A Celebrity Question for you…

What does this list of amazing Hollywood Celebrities all have in common with Luster Metal Works?

1. Jeremy Piven

2. Tom Hanks

3. Bill Maher

4. Adrian Grenier

5. Kate Bosworth

6. P!nk

7. Leonardo DiCaprio

8. Dave Matthews

9. Rosario Dawson

10. Woody Harrelson

11. Julia Louis-Dreyfus

12. Daryl Hannah

13. Drew Barrymore

14. Ellen DeGeneres

15. Orlando Bloom

16. Jake Gyllenhaal

17. Josh Hartnett

18. Sting

19. Barbra Streisand

20. Alicia Silverstone

21. Courteney Cox

22. Cameron Diaz

23. KT Tunstall

24. Mark Ruffalo

25. Edward Norton

 

I’ll  let you speculate and guess until Tomorrow morning when I reveal the answer.  For those of you who already know, please don’t spoil the surprise!!!

 

XOXOX

Susan

Exterminating the Clutter Bug and Reclaiming my Home.

As part of my jewelry making I like to feature copper that was reclaimed from my house…but lately I have been so focused on developing my jewelry business and growing it to the next level that I have neglected my home.  With 2 young boys and a husband, it has been all I can do to keep up with the daily necessities of laundry, shopping, cooking, cuddling and the light cleaning to keep chaos under control. 

For those of you who know me, I am not a clutter person, I guess that is one reason why my jewelry designs are often not very fussy.  It is a true reflection of who I am.  Heck, I can’t concentrate if I have more on my desk than my 5 main item groupings; computer / mouse, light, paper / pen, cup of tea, and item I am working on.  Yes I know a little anal, but it keeps me focused and more importantly relaxed.

Well I have been feeling quite overwhelmed and directionless lately and I realized it was because the clutter bug has snuck into my home.  It happens so very fast.  So I decided to begin to tackle it.  I know from experience that if I don’t define segmented areas to focus on directly I get overwhelmed with the scope of the entire project.  So I decided I wanted to focus on my bedroom.  My thought is that if I have a clutter free space to begin and end my days I will be a much more peaceful person.

Of course I didn’t take before photos.  It didn't even occur to me that the transformation would be as dramatic as it was.  But I do have one photo to share with you, the mountain of trash and Goodwill donations I eliminated from my room!  WOW…I had no clue I had so much stuff squirrelled in there.  So I will make my way thru all of the rooms in my house to see how much stuff I can eliminate from my life that I do not need and the stuff I do not want. 

I would love it if you all shared with me some of your ways to fight the clutter bug on a daily basis…and even what you do when it comes to big purging jobs like this! 

Luster goes Golden!

This year I was able to participate in the GBK Golden Globes Celebrity Gift Lounge as part of The Artisan Groups Celebrity SWAG Bag and Photo Lounge display. 

I had a selection of 5 copper cuffs from my Copper Tones Collection on display for the celebrities to look at and pose with for photos.

Included in the SWAG Bag for Celebrities and selected members of the press was my Interlaced Circles Copper cuff.

Are you curious as to what celebrities attended?  Well here is the list!  Over the next week I will be sharing some photos from the event….especially the photos of who I have trying out my items!

1. Ali Fedotowsky
2. Alicia Witt
3. Amanda Righetti
4. Angus T. Jones
5. Anthony Anderson
6. Anastassija Makarenko
7. Bailee Madison 
8. Barrett Foa
9. Beau Willimon
10. Ben Schwartz
11. Beth Riesgraf
12. Betsy Brandt
13. BooBoo Stewart
14. Callie Thorne
15. Camille Grammar
16. Candace Cameron Bure
17. Carly Craig
18. Cheryl Burke
19. Chris McDonald
20. Chris Noth
21. Christopher Heyerdahl
22. Connor Paolo
23. Cynthia Addai Robinson
24. Damian Lewis
25. Damian McGinty
26. David Banner
27. Dot-Marie Jones
28. Eden Sher
29. Elizabeth McGovern
30. Eric Stonestreet
31. Erica Durance
32. Gabriel Mann
33. Garrett Backstrom
34. Helen McCrory
35. Hill Harper 
36. India De Beaufort
37. Iqbal Theba
38. Janina Gavankar
39. Jason Isaacs
40. Jason Olive
41. Jennifer Love Hewitt
42. Jennifer Carpenter
43. Jeremy Irons
44. Jessica Parker Kennedy
45. Jim Rash
46. Joe Mantegna
47. Josh Sussman
48. Julie Benz
49. Karina Smirnoff 
50. Kathryn Joosten
51. Katie Leclerc
52. Kristi Lauren
53. Lana Parrilla
54. Lauren Bowles
55. Leslie David Baker
56. Mark Feuerstein
57. Mayim Bialik
58. Melissa Rauch
59. Mickey Rourke
60. Mireille Enos
61. Morena Baccarin
62. Nat Faxon
63. Natasha Henstridge
64. Nick Wechsler
65. Pat O’Brien
66. Rachael Crow
67. Raphael Sbarge
68. Reno Wilson 
69. Reshma Shetty
70. Rex Lee
71. Raini Rodriguez
72. Rico Rodriguez
73. RJ Mitte
74. Samantha Harris
75. Sarah Drew
76. Sasha Pieterse
77. Shailene Woodley 
78. Shanola Hampton
79. Steven Yeun
80. Thomas Gibson
81. Thomas Jane
82. Tinsel Korey
83. Tony Denison
84. Zach Woods

Cuff and Cari

I wonder what Cari Cucksey of the HGTV show “Cash and Cari” and owner of the wonderful shop RePurpose is searching for?

I think she is looking for the perfect container to use as a display for her new reclaimed Copper and Laborite cuff bracelet from Luster.

Starting this spring, I will be adding a line of wire wrapped and elegantly adorned bracelets and cuffs in my shop!  I have a feeling you will see a version of the “Cari Cuff” there!

Luster: On the road to the Golden Globes Gift Lounge

I’m excited to announce the Luster Metal Works, in association with The Artisan Group, will be featured on January 13-14, 2012 at a luxury Gift Lounge hosted by GBK Productions at the L'Ermitage Hotel in Beverly Hills,
California, in honor of the 2012 Golden Globes Nominees and Presenters. 

Over the next few weeks I will be giving you an inside look at what it took to make the 100+ bracelets that will be featured in the celebrity SWAG bags and press boxes.  The five cuffs featured in the photo above will be on display at the gift lounge for the celebrities to pose with in their promotional photos.  I wonder who I will have the privilege of having photographed with my items?

I hope you will join me on this exciting adventure!

Luster is getting a little “Big Love”

I wonder what Ginnifer Goodwin is daydreaming about?

I bet she is wondering when she is going to receive this lovely earring and cuff set that she is going to get from Luster as part of a gift bag coming from The Artisan Group.

“HOPE” goes High Profile!

So why is Giuliana DePandi Rancic so happy in this photo?

Well that is because she just received the perfect necklace to go with her dress…courtesy of Luster!

The necklace is a handcrafted Awareness Ribbon with the word “HOPE” hand stamped onto it.  It is hung on  a18” sterling silver chain. It is a simple yet powerful necklace that is a wonderful gift for anyone who has “Hope” that the cause that they believe in will someday be cured.

I am a member of a juried group that has the privilege of being asked to provide items for high profile events and gifts to high profile people.  One of the recent gift bags was a get well bag of sorts for Giuliana to cheer her up post procedure for her lumpectomy.  I am also working on another high profile gift as well as items to go into not only 1 but 2 celebrity events…they are pretty major and more will come on that soon!

Spinner Ring with a twist…

One of the things I love most about making jewelry is the lives you touch and the stories you become part of.  I have a friend who wanted a special item for her mom’s birthday as a gift from the “kids” but didn’t know what they wanted, she only knew she wanted it to be really special and symbolic but not cutesy. 

After talking to her a bit we determined a ring would best fit her moms personality and jewelry preferences.  But then we had to come up with an idea of how to make something special and symbolic without it being too literal.  At a glance it would be a lovely piece of jewelry , but if you were part of the “circle” you would know what it meant.

As luck would have it, each of the siblings have different hair colors; red, black, and blond.  So we thought a spinner ring with 3 different material bands representing each sibling would be perfect.  It would show that the group is a family unit but each is an individual free to rotate as they wish, but the mom (the band) it what holds them all together.

I was very pleased with the outcome and wanted to share it with you!  Their mom’s birthday is next week, and I am anxious to hear if she cries or not when she opens the gift and hears the story….What do you think? 

Don’t forget if you want a special something for a special someone, just send me an email and I will help you create the perfect gift!

Drum Roll Please….

 

And the 5 lucky random winners for my copper ring giveaway are:

Adrienne Hooker

Jennifer Roberts

Christine Cunningham

Kristen Umbaugh

Carly McCrory

Congrats to all of you!  Be sure to email me your addresses so I can send you your copper ring!

Happy Halloween!

It seems as if people have very definite opinions about Halloween…they like or dislike it.  Which side of the fence are you on?

I really enjoy Halloween, and now with 2 little kids in my life I enjoy it more.  One of the main reasons I enjoy Halloween is because it is my Birthday in a few days.  But I also just enjoy the creative aspect of the holiday….the daydreaming about what to dress up as, the decorating, the pumpkin carving. 

I am proud to say that my oldest son, James (5), has been really showing signs of great creativity this Halloween season.  I let him be in charge of all the decorating and he had a blast…I cannot wait to see what he will come up with in years to come as his skills develop!  One of the items he came up with is a fun pumpkin to enter into the pumpkin decorating contest at his school.  The rules are no cutting, no carving and no electronics, and yes a pumpkin or gourde must be the feature element.  So immediately James knew what he wanted…a “peek-a-boo” pumpkin!  

So here I present to you, our “Peek-a-boo” pumpkin for the pumpkin decorating contest!  Not too shabby for a kindergartener, but I am a bit biased of course.

 

 

 

PS…Don’t forget that on Nov. 2 I will be drawing 5 lucky winners who will each receive a copper ring in honor of my 500 sale on Etsy!  Check out the Blog Post to see how you can enter!

“If You Give a Cat a Cupcake” kind of a day…

For those of you with small kids in your life, you are probably familiar with the silly antics in the book “If You Give Cat a Cupcake” by Laura Numeroff.  For those who don’t know that book…If you give a cat a cupcake, he'll ask for some sprinkles to go with it. When you give him the sprinkles, he might spill some on the floor. Cleaning up will make him hot, so you'll give him a bathing suit . . . the antics continue throughout the day and finally you end up back at home, giving a cat a cupcake.

I find that I occasionally have days like that where you are so busy all day long but in the end you are just where you began again…well sort of.  For me it was if you give a kid a pancake…then I somehow knocked the spatula behind the stove.  So then I have to get it which requires me pulling out the stove…and I see all of the nasty dust bunnies and other goodies that collect under the stove, so then I wonder what is behind the fridge…and while I am at it I might as well just really give the whole kitchen a good cleaning and mopping, especially since I live in a 110+ year old house nestled amongst the cornfields and it is harvest season (meaning it is loosing battle with the dust right now).  And then I decided if I am doing this why don’t I try to re-arrange the kitchen a bit…and so on.

Now here is it now evening, I have a spotless kitchen, but I still have 2 kids who want their pancakes…breakfast for dinner anyone?  I do have to admit, knowing that my Kitchen is scrubbed clean is a good feeling…maybe tomorrow I will scrub my bathroom too...or maybe not!

 

500th Sale Giveaway!

Today marks a very special day in my Etsy selling History….I have made my 500th sale!  Whoo Hoo!  Sound the trumpets, imagine confetti and balloons exploding all around you!
In honor of this special milestone I decided to do a giveaway.  Sale #500 was a copper ring.  In honor of that I will be randomly giving away 5 copper rings to 5 lucky people!  (plus I thought that sorta went with the fact that I am gearing up for holiday sales, and 5 is the number of rings needed in the 12 days of Christmas…okay so them may be 5 golden rings…mine are copper.  Who knows maybe when I hit 5000 sales I can splurge and do 5 golden rings )
Okay so it is simple to enter…All you need to do is leave a comment on this blog with 2 things….1  what size ring do you wear, and 2. what texture do you like?  Easy Peasy!  I will have a random Drawing on my birthday, Nov 2, 2011 at noon my time (Central), to determine who the lucky winners are.  The textures available are:

Coral Reef:

Fluted: 

Hash Mark:

Slate: 

Tree Bark:

Smooth: 

Fall into Autumn

Time flies when you are having fun….or chasing after kids, schlepping them to school and back, or soccer practices, or any of those many things that a mothers life seems to be filled with. 

It seems that creative time has been put on the back burner lately. 

Happily I can say, I have managed to carve out some time to make new items for the fall.  So I will be sharing them with you over the next weeks.

One of my first items I would like to share is a fun basket weave pattern on copper.  The collection includes cuffs, necklaces, earrings and bookmarks!

Here is a little sample for you! They should all be making their debut over in my Etsy Shop and on my website soon!  Enjoy!

Flowers for the Ladies

Running a business that is predominantly e-commerce based can make you feel like you are in a bit of a bubble at times.  It is especially so when you live out in rural America where houses are scattered about 1 every mile.  The other day one of my “neighbors” called me up to ask if I could be a guest speaker for the the Women's Club meeting she was in charge of hosting.  I was very flattered that she thought that my “hobby” was something that the ladies would like to hear about.  But even more exciting it was allowing me a chance to speak to women in my community that may have a connection to my house in some way. 

My husband and I bought our house in the country about 7 years ago as a major fixer upper project of passion.  It had been occupied by members of the Tighe family since it was built around the turn of the last century, but in recent years started to require more care than the family could give.  Being in a rural farming community, many people have close ties to the Tighes, and the Fairmount Women’s Club is no exception.  One of their former beloved members, Betsy (Tighe) Torbit, who unfortunately departed too soon, was born and raised in my house.  Ironically it was the renovations of the house that lead me to my hobby by supplying me with the reams of copper I use in many of me creations. 

 

 

I thought it was only proper to bring a Thank You gift to the ladies of the Fairmount Women’s Club for allowing me to speak to them about who I am and what I do (plus let me escape from the responsibilities of being mommy for an evening).  What could be more appropriate than a fun flower doodle bookmark made from the copper wiring we removed from the Kitchen?  The evening was a success.  I met many wonderful women in my community, heard stories about the the Tighes,  and was able to learn about their charitable contributions to help those in our area, especially students, by raising funds for scholarships….one of which is in honor of Betsy Torbit.  Now I am inspired to find ways to join forces with them to help with fundraisers and events to further help support this great little community I am a part of. 

 

I am thinking of selling Flower Doodle Bookmarks with 100% of the proceeds going towards scholarship funds that the  Fairmount Women’s Club manage….

 

Spring Has Sprung!

Well it is official, Spring is here and the Farmers are in the fields all around us getting the fertile ground ready for planting.  In honor of good things to come from Mother Earth, I have made up some Copper Garden Markers.  You can customize them with any herb, flower, veggie, plant info you want.  They also make great table decorations or seat place markers at a garden party or shower.

 

 

Currently they are available in my Etsy Shop, and soon can be found on my website and at Shared Space Co-op.

Finding Direction

Lately I have been struggling to find the balance in being a mom, wife, and entrepreneur.  Everyone is getting jipped by how scattered I have been lately…but most importantly I have been unhappy.  Things have got to change.   

I came across this quote the other day:

“You don’t have to see the whole staircase. 

Just take the first step.” 

– Martin Luther King, Jr.

It seems to be fitting advice for me right now.  I feel as if I have so much I want to accomplish and I am getting pulled in so many directions and I feel so overwhelmed by it all and I don’t know where to start and how to focus.  I find myself falling prey of analysis paralysis trying to have the answer to it all and beating myself up because I don’t have the answers.  It is my analytical nature to be this way.  But I need to remind myself that I don’t need the answer to it all, I just need to have a direction to move in and the path will become apparent.  Some pieces of the puzzle will fit into place, some may need a little coaxing and others I may find do not fit at all….but I will never know unless I start.

But how do you start?  Do you take the path of least resistance, the path that is the most challenging, the one most exciting?  I have decided that my first step should be to start by removing things from my life that don’t make me happy and work on strengthening the things that do make me happy.  Sounds like time for a list…..   

I’m Still Here!

Well it has been busy and that is good.  What is not good is that the weather has been HORRIBLE.  It has been keeping my babysitters from getting here on the icy snow drifted roads.  Heck I have only seen the mailman about 50% of the time as well!  But I am still finding ways to keep up wit the Valentines day orders as well as creating new items.

Lately I have been obsessed with making jewelry items that are convertible and can be worn in more than one way.  I think today's woman would appreciate that kind of flexibility in her jewelry items, I sure know I do.  Here re a few lovelies I made that can be worn in 4 different ways depending on how your flip the charms.







Don't forget to keep an eye on new items in my Etsy Shop and on my website! 

A new year is upon us

Well some how 2011 is underway and I have not had time to say “Hello!”.  I am still stuck focused fully on 2010.  It seems that I had about 4 packages go missing in the mail this holiday season so I had to play catch-up and re-make those items instead of working on new work as I had hoped.  The the dreaded 2010 End of Year accounting had to be done.  That entails taking inventory of all that material I still have in stock and making sure my business checking account register is fully reconciled.  No small feat considering you have to do funny accounting stuff if you use any personal money to pay for business stuff.  Oh well!
I have finally finished up with 2010 and am ready to welcome 2011.  What does that mean?  Well first I need to make some of those new items that are swirling around in my head and get them photographed!  Second, I have to re-evaluate my shop offering and the prices.  The cost of silver has doubled since I last ordered supplies….that is major.  Third I need to figure out how to better balance being a mom, a wife, an artist, a shop slave, a shipping department, a customer service department, a PR and marketing person, an accountant, a photographer, a cook, a maid, and myself.  It is a lot to juggle and I feel as if I am successfully accomplishing anything.  SO bear with me as I try to figure all of this out…

You asked for it…Ring Engraving is Here!

I have been getting soooooo many requests for inside ring engraving that I decided to offer that service.  The following are the font dials I currently have.  After the holiday rush I will take some time and make ring samples with the fonts for you, but for now I can at least share the 6 font dials I have with you!

The Hebrew Font Dial:

The Fancy Script Font Dial:

:

The Greek Font Dial:

The Modern Block Font Dial:

The Modern Script Font Dial:

The Script Font Dial:

‘Tis' the Season!

Many of my friends have asked me what would be a good gift to give to co-workers, friends, holiday hostesses gifts, and for teachers.  I always find homemade ornaments to be great catch all gifts!  So I decided to make a nice set of holiday ornaments that look like Snowflakes…or stars…or flowers…whatever it is you see in it. 
They are made from reclaimed copper and aluminum and hung onto handmade copper hooks.  I made the hooks dark so that they would almost disappear in the greenery of the tree or garland that they are hung on and let the ornament take center stage.  Each ornament is about 2” in diameter.
You can buy the ornaments in person at Shared Space in Urbana, Illinois or via my Etsy website.  They come in packs f 6 ornaments and you can choose from either all copper, all aluminum or a 50/50 mix of copper and aluminum!  They all come in a gift box with a festive ribbon tied around the box, ready for gift giving!