Just checking in

Good grief… I promised myself I’d get to get early tonight. Hmph!

Friday, Mon and I drove to Bakersfield and caught a Junior Condors (WSHL) game. In the morning we continued on to southern California for the girls select camp tryouts.

Got back around 2am last night… neither Mon nor I could fall asleep so we watched a movie. Then I woke up early (habit). I sorted some papers, then we watched the all star (NHL) game, went to a Tech (HS hockey) game, went grocery shopping, then came home and started cooking (gotta have healthy choices ready to eat every day).

Made two pots (Monica ate the first pot!) of quinoa, got a beef and veggie stew in the crockpot, made a quinoa and white bean salad, and hard-boiled some eggs.

I actually have some new items to list. No hockey for me this week so I should be able to catch up on quite a bit. I’ve got a couple pieces ready for the kiln. I’d love to do some more bronze clay, but I’m out… maybe I can call Hadar and see if I can go over to pick some up Tuesday.

Okay, heading to bed now.

A quick preview

I'm only here to say I have nothing to say. :-)

Apparently I'm taking it easy a bit this week. I must be because I'm behind in a few things... listing new jewelry being one of those things.

I'll show you a preview of what's coming, though.

Bronze Metal Clay from the Kiln and a Question of Repurposing

I was looking around at other bronze metal clay jewelry today, and no one seems to be addressing the fact that patina can change and even disappear over time. Is it common knowledge that colors on metal change over time? Should we (as sellers) not care if our pieces change color after they’re purchased… even if it’s years down the line? Should I put a note in my listings letting customers know that all patinas will change over time, some more and faster than others, and that keeping an item in a Ziploc bag when not being worn will slow that process down?

Anyway, here’s a bit of my weekend’s work. Here’s the wildly colorful bronze straight from the kiln.



And this is what the pieces look like after the first buff.



Since that photo, I’ve done a couple hours of sanding (from coarse grit to extra-fine grit). No picture of that yet… I’m sort of pooped out for the evening.

I’m very happy with my new Bronze ring, however. Now that I know I can do it, I’ll try something a little fancier next time. I have some ideas based on ancient artifacts that I’d like to try.

BTW, I noticed, as I was spending intimate time sanding my bronze pieces that I really (REALLY) like bronze. I realize gold has more yellow in it, but for the price difference… WOW… give me bronze any day.

And it’s not just about the monetary cost of gold. There are other costs involved… in the mining.

Which brings up something I’ve been thinking about lately.

If a person doesn’t want to use items for personal reasons, like they don’t want to use animal fur because they don’t believe in the killing of animals for our vanity, or people who don’t want to work with gold because of the dangerous mining conditions…. Anyway, if they don’t want to use or work with items for these kinds of reasons, what about recycling?

Is there a difference if you repurpose these kinds of items?

I haven’t quite figured out how I feel about it. I’ve actually got some beads made from repurposed mink fur, but I haven’t used them yet. If I make something with them and offer it for sale, am I promoting the idea of using animal fur for vanity reasons or am I promoting the idea of reusing and recycling things already in existence so we don’t have to make/create more?

New Jewelry and More Etsy Mysteries

Feeling Badly For Others… Is There a Point?

This is actually a statement/question upon my lips when I awoke this morning.



New Jewelry

I seem to have fallen into a system of making five new items a week, which works out well for the home page of my shop because I get to show five featured items… so I’m just updating the featured items when I get my new listings up (usually Monday evening).

Decided to do a little bronze metal clay this weekend. I feel like I’m starting over. Used very basic techniques and designs. It’ll be nice if I get some workable stuff out of the kiln (which I’ll probably run tonight after Monica’s game).

Well, since it’s been so long since I blogged, let me at least show you what I made and listed last week (clicking on any photo will show you more details).








More Etsy Mysteries

Did you know that some people use Etsy listings as advertising… ONLY! There are people who have items NOT available for sale (already sold, one of a kind) that are pretending the items are for sale for the purpose of exposure.

Yes, it’s against Etsy’s terms of service to list items for sale that you don’t actually have and don’t intend to make if the item is purchased.

But the 3000+ items marked in the selling area as “SOLD” make it obvious that a lot of people don’t care about Etsy’s terms of service.


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New Necklace Listings and Some Etsy News

Aside from making two necklaces tonight, I got three new ones listed.

Here are the ones I got listed (click a photo for more info).

Rio Caño Cristales is a river in Colombia, South America, known for a special display of fabulous colors. “During a brief span between the wet and dry seasons when the water level is just right, the many varieties of algae and moss located at the bottom of the river bloom in a brilliant display of colors.” Harold’s wild lampwork beads remind me of this world famous natural occurrence.




Corinth is an ancient Greek city with ruins that Alex’s beads totally brought to my mind. I’m left speechless in trying to describe the beauty of the city. Very much worth a web image search of “ruins of Corinth”.








ETSY Stuff

I ran across this interesting article… Top 10 Reasons You Should Not Sell on Etsy.

And speaking of Etsy, don’t know if you know about the latest brouhaha, but some Etsy vendors were quite up in arms about a seller who made light of some very serious and sad situations in life. Etsy tried to stand by their TOS claiming freedom of speech, etc. but there was apparently enough pressure by their customers (the people who SELL on Etsy) that they decided to change their TOS and disallow “Listings That Disparage or Promote Hate”. You can read some of the details here

I can’t find the source page for the original CNN story on the subject, but here it is embedded on this blog.

TTYL!


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