Well, that was a PayPal adventure...

Today, my business account got hacked.
I check my email very often, and when I opened it up not an hour ago, I saw "Receipt for your payment to match.com."

Some jerk had used my account to spend over $40 on a month's subscription to match.com, with authorization for automatic renewals. Now, I have nothing against match.com, but that was NOT me. I have a boyfriend, and furthermore, that account is nothing but business. All the money that goes into it is from sales of jewelry. All the money that goes out of it goes toward Etsy fees, supplies, tools and similar things like business cards. That money IS my business. I did NOT want it hacked.

I did a few things. I changed my password and security questions (though there are not many people who both know the name of my childhood best friend AND the name of my first roommate - except my boyfriend and I'm pretty sure he wasn't signing up for match.com - I still changed them just to be safe) and I opened a dispute claim with PayPal. PayPal seems to handle such things with cold ruthless efficiency, which is great in most cases except it didn't inspire in me a lot of confidence that they would believe me. I mean, when you click on the Pay with PayPal button, you log in and then who knows, you know? Nobody can tell if it's the right person or not...and my name is Leo in my PayPal account, not my full first name, so the person could have found that information in my PayPal account, put my name on his picture and still looked plausible to PayPal, and then what would PayPal think?

So, this claim was opened and I had this feeling of impending doom...I mean, after the dispute was officially under way, it said "funds will not be available" - I've heard so many horror stories about trying to get money out of PayPal when something is up with your account on either your end or a buyer's end, and I sort of despaired either of ever seeing my money OR of ever being able to use the account, or the rest of the money that was in it, again.

Well, I called match.com, too. And they handled it much less ruthlessly, efficiently OR coldly. I talked to a very nice man whose name was either Rico or Ricardo - the signal was low and I didn't quite catch it - who said he'd never come across such a thing before, he'd see what he could do. I gave him my details, my PayPal email address, my transaction numbers and what have you...and after a couple brief holds while he talked to his superiors, a cheery lady named Stacy came on and told me all was well. Not only had I been refunded, but my PayPal account and credit card number had been blocked from match.com's systems...so even if I've got some sort of keylogger and the guy has my new password as well, at least he can't use it on THAT anymore...and maybe if he tries it again and I catch him again he'll give up trying to use my account for things - too much effort, I hope.

And the best part of having called match.com is knowing that the guy had his account blocked. I don't know if they'd bother with any sort of investigation into someone using someone else's PayPal account, but you have to admit...for some sort of hacker with at least enough skill to get my username and password together in the same login box, he's kind of an idiot...not only did he not change my passwords or anything, or try to hack my email account as well to prevent me from getting the receipt of payment (lesson learned, by the way - from now on my PayPal email and PayPal account have different passwords), but the thing he bought was something that could be cancelled at any time by the provider...not like if he'd had a TV shipped to him or something...and it was also connected to his name and pictures of him, at least in theory. What was this guy DOING?

Anyway, PayPal immediately closed my case as soon as it detected that the transaction had been refunded, so my account is unlocked and all is right with the world except that there are identity thieves in it. Full day.

Also I may have been bitten by ticks. We'll see how this goes.

A Grand Unveiling!

So, I finally did what I should have done months ago, and opened another shop...on Etsy and Artfire. They're not fully stocked yet (okay, not even my normal shop on Artfire is fully stocked, and my new one there is not stocked AT ALL...) but I finally got a jump on it on Etsy...say hello to The Winged Lion, my new shop for the selling of all things upcycled. I have new pages on my website, too.

In the coming (insert period of time, in the plural), I'm going to be transferring my upcycled pieces from Letterbox Lion to The Winged Lion. I'm also going to try and fully stock my Letterbox Lion shop on Artfire, possibly before I get to posting anything in The Winged Lion there. I know it doesn't sound like I've done much, but given that I have a final exam in 8 hours (OH SHOOT) this is really quite a lot what with finals season, packing and everything all up in the air for my research position for this summer. I've been slacking off way more than I should have and I still haven't made anything for the Year of Jewelry Project for this week! OH NO. I tell ya, man...life's crazy around this time. Maybe I'll get something made by tomorrow...but I guess you can play catch-up with impunity on that site so maybe I'll have to be lame and skip a week for the sake of tests and moving out.

A new aspect of business

I was recently approached by Bloggerdise, which is a free site where bloggers interested in doing product reviews and people who have products they'd like to have reviewed can sign up and contact each other. They simply offered me (as a small business owner) basically some free publicity. I haven't looked around on it much, but I posted up an ad with a picture of some of my crane earrings (the people on the site are very nice, by the way, and will create an ad for you if you'd rather not make one yourself...they did for me, but I made one because I wanted a specific picture in it and such). But it's really, really easy, and free, so there's no reason not to if you've got a business. What they wanted in return was for me to spread the word...so here's MY review. Five people have already contacted me, and it's been like two days. If you've got a business, it's massively worth the two seconds it will take you to sign up and make a little ad thing for free and see where it takes you...and you can make more later if you like how it turns out. Go to www.bloggerdise.com.

I've been contacted by so far, one offering me paid advertising on her blog (not up my alley at the moment, nor probably ever, I've gotta say - if I want to pay for advertising I'll pay Google or someone) but the other four wanted to do review/giveaways. That is, I send them a product and they talk about it on their blog (hopefully raving about how awesome it is) and then one of their readers can win a similar one (or in my case, I'll probably offer custom orders, since my most unique pieces are my origami ones, those are the ones people will want and they're the ones I can afford to give away anyway). The reason I'm doing this when it will be a LOT of work for me (5 minutes of folding per crane plus prep (cutting into squares) time and sealing time...I've got a full workday's worth of work to do on these already) is that in order to win the item, the readers have to do things like "like" me on facebook, or "heart" my etsy shop...anyone who enters, not just the winner, will do these things, and if they really like the prize enough, the non-winners might just buy one. Not to mention the fact that just getting my product seen by more people, even if they don't enter, and sending more of them out to more cities where people will see them on the street, will drastically increase my visibility online and in the real world. Basically, like all advertising, this is my losing money hoping to gain it in the long run...that is, hoping to gain money and a chance for jewelry to be a bigger part of my life, and a chance for my business to stand on its own legs.

Honestly, if I had a reliable way to know I could sell my silver and copper and gemstone wire-wrappings, I would want to make them more, because they're more fun, though less unique. I probably wouldn't be able to do giveaways just because my pieces would require so much more overhead...I would need to gain something tangible in return. But I don't know how often my peers enter such things, and since my angle at the moment is "eco-friendly" (emphasis on friendly) I need to be as friendly as I can. I wonder where this all will take me. It's getting very exciting (and time consuming).

Speaking of which, some future update will have to detail how awesome my summer is going to be. On a related note, next Monday is Marathon Monday here in Beantown, and I have a DAY OFF. Where I don't have to be ANYWHERE or do ANYTHING. I haven't had one of those since I got my part-time job. I am almost embarrassingly excited for the chance to do whatever I want...don't expect productivity, it will probably be spent reading.


Also, I am continually astounded by what colors people pick for custom crane orders. Yellow and purple and teal and green just don't look good to me as a combination, but I've gotten more than one order for such a pair...I guess that's why I OFFER custom orders, because I would never dream of making what those people would want. At least I'm getting to the stage where I can look at my creations and not think "gross, she's going to hate it" - to see it from the buyer's point of view, and not judge it based on my own color preference.

News: the new things

A couple of things. Spring break was fantastic...I got not nearly as much work done as I planned, which is probably as it should be considering my schedule lately...unfortunately, I got hammered with schoolwork immediately afterward, and I have not been able to go to bed before 3:30 am since break ended last Sunday. So forgive my silence, and here's some news and some pretty pictures to compensate.

I joined a project called the Year of Jewelry - it's a yearly project in which participants make a piece of jewelry every week for a year...obviously no promises, since the only free time I really have weekly is on Wednesday nights, and jehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwelry-making inspiration is not something one can turn on on cue...but I managed my first week, at least. This is week 12, because the sign-up goes by quarters of the year, so I'm not starting at the beginning...I wonder if I should restart at week one next year or just go until week 12 again...then again, I guess it doesn't matter. The Project is a really neat forum full of people like myself, but people who know more than I do and are better at what we both do than I am. They are friendly and like sharing what they know, and I'm really excited to be in a community with them where I can make friends. If you want to see some really spectacular pieces (as well as some pretty normal pieces from people just starting out, like me) go visit http://www.bleilysgems.com/YearofJewelry2011/.

Anyway, here's my first post for Year of Jewelry:

This pair has been floating around in my head for a while like a blossom on the breeze. I wanted it to be extremely light and open like the first spring breezes that have been sifting through my hair lately...but knowing me, it had to be something small and subtle. I don't go for gaudy. So here's the result; they go very well with dark hair. I like the organized but somewhat chaotic wrapping of the wire and the contrast between the dark and light oxidization.

By the way, the peach head pins in the middle are exclusive to livewirejewelry and I have no idea how she makes them! A really interesting effect and the contrasts are perfect for flowers, looking like nature herself built them.

And, some more pictures! I went on a roll recently and then got a chance to take pictures over break.

These are in no particular order: celtic knot copper and sunstone earrings, copper and multi-gemstone earrings (that's lapis lazuli, chrysocolla, moss agate and sodalite), earrings of moonstone and sunstone, a mandala-style necklace of copper and carnelian tentatively titled "spokes of the sun", and some tribal-looking fishy earrings I think I'll call "Fossil".

Can you tell I've been having fun with copper?
The glow of sunstone is really hard to capture on camera, by the way...the problem with selling chatoyant gems online. Moonstone also glows, making those peach and orange earrings the most awesome piece of subtle work I've ever done.


The mandala necklace, by contrast, is big and not subtle at all. The bail is one of my better ideas, though I still might modify it - the wire is wrapped tighter in some places than others so that part of it seems to float off the chain. It looks really neat on...that was actually the necklace I was wearing when the man complimented me and asked me what my website was.


Those last ones weren't even meant to be fish. They just turned out that way. This is rhyolite - rainforest jasper, jungle jasper, basically these are amazon piranhas in a hammered-copper-ancient sort of look.































Edit: Due to a lot of comments on my Year of Jewelry post (the project, by the way, has already gotten me more feedback than I expected, I'm very happy about it) that said that the headpins in the earrings looked like "clean copper...just out of the pickle [solution]" I'm posting a couple of pictures of the other head pins that livewirejewelry makes, just as an example to prove that it's a mysterious process and they're not just shiny copper. My camera's not the best, so it's kind of difficult to tell.


The peach-colored ones are the ones in the project. The others are aqua and red, and I don't have those, these pictures are used with permission from Lisa at livewirejewelry.

Prospects

So.......

I'm considering the prospect of opening another shop. I know, I'm already managing three-ish, considering my different sites, and opening another on Etsy would mean another on ArtFire and Zibbet, too. But I think it might be worth the time investment...I want to separate my two lines. I think that seeing jewelry made of paper right next to jewelry made of gemstones might put off potential customers, and then, pricing such things relative to each other is rather screwy - the origami pieces take me much longer but cost much less to make. I don't think I want to put them next to my newer work anymore, because they probably seem too expensive when compared. They are difficult pieces and I really can't charge less for them, but I charge relatively little for my gemstone pieces, (I should probably work on that, actually, since pricing affects perceived value) and when things like my Thunderhead earrings are only a little bit higher-priced than Starburst wrapper earrings...well, it's incongruous.

I know not many people are following me yet, but I'd appreciate opinions. And also potential names! I'd like to connect it to LetterboxLion in some way - I've considered TheGreenLion as a username but apparently it's taken on Etsy already...and for some reason, LetterboxGolden keeps popping into my head. Any thoughts?


Also,
Earth Drops - chrysocolla on oxidized copper, like water beading down a string, if the water were a tiny little earth.

Silence On My Part

Eating my words, combined with things that speak for themselves makes this a blog post full of silence.

Eating my words:

ArtFire not only has a free basic account, it has the most fantastic free basic account of anything anywhere ever, with unlimited listings and no commission fees or listing fees! It's so beyond worth it for me to post there, since all it costs me is time, and the interface rivals Etsy's even without the pro features. Once I get good at this, maybe Etsy will be even more expensive than ArtFire, who knows...I've made some friends lately who spend more like $50 on Etsy monthly, and are grateful for the $10/month pro plan on ArtFire. So anyway, it costs me less to sell on ArtFire, so I guess I'll redirect my traffic there to what extent I can. Go check out my ArtFire shop!


Things that speak for themselves:
































More later! Lots of rigamarole to go yet, getting the photos into posting shape. But the first two are up, on Etsy and ArtFire.

Twitter and a tea wallet

I finally caved, yes. I got a twitter account.
This could be good, since I like to talk. This could be bad, since I like to talk.

After all, right now I just spout at length into blogspot...but that at least requires an hour or so of thought, some preparation beforehand if I want to post pictures, etc. Twitter is always there for me to type my one-hundred-and-something characters of whatever and worry about it later. But maybe talking and being interesting and interested and connecting with other people and finding people who like to follow crafters' twitter accounts will help me get more involved in the handmade community. And luckily the format should keep me from getting too verbose...I can see anyone contemplating following my blog immediately switching to twitter at that news. :)

Anyway, @letterboxlion. Surprise!

I can't wait to post some more pictures, oh man. I've been getting better at a crazy rate, and my style is evolving by the day into a more artsy, more capable way of thinking - out of the earwires I bought? Not a problem if I've got some half-hard wire on hand. Out of half-hard wire? I can hammer dead-soft wire! Would textured earwires be comfortable? No? I can just make that test piece into a pendant, then. My sitting-down-and-getting-to-work times have been more fruitful than ever...my biggest problem is that I don't like to take pictures!


TRANSITION PHRASE. I have a miraculous best friend. She makes everything. Sewing, cooking, baking, jewelry, whatever it is, she probably has perfected it. (Need some vegan cookies that are moist and yummy? I can hook you up, let me tell you. The only way you can tell they are vegan is that they are extra-delicious, it's bizarre. Anyway!) She made me a tea wallet. Now THAT'S some targeted marketing. Basically it's another example of her knowing me far too well and giving me something that I had only vaguely registered that I should want, considering the tea I always carry around with me is getting squished in the pocket of my backpack that is also used for pens. I received a wallet from her, and it had tea in it, and I said to myself, "Hey, score! I could use this to keep my tea from getting squished!" And told her I would continue to use it for tea, whereupon she informed me that it was made for that purpose. No wonder it's so perfect. I mean, it even has leaves on it. I GUESS THEY'RE TEA LEAVES.

Anyway, if only there were a way for sellers to know their target markets that well...haha, but then we'd want to give it all away. I already have that problem enough.

Zibbet and Computer Troubles

My computer's AC to DC adapter cable went caput, as they say, so I'm working off of my boyfriend's computer right now...it's a bit of a problem, since I have a ton of photos and information on my computer that I need. I need it because I'm starting to sell on a couple of other platforms...and I need my stuff in order to set up shop. Very bad timing. We'll see how it goes.

See, while it's free to have an Etsy account, and free to set up your shop, it's not free to list things OR to sell them. $0.20 per listing for 4 months, and a certain percentage - 3.5% at the moment - of your sale. Sites like Zibbet and Big Cartel and Handmade Spark and ArtFire, on the other hand, have different policies. They don't charge a listing fee or a percentage, and instead they charge a monthly having-a-shop fee. At the moment, this isn't good for me. AT ALL. Etsy would be cheaper any way you look at it. Not counting the 3.5% sale fee (which has probably totalled to like 3.50 since I started selling) I'm being charged like $1.25 per month...that's like 20% of Zibbet's "best value" yearly $69.00 fee ($5.75/month)...not to mention its monthly fee...if you sign up monthly instead of yearly, they charge you like $10.00. Then there's Handmade Spark, which says it has a free account but I can't find out how to get one because no matter what signup I do, it wants my paypal account for $6.00/month. And Big Cartel, I don't even remember how much it was. But Zibbet and Big Cartel (and disappointingly, not Handmade Spark or ArtFire, that I can see) have free accounts where you can set up a little shop and have fewer items than you want and fewer features than you want and see how it goes. Big Cartel, appallingly, only lets you post 5 things for sale...REALLY not enough. Zibbet lets you do 50, which is enough for me at the moment...though there are some crazy Etsy shops with thousands of items listed. It's very strange that these sites use this method, because I can either pay nothing and have a small shop, or pay extravagantly and have a big shop, whereas on Etsy I pay a little and have as big or little a shop as I want. I'm definitely a fan of being on Etsy when I look at it like that.

And I think Etsy's way is the best way...how much you pay depends on how much you are trying to sell and how much you actually do sell...which in my case turns out to be a modest $1.25 a month and small change. It's working out pretty well for me, so far, and I've made 17 sales through that site. Not as much as I want, of course, but that would be impossible, because if I got as many sales as I wanted, I would never be able to keep up with it. It's allowing me to keep making jewelry and I'm breaking even with a little profit, too. It won't sustain me or let me live without needing another job, but it's funding itself right now, and that's my short-term goal.

Etsy also gets the most traffic, the most views, the most google hits, the most everything. Etsy is, in a word, gigantic...and for a little seller, that's the best way to be. My pictures pop up every now and then. Sure I'm not on the first or third or even fourth page when you search etsy for origami earrings...but somehow I still get sales. Probably because mine are the best :] hehe. But in all seriousness, there are so many people looking through that site, all the time, looking for their specific things or just browsing the aisles, that people I don't know actually come to look at my stuff. And not only that, but there's a massive community involved that I actually need to get more involved in soon, joining teams and adding circles and stuff. Etsy is all very interconnected, and very good at making its members feel like they are really members of the massive handmade community that they ARE members of.

But of course, it's best if I come up in as many searches as possible. I want to come up on Zibbet and Big Cartel and Handmade Spark and ArtFire - if only I could.

I guess overall, I'd love to be on Big Cartel, it seems awesome, but it's unlikely. I am going to be on Zibbet. ArtFire seems just disappointing to me. And Handmade Spark is a good community site, but I don't see much selling coming from there. I get the newsletter, that's all. So we'll see how this goes. As far as ripping me off just to let me sell my products, it still seems like Etsy is the least-bad offender...and gets the most traffic anyway. But it's still good to have other options. I wish the others would adopt a more reasonable payment system, though.


Something else: thethingsiwant.com. I don't expect people to go looking for my list to buy me presents, but since I'm now buying supplies from more than just one site, I figured a universal wish list wouldn't be out of order...it's very useful to combine the things you want instead of just having a bunch of separate wish lists. And the way it adds things is that it puts a button in your bookmarks toolbar that links to the thing that adds things to your list...so you just go to the item's page and click one of your bookmarks and then the thing is in your list. Very neat.

...so now, mom, if you want to know what I want for my birthday, and "jewelry supplies" is too vague to cut it, you can search for the wishlist of letterboxlion@gmail.com (I think it searches by email, but it might be by username, in which case it would just be letterboxlion.) It's purely a list of supplies that I want, some with notes like "for wire-wrapping" or "must get with X gauge wire" so it's pretty handy. And it lets you use priorities so while I can keep track of that butane fusing torch, I can realistically note that I should not be even close to getting it yet. :)



More news: I don't have my pictures to post up yet because of my computer problems, but I did make awesome pendants with a few of the cabochons I put up last post...I'll post them when I get my new cable. But good news is, the first person I showed my work to who is outside of the nuclear family with whom I am staying decided she wanted to buy one of my pieces for her daughter-in-law! Her husband's father was an experienced silversmith, and he told me that I have talent. I think that means that I'm off to a good start, when people who have experience with jewelry and metalwork think my work is up to par! I'll post pictures soon, I'm so excited! And hopefully soon I'll get them up on my site! Oh man, so excited. I never expected to be this involved in the crafting world, but it's happening very excellently.

And my new baby is a pair of nylon-jawed round-nose pliers. Thanks to Evan! After he gave it to me for Christmas I pretty much went crazy and made a bunch of pieces, some serious wire-wrapped ones as well as some silly little hammered pieces that were just fun to make and a good way to spend a few crystals. Itching to put them online, let me tell you. Positively fidgety. Well, that's life!

NEW WEBSITE

Ok I know I know I just posted today. BUT I GOT A NEW WEBSITE. That is, I made one. Weebly is an awesome and really intuitive free website-maker application...I recommend it so far, and it has capabilities for things like blog and facebook integration, so it's really handy. Slideshows, movies, you can do tons with it. My site isn't done yet, but with only a couple of hours of playing with it I've got something pretty solid set up.

SO GO CHECK IT OUT PLEASE. And hey, 22 people "like" it already ;D facebook is pretty scary that way, I don't even know how it knew that that facebook page and that site were the same thing.

Flustered! So flustered!

Meh!

I need to keep my grades up, especially in Japanese and Computer Science...those are the two that have been suffering the most from how busy/distracted I've been. Here I thought I was doing work all day, (mostly on the business) and then I discovered that I haven't really gotten anything done. Well, that's not true. My homework isn't done, that's for sure, but I have plenty of time for most of it...I'm just paranoid enough to do work due Thursday on Monday night. But I did some research, found out more about gemstones, ordered a couple (be careful, Leo...)...And posted up some photos on my new Letterbox Lion Handmade Jewelry facebook page, which you should check out, using the handy new widgety-thing on the side of the page =========>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Though to be fair, this is probably more interesting. Hopefully.

Also, I made some price changes - I lowered my prices for things I was, in retrospect, charging way too much for considering the price of my materials...it pains me that the most effort-intensive and least rewarding things I make are the ones I can sell for the least, though, (while still managing to be the ones I can most reliably sell) and I have to control my tendency to try and make up for it on the higher-end stuff. I DID up my shipping prices though, after finally admitting to myself that charging less for shipping than shipping was costing me was really not an effective strategy. So, lower prices, higher shipping. All in the name of necessity, I assure you.

By the way, add craftywillows (or littlebitcrafting on blogspot) after Fantasian to the list of people I absolutely want to BE. Her blog is old stuff about how she's getting started wire-wrapping, trying tutorials, etc..."we'll see how it goes"...and her shop stuff is absolutely amazing, so far beyond those tutorials as a beginning, and so unique. It's really (REALLY) encouraging to know that from where I am right now, I can get to where she is ...with luck and perseverance and enthusiasm and experimentation...and, in this business, some capital.

We'll see how it goes! I'm getting a few cabachons, and I'm about to order some wire. I want to see what I can come up with if I actually try wire-wrapping, for real this time, legit, this is not a drill.

(HAHA GET IT. CAUSE THEY'RE NOT DRILLED. HA. Oh man, I just got that. *wipes tear*)

Wish me luck, anyway :)



EDIT: OH AND BY THE WAY. I've been meaning to post up more things throughout today and yesterday, but somehow I managed not to pull it off. With my crazy schedule (and my computer losing its internet connection, resulting in an IT visit today that ate up some time) it's been tough to find a chunk where I can just sit down and write descriptions with any personality...not to mention that etsy has no save function, what's with that? Anyway, I'm going to go post something right now.

A very late first post

...You know how it is. I have class. I have homework. I am struck by sudden beading inspiration and nothing else counts until I'm done. I'm doing this because I managed to put "blogging" in the same category as "beading" in my mind. Let's hope it stays there.

So, exciting things have been happening on the Letterbox Lion front. Today was a landmark day in lots of ways, which is probably why I have such an urge to blog about it. I mailed my tenth online sale - of course, it's not my tenth sale, only the tenth that happened over etsy, but still. I started experimenting today, too. This was the first time I have worked with gold (!) ever (!), and since it wasn't as snobbish to work with as I'd imagined, I'd like to put it out there that I'm more than willing to do it again. I don't have much, since for my first ever gold project I didn't order much, but I'd be happy to have an excuse to acquire more, and use up the rest. ALSO TODAY I got my first gemstones.

Okay, let me stop to talk about that. I've always been wary of using gemstones, in the way of a little girl in awe of horses. Swarovski crystals are so consistent, and I shouldn't buy gemstones, I won't know what to do with them, they don't come catered to my order, they won't match with anything I have, blah blah excuses blah. If I want crystal, I can get it in practically any plausible (and some not-so-plausible) combination of color and tint and shade and coating and sparkle and opacity that I could POSSIBLY want. Gemstones, however, do what they want. They are all different. They are whatever color the earth formed them in. It's intimidating. It's exhilarating. I am having SO much fun.

I don't know why fusionbeads.com is discontinuing sodalite beads. They are gorgeous. I am so glad I bought them, even if it was because I wanted to try gemstones and those were the ones on clearance sale. If I had been updating this regularly, you'd already know that I have a weird fixation on dark blue beads...most of my inventory is some form of dark blue or something to complement dark blue. While I have been trying to branch out, I thought when I ordered them, hey, I lucked out - sodalite is blue, too.

Shockingly, though, it is ACTUAL blue. It's not some subtly purpley green shade of off-blue. It's not metallic or matte-coated iris shiny whatsitcalled. It's blue. It's unadulterated, I think I'll be light blue! I think I'll have a white band! I think I'll be this awesome stormy dark grey with blue flecks! Ooh, ooh, and I'll be deep ocean never-seen-light-before blue. (Spoken by individual 6mm beads). That kind of blue. I've already got big plans for these beads, not only because my crazy metallic-shiny-and-or-matte-possibly-sandbblasted-slightly-purple-or-green-or-both blue beads often go well with blue, but because I also have green. And honey-colored, and dark red, and more green, and amber. I have crystals and spacer beads. I have not enough spacer beads, as I discovered only halfway through my sodalite-induced beading delirium. I made a sweet earring with a design I'm very proud of, incorporating a lot of dark blue symmetry and silvery sparkle, and oh, I'm so happy with it. I am 6 spacer beads short of making the other one in the pair. And off to order more!



And here is a sad note, to explain my near-total lack of activity, as though anyone out there on the internet knew about it:

So, almost all of the pieces I have sold so far have been my flocks of cranes. I'm all right with that. They are excellent. They are my babies. They are cheap to make and cheap to sell. They are cute and rather awesome, they get lots of compliments, everyone likes them. I have a pair for every mood, and somebody comments almost every day. I was the only person on the whole internet (!!!) that I could find who would sell more than one crane on a single earring - nobody else seems to have thought of a flock. Too bad I can't patent the idea.

But they are a LOT of work. Like I said, they are cheap, but they take a very long time to make, and then I have to seal them with varnish because, come on, I'm not the kind of person to sell something that I would expect to fall apart immediately. They're made of paper, they're not in it for the long haul, but I still want to give them an advantage, and so I double- or triple-coat them in whatever the best varnish is that I can find. It takes FOREVER.

See: Even at five minutes per crane (a lowwwww estimate) 8 cranes per pair makes it 45 minutes JUST TO FOLD THEM. Forget measuring and cutting the paper into neat little squares, forget measuring the head pins and eye pins and making them all hang together. THEN the varnishing, which in itself takes a huge chunk of time because they need to dry between coats. And then, as if that's not enough, I have to photograph them in attractive poses (cranes are not meant to lie down) and resize those pictures and make them square and post descriptions...

I guess I've made my point. The whole process bogs me down. I feel the pain of poor Tessa Stone, the writer of the most excellent comic in the world, who just got absolutely killed by con season. It's all the extraneous stuff that takes you away from your art that ends up killing your inspiration. I really don't want that to happen to me...but since I lost my job, this is my sole source of income at the moment.

I am actually losing money on making those...that is, they do not get me enough money for all the time they take. If I didn't like making them and enjoy seeing other people like them so much, I couldn't do it anymore. I end up folding them in class, at lunch, in the middle of social events. Add to that the fact that I am losing money on shipping, too, since I've been needing to buy boxes in which to mail them, and I really don't make anything on this. I am praying that the word gets out that my work is good, and that soon I'll be able to start selling my higher-class items, the ones that cost me more and are triggered by artistic inspiration, not by ooh-that's-neat impulse. Not that I am expecting to make a living on Letterbox Lion just yet...but I need another job! So sad that what you're good at, what you like to do, and what make enough money to pay off your college loans don't always coincide.

END SAD NOTE. This has been a very good day.


And a big thank you to my boyfriend who gives me encouragement by sitting there and saying "I like it" when I hold things up at him.