Adventures in Handmade Jewelry

I can't stop looking at this one. Each link is unique with cool detail and was painstaking to make. I'm quite pleased with the quality. It has harmony and balance and I can barely part with it. Luckily I can always make another. Sales have been very slow lately, but I'm still plugging away. Thinking about ad space and other venues for promotion. The number of items for sale is growing and has enough variety I think. It takes time to click I suppose. As long as I remain positive and productive, things can progress.

Changed tack a bit on the photos and went outside for these. I like the way they came out. Just listed these on Etsy today. Have a few more things to list. Trouble is, I'm getting pickier and pickier about my photos and the ones I have just aren't cutting it. Bah. I have earrings and a neat little bracelet with no pictures yet. Got to get on the stick.

Of course that phrase doesn't mean much these days when CGI and Photoshop rule the galaxy. But I'm an old-school holdover to a large degree. I prefer to do most of my work in camera and not post-production. Just me. Not to say that I don't use Photoshop and other editors. I do, but only to adjust to reality when things go a bit awry. Nothing major, I haven't got the patience. So I've been meaning to shoot some things using my old lightpanel that I used when I shot slides. It's very spectrum neutral (as it has to be for slide sorting) and has a nice shiny surface that adds reflections to the picture. I also think that it helps give a polished look to the photos. So...thoughts? Are these improvements over the others that I've done? A step in the right direction? I think so, but hell, what do I know?

So this morning I shot a bunch of things on a new surface...my lightboard. I've had one forever. Back in the old day it was for viewing and sorting slides. When I shot film, that was my preference. It hasn't seen much use lately so I wondered how things would look against it. Mostly they came out well. I like the reflections in the shiny plastic, but need to go rework them due to lack of crispness on some and depth of field on others. How lucky we are to have digital these days. I'd have "wasted" 2 36 frame rolls on just this short session. But pictures make the sale many times, so it's important to me to keep improving. When I'm done the re-shoot I'll post some examples of what I mean.

You know who you are. This went up this morning. And yeah...I snuck in one of my own items. Mostly as an experiment to see if it generates anything in the way of views which have been seriously low on my Etsy site. Well, off to shower and then make some earrings. Enjoy, peeps.

So hey check it out. Tim @ Found-Handmade was looking for some people to help out on his most excellent blog and since I already follow it I decided to muster for it. My first spotlight went up today, it's called Reaching. I name all of my pieces after songs and so have decided to continue with spotlights. Reaching is a song by a Finnish metal band called Blake . Anyway, the spotlight started out with 3 items I hearted over at Etsy. Those I found by pure serendipity, the others I put together with the purpose of rounding out the collection. I LOVE the fact that one of them is a notebook skin, something seldom seen in the handmade oeuvre. Don't expect the usual stuff in my spotlights - they will be hard-edged and weird, that's for sure. Anyway, here it is -

Not me, but chocolateandsteel . Look at that gorgeous ring. Her style is really up my alley. If I just weren't broke and out of work. Oy vey. Well, I've added her as a favorite on Etsy, so maybe someday when my fortunes change. the prize - ain't it purdy? I hope I win. : )

Not-so-basic black. Graduated onyx and 18ga sterling wire. I like it a lot. Just made it this morning and posted to the shop just now. My snowy back deck makes a lovely photo studio.

time for spring. Another semi-set. I didn't put them in the shop that way, but separated them. The earrings were a trial run for another pair I made for a friend's daughter's birthday. I usually try out new designs in non-precious wire first, that way if I goof, it's an inexpensive goof. But they came out perfect and looked so nice that I decided to keep them instead of taking them apart. When I put them side by side with the sterling silver pair, I couldn't tell the difference. I'm selling them as howlite though, not as the "tangerine turquoise" they were sold to me as. Turquoise is the color it is - aqua, green and blue - because of copper. It's shades of verdigris folks and so anything else - purple, pink or yellow - is not turquoise. It might have been mined near turquoise, but the lack of a copper deposit makes it something else. Not that it's a bad thing, just don't get fooled, ok. The bracelet does use real turquoise though and it...

I'm out of it! The slump that is. For a while there I just didn't feel like making anything. Felt like nothing gelled. Nothing inspired. Nothing seemed worth it. Got lazy and crabby. Unmotivated and unconvinced I have any talent at all. I've never put myself out there in this way before and I think it's a natural phase of doing so. The whole time I knew that if I didn't keep working, it would fade. The creativity engine takes a lot to crank over cold so it's best to leave it running. Unfortunately my engine was pretty much out of gas. Part of it was just getting out of the chair I'm sitting in now. It's an Eames Lounge Chair that I bought myself for my 40th birthday last year. Ever since I first saw one when I was 18 or so, I've lusted after one. Normally I'm not a furniture snob, but I figured what the hell - you only turn 40 once (and it was a bargain compared to the BMW I bought myself when I turned 30). So when I get in this ico...