Neawear--Unique Jewelry and Wall Wear

comments (2) February 1st, 2009

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Jennifer Stern, contributor

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Sweet puffed hearts find a quaint home in a hand embroidery hoop.

Photo: Neawear

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With Valentine's Day just around the corner, why not transform a little wall space into sweet homage of the holiday that will lift your spirts well into Spring. Check out Neawear at Creativadoration, where you can decorate your walls with hoops-fulls of hand embroidered hearts and flowers. Little appliqued puffed up hearts are mix with hand embroidered hearts to create a fresh look. Some of her hand embroidered designs are finished with antique metal frames. And, her jewelry is gorgeous! As I poked Creativadoration, I became more interested in the crafter behind it all. I loved the way her blog looked. She had lots of interesting links as well as her own cool stuff. We e-mailed each other back and forth a few times--she had a chance to check out Craftstylish while I was enjoying her websites and, in the end, I had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about her interest in hand embroidery and jewelry design; and how and why she started her own crafting business. I found her story very inspirational--check it out. Oh, and by the way, I want to wish a Happy Birthday to her blog, which turns 3 years old on Jan. 30th!

CS--When did you start hand embroidering and how do you learn how do the kind stitching that you do--combining beads and buttons is pretty cool!

Neawear--I remember cross-stitching with a friend as a young teen, just like that, but it lasted maybe a few weeks and never picked up the needle again after that! I had this sudden urge to try it again in early 2008, and when I figured out it would be prettier on linen than on Aida cloth, I was totally hooked! I also really like everything that is mixed media, and so some of my jewelry parts I had from making jewelry just looked so much like flowers that I couldn’t resist adding some to my stitching!

CS--Jewelry and "jewelry for you walls" is such a unique combination, how did you come to pair them up?

Neawear--Before I opened my Etsy shop in August 2006, I had to find a username, and since it had to be 4 digits or more, and my business name was Nea, I had to find an extension of that. I thought ideas like “NeaJewelry” were too much keeping me in box and felt like I could never branch out to other skills (even if I had no other ideas of what to make at the time!). Then I came up with Neawear.

In June 2008, I had all my embroidery pieces ready and wondered if I should open a third shop or not (I already have a second shop for supplies!). Money wize (paid advertising) and time wize (spreading the word for two separate shops), it was not a brilliant idea, so I decided to keep everything together.

I had to make the jewelry and embroidery gel together. Turns out my first instinct of 2 years earlier really helped! Because I chose “wear”, I figured wall decor pieces were totally wall wear. And that’s how everything now fits together!

CS--When you open your esty store was it to earn a living, or was it going to be a part time gig?

Neawear--2.5 years ago I opened shop just to see if I could sell anything, basically! A week after, I was featured on Design*Sponge for my Deploy earrings and I was launched! Sales did the roller coaster ride for a while after that for almost 2 years, they were good, but not good enough to live on, even with being very careful on spending. So I continued doing my graphic design work (freelance from home) and the jewelry too.

But when I launched my Wall Wear in June 2008, the response was fabulous (another Design*Sponge feature got it going on!!) and I took that as the push I needed to just go for it! So since July 2008, I’m a full-time Etsier! :) I do consign a little also, but almost all of my salary comes from my online shop.

CS--You mention you work being featured on Design*Sponge, what is that?

Neawear--Design*Sponge is THE biggest handmade/indie design blog there is! When you’re featured there (which is really hard!), you are assured at least a few sales, it’s that powerful! :)

CS-- How to you get inspired to come up with new designs?

Neawear--Usually they just pop into my head at any time! While I’m just about to fall asleep, while working on something completely different, while watching TV or reading a book. I make lists of those ideas in a notebook and usually don’t go back to the idea for weeks and weeks. I don’t know why, perhaps my brain has to spruce up the idea on itself before I’m ready to actually DO it!

CS--How did you dream up Creativadoration?

My blog just turned 3 years old on Jan. 30! If you go snoop around and see the first posts I wrote, you’ll notice it used to be all in French, for a long time actually. I was mostly for my graphic design friends and just a fun way to keep my clients interested in my work and keep them around, even thought I blogged about other’s work mostly. I just always had that urge to discover new amazing stuff and show it to people!

And then I started blogging in English once in a while, to perhaps bring some Nea buyers over and keep them around as well. Turns out, even if my first language is French, I was much more easy for me to blog in English! So I just did, allowing myself to just do what I wanted on my own blog.

Visit count started going upwards pretty quickly and it was time for a makeover! I decided to rename the blog Creativadoration because it’s always been about creative people and items that I adore! There is so much in a name really, and I saw that in visits too, they skyrocketted from that point on! I now average around 500 visits per day, which is totally amazing and wonderful to me! :)

posted in: embroidery

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Comments (2)

JenniferStern writes: I'm interested, what are you thinking of experimented with????
Posted: 4:42 am on February 6th

paperrain writes: Thanks for this. What a great idea. I don't embroider any more, but there are so many ways to make this work, and it's a gorgeous idea.
Posted: 3:24 pm on February 5th

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