Close, but no cigar

My husband, James, has owed me some cool photo equipment for our anniversary about two months now. It finally came in the mail, and one of the lights doesn't work. We have tested it out and it's not the bulb, so back to ThinkGeek it goes. We haven't had a problem with them in the past, and I'm sure this will get taken care of with no issues, but it was right there, I had it in my hand and now it's gone :( I am still not feeling it, but I really want to be. Trying to get back on the horse, but even the horse seems uninterested. A few days of rummaging in the beads may help, so I'm going to try that out.



Anyway, here is the set up from ThinkGeek

http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cameras-photography/a205/



Once I get and test the new one out I will have to post pics. Wish me luck ;)

Listening to: Karunesh - Call of the Mystic

I need a big loan from the girl zone

I need warm fuzzies today. Still no sales, so I am down. Any advice on generating more exposure to buyers? Barring that, any advice on something to keep my spirits up while I watch the views on etsy rack up with no sales to show for them? Help a girl out please ;)

Three - Oh, it's a Magic Number

Saturday was such a perfect day to get together with the girls! We had snacks, made some cool jewelry, and made a new friend to boot. I always encourage folks to bring someone new, and one of the girls brought her new neighbor. It was nice meeting her, and a good time was had by all ;) Thanks for coming out everyone!

I was helping one of the girls make a set of earrings, and I needed a set amount of seed beads. Any number would do, so I asked her what her favorite number was. I'm not a numerologist, but I do have a favorite number, three. It quickly became my favorite after we found out that Katie was going to be an only child. Odd numbers have always appealed to me visually, but sets of threes really catch my eye. To be honest, I can't remember what my beading style was before the baby, but threes are in a lot of my work now. I will leave you to spot the threes, and not every piece may have that design but, like Schoolhouse Rock, three does happen to be my magic number ;)

Listening to: Gipsy Kings

Bead Therapy

This Saturday some girlfriends are coming over to make jewelry and I'm so excited! I need a girls day, whether it be in or out, and being close to the holidays I'm sure they do too. When I was deciding on a new name, my best friend, Mrs Blocko, had suggested that I name it Bead Therapy, as that was partly why I was beading in the first place. I typed in Bead Therapy on Yahoo search ( I'm apparently not savvy enough to switch to google for searches) and this came up http://www.beadtherapy.com/ It's a brick and mortar store in Ohio, and I will admit although Ive never been here the name says it all ;)

Listening to: Imani Coppola - Legend of a Cowgirl

Things I can't do while crafting

Now that I have utilized my craft room a bit more I have felt a bit more energy creatively. There are things that I do that will hinder the creative process, so while crafting I try and avoid these.

Eating Sunflower Seeds - I have a problem. There is no twelve step program for sunflower seed addicts, no group therapy, no patch. I have come to embrace my addiction and make it my own. This being said, I can't craft worth a darn while eating them. between constantly taking the shells out of my mouth and then having wet fingers, Sunflower seed eating doesn't happen while crafting, thus keeping my jewelry and costumes slobber free and the customers are very happy for this ;)

Talking on the phone - My best friend has this knack for doing everything with the phone crooked between shoulder and ear. I can't do this. I have tried and tried, I've had a shoulder rest, this didn't help. The only thing that seems to work is a headset and I always buy cheap ones that don't work well, etc. I'm left giving the caller my undivided attention until I can find a headset that really works and comfortable and inexpensive all at the same time, no easy task.

Watching TV - I keep trying to find the perfect craft - one that lets me watch TV while crafting. We don't have TV trays, and that would seem awkward to me to use, and I can't stand lap desks, and when I thought "Oh, I will take up macrame again" I found I can only really do this on a flat surface. Crocheting is not going well, I need to find a person I can look at while crocheting to see what I'm doing wrong. I suspect too tight a stitch though. I think Ive also discovered that I tend to watch the TV and stop crafting. Recently, Ive been trying to find a way to get satellite to work in my craft room. we have more televisions that humans in the house although only two are connected to the satellite. I may hook up a DVD player and see if I can work without turning to look at the TV, but I'm not placing any wagers on the success of that experiment.

Listening to music on the headphones - I adore music. If I am out I will have my headphones on, but I find that they distract me if I am in the house. I don't know if they keep me distant from the family, or I feel more closed in, or what, but if I had my way the entire house would be wired with speakers. I have also found that my headphone wire has come dangerously close to getting snipped while I craft, so there is that as well.

Sewing with footwear on - Footwear is the devil. My mom never wore shoes in the house, not even slippers, and I have followed in her bare footsteps. Now, I know the health benefits of wearing shoes in the house, but I can't seem to get myself to do it. And if I sit down at the sewing machine with shoes, it's as if the shoes are made of kryptonite. I simply can't sew a stitch until I get the one shoe off. I may be able to sew in socks, but usually that comes off too. I don't know if it's the sensation of touch that I need, but I do know that me and my child both use our feet as alternate hands. I pick up everything with my toes, and my daughter would hold my finger in her toes as a baby, like the monkey she is.

What vice do you love that hinders you from doing what you love, what distracts you during your creativity?

Listening To: Buddha Bar III

A Picture is Worth One Thousand Words / What's in a Name

I have been pretty happy and quite surprised with the quality of my pictures. I am not a professional by any means, and I wouldn't even call myself a shutterbug, but for the most part they have been clean and bright. The question is, have they attracted attention? When looking on Etsy, do people stop on your item because of the content, or because of the feeling they get from the photo? There are so many lovely items on Etsy, and many of them are done in what I would call an artsy style, where the item is set against a background, or angles are emphasized in the photos, or the item is purposefully out of focus, etc. My photos, on the other hand, are straightforward. The focus is on the item itself, with no other bells and whistles to give you this impression or that. I'm wondering which is better, having my work displayed with some background, some angles, etc or just up front and stating nothing but the piece itself?

The other question that's been in my mind is this - should I give names to my jewelry? Again, on Etsy, it's common to name your work, but I've found that for myself at least, naming jewelry has felt like I'm trying to lead the customer to a certain feeling, when I just want the jewelry to speak for itself. I don't want to put a idea in my customer's head that wasn't there, or what if I name my piece Cherry Blossom and the customer thinks the name doesn't fit? And what if I inadvertently name two completely different pieces the same name over time? Do you buy jewelry based more on the look or do you buy it for the feeling it invokes, with the name?

Listening to: Istanbul Oriental Ensemble

Moving Day

I've said before my dining room table is atrocious. I have layers of crafts, as if I am in a dig site excavating. I do have a craft room, and I have tried to use it in the past, but one thing or other kept me from doing so. All the crafts on the table keep me from having a sit down dinner with the family, so that's no good either. I'm going to attempt to move back into the craft room today, and I'm feeling really good about it. I have a roll top desk that I need put together, a dress form, and hope chest that is all antique, and I'm really feeling the pull to create in that space.

So tell me, where do you do your best thinking or creating, where is your favorite spot to let your mind run free?

Listening to: Dave Brubeck Quartet - Time Out

cherishing the past

I know a good friend whose family had lost their matriarch about a year back. She was a dressmaker, as was her mother and quite possibly her mother. When my friend was telling me about breaking her house up, I asked if she had a dress form, and indeed she did. My Dad's side of the family is into antiques, so having an old dress form was very exciting to me. It also gave me the opportunity to honor someone's past.

To make a long story short, I was given the dress form just today, and I am so happy with it. It isn't adjustable, but there is just something about it that I love. Of course I had to dress her with a necklace ;)

The problem is I don't know anything about the dress form itself. It's got Majestic D.F. Co. on its base, but other than that I have no idea. Anyone out there with antique dress form knowledge?

Lemonade

This past week or two have been a little nuts. Not a whole lot, but the family has been sick, James schedule was different, and the shinyness of having my work for sale online has worn thin. After 6 weeks I haven't made an actual sale save for one trade. I have asked those successful and anyone who will listen if it could be my work, my pictures, the prices, the shipping costs, and I haven't been given negative feedback except for some good advice on photos. However, I am like a lot of people on etsy right now. I'm trying to weather the economic storm, and trying to make lemonade where there are lemons. If I continue to create, then once the market allows us to purchase wants as well as needs, I will be ahead of the game.

I'm trying to motivate myself as best I can, without going the Stuart Smalley route. It's kinda trickling into my personal life as well, which can only be a good thing. Putting the good words to practice, though, now that is the thing ;)

Tell me how you motivate yourself and how you get from revved up on the starting line to crossing the finish line.

Listening to: Supreme Beings of Leisure

A to Zen

I'm not a Buddhist. I even had to look up how to spell Buddhist just to make sure. Don't get me wrong, I deeply believe in acceptance and respect and appreciation of others' belief systems. It's just that I don't know as much as I would like to. I was talking with a wise man about my jewelry. I told him that I don't make the jewelry, it makes itself and he said that I have a very zen approach to creating. He did explain what he meant, as I have heard the term zen but really didn't understand the concept much. He went on to talk about a group of archers that believe that they don't shoot their arrow to the target, that the target draws the arrow to it. I had never put too much thought into my creative process, but I found that I did indeed have one.

My dining room table is atrocious, let me just get that out of the way. I will have to talk about my workspace in another blog but I do like having everything I use out and handy when it comes to jewelry. I will gather the beads I want to use, and sometimes I get it right on the money and sometimes I have to hunt for a different set. Once I have all the beads I need, I start stringing, and check my work frequently to see if it feels right. I don't use patterns or bead boards, unless its just to hold beads. As with the beads, sometimes I get the design right the first time, and sometimes I have to string and restring and restring again until it feels the way it should. I am very much an emotional person, I feel first then think. Sometimes it has worked for me, and sometimes it has gotten me into more trouble than I care to go into here ;) Let's just say that the jewelry I create has its own personality, and part of mine as well :D

Marketing Schmarketing or The Reluctant Blogger

Back in the day, I was a leasing agent for some pretty swanky high rise apartments. I loved that job. I loved that life. I happen to love James more, and moved out to the suburbs, married him and had Katie. The thing about living in the burbs is that I've switched gears, and I'm having a hard time finding my niche in the handmade jewelry industry. I can market someone else's product with the best of them, but never felt too comfortable chatting myself up. I am definitely working on that as it's only the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, but it is hard to throw yourself out there. Ive passed out a few business cards, chatted frequently on Etsy, made sure I didn't walk out of the house with a naked neck, and started blogging. There are other tools on Etsy I can use, and I'm looking into those avenues. I've come up with one solution that I hope works.

there are several small salons in the immediate area, and I am hoping they will allow me to leave a small portfolio of my work and some business cards, a brag book if you will. These pieces will be examples only of my work, but if I still have the piece available I will certainly sell it. Folks can go online and purchase, or if they want it right away, I should be able to deliver it to the salon. I don't want to leave jewelry directly at the salons as I've had bad luck with consignment. Craft shows are a possibility, but the market is so flooded with jewelers and with no van I have to get choosy about which ones to participate in, also taking my family's schedule into consideration.

I'm sure there are lots of great ideas on how to get my name out there, and improve my game - please share :D

A Family Affair

One of the toys I bought for my daughter, Katie, when she was tiny was some large baby beads that pop together. When she was a bit older, I bought her some very large acrylic beads with a large hole so she could learn to string. A couple of months before she turned 4, I had some girlfriends over, one being one of her teachers in preschool. We were beading, and Katie told her teacher that she wanted to make a "real" necklace, so I sat her down, got her some beads from my stash, cut her a length of wire, and waited for the constant interruptions and complaining that she couldn't get the wire in the hole. A while after, she calls out "I'm done", and much to my astonishment, her string is strung, not one complaint, not one bead dropped, nothing but a completed necklace. From then on, she had her own beads ;)

My husband, James, already worked with chain mail, and had bought a book on wire jewelry, which he put away along with several other hobbies. When he brought up the subject of wire jewelry again, I bought him a jig and some wire and another book, and so far he is really enjoying it. I hope no one clues him in to all the work I will want him to do for me, though I've already gotten a necklace and earring set out of the deal. He made the links, I just designed it :D

...My Favorite Things

I've seen sidebars on blogs about things folks are doing, like what I'm reading, what I'm watching on television, what funny thing my kid said today, etc. Once I get blogging under my belt a bit more, I'm sure I will find a way to have my own sidebar with all of my favorite what am I doing now snippets, but in the meantime I'm going to chat about them here.

Music is such a big part of my creative process. In fact, it's such a big part of me as a whole. I listen to most everything, shying away from country music. Cowboy Junkies are the closest I get to country, and they aren't really country at all. Sometimes I pick the music to design to, sometimes the music picks the design. I'll chat in a later post about my design style, but my jewelry and music are certainly entwined.

Movies are something that my husband and I can always default to for some together time. The big three categories for the both of us are sci-fi/fantasy, action, and comedy. I watch most of the movies he watches, but I do like drama, romance, and musicals as well. I am a very emotional person, and tissue companies are glad for it. I've gotten a lot of great ideas for my work from movies and tv, and watery eyes to boot. ;)

I would like to say here that I am an avid reader, but I cannot. I used to read, on the train to work and back home again, and I loved that time to myself. Since I had a baby, though, time to read has been cut down to instructions on the macaroni and cheese box. I was convinced that once I turned 40 I would become illiterate because if you don't use a skill you lose it. I just turned 40, so we will see at what grade level I can read.

Crafters usually don't stick with one craft, and I'm certainly not one to go against the grain, much. I do sew, and I love sewing. I wouldn't call myself a seamstress but I can make clothes well enough and love costumes. I've also found that costumers are procrastinators, I don't know if that has to do with not wanting to change your mind in the middle of a project or if we are just procrastinators, but I've been known to sew buttons on while travelling to the destination of the place I'm going to wear said garment. I am also trying to teach myself crochet and gardening, took a class in cake decorating, and sometimes try and get creative with cooking. Jewelry, though, is where I seem to be able to make my mark.

So that's me - for now anyway ;)

The Name Game

When my husband and I were expecting, we decided that I should stay at home. Lots of factors went into this, but one of them was money. It would cost me just as much to go to work as to stay at home. I didn't mind but for the issue of whose money was it then. He reassured me that it would be ours, and I could spend how I needed to. Even so, I wanted to bring in a bit of cash. I thought of selling jewelry at craft shows, and quickly came up with the name Wednesday Night Accessories, because at the time my best friend and I had been getting together on Wednesday evenings to make jewelry together. I had hoped she would join in a business venture with me, but life happened to both of us and her husband was facing the possibility of having to move for his job while I faced a difficult pregnancy and recovery. I made the motions of starting a home based jewelry business, but went nowhere with it. I let my tax ID lapse, and didn't think about it for a while.

When I picked up the notion to make jewelry again as a business, I was faced with a dilemma. I knew that Wednesday Night Accessories was a long name, but couldn't come up with anything else that I could relate to. On the good advice of a friend, I didn't go with anything too cutesy, but I am a storyteller, and needed to have my name have meaning. I finally gave in, going with my feelings, and took Wednesday Night Accessories again as my business name. Wednesday Night Accessories fits well with the type of jewelry I create, my best friend points out, it's casual and fun, not stuffy and stand offish. I love hanging out with the girls, and I love seeing them wear necklaces that I've made or even better, they have made while at my house. Wednesday nights are a time to unwind and face the rest of the week with good friends, and my jewelry fits right in with that feeling :D

Check out my work at http://MrsThunder.etsy.com/

Let's start at the very beginning...

I could say that my foray into making jewelry started with an old boyfriend, but that's not exactly accurate. My grandmother started me out with macrame, in fact all of my crafting is due to her. I spent summers out in rural Iowa and she taught me how to sew, how to follow a recipe, gardening, chores, etc. I owe her much, and didn't really understand until well into my adult years. My 4 year old is following in her footsteps, though, and adores bird watching, gardening, playing outside, and all things nature.

It was an old boyfriend that really lit the jewelry making fire. Back in '95 we went to a shop owned by a couple of hippies and that store was heaven to me. I was introduced to my now favorite scent of incense - Nag Champa, the owners were awesome, and they had a large stash of beads, etc. The boyfriend thought putting together his own jewelry was a great idea and bought enough to make a necklace. He was so proud of that piece, and I slowly started making jewelry with him. Soon after we broke up but I was hooked. I've been making jewelry ever since and loving it.

Check out my work at http://mrsthunder.etsy.com/