Labradorite swirlies

So I'm failing miserably at posting new earrings every day. It's not that I've lost interest... life has just been too busy lately. It's summer in Maine, which means gardening and strawberry picking and jam making, and weddings, and triathlon training... and just life. I'm no less inspired than before. Still, when I close my eyes I see new designs! So that's good.

I've also been working on marketing my jewelry business. Coming from a marketing background, I wouldn't have thought it would be so hard. But really, I'd rather be making jewelry than thinking about selling it. But I'm accumulating quite a large inventory and I honestly just need to clear out space. It would be nice to recoup some of my investment too. So... I signed up for an Etsy showcase. That was a complete waste of $7. So far, etsy in general has been a total bust. I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet, but I'm getting close.

Next, I tried Facebook ads. These are pay-per-click, which is good since I'll only pay if someone clicks through to my etsy site. So far no clicks. HOWEVER, someone viewed my ad and then "liked" me on Facebook. I didn't pay anything but I got a potential customer. That was kind of cool.

Anyway, Sundance has some new designs out that inspired me. Here's one. I'll make a match for it tomorrow.

These are smaller than they look in the photo...less than 2 inches long. The bead is labradorite. Hopefully more tomorrow. I'm trying to get my inventory all cleaned up and in order for Ursula's visit!

Ok, ok

I'll make a post already. I posted a few things on Facebook tonight. A made some peridot mini earrings and a matching pendant. I'm trying to sell them to some guys at work for their mothers/wives. So far no sales but requests to try some different things, which is ok. I do like experimenting.

I bought some polishing cloths, which are like sandpaper. There are 12 of them and they go from course to fine and you're supposed to go through each one in sequence and by the end you should have a mirror polish on your silver. I bought it for the pieces I tried in my PMC class because I've never been happy with the sheen.

I started with a Japanese 5 yen coin. I wanted a coin with a hole in the middle and I found this in my coin collection from my younger days (yes, i still have it!). After my first PMC project turned out so well (my crescent moons) I think I got a little cocky. I roughly cut out the shape with an exacto knife and didn't bother too much with details, figuring I could file out any inconsistencies later. When they came back, we put them in the tumbler, as opposed to the hand finishing we did with the first piece. They came out dull and messy looking.

I did some scraping and filing and polishing last night. It looks better but there are still some scratches so I guess I will do the whole process again.

The polished one is at the top, the unpolished at the bottom, and the coin I based it on on the left. See how the PMC shrinks? That's normal. I put holes in so I could string an earwire and 3 beads from the bottom. Eventually I will finish these ones.

I also tried the liver of sulfur I bought with Ursula's gift card to try an "antiquing" effect. What do you think?

In this picture it looks more red because my lighting is terrible. It's really just a dark gray.I think you can polish off some of the color and just leave it in the crevises to help the details stand out. The polishing cloths didnt' work so maybe I need actual jewelry cleaner. I'll try that soon. This might have some cool applications. I just don't know what they are yet.

And I ordered some shadow boxes to showcase my jewelry at our work art show. I put scrapbook paper as a backdrop and hung it from embroidery thread. I didn't know how else to do it. ?

Hopefully that doesn't look silly. I have to do the rest this weekend. Hopefully it will get me some visibility. Well, I'm pooped as I'm back to my 10 hour work days. But you know what that means? Fridays are free for jewelry making! Yippee!

Risks and Failures

I admit, I'm a risk-averse person, especially for a youngest child. I like a sure thing and I don't like to waste my time on things I'm not sure will work. However, I do recognize that in order to be creative, you sometimes have to put yourself out there. I tried that today. It failed. Twice.

First, I was going to go for a jog around Back Cove in Portland. From my office, I KNEW there was a shortcut. Normally, I would just go the way I knew, not take a risk. Tonight, nuh uh. I went for it. I screwed up,. I got stuck in traffic for 30 minutes, so what should have been a 5 minute drive took 35. Oh well! Now I know the WRONG way to go.

Soo.. since that went so well, I decided to try a design that I've been mulling over in my mind for several days. I knew this design had issues, and that's why I was wary of committing to it. But what the hell. I can copy the Sundance catalog for the rest of my life, or I can come up with a few original ideas! (I have actually come up with some original ideas so far. But not that many.)

So the idea was to have a piece of chain in an upside down V and have 20 gauge wire dangling from certain points, and then have a briolette hanging from the center of that wire. The problems with this design are many. First, it's sort of like a good game of pool - it might be useful to know some geometry, which I don't, and even if I did, would never have the patience to work out. Second, there are a lot of weak links where chains can fall out. I admit that my link forming skills are not great. I made a pair of earrings for my friends birthday and the earwire already fell off (sorry! I'm a professional, really!). That's why I need to learn soldering. Anyway,

So these are big. Dramatic. Kinda sexy in my opinion. I used rutilated quartz, which my friend Sam says are called that because they contain pieces of Rutil (never heard of it). Cool, huh? When I first finished them, I hated them. Then, in the time it took me to walk downstairs and take a picture of them. I sort of fell in love wtih them. And then they fell apart. Oh well! Screw it! Here they are:

Ok, so now it won't upload my photo. It's just that kind of Monday. I'll try again later! Now I'll go copy something cool from Sundance so the night isnt' lost!

Citrine and Lapis danglies

Ok, well Summer is here, which means that Jon and I are insanely busy. The great thing about summer in Maine is that you are SO HAPPY that summer is here. The bad things is that you have SO MUCH to do. The garden basically explodes. Where barren wasteland was for 6 months, all of a sudden you have 6,000 weeds and 2,000 things you actually may have planted that require mulch and water and love.

Plus, we have races. Jon is a runner, and I am a hard core wannabe athlete. Between lifting Dark n Stormies and surfing the internet, I pretend to be an athlete and mostly sign up for races I'm seriously underqualified for. BUT it keeps me motivated. This weekend, we had another weekend away. Jon ran in a 10K in Newton, Mass. It was a fun, short trip, but once again, I was taken away from jewelry making, which seems to be an oftener and oftener experience (yes, I can make up words like oftener on MY blog).

So I made these tonight:

My friend Diane, who is a much more talented jewelry maker, even metalsmith, than I, gave me a bunch of gemstones, wire, books, etc. for my birthday. She hasn't had much time for making jewelry, for various reasons, so she passed along some of her inventory to an ever grateful me. I have to say, I have the very best friends and family in the entire world. I am a lucky girl. Anyway, she gave me a string of citrine, which I have wanted to buy, but which is expensivo, so I decided to make this pair to feature them. From gardening, I know that yellow and blue are a color combination made in heaven, so I paired them with a gorgeous lapis lazuli bead (I LOVE this stuff) that I bought in Vermont. The color just does not come through in photos. I topped the whole thing off with a spiral-y sterling silver filled earwire and voila!

Ok, so now on to logistics. I opened a Facebook page for LoveLarisa here. My plan is to post all the stuff that I think is good enough to sell there. If you like something, just send me a message and we can work out payment details. This blog here will be mostly ramblings and more about my journey as a jewelry maker. Probably pretty boring, but I would like to document it anyway. I have a lot to learn and think it could be interesting for others learning to hear about my progress. I'll also post top secret prototypes here.

My etsy page I think I will probably get rid of. I have gotten ZERO sales from it and they make it nearly impossible for you to promote yourself there. I was hoping to be "part of a community" blah balh blah. But that hasn't happened yet. I think I may have better luck on Facebook with people I know and word of mouth, plus I won't have to pay posting fees or sale fees. We'll see. I may be a marketer, but it's a whole lot different when you're selling your own stuff!

Here's a prototype that I worked up tonight. I basically just took a piece of wire and kinda messed with it. Then strung a bead. : )

It needs a little work, but I like the freeform nature of it. It reminds me of a snail. I think it's quartzite, but I'm not 100% sure. It's big. 10mm or so.