(Un)inspiration

I've been feeling a little... uninspired lately.  I don't have any of my necessary jewelry supplies left, and I'm hesitating on buying more when I feel like I should see if my current stock shifts, since my Etsy store has been so quiet lately.  So without anything to make, I've felt a bit disconnected and creatively flat.  I also feel less inspired and motivated to engage with others on the creative front and work on other aspects of my fledgling creative biz.

I have other things I can create with, of course.  I have needle-felting materials, wool and needles, paint and canvases.  Instead, I've been wasting time watching TV shows which I think makes me feel even more creatively stagnant.  So I think I might go on a TV fast this week, and make sure I'm spending my time in the evenings on creative projects. 

Today I made a start on breaking my creative drought by visiting the local farmer's market and baking a blackberry-apple pie from scratch, pastry and all:

I just had a slice and I think it turned it well!  Here's to the rest of the week being a little more inspired and productive.  What are your favorite methods for getting out of a rut?

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How I package my jewelry

Since I was packing up an Etsy order tonight, I thought I'd take some pictures of the process and show you the way I send out my jewelry. I've had a few nice compliments on it, though I imagine this is something that will change and evolve over time. There are so many great threads in the Etsy forums about packaging, the options are endless.

First, I pull out a page from this book, that I bought from a secondhand store. At first, it felt a bit sacrilegious to tear pages out of a poetry book, but I've desensitized to it by now...

Then, I fold the page into a little origami envelope:

Which I learned to do from this video: 

Then I put each piece of jewelry into its own plastic bag, unfold the envelope, and put a business card and the jewelry inside:

I then fold the envelopes back up, and seal the backs with an Art & Clasp label:

The finishing touch is a birds-egg blue ribbon, tied in a bow:

Finally, for mailing, I put them in bubble mailers, with an Art & Clasp address label (blurred out for the photo!):

That's it! Doesn't take long, now that I've mastered the envelope folding.  Fairly cost-efficient too!  How do you package your wares?

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In and Out of Love... Or, I am Sometimes Fickle (with jewelry materials).

Amethyst and peridot earrings, still for sale in my shop, 25% off!

I began making jewelry because I love jewelry, but had a hard time finding pieces that I wanted to wear and could also afford. So, I taught myself the skills required and began creating wire-wrapped jewelry with glass, semi-precious and precious gemstones. Creating this type of jewelry was rewarding in that I loved using dainty amethyst, peridot, and citrine briolettes to create brilliantly colored earrings and necklaces. On the downside, wire-wrapping is pretty labor-intensive and there was often a lot of cursing involved as yet another little gem or tiny gold jump ring slipped out of my pliers’ grasp and rolled under my couch.

Although I still love and am proud of the wire-wrapped jewelry I created, I started to feel drawn to a different style of jewelry. I have one necklace that I absolutely love, bought in New Zealand that I have never found anything similar to. It is a heavy copper double chain with purple-mauve beads of different shapes and a large bell-shaped charm. This one necklace really felt like “me”, so I set out to create jewelry in a similar vein. I have also started noticing a lot of brass and copper necklaces with charms that I adore, so I recently began incorporating more charms into my pieces.  I like to put charms together that could have meaning for someone. For example, I think this necklace would be a great gift for a good friend who is leaving -- the hot air balloon signifying the journey and the heart representing your love that is going with them:

Or perhaps you need a little luck in love, or you have been very lucky in love and you want to express your gratitude for it with this heart and horseshoe:

This style of pendant can have meaning too -- love is a scary thing, and perhaps you need a reminder to be have courage and be brave.  Or perhaps you already are, and that is a wonderful thing:

What messages would you wear around your neck (and on your sleeve)?

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Creating – The Journey So Far

I have always had a creative streak, which has alternately come to the forefront of my life and been deeply buried. After leaving high school, I worked as a florist for a couple of years. It feels so immodest to say, but I think I was fairly talented, and I had an eye for color and balance in bouquets. While I felt very creatively fulfilled in this field, I felt like the left side of my brain was starting to rot. I was working for an employer so had little to do with the running of the business, so eventually the lack of left-brain challenge got to me and I left to go to university. There I completed a BA in Education with a minor in Biological Anthropology, and eventually went on to get a Master’s degree. During this time, and in the 9-5 working life I've been in ever since, I didn’t seek a lot out of creative activities, and it’s only been in the last year that the urge really struck me again. I've been having a lot of fun with this -- baking more, dabbling in mixed media art and collage, learning to knit (well, just the one type of regular stitch, and made one scarf that I love, lumps and holes and all), sewing,needle felting, and soap making classes at the Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica (and many more to come, good lord I love that place), as well as teaching myself to make jewelry.  I am a terrible clock-watcher in most areas of my life, but in crafting I've finally found one realm in which I don't notice the time passing.  I can't wait to see where it takes me.

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Photographing for Etsy

I’ll admit it, photography is not my strong point, as much as I would love it to be. I use an 8MP Canon PowerShot A590IS, which is still just a point-and-shoot but probably capable of taking much better pictures than I manage to produce. I've made my own (budget) lightbox using instructions I found on the internet, and I recently bought some clip-on work lamps and daylight bulbs, which have helped somewhat. Here are some pictures of my current set-up for photographing my jewelry for Etsy…

Yep, those are indeed my running shoes that the lamps are clipped on to...

Some of the photos on Etsy are PHENOMENAL.  Check out Sea Unicorn for an example for this (ok, so she's a professional photographer as well as a jewelry maker...)  Most sellers on Etsy work really hard to take the best possible photographs of their items.  As well as trying to help potential buyers get a feel for their items through the computer screen, the prime way to get into Treasuries and onto the all-important Etsy homepage is through excellent photography.  Mine is certainly a work in progress.

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Obstacles

Little, tiny, bubbly obstacles...

Last week I showed you a glimpse of my necklace creation process.  This time I wanted to share with you one of the significant obstacles that arises when I create the pendants.

Before assembly, I have to inspect each image/cabochon for tiny air bubbles or other small imperfections on the surface of the image that are created in the gluing process.  Although the images often look fine immediately after they have been glued, and then sit under heavy weight for 24 hours, upon inspection I sometimes have to throw away up to 50% of them because of these minute flaws (I tried removing the cabochons and cleaning them, but the adhesive is extremely strong and I couldn’t get it off).  I’m working on perfecting my technique (just the right amount of adhesive plus careful application plus pressing time and weight) to reduce this wastage.

Before photographing, each pendant will be inspected again.  Unfortunately, I have found that over the first couple of days more bubbles or flaws may become visible (or perhaps I just missed them the first time).  If this happens, I extricate the image and cabochon and clean the bezel for re-use.  It’s horribly disappointing to find imperfections at this stage, but such are the trials and tribulations of the craft!

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Creating Necklaces -- Before and After

Here I’m giving you a sneak peek into the process of creating my copper necklaces.  Once the laborious process of gluing the cabochons and images has been completed, the pieces pressed under a stack of heavy books for a day, and the excess image trimmed, it is time to adhere them to the bezels (more pressing and waiting), and then they are finally ready to put on chains, add beads and charms, etc.

The first photo shows the before set-up on my work desk (oh yes, I am always this tidy…).  Here I have the pendants, chain, headpins, jump rings, clasps, glass beads, copper charms, a tape measure, rubbing alcohol and cotton tips, and tools:  flat-nose pliers, round-nose pliers, flush cutters, and chain-nose pliers.

After, the finished product!  Each piece has been assembled, cleaned, and inspected, ready for photographing and listing on Etsy.

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In the beginning.

After spending about 6 months creating delicate wire-wrapped gemstone jewelry, I felt pulled to a completely different style.  As much as I love the colors and facets of tiny briolette gemstones, and the luxuriousness of 14k gold and 925 silver, it didn't feel like that type of jewelry I wanted to wear every day.  While shopping for gifts on vacation in New Zealand, I started noticing copper and brass jewelry on thick chains with unusual collections of charms that felt a little more magical.  Each charm seemed like a little story, or like it had the potential to hold special meaning for the eventual wearer.  I also love birds in art and design for the past few years have been drawn to jewelry and clothing bearing images of birds.  On my return from New Zealand, I started acquiring the materials to bring these elements together in a new line of jewelry.

Each charm or image has been chosen because it brings me a little bit of aesthetic pleasure.  When I wear a little bird pendant it makes me smile when I catch sight of it in a mirror or window.  I hope you find something that makes you feel this way too!

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