Archive for the ‘jewellery’ Category

Toronto Tree Festival June 11, 2011 | No Comments | Events, jewelleryAnd just as I was lamenting about not having anything to post about I got an email saying I’d been accepted as a vendor into the Toronto Tree Festival! Woo!

 

So, I guess, I should … uh, make stuff? :D

 

Busy busy busy April 27, 2011 | No Comments | Diary, jewellery

Ok, I know, this is almost exactly the same as the last post two weeks ago. But really, I don’t have much to say these days! I work 9-5, I have puppies, and I try to make jewelery and do craft shows on the side. Which I have to say, since getting the puppies is a hell of a lot harder! AND we’ve been sick! So.Much.FUN!

But the show is in two days, and the BF’s nephew is in the day before, and its supposed to be sunny and warm the day of the show, and its almost all over. So yay! We seem to be getting some online buzz, so hopefully that’ll translate into irl buzz and visits! Woot!

I think the next time I do a show, I won’t have a booth, or if I have a booth I’ll have a “booth babe” work it for me so I don’t have to, see how that goes.

Trying to decide what I want to “do” with this in the future. I still like making stuff, but it comes in fits and starts and I don’t know if I want to do that 8 hours a day. The same with the event planning, not sure I’d want that a full time gig. But together, say out of a store front studio with an espresso machine… and two doggies curled up under the work bench… THAT would be awesome… /sigh – on can dream can’t one? : )

I had such great plans for June or July, and now I’m all out of steam…. and two months just does not seem like enough time to plan and pull off a really great show, so I’m thinking of maybe could be shelve that idea and do something small, like a workshop or crafternoon tea or crafty brunch or something silly like that. Who knows, maybe I’ll get all manic again and decide it’s a fabulous idea! Hormones, ain’t they fun?

Off I go to make stuff for the show!
Wish us all luck!
Ta.

March Madness Day FOUR!! March 4, 2011 | No Comments | Diary, jewellerySTAR

STAR

March Madness – DAY FOUR!

An oldie but a goodie. I like the milk-glass, it’s hard to come by these days, frankly it’s harder to find than cobalt blue, and surprisingly enough its actually harder to tumble and harder to drill holes in, makes me wonder what is in the glass that gives it the milky colour and if its the same element that makes it so hard? That sounds like a wiki or a google, for another day. Right now I am way too full of sushi and I have way too much work to do after a very long lunch of giggles and discussions of “WASP culture” (first rule of WASP culture: we don’t talk about WASP culture, or money, or sex.)

March Madness is rolling along bitchez! Can you handle it? You better, cuz otherwise I’m just talking to myself out here, and that be sad.

Laterz.

March Madness – Day Three March 3, 2011 | No Comments | Diary, jewelleryThree days in and I’m in agony? What fresh new hell is this?
Good lord my head hurts… apparently all I’m going to do is complain this month and you’re going to have read it all, yay for you!

Seriously, a dreadful headache descended on my this afternoon and has not left despite lots of pain killers. Woo, time for bed soon methinks!

AND YET! I made something new, took pictures and posted it to Etsy!
This is how much I love you all! Also focussing on something intently helps me pretend I don’t have a headache, so there is that too.

Voila!
March Madness Day Three!

And another cameo at that to boot how about that!

Buy it here!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/69303118/it-is-better-to-have-old-secondhand

That key to the right there was originally part of this necklace until I decided that it was too busy and I took it off.
Save the lovely brass key for some other design where it gets to be the focal point instead of just an accent, yes? Yes!
Ok, now to see what the boi had made for supper because I didn’t feed anyone tonight, my bets are on the leftover from what I made yesterday, any takers? No? Damn.

Cross your fingers for me that this headache goes away soon.
Or that I get a sympathetic jury for when I got nuts and get violent, one or the other.

Toodles!

Etsy March 2, 2011 | 1 Comment | Diary, jewelleryOk, this isn’t going to make sense yet, but I have to get it out of the way:

HOLY SHIT I GOT A GRANT FROM ETSY!!!! OMFG!!!

/exhale

Let me back this up a little bit. Last year (perhaps even the year before, I don’t remember and I don’t feel like going to look it up ;p) I joined a women’s group that was focused on creative business. For a few reasons the group didn’t really click for me, I met some awesome ladies, and I value the group, but it really wasn’t what I was looking for.

So I looked around for another group to join of like minded creative business minded individuals and I found TESTy – the Toronto Etsy Street Team. All members have shops on Etsy, like me, all members were in the GTA, like me, and all members were about sharing events, info, resources and promoting each other, just like me! So I applied, and was accepted, and I’ve been chatting up a storm ever since over on their Etsy boards. (We even had an oldschool chat room meet, so 1999! It was awesome!)

One of the topics that came up again and again was a TESTy only craft show. And as I had JUST organized three shows, I volunteered to organize a show, for free. (Shush.) And thats what I’ve been doing, I’ve booked the ballroom at the gladstone hotel, I’ve started blogging about it, and just today put up the application for TESTy members to apply to the show, and I’ve been noodling around with a flyer/poster design. So far so good!

But one of the wee throw away things that came up in the chatroom was Etsy grants. Etsy will give actually money to a Team for team meetings, marketing, advertising, events and the such. So I applied, winging it a little and pulling flowery marketing feel good terms out of my ass, because I’m more prone to say “OMFG” and “ass” so this was more than a little challenging. However! I did it, and sent it in before the deadline; I asked for $500.

And they said yes.

They put $500 in my PayPal account.

For me to use on this craft show.

Dude.

…

DOOD!!!

…

I *SO* fucking rock it’s not even funny!

Ok, I gotta go tell my TESTy peeps, and then I’ll be back with March Madness, but dood, rock, so hard, do I! Seriously!

The Wandering Winter Craft Show – December 19th December 5, 2010 | No Comments | Events, jewellerywww.shopcats.ca

The Grand Finale craft show, fittingly being held in the Gladstone Hotel! Come out and see us!

It’s almost that time of year! October 3, 2010 | No Comments | Diary, jewelleryHoliday Season is here!

Holiday Season is here!

The moody teenage goth in me protests VERY loudly that we’ve skipped over Halloween, but, what can I tell her? We’re all grown up now? And that really we should have been planning the holiday season since at least the beginning of September and now we have to rush and be super busy and Halloween just may not be in the cards this year? I don’t think she’s listening…

Goth sulks aside… I’m starting something new! I have a new venture to keep me even more occupied! Because one hobby is not enough, ever. I’ve branched out into event management! On a small scale, and a temporary scale, and a seasonal scale. Who knows, if this works I may do it again! So really, this is a test, to see how I like running an actual business!

Check it out!
http://www.shopcats.ca

and of course the requisite twitter account
http://twitter.com/ShopCatsca

Those dates and locations are subject to change, so please don’t mark your calendars just yet! This is just a test, to see if the site is working and I don’t have any spelling errors or glitches. Feedback is appreciated! And if you know of any locations/vendors, send ‘em my way!

I’ll keep you posted on how much this actually is like herding cats. I’m pretty sure that verdict will be: “A lot!”

Ciao!
-Emma

Vacation = Productivity August 19, 2010 | No Comments | Diary, jewellerySpecial Order

Special Order

I got a tweet Sunday that read “@lookforthewoman I NEED CUSTOM NECKLACE.” – a few emails later and one vacation day later and I had made the above necklace.

This is what I love. I love putting something together that someone else wants, I like the creativity that happens when communication is open. This was why I liked playing in band in high school (Alto Sax), I didn’t like being 1st though, I didn’t like the solos, I wasn’t good at them. But I liked the feeling of a such a large group of people putting together so many individual efforts to bring forth something larger than them. Now don’t get me wrong, my high school band was terrible. We never won any awards, and we all took a perverse pride in coming in last every year at the Kiwanis competitions, but that was all because we disliked our teacher. We all liked band. And when we had a substitute or were allowed to jam, it was awesome. Custom work is like that, just straight up awesome. :)

Still not dead! August 16, 2010 | No Comments | Diary, jewelleryBling Bag

Bling Bag

I’ve been so busy, not with making anything, just with summer. I love the summer. BBQ’s, swimming, cottages, music, friends, good times, its all so awesome, so I’ve not really been doing anything at all except enjoying myself.

Though I recently did a collaboration with Bathory of heartStopping Bags (http://codebloo.com/bags/) above is one of the results, which is pretty awesome! :)

Close up below!

And I’m about to make a custom necklace for Panic, which is fun!

But beyond that, it’s summer dude, get out there and enjoy it! I’ll be back and busting out new things in the fall.

Ciao!

***Update***

I totally forgot, I donated some jewellery to an arts auction, and they sold!
Someone one got a very good deal, and some money went to the arts!
http://www.32auctions.com/organizations/544/auctions/609/auction_items/9339

Neato!

30 Days of Landfill – update and recap July 3, 2010 | No Comments | Diary, jewellerySo, 30 Days of Landfill, my attempt to take all the best sellers on etsy.com ‘s advice and post something new everyday, was both a success and a failure. A success in that I sold some pieces, I got some attention, I’m in a local charity auction this fall (http://www.labcab.ca/), I got some recognition, and I realized that there is in fact a market out there for me to tap.

It was a failure in that I didn’t post something new every day. But even in that “failure” it was a success too. I know now that I cannot create, photo graph, describe and post 30 pieces in 30 days. That’s a little insane making. So going forward I need to have 30 pieces on hand, and hopefully some idea of how to describe/sell them and some photos too before I do this again. Which is a very valuable lesson to learn to say the least. I also know that I get distracted easily, and that buying new materials while trying to post “older” pieces is a mistake. I need to focus on one theme at a time otherwise I get distracted with the new shiny stuff and I play emotional ping pong with what I want to be doing and what I should be doing and then nothing gets accomplished! Insight is always good to have about oneself and your own work habits!

So, of 30 days, I managed to post 20 pieces, so 60% achieved. Which for a dry run, and a solid C student like I was in high school, is not too bad for a first try, especially cuz I totally didn’t study for the final exam! And I’m going to post those remaining 10 days/pieces in July, just for completeness sake, only this time I have 31 days to do it in, which is much more manageable now that it’s fully summer out there, and the pool is open, and my garden is producing more peas by the day, and there’s camping and BBQ’s to be had, and just oh you know, summer time!

And in other related news I’m working on a collaboration to bling up some purses and clutches for Code Bloo. Which is awesome and difficult at the same time. Necklaces hang and are subject to movement and gravity. Bling on purses needs to give the illusion of movement but be secure; this is making me think in 3-dimensions instead of 2 and it’s awesome/hard. Using the brain meats in ways they’re not used to, good thing we won’t charge labour on this piece cuz if we did I could retire on this one piece alone! :) But as I know from experience muddling out how to do something new for the first time takes a billion times longer the first time than the second, third, etc, learning is hard, but completion is so worth it!

Here’s the mock up of what I’m attempting to do:

Purse Bling

Purse Bling

So with any luck, it’ll look at least a little bit like that when it’s attached to the purse! Though I’m still really wanting a small black bow of vintage silk ribbon in there somehow… just not sure where or how yet… /shrug, we’ll see, these things take on a life of their own. I often feel like I’m not creating it, I’m just revealing it. Like that old joke; how do you carve a horse from a block of marble, easy, just cut away anything that doesn’t look like horse.

Now, off to make more dream keys!

Dream Key

Dream Key

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