Pack. Pack. Packpackpack.

I have packed little but supplies so far.  I am sitting here staring at eight (8) paper boxes which are full of beads and jewelry bits. 

My car is a PT Cruiser.

It don't work.

Apparently we can get someone to ship some of it, which is good.  Very good.  We'll probably ship everything that isn't beads or clothes at this point.

Yeah, pictures of materials are going to have to wait until we get home.  I have a bunch of fun ideas, though, from the stuff I've located that I didn't know I had.  For a long time I was keeping pendants and focals in labeled workshop drawers, but this really doesn't work for me -- I do better having vaguely-themed containers to sort through.  I don't know what I would do without M, who has labeled all my bead boxes and sorted them by color so I can select matching shades to go with my drops and charms and found objects.  Unfortunately this also means 54 divider boxes to pack.

Other than that, it's a pick-through-and-see-if-I-want-it thing.  I'd like to have my Egyptian perfume bottles, and I'll bring the flower press.  Not the construction paper, but yes on my pad of glitter cardstock.  Not the childhood fiction notebooks, but the more recent ones, and where does that cutoff fall?  Tedious work, and arguably work I could have done before, but there's also a lot of stuff that was M's pre-me.  It's a nightmare, sorting other people's things.  Hopefully what with moving in together (we've lived together for two years, we've just never moved together, if that makes sense) it'll all become communal property.

Also ironing out finances and such.  Closing bank accounts.  Trying to remember all the thousands of places I have to change my registered address.

Amusing: One of the things I've found?  When I was about thirteen my church did this thingy where the girls were supposed to start journals to present to our future husbands as a wedding gift.  I kept mine for about two weeks.  The first entry is all about why I'm doing this, and also I apologize for my handwriting and explain why I chose the journal I did (answer: it had seashells on, and looked grown-uppish and reminded me of pirates, an excellent combo).  The second entry gets into me trying to imagine what Future Husband, Esquire will be like.  I don't seem to have come up with anything concrete, which maybe should have indicated something to me.  The third entry is me trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to talk about, because I've run out of ideas for what a man I'd be interested in might want to read about.

Judging by how it turned out, I should have been writing about things I did in art class, my growing uneasiness about my tendency to get into abusive relationships with Scorpios, and incidents in my career as an amateur pornographer, including the time my parents found my Star Wars slashfic.  (Don't ask if you value your innocence.)  M might not have appreciated the prescribed "To my Dear Husband" salutation, though.

Here the journal ends, which is a little disappointing.

Ooh, so remember how I gushed about the Orleans Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas?  Guess where M and I will be making a stop, as my graduation present.  I've wanted to see New Orleans since my mother gave me Interview with a Vampire for my birthday when I was eleven.  I'll also, for the first time, see the Mississippi.  Which is cool.  BUT NEW ORLEANS OMG.  The French Quarter.  Two nights.  GUSH.

Also, remember how I had a nice three-day-a-week blog schedule going?  I'm allowing this to be utterly murdered until mid-January.  I think I can be pretty proud of myself, though: I kept it faithfully while taking five classes and holding down a job, so I think I deserve to award myself a mental Certificate of Excellence.

Yay.

A resource

So I linked to one of her articles in Wednesday the 22nd's post about handshakes, but I've kept on reading since then and really -- Jen Dziura's column Bullish should be required reading for every young businesswoman.

She talks a lot about freelance work and, while she's talking more about service freelancing than what, for lack of a better word, I'll call hand-manufacturing, it's useful for craftspeople too. She approaches her topics from a feminist, socially astute viewpoint and covers a huge variety of areas. My favorite so far is a culturally sensitive guide to not being an ugly American while traveling. The most recent article is a two-part series called "Making Money as an Artsy-Artist Commie Pinko Weirdo."

I'll probably steal some topics from her in the near future. She's cool.

Custom order hinge plate necklace

The first version:


And the second:


The only major change is that the embellished clay bead from version one was replaced with the cool mustardy button in version two. It lies better and I think the one pop of bright yellow-gold balances nicely with the two more mellow brushed golds on the other side. I'm especially happy with how subtly the metal tones of the findings (new) and the chains (one new, one vintage) complement one another. It's also really long, which is different for me -- 28 inches and adjustable down. So it's now off to Australia. Great fun!

Style forecast brought to you by excitement-induced insomnia

Every so often, I try to do myself a little style forecast based solely on Pantone colors, ModCloth, and wedding dresses chosen by my customers.

My conclusion for the night: There's this interesting little thing going on in the fashion world where there's two personas, if you will. Vintage-inspired seems to be the thing, which means florals, highly visible jewelry, and a lot of interesting different flare silhouettes -- but there's a faintly goth, faintly femme-fatale thing which is operating alongside this sweet, upbeat, innocent ingenue thing. How many times, in one sentence, can Chelsea use the word thing? Patterns are preferred either representative or monochrome (i.e., colorful when it's flowers or feathers, subtle and muted when it's more abstract). Lots of flared skirts and defined waistlines, elegant detailing that's overstated but not over-the-top, and the 70s are starting to edge back into visibility, but mostly in the sweet prairie-girl ingenue looks.

This seems to me to be part of the reason gold is finally coming back so strong. It works for both personae.

Ideally, you're supposed to think six months ahead of the now for design and two months ahead for marketing; being me, I generally make fall stuff in the fall, snap it and store it for a year -- my computer is set (by means of ReminderFox) to remind me two months before the autumn equinox, two months before Valentine's, two months before Christmas, et cetera so I don't forget to start listing things on Etsy. However, I'm making a conscious effort to pull in the Pantone colors in a timely fashion -- spring and summer for this year are supposed to be a lot of primaries and fruit shades, lightening up and shading toward desert dusties next fall. So this is me making a mental note to include shades like "Taxi Cab," "Macaw" and "Satsuma" in my next few pieces (full list here).

I've done a bunch of polymer clay pieces lately, partly because I really haven't touched the beads, apart from my custom order (ooh, I need to post the final version ...) since M left ... and partly because the polymer clay mushroom charms I've made lately don't fit well in my bead boxes for packing but fit just fine in my jewelry stash trays once made into earrings!

We did Christmas with M's parents today, and ate prime rib with wasabi and banoffee pie; I got 62 vintage buttons in shades of black and brown from M's mum which I am currently sorting. I need to do a couple of new-materials photo posts over the next few days (iiif I can find my camera); apart from the buttons, I've gotten some great deals on Moroccan imports lately and a big bag of old women's wristwatches to dismantle. This may be delayed. We've been so busy trying to pack the last twelve years of my life into a PT Cruiser that I've completely burned through my post buffer.

So anyway. Merry Christmas, Internets, and a happy Yule, and may the longest night have left you with a bright morning.

A confession, some ponderings

I judge people by their handshakes.

This is classist and elitist and not nice. But I do.

I judge women who can't give a good handshake. "Surely," I think as I sighfully cradle your lady-fingers, proferred in a kiss-my-ring-I-am-royalty position, "you've noticed by now that most people use a grip that would pop your joints in this position if they didn't notice in time that you were too girly to shake hands properly. Self-preservation should make you refrain from your Princess Handshake even if you have no concern for the dignity of your entire gender in the workplace."

More, I judge men who are surprised by me offering my hand. "Screw you," I think as I stare you right in the eye, giving you my best Death Grip that I use for no other occasion, "screw you for thinking that my being a woman makes it inappropriate for you to make this one gesture of civilized acquaintance that our society mandates. How dare you believe that you're exempt from treating me as a social and business equal on greeting."

A bit of unscientific sociological observation: Among California college men, Latin American men shake hands with me on meeting and parting much more easily and naturally than most other ethnicities. Men right about 40 are most likely to shake without that moment of raised eyebrow that says "brown-nosing uppity feminist."

I am aware that this is a marker of white-collar upbringing and business-class education. There's a great article here that mentions that (and the last comment is awesome).

I don't think I'm elitist. I rarely notice people's clothes in terms of a class marker and I can't actually tell you how much different brands of garments cost relative to each other. I know that in introductions, the younger person is generally presented to the elder, but I don't care if anyone else does this. I don't particularly mind my students speaking dialect to me, provided they can write in Standard American English and translate for me if I look confused. I committed to memory the five present tenses of Black American English (Ebonics) and can, haltingly, use them; "y'all" and "ain't" don't bother me. I don't even notice cars such as you'd form judgments.

I guess this bothers me because it strikes me as such an exclusively sexist thing.

So. Weigh in. Am I a hypocrite?

In honor of a momentous event

A couple of linkyish imagey things on a theme to become evident:




This comic basically defines M's and my "romantic moments."  One day I will post about some of the moments of sheer epic romance fail we've experienced.  We consider this ineptitude (usually on my part, though she has her moments) utterly a part of our relationship and would trade for no sweeping rom-com gesture.

And some link love for an incredible, incredible Etsy jeweler:
 
Image copyright Esther Eve.

That particular pair of rings, of course, is sold, because they are M's and my engagement rings.

This is a belated step on some level because she and I have known for almost two years that we'd be spending the rest of our lives together (with some stalling and floundering on my part because I was 18 and stupid, but even then I pretty much knew).  To put that in perspective, Thursday is what I like to call our two-and-a-halfiversary.

But when you find a person who you can be with constantly for months at a time and never be tired of, and when you are apart for a few minutes you then are happy to see them again -- once you cut through insecurities and self-doubt, it doesn't take too long to know.

No date is set.  It will be some time before we can legally marry in our new home state.  A wedding itself would probably not go well considering various family situations.  But we are now what we are calling "enringed" to one another.

And that is good.

Love you, darling.

A moment of outrage

Remember that article I wrote about being very self-conscious in the use of terms like "tribal", "ethnic" and "primitive"?

Here's why.

I'm not sure there's any way to transition from people being treated worse than wild animals by governments who can't begin to understand that a way of life different from their own could possibly be fulfilling.  So I guess that constitutes the post for today.

Oh, except to say that the whole kerfuffle started over a boycott of tourism in the swimming-pool-equipped safari lodges that are blocking Bushmen from access to their drinking water and -- here's the jewelry bit -- Botswana diamonds.

You will probably hear me emphasize this again:  Please, please, if you do mean to buy a diamond, know where it comes from.  Don't give your money to people who are brutalizing indigenous cultures.

Style contemplations once again!

Today, I was setting out to do something with my shop announcement on Etsy that would give people some framework to experience the stuff I make.  As I'm sure I've said before, my style is sort of all over the place and you have to view a couple dozen pieces before you see the common threads.

I wound up with "Here you'll find handmade jewelry in an eclectic style that includes organic freehand wirework, found objects and (mostly) symmetrical glass-bead designs. Steampunk assemblage and bright vintage-inspired pieces are my particular forte."

*inspects it*

That looks pretty accurate to me, right?  "Vintage-inspired" is such a vague term that it does pretty easily net everything that's not covered by "steampunk assemblage," "organic freehand wirework" or "found objects," right?  Of course, I just wrote an article explaining why people shouldn't use blanket terms, but I was talking about individual descriptions.

Other style elements I contemplated noting but tossed out:

Medium-length earrings.  I don't make a lot of short ones but these are the longest I've ever made, bar the ones intended for belly dancers, like the tassels and those sweet shell and pewter leverbacks I made for M's tribal-gothic-fusion outfit for the Azkatraz ball last year, which were eight inches long and laid on her lovely collarbones.

Available here.

These are more standard for me, though still a little longer than average:


Available here.

My fondness for brass and copper.  It's still unfashionable to genuinely like these.  This is partly because everyone is now convinced that they are allergic to everything.  That's not actually the case.  Unfortunately, antique and gunmetal brass treatments do contain enough nickel to irritate some people -- but usually that's not the case in a necklace or bracelet.  I had to (stop reading if you are, M) have a crown replaced a couple of years ago and the dentist called in his entire staff to show them what a really severe nickel allergy inflammation in the mouth looks like.  I wear nickel-containing brass treatments all the time.  I just can't handle them as earwires for lengthy periods.

I'm not saying people aren't really allergic to jewelry metals.  It happens.  It's just that everyone thinks they are and it's really not the case for many of them. 

More to the point, I like brass and copper.  They weather beautifully.  All metals tarnish, people, with the sole exception of gold.  All of the metals.  All of them.  The copper-brass-gunmetal spectrum does so with a beautiful old-world grace that, in my opinion, is better than looking like it was just made forever.


I do, however, use a germanium sterling on my coral and such, because I don't want my white coral branches to stain.

Sparkle!  This is weird, because most of the other designers I really like oxidize the shit out of everything.

Really bizarre interpretations of other styles.  Even if I try to do Southwestern or Cutesy Chic or Meaningful Assemblage or something, it all comes out looking like me playing with elements of those styles.  And there's no way to put that in a description without sounding like a narcissist ("Tee hee, I'm SO unique!!!") but, on balance, I think that's something to be proud of.


And a final note.  I didn't set out to do any of this.  It just happened to be the way in which I do things.  Maybe that's my early materials influencing everything else I've ever done, maybe it's that the beads and components I pick contribute to it, maybe I'm influenced by my grandmother's crazy 60's jewelry she let me wear, but -- all those "develop your style" posts had nothing to do with this.  So anyone who's landed here by Googling "how to develop a personal jewelry style" or some such -- just do it.  It happens this way.

But if you're like me you'll have to make a blog post three years later before you get a firm idea of what your style is.

This is me killing time.

I am killing time because M's plane lands in four hours.  What should I blog about?

*bouncebouncebounce*

Oh, here's something:  I bloody hate add-a-link charm bracelets.  They steal business from actual handmade businesses, most of whom would be happy to make you a real custom charm bracelet -- often cheaper than the Pandora or Troll or Biagi bracelets in jewelry stores -- because people think that choosing from a selection of a hundred and fifty charms makes them "unique."  People, they're not.  They're really not.

I'll make a reluctant exception for stuff like this:

Photo copyright killerbeedz1.

See, that's neat.  And different.  Handmade one-of-a-kind Pandora beads still have a chance at being awesome, and at a significant discount from the factory ones.

Here, this is an awesome time-killing game.  My high score is 3300.  What's yours?

Oh, hey, shop the Stocking Stuffer Sale in my shop!


Available here, here, here, and here.

Gift-guide Treasury Roundup

Stocking Stuffer Gift Guide:  Assortments of things under $50.  In my family, you need like sixteen of anything to be used to stuff stockings.



The "I Barely Know You" Gift Guide: Unisex neutrals!  I read an Etsy Storque article a while ago that bothered me because someone on staff was complaining about being unable to find plain white men's pajamas.  If you're looking for something that anonymous, why would you search an individual's Etsy shop for it?  So, simple neutral stuff that doesn't presuppose much about the recipient but is still unique and interesting enough to be expected of a handcraftsman.



Oh my god oh my god Megan will be back on Monday. Posting may be a little slow while we catch up.

Oh, and I'm five whole minutes from going to take the final that will conclude my undergraduate work.  Fingers crossed for an A in this class, if I get A's this quarter it'll pull my overall GPA to a solid 3.7 -- which would make me alarmingly proud.

Awesome Aluminum

Or, for our British friends: Awesome Aluminium.  I've always loved alliterative stuff and I blame Bill Nye the Science Guy for this.  Anyhow.



Available hither, thither, and yon.

Above are three pieces -- my Clockwork Orchid necklace, my Ocean Bijoux Empress necklace, and some of the bracelets I'm offering with the stocking-stuffer deals this year -- where I've used aluminum chain.

I was a little surprised, when I started paying attention to my materials, by how much I like aluminum.  It's got a lot of advantages.  It's very lightweight -- while I like the nice weighty feel of, say, glass or stone, that's good when you're working with a lot of heavy materials and fantastic for earrings.  It's easy to cut -- I've ruined a lot of pairs of flush cutters on silver-plated steel chain -- yet it's very very strong.  To my knowledge it never tarnishes.  It's also hypoallergenic.

People react badly to this on occasion.  Aluminum doesn't count as a jewelry metal to them, and it sounds cheap.  But honestly, it's such a phenomenal material that it's a pity people don't value it more.

And on the list of random trivia: Aluminum oxidizes to sapphire.  Sapphire is crystallized, oxidized aluminum.  Therefore, your soda can, your deck chair, and the chain of those bracelets?  Metal coated in sapphire.

Mail musings

One of the few problems with my bridal line is the difficulty of shipping.
 
Available here.

That thing above, for instance, has to be sandwiched in layers of tissue paper and bubble wrap and separately boxed so it can't move.

The coral pieces are even worse, since I have to use one of those little embossed foil gift boxes (you know the ones, most jewelry designers and stores have them) and take a box cutter to it to open triangular notches in the shorter sides, then construct an interior framework out of corrugated cardboard so they have a perfect safe little cell to live in while the box gets bounced around the post office.

However, my little local UPS store, where I love to go because they're not actually any slower than the Post Office and while I wait to be helped I can talk to the senior citizens bringing their service dogs to buy recycled-paper Christmas cards,  was having a sale on all their crush-proof video mailing boxes -- sensible, because who really ships a VHS tape any more? -- and I bought out their entire stock for $6.50.  This is awesome, because video and CD mailers are very strong and their flat shape is perfect for keeping jewelry from moving around.  Charm bracelets, for instance -- the best way to pack them is two sheets of tissue paper and a CD mailer.

Hey, question, readerfolk: When you order from Etsy, do you like to get business cards?  How many?  Do you keep one?  Hand them out or just recycle them?  Does it matter if they've got a note or a special offer or something on them?

Link love for a cool jeweler

I think this shop is just gorgeous and if I'm looking for jewelry that's more on the fine-heirloom-formal end than the high-end-fashion-jewelry stuff I do, this very cool lady has my attention.



Images copyright jbEbert.

Isn't that a cool way to do item photos? Every one has a different "inspiration" bar next to the jewelry, stuff ranging from orchids to Egyptian wall paintings. And the designs are just exquisite, with that symmetrical-but-chaotic thing going. I think I can learn a lot about design principles from studying these.

Added to that, she donates to Heifer International, which is awesome and totally worth reading about. So a win on all fronts.

So I've been saying I'd do this for a while

Happy December!  Remember how I said I was going to write a series for Home Jewelry Business Success Tips?  That's going on now.

I thought someone with professional experience in writing should really do some articles about writing descriptions for handmade products sold online.  Then I thought, "Dude -- I have professional experience in writing.  I should do some articles about writing product descriptions for online selling."

So then, out of nowhere, I did some articles about copywriting for online jewelry and handmade-product sellers.

It's sort of like the one I wrote several months ago about tribal jewelry and how to describe it, but more technically focused.  Basically I take the really common phrases and take them apart to identify why they're so common and find better alternatives.  It's like tutoring but slightly more fun and I can do it alone with my laptop.

The ones published thus far:
"Authentic"
"Inspired by Nature"
"Elegant"

If I were a rich man ...

... I would use a lot more of the following.

1.  Cloisonne.  I love cloisonne.  I've recently discovered that this is a passion I share with my maternal grandfather.

Available here.

2.  Ruby.  I've discovered how much I adore this stone.  It can be purply or deep true blood red or pink and has the whole range of opacity.

Available here.

3.  24k gold.  I love to use copper and brass in my jewelry, but I'd love to occasionally use real gold just because it's so hard to find in unique handcrafted pieces, being much more common in traditional fine-jewelry designs.

Available here.

4.  Vintage buttons.  They're so beautiful ... and often so pricey.


Available here.

This, of course, is the nice thing about custom orders; I know the initial outlay for such fine materials will pay off.  Which is so nice.  *sighs wistfully*

Thanksgiving Sale!

Just a reminder that the After-Thanksgiving/Black Friday/Internet Monday weekend sale is in full swing!  Drop by for special deals and to see my pretty sale banner I made with beads and torn paper and a camera.

I've also decided to give a little extra something-something to blog readers, so if you leave the phrase "almost there" in the Notes to Seller section when you buy, there will be a free gifty coming your way.

A few of the things that you could buy!  and have shipped to you!  for free!  provided you live in the U.S.!  and for cheap!  if you live almost anywhere else!:


Available here, there, hither, thither, and yon.




Happy Christmas shopping!

Gifty Thoughts

It's really weird to me that there are so many bath-stuff gift sets.

 The reason is, they're both highly personal and bizarrely impersonal.  They say, "Here; I've given you something that I expect you will rub all over your body while naked."  They also say, "Here; I couldn't think of anything unique but this bag of stuff from Ross was in a color you like.  You like that color, right?"

It's not that I mind them -- I got this mandarin orange set from one of the adults who attended my high school graduation party which I loved -- it's just that I feel skeevy if I give them to other people.

Reflecting upon this topic, I have created a treasury:  The "I Barely Know You" Gift Guide.  It was fun.

This would be the point where, if I was good at marketing, I remarked upon the appropriateness of jewelry gifts -- but frankly my stuff is a lot better for those whose interests and favorite colors you're clear on.  It's just often rather specific in audience and rarely simple.  This may not be a good thing in this case.

Semi-relatedly, I'm now experimentally offering a Stocking Stuffer Pack of like five to eight bracelets in different colors.  Will this be semi-useful to people?  They're all nice glass, individually hand-beaded, adjustable and all, and mostly hypoallergenic, so they seem kinda perfect for it ...


Completely unrelatedly, my right index finger hurts.  It's bruised.  For the first few hours I just couldn't feel it.  Monday night, I spent three wearing but incredibly satisfying hours hacking day-old French bread into half-inch cubes for stuffing/dressing in the basement of Riverside's First Congregational Church.  I have decided that the most charitable thing a private individual can do to help feed the homeless, bar actually putting in some time and labor, is to gift their nearest church kitchen with a.) an industrial-grade food processor or b.) a set of actually sharp knives.  Alternately, send a donation to Project Food. 

But it was good.  I was joining K, the lecturer I tutor for.  I'd forgotten, since I gave up on church as a concept, how enjoyable church-basement work is.  They are very fine people, and I got barely a raised eyebrow when I mentioned Megan, which disposes me well toward them.  They have a big lovely basement kitchen with stainless steel and butcher block and wrought-iron barred windows up at street level.  And I had sweet sticky coffee and a roast beef sandwich and we got a lot done.


Anyhow.  By virtue of date alone, this is also the place to remind people that I do an annual Black Friday/Thanksgiving Weekend sale.  This year I'm offering free shipping in the U.S.!  Convo for discounts if ordering from another country.

Some interesting stuff from my anthro classes

I've written a couple of interesting papers in the last couple of weeks -- and by "in the last couple of weeks," I of course mean, "I had the prompts for a couple of weeks but the actual paper writing was accomplished as a three-day, fifteen-page marathon."

The first was for Gender and Archaeology -- which, side note, I honestly thought I disliked this professor?  I'd taken an Intro to Archaeology with her and been avoiding her ever since.  But she's wonderful.  Anyway.  The paper is about the recent trend in anthropology (of which archaeology is a sub-discipline) of dedicating some time to describing the cultural context from which the writer is approaching the subject.  Until quite recently (the late 70s/early 80s, from what I can tell) this was considered both unscholarly and unscientific, but the trouble there?  The only way we look at a scientific perspective and say "this is objective" is if it's at least a passable imitation of being from a white middle-class Anglo-European male.  Think about the Sotomayor confirmation hearings a few years back -- remember how everyone thought she would be biased because she was a Hispanic woman?  Remember how no one ever said "Well, being a white male should by that logic be an equal bias in the opposite direction?"  See what I mean?  The same is true of the social sciences.  Work that isn't from a white Euro-American male is peripheral.  You can't just be an archaeologist, you're a woman archaeologist or a Filipina archaeologist or a Chinese archaeologist.

So I argued that the centralizing of the observer as a part of the narrative forges a new objectivity.  I called the paper "Through Scientific I's."  Oh, the pun of it.

The other paper was for Language and Culture and it was about transmodal stylization and appropriation of homosexual group identity in the linguistic construction of the self, which is linguistics jargon for "why gay men talk that way."  I studied a couple of gay characters played by openly gay white American actors -- Chris Colfer's Kurt in Glee and John Barrowman's Jack in Torchwood -- and analyzed how the use of stereotypical gay speech is important for negotiating multiple identities.

So that was fun.  And now I go sleep.

Treasury Roundup

These all sort of run to a theme and tell a story so I thought I'd post a list of them.  I've been treasurying my little heart out.  It's immense fun and it gives me a sense of that Etsy community that people talk about but which I didn't seem to find until I started playing with Treasury.  I mean, it's cool that Etsy works as this loose network of individuals, and I love that.  But this is the only ... organized? ... thing I've found that gives me that warm fuzzy feeling.

So here's the ones that are sort of a steampunk/Victorian thing.  I expect they're rather Christmassy considering they run to dark red and green. Also, I want to see how much work it is to create a post of these with images.  I can't figure out how to make them line up nicely ...

Hope Chest
The Life She Imagined
The Courtship
More Precious Still
First Impressions
Miranda's Dressing Room
Hissing Steam
Item's from Miranda's Desktop
Trousseau and Boudoir
Things Hoped For, Things Planned
Respectably Ruined
Twice Round the World Without Looking Back
Hope and Heart's Blood