Pearly Crystal Earrings

Just listed in my Etsy shop.

As I state in the description, Swarovski pearls are the best "fake" pearls in the world! Their luster is second to none, except for the real deal. And even then, it takes an exceptional real pearl to out-luster these.

I love to make these sort of earrings. They are simple and elegant, quick and easy to make, and they can be customized to the color preference of the buyer.

One of my blog-buddies from Entrecard (visit her blog ... she's a very talented artist!) asked me in a comment left on the preceding post about where I get my design inspiration. Most of the time, I get it from the components themselves. Whether crystals, pearls, stones or metal findings ... the shape, texture, color, size "speaks" to me. Sometimes a particular object remains mute until another time, but all the things I gather eventually tell me what to do.

I was blog-hopping last week and stumbled across a blog by another jewelry artist who wrote about a book he appreciates and refers to quite a bit. I do not remember his name, the name of the book or the author but he mentioned 6 principles of jewelry design which I copied into a Word document. I found them compelling and a good metaphor for life in general, not just for design. I'll be discussing each point in the future, as soon as I find that blog again so I can give proper credit to all involved.

I was pleased to see that I instinctually follow all 6 principles!

My target market is the business woman so all of my designs are geared towards her whether "formal" or "casual" or "cocktail." So design inspiration is never lacking.

I do see things in my wanderings that inspire. I saw a painting of Queen Elizabeth I once in a book that inspired a gorgeous necklace, the prototype which I kept for myself and often wear to my networking events.

I am always looking at fashion magazines and internet sites/blogs for inspiration. I avoid looking at jewelry specifically, but look to the clothing to see if I could make something that would harmonize and complete the look.

I realize I need to count myself fortunate in that the medium I chose to express my art is never lacking for inspiration! However, it is a struggle to avoid the mundane and the mediocre.

Holie Molie

So just what, exactly, does $700 billion dollars look like? Better yet, what does it feel like?

Think on this, dear Reader:

If you were to sit in the most comfortable chair you can find, you get hooked up to a feeding tube, catheter and colon bag to take care of bodily necessities and you were endowed with endless life, and proceeded to count out each and every dollar in $1 increments per 1 second non-stop, it will take 22,197 years for you to complete the task.

Have some fun doing more of the math. Wrap your mind around this and wonder about the future our grandchildren will enjoy.

Good thing money is easily printed on paper. Hope there are enough trees in the world. If our monetary system isn't based on cash, hope there is enough ... what? Confidence? Good feelings? Smiles? Pixels? Widgets? Spa treatments?

How about beads?!!? ;-)



I'll donate 111 beads to the effort. While I seriously doubt the history I was fed as a child, they did tell us New York was purchased from the natives for beads. This necklace should be able to secure me a parking spot on Manhatten, adjusted for inflation.

BTW --- I've been tagged. Actually, twice this month, but I haven't had the opportunity to do my duty. I will work on that this week!

Some more cubic zirconia

Lovely handcrafted earrings with a lot of bling. Swarovski calls the color of this ctystal "Silk" and the rectangle cubic zirconia bead hanging in the middle of the 14k gold-filled hammered ring is almost identical. These are gorgeous and pictures truly do little justice to the sparkle these beauty reflect.

They are listed in my Etsy shop here.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We're attending a wedding this afternoon so I'm off to handcraft both the card and the gift card holder.

Why Can't I Be a Joe ...

... and got into plumbing? I have a feeling every entrepreneur in America woke up this morning wishing he or she was Joe the Plumber. Not for the sake of politics, but exposure is everything and this fortunate guy got more than his share of exposure! Talk about free advertising. Sheesh!

Oh well. Such is life. I'll have to settle for making these things. I may not make the money Joe makes ... and I'm sure he'll be getting a LOT more business with his global exposure ... at least my choice of career isn't as stinky and slimy and sludgy.

I really like bling. And cubic zirconia provides a lot of bling for the buck. Isn't the color luscious? Combined with the gleam of the hammered gold rings and ovals, dangling at 2.5 inches, this pair of earrings is perfect when glam is needed.

These will be listed on my Etsy shop later today. I'll be back to update with the link.

ETA: Almost forgot the link!

Happy dance!

I've never, ever done two posts in one day, but I just couldn't wait!

I got my Page Rank back!

Well, now it's only a "2" and I was "3" before the slap, but hey, tomorrow is another day. In the meantime, thank you to whoever from Google reconsidered my blog. You may be nameless and faceless, but you got a wee spot of my heart.

Playing Catch-Up

SOLD!

My Handcrafted Jewelry Open House all done and it went great! I don't have pictures of the rest that sold. Taking pictures of everything is something I need to work on, even if I have no plans to list or post them anywhere.

Now I get to play catch up on everything else that fell by the wayside. One of which is very important to me ... my Skiwggazine Network Featured Blog Group!

I missed posting about Debi and her family blog: Who Says 8 Is Enough? Eleven. Children. Amazing! Check it out! I feel so "not worthy"!

Last week was Karen from Cherished Dreams. She makes beautiful quilts! Really, really beautiful quilts. It's been quite a while since I've done any quilting. Must not let the quilt bug bite ... not enough time! I'm running away now ...

Next Open House date: November 15. Plenty of time to create and make and get all the details taken care of on schedule. It's not fun running around in the last minutes. I hope to be taking lots of new pictures this week!

Wandering Minds Wonder ...

A lot of my activity directly related to my business is both creative and repetitious. And even though the brain is involved, quite a bit involved, in the creative process, for a designer of handcrafted jewelry it's the repetitious that dominates. Yet, creative brains are active brains, so while performing the repetitions, our brains keep churning and whirling and grinding.

Personally, when my brain is churning and whirling and grinding I try NOT to think about the design of the next piece. Otherwise, I would stop what I was working on and perhaps never complete it. For hobbyists and crafters, having a whole bunch of UFOs (Un-Finished Objects) lying around may not present much of a problem, other than storage, but for some one trying to pay some bills with her craft, UFO's are waste of precious things like time and materials.

So while performing my repetitious tasks, like the actual making of a piece of handcrafted jewelry, I block the creative thoughts and let my mind wander. I have a very well-traveled mind!

Today my mind was fixated on the economic mess, as it's becoming a huge, HUGE, global problem. I heard on NPR this morning Britain is considering a lawsuit against Iceland? I didn't get a chance to hear and comprehend exactly why, but I found that rather odd, and perhaps a bit scary. Since I don't have any details, I won't express an opinion other than I find it odd. Perhaps my wandering mind will stumble across the details.

So now my wandering mind is wondering, did the American mortgage crises cause all this mess that's going on all over the world? No, can't be ... the rest of the world has its issues that it gets to own and accept responsibility. But it got me thinking that there was an earlier problem, a HUGE problem, that led to sub-prime credit and the whole mess that Americans, at least, are facing.

Outsourcing.

Perhaps if American employers kept the jobs here in the states, the whole need for sub-prime credit wouldn't have come about. Outsourcing started a long time ago, back in the early 80's if not before. Before my adult children were born. I'm beginning to feel really sorry for my adult children. I'm even more sorry for what my teen-aged daughter may be facing.

Can it all be so simple? That greed for huge bonuses on behalf of the privileged few at the top, and huge dividends and return on investments for the few who had more than ten nickels to rub together to invest was more important than our collective offspring's future quality of life? Well, thank you very much all you greedy people. But I realize you don't care one hair of your chinny-chin-chin about my childrens' future.

I'd tell y'all to bite me, but you already have.

My wandering mind is also wondering why and when the production that drives economy got away from actual things ... things you can eat, wear, hold in your hand and enjoy ... and became ethereal and pixelated. But I haven't got a firm grasp on those thoughts, so I'm off to my work bench.

Before I go, update on the Open House ... I got a free trial subscription to iContact to send out e-mail invitations to a bunch of people I've met networking over the last 5 months. iContact is a nice, easy-to-use program and very reasonably priced. I'll be converting my free trial as it's only $9.95 a month and I plan to use it monthly. But when stopping to think, isn't that ethereal and pixelated? I guess I have my own part in the larger problems facing our world.

Bless our collective hearts ...

Busy in Preparations

Hostessing my first Open House this Saturday, the 11th, and I've been swamped with all the collateral issues. I'm feeling very, very nervous. My home is clean and decent, but humble in comparison with many of the households here. I happen to live in what is considered to be in the top ten most affluent suburbs in America.

We live in the older part, much more middle-low of the middle class.

The house needs updating. It needs a fresh coat of paint. It needs a lot of things, but then, all these things cost money. Hopefully I'll make some pocket change to help along those lines, but the public is being welcomed into my humble home as it is.

I hope they'll see comfort and contentment. After all, when it came to our decision of what and where to buy, we stayed in our budget. We bought no more of a house than what we could afford in a place where the public schools are excellent.

I hope what they see and appreciate is a family who is not burdening them by being part of a $7 billion dollar "rescue" plan. So no, it ain't fancy, but it ain't costing any American taxpayer a single penny, either.

Prototype of New Product Packaging

I'm still not over Google's spanking, but one can only take one's licks and move on. I have followed their instructions by submitting a sitemap, which was very confusing for a non-geek person like myself. But I muddled through the lack of clear, concise documentation and figured out how to use my RSS feed as the sitemap. Blogger doesn't allow for a user-generated XML ... or whatever ... sitemap to be plunked somewhere in the template. I've submitted my blog for reconsideration so now it's a exercise in patience. I've also asked them about the "duplicate title tags" since I don't have a clue how to fix that. Blogger is THEIR product so it should be usable without creating havoc with another of THEIR products.

I did say something about moving on, didn't I? No more mention of PageRank unless or until I've been bailed out of search engine jail.

Today I took the mess you see on my dining room table in the opening photo and turned it into this:



I didn't use the boxed flower components in the first picture because after I opened it up, I realized there wasn't enough for duplication (there's that baaaad word again!). I need to make oodles of these packages so I opted to use cardstock, a couple of punches, and brads of which I have plenty. Not bad, don't you think?

I learned this technique last week when I attended a local stamp club that is run by a talented and creative Stampin' Up demonstrator here in the Plano area. If you'd like her contact information, contact me. She'll humbly tell you that she's just following the directions of other talented and creative people, but she has a gift for teaching.

In her class, we used double-sided paper so that the inside looks as good as the outside, but in the interest of not driving the prices of my handcrafted jewelry too far to the roof, I've opted for one-sided. I couldn't find any that matched my branding image, but I think this is close enough to work for now.

I'm having an open house in my house starting October 11th and continuing until further notice on the second Saturday of every month. If you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and are interested in coming, drop me a line with your e-mail address and I'll add you to the e-vite list. Just about everyone who I have met personally through the various network events I attend will be getting an invite. I'll be using my new product packaging at the open house ... or I HOPE to that is!

Trying to get people to commit to a home show has been virtually impossible, even with a generous hostess package in the offering. I've asked those I know very well, and those who are in the Mastermind group with me "Why?" and the answer is what I expected. Hostessing is a LOT of work. I know that because I've played hostess myself plenty of times.

So for now, I'll play hostess and invite the fashion jewelry loving women in my circles to come over to my house and play. And the entrepreneurial women are more than welcome to bring their business cards for networking.

I should have listened ...

Google slapped me silly.

I've read some great geek blogs I've found since joining Entrecard. And I've even attended a MeetUp meeting of a group of geeks. I learned Google penalized duplicate content (but I OWN the content). When I found out duplicating items from a blog was a huge no-no, I stopped doing what I was doing. But I guess I should have done more.

I belong to various social networks using the Ning platform. These networks are nice because they are topically focused, which helps in marketing because one knows they are reaching a targeted audience. All these networks give members their own profile page which also includes a blog. So I thought "Cool!" and I could duplicate blog posts among my Ning networks and reach a wider audience.

Live and learn. My rank went from a sweet little 3 to a basement bottom N/A. With great sadness I removed my PR rank button from my "Techies" sidebar section.

I contacted Google for advice and surprisingly, they responded within one hour! The responder gave me the suggestion to use the Google Webmaster tools, particularly the "sitemap" and wait. I had already deleted all duplicate content before contacting them.

The sitemap tool is giving me a report of "duplicate title tags" for 20 of my posts. I wonder how penalizing that could be? There is truly nothing new under the sun and with however many million of blogs out there, duplicate titles are going to happen. What does one do when a particular title is already used, but it's perfect for the post?

What a bummer. And to top it off, my nearby Starbucks was out of Kenya coffee so I had to settle for Ethiopia Sidamo. There's nothing better than a nice, hot cup of Kenya java first thing in the morning.

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