1.) It's raining, but not yet pouring. Apart from wiping rain off my glasses, this is an awesome thing.
2.) I discovered there are electrical outlets on the balcony in the building where M teaches her last class. Since I necessarily have time to kill during that period, this now means I can sit outside and watch the rain while I update the shop and talk to any friends who happen to be online.
3.) A particular student in one of my classes threw a fit because she decided that a neighboring student's laptop's fingerprint ID check was recording secret films of her. She stormed out. After a long silence, someone else in the class suggested we pass the hat to buy the "perpetrator" a nice present.
4.) I have a D'Anjou pear and an Aero bar. Both are tasty.
5.) My high school friend A, who is deployed on the front lines in Afghanistan, emailed to let everyone know he's alive and celebrate his weekly shower.
6.) M has health insurance again. We found out last week, though she's had it since October. Without revealing details, we've needed it. Now, the university never bothered to tell us she had it or submit her paperwork, but that's a whole nother story.
7.) I have discovered this awesome webcomic called Something Positive. I've been reading through the archives all week. It's a very intelligent, dry work -- think Peanuts with late-twenties characters who drink a lot to fuel their biting verbal wit. It has touching moments, and a tendency to batter the emotions every three months or so, but it's worth it, and hilarious. The story so far will be pretty clear from the cast page.
8.) My Bio 40 professor's favorite phrase: "Patience at once!"
9.) I'm almost done with my custom-order forms for a consignment line.
10.) And I have one more commission to finish up tonight, which makes me break even nicely for the month. I think this may be the first time.
ETA: Oh, and I almost forgot!
11.) There's a rock album based on Tolkien's Silmarillion. It's by Blind Guardian and it's called "Nightfall in Middle-Earth." It's not bad. Not groundbreaking, not Metallica, but not bad. I really like the voices they cast as Sauron and Morgoth, and the singer who does Maeglin's part is pretty good too. I've been listening to it pretty much nonstop.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Limited-Edition Donator Jewelry
Until further notice, to encourage donations to disaster relief in Haiti:
With your jewelry purchase, I will send a free pair of crystal earrings OR a multicolored freshwater pearl bracelet if, in the Notes to Seller section, you pledge to donate ten dollars to the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders.
This jewelry is limited-edition -- there will be as many pieces as people who pledge to donate with their purchase. There's no other way to get these pieces!
I'll provide pictures of your options as soon as I get the first pieces made and photographed.
There will be no extra shipping and you can get your choice of the pieces with ANY purchase -- even a five-dollar pair of earrings qualifies -- provided you make that donation.
With your jewelry purchase, I will send a free pair of crystal earrings OR a multicolored freshwater pearl bracelet if, in the Notes to Seller section, you pledge to donate ten dollars to the Red Cross or Doctors without Borders.
This jewelry is limited-edition -- there will be as many pieces as people who pledge to donate with their purchase. There's no other way to get these pieces!
I'll provide pictures of your options as soon as I get the first pieces made and photographed.
There will be no extra shipping and you can get your choice of the pieces with ANY purchase -- even a five-dollar pair of earrings qualifies -- provided you make that donation.
Ends and Means
I've noticed my posts often seem to trail off rather than actually ending. To hopefully break myself of this, I challenged myself to compose a bunch of different endings to blog posts. I came up with the following:
"So I learned that I should be more careful of my companions if I wish to avoid being eaten."
"I'll never do that again unless my need for a block of beeswax is really pressing."
"So that's how you solve the problem of a component requiring a half-millimeter bead size, and I shall call it the Liverwurst Method."
"In this way, though Marx's model breaks down under thoughtful scrutiny with the mores and values of the twenty-first century in mind, it would be a disservice to a great thinker to say that Das Kapital is anything but a landmark of social science."
"Parakeet dive-bombs toddler. Tune in at eleven for the evening news."
"I'm glad we've solved the aardvark problem. Onward to tackle the zombie defenses!"
...
I don't think I'm very good at this, guys.
"So I learned that I should be more careful of my companions if I wish to avoid being eaten."
"I'll never do that again unless my need for a block of beeswax is really pressing."
"So that's how you solve the problem of a component requiring a half-millimeter bead size, and I shall call it the Liverwurst Method."
"In this way, though Marx's model breaks down under thoughtful scrutiny with the mores and values of the twenty-first century in mind, it would be a disservice to a great thinker to say that Das Kapital is anything but a landmark of social science."
"Parakeet dive-bombs toddler. Tune in at eleven for the evening news."
"I'm glad we've solved the aardvark problem. Onward to tackle the zombie defenses!"
...
I don't think I'm very good at this, guys.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Special Offer ... ish
Type the code "Haiti" in the Notes to Seller section anytime this month and I'll donate 30% of my proceeds to Haitian disaster relief. I am ... a bit disturbed, so. Um. Yeah, that's it.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Back on the chain gang
First day back in classes after the New Year. Am currently in the Physics lecture hall for Biology 40: Diseases in History. Class sounds very cool. This lecture hall, on the other hand ... well.
Let's begin with the fact that you enter it at the back, and the tops of the slide projector screens are then about level with your toes. You're looking straight ahead ... at the ceiling. From this non-Euclidean plane your eyes skate down ... and down ... and down. The floors and ceiling are dirty ivory; the walls are an odd eggshell iron-grey. It's generally mop-water colored.
If you laid a ruler along the tops of the long lab-style desks, you'd get a 45-degree angle. This room is nauseating already, and you haven't even started to descend the stairs. When you do begin to descend, you will notice that the stairs alternate: two slightly shorter than the average human stride, and then one slightly longer. You will wonder how many have died here.
As you try to enter a row, you will notice an odd proportion. A six-foot person, seated, will find that the previous row's table is level with the back of their head -- but the rows are scaled such that the passage behind an occupied stool is roughly a foot wide (narrower in the top two rows, probably to make room for the rather degrading corral that constitutes handicapped seating). Me? I literally cannot get through a row. I just swiveled five tiny Asian girls fully 90-degree turns trying to get to an empty seat. I can't decide which is better -- this, or the theater-seating halls where my hips don't quite fit into the seat.
I'm a size twenty. This is four inches larger than the U.S. average. And I don't fit in UCR's lecture halls.
Gaaaah.
Let's begin with the fact that you enter it at the back, and the tops of the slide projector screens are then about level with your toes. You're looking straight ahead ... at the ceiling. From this non-Euclidean plane your eyes skate down ... and down ... and down. The floors and ceiling are dirty ivory; the walls are an odd eggshell iron-grey. It's generally mop-water colored.
If you laid a ruler along the tops of the long lab-style desks, you'd get a 45-degree angle. This room is nauseating already, and you haven't even started to descend the stairs. When you do begin to descend, you will notice that the stairs alternate: two slightly shorter than the average human stride, and then one slightly longer. You will wonder how many have died here.
As you try to enter a row, you will notice an odd proportion. A six-foot person, seated, will find that the previous row's table is level with the back of their head -- but the rows are scaled such that the passage behind an occupied stool is roughly a foot wide (narrower in the top two rows, probably to make room for the rather degrading corral that constitutes handicapped seating). Me? I literally cannot get through a row. I just swiveled five tiny Asian girls fully 90-degree turns trying to get to an empty seat. I can't decide which is better -- this, or the theater-seating halls where my hips don't quite fit into the seat.
I'm a size twenty. This is four inches larger than the U.S. average. And I don't fit in UCR's lecture halls.
Gaaaah.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
New Special Offer through Jan 3
At long last, gold is finally coming back into fashion jewelry in a big way. It's still a little hard to get unique findings in gold, all the good designs having gone the way of the silver ghetto, and don't even ask me about copper, but it's nice to be seeing a lot of it again.
Consequently! This week, get 10% off up to three items containing goldtone metals when you use the code "andrew."
Available here.
Discounts will be given through PayPal after purchase. Just enter the code in the "Notes to Seller" section when you buy!
Consequently! This week, get 10% off up to three items containing goldtone metals when you use the code "andrew."
Available here.
Discounts will be given through PayPal after purchase. Just enter the code in the "Notes to Seller" section when you buy!
Shells, shells, shells
I have no idea what the professional etiquette is for this kind of thing, so I'll just be as anonymous as possible ...
I might be doing a beach-wedding line on consignment for a brick-and-mortar bridal store.
I sent a photo of this:
And they want a whole line of more like that. The original is sold, but I'll make several similar pieces.
It may not work out, of course. They may be consignment-scalpers out for my beaded blood. They may just decide not to use me. But the interest is flattering and ....
Eeeeee.
That is all.
I might be doing a beach-wedding line on consignment for a brick-and-mortar bridal store.
I sent a photo of this:
And they want a whole line of more like that. The original is sold, but I'll make several similar pieces.
It may not work out, of course. They may be consignment-scalpers out for my beaded blood. They may just decide not to use me. But the interest is flattering and ....
Eeeeee.
That is all.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
I have a caaaaaamera!
This will make custom orders tons easier, let me tell you. Previously I haven't been able to photograph things at M's except with my cell (which results in shots like the 1960's Charm Bracelet - blur city), so this will be a huge blessing.
This also means that I prowled the house playing with settings and photographing eeeverything (like Lilo!), so um ... have a picture of our fish!
This is Miso. Miso's our betta. He's a pretty boy. He is also a very, very spoiled little fish, who lives in a tank more than twice the recommended size for bettas. We put him in the store-recommended one, then our Googling led us to a betta-fancier site that made us feel guilty and we dropped over a hundred bucks on our stupid fish. That's his writing desk at the lower edge and his tank background is actually wrapping paper with old world maps on it, cut to fit (he's a highly educated fish who requires a writing desk and a map of the world, possibly a pirate captain fish?).
In other news, my latest obsession is bento boxes. Simple techniques in infinite combinations, the mating of two disparate elements (cuisine and ... well, scrapbooking, almost), and totally obsessive, just the kind of thing I like to do! Can I justify this with bento-inspired jewelry? Of course I can.
No, seriously, I have to stop ordering bento boxes and alligator hair clips now. Stop, Chelsea, stop, you will regret this before the first of the month!
This will make custom orders tons easier, let me tell you. Previously I haven't been able to photograph things at M's except with my cell (which results in shots like the 1960's Charm Bracelet - blur city), so this will be a huge blessing.
This also means that I prowled the house playing with settings and photographing eeeverything (like Lilo!), so um ... have a picture of our fish!
This is Miso. Miso's our betta. He's a pretty boy. He is also a very, very spoiled little fish, who lives in a tank more than twice the recommended size for bettas. We put him in the store-recommended one, then our Googling led us to a betta-fancier site that made us feel guilty and we dropped over a hundred bucks on our stupid fish. That's his writing desk at the lower edge and his tank background is actually wrapping paper with old world maps on it, cut to fit (he's a highly educated fish who requires a writing desk and a map of the world, possibly a pirate captain fish?).
In other news, my latest obsession is bento boxes. Simple techniques in infinite combinations, the mating of two disparate elements (cuisine and ... well, scrapbooking, almost), and totally obsessive, just the kind of thing I like to do! Can I justify this with bento-inspired jewelry? Of course I can.
No, seriously, I have to stop ordering bento boxes and alligator hair clips now. Stop, Chelsea, stop, you will regret this before the first of the month!
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Some Christmas Eve thoughts
1. Just got back from a Christmas Eve afternoon trip to Wal*Mart. Once upon a time I refused to shop there, being fiercely pro-labor, but that was before I discovered poverty. :p Hypocrite? Who, me? Anyway. Was actually surprisingly fun -- M and I flirted with a cheerful and very attractive sales associate with skin the color of dark French roast who was kind enough to show us where the matchbooks were (hint: they're not next to firelogs, candles, picnic stuff or toothpicks) and then the very speedy checkout girl had an electronic singing Santa hat. Christmas kitsch for the win!
2. I read all three volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen yesterday. I'm ... I'm sorry, I'm just not that impressed. I probably would have been if I'd stopped with the first one. I mean, they're blindingly racist and cheerfully misogynistic, but this is deliberate, a genre-savvy sort of thing, and even though Captain Nemo is perpetually referred to and addressed with cringe-worthy racial slurs, he's also probably the most noble and most effective character in the series. I can deal with that in the same way I can deal with Huck Finn. What I can't deal with is the crazy mood whiplash in the second volume (spoilers ahead). You can write a very good comic that's sarcastic and self-parodying. You can write a very good comic that includes a graphically detailed scene in which a woman is brutally beaten to the point of vomiting. Possibly you can even do them in the same comic. But not within a few pages of each other. Even to someone who plays violent and disgusting video games with happy abandon, I found that part deeply shocking and unsettling. And then there's the fact that the characters change their character between novels. I mean, Mina and Allan in vol. 1 wouldn't even have a nodding acquaintance with Mina and Allan in the Black Dossier. Though I have to say, I really enjoyed Hyde and the complexity of his relationships and motivations.
It's ... I'm about to turn in my geek points. There were things that the movie did better. There. I said it.
3. If anyone needs lovely little personalized keepsakes, I highly recommend SweetScarlett. She did a wonderful little set of vintage-graphic owl-and-magpie bookplates for me to give to M. Free customization, too, since it was originally a crow. She's across the pond, but speedy and lovely and I highly recommend her.
4. If anyone needs T-shirts or decals, I highly recommend Broake & Thumb Studios, especially if you love Vikings. The artist did a custom-sized Viking Navy T-shirt for me. Their decals are also great, and quite sizable, and their dice bags are lovely high-quality pieces.
5. I've been reading up on blacksmithing. It's fascinating.
6. I just found out the the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie is slated for next December. I am very, very excited as that was my favorite Narnia book (though in close competition with the horse one, me being a seven-year-old girl at the time). Also, dragons. Also, ships. Also, Ben Barnes and his Sultry Accent. Did you know he based it on Inigo Montoya? This makes the (spoiler if you live under a kiddie-lit-free rock) "you killed my father" scene in Prince Caspian rather entertaining.
7. Yesterday:
"Ooh, do I get street cred?"
"M, I have read Prisoner of Azkaban over thirty times. I know who Tuor killed at the Fall of Gondolin in The Silmarillion. I own a d20. I am not qualified to award street cred."
8. And of course, a Merry Christmas and/or Yuletide to all! We sort of celebrate both -- ritual on Yule (M's an ordained priestess), Christmas Eve with her half of the family and Christmas Day with my half.
My favorite Christmas song this year is, by the way, Bing Crosby and David Bowie's Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth mashup. Usually it's something by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but I've bought their Beethoven's Last Night album since then, which is a non-Christmas rock opera, and am still having trouble not going "Why is Mephistopheles singing about chests of toys and old letters? What's in that chest?"
Now, mind you, I hate the Little Drummer Boy, I think it's vapid and excessively saccharine. But that dual song is about what ... well, what it's about. About giving more love than you receive to make the world a better place. Gives me warm fuzzies quite beyond the aesthetic tingle of a really good counterpoint duet.
So whether it is Christmas Eve or just past Yule, or Die Natali Sol Invictis, or early Kwanzaa or belated Hannukah, have a happy one.
2. I read all three volumes of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen yesterday. I'm ... I'm sorry, I'm just not that impressed. I probably would have been if I'd stopped with the first one. I mean, they're blindingly racist and cheerfully misogynistic, but this is deliberate, a genre-savvy sort of thing, and even though Captain Nemo is perpetually referred to and addressed with cringe-worthy racial slurs, he's also probably the most noble and most effective character in the series. I can deal with that in the same way I can deal with Huck Finn. What I can't deal with is the crazy mood whiplash in the second volume (spoilers ahead). You can write a very good comic that's sarcastic and self-parodying. You can write a very good comic that includes a graphically detailed scene in which a woman is brutally beaten to the point of vomiting. Possibly you can even do them in the same comic. But not within a few pages of each other. Even to someone who plays violent and disgusting video games with happy abandon, I found that part deeply shocking and unsettling. And then there's the fact that the characters change their character between novels. I mean, Mina and Allan in vol. 1 wouldn't even have a nodding acquaintance with Mina and Allan in the Black Dossier. Though I have to say, I really enjoyed Hyde and the complexity of his relationships and motivations.
It's ... I'm about to turn in my geek points. There were things that the movie did better. There. I said it.
3. If anyone needs lovely little personalized keepsakes, I highly recommend SweetScarlett. She did a wonderful little set of vintage-graphic owl-and-magpie bookplates for me to give to M. Free customization, too, since it was originally a crow. She's across the pond, but speedy and lovely and I highly recommend her.
4. If anyone needs T-shirts or decals, I highly recommend Broake & Thumb Studios, especially if you love Vikings. The artist did a custom-sized Viking Navy T-shirt for me. Their decals are also great, and quite sizable, and their dice bags are lovely high-quality pieces.
5. I've been reading up on blacksmithing. It's fascinating.
6. I just found out the the Voyage of the Dawn Treader movie is slated for next December. I am very, very excited as that was my favorite Narnia book (though in close competition with the horse one, me being a seven-year-old girl at the time). Also, dragons. Also, ships. Also, Ben Barnes and his Sultry Accent. Did you know he based it on Inigo Montoya? This makes the (spoiler if you live under a kiddie-lit-free rock) "you killed my father" scene in Prince Caspian rather entertaining.
7. Yesterday:
"Ooh, do I get street cred?"
"M, I have read Prisoner of Azkaban over thirty times. I know who Tuor killed at the Fall of Gondolin in The Silmarillion. I own a d20. I am not qualified to award street cred."
8. And of course, a Merry Christmas and/or Yuletide to all! We sort of celebrate both -- ritual on Yule (M's an ordained priestess), Christmas Eve with her half of the family and Christmas Day with my half.
My favorite Christmas song this year is, by the way, Bing Crosby and David Bowie's Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth mashup. Usually it's something by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, but I've bought their Beethoven's Last Night album since then, which is a non-Christmas rock opera, and am still having trouble not going "Why is Mephistopheles singing about chests of toys and old letters? What's in that chest?"
Now, mind you, I hate the Little Drummer Boy, I think it's vapid and excessively saccharine. But that dual song is about what ... well, what it's about. About giving more love than you receive to make the world a better place. Gives me warm fuzzies quite beyond the aesthetic tingle of a really good counterpoint duet.
So whether it is Christmas Eve or just past Yule, or Die Natali Sol Invictis, or early Kwanzaa or belated Hannukah, have a happy one.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Stocking Stuffer Sale and Squee!
FYI -- a lot of the pendants and earrings in the shop have gone to 10%, 15% or 20% off for a Stocking Stuffer Sale. Personally I can't think of a better stocking stuffer than a handmade pendant. They have quite a bit of impact!
FY further I -- I've just added a lot of the new Geometrica pendants and a ring to the relevant set on my Flickr stream. Some of my absolute favorite pieces have just gone up there, pieces where I really felt like I accomplished the marriage of elements I was looking for. Perhaps all my weird combinations of plastic and pearls, all my bizzare charm-bracelet designs are all in a quest for that seamless marriage of what doesn't belong into a coherent whole. Perhaps this is a metaphor for my quest to heal the rift between my faith in humanity and my perception of the world. Perhaps I need to put down Civilization and its Discontents now.
And, in Squee of the Month -- both M and I have just been unexpectedly informed that we've been hired back for winter quarter! Me on Monday and her today. So that's just ... well, really awesome, and we're very thankful for it.
FY further I -- I've just added a lot of the new Geometrica pendants and a ring to the relevant set on my Flickr stream. Some of my absolute favorite pieces have just gone up there, pieces where I really felt like I accomplished the marriage of elements I was looking for. Perhaps all my weird combinations of plastic and pearls, all my bizzare charm-bracelet designs are all in a quest for that seamless marriage of what doesn't belong into a coherent whole. Perhaps this is a metaphor for my quest to heal the rift between my faith in humanity and my perception of the world. Perhaps I need to put down Civilization and its Discontents now.
And, in Squee of the Month -- both M and I have just been unexpectedly informed that we've been hired back for winter quarter! Me on Monday and her today. So that's just ... well, really awesome, and we're very thankful for it.
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