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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Picasso and Afremov Inspired Jewelry, Linking Pinterest with Facebook, Argentium Silver Price Comparison

I’ve finally started teaching out of my workshop. I like not having to pack things up and then put them away (twice). I like not forgetting something crucial and then having to do without. I like having everything at my disposal so we can go off on tangents if we want.

SRAJD Weekly Jewelry Making Challenges

I’m still taking part in the SRAJD weekly theme jewelry challenges when I can. I’m sad to have missed a few of the weeks in July as the theme was iconic painters.

I did manage three Picasso-inspired pieces. I was having so much fun learning about Picasso’s art while reading up on this challenge that I went ahead and explored some designs based on three different periods of his painting career.

The first piece is inspired by Picasso’s “rose” period. This followed his famous “blue” period and instead of the cold colors with somber themes, his paintings took on the warm red, pink and orange hues with more cheerful themes. My charm bracelet features these colors accented with the stark black and white of the harlequins that Picasso added to his paintings during the rose period. The clasp is homage to my joy of Picasso's sunflower paintings. 


My second piece was created after I read about Picasso’s influence of the movement that included collages in fine art. Some say the term collage was as a direct result of Picasso. For this simple piece, I chose the theme of famous artworks, mostly women’s faces, and just made a miniature collage pendant, sealed with domed resin. 

For my final piece, I chose one of Picasso’s most iconic periods of art, cubism. For this piece I first cut a piece of rose bronze sheet then soldered small, cut out bits of copper sheet to it, flattened it in a rolling mill, then repeated the process for a second layer. I then added a patina. 


Then I missed the week for Piet Mondrian.

Got back in the saddle with inspiration from Leonid Afremov. BTW, here’s what his paintings look like. 


And my entry.


I’m attracted to the vibrant colors of Afremov’s work and in a perfect world would have loved to enamel on top of these rings, but I was pressed for time so ended up doing colored resins instead, giving them more of a Monet appearance than Afremov. I’m still happy with how they turned out as this was my first time trying to make rings like this based on a tutorial from Jewelry Making Daily. It was a bit tricky since I don’t have a square ring mandrel, but I improvised. After cutting, filing, and annealing the copper tubing, I formed the squares and stamped (can’t really see that) textures on three sides of each ring. I then added a patina and decorated the tops of the rings with colorful designs reminiscent of Afremov.

I’m so sad to have missed the final week which was Henri Rousseau.

And all these things are still sitting in my overflowing drawer entitled “Things to List”. I have an equally overflowing drawer called “Things to Photograph”. Yes, I’m a wee bit behind. Will try to put my nose closer to the grindstone this fall.

Linking Pinterest and Facebook

With social media marketing being both important and time-consuming, I wanted to share with you a tip that you may or may not feel like enlisting.

I don’t always have time to hit up each social media site on a daily basis so I do cross-post a lot and I use whatever technology I can for that.

There is a feature on Pinterest so that each time you pin something to a board, the will also become a post on your Facebook timeline.

The good thing is that this can save you time.

The bad thing is it posts to your personal FB page, not your business/fan page.

This is okay by me because I’m not much into separation of art and personal… I’m one all rolled into one. But I know a lot of my readers prefer to keep their work/art and their personal lives separate.

For those who don’t, here’s what you do…

  1. If you click on your icon/name in the upper right of the Pinterest page, it will show you a drop down menu. 
  2. Click on the second option “SETTINGS”.
  3. Scroll down past Account Basics, past Profile, and past Email Notifications (unless you want to turn that off while you’re here… I personally HATE email notifications for Pinterest and/or Facebook).
  4. On the section for Social Media Networks, just click on the white box next to the word “no” (which would then reveal the word “yes”). If you’re already signed in to Facebook, which most of us are, you should now have a “yes” there and all you have to do is click SAVE SETTINGS at the bottom of this page now. You may also set it up to post to Twitter and others.
  5. When you do a pin and get the PIN pop-up, in the lower left of the pop-up there is a check-mark box and it says posting to Facebook. If you do not want to post that pin to FB, just uncheck the box. Whatever you last do is your new default. Meaning if you remove the checkmark, it will be removed the next time you pin something. And if you HAVE the checkmark, it will be there the next time you pin something.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) versus Etsy Search

Speaking of getting seen, I don’t think internet search engines (Bing, Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) look at the "tags" we use in our Etsy listings.

They're looking at the title and the first few words/lines of your listing description. So you need to think from both perspectives when selecting title, description, and tags. Don’t put all your eggs in the “tags” basket.

If you want to rank higher with the general search engines then give equal attention to title and first lines of your listing description.

Now a Trip Into Fantasyland for a Second

Except, for these home owner’s it’s not fantasy at all. Lucky people! Check out these totally awesome houses by clicking here.

Here’s just a taste… 




And I've figured out one more way to describe the house I'd like to live in in the future... a house designed like a loft.

Argentium Price Comparison

The other day I was shopping for some Argentium wire. Look at the widely different prices I found. 



Alright… talk to you later! 



2 comments:

  1. Laura regarding the linking pinterest to facebook. What I'm seeing when I click on that is that you have to log in as facebook to allow for posting on facebook. I never logged in via facebook. Does everyone do that?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good question, Diana. I don't log in to my Pinterest account via FB. Here's how I interpret that msg: If you aren't already logged in to your FB account right this second, do it now so we know how to link you.

    ReplyDelete