Meet Jewelry Designer and Blog Hop/Destash Hostess Extraordinaire, Lisa Lodge of Pine Ridge Treasures

    Lisa Lodge is a designer of classic, feminine jewelry. 

      Her designs can be found in publications such as Bead Trends,

    Bead It Today, and the Artisan Whimsy Marketplace. She is a member of the ZnetShows Design Team and the Echo Creative Club.

Lisa's beautiful classic, feminine Pine Ridge Treasures jewelry

 Lisa sells her jewelry locally and online at her Zibbet shop, Pine Ridge Treasures. In addition, Lisa is hostess to blog hops for fellow jewelry designers, and offers regular "destashes" of her Pine Ridge Treasures supplies and beads on Facebook at Destash-Pine Ridge Treasures.

Lisa's Autumn Bracelet Give-A-Way at Pine Ridge Treasures 

Lisa's blog hops are extremely popular, with themes that focus on nature while challenging artists to create using colorways and materials that Lisa mixes and mails to each participant. Upcoming hops such as "Into the Forest," "Winter Sparkle," and "Ocean" will explore color, designing with crystals, and art beads. Follow Lisa's Pine Ridge Treasures business page on Facebook and blog, A Grateful Artist, to sign up for her blog hops. 

I'll be participating in all of Lisa's upcoming blog hops, and look forward to seeing the beautiful art created for this Saturday's hop, "Into the Forest." Rather than simply post about the weekend's upcoming hop, I wanted to share all the great things about Lisa --  her jewelry, her hops, her destashes. 

The popular "mystery mixes" at Lisa's Destash group on Facebook.

Lisa's motto for her blog, A Grateful Artist," is "Living Life with Gratitude and Sharing the Joy of Artistic Expression." Lisa Lodge is a terrific friend, super creative lady, and gifted jewelry artist! She inspires me. And, certain she'll inspire you too, I interviewed Lisa for today's post:

1) How long have you been making jewelry?
Three years.

2) What inspired you to begin making jewelry? How did you start?
It started as a project to create Christmas gifts for relatives, and as a stress reliever. It gives me a creative outlet after working all week at my day job. I love coming up with ideas and making them a reality. Currently I sell my work locally, and online at Zibbet.com. Most of my pieces are one of a kind.

3) Favorite technique?
I really enjoy stringing the most. I also enjoy working with wire. Earrings are my favorite type of jewelry to make. Maybe it is because I like variety. There are so many different ways to design earrings.

4) What do you like most about hosting blog hops?
What I like most about hosting the hops is providing fellow designers a platform to try out new design ideas (by using beads they may not normally gravitate toward), making new jewelry contacts/friends, and enjoying our mutual love of jewelry design. If we all gain design inspiration in the process, that is an added bonus! Based on the many positive comments I receive after a hop, I think that the participants are enjoying them! There is always room for growth and improvement. If the hops ever start feeling rote or stale, I will stop doing them.

5) Advice on getting published?
Become familiar with the publication you would like to be published in. What type of jewelry do they publish? What are their needs and specific guidelines? Follow the guidelines to the letter. Submit high quality photographs. Don’t become discouraged if you receive a few rejections.

6) When did you start “destashing” in earnest?
I would have to answer this question by starting with the “stashing” as opposed to the “destashing”. When I started designing jewelry I bought a lot of beads and findings before I really knew anything about making jewelry. Then, as I discovered art beads and handmade lampwork and clay, I just had to buy a bunch of those pretties as well! Before you knew it, I was drowning in supplies (not a bad place to be, I admit), but my wallet sure wasn’t happy. I started listing a few items in the Artisan Whimsy destash events, and then found a few destash groups on Facebook. Now I have my own destash group on Facebook.

7) What is unique about your destashing events?
I like to make the events fun, creative and unique by offering a variety of items in varying quantities and groupings. I like to offer “kits” based on color themes or nature themes such as “the forest” or “the sea”. I also sell “Mystery Kits” where the buyer is given a one word clue as to the contents of the kit, such as a color, or a material, like lampwork or crystal. The mystery kits are super popular, and often sell out within an hour or less. The creation of “Mystery Kits” has a long background for me – my sister and I used to create “Mystery Grab Bags” for our family garage sales many years ago. We placed create “Mystery Grab Bags” for our family garage sales many years ago. We placed items in brown paper lunch bags (stapled shut) with a one or two word clue on the outside of the bag. They were so popular that we had many people return year after year just for the grab bags.

8) What is your goal for the destash part of your business?
First and foremost, I am a jewelry designer and that is my main focus. In order to keep designing jewelry, I need the funds to purchase supplies. So - one of my goals for the destash is probably the same as most everyone’s: to be able to sell enough of my extra supplies to enable me to buy new supplies. (This is a never ending, yet fun cycle). I also have the very important goal of providing high quality, reasonably priced destash supplies to fellow designers in a fun format. Once buyers know the value of what you are offering, they will continue to come back.

Links to Lisa Lodge's blog, destash group, blog hops & jewelry:

Email: jewelryprt@yahoo.com
Store: http://www.zibbet.com/pineridgetreasures
Blog: http://gratefulartist.blogspot.com
Facebook Business Page: http://www.facebook.com/pineridgetreasures 
Facebook Destash Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1374259236148886/