New treasury! Wear Your Letters is a jewelry-only collection of what happens when I insert “typography” into the Etsy search bar. [We] Word nerds love this kind of stuff.
The sad part is that I forgot to include the whole reason that I wanted to make a letters and symbols collection, which was this paragraph symbol necklace.
This jewelry thing needs to get going more quickly. I spent about an hour at work one day writing Petunkalunka with a Japanese calligraphy pen. Then I bought a DIY stamp kit and spent about six hours listening to Janelle Monae’s complete discography a couple times through while I carved the stamp. Then I spent another hour stamping a stack of blank business cards that I had purchased from Muji more than six months ago. That’s a lot of time to spend on branding, and a lot of time wasted if it doesn’t pay off. Continue reading
Making the move from hobbyist to self-employment will be slow and painful for me, I reckon. Getting organized for my attempt at In efforts to take better stock of my beading supplies I’ve been pulling out several pieces that I made in the folly of my sweet youth, ugly things that I’ve never worn nor dared to give to others. Some of it is completely unrelated to my current style; I can’t even reuse the beads.
Some of the pieces are wearable, but I didn’t have the money to buy decent findings. The humidity in Kyoto is dreadful for metal, especially the kind one buys at a Hobby Lobby or Michael’s. Anything that is irreparably tarnished stays with me. One of my favorite pairs of earrings looks like that. I made it with the remaining beads from the mystical Orbital necklace [that I keep mentioning yet of which I have no pictures], and wore it any time I could think of a reason to do so. It was a little bit mod and a little bit science fiction, which is exactly what I wanted at the time.
Last night as I was looking through all the supplies that I bought but never used, I ran across some flat sterling silver spacers. This is where my explanation of the thought process ends, because I grabbed my pliers, destroyed one earring, and made a new one with the spacers.
I didn't even use a head pin on the old, slightly lopsided version
The new one looks a like a 1950s version of an Art Deco spaceship, amirite?
What do you think? Improvement or no? I wore them to work today an no one said a thing. My boss, the main voice of my adoring public, is on vacation, so maybe that’s why. Margaret has seen the old versions often enough that she likely didn’t notice anything was different when we lunched together. This might sound accusatory, but I should add that I forgot to mention the change in spite of the time I spent talking about making jewelry. I talked a lot about jewelry.
The real question, I suppose, is if it’s worthy of being put up for sale. I have enough beads to make one more pair, but if the whole design is underwhelming I’ll save my sterling for something better. Thoughts, anyone? If this will help, here’s my face with those earrings attached, looking unjustifiably smug and sleepy.
Recently I’ve been making efforts to be more involved in the Etsy community (for mostly self-serving purposes, I think). Joining one team, the Etsy Expats, resulted in having a necklace featured in a treasury. The creator was kind enough to email me and tell me that she had deemed my piece worthy. I was so pleased, and though it hasn’t resulted in a sale, it was wonderful to have someone acknowledge the work I put into my jewelry. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t wasting my time.
In the spirit of blessing others in the same way one has been blessed, I decided to create a treasury based on an everyday sight in Japan—the Maneki Neko, or Lucky Cat. It beckons customers and wealth inside the shops and restaurants, and is just pretty darn cute. Check it out below.
by Home Studio at http://www.etsy.com/shop/HomeStudio
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/NTg3NDg4Mnw1MzI4NTQ5Njc/maneki-neko
I don’t know what to call this necklace yet. I bought the beads thinking that I was going to do another take on the Safari Socialite necklace, but in my favorite color. This particular purple reminded me of the cotton candy that I had devoured the night prior, and I thought that solid white would make for it an excellent companion. Tra la la.
Once I had finished all the strands, though, I realized that the amethyst-colored beads looked a little stiff, as though the wearer would also sport a long knit cardigan, think Fords are vulgar cars, and be surrounded by Persian cats and fake flowers and china. Not the kind of effect I wanted.
