MarshaNealStudio

Handmade Ceramic Clay Art and Beads. Hand Painted Silks

Hockessin, Delaware On Etsy since 2008

8,621 Sales | 5 out of 5 stars

Buyers are raving!

This shop got multiple 5-star reviews in the past 7 days.

MarshaNealStudio

Handmade Ceramic Clay Art and Beads. Hand Painted Silks

Hockessin, Delaware | 8,621 Sales

5 out of 5 stars

Shop owner

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Announcement    Handmade ceramic beads, pendants, beaded silk cord wrap bracelet kits, small terrarium sculptures, and tiny hanging vessels fill my Etsy shop. If you are looking for the hand painted silks use my sections to narrow your search! There are many listings for specific colors, styles of silk and quantities you may want to purchase.

My love and admiration of nature is expressed through my hands working in clay. And I find that the winter months give me time to reorganize my studio and spend some creative time coming up with new work before spring sets in and my garden and outdoor play with my children calls...

I am always up to something - want to see?
Marsha Neal Studio Blog:
http://www.blog.MarshaNealStudio.com

Marsha Neal Studio Group Share on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/184707968589991

Marsha Neal Studio FaceBook:
http://www.facebook.com/MarshaNealStudio

MarshaNealStudio on Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/MarshaNealStudio

Sign up to receive my email newsletter:
https://madmimi.com/signups/join/28284

Thanks for stopping by!
Happy shopping…

Announcement

Last updated on Jun 25, 2019

Handmade ceramic beads, pendants, beaded silk cord wrap bracelet kits, small terrarium sculptures, and tiny hanging vessels fill my Etsy shop. If you are looking for the hand painted silks use my sections to narrow your search! There are many listings for specific colors, styles of silk and quantities you may want to purchase.

My love and admiration of nature is expressed through my hands working in clay. And I find that the winter months give me time to reorganize my studio and spend some creative time coming up with new work before spring sets in and my garden and outdoor play with my children calls...

I am always up to something - want to see?
Marsha Neal Studio Blog:
http://www.blog.MarshaNealStudio.com

Marsha Neal Studio Group Share on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/184707968589991

Marsha Neal Studio FaceBook:
http://www.facebook.com/MarshaNealStudio

MarshaNealStudio on Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/MarshaNealStudio

Sign up to receive my email newsletter:
https://madmimi.com/signups/join/28284

Thanks for stopping by!
Happy shopping…

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Marsha (Neal)

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Marsha (Neal)

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quality 200 shipping 373 customer service 318

About MarshaNealStudio

Sales 8,621
On Etsy since 2008
  • With two young children much of our time is spent exploring and discovering the balance between work and family time.
  • Fall 2013 Just completed recycling about 1000 pounds of ceramic clay scrap into useable de-aired pugged clay!!!
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  • I love creating color palettes of silks strands, simple bracelets, and pulling color palettes for customers.

Creator of handmade ceramic bead, pendants, cabochons, buttons. Lots of glorious hand painted silks too in three styles and lots of colors.

I have always been a maker. As a child I was always in my mothers DMC collection to work on making friendship bracelets. I remember discovering tigers tail and seed beads around the same time. For hours I would sit and make - and I loved it.

While in college I was not quite sure what direction I wanted to go in, and was guided towards Entomology since I wanted to work with "animals". During that time, I felt a disconnect with school as I was working 3 part time jobs just to make ends meet. So with my now husbands encouragement, I took a ceramics class. After 1 semester, I was encouraged again, this time by my grad student teacher to take another class (since I seemed to quite enjoy it and spent a lot of time in the studio). That was in 1997, and I have never been away from clay since.

When I was finished with college in 2001, I first started making small ceramic tiles, but soon realized that people wanted to wear them, so in 2002, I started making and selling ceramic beads. For a few years I traveled all over the US selling my beads through the Innovative Beads Expo shows, and other shows in Tucson, AZ and Tacoma, WA. It was a wonderful life traveling, making bead friends that became more like family and getting my work out there.

When websites, Etsy, Blogging, Amazon and such started taking over the internet around 2007, I just happened to hit my first life changing whirlwind that set me on another path. I lost my mom to Leukemia in September 2007, and had my first child in December 2007. I stopped traveling when my mom became sick, and after having my daughter I did my last Tucson show, and decided no more until I was in a better place in my life.

In Dec. 2009 my son was born and I focused all of my selling efforts through Etsy (tried to maintain a website, but that just was too much for me to deal with). I changed up my line of beads from larger pendants to smaller spacer beads, and worked on some jewelry kits for the silks I sell incorporating my beads).

Around 2014 I started to feel burnout from working alone in my basement studio. The economy was not all that great for makers, and I didn't want to make beads, just to make them. I happened to take a couple of needle felting classes with Sara of SarafinaFiberArt.com and when I went to their shop open house in October 2014, Sara offered me a job working at the Sarafina Art House (in Elkton, MD) helping with kit production, wood bunling, and shipping of orders.

I cannot express how thankful I am for being offered a creative job working for such a fun company. As the company has grown, positions have changed, and everyone there can do a little bit of everything around the shop. Sara showed me how to wash and dye sheep fleeces about a year after I began, and now I am able to shop for the fleeces we need, and get them washed and dyed. I absolutely LOVE the texture and colors of fleeces and my creativity often goes into my job there.

I still make ceramic beads and do not plan on stopping running my Marsha Neal Studio business. I mainly keep listings here on Etsy updated with refreshed listings that have new items to replace sold ones. I do monthly Facebook Group sales with new items on a regular basis.

I have also been a blog contributor on ArtElements.net blog over the last couple of years. There are great weekly and monthly themes and challenges there to keep creativity flowing.

The kids are getting bigger, we have lost our old cats and have new fur babies from the humane association, and life keeps taking loved ones as we age. Life everyday is a treasure. I appreciate how fortunate I am to live a creative maker life and thank you for supporting my work always!

Shop members

  • Marsha

    Owner, Maker, Designer, Curator

    I have been forever been a maker. As a young person I was obsessed with making friendship bracelets and seed bead necklaces. And now I get to make beads and jewelry kits for others to enjoy as well. So many ideas, so little time...

Shop policies

Last updated on July 26, 2018
Welcome to the Marsha Neal Studio Etsy shop!
If I had to write a quick priority list about my current position in this life it would be: Mom to Chloe & Riley, Wife to Dave, Porcelain Bead Artist, Wildlife Conservationist, Entomologist, Bird Watcher, Garden Enthusiast, Chocolate Lover, and much more!


If you want to see what I am up to this week, swing over to my Blog:
http://www.blog.MarshaNealStudio.com

How did I get to where I am now?
I have been working with clay since I took an elective beginning ceramics class in 1997 (I was studying to become an Entomologist - concentrating in Wildlife Conservation). After graduating with an MA in Ceramics in 2001, yes - bugs and clay, I started making tiles. I also worked three jobs through college, and after. I have been a waitress and a bartender, sold shoes at Sears, taught kids and adults about nature, ran a butterfly house for a few summers, worked in the Quarantine lab at the USDA BIRL, then finally, before selling beads full time, I worked for my in-laws at their lighting business doing all kinds of things that fall under "office assistant".

After trying a few not-so-great local craft shows (neighbors had macaroni glued to a plate - seriously!) I realized I was not in my ideal market and that I should learn to really listen to my customers that kept mentioning "You should put a hole in that tile - I want to wear it on a necklace". So upon an urge, I cast aside the tiles and vases and started making beads and pendants.

After figuring out how to create pendants from my "tiles" (put the hole in it when the clay is soft) and fire the pieces suspended on tiny hooks, suspended from bead trees in order to have a smooth glazed surface over the entire piece, I started to apply to bead shows. Within a couple of years I was selling my work and jewelry making supplies at over 30 bead shows a year.

Traveling like this lasted until 2006. After a few years of selling, making, and traveling, I started to get a bit burnt out. My husband and I wanted to work on starting a family (not going to happen with all the alone traveling ;). Not to mention that all of the traveling to sell and long hours making beads did not fit into our ideal situation for raising a family.

My friend Darlene (D7Studio) picked up the bead show circuit for me, and now runs that side under her business. What a relief to just have to send her a bunch of new work and see what sells.

I do miss the interaction though. I loved getting to know all of my customers and hearing about how they plan on using my pieces in their jewelry design. Or how that piece they bought before was used as a necklace or earrings and the person receiving it, loved it (often incorporating my handmade story into their inspiration)… SO cool!

So to keep up on the socialization aspect of my business, I have a blog, a flickr group (for creations made with one of my clay pieces). a Marsha Neal Studio Facebook Page, and a MarshaNeal twitter account. I use these tools to interact with my customers. And really - most of my customers become like extended family over time. Maybe that is just the way I feel though being brought up in an Italian family…

I try to show the pieces here as what you will receive. There may be a few listings (decal pieces, silk strands) that are a general listing because the actual items are somewhat easily reproduced. Those listing will indicate it.

A little know fact about my work: If you happen to drop the piece and it breaks (think of it - clay is covered with glaze, glaze is glass… Treat it as you would a glass bead), and I am still alive and working in clay in this way, just send me the broken piece and I will do my best to send out a replacement piece at no cost (well - you do have to pay to ship it to me).

I love my work. I am passionate about the level of quality in my work. And I treasure the relationships I have with my customers. So please do not ever hesitate to email me about something. I will get back to you as soon as my kids allow me time on the computer (timing will get easier as they get older - Right?!)

Thanks for stopping by! Have fun shopping!!!

Accepted payment methods

Paypal Mastercard Visa American Express Discover Apple Pay Giftcard
Accepts Etsy Gift Cards and Etsy Credits
Returns and exchanges
I gladly accept exchanges
Contact me within: 7 days of delivery
Ship items back within: 14 days of delivery
I don't accept returns or cancellations
But please contact me if you have any problems with your order.
The following items can't be returned or exchanged
Because of the nature of these items, unless they arrive damaged or defective, I can't accept returns for:
  • Custom or personalized orders
  • Perishable products (like food or flowers)
  • Digital downloads
  • Intimate items (for health/hygiene reasons)
  • Items on sale
Returns and exchange details
All sales are final. No refunds. Exchanges are possible, email me for details.
Payment
Marsha Neal Studio Etsy shop accepts direct checkout and Etsy Gift Cards, PayPal as well as check and money orders.

Money Orders should arrive within 5-7 days of the sale close, Paypal & Other Electronic Payments should be within 3 days.

If you are purchasing a couple of listings that qualify for a quantity discount (2mm silks, silky ribbons or fairy ribbons) I will refund the quantity discount before your order ships.

If you fail to make payment within the specified amount of time, the item will go back for sale on Etsy.

Marsha Neal Studio, LLC is located in Delaware, USA
Shipping
USPS SHIPPING RATE INCREASE 1/17/16.
Please see the shipping rate profile under each item listing. If there is more than a $2 difference in what I charge for shipping and what I pay, I will send you a refund via Etsy.

Items will ship by USPS First Class Mail within a couple of days of payment, often I am able to ship within 24 hours or less.
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US Customers:
All packages will ship First Class or Priority Flat Rate. I purchase my shipping labels through Etsy and you should receive a notification that your shipment has been shipped, and the tracking number will be in that email.

You may also request insurance for your package before your package ships or in the message to seller when checking out in case of loss or damage.
Add (to be determined on the value of your shipment). I do ship most packages insured without any extra cost (on orders up to $50). And it is up to you to contact the USPS with your tracking if the item has not shown up to file an insurance claim. Please let me know to so I can do what I can on my end.

If you are in a rush for your item, you can also request that your item is upgraded to USPS Flat Rate Priority Mail for your item (as long as your item is ready to ship and also, as long as I have not already shipped your item - I do tend to ship the same day).
Add +$3 for USPS Small Flat Rate Priority Mail (box and envelope)

For any of these upgrades, convo me immediately after placing your order about, wait for my confirmation that I can ship as requested for you, then please send payment for the upgrade as priced above via PayPal to Marsha [!at] MarshaNealStudio.com.
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International shipments:
There has been a huge increase in International shipping from the US as of the close of business on 1/26/13 AND again on 1/17/16.

US First Class Parcel Packages to international locations vary by weight and destination. On Average $11 to $16 USD.

Priority Mail International and Global Express are both considerably more.

I do not add insurance or delivery confirmation to international orders, I can only provide you with the US Customs label to show when I shipped your item, and when it leaves the US. You may request additional insurance for your shipment when you place the order.

If your package does not arrive to you, I cannot ship out a replacement order for no charge as there is nothing I can do to make sure your item arrives to your doorstep. This is why insurance is an option.

If you are not ok with this, and want to cancel your order, please do so immediately as I often ship the same day.

I also understand that many packages are taxed when you receive the item. Please do not request that I falsify information to avoid you having to pay excessive tax amounts. This is illegal, and I am not willing to pay the consequences. Please do not even ask.

All international shipments are processed through Etsy and USPS so the value of your package is entered directly into the computer and printed on your label. Nothing shipping international is processed hand written here in the US anymore.
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If your item is something I need to make (some of the decal pendants, anything that needs to be made into jewelry), your complete order will ship as soon as all the items are ready. You may request partial shipments and please be prepared to pay for both shipments.