Etsy Love: Parish Relics

One day while hunting down some stained glass pieces for a different blog post I was writing, I stumbled across Parish Relics and was very pleased with what they had to offer: gorgeous medieval inspired jewelery pieces made with real stained glass and gorgeously textured and finished polymer clay! While maintaining an air of rough and almost primitive antiques, the pieces are also meticulously constructed and perfectly finished. I actually thought these were made with real metal at first!

I've been thinking about these pieces ever since I saw them! I think pieces like this could easily be worked into any outfit to add a little bit of romance!

For the Love of Unicorns: An Etsy Treasury

Have I ever told you I love unicorns? I love them pretty much indiscriminately. From the bad ass stab-every-one-who-gets-in-my-way Medieval ones, to the glittery pink rainbow and dreams ones, to the somewhere-in-the-middle tacky 1970's ones that are so often found decoupaged and shellacked onto slices of wood ones. Recently, I was lurking around the local Goodwill when I saw an older woman walk by with a huge wooden picture/clock of the 1970's variety featuring unicorns in a magical glen, it took so much of my will power not to shout "Look over there!" while I stole the clock from her cart and made a run for the register. I was so jealous. But I'm not really here today to tell you about the awful and mean things I would do to old ladies in the name of unicorns, instead, I want to showcase some of my favorite handmade unicorn themed things from Etsy!



The unicorn I probably am most fond of is the unicorn of the Medieval variety. I love it for it's strangeness, it sometimes looks hardly anything like the typical horse-with-a-horn styled unicorn that is depicted nowadays, and I love it for its aforementioned bad-assery. It's never shown running along glittering rainbows into dream land. The Medieval unicorn is either peacefully content being it's bad ass self, or about ready to stab someone with it's horn.

So I have a couple of beat up old unicorn related books. Want to read something interesting about unicorns? Check out this page with a brief history of unicorns throughout the ages.

I would love to create some new jewelery pieces featuring the unicorn, both the girly glittery kind, and the more regal kind. I am not exactly sure how I want to go about doing this, but I do have a few ideas floating around, from sculpting my own unicorn head and making a mold around it and making my own custom cabochons (something I've been waiting to try ever since I started casting resin) or maybe something simpler, like featuring unicorn art in some resin brooches.

Treasury Spotlight

I have recently fallen in love with Etsy treasuries, and through Craftcult I've made the happy discovery that a number of my goods have ended up in some particularly awesome treasuries.

I found one of my blood vial necklaces was featured in this amazing vampire themed one collected by the talented Msemrick, who makes a ton of fabulous Halloween inspired and spooky pieces.



When I saw this treasury I was quite honored to be included in such a fantastically vampy treasury!

Etsy Love: Sweet Ruin & Some Heartsy Addiction

When it comes to jewelry and decor, I love a sort of mysterious and romantic antique aesthetic. Something dark and dusty, yet full of wonder. Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across Sweet Ruin's Etsy shop on a late night Etsy expedition for amazing masks.

Not only does Sweet Ruin make some amazingly decadent masks, fit for a opulent Rococo or Victorian masquerade (that are, sadly a bit out of my monthly mask budget), but they also offer a variety of jewelry pieces and even art and some stunningly gorgeous hand fans.

 

 

I've also recently discovered Heartsy! What is Heartsy, and how does it work, you ask? Basically, it's a place for select Etsy shops to post special sales where you can get between %50 and even %70 or higher a percent off your purchase from them. They offer a limited number of vouchers at a discounted price that are good for a sometimes astronomically large amount of store credit. If you're a VIP member of Heartsy you can get even more of a discount on some sales. The shops change on a day-to-day basis, so there's always something new to be tempted into buying.

I paid for a month of it to test it out a bit, and currently I am loving it. I've bought 3 vouchers that in total cost me $40 (including my month's subscription) and have gotten $80 worth of vouchers. I have a feeling I'll be giving out a lot of handmade stuff for Christmas this year!

Will I keep my subscription for a second month? Maybe, I really don't know yet, it all depends whether or not I think I'm going a little bit spend crazy with stuff I don't really need but just can't resist or what. Although, I am considering possibly offering a sale in my own Etsy shop through Heartsy, I've just got to get it a little bit more filled up.

Gothic Hats: Scissorfiend

One of my favorite hat shops is Scissorfiend's Etsy. She has a gorgeous collection of hats with gothic details such as stripes, feathers, and even cast resin skulls. Some of my favorite hats are her mini tricorns, but I'm a complete sucker for tricorns!

If you like the idea of a realistic faux skull perched on your head, but can't afford to drop the cash on one of her exquisitely made hats, she also sells hair bows made with small resin bird skulls.

Scissorfiend also has a website, which features a few more of her hats as well as her corset and costume work.

Pretty Crocet Gloves

Gloves are such a cute accessory, and as a Lolita who sways towards Classic and Gothic, a pretty pair is sometimes a necessity. The problem tends to be finding a nice pair, a pair that is on par with the quality of a dress. I recently stumbled across the Etsy shop Crocetize, featuring made-to-order crochet lace gloves.

The gloves offered on Crochetize are delicate and pretty and, quite possibly the best part, they can be made in a variety of colors, from basic black and off-white to various shades of pink and beyond. You can get a pair of gloves to match your wardrobe perfectly!

Price wise, the gloves from Crochetize are very fairly priced, at $39 for gloves with fingers and $35 without fingers.

Long Time, No Post!

Well, it's been a while! I get so caught up with my other blog and doing the actual crafting that I always forget about this one. Well, no more! For now at least :3

I recently came across the Etsy shop Totus Mel Tats, a shop dedicated to beautifully tatted accessories.

Here's one of my favorite pieces. Chokers like this are so perfect!

Tatting is a very vintage styled craft, it's when you make lots of little knots to make pretty lace work. Ladies used to do it to the edges of their hankies (and pretty much everything else!). Most tatting shops I come across are filled with very cute and charming things, so I was very excited to see a shop selling gothically inclined tatted pieces!

I'm really hoping to update this blog a bit more! So maybe I'll be doing daily Etsy finds, or pretty inspiration. Or at least, near daily and not once ever couple of months like I have been doing!

Supply Spotlight: Brick House Fabrics

I'm always on the look out for amazing fabrics that I can hoard away until that illustrious day in the future when I'm good enough at using a sewing machine that I can sew my own clothes (Fun fact! Bonnets pretty much can only be hand sewn! With the exception of a few details I sew all of my bonnets by hand) So I was very pleased to stumbled across Brick House Fabrics on Etsy. While the prices are a bit high, around $20 a yard, and you're probably going to need about 3 yards if you plan on making a dress or a JSK in the Lolita style, making the material costs a lot higher than normal, the fabric choices are all wonderful and the shop is filled with prints I have never seen before! These are certainly all fabrics that would make even the simplest design something truly unique and elegant. The best part about these fabrics is that nearly all of them are large, ornate designs, not all over tiny calico prints like so many interesting themes seem to come in.

This is a fabric so unique I don't think I've ever seen anything like it! It's such a Victorian idea as well, exotic wild life combined with beautiful familiar roses.

Here's something that's a little bit Dolly Kei, the tassels on this print make it perfect for something that could work with both Dolly and Lolita.

This beautiful seashell print is like the Classic Lolita's answer to all of those mermaid theme prints that have popped up in Sweet Lolita over the years.

This print is just lovely because it's a unique take on an old familiar print. The big, delicately detailed pottery makes a lovely, but a bit boring, background print really unique.

If there is one thing I am a sucker for, that is wide vertical stripes. This print features lovely muted colors and a medieval styled print of deer and elephants.

Quite possibly my favorite fabric on in the shop! This is just gorgeous in a very over the top and opulent way. It is also a bit reminiscent of a cherub print I mentioned that I would love to see in this post on F Yeah Lolita.

Adorable animals are often a staple of Sweet Lolita prints, but put them on something like this and you have something instantly Classic and elegant.

There are a ton more beautiful and unique fabrics on the shop page, 4 pages worth! I've definitely got my eye on a number of these for when it comes time to commission my next dress. I seriously am in love with big, bold, Victorian-esque prints like these!

Etsy Spotlight: Silent Cheesecake Designs

It's no secret, I really love Etsy. I love it for the hand crafted pretty things, for the unique vintage pieces, and most of all, I love it for the incredible craft supplies. So I'm going to be occasionally spotlighting an Etsy shop that caught my eye on one or another of my many window shopping trips through Etsy. I will mostly be focusing on hand crafted shops, but the occasional vintage or supply shop will also be featured.

The first shop to be featured is Silent Cheesecake Designs, a shop combining a few of my favorite things into unique and strange jewelry. Specimen vials, Victorian curio, and real organic materials combine to create beautiful jewelry.

Silent Cheesecake's signature pieces are glass vials filled with a variety of specimens suspended in beautifully clear wax. The specimens are all real and range from leaves to flowers to insects to bones to small sea life. The wax is beautifully clear and relatively free of bubbles or distracting debris as I have seen in some embedded object jewelry.

Another frequent theme in Silent Cheesecakes's shop is beetle wings. Beetle wings are an infrequently used jewelry material, but I find that whenever they are used the result is stunning. Real beetle wings have an incredible luster and texture that just can't be faked.

If you are looking for something a little more subtle than a mouse skull floating in clear wax, you can pick up a small pendant featuring either real butterfly wings or a mini print with pressed flowers on the back.

Something else that Silent Cheesecake carries, and something I'm always on the lookout for, is beautifully detailed bird cage necklaces. She uses small rusty birdcages and decorates them with unique beads and animal vertebrate. The end result is stunning and unique and almost like a contained curio cabinet you can carry with you!

Silent Cheesecake carries a wide assortment of pieces, and has a rather full shop of around 6 pages. The prices are very reasonable for such unique pieces and range from very affordable $10 earrings to more expensive and much larger pendants. If you admire the look, but are a bit squeamish about wearing real specimens around your neck there are a variety of pieces with the same aesthetic that use no organic materials or only pressed flowers, so you can still wear an equally beautiful piece without having to go all out and wear something you might not feel comfortable wearing around your neck. Personally, I love the organic pieces and have my eye set on one of her vial necklaces with real octopus tentacles in it!