duckduckBLOGstuff

moo cards, that is.
(is it stationary or stationery? I am having a blank moment and can’t be bothered to look up which is which. And me an ex-literacy tutor, too. Urk.)

I love my moo cards; I have loved them since I started getting them. I love everything about them (um, I’m sorry if I sound like an advert, by the way; I’m actually a lot more sincere than that) - I like the shape, the size, the fact that they’re all different, the little messages from Little Moo that you get when you’re ordering; the completely dippy winking inkdrop with the utterly random apostrophe hiding in the binding of the sticker books - the total niceness of them. That and the fact that the design of the whole thing is brilliant; the boxes are positively Muji (if Muji did white plastic instead of envelope-brown card); the sticker books are fantastic. I’ve been a sucker for stationery since I was a kid (Staedtler Ergosoft, while I’m here, are my latest favourite thing) and these are lovely. They make sending packages out a pleasure - cards on the inside, stickers on the out.
cooool.
I like it if I get a packet that’s fun to open. I like sending packets that are fun to open.

so:

box of cards:

cards with earrings:

cards with rings:

and the few with necklaces. Necklaces are not really the right shape to fit on these (well, my photos of them aren’t), so there are only a few:

These always come with cards with discount codes for your first order - so if you haven’t ordered and want to, send me a message and you can have the code. I think it’s 15% off, which isn’t to be sniffed at.

and really, this isn’t an advert. I just like this stuff

Because - I’m still not 40, even if it is my birthday.
Because - I have a lovely new website! Which I am still overexcited about.

10% off or free shipping, whichever is best for the buyer.

And I also have a lovely new shop banner to match my website. I’m happy!

oh - it’s HERE!

I did! and it’s making me feel quite childishly excited. I’ve had the name, the hosting, for a while, and made a site which was frankly horrible - but used it to host this blog, which has been great, I love it.

But really, why have a domain name and hosting and not use it? SO I have spent the best part of two days sorting out my online portfolio (with carbonmade which is a site I can’t recommend highly enough, which gave me the kick I needed to sort the website out. It’s very simple; the thought of CSS makes me shrink, I think I must be getting old - and also, I think there’s a lot to be said for simple. No flash, no music. Just some nice pictures and a link to my shop.

Next I need to work out how to make a web form so people can get in touch with me without me having to leave my addy out there for every spambot on the planet to harvest, and so people can sign up for the newsletter I plan to have.

If you have a little time, I would love your opinion of it. Extra gratitude for people who point out embarrassing typos and awful grammar. And stuff. I was pretty boggly-eyed by the time I finished

And it’s HERE!

(and below? a screenshot, just to give you a clue…)

… is evil, but oh so good. I do really like the charcoal patina you get when things come straight out of it, but it doesn’t last well. Lacquers and waxes are kind of impermanent, as well as altering the feel of the piece, and polishing is basically abrasive.

This:

shows two sets of rings; the bottom set being mine and polished after patination and the top set patinated but not yet polished.

The best thing I’ve found to keep the black is to burnish it in - you get THE most fantastic, coal black, shinyshinySHINY finish (as in the necklace blogged HERE and in these earrings:

(can you tell I’m enjoying this metal combination at the moment?)

ANYWAY - the best, most reliable way to achieve this is to dunk in the LOS as usual in your preferred way (mine is to use LOS at room temperature to minimise vile fumes but to put the very very clean piece to be patinated in near-boiling water first); allow to dry - then tumble using stainless steel shot and water only. No burnishing compound at all. Works very well, and gives a fabulous finish without removing any of the patina. It’s relatively long-lasting, too.

seriously

I don’t want to steal this lady’s photo, so I’ll just post the link. But it is, honestly, wonderful on so many levels.

brilliant. if TheHouseofMouse means anything to you, you may understand already.

very funny thing is here. I’m a LINK! clock me!

um. that would be click.
click me.
yes.

just - because.

because I need to not put all my eggs in one basket.
because diversification is good.
because Etsy, despite having been remarkably good to me, is a little slow at the moment.

so I opened my Big Cartel shop. (um. that bit where it says “Big Cartel” is a link. You can click it…)

And - I love the look of it, I think it’s really clean and nice. Very simple to list things, too. Doesn’t work like Etsy, where you tag things - I suspect you need to be a lot more pro-active in driving traffic there. So far I’ve got the free version of the shop. I’m waiting to see if it will be worth while opening a more expensive version…

If you have a look - please leave me a comment to let me know what you think, I would really appreciate it…

next - 1000 markets. I haven’t been at all happy with handmade fuZion so far but 1000 markets looks nice. We’ll see - the one drawback is that in Firefox, I don’t get a scrollbar at the bottom of my screen, I have to use Safari so that my pitifully small monitor can cope!

it’s my own fault.
I know it’s my own fault.
there was a little soldier pallion that didn’t melt properly, and obviously, it pushed up against the stone while I was polishing (not setting, oh no) the bezel, and it cracked.
it was such a pretty, simple setting too; and I was going to hang it on a beaded, patinated chain and it was going to be lovely.
{sobs, slightly pathetically}.

but really. to crack when polishing.
pfooie.

rule two: shortcuts are not a good idea. I knew this.
like I said, it’s my own fault.

…is that I have been able to reduce shipping costs in my Etsy shop for the second time, which is good.
Not feeling constantly underpaid helps, as well; but no-one notices that except me. Lower shipping I like, and so do other people…

Buying supplies in dollars has become a lot more expensive though…

swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

no, seriously.

This is what happens when you don’t have the equipment to do things the right way. And what happens when you work in the corner of a slightly rickety lean-to with a corrugated plastic roof…

The roof is significant for the noise it generates - you know in old caravans when it rains? This is similar, but much, much noisier. It’s like having your head strapped to a tin barrel full of marbles being vigorously shaken - I can’t work in there when it’s raining, it’s too disturbing.

Anyway. I may have mentioned opals before. I love them, love love love; I can’t accept that there is a more beautiful gemstone around - though labradorite comes close. It’s like cat people and dog people. I’m an opal people. I enjoy my amateur way of cutting and polishing and find it pretty successful - this:

Is a piece made with a boulder opal I bought as a pre-form and finished. (and you can see it in my Etsy shop

A fair few stones down the line (that one up there? I loved it so much that I kept it, like Gollum, for months and months and MONTHS) and I have started to actually cut and shape them with a diamond wheel in my proxxon mini-drill and an antique grinding wheel, before polishing.

However. Remember the roof? I have a new rule. It is an important rule. It goes: Do not allow yourself to be distracted by squirrels landing heavily on a plastic roof above your head when cutting small stones with a diamond wheel. Seriously. Don’t. Bad things happen. Look.

The thing that made me feel illest was the thought of how really exquisitely nasty this could have been. As it was I filled the cut up with strengthening nail-varnish (which stung) on the ground that it would probably stop it from splitting all the way open; swore at the squirrel (that happened first); made up rule number three (which was important enough to displace the previous rule number three) and got on with finishing this:

which I am really very pleased with. The back is at least as beautiful. It’s going to be another pod in an open-backed setting. One day.

(Rule number one? Rule number one remains unchanged. It states: If you drop something small, never try to catch it. Watch it fall. yes, it’s counter-intuitive and hard to learn. But crikey, does it work.)

…long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away (um. before I joined etsymetal); Experimetal proposed a ginormous etsymetal charm swap; which eventually became this phenomenal bracelet:

which is available for sale in the etsymetal shop.

And we’re doing it again - and in all honesty; having seen the other charms I’m feeling seriously inadequate, not least because the sun did not co-operate and the photo is awful. But I’ve made my nineteen charms; and here are some of them (did I say the photo was awful? oh good):

I will try to get a decent photo of all of them before I go to the post office tomorrow.