March 28 - April 3, 2005
In This Installment:
** New Items
** Coming Soon
** Stone Fun Facts
** News & Stuff
** Fortnightly Sale
** Insider's Sale
** Last Week's Top Sellers
New Items
Indian Multi-Strand Necklaces
These are going to drive our serious beaders crazy. We
obtained a few unique necklaces made in India with all sorts of beads.
Each one has several strands--anywhere from two to 20! You can wear these
as they are, or you can take off the beads and use them in your creations.
(Or you can remove a couple of strands to use, and keep the rest intact for a
necklace!) When you break it down by beads, these are an incredible
price.
Crystal Cross Pendant
I happened upon only ONE of these beautiful pendants. It is a gold
cross embedded with 21 glass faceted gems of rainbow colors. Simply
stunning; will not last long!
Assorted New Beads
Odds and ends we keep finding in our stock!
Dark Blue Fluorite Chips
We already have a lovely light dusty blue Fluorite chip. Now we have
these mega blue chips. These are SERIOUS blue; no white or purple at
all. The picture kept wanting to show them as violet-blue, so we had to
manipulate the color a bit, but it still isn't quite accurate. Think of a
really dark Apatite. EX-cellent beads. (And these go nicely with our
sale this week!)
Purple Fluorite Chips
FINALLY! Fluorite chips that are mainly white and purple, sometimes
striped. Very little green or blue in these. Just in time for our
sale!
Opal Matrix Chips
Yes, you read that correctly. These are not Opal chips, but chips
made out of the stuff BETWEEN the opals! We recently got a huge stock of
Mexican Fire Opal chip beads, and discovered that nearly half of them were ALL
matrix, no Opal at all on them. We don't mind including the occasional
matrixy bead in our bags now and then, but these had entirely too many chips
that were NOT Opal. Rather than throw them out, we put them in bags and
are selling them as beads in their own right! These are actually quite
pretty--pinkish-red color, sort of rough finish. You can tell people you
are wearing Opal, and folks will think you got some exotic new type.
Frosted Quartz Round
A winning Quartz bead with a nice frosty finish.
Fluorite Faceted Round
Another bead that's just in time for our sale! I saw these at a local
shop and just COULDN'T resist them. They are hand-cut faceted round beads
made of multicolor Fluorite. I have put them into sets of ten beads in the
color of your choice (purple, yellow, green, or blue), or you can just choose a
rainbow. These colors are stunning.
Multi Aquamarine Oval
Cute pastel Aquamarine beads, dyed in a variety of colors.
Peacock Pearl Beads
Really beautiful Pearl beads. At first glance they look silvery, but
under their cold metallic sheen is an oil-spill rainbow of colors. Nice
shape and size, very uniform.
Coming Soon
New Beads:
Citrine Round, Golden Oyster Stick, Hessonite Heishi
Ocarinas (clay flutes)
"Fortune Cookie" Silk Purses
Solid Perfume in Soapstone Jars
Spring Bracelets
Large Fan Collars
More Faceted Beads
New Marbles: Picasso, Ametrine, Amazonite
Cloisonné Rings & Bangles
Stone Fun Facts
Kyanite
** Kyanite is a very unusual stone in that it has two hardnesses on Moh's
Scale, depending on the direction it is tested. It grows in crystals
shaped like long, flat blades, and it cleaves along perfect lines. Whereas
other minerals have the same hardness all around, Kyanite shows a hardness of
4-5 when tested lengthwise, and 6-7 (harder) when tested crosswise.
** While Kyanite is typically a blue color, it sometimes comes in green,
white, and yellow. It exhibits strong pleochroism, which means it looks
different colors when viewed from different angles. Its color can look
dark blue from one angle, and white or colorless from another.
** The word "Kyanite" comes from the Greek kyanos, which means
"blue," in reference to its color. This mineral is also known as Disthene,
which comes from the Greek di, meaning "two," and stenos,
meaning "hardness," a name given because it has two hardnesses.
** Metaphysical healers use Kyanite as a claming stone. It helps to
focus the mind and dissolve mental and emotional confusion. It helps the
wearer let go of his or her anxiety. It keeps the mind focused and able to
ward off distractions.
** Kyanite is thought to be a highly creative stone, enabling the wearer to
tap into his or her creative talent in art, music, dance, writing, and other
artistic expressions.
** Gem-quality Kyanite is extremely rare. Its perfect lines of
cleavage and its brittle, splintery nature make it very difficult to cut, and
stones of fine color and transparency are rare.
** Commercially, Kyanite is used in the manufacture of spark plugs and heat
resistant ceramics.
Please see other Stone Fun Facts
here:
News and Stuff
Store Update
It's been a little over a month since I closed my
eBay store. I had been worried about losing the very large customer base
eBay has to offer, but ultimately couldn't afford the fee increases. So I
closed that store, ran a few extra auctions, and aggressively promoted my
independent online store through my auctions and my About Me page.
A month later, I am assessing the results. I
haven't done any serious number-crunching yet, but it APPEARS that I have not
lost much business as a result of closing my eBay store. My auctions have
a pretty good sell-through rate, but more interestingly, sales on my online
store have gone up quite significantly. Before closing the eBay store, I
theorized that people who were apt to shop in an eBay store (where everything is
Buy It Now and it is easy to make many purchases at one time) would also be
likely to shop on ANY online store, and it looks like I am correct.
Whereas I used to get many eBay store sales in a week, now online store sales
have seemed to replace that. In addition to the half-dozen or so sales
from "regulars" every week, I am seeing more and more new names ordering things
from Ephemerala Online. It appears that the people who ordinarily would
have purchased items in my eBay store are now making the leap to buying them
from Ephemerala Online instead, which is exactly what I had hoped would
happen.
I will check out the numbers carefully over the
next few months and see if this transference of sales continues. I'll keep
you updated.
Fortnightly Sale
Happy Birthday Bexley!
No, that's not an announcement, it's a sale! Ephemerala's youngest
"staff member,"
Bexley
Dallapè, has his very first birthday this week. As the
regular subscribers know, most of the birthdays in this operation get rewarded
by the birthday boy (in our case, it's always a boy!) getting to choose his
favorite stone to contribute to the sale. While Bexley isn't quite old
enough to understand preferences, I can't forget the strand of Fluorite Nugget
beads that he LOVED to hold, chew on, look at, and play with when he was a
younger baby! Even today, as I bought some fluorite from a local vendor,
he couldn't stop trying to grab it. So it's only fair that this
fortnight's sale has something to do with Fluorite and Birthdays.
This week, every Fluorite purchase entitles you to
a free Surprise Gift. In other words, if you buy, say, three bags of
Fluorite beads, you will get three random Surprise Gifts. If you buy ten
Fluorite items, you'll get ten free Surprise Gifts. And so on, up to 15
freebies per order. The free gifts will be totally random and will most
likely consist of assorted stone pendants, beads, and gemstone baubles.
This offer applies to all Fluorite items, such as beads, including the three new
ones listed this week, plus the odd Fluorite pendant that you may be able to
find on the site. If you love the wonderful colors of Fluorite, one of
those rare stones that shows two or three colors in a single stone, and you want
to celebrate Bexley's birthday with a gift of your own, then this offer is for
you!
Bexley's Birthday Fluorite Sale is good through April 10,
2005.
Penny Sale
Every two weeks, I hide a new special offer somewhere on my online
site. This listing will offer a certain product for ONE CENT, with any
purchase of $10.00 or more. The item and its location will change every
two weeks, so be sure to look often. Simply go to my online store site:
and browse until you find the hidden listing. Add it to your cart,
along with the rest of your $10+ order, and it will be included for just a
penny. Happy Hunting!
(Recent keen-eyed customers got a FACETED LOOSE GARNET for a penny.
What will you be able to get this week?)
Insider's Special
20% More in Value Packs
This week, all of our special customers will get 20% more items when they
buy any Value Pack. For easy reference:
If your Value Pack contains 5 items, you will get
6.
If your Value Pack contains 10 items, you will get
12.
If your Value Pack contains 20 items, you will get
24.
If your Value Pack contains 40 items, you will get
48.
If your Value Pack contains 80 items, you will get
96.
Ephemerala $100.00 Grab Bags will contain $120.00
worth of stuff.
Ephemerala $200.00 Grab Bags will contain $240.00
worth of stuff.
There is NO LIMIT to the number of Value Packs you may buy, so this is a
great time to stock up on your favorites. As usual, please drop me a quick
line to let me know you are a subscriber, so I can add the extra stuff to your
package.
20% More in Value Packs Offer is good through April 10,
2005.
Last Week's Top Sellers
(You know you want to be just like everyone
else!)
1. Gemstone Eggs
2. Jet Chip Beads
3. Hematite Round Beads
4. Turquoise Chip Beads
5. Rhodonite Chip Beads
6. Ruby Chip Beads
7. Blue Topaz Chip Beads
8. Cherry Quartz Chip Beads
9. Rose Quartz Chip Beads
10. Red Howlite Chip Beads
That's it for this issue. Talk to you
again in a week.
--Suzanne Dallapè
eBay User ID:
ephemerala
Visit my online store:
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interested!
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