Help! The Other Cheryl Escaped From the Attic

I don't know what caused the disruption in the world space where I live -- maybe the new year? a weird alignment of the stars & planets? a case of the crud that's had me house-bound for 9 days & counting? But there's someone impersonating me today. I'm certain. She picked up my needle-nose pliers & expensive Lindstrom cutters, just as I do. She took beads & wire from my very own roll-around storage drawers. She turned on my recordings of the Monk re-runs that I love (I've seen them all 3 times). Then her hands started working just like mine. What resulted is certainly a mystery to me.


This is Bella, the first in a series of Zany Ladies, which will appear in my 2 shops (seattlebeadcreations.etsy.com and classicbeadwear.com) whenever the Cheryl impersonator escapes from the attic. (Who let her out, anyway?!) Each Lady comes complete with a name, personality, and a set of features, more or less, and an Official Letter of Introduction. One might even identify with the personality described OR consider it the personality she'd like to be OR the personality she is afraid of becoming! I'll have a don't ask, don't tell policy on the motive for buying any of the Ladies! Meanwhile I've had fun watching the Cheryl impersonator escape for awhile.

QUESTIONS: Is is wise to let the locked up Cheryl run loose with this brainstorm? If so, should this new product line be part of the real Cheryl's online stores? or a new, separate store? I don't know the answers to these question, but I expect to learn this lesson the hard way. I hope it works!

Both Cheryls hope your New Year is off to a great start.

Tick Tock and It's Christmas

Observations about many women I know ==>> We LOVE to receive jewelry as a gift. We enjoy buying jewelry as gifts for others. BUT many of us feel guilty about buying jewelry for ourselves! Why is that?!!

So in case you're still stuck for the perfect gift, I can help you out through Dec. 22. (That's when I join my family to search for snow.) In fact I've really enjoyed making a collection with Christmas in mind, though most designs are suitable for year-round pizazz. You'll find these at classicbeadwear.com & can email your order using its "Email us" link.

Please remember that my last mailing will be 12/22, & beginning today through 12/22, postage will cost a little extra to assure Santa's delivery by Christmas.

Meanwhile, HAPPY HOLIDAYS, everyone!!

Snow, Craft Fair, Flood...

Can plague & pestilence be far behind? As luck would have it, the fair I'd been most optimistic about, the 1st ever Redmond, WA Holiday Arts Fair, was a 1.5 day event, and to greet the big event was a forecast for the Seattle area's first real snow of the winter. Panic! Raised in New Orleans, I do floods; I don't do snow, even after 34 years here!!

I'd been gearing up for my 2 back-to-back juried craft shows (Renton & Redmond, WA), working hard each night with little sleep. The Renton Hassle Free Fair in mid-November (see blog 11/19/07) missed all the crazy weather. Rain, drizzle, showers, rain, rain, and drizzle we can handle. The very next weekend was the Redmond Fair. Day 1 was a Friday night from 5pm-9pm, & the weather was typical-Seattle winter stuff -- cool with showers -- no problem. Except that after 7pm the only folks still around were the vendors. Either any craft show on a Friday night should shut down by 7pm, or the customers had heard the warnings about snow -- warnings that were definite about its arrival, but vague about exactly when & exactly how much. Maybe Friday night, but definitely by sometime Saturday, maybe 1 inch, but possibly 3-4 inches. And sure enough, on the fair's big day (day 2) I awoke to see big fat snowflakes falling & sticking, with 1" already turning my car white. Could I drive through slick suburban streets safely? What if I risked life & limb & noone came? Or would we all arrive, but get stuck with our wheels spinning in the fair's parking lot after hours of the big, fat snow?

To my great relief, I didn't kill anyone during the drive & customers did show up! Even before the snow disappeared & the sun came out awhile. And a few dear friends braved the snow & came for moral support. Plus my friend & jewelry-phile Linda arrived to help me, as promised! What a joy to have their support and good company. Despite the fact that 3 of us jewelry vendors were located right next to each other & a few other minor glitches, whenever customers show up with wallets, it's a good show.

Monique donned 4 looks during the show, which was fun.
Friday night she started out wearing a black silky scarf knotted on the side. Saturday she wore a white faux-fur band around her head in the spirit of the holiday. When someone jokingly commented about her bald head (I prefer to think that her baldness was edgy), I covered her head with my Mom's sheared black turban hat, circa 1970. Finally, a neighboring vendor (Silk from the Hartz) who makes gorgeous hand painted silk scarves, practiced tying one on Monique's head to find new looks for women undergoing chemotherapy. It was easy to agree to this experiment for such a cause during the show, especially since these scarves were gorgeous. I ended up buying Monique (and me) this striking red/pink one, which I do believe helped draw folks to the table.

From the Redmond experience I hope to discover how much table decor is enough to attract customers without overwhelming the jewelry, which must be the focus. Maybe you can help me by voting in TWO POLLS on the right. I do enjoy introducing potential customers to "my new employee, Monique," which serves as an easy ice-breaker to build rapport. So Monique is a keeper, but how much Monique is too much? Please feel free to Comment. I need feedback.

Another problem I'd like to solve is how to re-do my jewelry set up so that it's quickly displayed & quickly removed. The neighboring vendor sold very nice earrings... only earrings. Each pair was mounted to attractive card stock printed with her logo & contact into. The earrings & attached cards filled each velvet compartment in trays removed from her product case. She laid out the pre-filled trays in 2 neat rows across her table that was covered with attractive cloth. With minimal other display apparatus added to the layout, she could pack up everything on her table and head for the door easily within 20-30 min. Meanwhile I was still removing & packing Monique's arms!! I hadn't even started on the jewelry yet.

One obvious difference between our needs is that I sell necklaces, bracelets, and earrings, requiring different kinds of displays. I have a product case similar to my neighbor's, & I display some necklaces & some earrings in its velvet-lined trays.
I hang other earrings around the lip of a tall glass goblet. Some necklaces hang from Monique's arms. I drape others over a 3-tiered velvet-lined display racks, and I arrange crystal necklaces flat on a 12" glass tile on the table. If I'm alone it takes me 80-90 minutes to set up & 80-90 minutes to remove! Too complex & perhaps too distracting for the customer.
What I do know is that my arrangement looks much better in a 10'x10' booth, where I can place 2 tables in an L configuration. Butting the length of 1 table into the side of the other increases the rectangular space I want from 6'x2.5' to 8.5'x2.5'. I believe that additional 2.5' of length removes any sense of clutter. At the Renton fair, a very sophisticated younger woman who frequents these fairs really liked my table's look with the L configuration. However, the Redmond booth space was only 6'x10'. No room at all for an L, and barely enough room for Linda & me to sit behind my 1 table.

I also learned that 2 small lights focused on the jewelry draw customers. Venues large enough for a craft fair usually have inadequate lighting because it's too far away from the jewelry. Somewhere on the small table I must position 2 clamp-on lights with daylight bulbs. At the very least, it adds warmth & makes the table look more welcoming. Most importantly it brings out the beauty in the gemstones & precious metals of my jewelry.

Despite the technical issues I'd like to resolve, this fair produced more sales than any other for me. Furthermore, I learned that when shoppers are beginning to panic about Christmas, they will brave snow, but they won't stay out late. I'm hoping that next year I can try Redmond again in just the boring old rainy stuff, and that I've got my set up issues resolved.

Epilogue: 3 days after the snow came The Great Flood That Closed I-5. Luckily we were soaking up the sun in Cabo & catching marlin. (See post 12/11/07) Dumb luck is appreciated & always welcomed.

Life's Top 10

Now that I've reached the Age of Wisdom & Social Security Checks, I periodically look back at life to assess its top 10 events. I'm grateful that it's not an easy task. But I've just experienced another event in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico that made the list, & I'm so excited about it, I had to write. Since I'm all about my new passion in life, jewelry making, one might think the new entry in my top 10 relates to that. NO! I'm reserving "jewelry-making" as number 10 for some milestone lightning-bolt achievement, like creating something so very special that I love it just as much 3 years after creation OR Nordstrom decides to sell my jewelry OR a very exclusive "juried" craft show picks me as a vendor. Of course, I must first find the courage & confidence to ask for their consideration! Hopefully, one day...

I've had a good life filled with a wide variety of passions, so the Top 10 includes a surprising assortment. Here's my list in chronological order, NOT in order of importance to me --
1. Winning a 6 wk cruise for 2 from New Orleans (hometown) on a cargo ship, across the Gulf of Mexico, through the Panama Canal, and down the west coast of So. America, almost to the southern-most tip of Chile. As a 16 yr. old with no money who thought a trip to Mississippi was a big deal, this was HUGE!

2. Marrying GZ, my unique, opinionated, exasperating, lovable, & gentle husband of almost 39 years.

3. Giving birth to our daughter, my greatest accomplishment, my pride & joy.

4. Experiencing killer whales -- unexpected, up close & personal, in the misty silence of dawn on glassy calm waters of Puget Sound. The loud & profound sounds this huge pod made very close to our little boat as they plunged back into the water from repeated full-body leaps or spewed gallons of water from their blow holes still give me chills of awe...

5. Catching huge steelhead (5 a day!) on my #8 flyrod. Disappointed at missing the silver salmon run we had timed our Alaska trip for, we lucked into an amazing run of steelhead. For readers who don't fish, that's the icing on the cake PLUS the cake!! I'm not too proud to welcome dumb luck.

6. Becoming a grandma to 2 adorable little critters 4 & 1 years young. Grandma-hood is a very special club, where the secret handshake is the wide-open arms of an overjoyed, smudged-faced child, running toward you yelling, "Grandma, Grandma!" Absolutely nothing compares to that...

7 & 8. Two Personal Family Losses -- sad & of great significance to me.

9. Fighting the good fight last week in Cabo San Lucas -- See picture sequence below, showing 1 of 3 marlin I caught on The Sport Fishing Event of My Life, surpassing even the steelhead. GZ & I caught 5 total, with another 2 breaking the lines. By my 3rd marlin, my lazy left arm was trembling with so much exhaustion & pain that it's still recovering 5 days later. We released all the marlin back to the Pacific. But even without a huge 6' marlin mounted on the wall, I will never forget the physical fight of my life! There were moments when I wondered if the fish would pull me & our fearless skipper Milo overboard. And how did Milo escape the sharp, bony 18" bills usually aimed at his gut? And how did Cheryl pull in 80 -- 100 lbs of resistant, leaping fish muscle? Here's the action for just 1 of my 3 catches.







10. Reserved for that thunderbolt moment in my jewelry making. The excitement I feel while creating a new design
almost equals most of my fishing thrills & chills even without yet reaching the grand, lightning bolt creative achievement. Until that occurs, it's hard to imagine what could bump the #10 spot I've reserved for jewelry!

Assessment of a Sleep-Deprived Brainstormer

I admit to being passionate about EVERYTHING I adopt as a project, career, cause, or business in retirement. In fact friends might say I'm dogged. Because I don't know how to turn it off, brainstorms about my passions keep on coming -- some good, some not so good. (See post in October.)

The latest brainstorms focused on Renton, WA's Hassle Free Holiday Bazaar this past Friday & Saturday. The fair was VERY, VERY well run, and without doubt the best fair I've been in so far -- juried, the most vendors (~100), the most shoppers, ample carts to haul our setup around, girls pushing a goodie wagon past thirsty vendors both afternoons, abundant publicity in the newspapers & good signage throughout neighboring communities. Bravo & thanks to Shirley, the organizer of many years.

Having minimal prior experience selling at fairs, I'm determined to learn quickly from my mistakes. So here's what I learned at the Renton fair --

o Focus on one price point appropriate for that venue. I'll know next time that Renton's is about $25 on average for jewelry. Though my jewelry ranged from $10 earrings to $255 necklace/earring set, my average piece cost about $50. I had several items over $80 & 2 over $200. One woman fell in love with Serenity, but at $250 it was out of her reach.
However, she wanted my website name so she could view Serenity "whenever she needed to" :) Of course, the over-supply of jewelry crafters makes finding the right price point even more important.

o Ask if there are restrictions on booth side walls. A customer advised me that she couldn't see my booth until she'd almost passed it. Why? Because my neighbor ahead of me in the traffic flow had 10' high wire walls on 3 sides of her booth, completely covered with her attractive aprons. Since folks could not see through her covered wire walls, many buyers passed me by looking in the other direction. If 2 shoppers hadn't mentioned this issue, I never would have thought of it, & I'm sure the very nice vendor in question didn't either. Interestingly, my next venue prohibits displays that block the neighbor's visibility.

o Don't over-crowd the table. On day 2 I arrived with my own 6' table, butted its end perpendicular to the existing table to form an "L" & gained another 30" or so. Spreading out the jewelry another 30" really made each piece easier to see. Wish I had taken a picture of the expanded version.

o Plan the look of price tags for jewelry carefully. With only a 6' table & lots of jewelry on the first day, the tags I'd brainstormed that week working 2 full days & 1 overnight were a disaster! Especially the items with tags that I placed in the velvet-lined trays from my product case. Honestly, it was hard to find the earring hiding next to or under its pretty price tag! After watching droves of customers pass by in 2 hours barely glancing at my table, I madly began unknotting over 100 ties to remove my beautiful tags. What a difference that made. There really was some pretty jewelry under all that paper! At home Friday night I implemented a new price tag plan -- small, white, rectangular, peel-off labels folded around a clasp or earwire so that the sticky ends & edges could stick to each other. There was just enough room to write the price in ink -- not pretty, but neat & barely noticeable. Saturday my table looked fine, the price tags were unobtrusive, but easy to find, and there were no disasters :)

o Have a Plan B when (not if) a major brainstorm goes haywire. Fortunately I'd made an 8-page price list "just in case." After I had to remove all my price tags, that document saved the day!

o Bring a helper. I can't begin to thank Mary Lou & Joyce enough for their help. Beyond the moral support & watching over the booth, they gave me precious time each day to scout the competition & learn what I'm doing well & not so well.

o But here's the most important lesson for me: Seriously question any brainstorm devised when normal people are sleeping.

Despite the painful lessons learned, I'm making progress -- more sales to more customers & more confidence in my work & in the "look" of my table. I hope to do this show again next year.

A Before & After Miracle :)

For me the toughest part of selling my handcrafted jewelry online has been taking attractive pictures that appear only 1" square in our Etsy stores. Yesterday another local Etsy crafter gave me a gift that will significantly improve my photographs in those 1" squares! I took Marlo's hands-on class in Photographing Jewelry & Small Objects. We practiced 3 specific settings using our own cameras & jewelry under Marlo's guidance -- setting White Balance, Aperture, and Shutter Speed & learning how they work together to create clear, well lit pictures. She taught us how to shoot from almost eye level, giving pictures an interesting perspective. I wish I had time to re-shoot all the items in my store, but that won't happen with 2 craft fairs, a trip and the holidays galloping toward me. However, I did stay up all night re-shooting a few of the worst offenders. Besides, I wanted to play with my new skills! You'll see a few Before & After shots above & below this post, & I hope you can tell which is which! (If you can't tell the difference, should you tell me? Oh, okay! I really do want to get better, so feel free to Comment if you can't see improvement. And as a special Thank You to Marlo, I encourage you to shop her Etsy store, I Make Cute Stuff!
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UPDATES- Mystery Stones & Craft Fair

Oh my, it's been a busy time. Before I retired, I got a lot more done after working 10 hour days. Now I feel overworked & at day's end, I'm not quite sure what I accomplished!

BUT

since the last post, I have accomplished 2 things I can remember! Hoping to identify the mystery stones in the Oct. 13 post, I found a huge annual rock show barely 1 mile from my house! With necklace & an extra broken stone in hand, I faced the rock hounds behind their booths & wondered where to start. Fortunately for me most of them were eager to identify my olive green stones. Unfortunately all of their ideas were as varied as the previous best guesses. Clearly this was not the exact science I had hoped! Certainly not without a laboratory. Finally I found the grad student assigned the task of identifying mystery stones. She was equipped with a thick book on rocks & their specs, a fancy microscope, and a refractometer. But she was baffled until I mentioned the suggestion I received that it might be idocrase (aka vesuvianite). She looked it up in the fat book & with both of her instruments determined that the stones matched the specs in all regards. So hopefully the mystery is solved. IDOCRASE/VESUVIANITE!

My other accomplishment was applying for my first juried craft show & being accepted! So I'll be at the Renton, WA Hassle Free Holiday Fair in the Renton Community Center, Nov. 16 & 17. I hope all my local friends will "shop homemade" from the 100 vendors on site. It should be fun! So Monique & I will be busy :)

Not All Brainstorms Are Good...

At my 2nd craft fair ever, I learned that a single prop can draw customers to a craft table. But the good decision to go with the perfect prop can be trumped by 1 dumb decision that cost me customers.

Two days before The Fall Thing at Phinney Ridge Community Center, I braved the terrible traffic from Bellevue into downtown Seattle to reach a large, high-end dept. store, offering the mystery props for $35 each (originally $1000!) It didn't take me long to select perhaps the only item left that could actually sit on my table & wouldn't take much room to store. Exactly what I wanted -- in fact, PERFECT!



Let me introduce Monique, formerly known as Mira. Monique was special because her arms & hands were both above her waist, allowing me to remove her bottom half, a huge advantage over other mannequins whose arms below the waist required them to stand, possible only after building a brace. Furthermore, I could store Monique's extra body parts in the attic. And look at the pose of her hands. Perfect for displaying jewelry! Even her makeup was perfect. (Did you know that if you first apply concealer, you can add human makeup to Monique?) And Monique looked great in tiger fabric from my first fair! (I'm trying hard not to think this discussion is creepy...)

As I played with my craft show table arrangement the night before, I had another brainstorm. I store my jewelry in the black velveteen trays from my new product case described in the Aug. 28 blog post. Those trays would display the jewelry beautifully if tilted up on blocks!

Oh, I was so very proud of myself! I was definitely on a brainstorming roll.
That's when I should have quit & gone to bed. Instead I stayed up all night typing pages & pages of text into a grid, where each cell in the grid contained the description & price of one item for sale. Because I didn't have time to cut the grid into cards & place them near the item described as I'd planned, I couldn't quickly answer the simplest customer questions, like "How much is this?" At least 5 very enthusiastic customers came by to look closely at my jewelry & ask a few questions, but scanning pages of grid cells under pressure isn't easy -- especially after no sleep. So many lessons to learn; so little time!

Despite my own major misstep, I really enjoyed this show. My table was 2nd just inside the entry door, so folks definitely got to pass my booth this time. And Monique drew many of them over for a closer look. I hope the new layout is more sophisticated & effective than the Fremont fair table. What do you think?
The feedback from shoppers was extremely positive. I sold Steely Blue despite wasting this wonderful woman's time to search for the price & description. In fact, she came back 3 times to bring 3 more people to see the jewelry during my frustrating search for the price! Even shoppers that didn't wait for my fumbling searches asked to be put on my mailing list. Another big plus about this show was the opportunity to meet more EtsyRain sellers. Participating in the online forum together for months now, I feel I know them since our brief face-to-face at the craft show. I left the fair exhauted, but smiling inside about the new friendships, the enthusiam of potential buyers, and my satisfaction with the 'look' of my table. But the top 2 items on my To-Do list are ==> match up the description cards with the items AND remove Monique's lower half from the hallway floor. Or at least turn on the light so the unexpected sight isn't so scary!

Would You Buy a Nameless Bead?

Back in July I was browsing through one of my favorite bead haunts telling myself over & over to get home while I still had some money. But on my way out, I saw some strands of gemstones I hadn't noticed before. I have no self control about beads, so I began looking through the hanging strands. Wow! This strand of wonderful rich olive green dazzling with pearlescence caught my eye. The beads were each uniquely & irregularly shaped... and I guess the new phrase is "organic looking," yet beautifully faceted & highly polished. But the flashes of color that bounced off the surfaces as I turned the stones are impossible to describe. And they were expensive! And they were unlabeled! And even the owner didn't know what these unusual gemstones were. Feel free to guess!! Any gemologists out there? Because computer monitors show colors differently, let me emphasize that the main color in the stones is olive green. The only other color is black in lines through the stones. Also, the expensive strand had 2 broken stones. The unpolished mineral inside the break had many tiny specks of sparkle, which I think would polish up beautifully when faceted, accounting for the pearlescence, in my opinion. The stones range from very dark olive (almost black) to medium-light olive. They are completely opaque.

Nameless or not, I fell in love with these stones & couldn't wait to wrap them in herringbone weave of antiqued Sterling silver wire.
Then I made these earrings with olive green crystals, also wrapped in herringbone -- a really nice match, I think. Obviously I was in a very herringbone mood.


I will learn from this experience IF BEAUTY HAS VALUE. Or maybe it only has value if it has a well-respected label. Since I spent significant money on nameless beautiful stones with no hesitation, my opinion is obvious. I hope I was right :) Take an anonymous poll on the right & tell us what you think.

Time to Be Creative!

Time for change, like the dramatic change from green to orange & maroon leaves on NW trees. Time for me to get busy with what I most love to do. The last 2 weeks have been a total creativity marathon. With apologies to my blog readers, I let many routine things slide to immerse myself in the creative process. It was not entirely emotional self-indulgence, as THE FAST-APPROACHING HOLIDAYS added motivation. Ok, panic! Pre-holiday time is particularly busy for crafters.
Panic increased when I decided to try 1-2 more craft shows in Oct/Nov, hoping to tempt early Christmas shoppers. Besides, with its gorgeous colors, fall deserves its own colorful array of designer jewelry. So I've been enjoying myself. Here's a small sample of the fun I've had & the artistic inspiration found all around us in the Seattle area (when it quits raining :)
For Autumn Berries, I've been saving A-grade citrine, garnet, & topaz (2 shades) teardrop gem-stones for just the right design. Then on a clear day in late Sept, we drove through Stevens Pass & saw these beautiful colors. (photo by Don Paulson) Instant inspiration for Autumn Berries & Autumn Leaves! I'll add other new inspirations to my Etsy store every day or 2 through Oct/Nov. Life is good :)

Risk-Taking in The Age of Wisdom

I confess -- I have reached The Age of Wisdom. That's the age when little critters with jelly-smeared lips call you Grandma, the government deposits a monthly check in your bank account, and you get discount prices at the cinema & some restaurants. (Let me note that discounts only feel good if I ask for them, not if some kid with pimples offers!)

Last night our dear friend of 30+ years, who only recently reached the Age of Wisdom, came to dinner. In just 10 days he'll fly to Kathmandu, Nepal to join with 4 other Seattle strangers & 9 Sherpas to hike/trek through the Himalayas. (Photo by Alfred Molon, www.molon.de)
That's 27 days without a bath, 27 days pushing the bounds of physical & emotional endurance, and 27 days eating Dal & rice cakes while praying his bouts of kidney stones pick another time to attempt
an escape. I'm a little worried for him, though he had been a mountaineer and in preparation for this trip had spent all last month hiking seriously. He joked that he'd want the group to leave him by the trail rather than ruin the trek for them. In the next breath he added he hoped others were in good enough shape not to ruin his trip either. Right! Everyone is sharing a group risk in a very real sense, when they're roped together at freezing altitudes & exhausted. I'm in awe & continue to wonder at our friend's motivation to test himself in this trip of a lifetime at the age of 60.

What am I willing to risk, having attained the Age of Wisdom? No way does the trip to Nepal appeal to me! 27 days without a bath is cruel & unusual punishment. I have never been a risk taker. When our daughter was old enough for me to go back to school for a career change from Latin teacher to programmer, I took a programmer's aptitude test for a job-placement agency. I had answered every question correctly on the test, BUT I had only answered 2/3 of the questions. That's me! Whenever my ego was on the line, I always worked hard enough to be successful ... whatever time & effort was required. If that test had no time limit, I'd have answered all the questions, even if it took all year :)

But at the Age of Wisdom, I discover a strange brain cell with a yen for making jewelry -- an aberrant brain cell operating 180 degrees from the world of technical academics where the answer was either right or wrong. In my new world, personal taste judges the result right or wrong; the rules are nebulous, baffling, & subjective. I can't predict what my buyer will like. Yet this pushy brain cell wants me to create -- a very personal act! -- then come out of happy retirement to put my creations out there -- PUBLICLY, hoping for someone's favorable judgement & money. Like our friend on his big trek, I could fall flat on my face, because new businesses fail all the time.

Yet here I am taking this big risk with my ego on the line because of that 1 strange brain cell. It's not exactly a life-threatening trek, but the rest of my brain thinks I'm as nutty as my trekking friend! In fact the rest of my brain doesn't recognize this new Cheryl at all...???

Inspired by Sleep & a Friendly Nudge

On Labor Day, my internal clock began ticking with the alarm set. I must now find a way to put aside peripheral tasks & focus again on the jewelry creation process. AND I must complete the process soon, so I have ample time to photograph & market the 2007 Fall-Winter Collection! With a feeling somewhere between exhilaration & panic, I went to bed on Sept. 3, having officially set my internal alarm clock for the jewelry-making deadline.

It's unusual that I fell asleep with my mind so full of panic, but I did. Sometime during the night I began dreaming about jewelry designs -- a wonderful dream, full of clear mental pictures of a new product line my friend Joyce had been nudging me toward for many weeks without results... until tonight. But the more I dreamed, the more excited I felt, & the closer I came to consciousness. I didn't want the dream to end. Still buried in the pillow, I remember fearing that what seemed brilliant in sleep was total nonsense in reality. I've had many such brainstorms fizzle like that through the years. But as I re-examined that night's dream, I was still excited. So I got out of bed, checked the clock (5 am -- Good Grief! I Am Crazy...), walked into my work room, found my Brainstorm Book, & drew out 4 designs for the new product line. I had even dreamed up the name of the new line!

I've had fun since that dream, turning brainstorms into reality. (Notice the absence of blog entries :) These creations are a total departure for me. The new branch in my collection will include clasps for silk scarves & pins for knits, though I've have never been a knitter. The name I literally dreamed up for the new line is KnitKnacks. Tonight I learned that unfortunately it's already a registered domain name. Can you believe that?! But I will call my new product line KnitKnacks anyway.
Here's a sneak peek at my knit pins. I envision them adding pizazz to knit mufflers, purses, belts, hats, & dresses or coats -- any item with a looser weave.
I plan to make 3-4 scarf clasps as well, then re-focus on the remaining collection -- fun designs for necklaces, bracelets, & earrings.

So, from top to bottom, let me introduce you to "Mother," "Playfully Yours," "The 4th Dimension," and "Your Lucky Horseshoe." Joyce already claimed The 4th Dimension pin :)

I'll begin adding items from the new collection to my 2 website stores during October. Finally the hardcore MAKING of jewelry. That's so exciting! Can't wait to get up in the mornings & can't make myself go to bed at night :)