Better Late Than Never (and How To Find an Incentive to Update Your Blog)

Sterling silver hoops with indian garnet beads

It's been a long time, I know. There was a time when I felt bad about procrastinating so much, but I've given up on the guilty concience nowadays. And it probably helps. If I were to agonize about it I would probably avoid and procrastinate even worse, and that helps noone. But now my pants are on fire.

I entered a contest with photos of sterling wire jewelry for an inspiration gallery at a web shop. I already had the photos so I just gave it some thought, discussed it with a few people, and then sent the photos off on their merry way. Forgot all about it. Until I got the congratulatory e-mail saying I got in, and do I have a link to a website/blog and so on. Then I realized I REALLY NEEDED to update my blog, because it looks like I died 6 months ago. (Truth is, I got a day job, and that explains some of the inertia, but not all of it.) So now I feel I really need to do some updating. Like, right now.

You will want to know what photo made it into the gallery, I guess. It's my broken paint job from 1982 in the background, and a sterling silver hoop earring with indian garnets and some scrolls and wrapping.

Sterling silver bangle with a sun dial
of .4mm wire and a larvikite bead

I kind of like it myself, but it wasn't the biggest job I've done. I was surprised that my bead woven hematite bangle with the sterling silver sun dial and the larvikite bead didn't make it in place of the hoop, because it looks like so much more work, but that was probably not the point of the photos in the gallery to begin with.

I will dwell no further on the choice of photo, because it's not my prerogative, anyway. But what IS my business is what I put up on this blog and in my Etsy shop. And with a link from the inspiration gallery, maybe I will get some traffic. And possibly some sales. Sales have been kind of slow, really. I sell more to friends and aquaintances, than I do via the web shop, but I'm hoping that will change.

Viking knit bracelet with 2 rose quarts beads in fish bone weave
and a handmade wire toggle

But I need to list items more often on Etsy, so that something happens in the web shop every day. That might draw some attention to it. But the thing is that new ideas on what to make keep popping up to bug me, and I never finish the listing of the item, because I'm off bending and wrapping wire.

Or, I'm off browsing for beads, or pendant stones on eBay or Etsy, and get lost in the amazing multitude of nice stone beads there are to be gotten. And those that look nice in the listing, and then turns out to be purple plastic like I explained in the previous post about charoite. By the way, I have some very nice plum round 14mm charoite beads that I plan to make small dangle pendants from, for discrete people. 

Chevron amethyst necklace

Chevron amethyst necklace

From the charoite jungle I did a 180 and started looking for dog tooth (chevron) amethyst focal beads instead. They seem to be abundant nowadays. It's more a matter of which one to get, than how to get them.I found two really likeable and relatively affordable ones, that I garnished with some sterling silver.

Mmmmm, purple...

Fleur de Lis copper pendant with lab.

Every now and then I also get back to copper. Usually because I need to test something, and a test in sterling silver can be agonizing and costly. And there's also a warm colour to copper that I like during the winter, because white silver looks a bit harsh on my piglet pinkish skin.

And thinkting of the seasons, I need to get some spring jewelry going. Green (peridot, prehnite) and pink (rose quartz, tourmaline) and lilac (amethyst, charoite) and aqua (apatite and aquamarine). Or maybe I'll just buy me one of those wholesale big bags of chinarovski glass crystals in rainbow colours...