It's Time to Win a Beautiful Prize

Each week I will be featuring a different Etsy artist and their wonderful products. This week's spotlight is on Neelrad. Darleen owns this wonderful Etsy shop. She makes hand crafted original semi-precious jewelry. Darleen is a mother of two boys. Her oldest is autistic. She donates 10% of her yearly profits to his school -Summit Educational Resources.

In addition to being the featured Etsy seller this week, Darleen is giving away this beautiful heart pendant in honor of Valentine's day!  Just make a comment below about this interview and a winner will be selected on Friday. Good Luck to everyone!


Now for Darleen's interview:

How did you come up with your shop name? I like using crystals and faceted quartz in my pieces. So I was trying to think of a name that would be catchy and describe how these accents look in the jewelry.

How did you get started selling online? During the warm weather here in New York I do outdoor arts and craft shows. When the cool weather came I started looking for another venue to sell my wares. I also teach how to sell on Ebay in adult education. Then one day I was thinking “Hey, why don’t I combine these?” However, handcrafted wares get lost on ebay amongst all the commercial items so I needed another venue. I think I saw an ad for Etsy about then and decided to research them. The rest is history. I started listing items and really only sold 5 things out of my 11 sales. Everything else is through alchemy. I love doing custom orders. It gives me a challenge.

What motivates or inspires you to create? Nature! When I go for a walk sometimes I’ll see a bead of dew in the morning and then try to use pearls to for a nice piece. Sometimes I see new stones and feel the urge to come up with a piece to use them in. Also, I love custom requests because they present a challenge.

What do you want customers to know about your products? All my pieces are one of a kind. I never repeat the same necklace. Even if it’s a similar pattern the stones will be different. I’m always willing to make adjustments to satisfy a customer. For example, if the necklace is too short I’ll happily add an extension chain so customer can make the piece more versatile.

What other hobbies or passions do you have? I love photography. My over 12 years of shooting, selling and framing photography have given me an eye for colors that occur naturally and accent each other.

Do you have a blog? Twitter? Facebook? Website? I’m on Facebook (Darleen Stry) but my jewelry images are under (dazzlewear@verizon.net)

Anything else you want us to know about yourself? My beading is my respite. I saw a slogan one time and truly believe it “beading is cheaper than therapy”. Jewelry making is a great hobby because you can start and stop a project almost on a dime which is what you need to do when you have kids. You can do it late at night. Plus there’s no wrong way to do it.

Remember - Make a comment below to win! Good Luck!