Seven Weird Colors and the Sellers Who Love Them

As may have become obvious to everyone, I have a massive thing for color names.  Here are some colors from Wikipedia's list with cool names, cool backstories, or both, and the Etsy items that are tagged with them:

The color: International orange, which appears in a number of service organizations' marks and on World Football League balls.
The item: Seven sellers have tagged eight total items as International Orange.

This hand-braided Maharan wool rug by mrsginther, who also has a great profile page, warns your friends of narrow stripes of high-atmosphere conditions.


The color: Fallow, one of the oldest color names in the English language, referring to the sandy soil of a fallowing field.
The item: It took some manual counting due to synonyms and misspellings of "follow," but there about 26 handmade items tagged with this color.

The porcelain Lucitano horse ornament by SandrasShop reminds your equestrian of his equally old and proud tradition.


The color: Mountbatten pink, invented as a naval camouflage color that only worked part of the day.
The item: Only one item tagged with this!

This crocheted poncho by HEraMade lets you blend in with crocheted naval sunsets.


The color: Fulvous, which chiefly describes birds and means "kind of tawny rufous burnt reddish orangish yellowish grayish, kind of."
The item: Seven sellers tag one item apiece with this color.

This print of an original acrylic breastfeeding painting by h0neyburn uses the name to describe the color of the outline of a well-fed toddler.  h0neyburn uses a lot of these color names; I keep seeing her stuff pop up as I search.


The color: Isabelline, apocryphally named after Isabella I of Castile, who vowed not to change her underwear until her husband had broken a seige; victory unfortunately took eight months, at which time her small-clothes were understandably no longer snowy white.  Isabelline or Isabella palominos, the very pale-colored specimens of cream-gene horses, are named for this tint.
The item: A whopping 39 items are tagged with the color name isabelline.

This plump crocheted heart by Sabahnur looks nice and clean against your hair on a headband, and if you have a cream palomino, you can match!


The color: Falu red, which is after a paint made of starch and very finely divided hematite, and is used to paint traditional Swedish homes -- a bit like haint blue here in the South.
The item: Five sellers use this color to tag a total of 11 items.

This set of twelve organza blossoms brings traditional Old World color to your modern garment.


The color: Urobilin, named for the organic pigment responsible for the color of urine (yum!).
The items: Four sellers win the "I didn't note the Latinate root" award, and perhaps ironically, all four items are so lovely I couldn't pick just one.

The elegant vintage-style glass and dyed jade necklace by thebeadedhound will have part of its proceeds donated to coonhound rescue.  The set of 8 shabby chic hairpins by hbs1406 are stunningly photographed and would be gorgeous for a fall wedding.

A shopping guide

If you have a bit of back-to-school shopping left to do, or (like us) you work in education and the first paycheck after Starvation Summer is burning a hole in your pocket, check out the shops of some of my recent Etsy copywriting customers:


Is liberal guilt about brown-bag lunches setting in hard yet? Reusable bags from SeaCute Designs, whose profile page I wrote, are surprisingly affordable for the category, and appear nicely made and rhapsodically cute; the very professional shop owner donates a portion of proceeds to Feed the Children.


For playing after school, tutus from avasmommy07 are made with lots and lots of US-made tulle so they're soft and poofy like the imaginary fairy princess gown you had when you were little. That isn't the item I wrote the description for; I just love that picture, which balances posing and naturalness so well, and which has a very nice contrast of background and foreground.


This purse hanger and similar ones from talented Etsy graphic designer Topview are great; original artist design, and those things are massively useful when there are narrow aisles between desks (one particular classroom in the anthropology department at UCR, in Watkins Hall, was pretty much where we shoved all the spare furniture so they wouldn't take it away before we were able to lay claim to another room. We guarded our classrooms jealously so we could keep artifacts and posters in them. But that room was hell on earth in the summer).

Topview also does very cool Etsy banners -- and, as you can see, very crisp professional photography. She's one of my absolute favorite customers so far; I edited the content for her very useful website for international students hoping to apply to colleges and universities in the United States, which I'll link to once it goes live.

Instant Vintage

Available here.

What is it about this color combination that screams "vintage"?

I mean, naturally the color of the large plastic/resin buttons is very vintage -- I generally refer to that shade as "60's peachy pink," though from a quick consultation of that ever-handy resource, Wikipedia's list of colors by shade, I suppose technically it's coral.  (Random side note -- I'm that weird genetic anomaly, a colorblind female, so I can't actually distinguish a strong orange from a true red.  I have to ask M for a judgment of harmony if I'm designing in reds or greens, and it's made putting together the Mixed Media Packs for Ballet Llama something of an adventure.)

Anyway.  It's not the muted coral hue I'm referring to, but the combination of it with black.  Pink with black always looks either vintage awesome or modern tweeny "rock star" bleh to me, but this is a particular combination that M and some of my coworkers reacted to in the same manner.  Maybe it's the blue-black jet hue of the blacks that's doing it; that's also a very vintage-feeling color.

This, incidentally, is also one where I bit the bullet and included a photo on black, which may or may not have actually been a good idea:


But it looked too bizarre with black at the edges and white in the middle, and this gives a truer idea of the variation among the buttons, so this was the only way to make the contrast work.

In general, these aren't great photos. I'll need to rework the cropping, I think, and try for a deeper focus.

But hey, check out those great 1960s flapper-style rose beads!

Huh?

Two mystifying pieces of feedback we received recently on Ballet Llama recently:


"Item much nicer than expected."


"haven't seen them yet, I know I will like them."

...
So ... um ... vintage beads and findings from Ballet Llama are so nice that you'll be able to tell how high-quality they are before they arrive! ... even when you're ... expecting not to like them at all?

Man, I'm supposed to be the expert and I have no idea how to spin this.

Thanks to the relevant customers for their purchases and their lovely feedback, even though it confused me.  <3

Treasury Wednesday: The unsubtle beauties of lipstick red

I've wanted to try on a deep, lush, '40s-esque crimson lipstick since I was thirteen -- and no one will ever let me. Longtime readers will not be at all surprised that makeup is a world I treat with half-dismissive, half-deferential wariness, being not any good at it myself, so I'm not entirely sure why.

This is a tribute to one of my favorite character archetypes: The no-nonsense, sensual modern femme fatale. I like stories where efficiency is made into something that's desirable and hot. Some say this makes me a bad feminist.

My favorite item is that fantastic shoe photo in the first slot. There's a lot of great photography in this treasury, vintage-inspired styled shots and nice crisp white backgrounds. It was a fun challenge balancing all the shades of red across the columns, too!

'I Like to Make You Suffer' by Scribblegoat

Sultry slinky dresses, strumpet-red lipstick, heels and red wine and vixenish behavior. Sexy handmade and vintage-inspired designs.

Hello Ladies- Signe... AliciaBock $35.00	Teardrop cocktail h... hellostrumpet $25.00	Signed print, &quot... Lovinda $33.00	Small Lipstick Trac... Samskiart $40.00
K.Antoinette Signat... kantoinette $40.00	Irony - Natural Red... pdxblacklipsti... $9.00	The Red Stockings E... ArtByO $15.00	3 Lipstick Soaps F... sweetsoaptreat $3.50
Silk Mistress Knick... MistressCollec... $45.00	Skirt Altered Red P... bytheway $25.00	Red Leather Hartman... judeslore $160.00	Framed Real Lipstic... BentheButterfl... $16.00
Killer Heels... Lar... emmakisstina $200.00	Handmade 1940s dres... UnforgettableY... $89.00	Lipstick - Velvet C... thetwistedcow $19.00	Vintage Black See T... ragdollady55 $

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.

Most inspiring drinky things

So, do you think the folks at the Jelly Shot Test Kitchen would mind if I turned everything they've ever photographed into a pair of earrings or a pendant?


Admire these fruity beauties!  The depth of field in this photo is just stunningly handled.  The gorgeously casual, utterly perfect tumbled look could probably be replicated with various sizes of Swarovski Cosmic Freeform Diamonds, dice beads and Simplicity cut beads:






The fruity shades and the very organic look of the skewers in these Watermelon Basil Martini Jelly Shots could be replicated with a stack of varying shapes of frosted resin and polymer clay, plus a messy, twisted spiral headpin in plastic-coated or nylon-coated wire.


These are their mimosa shots, glossy and tempting in this well-styled photo, and the minute I saw them, I thought that I could mimic that exactly with ball-end headpins worked into spirals (or, heck, just wire) supporting a stack of three lentil-shaped beads, maybe a lemon quartz or a nice glass, spaced with squares of thin yellow fabric.

Some recent photos with nice lighting

A couple of recent photos I've been very proud of, but which are of things in the Ballet Llama shop:


Magnetic hematite 8mm beads, available here.



Hand-sculpted polymer clay rose pendant, available here.


Retro plastic alphabet beads, available here.

Getting good photos is definitely harder on a saturated-color background, but I'm pleased with the lighting and cropping in these!

Treasury Wednesday: Sugar and spice? Also, my "rules" for making these

When I make a treasury, I select items with this sort of "decision tree." This isn't anything I've codified, mind you, these are just the priorities that have evolved naturally as I became dedicated to the idea of letting these be my community presence.

First of all, I won't feature anything that I strongly suspect to be a reseller item. I'm certain that some slip through my grasp, but I'm pretty careful. Also, blatantly incorrect tagging and glaring spelling errors drop things very low down the list of things I want to feature.

After those basics, my first priority is photo quality. I try to emphasize both good photography and well-made items -- decoupaged clothespins go in way after hand-drawn sketches. Good crisp lighting, however, trumps it; if the clothespins were photographed well and the sketch poorly, in they go and out goes the sketch.

I select to match both a color family and a theme, but color comes first.

If I have the option of a well-known, oft-featured shop and a newer one, all other factors being equal, I go with the newer one. I try to overemphasize shops with fewer than 100 instances of feedback.

Last and least important is avoiding competing with myself or M. I won't feature fairy doors or plush squid, and I do attempt to limit jewelry, though mostly that's because I try to have a wide range of item types.

This treasury is a great example because I managed to get a good number of newer shops, to emphasize some really excellent photography, and to make every single item fit a theme/story. It's a little naughty, which I always expect people to remark on more than they do -- you'll notice some bondage-themed items, never mind the corsetry -- but has an appealingly innocent look covering the wickedness, with a light blue and dark blood red combination that's unconventional enough to intrigue but could easily be a standard slightly-vintage Fourth of July scheme.

'One Way or the Other' by balletllama

Light blue and bright red in a variety of beautiful vintage-inspired designs. And once you see the story, just a bit scandalous.

Giclee illustration... choumie7 $15.00	SALE SALE 1970s lig... Threefeathersv... $20.00	Royal Blood - Chain... rabbitdance $70.00	pretty blue ribbon ... labellefairy $299.00
SALE. Group of thre... HouseOfCeramic... $54.00	dog waltz - fine ar... olivedear $30.00	Personalized Pet Bo... patspottery $26.00	Red Leather Rose Fl... Wycked $199.00
Hilarious, Mean Any... goatcards $3.50	Caught in a Net of... FruttiTuttiBea... $33.00	Red satin cupped lo... MorganaFemmeCo... $995.00	Classic Cameo Heart... lovesoapapilla $8.00
Untitled 12x8 Fine ... alicelily $35.00	Burlesque Gloves wi... DelilahBurlesq... $25.00	Baby blue linen cus... copperpod $30.00	Hand painted Doggie... jakeybb $399.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.