I used to hate yellow. But I’ve been appreciating its vibrance more and more the past few months.

An email from Sarah at LuShae Jewelry at the start of November offered me jewellery for a review (good, bad or ugly, I wouldn’t have it any other way). Who I am to say no to free jewels!

My first pick was sold out. Sad face. So I went with my second, the Canary Princess.

Shipping was super quick taking only a couple of days to get to me. Unfortunately the rings don’t come in half sizes, I’m about a 6.5, but the 7 still fits nicely. The sparkle is worth any slipping around my finger.

At the moment LuShae has free shipping anywhere in the world and a lot of their jewellery is discounted.

Get on it!

Being all the way down in little old New Zealand means that things can take a while to get to you, from me. So cut off dates from the Cupcakes and Mace store for shipping overseas is the 29th of November. If you’re wanting something custom made for a gift then you should let me know asap!

If you’re ordering from Australia you have till the 6th of December. And if you’re ordering from New Zealand you have right up until the 21st of December. Sweet.

Basically you only have THREE WEEKS. Get thee orders in my inbox!

As well as all of the usual colour options I have silver mirror, gold mirror, silver holograph, light blue holograph, dark blue holograph, purple holograph, and red holograph available till it runs out. If you’re a blog reader you can have those colours for no extra as well.

First off the amazing Sarah Hannah wins the randomly generated draw. Sarah Hannah said she’d like one of three choices “‘everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”, “death wears diamond jewellery”, or “team bubble”.

Secondly we’d like to give a necklace to the ever stylish Ela for coming up with a fancy name to call these square boxes. We love C² (C squared), so thank you!

I’ve also contacted a fellow blogger about using her suggestion in the shop. If she decides to let us use her words we’ll let you know.

Send an email to [kim at cupcakesandmace (dot) com] letting me know what you want your necklace to say; which colour acrylic and chain you like; and if you have a sketch or some instructions on how you want the words set, which words should be bigger, smaller, on each line etc include that too. I’ll also need your addresses.

We’re going to be offering create your own C² necklaces in the etsy shop, they’ll be $30 each, slightly more than the nameplate necklaces because there will be quite a bit more work involved. However, if you’d like to get your hands on one created especially for you before they’re even an option in the shop you’re going to get it for $20. Yep, early aaaaaaaaand a third off. This is for my readers only, and is available until the end of October.

Your necklace can say what ever you like. It can be cut in any of the colours we have. And you can either send us a sketch to give us an idea of how you want it to look or you can leave the design up to us. Send me an email referencing the secret blog deals and I’ll know what you’re talking about.

Photos of the winning C² necklaces will be posted when they’re ready.

Life has changed a lot since then. I’m self employed now, blogging, thinking up pretties, and interacting with customers on a daily basis. I really appreciate everyone who has joined me along the way. Thanks to you I have no plans to give this thing up.

To say thank you and to celebrate this milestone I’m giving you the present! We’ve started designing necklace squares with helvetica text. I have no idea what to call them collectively, so feel free to help me out.

The Rules

All you have to do is comment and let me know what you’d like your square to say if you win. It can say anything at all. Easy as.

The winner will be picked by a random name draw, but if we really like your idea there might be a prize heading your way too.

And as per usual if you’d like extra entries post a link from your blog to the comp or tweet about it.

You have a week. I’ll draw the winner next weekend on the 3rd of October. And then it’ll be your turn to send me the presents as it’s my birthday on the 9th of October. :D

These are new products added over the last couple of weeks. Each picture will take you to the Etsy page for more photos and information. (And everything is less than $18 :D)

This magical place is Pete’s Emporium, in Porirua, about 20 minutes north of Wellington City.

It’s a little known fact that emporiums are one of my favourite places in the world. A favourite shopping destination second only to supermarkets (food emporiums if you will). I can shop for hours, sorting through the junk and inspecting the treasures, deciding how many of each brightly coloured button I’ll choose.

I ended up getting a few brightly coloured treasures for my jewellery making, including some pink and blue bunches of grapes. After much wrestling I managed to turn one pair of each colour into earrings. Get them in pink or blue in the shop now. :] The hooks are sterling silver so your ears stay pretty.

Sometimes we’ve got to remind ourselves that it’s no fun to work like that! There is a reason you count yourself lucky to be your own boss. It’s because you love what you do, and you love it so much you probably started off doing it for free.

On that note I started making myself a charm bracelet. Not just from the left overs that didn’t fit anywhere else, but from the charms I actually liked. The ones that mean something to me, or look pretty, or make me laugh.

The Jack in the Box is my favourite. My Mum gave it to me, it really closes up and then pops out on a spring when you unhook the lid!

I thought Sarah-Rose was very right when she said that font 5 would look adorable as a sweary word so I got it cut last night. I’m wearing it in the video and below.

Just as I finished recording the courier came with a package for me from Pakistan. It was all wrapped in cloth and I was a bit scared of it till I remembered my glasses were coming from Pakistan!
They are amazing for $26 NZD delivered! The right eye feels slightly blurred My ears are wonky so the right eye doesn’t line up properly all the time and is a teensy bit less clear, but I can still see great in them, they look cool and they even came with a hard case and cloth. Woop, will definitely be buying glasses online again.

Now I’m off to see Harry Potter. :D

O and please don’t name the winner in the comments so it’s a surprise.

People love them, they love that they are completely customisable, and that we can cut a shape out of many of the letters for no extra charge. We’ve cut cupcakes, hearts, apples, a bird and a skull so far. The biggest problem with customising these nameplates is finding appropriate fonts, most of the flicks in the script type fonts are too thin to hold it all together during a bit of wear. Our current default font is Courier New (#1 below), it looks good and holds together really well. We let people choose their own fonts too, but we’ve figured that people don’t like having to find out what they want by themselves, it’s much preferable to be given a short list to choose from.

That’s where you come in. Have a look at the list below, and let me know your top 3 choices (in order of preference) in the comments. Your comment will get you in the draw to win your very own nameplate so make sure you use a valid email address! :D

Extra entries are available to anyone who spreads the word about the competition, just leave comment letting me know where you left the link.

The competition will close in 2 weeks on the 15th of July so get commenting.

My favourites are 5, 8, 1, and 3.