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What's New: Paparazzi Accessories

It's been awhile! Being a stay at home mom of two has really been something else.  I thought I was busy with one, but with two, it's been on another level of madness. All of this busy-ness means I haven't had time really to work on my Etsy shop.  It's still open but I've kept hammering metal to a minimum. So for now I took the jump into a new venture.  I just signed up to be Paparazzi Accessories independent consultant.  Yup...who knew, after making my own jewelry for $5 years that now I'm selling jewelry designed and manufactured someplace else. What is Paparazzi Accessories exactly?  It's jewelry at the sweet price of $5 and that's hard to come by.  The products are designed in the USA but manufactured in China.  I own a bunch of their earrings - I'm a sucker for hoops, large and small.  And I love their stuff! I call my shop Leylah's Jewels - which is a play/combo on my children's names.  We'll see how things go, so far it&
Recent posts

The End of August

Wow - what a month.  I knew it would be busy because my in-laws were visiting us for 2 weeks and after they left it was my son's 5th birthday.  And in all of that, my 7 month old baby girl started crawling, eating baby food and now wants to stand!  So basically I've been busy and one tired mommy! But having people visit from out of state means I got to relax...A LITTLE! Here's a picture from Ko'olina Lagoons  A day at Dole Plantation The beautiful blue sky in Hawaii I'm lucky to live here, though I do admit sometimes I wish we'd have an actually Fall season.  I don't need winter 😂 I just want a reprieve from the sun and heat sometimes, and I love autumn and cooler weather.  Anyway the visit was fun and hectic and I think we are recovering from being on the go. But the end of August also reminds me that soon the holiday rush will be here and my baby girl's 1st birthday, so the chaos it seems, never ends. I added some new items i

Love You Like A Sister

Get it at Fanciful Wish I wish I had more time to play with my new aluminum tags and fonts!  I did manage to make this new cute keychain/zipper pull for my shop . Do you remember in middle school (yes I went to middle school in the early 90's haha) when you signed someone's yearbook or signed a written passed note in class with the acronym LYLAS?  "Love you like a sister" - it was the thing to do at our school.  Funny to think I can truly say this to a few of my girlfriends now after 20+ years of friendship.  Hey friendships based on snail mail and hand written notes should definitely stand the test of time right?  I think this is the perfect gift for a true sister-friend.  Here's how it looks with an added initials tag, E is for my bestie! Hanging from a zipper Anyways I definitely loved making this one!   And here's an update photo in reference to my last post about summer reading...😎 Went to the public library with my

Summer Reading

I love books.  😍 I've been an avid book reader since the 5th grade when my older cousin was letting me read her teenage Sweet Dreams book series.  Anyone remember those?  I LOVED those.  And Sweet Valley High?  Though I was more into the Sweet Dreams series I think because they were stand alone stories.  My cousin let my sister and I have the books and then when my cousin started reading Judith McNaught it was game over for me on young adult novels for a long while, we gifted the Sweet Dreams series down to our younger cousin who was a big reader also.  But I mean Judith McNaught is still hands down my favorite romance novelist and the other J's, Julie Garwood, and Jude Devereaux.  I started getting back into young adult when L.J. Smith came out with The Vampire Diaries in 1991 😛 .  I bought almost all her books (excluding Night World, because I wanted time to get into that and never did because I was obsessed with the other series haha) and reread them so much that the boo

Pineapple Love

I am an island girl, born and raised in Hawaii on the island of Oahu.  And pineapple used to be big business here in Hawaii.  My immigrant family all worked for Dole Plantation back in the day- planting, growing and harvesting pineapple.  Back in the 1980's when I was a child, there used to be this huge pineapple water tower in Honolulu at the Dole Cannery.  They took that pineapple water tower down and the Dole Cannery building is now a movie theater!  My how times have changed.  But our love for pineapples here never ends. Be Strong, Sweet & Unique Keychain or Zipper Pull.  Get it here ! Lately I've been seeing a quote everywhere about pineapples: "Be like a pineapple, stand tall, wear a crown, and be sweet on the inside." So this is me paying homage to a fun quote.  Let's all be Pineapples!  Or at least enjoy them. No Worries Key Chain - get it here Thanks for reading! XO, Yolanda

For I know the plans I have for you

Get it at Fanciful Wish Jewelry It's been a little over a year since my last post and boy did a lot happen over that year.  First, I got pregnant, after 2 years of trying and giving up, it happened.  Hence why my blog post title is the verse from Jeremiah 29:11.  I made some new plans and got diverted haha. It was a high risk pregnancy so I took it easy and had many doctor's appointments plus I had to take care of my 4 year old son who is pretty active and energetic.  I was nervous with this pregnancy, so scared for the outcome, hoping for the best but not knowing, in the end it all turned out fine.  My sweet baby girl is now almost 6 months old!  How time flies when you have children. Now with 2 kids to run after, I scaled back on my Etsy shop which makes me a bit sad.  There is so much I want to do, so many ideas, and so little time.  But I have faith it will all work out.  So my shop is up and running but with less items listed than before.  I'll be adding m

Back on Track ~ Positive Vibes

Aloha! I can't believe it's been awhile since I've been blogging.  I tried out Wordpress for awhile and liked it a lot but I couldn't keep up with blogging and my Etsy shop at the same time.  I was awful at maintaining my page.  Unfortunate, really.  But I was doing too much at one time. So here I am, back again.  I figure I start this particular blog up again, since I already started with tutorials on here.  I want to get back into it.  But wow, so much has changed in my Etsy shop since I last posted here in 2014. Back then I had just gotten into hand-stamping metal jewelry.  With 2 years under my belt focusing mainly on hand-stamping, I have really evolved in my skill.  It's taken a lot of trial and many errors.  Blood, sweat and tears!  Well maybe no blood, some sweat and very little tears.  *patting myself on the back* haha :-) I've collected a bunch of new metal stamp fonts, experimented with different types of metal and have found some vendors I re