I heard you can purchase followers, but she sounded legit, and besides, why would she purchase them-she has no brand (unless you’re brand is solely for scamming, and that never occurred to me)?

Again, stupid on my part.

I checked her Instagram-she had the followers she claimed, so I agreed to send a few pieces. She had a Facebook account, Etsy acct, Twitter, etc. Hmmm, it’s curious that she has less than 150 on Twitter & FB, but maybe she was focused on Instagram (really? I just typed that)? Just look at those followers!

Stupid me, chasing a plastic carrot.

I mailed a necklace and 2 pairs of earrings, with the promise of promotion to her over 10,000 followers.

Her exact message read:

“Hello, my name is Kayla Harpring! I was looking at your products and wanting to make a deal with you. I have ten thousand followers on Instagram and I am very Internet famous. If you give me something free, I will promote your store on my Instagram. You may go check for yourself to see if I have 10 thousand, my username is @harpring7. I really think my followers would go crazy over your product. ”

After the items showed as delivered, I was so excited to see if her images were as fun & interesting as the pics & collages my customers and gift recipients all over Instagram had posted – for free.

*Crickets*

So I checked back on those Facebook/Twitter/Etsy accounts. 2 out of 3 closed. Hmmmm.

I decided to tweet her and she stated she was super duper busy. I’m understand that most delinquent teens scamming the handmade community have a lot to keep up with in this crazy world-and to have to attend classes as well! The injustice…

I have nothing going on here with a jewelry business, family and you know…bills to pay. The difference is that I deliver on my promises. I have little tolerance for folks who aren’t willing to put an ounce of effort in but claim to be busy as hell. My first job was as a janitor at low income apartments at age 14. I walked along the highway picking up trash. We had to have the county sign off on the papers-and it didn’t get easier from there with 3 jobs in college and an 18 hour course load-but I digress. The point is that I know hard work my dear Kayla-and you do not. You instead choose to steal items from hardworking people.

To target those that require learning a craft to painstakingly create objects for a surprisingly young and crafty scam artist was a bit of a shock, and thankfully a wake-up call.

Soon after  I sent products her way I checked back in to see if she had posted to Instagram. Nothing, and her twitter feed has become increasingly negative…I can’t wait to see what she tweets after this call out.

Instagram, however, is still alive and seems to be faring well, even though she’s only posted 19 pics. There used to be a pic of an item she received for free from another artist, but it’s since come down.

So Merry Christmas to the handmade community today!!! I hope my small gift is to save you any waste of time , effort, talent and love of your craft on Kayla Harpring (halpern7). Make your mama something pretty instead. : )

Oh and thanks Kayla. You’re my very first scammer!

The one deleted image from another sucker was the carrot, and I was dumb enough to bite. To the rest of you out there who create items by hand that take time, creativity and effort, take heed and don’t be a dummy like me – harpring7, Kayla Harpring or whatever she calls herself these days WILL NOT promote your brand as promised. The girl just wants a handout.

I hope you read this Kayla, and I hope you are embarrassed. You should be ashamed, and you should probably get a job to show you the value of time and actual work. I beg you to contact me if any of this is untrue.

UPDATE: This all happened in October-I gave Kayla Harpring plenty of time to snap a pic & post to Instagram. Several artists have come forward to say that they received the exact same message and had the same experience with her. Please reply in the comments if you had a similar experience, and as usual – you’re always welcome to post your side of this, Kayla. I know you’ve read this by now.

The client and I decided that our simple silver and gold disk necklaces would be the perfect fit for just about anyone’s tastes. So I set out cutting 150 lengths of chain and setting up a little assembly line in the studio. It was fun!

Here are all of the complete necklaces lined up and ready to go.

Here’s the packaging we landed on. It was one of my favorite parts of the whole project! I forgot how much I enjoyed package design – this of course lead to a redesign of my own packaging for Olive Yew! that you read about last week.

Adding the finishing touches and they’re off. Hope everyone loves them as much as we loved making them!

I tried to make my packaging as adorable as possible but I began to notice a couple of things that bothered me. First, it’s not as sustainable as I would prefer it to be. All of the paper we cut daily provided a lot of waste, and I could see the boxes being tossed as soon as they were opened. Looking at all of the paper left over from our medallions and the books and books of specialty papers that would ultimately wind up in a landfill made me feel guilty. I’m an avid recycler in my day-today life-time to make a change.

It’s also very time intensive. We were spending 3 hours a day on packaging that would be better spent making jewelry and listing items (or writing this blog post!).

I still think it’s adorable, so I decided to leave it as an option for upgrade. Customers have loved our packaging so far and it’s important to me to make sure they’re happy. You can see more of this option here…

Now, time to unveil the new packaging…drum roll please!

These are eco friendly reusable tins that are perfect for bobby pins, gum, change, currency bills and so much more! They are filled with a little shredded recyclable kraft paper and a sprinkle of pink sequins. Finally, a piece of packaging you want to keep-and reuse again and again! I hope you like the new packaging. While it’s not cheaper on my end, I feel so much better about giving you something that will hopefully not end up in a landfill! Enjoy!

Please keep in mind that gold filled, vermeil and plated also can refer to rose gold items.

I was going to show you my new plating machine in my last post,  I could change the finish of necklace charms or rings as a customer requested, or just work on projects like my gold and silver horseshoe ring  shown here:

Plus, I really enjoy the versatility, and that I don’t have to go elsewhere for plating charms, rings or earrings anymore.

I’ll admit that plating is not the best option for every piece of jewelry, but it does work on these rings so well because the plating on the outside of the ring is what matters. That’s why I kept the bands silver! It also works well on charms, earrings and on and on. I love this thing.

So let’s brak it down here:

What is gold-plated?

 A base metal such as steel, brass or zinc  is dipped into a bath of electroplating solution. When an electric current is applied, a thin layer of gold is deposited on the metal.

What is sterling silver?

Sterling silver is a mixture of pure silver and other metal, usually copper. The alloy that results gives silver its strength. The standard is at least 92.5% silver – so that’s why you see the .925 stamp!

What is gold vermeil? 

This is pronounced “ver-may”, and I always say it wrong! Vermeil gold plated silver. Most vermeil is plated with 22K-24K gold. It’s a great combination for those with allergy to normal, plated jewelry items. The difference between vermeil, and gold-filled, is in the thickness of the gold and the base metal used. In vermeil, the base is sterling silver.

Gold-filled: also called rolled-gold. These jewelry items are not actually filled with gold. They are made of a base metal that’s usually brass, zinc or copper and then covered by sheets of gold in a mechanical bonding process. Is’s basically a really thick layer of gold that will last a very long time. The gold content is 5% or 1/20 of the total weight. With little care it will not peel or flake, and should last as long as solid 14k gold jewelry. Very safe for sensitive skin.’
Gold jewelry reacts with chlorine. Never take your gold jewelry into a pool or spa unless you like a tarnished look!

I sell all of the above at Olive Yew. Be sure to check it out now that you know your metals!

I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do while doing what I didn’t want to do as my day job. I found a metalsmithing class at this place, Lapidary Arts . It was perfect!

There I took metal smithing classes from Joe. We started with rings. Here’s Joe…

He’s teaching me to set stones in a ring on this occasion.

They also sell plenty of gemstones, and they even teach classes on how to properly cut those stones. Ruby teaches those classes.

Here’s a student cutting a stone (I don’t cut stones-I only purchase them here).

They even have plating machines so I can go plate larger items like my bangle bracelets in bulk amounts. They have a small pen plater there as well. Here’s the larger plating machine. I’m plating 24k gold over silver here.

I liked Joe’s small pen plating device so much I bought one for myself! I’m trying to talk his sister Ruby into selling me this big one.  I’m being patient since I just bought the plater and a steamer.

Together, they taught me everything I needed to know about working silver, gold and rose gold. They also have wax carving, casting classes, wire wrapping classes, soldering, gemstone cutting, grinding and much, much more.

It’s a little building in a strip mall off a freeway, so don’t expect fancy. Do expect to learn in a very casual setting with Jerry Springer playing in the background. Joe loves trashy reality TV on a huge 47 inch TV set right in front of his station, where he teaches. I always giggle a little when I hear “My husband is sc@e#ing my brother while I’m pregnant!” while learning to set gemstones.

Here’s a complete listing of their classes:

http://www.lapidarysource.com/Classes.php

A big THANK YOU to West Elm, Etsy , Whitney Deal and the amazing artists that helped make the We ❤ Handmade event here in Charlotte NC such a success! See how happy we look in the Smilebooth?! It was such a busy day, but we met so many great locals (and not so locals) there. We also sold a bunch of jewelry (which is always nice)!

Making sure everything is in the right place.

Necklaces on display

I love these glass boxes-perfect for my bangle sets!

First customer!

Then a line started to form...like I said, it went very well!

At this point I got a little nervous!

But we managed to make everyone happy and answered all of their questions. Whew!

The store looked beautiful, they had snacks and drinks on hand & an awesome DJ!

We brought so much stuff that we took up two areas, and I'm glad we did!

So a big thank you (again) goes out to West Elm, Etsy and Whitney Deal of Darling Dexter. She was kind enough to curate the show! If you get a chance, check out her blog. It is stunning and full of gorgeous items just waiting to be pinned! Hope to see all of you again soon- it’s been quite an honor to be asked to 2 Etsy events in our very fist year. I look forward to many more!

Yay! So thrilled to have been asked to join Etsy and West Elm at another pop up arts & craft show! Thank you Whitney Deal of Darling Dexter for curating this event!

Event Details
• Date: Saturday, March 31st
• Time: 1-6 p.m.
• Location: West Elm, Charlotte: 1100 Metropolitan Ave,

RSVP: http://on.fb.me/xpWKrz
LIST OF SELLERS: http://bit.ly/zaR7fT

In the middle of all of the madness, West Elm and Etsy asked that Olive Yew take part in a pop up craft fair event in early December. We decided to shoot for 100 pieces for the show. Here I am working the booth…

Glad we did-we sold well, and most remaining stock was used up on future orders. Plus, we met a host of great folks from Etsy, and the staff at West Elm was amazingly helpful.

The photo above isn’t the best pic of me…and the booth doesn’t look perfect but I have to add a little perspective. I had to put my precious little baby Pocky to sleep on the day of the show. She was 12 years old. I don’t think I ever cried so hard.

Miss Pocky's reaction when I hit the high note on "Take on me". That was our jam...

Here is a pic of her look when I sang-I am a terrible singer, but she always encouraged me to hit the high notes and looked at me so lovingly as I did. This one’s to you my lil’ sweetie. I miss you so very, very much.

SO, I want to thank everyone for your support this month of both my business and of my general well being. It was a rough, challenging and wonderful month. Such a mix of thankfulness for the business, sadness over my lil’ kitty, and astonishment at the wonderful women who gathered around, supported and helped me pump out more jewelry than I could possibly imagine.

To Sarah, Nancy, Ellen, Courtney, Lauren and my bff Shay-I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I couldn’t have done it without you!

Tiny silver initial necklace created by Olive Yew Jewels

First off, congratulations to Judy Gardner from my home state of NC! She won one of my custom initial necklaces over at www.shophappens.com!

Petite sterling silver bow necklace - created by Olive Yew Jewels

Next up, www.delightedmomma.com was the host of the next giveaway. Delighted Momma is a blog featuring crafts, recipes, lifestyle, shopping and much much more. Plus, it’s beautiful-I love the look! The lucky winner of this lovely little necklace was Libby Ulsich. Congratulations Libby!!

So, what can YOU win next? Exciting stuff! Take a look at www.welltodoyou.com. There you can win one of my custom initial bracelets in silver or gold. You are going to LOVE these!!

The site (www.welltodoyou.com) is a wonderful lifestyle blog about health, wealth and wellness. Everytime I visit I find something new and interesting!

I sure hope you’re the next one listed as a special winner!

Also be sure to check out http://www.docica.com.  For every angel wing necklace bought I will donate a $1 to Air Medical Memorial, a non-profit dedicated to honoring medical personnel who have lost their lives in flight.

Finally, I am a featured artist at thecellar9.com. They have chosen several pieces from my shop to sell on their wonderful website. Check them out if you get a chance…but hurry, my time there is almost up!

Be sure to check back for updates about the West Elm/Etsy project and my featured pieces in Self magazine AND the giveaway coming up on self.com!