This one is intended for my side biz, for my jewelry.  Actually I already have a link to it here, except it used to be my e-commerce site.  I switched things around over the weekend, moved the e-commerce pages to a different folder (essentially making it invisible unless I give a direct link), and put the new blog on the main directory.

I created both an Artfire Studio (basic for now) and an Etsy shop, where I’ll eventually start posting items for sale – jewelry, polymer clay beads, etc..  The links to both are at the top of the page on that blog.  I am also going to try out a plug-in I found for wordpress which allows one to host an e-commerce solution straight from the WP blog.

Technically I could re-list some of the stuff I had up previously at my e-commerce site, but I’d like to re-take the photos of a bunch of them with better lighting and backdrop and whatnot, before I do that.   Plus I’m also trying to work on some polymer clay stuff to be able to sell as well.   Once that is all ready I’ll put up another post here, as well as at the new blog, letting anyone who still drifts by here, know about it.

I know I’ve lost a lot of readers (geeze, do I even still have any at all? LOL) due to my extremely sporadic posting and even less frequent visitation and commenting at other blogs… And that’s ok with me, to be honest. It’s nothing less than I deserve for slacking like that.  I’ll just have to work on posting more often, either here or at the other blog, and trying to visit other blogs.  Unfortunately with the micromanagement at work looking over my shoulder for claims of excessive slacking there, i.e. surfing too much, it’s become even more difficult to do much of what I used to do from work – which was read others’ blogs and such.  And because I’d rather work on things like, you know, building up a stock of jewelry and whatnot when I’m at home, that doesn’t leave a lot of time for blog surfing and posting on my own blog… Except when I’m in a creative funk, of course.

Talk about being spread thin. 

Lately – and usually – I think it’s because since my job entails being online all day – not necessarily surfing the web, as that is not my job, but just being on the computer – by the time I get home, I may get on my computer to check email and such, or IM my husband, but blogging is the last thing on my mind otherwise.  Since I joined that Christi Friesen class for a steampunk gryphon, much of my time has been spent either looking for old watch parts, and now that I have those, I’ve been working on my gryphon.  (yes, I will post photos when its complete)

Then my daughter requested I make something for her; her first request was a puppy.  So I set about making one she could play with, but before I could put its head on, she woke up from her nap the other day, saw the splotchy spots on its body, and declared it a cow.  So a cow it became.  It has short stumpy legs and no horns (safety, you know), but it is cow-ish and she likes it.  She gets upset if she misplaces it.

She still wants her puppy, though, so instead of another play toy, I told her I’d make one for a necklace – mainly because that silly cow took a good four hours just to put together, and I wanted something simpler for her second request so I could still work on my own stuff, too. LOL  So it’s going to be a necklace bead a bit larger than the circumference of a quarter, accompanied by two doggie bone beads, two large circle beads and two smaller circle beads, with hearts on them.

Oh, and her color request for the puppy?  Pink.  Heh.  So I compromised with her and said I’d maker her a white puppy with pink ears.  So that is what I made, a white pup with pink ears and a darker pink bow, and the circle beads are the same color pink as the ears, and the hearts are white and dark pink.  Yep, I’ll post pix of those, too, when they’re cooked.  I figure later tonight I’ll cook those and part of the gryphon (or maybe the rest of him, too, depending on time).

So that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing in my off time, rather than blogging… working with polymer clay and perusing the yahoo groups for my class and Christi’s other group.

Oh, I also made a filly bead based on her style, too, that is done but I’m not done stringing the necklace for it, once that’s all done I’ll include pics of that, too.  I’m still trying to decide how to do the clasp for it, it’s a bit heavy for a necklace so I’m thinking about making another polymer clay bead to make a toggle clasp with, I figure that would offer the best support for it.  Just gotta find the time to make that one stinkin’ little bead. LOL

However, there is a knitting designer in England who knitted up a Sackboy and created a pattern for it, and it is in an English knitting magazine (also sold in the U.S.).   We now have the pattern in hand, and he has asked (begged? LOL) for me to knit one up for him.

The knitting itself doesn’t look too difficult, but it requires a lot of sewing for the finishing – which I really dislike having to sew on a knitted project.  So all I can say is – once I’m done with it, he sure better appreciate it! LOL

Anyway.  I went looking online for the suggested yarn for the project, and being that the designer is in the UK, he (yes, he) suggests a yarn that is produced in the UK (but also sold in the U.S.).   It quickly became apparent that this particular yarn, while sold in the U.S., still isn’t very easy to find, and if a store happened to sell it, it was most likely out of stock.  The stores that did have it in stock, were selling it for about $5.00 per skein/ball.

However I did not limit myself to just U.S. based stores, I also checked some UK stores… And wouldn’t you know it, I found a UK store online selling this yarn for 1.61 GBP (1.85 GBP w/VAT tax)… which is about $2.40 USD??

So, I wondered how much it would cost to ship a few skeins to the U.S.? I decided I’d order five skeins – the pattern calls for 2 skeins per Sackboy, and I figure if I can make one for my husband, I’ll also make one for myself, so I ordered enough for two Sackboys and one extra skein just in case.  So, five skeins.   That came out to like 8.05 GBP, and shipping?  3.05 GBP… So grand total of 11.10 GBP, which they converted to $16.68 USD.

Score!  I couldn’t even get THREE skeins of that yarn in the U.S. for that much (with shipping).  Sure, it may take a bit longer to get here than if I ordered it in the U.S., but who cares?  I’m not in a huge rush to knit this stuff up, so I can tolerate a week or so extra of shipping time to save myself probably over $10!

I think I’ll have to bookmark that site and order from them again in the future depending on what my yarn needs are and if their prices are that much lower compared against U.S. prices, and if it doesn’t take months for my order to arrive.

And I’ve suddenly become a little bit obsessed (not completely, it doesn’t consume me or anything), with looking for other items that fit that steampunk look – “old” or aged looking chain and other findings, even if they’re actually new and just made to look old; gears and other bits and bobs from mechanical watches, etc., etc.  I am watching several ebay auctions for watch parts, won one of the auctions I bid on, and bought a large men’s analog wrist watch to take apart in hopes it still uses SOME gears in it even though it uses a battery for power rather than being wound.  It’s analog and therefore still has “hands” which are set with the winding device on the side so I’m hoping it still has a few gears inside.  Maybe not as many as a true mechanical watch but at least something, you know?  I just have to figure out how to pry the darn thing open.  The cover is pretty flush with the back of the watch so the tiny screwdriver I had didn’t even fit underneath it.  I have one other tool I have for my clay at home that I MIGHT be able to wedge underneath the cover, I’ll try that when I get home and hopefully be able to pop that thing open.

Anyway, I hope after or even during the class when I have the other supplies on hand I can come up with some neat looking things.  Even if I don’t put them up for sale it’s still nice to be doing something creative and I felt stuck without ideas before this, so signing up for that class turned out to be a good decision afterall.

I really like her style, it seems so easy yet looks so complicated, but I don’t know how often I’d use the Steampunk style if at all.  I don’t know, it may be fun to join just to learn how to do it and if I like it I can run with it…

Anyway, below are some of her books if you want to take a peek at some of what she does, and below that is the link to her website for even closer views of her work.

Christi Friesen’s website.

(NOT a sponsored post!)

I am kind of on the fence about this, mainly because I have very little product to sell. Right now if I were to set up a shop on Etsy, I think it is .20 per listing (for 4 months?) and something like 3.5% of the sale – if it sells. I think I figured, just based on the listing price alone, to get my money’s worth at Art Fire, I would have to list at least 35 items. Obviously this does not take into consideration the fees that are charged at Etsy, but considering I have only had two sales of my current product at my ecommerce store, I am just basing my comparison on the same lack of sales (what great confidence I have, eh?).

So for now, since I do not even have an Etsy store yet, and don’t yet have enough product to list 35 items at Art Fire to make it worth the $7, I will be carefully watching their site to observe the number of accounts remaining… if it starts to drop like wildfire I may just buck up and pay the $7 to reserve myself a spot at that price, as it is certainly better than being left in the cold and having to pay $20 a month later on if I miss the boat. But for now I will just bide my time and try to build up some inventory.

(please note this is not a sponsored post – I just wanted to pass the info along to any crafty blogger looking for another place to sell their wares)

When I first got into polymer clay, I tried making a few beads but found that I didn’t have much interest in it.  Now that I know how to actually make jewelry, I have revisited the idea of making beads, even if I don’t use any in my own jewelry, although I probably would.

I am still undecided though.  I spent a good deal of time over the weekend looking at polymer clay beads on Etsy, and decided that I like the boutique style of beads, since it combines both scuplting (in a way) and beads together.  The problem is, when I started sculpting dragons, I had it in my head that I was going to make “cutesy” dragons, but the closest I was able to get to that was with a bunch that I made as tree ornaments one Christmas, since we were pretty poor and couldn’t afford to buy gifts, so those ornaments were our gifts that year.  Beyond that, my dragons tended to drift more toward the realistic side (well, as real as a dragon can be I guess, since they are mythical creatures).

So, I don’t know if I could even MAKE cutesy boutique beads. LOL  I’ve always been a realistic artist – in school it was very difficult for me to draw things with a cartoonish look to them.  My brain kept me drawing and painting things as realistic as my hands could handle.  (I’ll post some examples later so you see what I mean)

Coupled with the fact that I can’t stand to waste art supplies, I tend to not experiment a whole lot.  Oddly I would rather see a supply sit unused for a length of time than risk a disasterous result in an experiment.  Which is ironic, since some supplies, like paint, will eventually dry out and become useless – and that is why I never really got into acrylic painting.  The tubes of paint would dry out and become completely unusable because I couldn’t bring myself to try them out on a canvas for fear that it would look like crap.   I stuck mostly to watercolors and pencil.

Anyway, I suppose in order to get into making beads with polymer clay I am going to have to accept the fact that there may be some disasters as I try my hand at them and shake that fear of waste.  Mainly because beads, being small, could also satisfy my deep rooted need for instant gratification, whereas sculpting, while fun, can take me hours and hours – which turn into weeks which turn into months, you get the idea – and in turn I have several works in progress sitting around waiting to be finished.  So not only am I a perfectionist when it comes to my art, I also get bored quickly if it takes too long to complete and I end up moving on to something different.

That explains why I have so many different types of crafts that I have tried out: cross stitch – takes too long; knitting and crochet – has potential to take too long if the project is big, but this one is easy to adapt for car rides and in front of the t.v.; web design – another one with potential to take too long, but I still dabble now and then; painting ornaments – can be a quick project, but morphs into a big one if I buy too many ornaments; creating cards – potentially a quick project, but for some reason my creativity falls flat on these; making hairbows – another one that could potentially be quick, but strangely I still got bored with it; polymer clay sculpting – already explained about that one; and jewelry making – still has potential but I have become a bit discouraged with it.

So anyway.  I have this innate need to create, but I just need to find something that will be relatively quick from start to finish, and as an added bonus, perhaps help earn some money, too.  Yep, when it comes down to it, in the end I’m looking for a way to make money with what I create.  Pretty much half of the examples above, I may have started out with just the intention of doing it for fun or for gift giving, but they morphed into “hey, maybe I can make some money out of this”.  And the reason?  Because I so badly want to be able to quit my job and stay at home, but I would need to either a) win a jackpot lottery, or because the chances of that are nil, b) find a way to make money from home.

I know that a lot of people are making money with blogging, too, and that is another thing I am trying my hand at, but it is very slow going so far, but, because I can sometimes take the time to do that while I am at work, which I cannot do with my other hobbies, I am going to try to stick with it.  And many crafters combine blogging for $ along with their crafting for $, so it certainly can’t hurt if I try as well.

Now to just dust off the clay and start creating… The Fear is large and looming, but I need to defeat it if I want to see if making beads will be something I can even do, and continue doing.

Clicking on the images will take you to the product page.

I will offer these at $10 off the normal price of $36.95 (for the 8″ bracelets), until September 19th, or until they are sold out.  I have enough supplies to make seven more identical to the ones pictured in 8″ or smaller sizes. I also still have the 8″ and 9″ pictured available, for a total of 9 bracelets.  Any purchased beyond the two already available will need to made on demand, so will take an additional week to create from the date of purchase.

The coupon code is AWARE08 (yes it is case sensitive), and can only be used ONCE per person.  This coupon cannot be used on any other product in the store, ONLY these bracelets.  Also, I am unable to combine coupons at this time, so the free shipping coupon will be unavailable to those using this special coupon.

If you have ANY problems shopping at my store during this special, please PLEASE let me know here, or via the contact page at my store.

Happy shopping!

Come back on September 19th to see my next available special!

I haven’t really added anything recent since, oh, June I think.  Most of that is because while I thought I had a pretty decent idea with my “summer drink” series, I only received minimal feed back on the few things I did put together, and absolutely zero nibbles in sales.  That kind of does a lot to squash any of my own enthusiasm for adding additional pieces to the series.

In addition to the fact that I haven’t had the money to get some more supplies for some new ideas I’ve had rolling around in my head, I need to do some sales in order to cover that expense.

A couple of things I will note before I start that tomorrow, though:

1) I am not set up to do international sales.  I might consider selling to people in Canada, but my store isn’t set up for those either, I don’t think, at least not yet.  So if you’re international, sorry.  I’m just not prepared to do international sales right now.

2) Paypal is the payment option right now.  I believe it is set up so that you can either use your Paypal account, or when it takes you to Paypal’s site, you can enter your credit card (securely, of course) and not have to sign into PayPal completely.  However, if you chose to use your Paypal account, please make sure that your account is completely confirmed.  Otherwise it will NOT let you use your account, it will deny the transaction.   Confirmed accounts only via that method!  Otherwise, just a credit card will be fine.

That’s about it I think.  Feel free to hop over to my site and take a look at what I have in the meantime.  I think for now I am going to fiddle around with making some little thumbnails in preparation for the featurette tomorrow.