decided that I want to blog a bit about a promotion project that I have been working on for almost a year now. I do a lot of shopping on Etsy, and I noticed I was really starting to accumulate a lot of business cards from other Etsy sellers. I did not want them to go to waste, so I made a business card sized envelope and I taped a note to it that said:
~ Promote Etsy, Pass it On ~
Add your card; take the one(s) you want
and send this out with your next order!
Let’s promote Etsy and each other!!

Then I filled the envelope with the business cards, and I sent it out with an order. It reminded me a lot of when I was a teenager. I had LOTS of penpals. We were all heavy metal fans, and would pass along these little books called friendship books. They were just pages of names and addresses, then the favorite bands of people. If you saw someone with the same bands you liked, you wrote to them! It was fun, and so addicting! So I decided I wanted to do this business card idea on a bigger envelope.

I posted in the forums asking people to send me their business cards, and the response was huge! And to make a long story short (too late!) I have been at it ever since. I love to do it. And I know that some of the envelopes have led to sales for Etsy sellers, which really makes me smile.

A while ago I came across a Yahoo group called the Etsy Business Card Trading Group. I joined up. It is such a great way to get business cards from people, as well as getting my cards out there. There is not a lot of time involved in the group. There is a database with the names and addresses of the members, and you send cards to the ones you want to send to. Of course there is a message board and stuff if you want to say hi, or make a special request. Recently the owner of the group had to step down because of personal obligations, and I was made the owner. I love being in this group. Since I found Etsy, I have promoted it to everyone I know. And I love doing it at this larger level, if that makes any sort of sense.

Wow that ended up a lot longer than I thought it would! Summary: Promote each other! More buyers coming to Etsy is good for all of us. If you want to get involved with disbursing business cards and having yours disbursed as well, join the yahoo group! Or you can just message me for my address so that you can send me your cards :) I send out TONS of cards, and I love to do it.

***********************************

Make sure to enter my giveaway! Click here.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Simply Raevyn Blog Giveaway

The winner of this contest wins a $25 gift certificate, good in any of my three shops.

Entering is easy! Simply go to one of my three shops, and leave a comment here with a link to one of your favorite items and why you like it. My shops are:
Raevyn77
SimplyRaevyn
PeculiarParchment
If you leave a comment about one of my shops, you get 1 entry. Two shops, two entries, etc. There is a maximum of three entries for this portion of the contest.

Earn Bonus Entries!
*Earn 1 bonus entry: Sign up for my newsletter. If you have already signed up for it, just leave a comment here letting me know and you will get the bonus entry.

*Earn 2 bonus entries: Blog about this giveaway! Then come back here and leave a comment with a link to your blog post.

*Earn 3 bonus entries: Make a purchase from one of my three shops. Come back here and leave a comment with the link to your transaction.

This contest is open to everyone, you do not have to be in the US to enter. June 15th will be the last day to enter, and I will draw the winner on June 16th.

I won!

I am so excited! I enter a lot of blog contests, although I have to admit my hopes are never high that I will win. But last week, I did win!! And the prize was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S! I won a large bear hug cookie from lorisplace!



The cookie really was yummy, and who doesn't need a great big bear hug once in awhile? I wish I had a picture of the exact cookie I received, but I am afraid I had eaten an entire leg before I realized I should have taken a picture of the cookie for my blog. And I did not want to expose you all to that kind of carnage :p Although my cookie was very similar to the above cookie.

I am going to try more of the goodies from lorisplace, and I really think you all should to!

May Giveaway Winners Announced

Well that's it, my big May giveaway is over! The response was huge! I really want to take the time to thank all of the people that entered, and took the time to look at some of my favorite shops.

Now, what you have all been waiting for. The winners! All entries were written on a piece of paper and placed in a shoebox. Last night, my fiance Paul pulled the winners from the box. And here they are....

First place goes to Salad for Breakfast!

Second place goes to glassredefined!

Third place goes to Mia!

I will be contacting each winner about their prize package :) I am really excited about these prizes, the packages ended up much bigger and better than I had imagined.

Again, thank you to all that entered! I will be posting the next giveaway later on today.