sneak peek

I have made some time to work on this idea I have had for a little while. I do not have enough pieces to call it a collection just yet, but I am loving the texture, color and uniqueness that they are showing me. Think: organic, ragged, bold, ethnic, chartreuse, fuchsia, chestnut, royal blue, amethyst, iolite, turquoise, jade, copper, brass, & sterling.

A little peek.....

Handmade Artisan Glass Beads

Scaled Sky by abeadedgift.

Woke up this morning and decided to browse handmade artisan glass beads on etsy. A fascinating medium I have yet to explore, I was curious to see what caliber of artist etsy could claim. Very fine, it seems!
After picking through stitch markers with glass beads on them and mis-tagged (each and every one flagged) beads, I set aside a few to marvel at and dream about buying. If you need to snatch them away from my dreams, its okay, I understand. I would much rather these lovelies go be with a loving home then stay in the dank, dark basement of my financial longing.

HMB Studios -

Montreux Mountains

Organic , lavender, planetary ring-like, I would throw a larks knot over these with leather and create an adjustable silver button closure and that's it. It needs nothing else to make it a unique and breathtaking accessory. Available here at an affordable $15.
Oh! She has half off until 7-15! Unbelievable!




BleuVerre
Etched orange and Pink Beads


These beauties remind me of Lake Powell and the swirls of different colored sand in the gorges left by rushing water. These would need to be kept together, perhaps strung on a hand forged sterling neck ring? What treasures! Her whole shop is wonderful but you can go to these directly here for $15.




ABDesigns
Northern Lights Series

Ah, the depths! I love when a glass artist achieves this technique, where if you look too long it feels as if you are falling into the glass. Her color combinations are spectacular and her craftsmanship is perfect! She also creates jewelry from her lampwork that compliments the style of her glass beautifully. Available here for a very reasonable price of $18.



Baptism by Fire
Bejeweled Bead Tabs

Deep, rainbow colors, beautifully blended with a super glossy sheen. I think I would make the tabs into a bracelet with green jade, maybe clasped with a big sterling toggle clasp. Then take the little round ones and make complimenting earrings out of them. They're so beautiful!
A steal at $18, you can purchase them here.



Rachelilila
Spring Leaves

So ethereal! I fell in love with everything in this sellers store, her sterling frames, her colorful glass, her embroidery! But these, I want to own these so badly! I think I would invest in some of Jamnglass's silk ribbons and choose contrasting colors for each leaf, maybe add some dyed freshwater pearls links around them? Look at those colors!!!! She has a couple of sets of these, this one is available here for $28.




Skyvalley Beads
Silvered Peacock

Isn't it gorgeous?!? She has quite a few of this style but this is my favorite. I see this as a focal point for a heavy sterling chain tassel, with a few mixed stones and pearls randomly linked through out. Leave me breathless......
Buy here for $17.50!



SFDglassbeads
Raku Rustic Petites

Another seller I could have bought out the whole store with but these caught my eye because of the word rustic. I am so against the Victorian thing right now and struggling to stay true to the retro/mod stuff. I want to break out and go savage. Rustic. Natural. Organic. And these do the job for me! I would love to rivet them to a wide band of hammered sterling silver.
I really do not want to share this link but here it is anyway. They are way too expensive for you. (not really, at $27 they are a great price for investing in artisan beads)




Lori Lochner
Plum and Gold Necklace

Not loose beads to design with, but so perfectly suited to my mood and influence right now. It's delicious grouping of exotic fruit colors mixed with neutrals and a bit of teal green, complimented by the rustic copper and bronze components, all strung on to a felted necklace of red, fuchsia and aqua. Ohhhh, I want to touch it. Available here for $75. Be sure to check out her whole store, she has pieces for unique individuals that can appreciate the fusing of modern materials with a flare for the ancient.



I could keep going but blogger is having trouble uploading photos and I have been in my pjs, browsing for several hours. I still have work to do to be ready for tomorrows shipping.

Which is your favorite? Do you have a special glass artist to share with me?

Do you know this painting?

This is a fragment of a painting that I cannot find the title or name of the painter.
I was reading an art history book a long time ago and attention was brought to the way the artist had painted the silk folds in her skirt and how realistic they were. But I cannot remember who!

I love her serene, thoughtful expression and the blue-gray color of the background.

After creating the bezel I paired it with an aquamarine stone and some gorgeous czech glass that complimented the bronze finish of the bezel, all wire-wrapped together with antiqued brass and clasped with a hammered brass hook.

I can't list her until I know who she is!

A post on wholesale

Wholesale is an excellent way to add income to a handmade business. Most handmade sellers price too low to offer the usual 50% off their listed price and it is okay to explain to potential wholesale accounts (stockists) that you can only offer 30 to 40% off for wholesale orders.

I am not an expert. As usual, I have a nice little set up that came from me messing things up a bunch of times before I learned how to not be taken advantage of (payments up front), how to make the wholesale order worth my time (minimum of $200) and how to recognize what is not legit.

This would be one of the non-legit inquiries;

Hello,
My name is Mrs
Faith,I got your sales from ETSY and I would like to purchase this
Items with you on a dealership,not with the company cause i am new on
computer and i don't operates credit card.....All I want is
---6( Fleur Noire - Vintage Enamel Necklace )
---6 (SLICE OF LIME SUMMER EARRINGS)
---6 (STAR LIGHT ROMANTIC VINTAGE RHINESTONE BROOCH PEARL NECKLACE)
---6 (Swarovski Crystal and Sterling Silver Bracelet)
---3 (Turquoise and Yellow Shell Earrings.)
---3 (Tree of Life -- Sandcarved Hemimorphite Pendant)
---3 (PARISIAN LOVE AFFAIR CLEAR BLUE SKIES REPURPOSED VINTAGE BROOCH NECKLACE )
.Please kindly let me know if there is a discount to it, and also you
dont need to worry about the shipping because I have account with
Fedex which I can pick it up from you...Meanwhile,I will send Money
Order Or Cashier's Check for the products kindly get back now with
your full name and mailing address for payment ,,, looking forward to
here from you hope fully soon. Thanks and best Regard
Faith Smith

The clues;
Bad grammar, a business without a credit card is just plain sketchy, they have named items not even in my stock, and THEY WANT TO COME TO MY HOME. (You also have to have a credit card to have an account with federal express.)

I also do not reply to "do you wholesale?" No names, no business contact information or even a shred of interest in establishing basic human courtesy, ie, "Hello! I am a boutique owner and I would love to offer your work" , etc, etc....

Of the approx. 5 to 10 inquiries I receive each week for wholesale inquiries, I have to date 10 accounts, all over the world, that purchase regularly and offer a supplement to my business income. They know I will price fairly (they have to make a profit off these items or there is no point to stocking them), work quickly to ship the items (there is a normal 2 week wait with large orders) and they will receive quality goods their customers will enjoy owning that is backed by a 100% guarantee (either a photo or the damaged goods must be returned for me to refund or replace).

Why wholesale if I can just sell at full price?
For me it is a chance to sit and create for a few hours over a period of a few days and have a large lump of money given to me at one time. If you are in a position to receive $400 to $800 all at one time for your product, this saves a ton of time photographing, editing, measuring, writing accurate descriptions, listing, answering customer inquiries, packaging and shipping and deserves a discounted price. But that is for me and my type of product.

If you are interested in learning more about wholesaling, this is a good forum thread to bookmark and reference;
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6201294

If you are a boutique or brick-n-mortar store that would be interested in stocking my product please contact me, I would love to create exclusive designs for your customers!

one small step from unglued

I cut this little fragment from a book to add to a mixed media shadow box piece a long time ago, it amuses me. And it is a statement I have often thought of when considering my mental state.

I knew the book was done, but I did not know about the proof reading of the lay outs, all the little things the publisher pulls out of nowhere to question and add confusion to a relatively simple project. The retakes for the design team. The rephrasing for the editor in chief, more photos, more questions, more rewrites. Perhaps if I had been more experienced I would have known to expect all that comes after.

I knew that the product showcase in Bust magazine was a good idea, with half a million readers, that would be a heck of a advertising opportunity. I thought I had prepared, I purchased over 100 adjustable ring blanks, made over 100 clay cabs, took pictures, edited, made up a nice little listing description and listed as many as I could (good lord, that is so tedious) . But again, if I had any experience with this sort of thing, I could have recognized that it wasn't just the featured product that would sell, it would be all sorts of things. And then there's that custom order thing, we all offer it when business is at a level we can handle, but boy when it gets busy, it is a bear to keep track of. You spend near an hour emailing back and forth over some $15 item and you begin to question your belief in keeping your prices "affordable". (And do not get me started over the divas that want the red carpet rolled out for a $5 ring, sheesh).








But the main thing, that surpassed all other forms of income since June 1st hit?

A surprise feature in the etsy finds mass emailing. It very nearly did me in. You all have seen the little wire-wrapped bird's nests? Well, I had the idea to turn it into a ring with these little turquoise pearls for the eggs. Pearls are an alternative to June's birthstone Alexandrite and this cute little ring was included in the Pearls for June feature. I am still reeling from this.
I made 40 rings in 5 days, in addition to all the other business that came from this honor.
(I am very proud to say they all shipped out within 3 days of the order!)

Now all this would be reason for feeling a wee bit overwhelmed, right? I mean, it literally all went down on June 1st. But lets add to that shall we?

The new asuz computer my dear husband so carefully picked out for me, which worked beautifully at first then stopped connecting to the Internet all together, was returned with half of the info necessary to run my business. I mean 3 wholesale orders and all their details, notes on sizes, color requests, links, tutorials, itunes (very necessary to business) and BOOK LAY OUTS. Gone, lost in best buys diagnostic center, which my dear husband has now visited a total of 6 hours. The second asuz he brought home, I fell in love with, it was even lighter in weight (he keeps bringing home these bricks that weigh a ton on my soft, squishy lap) and it stopped working also. Arrrrrrrgh!
He's tried everything, spent so much time on the phone with the geek squad, so much time setting up things, downloading things, switching things around ( this is the extent of my technical knowledge here) and to no avail; the asuz just doesn't work. We have an hp now, but I am weary, weary of becoming attached or using the computer for any thing least I should find myself in the dark again.



But my Rex. Oh boy, has this kid been through the ringer. He went camping with his Big Papa, who stupidly thought that since he didn't SEE any bugs biting them, there must not BE any bugs biting them. Oh, the words I could say here..... Rex was covered in mosquito bites, tick bites, chiggers, and a horrible spider bite right in the middle of the back of his neck. It quickly became infected and I had to spend a lot of time keeping it clean and disinfecting it. But as I was cleaning it I noticed a small lump on the side of his neck. The next day, a Saturday, he had 2 more, by Sunday night a total of 5 bumps all around his neck that hurt him. I took him to the Dr. first thing Monday and they reassured me that this was his lymph nodes fighting off the poison. They said it could take 1 to 2 months for them to go back down. I was so scared.

But he also hurt his arm on our new trampoline and now he has the chicken pox. The chicken pox, for the sake of Pete! I thought he was having an allergic reaction, they looked like the start of hives that pop up all over his body when he has ingested peanuts or rubbed against dog dander. But they didn't go away with 2 doses of allergy medicine, which we try to avoid giving him because it alters his behavior in such a way that he experiences something akin to depression. And now he is a very sad, itchy boy. :(
It is so hard to see your little ones go through pain and discomfort, it consumes your thoughts and energy.

I am slowly getting back to a normal life, This morning when waking at 6:30 I didn't start working immediately, I just stayed in my pjs and read blogs that I missed. Tomorrow is another shipping day which I need to prepare for and I still a have a very large wholesale order to complete which is late, but for right now I feel I could take a step backward from unglued.

to mom

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

I love you, Matsuka. Thank you for never expecting repayment for all you have given and done for me.

A Very Cute Cuff

First, I saw a monogram cuff at Anthropologie. It was cute and very expensive. Like $168.00.
I know, I know. It's not that bad, but I couldn't afford it so let me break it down for you.
If you were interested in making your own monogram cuff that is.

First I searched 'brass cuff' in etsy. The ones by urbanrose were not there yet, but that would save you a couple steps. I choose this one by mermaidsdowry. It was just the right width for me, but she has wider cuffs also, if you like a lot of FLARE. I also purchased one of these circle findings, which is just a bit larger then the width of the cuff. Don't you love when you find what you need at 1 store!!!

I put a drop of turquoise breeze acrylic paint on a paper towel and rubbed it over the brass embossing. You want the paint to go into the imprinted spaces of the embossed design.
Let that set for a few seconds, it dries very quickly. Now take a dry section of the paper towel and rub again over the surface, this takes the paint off the surface of the brass, but leaves it in the imprinted areas. I swiftly buffed the surface with the paper towell to bring up the shine of the brass.

Next I rolled out a bit of pearl white clay, cut a little circle that would fit inside the brass circle finding, baked, buffed and stamped the white circle with an "S" from making memories magnetic letter kit, Vintage Type. This letter measures only 1/4" long and fit perfectly!

I coated the letter cabochon with 3d crystal lacquer, available here at Sun and Moon crafts.
(she's the fastest shipper, with the best price and spectacular customer service.) and let that set.

Now all you have to do is place a drop of E6000 epoxy onto the center of the colored brass cuff and press the brass circle into it, hold for 30 seconds or so so the epoxy sets. Add a second drop of epoxy to the back of the clay cabochon and set this into the center of the brass filigree circle.
Let the decorated cuff set up over night.

You're done!

The price of your new cuff? Well, let's see that's approx. $9 plus shipping for the brass cuff and filigree circle., $8 for the glaze and epoxy, then $2 for the block of clay. Ink is just pennies and letter stamps can be found pretty inexpensively at any arts and crafts store. You would probably spend around $25 if you needed to buy everything.

Most importantly you made it yourself!

Dear James,

I was enthralled. The movie was not worth watching if you were not on screen. The ugly troll-like dude would pay for what he did to your poor little fawn leg and The White Witch would die a thousand horrible deaths for turning you to stone like that .

You had me at the brown paper package dropping.







Deeply impressed with Becoming Jane. I had awarded you with the uber special Shannon's Not Easily Impressed Award.

VERY prestigious.






You had replaced all other crushes with Atonement.

(I like libraries too.)







I tolerated this because it was a very dashing vest and pant ensemble.

And your hand is very elegant.








But this simply will not do. You are going in the wrong direction.



You've seen the new Twilight movie, yes?

You could very easily be replaced.
I will hold off on judging until the new Star Trek movie comes out.


You've been warned,
Shannon

Leontyne is staying with me for awhile

Leontyne tiptoes slowly among dark forest trees, beckoning for you to come out and join her. She is a keeper of secrets and a singer of lies. Utterly trustworthy and completely deceptive.
Tell her everything....

She is available here

She has been with me for a while as I could not quite bring myself to list her in my shop.
I love her presence on my work desk, her expressive arms and hands, her pose, as if she is about to take off, flying through the air over tree tops, silhouetted against the moon.

I sincerely hope the owner loves her as much as I do!

La double vie de Veronique