Gone Fishin'

fishin
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

Etsy's having a poster contest related to the whole treasury concept. Although I'm not currently selling through my Etsy shop, I am trying to maintain a presence so that when I re-open the shop I won't have to start over from scratch... I'm enjoying having the extra time to do things like searching for fish themed ceramics to pull together an interesting presentation.

Sterling Bead Bail

beadbale
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

I'm looking for a wholesale source for these findings. They're sterling silver, although I saw them in silver plate as well, with attached wires for stringing focal beads to make pendants. They seem like the perfect solution for making pendants from some of my more elaborate focal beads. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Running on Empty

When last I checked in, I was feeling a bit sleep deprived. Some research online and a conversation with my therapist helped convince me to try switching when I took my new medication from the evening to the morning. I also switched to a slower release formula which we're going to try for a while and see how things go. I'm doing much, much better with the combination of the slower acting formula and the earlier dosing. In fact, the only cloud on my horizon right now is that I'm so busy with swim lessons and the things that I'm doing in an effort to improve my health and well-being that I've no time or energy left at the moment for the studio.

I'm so glad right now that I've taken some time off. My sister is coming to visit from Germany, Sprout and I are going with my sister and our parents to Florida for a week of swimming and fun on the beach. There just hasn't been much time left and probably won't be any in the foreseeable future for blogging and updating on my personal life. There's nothing going on in the studio at the moment, so I can't really give much info there. How boring would it be, for everyone, if I posted regular updates that said something to the effect of "Playing and having fun with Sprout. Dieting and exercising. Nothing going on in the studio. Took Sprout to see her grandparents. More later."

On an interesting side note, I've decided to re-visit my desire to do some professional writing. I'm going to be starting slow, with some book and/or media reviews here on my blog. I've answered a call for reviewers. I will be receiving the items for review from the publishers at no cost, and the network that I'm working with compensates reviewers with Amazon.com gift cards. My goal is to write honest and, hopefully insightful, reviews of the material I'm sent. It is not a completely random process. I will receive email from the blogging network with information about the materials available for review. If the material looks interesting to me, I can choose to throw my name into the hat as a potential reviewer. After that, they either send me the book or they don't. Should be interesting.

Sleepless Nights

It's somewhere after 5am and I haven't slept. I've tried to sleep. I started trying to sleep at 11:15pm. Unfortunately, I have leg cramps which have varied in intensity over the past 6 hours from a fluttery feeling in the muscles which is slightly distracting to full fledged digging my fingernails into the palms of my hands leg in a bear trap cramps. This is the 2nd night in a row that I've been kept up with them. It triggered a migraine yesterday and left me feeling crappy all day. All of which is why I'm sitting here at the computer typing instead of sleeping which is where all sane people should be at 5am.

The picture is Ms. Sprout going through the child's gate at our local Children's Discovery Garden. One of her favorite places in the world. We took her Sunday evening after spending abut an hour at a Pow Wow. Sprout seemed to enjoy many aspects of the event but commented several times about how sad the music sounded. She finally asked us to take her away from the singers at the host drum because she said that she was afraid the sad music was going to hurt her feelings. The Pow Wow was sponsored by the local council of Native Americans so I took her over to their information tent, waited patiently for someone who appeared to be an elder to be free, and then asked if he minded talking to a little girl with some big questions about what she was seeing/hearing. They had a lovely conversation in which I participated only as a translator from adult-speak to toddler-speak, etc. When she woke yesterday morning, she wanted to know if we were going to another Pow Wow.

I would not trade these chances to look at the world through her eyes for anything.

Etsy Mud Team

Fish in Raku
Originally uploaded by sheilasthings

As I've spent the last few days contemplating the closure of the MysticSpiral Etsy shop, I've also been amazed by the progress achieved by a group of potters on Etsy. In 3 1/2 days they managed to create the Etsy Mud Team complete with a blog and a flickr group. (Which is where I found this cool photo of a raku kiln open during firing.)

The EMT Street Team is having their inaugural sale next week. There's a lot of wonderful stuff to see and buy. Details are posted on their blog.

Learning Experiences

I didn't want to let the last post occupy the top spot for too long. There are other, more important exciting/positive developments which are more deserving of my time and attention right now. I'm really glad that I am in a position in my life where I can close the Etsy shop, temporarily or permanently, without feeling as though it is a defeat or a major set-back. The shop **WILL** re-open and when it does, I'll be in a better position to run it well and give it the time that it deserves.

During this time of change, I want to spend some time re-organizing my studio set-up so that I'm in a better position to make the time that I spend working work for me. I need to find a better way of organizing my stock. I want to set aside areas in the studio for photography and shipping so that I can more easily do all of the things that I must do as a one-woman operation. As things stand right now, there are too many things that can (and often do) get in the way of completing the day to day business operations of my studio. I find it too hard to address those things on the fly while I'm trying to get other work done. This time should let me use my experience and hard-earned lessons to put everything in place that I need for smoother operations.

I recently had a really wonderful learning experience. When I started doing bead shows, I thought that eventually I'd work my way up to doing shows like Bead and Button or going to Tucson. Two weeks ago, I found myself unexpectedly in Milwaukee for the Bead & Button show. It was amazing, but also eye opening. I'm just not prepared to have so much riding on one weekend. I'd love to teach at a show like B&B, or to attend and do demonstrations or something, maybe as part of a BoC group thing, but that show represents a significant portion of the annual revenue of the artists who show there and a bad show can translate into a *REALLY* bad year.

I love making beads and what I do in the studio, and I have to sell the stuff because if I didn't it would bury me alive, but I'm not sure how to wrap my head around all of this in a professional context.

Closing Shop

Anyone who's been reading this blog for any length of time knows that I have been struggling with depression for quite some time. I've recently come to the realization that my medications are not doing the job for which they were prescribed. We're embarking on a new course of treatment, including new medications and getting rid of the ones that aren't working. As I begin this transition, I find myself wanting to simplify those areas of my life that I can actually change.

It is for this reason that I've decided to close my Etsy shop for a few months.

Etsy Mother's Day Showcase

Today marks the first day of the special Mother's Day Showcase on Etsy. I decided to take the plunge and sign up for a couple of showcase slots in an effort to attract a little attention from potential buyers. Unfortunately, today's showcase was fraught with problems, so I'm not getting the benefit of the extra international exposure that I was hoping for. Who knows, this may prove to be a blessing in disguise since I'm currently offering free shipping and I can see international shipping being my undoing.

My mom asked what the showcase is and how it works so I thought maybe some of the people who read my blog might wonder as well. The Etsy Showcase is a special area of the site which highlights 36 sellers by showing a photo montage of select items from their shops. The showcase area is accessed via a prominently placed banner on the front page of the Etsy home page. Since there are only 36 spaces per day of the showcase, there's quite a bit of competition for them. Showcase hopefuls must find out when the showcase slots will be going on sale, and then to be prepared to jump at the opportunity as soon as the slots open. It feels, on one level, like a classic feeding frenzy, although the interface is nothing like that.

The showcase has been somewhat controversial. It started as an advertising program prior to the holidays and special ads were purchased on a number of high-profile internet sites. Those early showcase spots were a bit of a train wreck. There were only 25 slots per day, there was little or no notice, and those few sellers who were lucky enough to find out about the opportunity snatched up as many spots as they could meaning that the opportunity was available to even fewer sellers than might have had the chance originally.

Etsy has tried to address many of the early problems. They added 11 slots to the showcase, limited sellers to 2 showcase slots per sales period, started giving more notice about when showcase slots would go on sale, and have had several special showcases which ran in tandem with the original showcase to increase the exposure opportunities. (Specifically a Valentines for Boys, Valentines for Girls and now the Mother's Day Showcase) Their solutions are far from perfect. Showcase slots still sell out quickly and, since they're usually offered around Noon EST, they're usually gone before many non-US sellers have a chance to check the site.

It is also very frustrating that Etsy has stopped (permanently? who knows? there's almost no communication between admins and the user base anymore) purchasing outside advertising linked to the showcase. Since that was supposed to be the purpose of the $7.00 USD charge per showcase slot, I'm a bit dismayed.

So why, you might ask, did I purchase spots in the Mother's Day Showcase? There are actually several reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that I need (want?) the additional exposure on Etsy. The vast majority of my work is listed in the jewelry category which is absolutely huge. I believe strongly that my work is different from most of what's in the category, but it is easy for a couple dozen pieces to be completely lost in the hundreds of pages of listings in such a large and diverse category. I am certain that if the right people see my work, they will want it. The Mother's Day Showcase is an opportunity for my work to be visible in a much smaller sea of jewelry.

I feel that the Mother's Day Showcase is particularly appropriate because the majority of my work is directed at an audience of knitters and fiber artists, many of whom make their mother's day gifts and then look for something to go with their handmade present. (Something exactly like what I make...)

I also believe that if we, as sellers, want the site to succeed we must do what we can to support it. Whether the money is used for advertising, which **WAS** the stated purpose and is certainly a part of what we must all hope for, or for site improvements it is in everyone's best interest to do what we can to give back to the site and support its continued growth.

Which is to say that I'm feeling a little frustrated today about the Showcase. Although Matt has said that Etsy will refund (remove the charges from our bills?) the costs of today's showcase,
That doesn't really address the loss of exposure, the time spent trying to get the showcase slots, the time spent tidying up the shop in hopes/anticipation of additional traffic, etc. I can't help feeling that the situation is made even worse by the fact that there has been no direct communication from Etsy Admin with the people effected by the situation. A discussion began on the forum last night when the Showcase was not up at Midnight EST which is when the changeovers and updates are supposed to occur. At almost 8 am, Matt posted that the situation was a result of some technical problem and would soon be resolved. No conversations or email messages were sent to effected sellers, no announcement was made in the Etsy Blog (which is where official news and information are supposed to be posted), and our monthly bills still reflect the charge for the slots we purchased.

Radio Silence

I'd like to start by apologizing for my prolonged absence. The end of March, first of April, I went to Bowling Green, Ohio by myself to visit a friend and check out a fiber festival. It was a great weekend but a bit of a whirlwind. It was immediately followed by a quick trip to Louisville and then Indiana for photos of Sprout.

Prior to leaving for Bowling Green, I finished sculpting the last of a series of agateware goddesses for a Beads of Clay group bead swap. The beads were left for the weekend in the food dehydrator in my studio to ensure that they were bone dry for firing when I returned. Since I was pressed for time, I single fired the goddesses to cone 10. I didn't glaze them because I wanted to fit them all into a single firing, so I actually had some space for some colored porcelain beads that I stained with a wash of albany slip and blue stoneware glaze mixed. After firing, everything got a trip through the rock tumbler to clean it up and smooth away the burrs that sometimes result when beads temporarily fuse in the high temperature firings. (That albany slip/glaze wash can sometimes run slightly and glue the beads together. They pull apart easily enough but there is sometimes a rough spot where the beads were fused.)

This week, I've updated the MysticSpiral Etsy Shop and done a bit of metal work at the torch in an effort to be ready to make more shawl pins as soon as the current batch of faces, spindle whorls and other raku beads have been fired. Part of my motivation in this, as those of you who are here from the Lime&Violet podcast or message boards probably already know, is that I've been spending a lot of time hanging out on a knitting forum and was recently the recipient of some beautiful compliments from the lovely and fabulous Lime and Violet.

It's an odd experience to sit down to work while listening to a podcast that has become a part of your regular routine and to hear yourself mentioned by voices that have become familiar companions in spite of never having met. Such was my experience about 38 minutes into Episode 32 of the L&V podcast.(link to actual MP3 of the podcast) I'd read the show notes when I downloaded the podcast to put on my mp3 player, so I knew that they had received the shawl pins that I'd sent and that they were using some of them as half-way through prizes in the L&V Sock Marathon. Let's just say that it is probably not a good idea to be startled (or pleasantly surprised) while holding hot metal in the flame of a propane torch... I am certain that I sat there for a full minute and a half with a stupid grin on my face while I held the bronze rod in the torch flame and the heat gradually spread to my fingertips... I know from past experience that the ridge pattern of my fingerprints will grow back, but for now, my prints have interesting voids where I singed my fingers with the hot metal.

Well, I could continue typing and linking and typing and linking for quite a while so I'll cut this off here and maybe have something left for another blog entry sooner rather than later.

Art Bead Scene Blog: Dear Ms. Bead-It-All

There's a new bead blog in town, and it promises to be something pretty cool. My friend (and Beads-of-Clay co-founder) Melanie Brooks-Lucaks, will be writing regularly at the Art Bead Scene Blog. In her first column as Ms. Bead-It-All, Melanie addressed the problem of designing a necklace with a focal bead whose hole is oriented vertically instead of horizontally . The column inspired me to look at my beading history, to remember how I've addressed this problem in my own work.

The truth is, since I'm usually stringing my own beads as focals, I have an idea how I want to present the piece and make the holes accordingly. As a result, I'm very seldom confronted with holes that go "the wrong way." A quick look through my jewelry box didn't reveal any finished pieces that I could easily scan. The next best thing was to try to come up with a graphic to demonstrate the idea.

The idea behind the solution above is to thread your focal bead on 2 lengths of your stringing material (thread, beadalon, etc) down through vertical hole. The strands from the bottom connect back to the main body of the necklace forming a beaded frame around your art bead focal. Crimp where the loop closes and continue beading as normal. The whole design can be further embellished by adding a dangle below your focal using a headpin threaded through the hole with your stringing material.

Of course my real question for Ms. Bead-It-All is where do you find the time?!?! Melanie does everything. Earthenwood Studio, articles in numerous beading magazines, shows, blogging, etc

Art Bead Scene Blog: Dear Ms. Bead-It-All