Craftsy Classes

If you check out my shop (by clicking the Schmidty Bracelets icon to the right of this post) you won't find a huge variety of items. Now I realize that isn't a great way to promote myself, but it's true. Up until now, I have focused almost entirely on different kinds of friendship bracelets. But now that my shop has turned from a hobby into a business, I feel like it's time to branch out a little. I've added some crochet to my shop (although I'm still not sure it makes sense in a shop called Schmidty BRACELETS) and recently, I decided to purchase a Craftsy class on jewelry-making.

So this week, after all the stuff I needed FINALLY came in the mail, I started taking my class! The first section is on pearl knotting, which is basically just stringing pearls (or beads) and tying these little knots in between.

I was amazed at how quick and easy it was. Friendship bracelets take hours to finish, so I was kind of expecting this to be a longer process, but after only maybe a half an hour of work, I had one of these:

That's not to say I didn't hit a few snags. This bracelet is the only one I feel comfortable selling out of the three that I made. The blue one is super-big, which would have been fine if I hadn't attached both a lobster claw and a barrel clasp. I didn't realize that the barrel clasp came apart until I showed my mom and she unscrewed it to try and put it on. I thought it was just something to hook the lobster claw clasp on. So that happened.

Now the red bracelet should have been fine. It's a good size, the knots are all pretty good. However, the toggle clasp that I used doesn't work for some reason. The little stick won't go all the way through the circle. So I'm going to have to scrap that one.

I'm still really excited though, because once I figure out what types of clasps work, I'm going to have a whole new line of products in my Etsy shop!

There are still three more sections in the jewelry-making workshop, so I'm hoping to be adding even more new lines soon :) And if you're interested, the orange bracelet that I somehow managed to not screw up will be listed in my shop either later today or tomorrow! And you should definitely consider taking a Craftsy class if you haven't already, I highly recommend them. Check back tomorrow for a new post!