Creative Thoughts from CREATEaTHOUGHT

CREATEaTHOUGHT is the well-deserving featured EtsyBlogger of May. She offers a wide variety of handmade items to help you express your thoughts, as well as some cool vintage stuff.

A quote found in her profile pretty much sums up her shop:

"There are thousands of thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen and writes." ~William Makepeace Thackeray

Her unique journals provide you with a place to record your own personal thoughts, and her pins and rings display words and phrases so you can share your thoughts with everyone else!

ART Book Journal Kit

Imagine the Stars Ring

Check out her Etsy Shop and her Blog

Breaking the Chain

Remember back before email forwards, there were the dreaded chain letters? I personally did not receive too many, but I remember my mom would open one up and groan. "Send this to seven people, or else!" Snail mail chain letters... how retro.

I came across an article on Silcom.com, "Chain Letter Evolution," in which the author studies chain mail trends, and gives a little history. The author points out that prior to photocopiers, chain letters were typed or handwritten; can you imagine? (Of course, some of you probably can.) This led to misspellings, misprints, and variations of future chain letters.

In the era of internet and email, they are passed much more quickly with just a click of a button. Some electronic chain letters promise luck, wealth, or true love, but warn of eternal unhappiness for breaking the chain. I just take my chances and delete them all now, figuring if anybody is monitoring what lands in my private inbox and what I send to others, then I have more problems than I thought.

Since the birth of chain and spider email, an even newer internet chain has evolved - the blog meme. I've now been tagged "it" on two blog memes, twice. I feel guilty for breaking the meme chain, as my blog taggers thought enough of me to play. Instead just breaking the chain, I'm going to give my two recent taggers a little exposure, since they were kind enough to link to my blog in theirs!

On the topic of chain letters being somewhat retro, ironically so are my taggers!

TexasVintage tagged me passing on the Brillante Blog Award. Technically it was my first time being tagged with this title, but I had previously been tagged with the Primio Arte y Pico award, which is similar enough to make me not want to play again, plus I'm running out of friends to tag. TexasVintage is a fellow EtsyBloggers teammate, and has a beautiful blog, "Adventures in Vintage." There are a lot of cool vintage items in her Etsy shop, and as a child of the 80's I have a not-so-secret love of things from that decade - and nothing says 80s like a puff sleeves sweater dress! Check out her Vintage 80s St. John Knit Day Dress!


Another EtsyBlogging buddy, we'll call her HBIC for short, tagged me for a variation of a "seven things about me" meme, but this called for 14! Nobody wants to hear fourteen things about me, trust me. Want to guess what HBIC sells? Handmade retro kitchen items and other household things! I love the retro trapezoid mouse pad below. I found on her blog, "Home Deconomics," a link to another retro blog, "Trapped in the 80s Moms," which I now subscribe to.



Anyway, thanks TexasVintage and HBIC for thinking of me!

Project of the Month: January

Vintage Kelly Green Bracelet and Earrings

The idea for the linked bracelet with matching earrings came from my Bead Style Beading 2008 a project a month calendar. January's project is a Linked Garnet and Vermeil Bracelet and Earrings project that calls for vermeil jeweled links with garnets from Fire Mountain Gems (shown on the right). Each link, however, when buying in the small quantity that I would need, it would cost $7.36 per link, making it an expensive bracelet. I came across these vintage kelly green connectors from EpochBeads on Etsy. They are green glass with flecks of gold and white, held in a brass setting. EB helped me pick out some matching vintage brass jump rings as well.

I eagerly awaited the arrival of my purchase only to find out that my mail carrier was boycotting our mail delivery because the snow was not cleared to her liking. After my husband placed a complaint with the post office, my package arrived, along with 8 days worth of mail bills. I now make a point of turning the mailbox away at a 45^O angle to make her job more difficult.

I digress, back to the project of the month. I made a bracelet with the jump rings and vintage green glass connectors, as well as a pair of matching earrings. The earrings have the same vintage connectors with green fire polish givre beads on wire. I posted the listing this afternoon and the bracelet sold in a record 15 minutes. The earrings are now lonely and would like to be bought as well. (hint hint)