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.