I’ve been quiet of late, but how is that different from usual?

Among my more writerly creative pursuits, I’ve taken up a bit of papercrafting as well, so there’ll be papercrafts popping up in the Etsy shop over the next few days and weeks as I continue experimenting and start photographing.

I will also be doing some inventorying of my jewelry stock and putting up some more listings of that as well.

The site’s been quiet of late, but that’s got a lot to do with my being quite busy the past several months!  Writing has begun to eat up a great deal of what little free time I’ve enjoyed since starting a new (40-hour a week) position, but I’ve found time to make some beautiful new pearl pieces and experiment with some new designs with Swarovski bicones.  Some of the new pearl designs are up in the Etsy shop.

I’ll be doing the Athens Festival Craft Show at Larson Middle School on November 17, 2012 and have applied to do the Crafter’s Clearance at Henry Ford II in February.  No other shows lined up yet, but if you like my work and would love to see me at your local show, drop me a message and I’ll be happy to look into it.  I am limited largely to the Detroit Metro area at this time, though, so keep that in mind!

Commissioned pieces are available; just drop me a line here or on Etsy (Etsy is often the better bet!).

In a few hours, I’ll be setting up a tent (probably in the rain) at the Grand Valley Renaissance Festival for the…fifth time.  I’ve only missed it once since graduation (and that was because I was a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding a few weeks after festival and was threatened with death if I got sick–so I decided not to go.).

I’ll be there with jewelry, garb, bits and pieces of geekery, Miss Jennie and my boyfriend Mike.  A grand time will be had by all!  I’m also introducing a new product (which I unfortunately don’t have pictures of)–gaming tokens.  They’re about a quarter inch thick and the size of a dime with the letters A-J stamped into them, to help GMs keep track of which enemies are attacking whom.  It was something I always wanted to have as a GM…and now I’m passing that little thing on to others.  They’re made of polymer clay and I’ll be selling them for $5/set of 10 in a little organza baggie.

It’ll be Mike’s first experience of actually running a show with me–he’s visited me at one, but he’s never been there for the whole time I’ve run one.  Jen, however, is old hand at this and should be fine.  Despite the nasty Friday weather, the forecasts say that Saturday and Sunday will be beautiful, even if it’ll be a little chilly on Saturday.

As long as it’s not 30 degrees and snowing, it won’t be the nastiest weather I’ve experienced at a festival…and rain on set-up day tends to be good luck, since that generally means that the weather for the weekend is lovely.

Also bringing some writerly things, including booklets containing an excerpt from Awakenings and a business card with my official site as an author and a free download of my novelette, Falling Stars.  We’ll see how many of those wander away from my booth as freebies.

Time to finish packing…hope to see a lot of folks at GVRen!

As of this morning, I’ve posted two new custom orders listings on Etsy.

These custom orders listings can be found here and here, and are for sets of six pairs of earrings in my Azshara and Quel’Danas styles, primarily designed for brides to buy for their bridesmaids as gifts.  The prices are significantly cheaper than they would be to buy the earrings individually, at $40 for a set of six and $35 for a set of six respectively as custom orders.  Regularly on Etsy, you’d be paying about $45 or $40 respectively for these earrings, plus shipping for them.

It’s the first time I’ve listed custom orders specifically as custom, made-to-order pieces that haven’t been pre-commissioned (as in the case of the pair of Lady’s Ransom bracelets I made for a friend, or a single pair of custom-ordered Azshara earrings).  We’ll see how this goes.

It’s been a while since I said anything about anything–my bad, because I’ve been channeling my creativity into writing rather than crafting.  That streak snapped yesterday, when I created this piece (which went up on Etsy today):

I’ll probably poke around with some more jewelry today and list some more items as well. I made a pair of opaline (clear sea glass) bracelets that need to go up on Etsy this morning as well.

I picked up a new mannequin, since a place was getting rid of theirs.  It’s approximately a size 10 or 12, but it’ll work for my purposes.  It also fits on the stand for my dress form, which means I can at least take pictures with the mannequin before I make a dedicated base for it.

As a result, I’ve updated some of my Etsy listings with a few new photos.

Been wandering around the blogosphere today and learning new things about doing business on the internet, especially through Etsy and other electronic media.  I finally (finally!) managed to get a fan page set up for Jude’s Chest on Facebook — it only took about three attempts at different times to get it sorted out, right?  The important thing is that it’s up now and I’m elated.  Now if I can get my Etsy listings to post there as well as to my personal Facebook…

Well.  We’ll see what happens.

Posted two new listings on Etsy today!  Necklaces both.  I also renewed the listing for the first Dragon’s Heart pendant.

There’s also a new like button on the Jude’s Chest main page as well as a shop preview on the main page.  I’ll be looking into advertising opportunities in the next few weeks, in between (hopefully) putting the finishing touches on and then defending my Master’s thesis.  It will be good to get that out of the way.

I’ve posted some new Etsy listings in the past couple days, some of my six-panel dancing skirts, two necklaces, and a bracelet.

Photography continues to be the death of me.

Happy browsing!  These and other pieces can be found, as always, in my Etsy Shop.

Well, I didn’t do as well at the Crafter’s Clearance as I’d hoped — a lot of foot traffic, a lot of folks picking up business cards, but not a lot of sales.  The sales I did make tended to be very small ones.  I made back my investment for the show and not much else.  Kind of depressing to think about, once you get right down to it, because I was counting on this show to be a big one for me.  I was told by one of the crafters near me that the Christmas show hosted at Henry Ford II was an even better show and he did sales like crazy at that show.

I did get invited to a few more shows and I’ll have to consider whether or not they’re worth the investment in time and money before I commit.  This would make three of the four shows that I’ve done barely worth my time to go to them.  Either I’ve been picking the wrong shows, or I need to change my tactics somehow.  I’ve been told it’s not my product that’s the problem (which really is reassuring, believe me).  So we’ll see what happens.  It’s early in the year.  Of course, early in the year means a cash crunch, as always!  I have plenty of inventory on hand, though, and a decent supply of raw materials.  After I’ve escaped thesis-induced hell, I’ll get back to my crafting.  I’ll have time to get back to my crafting!

So, I finally heard back from the instrumental music boosters organization at Henry Ford II High School in Sterling Heights, MI, and I’ve been accepted into their Crafter’s Clearance coming up in February.  I’m actually very excited because I’m still sitting on a lot of product from last year’s shows, which were pretty abysmal except for the festival at Grand Valley State.  This show looks like it might have a lot of promise, so I’m guardedly optimistic about my prospects.

As a result of getting into this show, however, I needed to take some work-in-progress and me-at-work photos so I can have them on me (basically to prove that I made what I’ve got with me in case someone challenges me about it).  I, of course, have never bothered taking any pictures like that, and any pictures taken of me while sewing back during my college days are completely lost somewhere in the maelstrom that is my bedroom or in the deepest, darkest depths of the internet.

So, my brother having disappeared from my workspace so I couldn’t corral him into taking the pictures, I found a way to set up my camera to take some shots while I was working.  Let me tell you, it’s wasn’t that easy!  I did get some passable shots, though.

My tools for my sewing are actually really simple.  I’ve got my dressmaker’s shears, my pinking shears, my dress form (rarely used, to be honest), my Kenmore sewing machine, the iron and the ironing board, pins, the actual materials for the garments and not a whole lot else!  A lot of the work is in the actual seaming of the garment: I try to enclose any raw edges that I can with French seams.

These shots are of another skirt in progress (I started the sewing for it this morning, though I’ve had the pieces cut since at least this past September).  I’m in the ironing process here, preparing first seams to be encased.

And then there’s my workspace–not really much to look at, is it?  It mostly does the job, though.  I do a lot of my cutting upstairs becasue there’s ample floor/table space to do it and the lighting is better.  I have some task lighting available in my actual workspace, but for some things, natural light is just better.