Whew! Lots of new items!

I've been cropping and editing and putting together lots of new listings! Check out my eBay store or my Etsy shop for all sorts of new items.

These are really unique; they're large hole vintage Japanese glass beads. They have delicate murrine slices melted onto their surface. It's so nice to find vintage beads with large holes--these are nearly three millimeters wide!



I've also bought some really lovely charms and two-hole pendants made from sterling silver set with vintage Japanese glass cabochons. They're beautiful and versatile!

More Day of the Dead jewelry!

I've just listed the new earrings I made with Melanie from Earthenwood's awesome sugar skulls!



Super simple, I know, but the skulls are just so fun and pretty that I didn't want to embellish them too much.

You can find them here.

Off I go to another bead show

I will be at the Cincinnati Intergalactic Bead Show this weekend. Hope to see you there!

Jewelry all the time

I've been having fun making more jewelry. I haven't done this in a while, so I'm a little rusty, but it's been interesting seeing which beads I reach for now. I think there's a weird subconscious thing with beaders; whichever bead is your current favorite, that's what ends up in your designs.

I've been making a lot of chain-based jewelry right now.

Usually I make strung jewelry, generally like this:



I like both for different reasons. Chain allows a piece to move more freely, but it also twists more easily and sometimes bunches up while being worn, which bothers me. There are always pros and cons with every kind of jewelry design...

New Etsy shop, new jewelry

I've set up my new jewelry shop on Etsy, and I'm working on stocking it with jewelry, such as this set:



I love the Day of the Dead skull design. It's from Gaea and it's such a beautiful pendant.

I have my mini photography studio set up, and I'm experimenting right now with different options on the camera, trying to get things to look nice on the computer screen. It's a challenge!

I'm so excited about making new jewelry. I have a wonderful bead collection, honestly, and I just need to find the time to craft some new things.

Fighting against complacency

Occasionally I realize that it's been a while since I updated the content of my eBay or Etsy listings. I do change the pictures for each item, but I don't often look at the basic text, things like shipping policies. Shipping methods. Personal policies.

Now that eBay has stopped the purchase of shipping insurance on listings, I need to revamp all of my listings to remove the sentence about insurance. But it also occurs to me that this is a good time to review the text of my listings.

Recently I had a customer who mentioned that they felt my policies were too vague. In the ensuing emails, I had difficulty in communicating what I thought were very clear ideas. However, I am grateful to the customer for making me take a closer look. Rereading it right now, I noticed that I could change the wording to make it even clearer.

I think it's a good idea to continually test and retest our work, and even though the basic text at the bottom of the entry can hardly be considered "work," it still deserves attention.

To do, or not to do

One thing I struggle with incessantly is trying to decide what to do next. It's a very simple question, of course, but there are so many possibilities that it can often overwhelm.

Yesterday I decided that this weekend should be All Jewelry All The Time, but today I find myself emptying the last few boxes leftover from the move--framed pictures and decorations. I wish I had done this before the garage sale, as I'm finding a few items that I'd like to get rid of. Still, it's good to do this, but there is no jewelry being made. Nor photographed.

I have been fairly motivated about listing a piece of jewelry each day in my Etsy jewelry shop over the last few weeks. I have missed a day or two, but overall I've managed to keep it up. I feel like I'm posting it to the void, most days, but at least the shop is starting to look full. I am getting to the end of my original set of items, though, and I really need to start making new things and, more importantly, getting the photos together so that I can continue listing them.

I'm trying to understand what I need to do to be where I want to be. I am always thinking in a million different directions and sometimes I wish a giant glowing arrow would descend and point me to the Correct Path.

Spookyheads for me to play with

I have just received my special order from Melanie of Earthenwood Studio! These adorable little handcrafted ceramic sugar skulls are awesome and I can't wait to make new jewelry with them.

Happy Hallowe'en!

I hope you all had a lovely, spooky day!

The days grow shorter

The pond has leaves floating on the top of it. The trees are getting bare. I'm starting to want to withdraw into myself, and I find that I want to make jewelry. I have house guests this weekend, but I have Monday and Tuesday to myself, and I think I will do a little playing with beads on those days.

Plus the mini photography studio needs to be set up again...

I think it's time to experiment!

The listing continues

I've put all sorts of new items in my eBay shop! I've found some lovely base metal chandelier earring findings, and some great vintage Japanese marble glass leaves.





The earring findings are really beautiful. They're so easy to use to make earrings--just attach hooks to the top, and hang a few crystals on the bottom of each!

Committing to jewelry

I've been so absorbed in selling jewelry supplies that I haven't done much in the way of jewelry recently.

So I've decided to commit myself to listing one piece of jewelry a day in my jewelry Etsy shop. I'll try to keep this up until the end of the year. At worst, it gives me some practice with my photography skills, right?

Jam-packed weekend!

Tomorrow I'll be at the West Michigan Bead Expo in Grand Rapids, MI. And then on Sunday I'll be at the Great Lakes Beadworkers Guild Bead Bonanza in Southfield, MI. I'm running around the house, packing everything, rebagging inventory, and printing out more signs.

Hope to see you all there!

Milwaukee bead show

This Sunday I will be at the Knot Just Beads Milwaukee Bead Show from 10 until 4. It takes place at the Milwaukee Wyndham Hotel near the airport (the address is 4747 S. Howell).

I'm still packing and putting together my merchandise. I'll have some new things and a lot of great closeout beads, as always.

Hope to see you there!

Cleaning and organizing

After taking care of a few odds and ends at my grandmother's Assisted Living apartment, I've come home to start some organizing.

I've purchased another cabinet from Best Craft Organizers, and I've just put it together and labeled the drawers. These things are addictive, I swear; I've already filled the new one, and I'm contemplating a third.

I have new merchandise to sort and lots of things to bag for my upcoming shows. And here, a pic of the nightmare so far:



It can only go up from here, right? *grins*

Unfortunate news

I just drove in from a business trip to find out that my grandmother passed away tonight. Fortunately, I will be home for six days and that will allow me to help my family out with the arrangements before I leave again.

And another Day of the Dead necklace...

...this one featuring a lovely pendant by Gaea (website).

Which brings me to a small story. I originally ordered the pendant in March, and read her emailed instructions, which stated that the order would be custom-made and the next firing would be in April. For some reason, I don't think I really understood that I'd receive it April; I thought I would receive it in May. I didn't need the pendant until late August, so I wasn't concerned.

Well, May (and June) are crazy months for me because of Bead & Button, and I didn't even think about the pendant. It wasn't until July that I remembered it.

I contacted Gaea, who was extraordinarily nice, and she researched it and said that the pendant had been shipped in April.

I was flummoxed, until I realized that my home Paypal address was incorrect--it was still listed as the apartment address. The business address was correct, and I'd assumed it would be shipped there.

Since Gaea never received it back, and we never received it, I believe that it was either lost in the mail, or stolen by the apartment's new tenant, which makes me very unhappy indeed, considering that an entire set of checks was sent there by mistake and they still haven't resurfaced.

But I digress. I purchased a new pendant from Gaea, who very kindly looked through her inventory to find something similar, because there wasn't enough time to have a new one made.

My picture doesn't do the pendant justice, but here it is:



Frosted black onyx, faceted pearls, antiqued sterling silver chain.

Making jewelry

I haven't made much jewelry recently, but I did make a piece for a dear friend of mine:



It's very simple, meant to be a casual piece.

The skull pendant is from Andrew Thornton of Green Girl Studios and is made of bronze clay, and the beads are fossilized wood.

I've always loved skulls and memento mori, and it's wonderful to be able to design with such a fun piece!

New rhinestone lots going up on eBay!

I've spent this week getting a new set of rhinestone lots ready for my eBay store. It's been tricky, as always, looking up the specific lingo for these items, and also making certain that I get each listing correct. I always have to triple-check new listings because there are so many little pieces of information in each one.





I'm just going through my second check right now, and hopefully I'll be able to list all of these within the next few hours!

The next phase

I've been very intrigued by electroetching brass, and I've made the first, tentative steps toward doing so. Today I visited a hardware store and picked up polyurethane varnish, and a brush. I'll pick up a car charger at a Murray's, and they might have copper sulfate as well. I'm going to compare prices for blanks and order some this week.

For years I've thought it would be intriguing to have the ability to pick and choose artwork somehow, and attach it to some kind of merchandise. I always though that T-shirts would be fun to design, for example. I find myself intrigued by the etching process, and I'm already wondering which kinds of designs would work best. I'll definitely be photographing the process and sharing it with you all.

And finally, they are here!

I've just listed 42 lots of glass gems in my eBay store. I'm so excited! They are just awaiting being labeled with their item numbers, and then in the drawer they'll go.

I feel like I've been doing this forever...

...this cropping of pictures, this prepping and adjusting. I'm nearly done, though, and I have a good feeling about it. The glass gems will be going up so very soon. Tomorrow, or perhaps Monday. Here's a sneak peek:






I'm crossing my fingers that I'm able to list them all very soon. And then I'll start on the rhinestones...

The scanning continues unabated...

I have just finished scanning in all of the new glass gems lots. All sixty or seventy of them. This should be an exciting project! I still have the rhinestones left and the odd cabs left.

Next step? Cropping and cleaning up the pics. That will be the work of a day or two. And then working in TurboLister to set up the listings and post them. I'm very intrigued to see the reaction to these. Some of them are very small, some of them are unusually-shaped, and they're all in very nice colors, so hopefully they'll be popular.

The weekend beckons

My parents are staying with us this weekend, which means I'll be putting off listing the huge batch of glass gems I'm working on right now.

I have some really cool sets, and I think they'll be popular.

Of course, this brings me to a dilemma. I have always listed them as "glass gems," but I now see that a major company is calling them "stones."

This is the type of merchandise I'm talking about:



I'll have to research them on eBay and see what the most common term is. I always have balked at calling them "stones," because they're glass, but if this is the usual term then I'll have to start revising my listings.

Home again

And for more than five days this time! A whole month.

I have an enormous backlog of items to list in Etsy, and I have finally managed to finish cropping and editing the pics so that I can begin listing them in my Etsy store. Thank goodness!

I'm so excited about being able to work on a few things this month. Plus, in September I'll be taking a few metalsmithing classes. I've taken metalsmithing before, but I thought it might be nice to do it again.

Hope you all are having a great summer so far. For me, it feels like it's just beginning, hee!

Off to Cincinnati

I'm heading down to Cincinnati for an Intergalactic Bead Show at the Sharonville Convention Center. The show runs Saturday and Sunday from 10-5, and it should be a fun time! I'm really looking forward to it. I have lots of favorite stuff to sell, plus some new beads, too!

Home for a few days

I'm back from Arcadia Daze. I was disappointed by the weather, which turned cold and rainy on Sunday, and dampened sales somewhat. Still, it was a fun time.

Now I'm getting read for the Intergalactic Bead Show in Cincinnati, held at the Sharonville Convention Center. Hope to see you there!

Another stepping stone reached

I was keeping my eye on my eBay account, and sure enough, yesterday I hit another little milestone:



How cool is that?

You know, I never expected eBay to be such an important part of my business. It's still a surprise to me that people want to buy things from me, y'know?

The garage is nearly empty.

A guy who stopped at the garage sale offered to buy everything that was left, and I accepted, and he stopped by and picked up most of it today. There are still a few bits and bobs left that he'll stop and pick up tomorrow, but overall, it's gone.

I am so excited. I feel like this is one of the final steps to really owning the house, in a way. And I feel like this is a new step forward in my own jewelry-making. I am very excited to experiment for the first time in ages, and I'll have the space to do so now.

I've also signed up for a few metalsmithing classes. I took one course ages ago in Birmingham, and it was terrific, but I just recently found a fabulous opportunity to take more, and I'm really excited about it. I'll be taking the classes with a friend, which makes it even more fun.

Even better, while preparing for the Arcadia Daze show this weekend, I discovered a tray full of jewelry in my organizer. Jewelry I had completely forgotten about. And quite a bit of it, too. I will have more jewelry for sale at this show than I've had in the past three years. I'm not certain anyone will really be interested in it--a lot of it is funky, Etsy style jewelry--but at least the displays will look very full. I'm pretty excited by this.

Back from a conference

What could be more welcoming than a sunflower blooming next to my front porch?



I'm so happy to be home. I'm preparing for Arcadia Daze. I have so many beads to bag, and jewelry to price. I hope I have enough time to get ready!

The garage sale is over; the roller coaster continues

The garage sale was not incredibly satisfying in terms of money. Nor in terms of getting rid of things. However, we did at least get everything into the garage, and I was contacted by a guy who wants to buy everything (for a very low price, I'm assuming). I'll be setting up an appointment next week for that purpose, and after that I look forward to parking in the garage again--and setting up a little workdesk out there for experimenting. Hooray!

It's almost here

Tomorrow is the beginning of our garage sale.

I can't believe how much stuff we have to sell. It's astonishing. At least a hundred boxes of stuff from my husband's grandmother, plus a little of our own. And furniture. Decorations. You name it.

Over the six months we've lived here, I've grown increasingly unhappy with the state of the basement and the garage. I have been trying to unclutter my life, and I've managed to get pretty successful. I have only six or seven boxes of extra stuff that isn't displayed.

So moving here, and having to store all of the grandmother's things in the garage and basement, has been a bit difficult at times. I have a reasonably neat house (a little dusty at times, but still, it's not very cluttered) and I want to keep it that way. Having the basement so overflowing with stuff has been weighing on my mind.

I really hope that the sale attracts lots of people. I've advertised it on Craigslist, and I'm crossing my fingers that the traffic for the fair down the road will bring people in.

Really, I just want us both to be able to park our cars in the garage.

And maybe have a space where I can start experimenting with etching...

Garage sale craziness

I really need to work on the garage sale I'm having next weekend. I have a whole basement full of things which I need to get ready to sell, but I just can't stop sorting cabs! Typical avoidance behavior...

Still listing cabs.

Whew! This is a pretty intense job. Especially because so many of the cabs are identical, but have a different kind of foil on their back, or are a shade lighter or darker. I've already realized that one set of cabs should have been split into two--there are two shades of blue in the lot. I'm not going to change it now, though.

I have endless lots of oval cabs in 12mm and 14mm. I'm pretty amazed at how many sets I was able to make. Hopefully I'll be able to list a lot more over the weekend.

First set of cabs in my eBay store!

I've finished the Giant Sorting Project!

I've listed the first set of cabs in my eBay store!

I'm so excited about this. By the time I'm finished, I will have doubled the number of items for sale in my eBay store.



Some of the cab sets are so pretty. I love the blue color of this set.

In preparation for this, I've revised all of my store categories. I used to list everything under Vintage Beads, but I realized that many customers aren't looking for cabs, so I've divided them into Beads, Cabs, Rhinestones, and Glass Gems. Hopefully that will make things easier.

The sorting continues unabated.

Wow, I can't believe how many new sets I'm going to be adding to my eBay store. It's pretty amazing.

Most will be familiar, as a lot of it is taken from existing lots and just restructured (for example, the amethyst assorted lots were broken down into each amethyst-colored glass gem), but there are some oddball cabs and fascinating little bits and bobs. It will be interesting to see if any cabochon fans like these new sets.

Minature pirate treasure sorting

I woke up at just after eight this morning, looked at the alarm clock, and fell back asleep.

When I woke again, just a few minutes later, my alarm clock was off. I blinked and then realized we'd lost our power. A bit of investigation revealed that the nearly everyone in the tiny town where I live had lost power, despite the beautiful, sunny, non-windy weather.

So I spent today without the hum of my computer. No Miami Vice episodes. No Tori Amos songs. Just me, sunlight, and my sorting project.

I worked on the glass gems today. I've sold most of the large glass gems at this point. (I put them out at shows and marked them as "Pirate Treasure," and sold lots of them to kids.)

Now I'm down to the tiny glass gems, which will have the most appeal to diminutive pirates, I suppose.



They look so pretty in the dish. I love the colors. I think that making them available by color and style both is going to be a good thing. I can't wait to list the new sets!

The endless sorting

One of the things I love about selling beads and cabs is the sorting.



I have spent whole days hunched over a table, happily sorting beads and cabs into piles while watching (or mostly, listening) to eighties shows on DVD. It's probably one of my favorite aspects of this business.

It always leads to questions of selection, however.

Let me explain. This is the last portion of a huge bin of mixed cabs, glass gems, rhinestones, and...er...beads-without-holes that I purchased a couple years ago.

At first, I simply bagged them randomly in large bags and tried selling them, with mixed results.

Then I separated the glass gems and the flatback cabs and sold those in assorted bags. That, too, had mixed results.

Then I separated the glass gems and flatback cabs by colors and sold those in assorted by color bags. They've now become steady, if not great, sellers in my eBay store.

Now I'm pondering breaking it down even further into foilback/transparent sets for the oval cabs, and perhaps by color for the rhinestones.

It's intriguing, because I don't use any of these items in my own jewelry, so having to try to guess what consumers will want--and how they will want to buy them--is a puzzle. Do they want matching sets, and if so, how many in each set? Will some people still want assorted lots?

I know from experience that people do like both. When I first started selling dollar bags of beads, I'd spend a lot of time picking through everything to make bags that contained only one kind of bead. Then one day I was rushed, so I threw together some mixed bags. At the next show, the mixed bags sold first, and so from then on I always made sure I had a few of those.

Anyway, the nice thing about today's sorting is that this is the last of these cabs and glass gems. Over the last two years I've gone through about eighty pounds of this by hand and pulled out all of the interesting funky stuff and put it aside for special lots.

My strategy for the next couple days is to separate by style and color, and then separate further into foilbacks and transparents, and see how they do. I think I'll keep the mixed lots, too. It'll be interesting to see if it makes any change in how they sell.

What a week!

My dear friends, their kids, and their poodle stayed with me last week, and a good time was had by all.

Now that I've finally recovered from Bead & Button and poodle-visiting (hee!), I can start revamping my Etsy shop and my eBay store. I'm starting to list more things, and I'm trying to keep them both restocked as well as I can. I picked up a few really cool things while I was at B&B, so check my eBay store out if you're interested--I've already listed some things!

I picked up some beautiful fern stampings that I've always admired...



...and I've bought a few more of my favorite cabs. In fact, I bought all that they had of a couple of them, and I am already happy with the decision. Vintage beads and cabs are one of my favorite things, and it's highly unlikely that I'll find more of the same (especially not at these prices), so I keep telling myself to go for it. The poodle agrees.

Whew!

I'm back from the Bead and Button show!

I was working for my dear friends while I was there, and it was a wonderful (if exhausting) time as always! I love the hustle and bustle of the show. I didn't have a lot of time to walk around, but I did get a chance to talk to my awesome friend Melanie Brooks and the fantabulous Anne Choi, so that was wonderful!

I missed out on hanging out with Andrew from Green Girl Studios, which is a bummer, but there's always the next show, after all.

I'm really excited about this summer. I have a lot of stuff planned, so it'll be very busy! I'm going to have a big garage sale, and I'll be at the Metal Clay Conference, and also at shows in Arcadia, MI and Cincinnati, Ohio.

I've already put one part of my summer plan into action--I've listed lots more new merchandise in my eBay store. Then I plan on catching up on listing in my Etsy shop, and hopefully I will finally have a chance to put together my website, which has languished for so long.

I am sad about returning to my tomato plants--they did not do well. I think they might have gotten burned by the fertilizer I used. Woe! One of them is still alive, but the other two are not happy.

There's a clematis plant at the front of the house that is blooming--it's extraordinary! I'll definitely be taking pictures of it soon.

So that's the state of the Laurel. Hope you all have great plans for the summer, too!

Off for another month

I haven't been updating regularly. Over the last couple months I got sick with a sinus infection, did a couple bead shows, and really started to get stuff done in the new place, especially outside.

Today, however, I'm leaving for a month. I'll be helping friends out at the Bead & Button Show, including getting everything ready for the show. It's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun. I look forward to seeing all of my bead friends there.

When I get back I plan on updating regularly. I have lots of ideas for this blog, and I hope to have the time to put them into action!

See you after June 12th!

Spring

Today I noticed that there are irises poking up out of the ground in front of our house. Because we moved in during December, the flowers and plants are a bit of a mystery to me, and it will be interesting to see what else is growing here.

I will miss the flowering trees at the apartment complex, though. This is a pic from a couple years ago, when I was home during the single week where they bloom. They're so beautiful! I hope I can plant something like this here at the new house.

The photography shed is up...

...and I'm hoping to take some pics this weekend. I found the stands for my lights, and now I just have to work out a cord situation that I won't trip over. Easier said than done, heh.

I have to also mention I'm pretty fascinated with the tracking Google Analytics does. I check every day to see the hits on my Etsy site, my website, and my blog. It's really interesting to see how the hits correspond to listing new items and posting new entries. I've been watching the new Etsy stats rather intently. So much fun!

Making time for photography

I haven't posted many pictures here recently, mostly because of the move. Tomorrow I'm hoping to fix that. I think I'm going to try setting up my mini photography "studio" and see what happens. I can't wait to experiment with the setup. Hopefully I'll put together a few good angles so I can take nice pictures each time without too much fuss.

New thoughts, new inspiration

For years I've wished to do something a little more than beading. Something creative, something interesting, something that I could incorporate into my beading to make it a little more...mine.

For years I've not followed this. Mostly because other people have gone in this direction before, and I always wonder what I could offer that would be different enough to be exciting.

As some of you already know, I'm an English major, and I love words so very much. And I started thinking this morning about a different direction I could take. Something unusual, that I haven't seen before. Well, at least a variation I haven't seen before. I am intrigued by this.

Like a saucepot on the stove, I'm letting it bubble for awhile. I need to really think about this first.

It feels refreshing to ponder something creative.

Decisions, decisions.

So my Etsy shop has been an interesting experiment. I put both beads and jewelry in it, because even though my first impulse was to make separate shops, I had heard that Etsy frowns against it, and I was wary of having to put extra work into the venture.

Now that I've had the shop stocked for six months, and I've passed the 100 sales mark, I'm taking a close look at it, and trying to decide whether to split it into two shops, one for jewelry and one for beads.

While this would be less confusing, I wonder if it would be rewarding. Jewelry is quite saturated on Etsy. Perhaps I should just concentrate on putting jewelry on my own website, but it seems silly to neglect Etsy if it could help get me more exposure. I'm torn between the two at the moment.

One thing I do know--I think it looks a little hodgepodge to have both in the same shop. So now I just need to decide if I want the trouble of another Etsy shop, I think. Or maybe I'm overthinking this...

Back from Tucson

Whew! It was a long trip. I spent time with my friends in WI before and after the shows, and now I'm finally home.

I had a great time talking to Andrew from Green Girl Studios, and I bought lots of wonderful charms from him.



I also bought a lot of great stone. Here's a small sampling:



Aqua terra jasper, fossilized wood, amethyst slices, larimar, keyhole components from C Koop, beautiful handpainted ceramic beads...delicious, isn't it?

Funniest moment was witnessing a vendor and a customer who couldn't meet on a price, and ended up playing rock-paper-scissors to make the final decision. ha!

I also bought some amazing vintage bead and vintage cab closeouts. Really delicious large flatback sunflowers and hand-faceted large glass rings and all sorts of amazing things. Watch my eBay store and my auctions for some really great pieces very soon!

Off to Tucson

I'm off to help out my friends at Tucson, and I'll be spending some time with them after the show is over as well. I'll return on February 23rd, and hopefully I'll have some new content! Enjoy yourselves, and thanks for reading!

Getting ready for Tucson

The Tucson show is starting very soon. I'm packing and organizing and preparing right now. It means a month away from my husband and our new house, but it also means spending time with dear friends and catching up with so many awesome people in the business. I always look forward to the vibrant experience that is the Tucson set of shows.