I haven't JUST been sitting around.

I've been trying to get some things done but I have discovered something. Putting my jewelry in my shop is not part of it I enjoy.



You have to take nice pictures, make sure they are the right size and square usually works best.




Then you need to decided on a price - many different ways people do that.



It's writing the description. How long is it? What is it made from? Think of something descriptive that isn't over the top but sounds nice.




And honestly, I have been away from my beading for so long I don't remember what all the stones are. Labeled? Lol! You're kidding, right? So I have research to do.




But I'm making some progress. Slow, but it IS progress.

… and it feels good.

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Getting back to it

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I have been guilty of blogging and not beading, so sitting down and knocking out a few pieces tonight felt really good. I took a few pictures, sorry they are a bit dark but I hung the necklaces on Roberta (my mannequin) and took my pictures next to a lamp with no further preparation or fuss. Will need to do better when I list these in my shop.

This is all citrine chips and onyx. There are small onyx rounds as well as larger faceted ones.

I like the yellow and black, the round beads next to the free form chips.


I love tourmaline and simplicity. This is very simple with tourmaline ovals in 2 sizes, small crystal beads as well as glass pearls and small silver rounds.

Pinks and greens are the main colors.

Silver is fast becoming a focal point in some of my jewelry, and this necklace has a wonderful handcrafted sterling silver flower as it's center piece. I love it! The beads are green aventurine and Swarovski crystals with silver bead caps and small silver rounds.

There are also some great handmade sterling silver woven box beads that are really gorgeous in their own right.

Hopefully I will get these listed in my shop soon, as well as continuing to make new pieces. Christmas is coming and to someone like me that means preparing not only to buy gifts - but to sell them as well!!
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Okey Doky

Is there a proper way to spell that?

So. My daughter and I both recommend the Nutrisystem sloppy joes. Dani HATED the apple toaster pastry while I thought the strawberry was okay. She thought the texture of the cranberry orange pastry was "spongy" - I really enjoyed it. I think she is more sensitive to texture than I am. The food as a whole so far has been a bit disappointing. I guess I was expecting it to be at least as good as Lean Cuisine or something, but on the other hand it was important to me that it not need to be refrigerated or frozen because I simply don't have the space. So I suppose there is a trade-off there. I particularly DID enjoy the chicken fettuccine I had last night, as well as the meatloaf I had tonight. The mashed potatoes were pretty weird though. Dani gave the mushroom risotto a high rating as well. I've been holding off on weighing myself - I don't feel any different I don't think. Hmmmm.


On an entirely different note - I managed to get some nice pieces made tonight. I finally used the agate slab beads I had, made a really nice necklace. Got about 5 pairs of earrings done, a couple necklaces and bracelets. I like to get several pieces done and then do all the picture taking together, etc. I'd like to get a few more things made before I move on to that step this week.

Made a sale tonight, sold one of my favorite necklaces. One of those things that I would look at and think - why hasn't that sold yet? It's so pretty. But - obviously - to each his own, there's something out there for everyone but it's not necessarily in my shop!

Oh! I almost forgot! HerRoyalMajestyBags posted in the ETC section of Etsy's forums - that her neighbors are giving her a hard time because they don't like that she hangs her laundry out to dry in her own backyard. Well, HerRoyalMajestyBags got fed up and posted a request for underwear! She wants to make some kind of prayer flag made of undies - although I think it's gotten bigger than that at this point. I got my contribution ready and it will go out tomorrow. She has promised to post pictures - so hopefully all of us who have donated to the cause will get to see the results! What a hoot! :)

I guess I never realized that it was considered "trashy" to hang your laundry out to dry. Have people gotten so far away from their childhoods - or did these people grow up in the city? I don't know. I remember having to go into the backyard to hang clothes for my Mom (probably not very often) or to take stuff down. The only equipment needed - a clothesline, laundry basket, and clothes pins. Such a simple thing. But is it not an acceptable practice now? Boggles MY mind! Women,menopause,peri-menopause,osteoporosis,feminism,complexion,shoes,hair,
makeup,manicure,motherhood,pregnancy,breastfeeding,hormones,daycare,health,young,hip,
bling,home,family,decorating,shopping,divorce,boyfriend,girlfriend

Work must be done!

I absolutely MUST get some things done today. Somehow I manage to sit at this computer for hours and hours and while I am learning a lot about selling and beading and wire working, I still need to actually DO that stuff. I also need to clean my house.

Today I was checking out blogs - looking at blogs I normally do - and clicking on blogs they like - and I ran across a blog called ND Homekeeper. It is written by a lady whose family is homesteading in North Dakota, her husband, 4 boys, and herself. I was facinated! And also somewhat embarrassed that I cannot seem to get normal every day stuff done when people like that are doing almost everything the hard way. I need a better work ethic.

I don't feel very good - have a splitting headache, feel nauseated and shaky. I'm hoping a little food will settle me down.

I finally found my weapon of choice to put holes in my earring cards - the pointy end of a seam ripper! After posting a question in Etsy forums asking what other people use - (thanks everyone!!) and finding out most do not use hole punches - I went on a search of the house to find my best tool. I am pretty sure I will find something better but in the meantime - the seam ripper wins!

Started poking holes and putting earrings on cards, putting the rubber stoppers on the backs, and putting them in baggies last night. I have plenty more to do - but I want to at least get one picture of each on Roberta before I get them packaged up. So - I have a lot to do today, most of it not jewelry or Etsy related. Need to start with food.

Wonderful new toy!

I found a wonderful new place to create slideshows, I am afraid I like them just a bit too much! It's really really really late and I need to get to bed. Still I am going to bed happy with my new picture book of jewelry right here on top - and a slide show of my babies at the bottom of this page. Babies! Ha! They haven't been babies for a very long time, it just goes by so incredibly fast. Always be MY babies though. :)
Nite!

Quick post

Just a quick post tonight - wanted to post pics of 2 things I made last night. The first is a bracelet made with green aventurine and smoky quartz. Yay! Makes me happy!! Worked on connecting beads together by making loops - this bracelet was not "strung" so to speak. :)

Next is a necklace, made with pink quartz, blue glass, and smokey quartz. Made the same way as the bracelet - just different beads. Again - makes me happy!

Not ready to list these - haven't taken real photos yet or anything, but hey - this is a start towards the direction I'd like to go. Need a whole lot of practice which I plan to get. I want to feel that what I am asking people to pay money for is unique and strong and all my own.

I need to go and do some other stuff with the rest of my evening, so I will pick a nice landscape pic to close with. It's a good day!
Ah - I found a nice one. Talk about water like glass - so nice.

Need to improve!

Anything is possible. That's what this picture says.

Seems I am not happy enough with my beading. Beading. Hmmm. I don't want to just string beads on wire and try to make pretty patterns. I enjoy what I do - but I really need to do more. I feel a bit like a fraud - I need to try something more. I'm repeating myself. Well - I'm going into my bead room. Maybe I should lock the door and not come out until I have accomplished something new!! :)

I'm not unhappy - just feel something is lacking in my jewelry - I need to make it more my own. Maybe that's it. I feel a bit like anyone can do what I do. I need to develop my talent. It's funny cause one of the big discussions on Etsy has been about underpricing. I tried to get it across that I am an amateur - and I cannot price the things that I make - like someone who wire wraps their stones, makes their own earwires or clasps.

There didn't seem to be any getting it across to some people - that they should be able to charge more because they are better than some of us who have just started. I would really feel like a fraud if I charged more than I do. Even tried to tell them that it was a compliment to them that some of us don't charge as much as they do.

So much concern about driving the market down - seems to have blinded some people to who they are comparing themselves to.

Do not misunderstand, I am not hopeless. LOL! Not by any means! There is a plan in my head to continue to move forward and keep getting better until I know about the different gauges of wire and how to use them. Till I know what a tumbler is for or what a burr is!!! Progress. I must make some. :)

Mostly I think I'm saying - I know I have a long way to go. What I make appeals to some people and I am very happy about that. But I want to make pieces that I am totally internally pleased with. Something that reflects the ability I hope to develop. There, THAT'S what I mean.

I always use more words than I need to get a thought across. Always.

Almost there!

I think I finally got this template as wide as I want it. Now I have an edge line going down the middle of the right side - it's the coloring at the edge of the template. If anybody knows how to adjust it and it's remedial - please let me know. If it's beyond remedial - I'll live with it!!

Took a couple pictures of Dani modeling her necklace today. She is so adorable! She doesn't remember but when she was little I used to tell her she was special and very very lucky. I told her she was really smart, smarter than most, she was lucky because as a bonus - she was pretty too - but most importantly - she had a great big heart and was a good person too! I tried to de-emphasize the pretty part - in the context of it being an important part of her makeup. I wanted her to know she WAS pretty - but that certainly wasn't the most important thing about her. I think she understands that better than a lot of people do. But then again, it's still true - she IS smarter than most! Straight A's her junior year of college. OMG I can't believe she's that old. On the other hand - Andy is 23 now, boy does that make me feel old!! He really shares very few details - but I will have to ask him what kind of grades HE just got! He's a good kid (kid?) though, I don't worry about his grades.

So I managed to make a necklace, 2 bracelets, and I think 3 pairs of earrings last night. I love this bracelet, I actually dreamed about those 3 green stones across the front. No lie. I know that's a bit weird but it's true. The stones on either side of the green jade - are lavender, I know the picture doesn't refect that really well. I just love the green with lavender and then with the yellow. Great stuff. Another one of those chunky stone bracelets I like. Don't know if anyone else likes them - no one has bought one yet!! :) I'm trying to be patient. See my fingers drumming on the table ... ! I'm waiting ... come and get it!!

Haven't visited the Etsy forums much the last couple of days - I've been obsessing about this blog and trying to make it cool. But I obsess too much and it takes me forever! I saw a comment by jessprkle from Unique Expressions - her Etsy shop - and I went to her blog and saw this WIST thing I liked. Rotating pics from other Etsy sellers - I could do my own stuff I suppose, but anyway - I wanted it. So I clicked on it from her site and went off into an exploration of WIST and how to make it work. I still don't understand it entirely, like how to make ALL the choices I picked show up in that sidebar, but other than that I'm happy with what I did. Just don't ask me to explain it because I don't think I can! I get in trouble when I start to explore because I find things I need to figure out.

Haven't figured out Html a whole bunch, but did figure out I could alter numbers and look at what I did - and change it back if I needed to. Messed with that a lot too. Don't understand it much, but messed with it enough to get most of what I want.

Now though, I need to get a bit of jewelry made while I still have some evening left. Gonna pick out a purty picture to close with, and then head to the bead room. Woo hoo!!

Don't remember where this picture is from but I was struck by the contrast between the blue and the yellow. Pretty. Pretty and tranquil.

HTML Hell!!

,So the results are in. I need to find someone who knows something about HTML to tweak my blog. I got the 3rd column but apparently people with smaller screens see it as rather squished. SO - I went in there and tried to adjust the width and padding and stuff I probably shouldn't touch, and I didn't help at all.

I'm thinking that on Monday I will ask one of the guys at work to look at it for me and see if he can make some minor adjustments to align things properly. Nobody wants to read a blog that's all over the place and unattractive. We'll see.

It's all rainy and ugly here in Illinois today, well, NW Illinois anyway. Wait, I live in the NE part of Illinois! I forget - because I live in the NW suburbs of Chicago so that's what sticks in my mind. What a dork. The pictures are the bowed heads of the peonies on the edge of my driveway, a bit dark but I took them at 8:00 o'clock at night.

I did manage to get one bracelet listed today, I think I will try to get a pair of earrings listed and then closet myself in my bead room and get something done. Looking forward to it actually. See what I can do. ..... After Flip This House is over. :)

Guess I'm not that smart. Monday? I'm not going to work on Monday! AND I have Tuesday off as well! How could I forget a 4 day weekend?

Quick Note

Just a quick note here. The thing about the pot holders - well - there is another Etsy seller who wants 20 of my pot holders. 20!! And I suspected I might not sell any. She wants to make something else out of them which is fine by me, and she really seems like a darling girl. So - if she likes the pot holders - and likes what she makes out of them - I may be her pot holder source. Too funny when I put those pot holders on Etsy on a whim. !!! You just never know. :)

On another subject - I made a few of the new bracelets I was thinking about, haven't quite made one I am entirely happy with - but I DO like the one's I've made. They are available in my shop now. I plan to keep on working toward the perfect BetteJo's chunky colorful bracelet!

Have a wonderful evening!

BetteJo

Wonderful Weekend!

Yes, my weekend is just ending now. It was lovely. I took 3 days off work, Thursday, Friday, and Monday. That always makes things nice - whether or not I do anything special.

I spent Thursday mostly running errands, etc. Friday & Saturday I spent a great deal of time messing with my newest discovery - photographing my jewelry with the scanner instead of the camera! The pictures are awesome - there is SO much detail!

Now however, I need to find a way to make those pictures cute and or amusing. The detail is truly beautiful, but the only artistic thing about them is the different ways I can find to lay the jewelry out. Not enough. So I will be online looking for ideas for the next week probably, until I come up with something. Hey, for me - the search is always the most fun!

So - the new pictures firmly in place - a really nice lady went shopping at about 3:00am Sunday morning and bought 5 of my pieces!! I was SO excited! Made me feel like the first sale wasn't just a fluke. I will keep pushing on.

Boyfriend was out of town, came back on Sunday and I was able to spend more time than usual with him, so that was really nice. He fixed my birdhouse for me - what a guy! He's great about any heavy lifting I request of him and he asks so little in return. I think I'm gonna keep him!

The boyfriend, JD, also helped me out BIG - with a printer. My base PC died and along with it - the ability to use my old printer with the laptop network we have going here. How sad is it - that when I want to talk to my son the quickest way to get a response is to IM him - when he is in the back of the house and I am in the front? My daughter was in her room one evening and needed to ask him a question, so she picked up her cell phone and called HIS cell phone - again, he was in the back part of the house.

We are fairly wirelessly spoiled here, and then to all of a sudden lose the ability to print was a blow! Now I can print again, thanks to JD - THANKS JD! - and I can copy and fax and I think it may cook dinner for me, I'll have to check. Oh I hope so, I'm not one for cooking very often.

Oh - today I learned how to add the HTML script to put my "mini-etsy" here on my blog. I had gone into Forums on Etsy - and stumbled across a thread about mini-etsy and how to do it. I didn't even know what it was - but I decided to try it anyway! Now - you can see my awesome jewelry pictures and connect to Etsy by clicking on one of those pictures - right here! I wonder how long it will be - before all these little things don't excite me anymore. Hmmmm.

Tomorrow - back to the daily grind. After a while I start to feel at loose ends without work though, so I guess it's a good thing. I wouldn't have minded one more (or 2) day(s) though. :)

Nite!

BetteJo