Fake Lomo-ing Martha's Vineyard

I took a trip to Martha's Vineyard last week with my visiting friend Tori, and used the occasion to do a little bike tour and take some pictures. I really liked how some of them came out, so I decided to try out some fake Lomo techniques, and here are the results.

Next up: fake TTVs! :o)

Our Beadwork Montage

I was so excited to finally try out onetruemedia, where you can use the photos in your Flickr stream (or anyplace else you have photos stored) to make a little montage, complete with customizable music! I've been hearing about some Etsy folks posting their montages to YouTube, so I decided to hop on another bandwagon.

I'm doing one of each collection, so here's the first, all about beads:

Front Page Madness

It seems that when it rains, it pours when it comes to the Etsy front page. I've been on at least four times so far this month, which is not at all typical for me, and completely thrilling. Here's a sampling:

Face Your Manga

After seeing all the nifty cartoon avatars that my Flickr pals were coming up with at faceyourmanga, I decided to give it a shot myself. And now I'm a little obsessed--it's really fun.

Here's what I came up with:

And here's my mom:

Ta da! Now it's Tori's turn. :o)

Another Thursday, Another Self-Portrait

My Secret Identity

Finally snagged a Treasury...

Simply Sentimental

Many thanks to Sydnei at Simply Sentimental for featuring our Damask ring today!

My first professional banner!

After months of hemming and hawing, I finally came to the sad conclusion that our shop has outgrown my banner-designing abilities. I searched and searched through all the wonderful banner designers at Etsy, and, after seeing her work on the gorgeous banners of fringe and Leaves of Glass, I settled on Abby of Mavora. Abby designs the most gorgeous wedding invitations as well, and she is so talented! Within 48 hours, she had provided four designs to choose from, including these two finalists:

Each on was beautiful and exactly what I had hoped for (though couldn't quite articulate), but I settled on the one on the top.

If you decide to splurge and spruce up your shop, I highly recommend working with Abby!

Self Portrait Thursday

...of the FUTURE!

Hee

see famous look-a-like faces

New Stuff

Just listed...

Butterfly

Vamp

Bloom

New Stuff

Actually got it together to make and even list some new ring designs today:

Perch

Bird on the Run

Escape

Melissa - Vegan, Eco-Friendly Plastic Shoes

Perhaps I'm late to the party, but I've just discovered Melissa shoes--a Brazilian company creating amazingly whimsical designs in recycled plastic. There's so much to love about the brand:

* Socially Responsible: high wages, extended benefits
* Cruelty free: no animal products at any stage of production
* Eco-friendly: 99.9% of factory water and waste is recycled, overstock styles are recycled into new styles

But none of that would count for much if the shoes weren't gorgeous, which they are! In addition to their own designs, Melissa has also partner with a bunch of different talents, from fashion designers like Vivienne Westwood to product designer Karim Rashid.

So wonderful, and they're affordable, too!

Swoon

I've been watching alot of dvds lately (new to the area=I have nothing to do outside the house), including rewatching the original The Evil Dead. I love it so much!* And it totally reminded me of the wonders of Bruce Campbell. And he was never any finer than he is right here:



Except maybe here:



*this love does not extend to Evil Dead the Musical, which I sat through not once, but twice. They were serving shots in the aisles and I still had a miserable time.

Cape Cod Coyotes?!

I have recently discovered that along with squirrels, chipmunks, and all manner of birds, I'm sharing the Cape with the Eastern coyote. At the risk of sounding dumb, I never knew there was such a thing! While I'm totally fascinated, and love the thought of much an interesting neighbor, I'm now obsessed with the idea that Nessa and Mugsy will soon become bite-sized puppy nuggets for them. According to a couple of my neighbors, sometimes the coyotes can be seen wandering the nature trails behind my house--where I walk the dogs. Suddenly I'm in the Wild West!

I've also just discovered the dismaying truth that the coyotes aren't thought of too kindly here and that there is an annual hunt...although apparently Massachusetts offers the most protection of the species (there are much bigger hunts in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont).

In any event, I really am kind of excited about this. Now I really, really want to see one!

Cape Cod Living

If you've been past our Etsy shop in the past month or so, you know that we've been in the process of moving, which is hellacious. No one should ever move--wherever you are, my advice is to stay there forever.

But we're sorta, kinda, settled in-ish here in beautiful Cape Cod. And it really is ridiculously beautiful. I'm looking forward to getting truly settled so that I can explore some more, but we've gotten in the habit of hitting the South Cape Beach every couple of nights at dusk, which is amazing, and reminds us why we moved here in the first place.

Also, I've become addicted to grilling. I may never cook indoors again. I have a sad feeling that there are going to be many posts going forward about grilled food.

But it feels good to be getting back to normal business. And, as you can see above, Mugsy the monkey dog seems happy in the sun. :o)

Jewelry Party

Here's the invite I dashed out for our first jewelry party this coming Sunday. I've never done one of these before, so I'm hoping it goes well!

Color Me Barista

Monday's the big day...my very first day as a Starbucks PTer.

Full benefits! Full benefits! Full benefits!

As many Etsy forum readers know, I'm feeling a little funny about going from an actual career to serving coffee, but I'm trying really hard to stay positive and look at this as a fun adventure. With free coffee. :o)

Wish me luck!

Self Portrait Thursday - 2.14.08

Kinda forgot to post this as I intended to on the actual Thursday, but here it is nonetheless. Sporting my first straight haircut in...7 years? 8?

Busy, busy

Now that January is over, I am going to try to catch my breath a little. This has been a crazy, crazy month--326 sales! More than I sold in the previous 9 months combined!

So this is what the worktables look like here, 24 hours a day. Right now, we're trying to get some pieces together, not just for our pending orders, but also for a 2-day trunk sale this weekend at the awesome artez'n in Brooklyn. I'm planning on having roughly 6 billion rings there, and lots of wallpaper pendants and postage earrings. This is the plan.

Also in my plan--more blogging. But that has been in my plan before, and look how that turned out...

Etsy Front Page, 1.26.08

Jewelry Party

So, it looks like we'll finally be doing our first jewelry home show, and I'm so excited! I've been wanting to get into the whole home show thing for a while, but I haven't really known where to begin. So now I've got a great customer who is super-motivated to host the party, and now I need to figure out what sorts of games to play and all that fun stuff. If anyone has experience that they'd like to share, I'd love to hear it! :o)



Here's the promo piece that I designed (with the help of the Etsy Poster Sketch) to be sent out with the email invitations...

World Domination - First Stop: Israel

A couple of days ago, I was contacted by the fashion editor for Israel's largest news site, Nana, who wanted to do a story on us and our rings. The story's up now, and it looks really awesome, although I have no idea what it says. I hope it's flattering! :o)

Top Seller?????????????

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Crafting 365 - Day 1

Today I'm jumping into the Crafting 365 project on Flickr--committing to doing (and documenting) something crafty every single day. I'm a little intimidated by the idea, but I'm looking forward to the pressure kick-starting me on days when I'm feeling lazy...

Here's Day One--a special order that I just finished up and submitted for approval:

Fabulous Fabulous

Many thanks to Jill, who featured our rings in her adorable blog, Fabulous Fabulous. So exciting!

Rings!

I've been having trouble getting online lately (no internet access yet in our new place), so I've been focusing instead on making, making, making! To wit--our new rings! I'm excited about these--I initially made them for the Bust Craftacular last month, and now we're finally selling them in our shop. Yay!

Finally Some New Stuff

We've had to take a little break from our shop to get our house spiffed up and ready to sell, but now we're finally back and posting some new necklaces (with tons more to come).

Oaken


Vineyard


A Delicate Flight

Fly Away Home

Triomphe

Brass Ring

New Year, New Banner

I made a new banner for our Etsy shop last night--what do you think? I thought it needed a little freshening up, but I'm never sure if I'm improving or not.

New

Old