Navel-gazing: wire edition

I really need a name for my wire-wrapping style.

See, it's not that I can't make neat, perfect little wraps. Except on briolettes. I will cheerfully admit that I suck at briolette wraps. But I genuinely can do the tiny little snug spirals. Forgive me if I sound defensive, it's just that, you know, I am.

And it's not that they always look mechanical when you're perfect. I know this is the same example I always use, but my cousin from Gridley Designs does amazing work with smooth, tight, even wraps -- and trust me, the stuff on Etsy is the tiniest portion of his artistry.

But somehow when my work is tight and even -- I don't like it. Even if I'd probably love it from someone else. To go for a weird metaphor, I'm going for "overgrown English country garden," not "jardin a la francais." Jungle, not park. I love a wrapped loop where the spiral laps over the bead on one side, I love a curve of wire that stands out from the body of the object it cradles, I love careful little kinks and wiggles and uneven spaces between wraps where the beads have room to breathe.

So what on earth do I call it to express "no, this is deliberate Grandma Moses primitivism, not lack of skill"? Am I way too concerned with others' opinions of my skills to begin with? Should I just stop worrying about it? What do I call it?

I've mostly been going with "organic," but that's such a loaded word now. "Primitive" bugs me in a way that has nothing to do with jewelry and everything to do with my postcolonial studies. I use "freehand" or "freeform" sometimes. I dunno.

Doing the custom order dance again

I'm pretty sure I've talked about both of these orders before. But now they're done. Which is exciting.

Here's the full wedding-party set that started with my teeny teeny pink cameos.



See, what happened was, after I made the little ones the customer asked if I could do a slightly larger grey one, and then I made a big one as well to match the original I was matching the others to. The grey had to be hand-painted, because I ordered it from a new source and said new source was apparently unclear on the difference between white and dark ivory. Which was interesting, doing the small delicate paint work, since that was right after it became suddenly and painfully obvious that my wisdom teeth had to come out and I was drugged to the gills. But off they go.

When I was "posing" the photo I was actually thinking heavily of Rossetti's The Beloved. I'm not sure it comes through. Hmmm.

And here are the diamonds.



It's really ... immensely flattering to be trusted with precious stones. And they're so incredible to work with, diamonds. No worries about wrapping too tight, no bloody fingerprints (bloody in the swearing sense, not the exsanguination sense). Gorgeous flash. And the planes of the uncut stones are just made for wire.

Other than these, I've been listing on eBay. And listing. And listing. And listing.

Oh, and now that I think about it, I really oughta link to Jewelry Findings Online. I got all the cameo settings from them. Don't be fooled by their catalogue, their products are great and high-quality, and they're very speedy. I've used them for a bunch of designs.

New Special Offer through August 2

I just realized it's been a really, really long time since I posted any special offers. Mea culpa.

So welcome to the "Console Chelsea as M leaves for the opposite side of the country" Earring Sale!

Available here.

Buy any two pairs of earrings and get a third pair (of equal or lesser value) half off when you use the the code "graceland." Just enter the code in the Notes to Seller section and I'll refund you through PayPal.

I should never have doubted you.

You know, at first I really didn't think there was a lot of point to the "Rearrange Your Shop" feature that rolled out on Etsy a few months ago -- but I've started playing with it now and I'm really happy with it.

I can keep the moving sale-destash sort of thing in M's and my joint shop pleasantly mixed with handmade stuff. I also use it in TangoPig so I don't get clumps of color or type -- i.e., I don't want three earrings in a row or people will see the "other items" scroll and think it's only an earring shop, but sometimes that's what I have to list.  Now I can balance it all nicely, which suits obsessive me just fine.

Oh, Etsy, I am such a fool!

Things I have accomplished in the last three days

-yard-saled away most of August's SC rent's worth of stuff
-made 20 eBay listings
-made nearly 40 supply/destash listings on Ballet Llama
-gotten my wisdom teeth emergency-removed(to anyone near San Bernardino, I hugely recommend Dr. Baugh's office)
-sorted all our quilt fabric into a single dresser
-picked a paint color for our new kitchen

Things I have not accomplished in the past week
-listing anything on my own Etsy shop
-sleeping through the night

You win some, you lose some.

Delicious Chickeny Stuff: A Lazy Leftover Recipe, with Divers Variations

or, Some of the Infinite Ways to Use Up Canned Chicken You Got on Sale

My irregular "Lazy Leftover Recipes" feature is part of my attempt to pretend this is a big-girl jewelry blog while maintaining a general air of casualness. Steps are in haphazard order and measurements are not "cups" and "pinches," but "some" and "enough." You have been warned.

1. Lazy Leftover Low-Fat Chicken Goodness
Contains: protein, vegetables, goodness

-1 large can of canned/tinned chicken
-about 1/3 container (3-4 big spoonfuls) red pepper hummus (or any other flavor)
-some leftover red onion
-half a spoonful of mayonnaise or mayo

Mix together the leftover hummus with the chicken. Add the mayo to cream it slightly (the hummus has insufficient fat to act as a binder). Chop in onion to taste (we use about two slices). Serve on Wheat Thins or toast. Accept compliments gracefully. Of course you flavor it yourself.


Variations:
-If you don't care about the Low-Fat part, use blue cheese dressing instead of hummus.
-Add some shredded cheese. If it's pre-shredded you'll need more mayo to combat the corn starch they add to the bag.
-Spread it on a sandwich, add a slice of cheese and perhaps a tomato and grill it in a Foreman grill, panini press or in a pan for one of the classier-looking variations on the "gritch."

Semi-relevant xkcd comic, anyone?

I don't know if I'm finding this funny in the manner intended, but since I just unfollowed a bunch of "Look, I'm relationship-marketing" blogs that consisted entirely of "Look, I'm in a treasury," "look, I'm in a craft show," "look, I'm in a treasury," I choked on my macaroni and cheese.

Photoing!

I was recently reading an article on Etsy (okay, so I do visit the Forums sometimes ... if Etsy Success emails link to them) and I think I'm going to spend some time doing what it suggests, namely: Using Picasa's "tuning" tab to turn the whites white.

I've done this with a couple of older photos, notably this one:

Available here.

But that's easily the brightest photo in my shop.

I've decided I'm going to make a real effort to do it more -- look at my light spots and turn them white rather than just eyeballing the whole thing. The article has a good point, even in Gallery view (which I rarely if ever use) I'm catching eyes with a very small image -- it needs to be crazy contrasty.

Here's a more recent photo I did it to:

Available here.

I really do like the look. It's very crisp. I just have to convince myself it's okay to have that much stark contrast.

I'm also contemplating drastically shortening the depth of field in my first image ... but all in good time.

Artistic roots

From one of my favorite "inspirational" blogs,The Beautiful Necessity, which is all about reactions and responses to Pre-Raphaelite art, this quote from A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book:

"Art Nouveau, the New Art, was paradoxically backward-looking, flirting with the Ancient of Days, the Sphinx, the Chimera, Venus under the Tannenberg, Persian peacocks, melusines, and Rhine maidens, along with hairy-legged Pan and draped and dangerous oriental priestesses.... But it was radically new also, in its use of spinning, coiling, insinuating lines derived from natural forms, its rendering in new metal of tree-shapes newly observed, its abandonment of the solid worth of gold and diamonds for the aesthetic delights of nonprecious metals and semi-precious stones, mother-of-pearl, grained wood, amethyst, coral, moonstone ...."


Huh. Am I Art Nouveau? I mean, the sort of abstract lines don't appeal to me because they paradoxically strike me as urban, I prefer a more representative naturalism ... but when I divorce myself from what comes to mind when I say "art nouveau" and look at its philosophy ... yeah, that sounds like me.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not totally comfortable blazing new trails. Yes, I want to be different and unpredictable in my work -- but I also need to feel like I'm reaching back to some sort of artistic heritage. Maybe this substitutes for the artistic community that, say, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (and its occasional Sisters) enjoyed. These either don't happen anymore or I'm just too congenitally reserved to gain entrance to them.

Of course, then I have to explain my weird steampunk. Mine is (oddly for me) less Victorian and more gritty, industrial. Middle-class steampunk? I guess my roots are more in assemblage, even though the steampunk philosophy appeals to me so much ...

And y'know, doing something different with an existing artistic philosophy? I'm really okay with that.

Strawberry Mugs Forever

M and I are going to be doing our new kitchen in strawberries. My parents bought us a bunch of cool strawberry stuff as a congratulatory gift and I've been scouring Etsy for something that will tie our strawberry kitchen to our "Spoils of the British Empire" rest-of-the-house.

Favorites I've turned up in the hunt:
I am in love with everything about this listing from MelissaSue. They're these little strawberry-with-legs felt creatures. Wonderful wicked whimsical story photography ... and the product is awesome too!

M says I can't have cannibal strawberry birds. *sigh*

And this is AWESOME in a memento-mori sort of way, though somehow I don't think it'll quiiite work in a kitchen or dining room. Can't imagine why I have that impression. It's lovely lovely art, though. Maybe M will let me put it in the hall.

Speaking of cool weird art: this. It doesn't fit anywhere, but it's neat.

I love vintage book prints. And prints from vintage books, too. And collage and ACEOs too.

In this one I think it's mostly the irony of the background I'm in love with.

From the supply side: THESE are SO COOL!

And this woodblock print would be MINE right NOW if we didn't have, y'know, a cross-country move to pay for. I love a subtle pun ... and Asian-style woodcuts are a bit of an obsession for me ever since my middle school art teacher let me use his fish print equipment and inks. I have an especial fondness for the very late ukiyo-e from just-post-shogunate Japan that depict the change and blending of cultures -- there's a few prints of Japanese beauties in tinted spectacles and English-style bustle gowns that I would love to own copies of. I also have a soft spot for shunga. Don't google it at work. :p

Insert actual conclusion to this ramble here.

Supply squee!

So I got a package from my grandpa the other day.

Grandpa has become a big crafter of late. He used to make birdhouses and boats, but his sight has been suffering in the past few years and now he has adopted woodburning, along with everything his late mother-in-law did -- notably plastic canvas needlework. I've started giving him yarn for Christmas presents. One of the things he's inherited is some jewelry supply. I didn't think there was much of it -- but apparently there was enough that he decided to pack everything into the Christmas light boxes and send it to me.

... wow.

The shell pendants alone are incredible -- abalone and MOP birds and leaves. Then there's cabs and bails and Lucite and all kinds of lovely things -- much of it vintage.

M and I agreed to keep half and sell half, along with a lot of the fabric and trim and decoupage stuff we have stored, in hopes it will fund a tank of gas for the moving van. So I get all this and more in addition to a bunch of supply listings:

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

We're also having an online moving sale thingy of some of the clothes that M can't wear in a more conservative part of the country, and some of our china and vintage goodies we won't want to store -- so if anyone is interested in fine china, cute plus-size clothes, and awesome vintage stuff check out our eBay listings for a bunch of like-new awesomeness we won't have space for.