It's beginning to look a lot like...

Hillary Wanted to share with you the tree she put up at work complete with some beaded ornaments that she made specially for this tree:





Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Have a great Holiday Season!

New piece to be donated to a local charity

Hillary made this lovely butterfly necklace a couple of weeks ago.



He will be donated to a local children's charity so that he can make sure someone has a happy Christmas.

Quick Gift Guide

This might be the most unusual collection of things we've seen, but it's also one of the most incredible. They would make amazing gifts for people with a penchant for the extravagant, eccentric, kitchy and oddly cute (like our artist).

The first entry in our gift guide is a computer case mod made with an actual antique radio cabinet by Abraham's Craftworks.

Next we have a purse made from vintage, hard to find "paint by numbers" fabric by Squirellicious.

This gorgeous Victorian Collar might be the most unique take on a scarf we've ever seen, and it's so skillfully made by Falling Leaf Designs.

Here's a great Funky Tiki Lounge Mosaic Mirror from Gemeni Moon Mosaics.

Next up is this beautifully Bizarre tech gadget: a Steampunk Copper USB Flash Drive
from QA Create.

Here's an Adorable retro-cute Pendant made with a vintage Christmas Card by That Old Blue House.

These Last two are not work safe and not for the easily offended, but quite beautiful in their own right.

First, we have the Anatomical Venus Treasure Box, a box featuring a very unique painting by My Good Babushka.

Second, We have a gift bag featuring pin-up style holiday retro-porn made by Rosy Red Designs.

We hope you enjoyed our picks and hopw you have a great holiday season!

Halloween

We apologize for this being late, but Hillary wanted to be sure to show off her Halloween costume and mention the talented individuals and great sellers that went in to making her "Coraline" costume a success.





For her sweater, Hillary Went to a Local Thrift store and bought a blue sparkly sweater. Then She ordered some custom made silver stars from Lavdender Lady Bug. She glued them on with fabric glue and voila!

For her hair, she hair, she went to her amaing hairdresser Angie at fringe in Birmingham, AL and had her usually purple streaks turned blue.

She got AmGlam Creations to make her some great dragonfly clips.

To finish it all off, she checked out Ebay and bought some great boots from jag319.

Hillary had a blast at Halloween and loved everything so much (including the blue hair) that she keeps finding reasons to wear things again. We hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Child's Play Kickoff, new pieces, free shipping and other updates

We mentioned in an earlier post that we would be donating a portion of our profits to Child's Play. Here's the official announcement: 20% of sales from http://hippybeads.etsy.com and http://artfulunity.etsy.com will go to http://childsplaycharity.org, a charity that helps out children's hospitals throughout the world. They have already raised over half a million dollars in the last month and hope we can help give them some more. I started keeping track on thanksgiving and will turn the final donation in on Dec 30th. All sales count including sale items, custom items, and in person sales (if you know me in real life). These guys rock; help them out!

Why do they rock? Because it's a couple of passionate gamers, who write a webcomic, who got tired of the negative light that the media painted gamers in and decided to start a charity for Children's hospitals. They decided to buy toys and raise money for a couple of hospitals in their area. They ended up with about $200,000 in donations and toys that year in a one month period just by putting it out there to their readers. This is their 6th year and they more than doubled that figure their first week this year. They are now up to over $700,000 worth of donations since the beginning of November, and it all goes to help kids.

Hillary is an avid gamer and was raised in an environment of helping. She continues that spirit of helping every day as a social worker. She loves that there is a way that her jewelry businesses can help out and she really loves that there is a charity that promotes a positive image of an amazing group of people that she is proud to belong to.

In celebration of her Child's Play event, Hillary has made shipping to the US and Canada free, and international shipping only $3 per item. She has also updated the shop, put some more items on sale and added some new pieces:







Thanks for stopping by, have a great holiday and remember: http://childsplaycharity.org !

Happy Thanksgiving

ETSY Things I'm thankful for:

Laundry Soap From Eco Every day: great for lingere and other "gentle wash" items.

My purple wallet from Rocket Science Style: matches my purse, is as cute as a button and has compartments for everything.

Custom made baby books from BodySense /Labello Boutique: Best baby shower gift ever.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Upcoming events and projects

Hillary's other business, Artful Unity is participating in a Christmas Giveaway put on by the eSMArts team.

Both Happy Hippy Jewelry and Artful Unity will be donating a portion of their profits in November and Decmember to Child's Play, a charity started by gamers for gamers that donates games and toys to children's hospitals throughout the world. Details will be posted here soon.

Hillary has been prolific with new projects in the last couple of weeks new items involving the formica chips from the hardware store and bottle caps. We will be posting pictures very soon.

We also have plans for a great holiday post very soon, so check back to see it and all the other great things we have in the works!