next life = dragon!!

My lovely sister modeled my jewelry for me - all of my earrings and pendants can now be seen on a real person! Well, soon. As soon as I upload them and whatnot.

Speaking of taking photos of your earrings for sale in someones GASP EARS...I really do not see what the big deal is. It wasn't until I browsed etsy and read things like "made to order! Don't worry, your earrings will never be worn by anyone else!" that I was even made aware that this is an issue to people.

Are we really that germaphobic? Really? I mean, of course I will clean them off before they go to their new home. I assume other sellers do as well. Even if they don't? Alcohol is an amazing substance...it's like miracle working. It kills stuff. Clean them yourself once they arrive if you're that paranoid.

The title refers to this (oh please let this link work) excerpt from Ant Farm.

http://www.amazon.com/Ant-Farm-Other-Desperate-Situations/dp/1400065887/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237219043&sr=8-1#reader

(search for "karma" and start reading at page 104)

I was talking about my karma to Megan: "Karma needs to do something nice to me soon. I keep dedicating all of this good energy from my yoga practice to others, why can't a girl get a break?"

And that's when she sent me that link.

The karma comment stemmed from the fact that my sales have been non-existant. This makes me sad. I am sure I need to do all of this social networking stuff, advertise, get out there more, etc. Or maybe I need to rack up more karma points?

I wonder what others' secrets are. I see metalsmiths who have hundreds, even thousands of sales. Perhaps my work just isn't to the point where it stands out enough? Do I need more consistency in my design and style? Is it the stupid economy and my poor business-starting timing? Should I take more risks? Should I have more "basic" pieces I can make over and over? (Have I mentioned I hate making things over and over but am trying to suck it up and do it anyway because I know it's important to my business?)

I'm not sure what the answer is. Some days I wish etsy and the internetz was easy and people would see my jewelry, fall in love, and buy stuff. The end!

PS isn't picture retaking going well? I think so.

New Etsy Listings!

I have 2 more items to post (a cute lil stacker with copper accent + 'tall' stack of stackers) - hopefully tonight.

And, of course, after I finish all of my stone setting madness I have several others for later in the week as well. !!

Take a look:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22143596

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22144399

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22149998

ring things.

I was so unbelievably productive this weekend. I have 12 new pieces and spent a million hours working on them. It was exhausting.

My biggest frustration lately isn't even my torch. It is rings. And getting their ends to touch for soldering. I feel like I'm jewelry stupid because I can't imagine it should be THIS difficult. It literally took me over a half hour the other day of carefully filing and checking, discovering they still aren't touching, more filing and checking, etc before I had them close enough.

I asked some friendly metalsmiths on etsy and got some tips. And was told it may get easier after I make a few...hundred.

So that's my latest project. Rings. A lot of them.

I've order a rawhide mallet to assist in my ring-making journey, as well as a 3rd hand and some chain. I bet people would like to wear their pendants immediately. So I bought some chain to do that. And now I need to make clasps. The list is never-ending.

NEED like NOW:
wood blocks
c clamps
block with V cut out of it for sawing.
a saw for wood (just a little hand held guy) if we don't have one

I also NEED to find my battery charger for my camera so I can take pictures of the pretties.

oh it's friiiiday.

Yesterday I was musing (or rather being quite annoyed with myself) about how I always manage to forget something when I'm going out the door.

See, yesterday I sent my waxes to the casting place. As I was writing an email to the person that I have been corresponding with at the casting place, specifically this sentence - "I'm still not sure what type of mold will be best for -" I realized that there was nothing to mold in the box I had just sent out. All 20 waxes were in there...the 3 silver rings were not. Sigh. So I hit the delete button a bunch of times and instead wrote, "Please disregard the invoice which says the box contains 3 silver rings. It does not. Those will be sent out tomorrow."

I was determined to have a better day after that and not forget anything else. I was quite pleased with myself when I remembered the bags of my jewelry stuff along with my notebook. When I got to my "studio" ala plastic table in my dad's garage, however, I was overwhelmed.

Everything was a disaster. I have no organizational system at all and that's become a problem with the more supplies and tools I collect. After some damage control I got to work....and quickly realized I forgot my saw. And my ring mandrel. And my dowels. These 3 things were kind of key to making nearly everything on my list. At least I had...sand paper?

So...I only managed to make 2 things, sadly, but tonight I will make more! I enjoyed it because I was able to play with my new copper wire as well as my earring jig that I purchased from another etsian. I'm becoming quite enamored with copper, despite it's skin color-changing abilities and being a "cheap" metal. It's so pretty!

These are DONE (aside from polishing)
1. Irregular circles Copper Pendant (um, thanks to my mother I was singing the few words I knew of "The Circle Game" over and over and over while making this)
2. Irregular circles copper earrings with SS hand-forged (ooo my first try) ear wires
3. Blue paua shell drop pendant

These are on the Schedule (over the next few days)
1. blue paua earrings
2. lula earrings
3. polka dot earrings to match polka dot bracelet
4. lil lulas
5. Megan's custom earrings! (I will be doing these first, actually)
6. piles and piles of stacking rings
7. and then starts the pendants list...

We'll see how quickly I get sick of making earrings.

standing here on this frozen lake

This picture has very little to do with jewelry, other than it's a picture of me and I make jewelry.

Though I think it's too late this year, if you're from Minnesota you should most definitely check out the art shanties on Medicine Lake. It's well worth a trip in the cold. And they have giant robots, see?

Well then.
I can't seem to organize my thoughts past posting a picture of me standing on a giant body of ice today.

There will be gioielli posts in the near future, promise. Posts about how I hate making things more than once. Posts about potential craft fairs. You know. Jewelry stuff.

What have I been doing?

This is ever so slightly overdue, methinks.

The basic update is: I hate wax and I am sick of working in it and I just want to fabricate right now.

Of course that comes at a time when I'm trying to build up inventory. Of course that comes at a time when I have 2 commissions to make...out of wax.

I'm trying to push through and have them done (packaged and ready for the post office) by Sunday March 1st. It takes so long to finish pieces that I'll likely only get half or so done by the end of April. Such is the way of things, I guess. I am trying out a new casting place that doesn't require a minimum order which is so very nice! This means that if someone wants to order a cast ring in a different size I can potentially have it to them in a few weeks rather than have to wait for several waxes to be finished to send out.

I've now made two outside sales on etsy, both within a week! This time I sold a ring to England, which was just shipped off moments ago.

In between making making making I'm working on retaking all of my photographs. I'll be the first to admit that the first batch aren't all that great, the second batch is better but still not as good as they good be, and the 3rd are much closer to where I want them to be.

See?

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21410318

This ring is NEWLY listed! I also have one in a larger size!

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=19359630


This is, of course, all in between trying to balance my "life." Full time job? Check. Part time job? Check. Horse that needs work 5 days a week? Check. Gym 5-6 days a week? Check. And THEN there's jewelry. Somewhere.

Needless to say I don't get a lot of cleaning done.

Let me show you my mess.

This is my grand wax station. The poor kitchen table has never seen a meal and likely never will. All of the dark (purple) items are waxes in various stages of completion. The other tools are various files, my jeweler's saw, my ring mandrel, some dental tools, and tic tacs. Orange tic tacs are very, very important in wax casting. So is sugar in the raw, apparently. (hahaha)

Hopefully they'll be ready to go by the end of the weekend - I will need all the time I can get for finishing!

That pile of pink stuff = shavings from cutting and filing the wax.


Oh yeah, and my GOOD NEWS: First real etsy sale! Hooray! My relisting efforts have officially paid off :)