Getting Ready for a Crafty Weekend!

Because it's one of those "you had to be there" kind of things, I won't explain why, but I'm going to be making something for my daughter and me featuring these:

Whatever gets made won't be identical because, while I found two packs of charms with the lobsters, I wasn't able to find more than one pack that had the starfish and scallop - so other charms will have to go on the second creation. I was thinking bracelet for me, but daughter doesn't wear them, so she'll get either earrings or a pendant. Or some kind of dangly thing she can use on a purse or hook to her keychain or a zipper...still working all this out in my head.

Tidied up my workspace a bit and did some minimal sorting, in order to be more focused about what I'm going to work on tonight and this weekend. I had a vague idea of the things I wanted to work on, while I was doing this, but I've decided to do something new to help increase my odds of actually ending up on Sunday with a sense of accomplishment.

As in real progress rather than sitting surrounded by piles of beads and findings, more piles of partly finished things, and the occasional running-out-to-the-store-for-something-new-because-I-got-a-wild-idea progress. Not that there's anything wrong with that sometimes.

Anyway, I got to thinking about how haphazardly I go about this whole jewelry obsession I have. I'm moving from "hobby" to "part time business" and maybe, in the not too distant future, full time business. At the conclusion of this ponderment, I decided that in order to be successful, I have to apply some of the project management skills (btw, that's a big part of what I do in my day job in the techie world) I've picked up along the way. Especially right now, if only to put some structured goals around what I need to do to prepare for Bay Con at the end of May.

For example, I will have a pretty small space so that sets one parameter - how much room I'll have to display, which limits what I can bring for sale pre-made. I am going to be sitting out in Artist's Alley again, so I need to be working on something all the time. That sets another parameter - what supplies to bring. The type of con, theme of con, typical con-goers, etc., help set the parameters for what kind of things might sell best. The easy parameter is "days left until show".

From all those parameters, I'll create a task list, maybe using Google Spreadsheets - if this is a successful trial-run, maybe someone will want me to share what I did, and it's very easy to share with Google. The task spreadsheet will include how many, and what kinds, of prepared bags of things to make at the table and put due dates for completion of those. Other tasks would be things like "what new items do I want to display" "complete pricing and tagging" "create inventory list".

Once the task list is created, dates assigned and priorities established, I can focus on getting the things I need to do for Bay Con done. If I get the tasks done before their due dates, then I can do whatever I want for the rest of the time, or move on to other tasks and move ahead of schedule. I'm actually liking this idea a lot, the more I write about it.

I first started using some of these techniques back in college, when I over-scheduled myself one quarter in my 2nd year. I found a book (title long forgotten) that saved me from dropping out in abject failure - and I'm not kidding, it was a really grim time. The key was breaking my days into 15 minute increments, setting achievable goals for those increments and rewarding myself periodically for success. Also dropping one class.

The organizational tips it gave were very much like a project management how-to, but written for students. Also like the time management stuff Franklin-Covey, Day-Timer, etc., have made their fortunes by providing seminars and supplies for. Me, I used Mead 4-subject 5x8 sized notebooks with graph paper pages and colored pens.

By organizing, setting goals and managing my time better, using the techniques in the book, I got thru that quarter, and subsequent quarters, graduated in 3 years and did it cum laude as well. I apply many of those same tools to my day-job. So why not my jewelry work, too? As I begin to approach this more as a part-time business than a hobby, it's essential!

Add This!

First, for those of you who will be having Passover seder tonight (and maybe tomorrow night as well) - Chag Kasher V’Sameach.

Next, I would like to plug Chocolate and Steel's blog, great pictures, fun information and on Mondays she posts a "Undiscovered Uncovered" feature about new Etsy shops, which is a wonderful way to support fellow artisans!

Next to last, I discovered on Chocolate and Steel that Lora, of Lora Hart Jewels, is having a giveaway on her blog. Beautiful precious metal clay designs (and another medium I'd like to work in, eventually - not really set up in my little back bedroom "studio" for using torches) and she's going to give one away next week - click the 'giveaway' link above to read and participate.

Lastly, the other day I talked about readers and blog traffic (The Long Tail post). Saw a great post on Simply Shiny today with a recommendation to use the AddThis button. (They've got a blog, too, in case you're also into reading about techie stuff).

I've had a number of little icons at the end of my posts that give readers the option to share with various services like Digg or StumbleUpon, but decided to switch to AddThis and see what happens. Mostly because they have analytics - if anyone was sharing my posts somewhere before, I had no clue. This way I can (I think) check the analytics and see if anything was shared.

So how does it work? When you hover over the AddThis button a list of options pops up and you can select from which ever one you want - the process is quite simple - AddThis does a lot of the work for you. If you've got an AddThis or other similar feature on your blog, I'll certainly return the favor.

One last thing - I just followed someone on Twitter whose tweets seem to be very funny - if you want to grin, follow @mkramer (Melody Kramer).

The Long Tail, You and Me

Ok, before I go into my little essay, here's some stuff I'm working on - a while ago I mentioned that I'd started working on a necklace using some beads with a yellow rose print on them, then I took off the rose beads and put them aside. Here's how I ended up using the beads - they're on a brass chain, about 24". I was thinking this needed to be named "Ring Around the Rosie" but maybe that's just too twee...

I've also been working on this three strand antiqued brass necklace - just have to add a little extender and clasp, it's a bit small even for choker length as is.

So, what's this about the Long Tail...

No, it's not a new kind of bead or crafting technique - it's a description of the situation many of us (meaning most of us who read this and each other's blogs, I'm assuming, are like me - not a "celebrity" in our crafting niche or professional life) find ourselves in, bloggers with relatively low traffic* are at the "long tail" of the blogosphere. Maybe this is old hat for you, so I apologize, but having once been a teacher, I can't help it sometimes if I get all pedantic.

If you want to read a fairly technical, but one of the first explanations of the long tail, the 2003 essay "Power Laws, Web Logs and Inequality" by Clay Shirkey is considered authoritative essay on the long tail concept as it relates to blogs/websites.

*Relative to a number of metrics such as us vs. all web sites, or all blogs, or all crafts blogs, all beading blogs, all non-commercial beading blogs, etc. Our ratio probably improves as you head down that list towards more specialization in our niche, but it's probably still low relative to the number of non-commercial beading blogs - my site traffic in March - the all time high - was 747 unique visits.

Getting noticed is hard - but getting noticed is crucial for online sales (and in-person sales, too, but that's another post, I guess). Thousands of Etsy stores, hundreds of Art Fire (and growing) stores, all the other sites and promoters/aggregators of sites (the biggies, Digg, Technorati, StumbleUpon and "homegrown" ones like Shop Windows at Artfire).

Just a fraction of the aggregators are sites that showcase or are about work from handcrafting artists, all of whom are doing the same sort of work you do - how to stand out from that crowd? One way to get noticed is to have lots of people linking to you from their small to medium traffic blogs or (dream come true) a few high traffic people linking to you from their blog. The ultimate would be to get a major web presence to feature you - but that has consequences (slashdotting, boing-boinged, farked - those can crash your site.)

There are ways to improve your traffic, and there are many people who've written about it. You could spend weeks going through all the sites and blogs. Let's not.

There's a group of folk who consistently link to each other - those blogs were among the first I discovered when I started reading about beading. If you visit Art Bead Scene on a regular basis you'll see they post a "The Desperate Art Bead Scene Neigborhood" feature regularly. The bloggers they feature also post those links out to their readers, this is a great way to keep good rankings in blog searches and share their traffic. Getting on blogrolls, joining blog circles...all good for getting traffic.

I was fortunate enough once to get a mention in Margot Potter's blog - my traffic for that day and the next really shot up. Leveled off, too - but that's one example of how cross linking can raise your blog's readership - at least when it happens. Building a circle of persistent readers, however, comes from committing to regular blogging about things that people are interested in, like sharing ideas, doing tutorials, providing pictures - but more than anything, I believe, comes from making connections by responding to comments, and going and commenting on your commenter's blogs.

I'm not into my crafting full time - I have a day job that pays well and has great benefits. I'm very fortunate and know it. So why do I even think about this? Well, what I really enjoy is converstations with interesting people about something I really love doing. The side benefit might be making a few more sales than if I weren't blogging and linking and commenting as much as I can, but I do the blogging and linking, etc., to make new friends.

So, to all of you who visit and keep the conversation going, thanks!


My Yellow Rose Necklace at Art Fire

Dawno

Buy Handmade

Sky Images and Simplicity

Watching Cosmos episodes back to back over the last few evenings has definitely put me in a cosmic state of mind. I dug out my blue lace agate in response to all the sky imagery. Now the picture below is a work in progress - strung but not finished...because...I'm wondering if I should stop or consider either more embellishment or multi-strands. I am particularly fond of rather delicate, simple necklaces. That's fine if I'm just making things for myself, but I wonder, would I have better luck selling my pieces if I made more elaborate ones?

I'd be interested in your comments.

Edited to add (on 3/29) Finished it as a simple necklace and listed it on Art Fire:

Dawno

Buy Handmade

Comments from Visitors to My Display and Other Musings About Potlatch SF Convention

One of the interesting (well, at least to me) things about doing the convention last weekend were the comments from buyers and browsers. There was a great deal of interest in the vintage look pieces and I even sold the gunmetal and pearl necklace I showed (and Dave of Rings & Things shared on their blog) awhile back.

Another comment was that many of the con participants might prefer bigger and bolder necklaces. One of the ones I sold (along with a custom matching bracelet and earrings - wish I had thought to photograph the set!) I'd almost convinced myself not to make as I thought it was "too much". When I saw it on the customer, I was so thrilled - it really looked great on her.

My copper and mother of pearl necklace also sold early. I didn't sell any earrings (other than the custom order for the set above), though. And none of the green pieces sold, even with St. Patrick's day coming up.

Many of the con participants are already avid beaders and crafters, too. I received more than one suggestion to check out local gem shows - something I do want to do, just need to figure out how to schedule (and budget) one into my calendar.

One customer liked my yellow turquoise and green lace lanyard but wanted it in silver. So I took it home and re-strung it with tiny sterling silver beads instead of the gold plated ones already on it. She was quite happy with the new look and I made a sale.

One of the other dealers in the room (booksales) does jewelry and felt I'd underpriced my work. I understand what she was saying and know I still haven't figured out my pricing. However, I like getting my work out there, so part of my "profit-margin" is satisfaction. I know I'd feel much differently if I was more dependent on the money from sales, so thank goodness for the day job that supports my fledgling side-business!

Day One Potlatch SF Convention 2009

What a day! Dealer's room opened for set up at noon, but I didn't get there until after 3 - wasn't a problem as I had everything set up at home, wrapped it snug and just had to unwrap and put on the tables. Great neighbors, too. Will probably write more about them tomorrow, but thought I'd post some pics tonight before bed.

Kind of hard to see the necklaces on the mirrors - used shells and stones and glass vases to add interest to the display of my pearl based work, folk have been quite complimentary.



I hung some of my past con badges on lanyards to show how they work...



Necklace displays on acrylic risers - the little sign says "Dawno's" and has the tax notice.
Someone asked for a mirror, I left one of the mirror 'trivets' out without any necklaces on it for that use. Maybe I should bring a hand mirror instead?




I have a lot of lanyards - so to display as many as possible I multi-tasked the easel that holds the smaller pieces, using the crossbar to hold them and drape them over the side of the table. Seems to work ok.



Showing two of my new chokers, too.

Glad to be home, but I had a good time today. Selling at a SF con is fun for me because I'm a fan and get to see other fans I've met at prior cons, and some authors of my favorite books too.

Another Good News Day!

First sale of the year! This is one of my favorites, but I'm thrilled it has a new home. I don't have any more of the beads I used in it and since they came from a local indie bead store, Global Beads. I'm not sure they'll have any more of them either, but I'm going to go look...eventually.

I'm busily working away at prepping for the 27th and Potlach SF convention, thinking about new business cards, table display, pricing, labeling. The day job has been quite demanding, recently, so I hope I still have energy at the end of the day to keep going as the 27th gets closer!

Forgot to Get the Mail Yesterday...Big Mistake!

Well here it is, nearly 7:30 on Sunday, and the husband just brought in the mail that was delivered yesterday. In it was a package from a Beads of the Month club (BotMo on Live Journal, provided by Elise, whom I've mentioned elsewhere and in the sidebar). One of my favorite colors is purple and this month's theme was...Purple! I ordered "The Big Magpie" and got a wonderful selection of very cool purples and lavenders to play around with. Each bag of beads I looked at, I thought "ooh, those are my favorites" until I looked at the next bag. I have to say that the charoite beads are vying for 1st place, what a wonderful mineral! (I put little numbers on the bag to match the contents to the index that came with the package)

There was also a package from Dave at Rings & Things - some items to play with and some of their products for review here!

There were 6 cable chokers - various colors, fastener types, lengths and some nifty goodies (plus a Jolly Rancher). I immediately thought of some large hole glass beads I'd looked at the other day and put back, yet again, because I couldn't think of what to do with them. Turned out, only two of them would fit over the magnetic end of the fastener. So I put some large hole, silver tube beads and the two glass beads on it. Still seemed to be missing something. Then I went to the new beads I got from the Prolifique Etsy store and grabbed the large stone (?) rectangle and made a pendant for it. I'm thinking about maybe adding a turquoise dangle, but I'll leave it simple for now.

I won't post a review tonight - want to play a bit more with the chokers, get my thoughts together, etc. I'll probably have it ready later in the week.

Next Saturday is Valentine's Day - So Why No Hearts?

Remember the copper and mother of pearl necklace I posted about a while back? I got some freshwater cultured coin pearls from Rings & Things, along with more copper tubes and made this last night:

It's choker length - just 15". I have gray-blue and gold coin pearls as well, so I'll eventually make one each but I think I'll use silver for the gray and gold with the gold. I'm also going to try not to buy new beading supplies everytime I think of something new, but wait and either do one purchase a month and only make additional purchases in between, if I've sold something.

As I mentioned in the title, next Saturday is Valentine's Day and I haven't made or posted anything especially for the holiday. I decided not to do holiday specific jewelry this year unless someone asks. I have a number of red, white and blue pieces from last year and some Christmas items, but so far no sales, so I don't see the point right now in investing. I believe the trick to selling those items is all about marketing at the right time to the right audience and I'm not there yet. Maybe someday.

What I am focusing on is things that will work with Spring and Summer in mind. Lighter colors for the most part, and vintage style things that will work year round. My daughter bought me some great little watch parts for Christmas, so I want to start doing some things using them as embellishments or maybe little clear beads using resin or MagicGlos with the tiniest parts embedded in them. I just need to practice using those new materials before I commit my precious stash to it, since once it's embedded, it better be done right or it's trash.

I'm In! Potlatch Convention, Sunnyvale CA, Feb 27 - Mar 1

Got the news early today. Now I'm going to have to figure out what pieces to bring, get them organized and tagged (what kind of tags??), think about display - what sort of room will I have at/around my table? Should I bring my mannequin? I will bring a mirror - it's nice to try stuff on and see how it looks.

Also thinking about making book mark type thingies since it's a convention about SF books. Maybe some St. Patrick's Day theme stuff? *GAH!!*

*mild panic* I really didn't think I'd get in!

And in other news, I've decided to join Art Fire as a place to sell my non-lanyard stuff. Only two things up so far. No idea when I'll be able to put up more, since now my free time is going to be used to get ready for Potlatch.

Now if you like the idea of selling on Art Fire, too, they're having a "verified" user sale right now for $7 a month (vs $20) but it's limited to 5k users and there are about 2400 left. If 10 people click this link and become a registered user on Art Fire.com I get a nice bonus - my account becomes free. Then you can put the same link up at your site and do the same. I don't usually shill this kind of thing, but I figured, what the heck!

No beading to speak of done yesterday or today - much work to do at day job. The night isn't over yet, though. Maybe I'll have something to share tomorrow.

New Etsy Listings and Photo Setups

Pretty much spent the day photographing jewelry. Cropping the pictures. Then writing the Etsy copy and uploading the pictures to the site. 14 new listings are up ( 3 on the 31st and the rest today), many of them you've seen here recently on the blog. My office is downstairs, my photography "studio" is upstairs where there's good natural light, so I've been up and down a lot today and I'm tired.

Hope you'll take a moment to look at the Etsy listings and give me your input - I still need to figure out how to do a good "teaser" photo as the ones I'm using now don't stand out amongst all the other thumbnails that well.

Copper, Cost and Catalogs

I really like designs made with copper. It's a relatively inexpensive metal to work with and the color compliments almost any outfit. The necklace I made tonight was inspired by a one I saw in a catalog, made with white cultured freshwater coin pearls, gold beads and gold tubes, priced at $145 (on sale from $195). I liked the look and wondered what I had that I could use to make something similar and came up with this, 18" long, made from copper beads, tubes and decorated copper disks with steel blue/gray mother of pearl coin beads (click picture to enlarge):

The reason I mention where my inspiration for this came from, is that Dave posted on the Rings & Things blog today about a lapis necklace he saw in the Smithsonian catalog and the huge difference between what it would cost to make it and the catalog price. I found his post an interesting coincidence worth mentioning.

The necklace above, uses $1.80 in copper disks (retail price at local independent bead store), $.80 in copper tubes (wholesale price at Rings & Things), about $1.25 for the copper beads (wholesale price at Rings & Things) and perhaps $3.00 for the mother of pearl coins (purchased retail at Michael's). The lobster claw, Scrimps and wire guardians and about 25" of copper colored Beadalon wire, come to about a dollar (also wholesale cost, various suppliers). Total materials cost, $7.85. Time to complete, around 20 minutes, maybe less if you're not watching TV at the same time, like I was.

My sales price would vary depending on where/how the sale is completed - there are different costs involved in using, say, Etsy vs. selling at a convention or making a face to face sale to a friend or referral. Needless to say, with these materials, etc., it's considerably less than $145.

The Non-creative Side of Business

Today I did paperwork. Got my sales and expenses spreadsheet all finished up from my saved receipts and other docs. Went to the online state sales tax site to see if I could do my taxes online, but it wouldn't accept my info. Will have to call the franchise tax board on Tuesday (Monday is a state holiday).

Then I went upstairs to read for a while and fell asleep and got up a couple hours ago. I worked on a couple of my pieces in progress - a knotted one with rhodonite and ecru Gudebrod FFF silk, and a jump ring chain and howlite necklace and a byzantine chain. I've moved back and forth as I felt like it on these for a while now. The byzantine chain in particular will take a while to finish. All of these reflect how much I like tiny stuff, which is why I put the quarter there. I usually prefer to work with 3 and 4mm beads, tiny bead caps, tiny jump rings. I have to wear a stronger pair of reading glasses for working with the tiny jump rings.

More Thoughts About Getting Exposure and Sales

A colleague of mine said in passing that she thought at lanyard would make a nice gift for her boss and that her boss liked purple. I'm going to take a couple purple designs into the office tomorrow and see if I can make a sale. Here's one I just finished with the boss in mind:

As I've mentioned before, people who see me wearing the lanyard are more likely to buy one. I know of a couple people who have bought them for gifts after seeing one on me they liked. I've considered the possibility that using a 'live' model would be helpful for online sales, but in reality the picture size you get online is too limiting.

Another suggestion is to try and sell them through our company store. I waver on that idea, as I'm a handcrafter, not a commercial manufacturer and I'm not sure that I want to get involved with the challenges of selling to a retail outlet. The unique value of my items is the fact that they're jewelry not a utilitarian item and my pricing is based on that premise.

I could use very inexpensive crow beads and make the lanyards very simple and sell them for $12 to $16, like many I've seen. But I have to make what I like, and I don't like that look - it's what got me into making my own lanyards in the first place. I purchased a couple lanyards at a crafts fair made from the larger crow beads with some fancier accent beads near the ends where the badge loop was attached. They were ok, but still really didn't look nearly nice enough with dressy clothes or business-style suits - they were fine for business casual, but I give enough presentations and go to conferences where I want to make an impression that business casual doesn't make. I may try to see if I can get some advertising in the program at one of those conferences some day.

Back in the Groove?

Productive day for me - even with a bit of sleeping in, and a long drive to get hubby's favorite lunch from the only place that serves it a 30 minute drive away, so it takes over an hour to get home with it, and then eating lunch with him while catching up on some TiVoed shows from last week - I still finished 4 lanyards so far today. I'll probably do a couple more tonight and then get them up on Etsy and eBay tomorrow.

I've been on a bit of a hematite kick, but in the last one with hematite (and copper, second from the right), I used a 3mm garnet colored Jablonex faceted Czech glass bead. That led me to grab my boxes of red beads and my garnet colored Czech glass hexagonal beads from Artbeads caught my eye. I have a lot of these hex bead lanyards and really love making my necklace lanyards with them because of the way their shape catches the eye and their subtle facets play with color and shadow on the bead in interesting ways.

These are all between 28" and 30" long.

I think these are great winter colors - and garnet is the January birthstone, too.

My last comment tonight is that I really wish that I would hear something back from the dealer's room committee members I've written to. I discovered two SF/Fantasy conventions that were going to be held locally, one in March and one in the summer, I think June. I reached out to the dealer's room committee members via the email address listed on the convention websites several days ago, but haven't heard anything yet - and after the LosCon disappointment, I figured I'd better get an earlier start. I really hope my email didn't go into their junk folder...

A Surprise Sale!

No beading tonight - I just finished with my 'day job' for the day and just don't have the energy. However, I did want to post about the sale I made today.

I had a number of meetings today and after one of them, I stopped by the desk of someone at work I hadn't seen in a while. She was wearing a very striking, chunky bead lanyard with her badge and I complimented her on it. We got to talking about lanyards and she had some complaints about the ones she'd owned and admired the one I was wearing. In fact, she liked it so much that she wanted to buy it, so I sold it right off my neck to her then and there.

I should start bringing a few in with me every time I know I'll have to go to a meeting - you never know when you'll make a sale.

A Winning Design

Wow! I won the Beadfly Fall Design contest! Thank you to the Beadfly folks. I've enjoyed being a member of this new site and its forum. I blogged about the winning design here, too.

So, what is Beadfly? It's a very web 2.0 type of site for beaders. It has an interactive forum, a place to upload and showcase one's work and talk about the inspiration for it, it provides members with opportunities to give and get reviews. It's got a good look, some neat features and I'd love it if you'd join and be my "friend" on the site. I'd also love to get a group going - another fun social networking feature they offer. I was thinking either a regional group (Northern California) or one of folk who do vintage style jewelry would be fun.

Now if I could only find the time to really concentrate on getting my stuff in the public eye and sell some of it! I have a new domain but haven't figured out how to get it on the hosting site account (which is set up under my husband's name with the hosting co.) nor how to build a storefront website.

I've got some good Googlejuice on the search "beaded badge lanyards" since I blog here so often and make sure to tag nearly every post with that phrase, but other than that, I'm still floundering a bit as to how to market my work. I had really hoped to get into LosCon (as I've whined about before) and get a few more sales this year, but absent that opportunity, I'm just not sure what to try next. I tried Google Ads for several months, but tracked no sales from that investment so I stopped it. I love Etsy, but it's a huge site and unless someone knows about me specifically, I doubt if they'll just stumble on my site and make a purchase.

Not going to give up, though! Eventually I'll figure something out, and next year I'll contact some cons much earlier than I did this year.

To cheer myself up, I'm working on a new necklace - turns out these stones and colors I'm using are pretty close to some of the the "Pantone Fall 2008" fashion color report colors. I'm thrilled about purples being 'in' as that's one of my favorite colors to wear.

I'm using 20 gauge copper wire to 'string' and attach squares of hemimorphite, bright, fluted copper beads and antiqued copper bead caps, faceted amethyst colored rondells and oval beads in this one. May not take this pattern all the way around the neck, have some nice antique copper chain I can use, too.

I Need Patience and Persistance

Tonight I pulled out some freshwater pearls, miscellaneous garnets and sterling silver beads for one necklace lanyard:

and then did another one using onyx ovals, black Czech druk beads, more garnets and 14k gold plated beads.

I'm setting up a new piece with beads made from chips of white shell reconstituted into spheres with a slightly yellow tint to them (I'm not sure if the base is acrylic or glass, I'm betting acrylic - but they're cool looking), pale-yellow/white mother of pearl donuts, through which I've strung a yellow jade bead, and gold plated brass spacer beads with rows of dots around them that make them look sort of pineapple-y. I'll finish it off and post about it tomorrow.

I'm a bit down today, probably because I've got the 'why am I doing this' whisper going through my head. I was all enthusiastic about making a lot of new stuff when I thought I was going to LosCon, but with that pretty much not going to happen (barring another vendor's cancellation, which I just don't think will happen, or if so, not in time for me to re-arrange my holiday plans again), I don't have any venue other than my Etsy store to sell my work and the kind of time it would take (to say nothing about cost) to really market my work online is not available to me right now. I do best when people can actually see my stuff in person.

I've always wished I could work in a more creative field, and my headlong dive into this beading has been an outlet for my impulses, but I've made so many necklace lanyards now I could probably wear a different one every workday - I'd rather see them find new homes.

So, I tell myself to be patient and persistant, this is only my first full year of being a business, part-time as it is, and next year I'll scan the web for conventions and register early!

LosCon Disappointment "All filled up, sorry..."

A lot of today's beading time went to going out to grab some stuff at Global Beads and Michael's then organizing what I bought. I did finish the garnet and amber piece I wrote about in this morning's untitled post.

(click for larger image)

It's 29" with 24k gold vermeil disks, 14k gold filled beads and donut spacers. I wasn't able to find large enough lobster claw clasps in gold filled or vermeil on my shopping trip, but I did find 1micron gold plate over copper clasps in a good size, so I've finished this and the other two pieces with those.

I heard back from the LosCon folk today, they say the dealer room is filled and asked if I'd like to be on the waitlist, I said ok, but I'm not going to get my hopes up again. I must say I'm pretty disappointed and it's harder having had to wait for nearly a month to get the bad news.

I'll just have to look for another convention to go to - not sure I'll find anything this year, though. It's been mostly a year of spending and not much return. I'll be better prepared for next year, though.

Thinking About Vintage Style Jewelry

Finished the wrapped link piece - definitely a first effort and not for sale - but I think I might wear it with the necklace lanyard I did today, that I'm tentatively calling Zephram's Dream. It's 33" long, hemimorphite and howlite with sterling beads. I selected out the howlite that was entirely white or had the most minute gray veining on it for the lanyard.

Here's the lanyard necklace and linked necklace together.

My favorite kind of jewelry has always been pieces with a Victorian/Edwardian retro look, I've been fortunate enough to collect a few lovely silver and sapphire Edwardian pieces, 2 small brooches and a necklace so far. Some other examples of what I like are Michal Negrin (although mostly the simpler pieces - some are too ornate for my taste) and and the 1928 Jewelry Co. styles.

Today I was wandering around the web and happened across Accessories Susan a site that specializes in supplies for making Victorian inspired jewelry. Needless to say, someone should have hidden my credit card. I'm looking forward to experimenting and creating my own designs. If I like what I've done, I may add them to my pieces for sale.

The other place I discovered today was Beading Daily - seems to have some interesting items, so I bookmarked it and joined the forum.

Well, I've got an idea rattling around in the back of my mind and 4 or 5 hours left 'til bedtime, so I think I'll publish this post and get to it.