Craft Fairs + Giveaway + Threaded Chains in Fundraisers

Hey everyone! It's been my goal to try and write a new blog post every Sunday but as you can see I haven't exactly met that goal. LOL! Things were extraordinarily hectic the week leading up to my first craft show in March. Afterward I had a complete burnout for the majority of that month. But I'm working hard now at trying to get my name out there again and have been busy searching out more shows to attend. :)

Threaded Chains Giveaway

Let me first start with some big news. I reached my goal of 400 Facebook fans just two weeks ago! Since then I've gained an additional 50+ followers and as I promised on my page I am hosting a giveaway to celebrate!

The catch is that you must be a Threaded Chains FB fan in order to be eligible to win. I will award up to 3 prizes depending on the amount of entries. If there are less than 10 only one winner will be chosen. If I get 10 or more  there will be 3 prizes awarded. :)

Hop on over to the Threaded Chains FB Page to read up on the rules. The giveaway starts Monday April 29th and ends on Friday May 4th!

Auctions & Donations from Threaded Chains

Sometime before my March craft show I was contacted by the New Jersey Passaic County CASA organization. They wanted me to donate some of my jewelry to their Tricky Tray & Dinner fundraiser that will be held June 11th (a Tuesday). I gladly accepted and I will be donating about $50 worth of jewelry to the Tricky Tray. If you live in or near Passaic County in northern New Jersey and are interested in attending this fundraiser please head over to the Passaic County CASA website for information. Tickets are $40 but the money goes to a great cause. You get a full sheet of raffle tickets, a special door prize ticket, and also dinner for the admittance fee. My jewelry will be in a basket all on it's own so please be certain to check it out! :)

Rosie the Cat's Fundraiser Auction:

Lastly for fundraisers I stumbled on a post in my news feed on FB the other day. Through one of my fellow crafters I found out about a beautiful tortoiseshell 4 month old cat named Rosie. She has luxating patella (a rare condition for cats where the knee caps rotate out of place) which can cause pain and in Rosie's condition will eventually lead to her losing both of her back legs at some point in her life. To prevent this there is a surgery that costs $3,000 PER leg. Being an animal lover I am going to be donating several items to an Auction being held by Rosie's owner on a FB page made specifically for Rosie's cause. The auction will be held on Rosie's FB page Wednesday May 15th through Sunday of the same week.

Please click on the below links to donate to Rosie's cause, attend the auction, or just to get more information:

Rosie's Auction Event page

Rosie's FB Page

The Auction Folder (This is where the items will be up for you to bid on starting May 15th)

Rosie's Auction Group (This is a group ONLY for people donating items to the auction, you must join to see information on donating)

Craft Fairs

Last but not least I have been super busy trying to find new craft shows to attend in my area. I found a lot but I have to tidy up some things for my business before I can attend them. However, that hasn't stopped me from scouting out venues in the meantime. :)

Today I went to the Adorno Father's Fair in Ramsey, NJ (in Northern Jersey in Passaic County). I wasn't sure what to expect because this venue has both Crafters/Artists, Re-sellers, and Antique sellers. I met so many fellow crafters though and made a few purchases. I had so much fun doing some in person networking and exchanging my business cards when appropriate of course. ;)

Most of the handmade sellers I spoke with told me this was their first time at the show but one did tell me she was informed from other vendors that they do very well at this particular show. I hope to be a part of it in October but if not I'll at least attend as a customer and check out the tables and maybe meet some new friends again.

My purchases for the day came from one lovely seller who redecorates recycled bottles with gorgeous stones, shells, and pebbeles for a nifty upcycled vase or shelf decoration. She also had these smooth, oval somewhat flat stones drawn on with stained glass paint. There were a few tiny ones that I couldn't resist snatching up. They had some inspirational things written/drawn on them that I just had to have. I also made a purchase from Soaps for a Cause, a nice girl and guy were attending the booth selling handmade all natural soaps. A portion of their proceeds goes to helping Uganda get clean water and help with sanitation issues. As well the little info card that comes with the soap is loaded with real seedlings. You just wet the paper, plant it, and herbs will grow. I love eco friendly! :D I bought a bar for my mother, who came to the event with me, as an early Mother's Day gift since she loves gardening. We have no idea what herbs will grow but we can't wait to see!

My last purchase was from two women attending a booth selling hot sauce. The one woman's son and the other's daughter started this little business called Heartbreaking Dawns. They were letting people sample the hot sauces on display and being a lover of spicy food I had to try it. I came back before I left the fair and bought their second hottest blend. It's made with ghost pepper and I can't wait to make buffalo chicken with it! Check out the Heartbreaking Dawns website for more info on their hot sauces. :)

Upcoming Fairs for Threaded Chains:

I have lined up one more show so far! I will definitely be attending the Lionshead Lake Arts/Crafts Fair in Wayne, NJ on May 4th. The show starts at 9 am and ends at 4 pm. If you live in or around Passaic County NJ please stop by and say hello! There is also going to be a Garage sale held the same day at the same location. So far there looks to be approximately 7 Crafts vendors with a total of 20 "booths" total including the garage salers. I hope to see you there! :) Checkout the Lionshead Lake website for information or directions.


That's all for now. I will keep everyone posted on any future events I attend. I also hope to be showcasing some sellers that I get to meet from these events. :)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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Last Minute Valentines Gifts Part 2

 Okay and here we go, part two! Please enjoy these lovely treasuries. I had so much fun looking for ones to feature. I found a bunch of new shops to watch as well!

Warning: This page is GRAPHICALLY HEAVY. There are 5 treasuries to load. Please be patient. It may take a minute or two to finish loading.







In order to feature all these great treasuries I used a Craft Cult widget maker. It was SUPER helpful in making really short codes that didn't clog up my text box when writing this blog entry and making relatively small but still easily seen Treasury images. Want to make your own treasury previews? Check out the Craft Cult Treasury Tab. It's super easy!

Craft Shows and Donations

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day! I meant to have part 2 of my V-Day treasuries posted but I'd never used the scheduling feature with blogspot before. Silly me didn't know I had to hit the publish button....I scheduled it to post for tomorrow, February 18th. It will be late but better late than never right?

Anyway I've been prepping very hard for a craft show I'll be attending on March 2nd. I have never been to one before so I'm working very hard to get new items made. The show was originally supposed to be in November of last year, but because of Hurricane Sandy and the destruction it wrecked in New Jersey (and the fact there were so many trees and power lines down) the show was postponed to March 2nd.

It's going to be a tiny venue with only about 20 vendors including myself. It's right here in my hometown so it will be so nice getting the chance to get my feet wet so to speak without having to be far from home or having a huge show to worry about. I've got 2 weeks left for my preparations...I'm so nervous!

If anyone lives in or around the Wayne, New Jersey area and is familiar with the Packanack Lake area of Wayne, the show is being hosted at the Packanack Lake Club House. I'll be posting up the actual address and street name on my Facebook so if anyone is interested in attending or coming by to see me please watch my Facebook page for that post.


In other news I've been contact by the New Jersey Passaic County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children organization. They'd like for me to donate some of my jewelry to their tricky tray. Once my craft show is over and I can have a chance to recuperate from that I'll be making up a nice basket for them to raffle off for their show. It is a dinner and a tricky tray so for $40 you get both dinner and a sheet of raffle tickets to put into the baskets. My shop name and web address will be printed on all the pamphlets they hand out and I've gotten permission to include a stack of my business cards for them to put on the table next to my basket. I'm going to be trying to make some jewelry sets for my basket or some one of a kind mixed pieces, maybe even a little of both, to put into my donation.

If you live in the Northern New Jersey area and are interested in attending the event you can e-mail Crosby at crosby@passaiccountycasa.org. It's still very early yet so I don't think they have picked the venue but I can tell you that the date for this is June 11th of this year, a Tuesday.

That's all for now! I hope everyone is enjoying their three day weekend. :) For my next blog I think I'll do a nice little feature or something. (I love having an excuse to poke around on Etsy for neat things).

Have a great week everyone!