Lately I’ve been dreaming of branching out into metalsmithing. I was seriously excited about it a couple of weeks ago, I had that new hobby excitement – I was going to be a metalsmith, I told myself! Anyway, that was before I realized that it’s just not a possibility for me right now. I was hoping it would be something I could do on a small scale to begin with, but it looks as though you need a lot of ’stuff’ and also a lot more time and space than I currently have. Not to mention that I would ideally need to take some metalsmithing courses! So, I’ve put the dream on hold and have penciled in ‘be a metalsmith’ for 30 years from now, when I’m retired… lol.

Anyway, I’ve recently discovered an Etsy shop called ThirtySixTen, which is run by Amy, a self-taught metalsmith. By the look of things, it’s already a huge success! And of course, I am incredibly envious of her skills. It’s inspiring to know that she’s self-taught, and that it is possible! She also has a great blog which is definitely worth a read here. Here are a couple of my favorite things from her shop! Seriously thinking about treating myself to the iolite ring. Not sure if I can resist!

I finally put a treasury together! I couldn’t think of a good enough title in time, so I settled for ‘Winter’s End’. I was trying to think of nice way to describe the change from winter to spring, which is what I was trying to show in my treasury – but I ran out of time and the little treasury title bar popped up – and well, when that happens, you just have to type whatever you’ve got in there. Anyway, here it is!

I was delighted to rediscover mincingmockingbird’s shop the other day. I saw those lovely bird paintings and immediately remembered MMB as one of the first Etsians I met in the Etsy chat room. Well, I’m not sure if we actually chatted, but I remember at least marveling at all the awesome bird paintings. They’re just so cute. I’ve always loved those tiny little birds. Remember the Disney version of ‘Aladdin’? I always loved Princess Jasmine’s bird house – with all the little birds. Yeah. Anyway, ever since I saw that as a kid, I’ve always loved those tiny little birds.

Anyway, I listed some lovely new earrings in my shop today. Pretty pleased with the photos. I’ve been struggling with my photo backgrounds lately, not knowing whether to go bright and springy or listen to my gut and stay with dark and mysterious. Anyway, I like how these turned out. They’re made with amethyst and oxidized copper.

That’s all for now, it’s time for bed. Good night!

I’m stuck at 199 sales. Oh, how marvelous it will be to finally be at the big 2-0-0! And yet, it’s just not happening. I sit here, twitchily, glancing at the always-open Gmail tab in my Firefox window. No matter how many tabs I have open for various things, the first tab will always be Gmail. And you have no idea how excited I get when I glance up there, and it’ll say ‘Google Mail – Inbox (2)’. Two emails? That might be a sale! A glorious ‘Etsy Transaction Email’ followed by a ‘Notification of Payment Received’ email. Best. Emails. Ever. It’s been a slow week for me, but I’m hoping that at least by this time next week, I will be somewhere in the realms of having 200 sales on Etsy. How exciting!

I’d also like to give awkward’s Etsy shop a mention. She makes gorgeous knitted things, and has a lovely shop. I’m mentioning her because she’s currently at 199 sales too, and I’d love for us to hit 200!

Check out these cute ‘glovelets’ from her shop!

Anyway, I’ve added some new things to my shop, including my Haunted Moon Earrings. I’ve had such amazing feedback for the Haunted Moon Necklace, that I decided to make the matching earrings:

Also new to my shop are my Ice Melt Earrings – made with sparkly crystal quartz and oxidized sterling silver.

In other news, I finally made it onto the Etsy front page last week! About time too! It’s so hard to get noticed on Etsy, especially now that the weekend deals and gift guides have gone – so it was great to get my twenty minutes on the front page. (I say twenty, because the item actually sold and so was all-too-promptly replaced by another item made by someone else!) But still, I’m pleased to have finally been on there. Also, if you read my previous post, you’ll know about the ad I put in the school paper. Well, I was never under any delusions that I was going to be faced with a flood of sales – since it was only the school paper. But I still got a handful of sales on Folksy, and my traffic is up – so that’s something.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Have a great week!

In my last post, I mentioned I would be getting an ad put into the school newspaper. Well, here it is!

I decided to promote my Folksy shop in the ad, since Folksy is actually based in the UK and people are more likely to buy when the prices are in the correct currency (I wish Etsy would hurry up with the currency conversion thing!). Anyway, it was very exciting to see the ad in the paper – I think it turned out very well! What’s amusing is that it appears right beneath the big sex survey they did at my school. Nice… lol.

It’s been a stressful week, due to various exams, essays and demonstrations – and I’ve been quite busy with my shop, too. It’s been a lot to juggle! I made it more stressful for myself than it needed to be by writing an essay which I thought had to be done by yesterday, when in fact it’s not due until next Thursday. But at least I’ve got that over and done with, and I have most of the next week off. So I can relax and chill out now – hooray! I’ve got some new supplies, and I’ve made a little list of things I’d like to make over the weekend, so you should be seeing some new things soon! One thing I’m particularly pleased with is a necklace I made – it’s adorable – although I don’t think my photos do it justice. Might try and take some more photos over the weekend. Here it is, the ‘Aurora Sky Necklace’ – made with a very shimmery labradorite briolette and little tourmaline and iolite rondelles.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll leave you with Snuffle’s paws.

The print below can be found at gemmabear’s Etsy shop. The neat thing is that she actually lives in Norwich, just like me!

Valentine Print – You Are My Favourite

I love all her illustrations – the characters she creates are always are so endearing, quirky and sweet. Check out her shop for lots more awesomeness.

Anyway, I’ve been working hard on creating some new items for my shop, which will be listed tomorrow. Also, I’m doing free worldwide shipping in my shop right now (until Monday) – so feel free to take a look! Hope you’re all having a great weekend!

Here in England we’ve been enjoying some pre-Christmas snowfall, which is almost completely unheard of! What’s even more shocking is that the snow has stayed for around four days now. Firstly, we usually only get snow in January or February, and secondly, it’s almost always completely gone by the next day, and replaced with that lovely brown slush. But this has been lovely. I’ve really enjoyed having some snow, and I love that every day I’ve been out to walk about, there’s been that lovely crunchy sound of walking on new snow. I almost fell on my arse a few times, but that’s to be expected. I think it’ll start to melt tomorrow. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

It made me really miss going to the US. I’ve been there several times in the winter, visiting my in-laws who live in Idaho. And I love winter there. It’s so snowy, and makes the already beautiful scenery even lovelier. I love all the evergreens and the mountains – it’s gorgeous. Before that, I’d never seen proper mountains or proper snow in my life. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been, and I definitely miss the feeling of winter I get when I’m there. But thanks to the snow we’ve had, I’ve managed to get that feeling back a little bit. And I’m grateful, because most of the time, winter passes in a depressing grey blur and I absolutely hate it. So I’ve been really thankful for the snow. I just wish it would stay like this and not all melt away. It’s a little bit magical.

But I’m sure most of the population disagrees with me. The tiniest amount of snow causes absolutely chaos here in the UK. People don’t know how to drive in it – that’s the main issue. Oh, and for some reason there’s always a huge grit shortage for the roads, and everyone complains about how we’re never prepared for wintery weather. But it’s okay, because as a nation, we’re never happy unless we’ve got something to complain about… lol.

Anyway, time for sleep.

The last couple of weeks have been insanely busy for me! It only finally came to an end about thirty minutes ago, when I returned from the post office after sending a huge amount of packages!

And now I can finally begin to acquaint myself with my 4 week Christmas break. Hello there! It’s strange for me, because before I went back to uni and before I started my Etsy shop, I didn’t have much to do. Ever. I had quite a slow pace of life and I felt very lazy. It had been like that for several years. I guess I’m just in a reflective mood right now, and I’m thinking about the year that’s almost gone. I feel good about it, because unlike many of the previous years, I feel like I’ve actually achieved things this year. I’m on my merry way to actually being able to make something of my life. So woohoo, go me!

Anyway, the point I was making is that I have 4 weeks before I have to return to uni for the spring semester, and I’m feeling like it’s going to be difficult to wind down and relax. Whenever I get a spare moment and I’m just trying to do nothing, it’s a mixture of guilt and panic – I start asking myself what I could be doing that would be more productive – and I do that instead. That is so not me… lol. I guess it’s the new me. But I will try and chill out – but I’m very aware of the fact that my Etsy shop currently only has 17 items in it! Argh! I was featured in the Friday Finds promotion last weekend, and that kept me very busy! I’m almost grateful that the item the Etsy admin chose to feature was one with a not-so-great photo, because I don’t think I could have coped with all the orders if it had been one of my super-shiny-awesome photos! Last time I got into a Friday Finds promotion, the admin chose one of my favorite items with a really good photo I managed to take (somehow!), and I got *extremely* busy with orders after that.

I’ve definitely realized that I need to be better prepared for Christmas on Etsy next year – I really made it hard on myself by not ordering enough supplies in advance. Like, jewelry boxes. Never run out of jewelry boxes! Or ribbon. Or tissue paper. Or actually *anything* you need… lol. Great advice, huh? But yes, it has been a little stressful, but everything’s done now… and I only have one order to send out tomorrow.

Oh – and if you’ve ever been a customer of mine, I’d just like to say thank you. And give you a big hug! I never thought I’d be able to make or sell anything, but this year has changed everything. It’s given me a big confidence boost, and I’ve met some lovely people through my shop and have had so many wonderful comments. So yes… thank you!

I don’t like to have photoless blog posts, so here’s a photo. It was taken in the summer last year, and it’s of Norwich Cathedral. They began building it in 1096 and it wasn’t completed until 1145! Norwich actually has two cathedrals, but the other one is much more depressing and grandiose – I like the one above much better. Anyway, now there’s a nice photo, I can go and try to relax. Wish me luck!

I’m always happy when someone picks an item from my shop to be in their treasury, but I was ecstatic to find that the lovely lunalove had not only featured a necklace of mine, but named the whole treasury after my shop! Even better, the treasury was a gorgeous one, and even better than that, it made the front page of Etsy last night! I was SO pleased about that. It had been weeks and weeks since I’d been on the front page, it’s a very rare occurrence for me. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be picked several times a week for the front page! Anyway, I was lucky enough to get a some sales from it, and so it’s turned into a pretty good week for me on Etsy. Here’s the treasury!

Not much has been going on here, really (apart from school). I’ve been trying to add more items to my shop in the last week – but it’s been difficult to fit the time in. But I have less than a week of school left, so I’m really looking forward to being able to chill out and make some new things. Sometimes I look at my cat, Snuffle, and I’m envious. For example:

She just lays around. It’s so unfair.

Wow, look at me go! Two posts in two days, what an achievement! Here are some earrings I made recently – I love how they turned out!

Golden Dusk Earrings – made with golden rutilated quartz and antiqued brass

I think I’m feeling a little more willing to post because I finally got rid of the ‘Featured Posts’ thing at the top of the page, and put my own modified Etsy mini block there instead. So, I think my blog is looking better. I’m still not really satisfied with the header, but I’ll have to work on that some other time. So anyway, now that I can tolerate looking at my blog, maybe I’ll post a little more often!

In other news, I finally charged the battery for my little point and shoot camera, so I took some photos. The first one below… well, Snuffle demanded to be in the photo, so there she is. The second photo is of a mirror – which you might (but most likely not) recognize as one of my photo backgrounds for my jewelry! So yeah, that’s where the magic happens. Well, not exactly there, because that would be impossible. (I take the mirror down and put it on a windowsill to get better light, and that’s where I take my photos).

Also of note is the Carrotbun Bunny Brooch, currently pinned on the side of my bag. I bought it from Sherry, a fellow Etsian who has a little shop called y0omii! Love that bunny. He sends out studious vibes when I’m at school. Well, that’s what I like to think, anyway. (Please send more, though).

It has been a while! So, I’m halfway through the first semester of my computer science degree. Thankfully here in the UK, we get a week off halfway through each semester, for which I am very grateful! I’ve been somewhat managing to maintain my shop since I started school, but it is definitely not easy – so that explains the slight lack of new things in my shop recently. But I’ll be working on it this week, now I have a little free time. Here’s something I made a week or so ago – it’s made with natural undyed Turkish chalcedony – and I love it!

Haunted Moon Necklace – made with natural chalcedony and oxidized sterling silver

Anyway, not much else is going on with me. I expect this is how it’s going to be for the next four years while I’m at college – the thought of that is exhausting, but it’ll be worth it in the end. Hooray for getting an education (finally!).

Oh… and happy Halloween!