Making New Jewelry for Indiemade

Allentown has been bery bery good to me...

From Scratch got off to a good 1st year start and it went so well, it looks like they're planning a second event in Spring. I'm looking forward to it already! Of course, if it weren't for the people who saw me at Indiemade last year and recommended me to the organizers, I wouldn't be there at all. So, THANKS Indiemade!

Speaking of which, I'm in the process of making some new jewelry that will be debuting there. At the December 5th Indiemade Craft Market that is. Here's a little sneak peak:

The beads are all early 1950's and Japanese in origin. All Lampwork beads by nature. Throwing in some gemstones too. See em? Yep. There they are. Haven't finalized the designs yet, but will be working on that today when I'm done with this... and once I do the dishes.

Oh, and it looks like I won't be able to do anymore Squish Markets til next year. Can't do this month after all and next month the date is earlier and conflicts with my first day up at the Tight Knit market up in Troy... oh well. I'll definitely do some more next year, but probably the next one will be in February cause I think I'll be at Tight Knit on the January date too. I'll keep you posted.

I will be at the Beth Am Temple in Pearl River NY this Sunday though and Phil has a show with the Children on Friday in The City - at Label. It's a store. I'll write more about that tomorrow when I know what time they plan to launch into song.

Speaking of which, PLEASE, click on the link for Phil's project and pledge all you can... let everyone you know know... and help him get his new CD made. All it takes is a contribution of $25 to be able to contribute your voice to his music... literally.

Thanks!

Oh ya. Phil's watercolor painting based necklaces are selling like hotcakes and he painted two more last night that I'm going to try finish up in necklace form to take with me this weekend... though, if I don't get them finished in time for that, I'll have them with me in Griffin, GA for sure... going to do a party trunk show at The Next Chapter Bookstore on N. Hill Street on Black Friday... look for those pictures later in the week or Monday before I drive South. More on that later too.

Toodles til the next update... toodley toodleee toodle

Squishy Halloween!

Well, my really cool spider cut gemstones didn't arrive in time for me to make the amazing spider rings I intended, but I'm still going to be at the Squish Artists Market on Saturday. With some new rings. Just not ones with spiders cut into the bottom of the facets (they look soooo cool!) If I have time to make them before next weekend, I'll put them up in my Etsy shop. But don't hold your breath.

I have a lot of stuff to do and get made cause I have shows every weekend until Xmas... and I never got around to making my fall collections, so I have to hustle a little bit... and make some swag for IndieMade too... ya... I think I'll be lucky to get my laundry done!

I just added a bunch of stuff to my Etsy store though - that I meant to put up like a year ago - and have a few more things to list this week and next week and the week after. So keep your eyes peeled for new listings... or, if you twitter, you can follow me and get tweeted every time a listing gets added to my store so you know exactly what's new ... And you can find out when I post new pictures to my Flickr page... And when I put up a new blog posting. Like this one.

Ok, well, I have to get some stuff made and try to clean up my hovel a little bit today, among other things, so I better leave it here.

Hope to see you at Squish Saturday (1-7pm 3rd Street, Brooklyn) and maybe at some other shows and markets in the near future too. Thankfully, none of them will be outside - did I mention I got sick from being out all day in winter weather last weekend? Well, it was pretty out... and I did get a lot of fresh air... and met some nice people... and lost the feeling in my extremities and slept all day the next two days...

This is my tent at The Fall Foliage Festival in Highland Falls last Saturday, BRRRRR!

(this picture has been lightened and brightened; it was really cold and dark that day; it sleeted!)

Yay indoor markets!

This Weekend in Where I'm At

Well, this weekend isn't going to be at Squish. Sorry. I will be doing another one later in the year, but I'm going for the much-lower-priced-to-be-part-of small local event this weekend instead.

This will be a first and it might wind up being a good one. You just never know!

Where you ask? Well, I'll tell you:

I'll be at the Secaucus Public Library's Mini Fair and Book Sale. 10am-3pm and it's at the Secaucus Public Library. Which is at 1379 Paterson Plank Road in Secaucus, NJ (07094 in case you want to map it).

Won't have my tent, but my banner will be on the table so, if you're in NJ and want to come see me, please do!

Oh, and for everyone in PA, I'm doing the Indiemade Market again this December (the 5th) and a new one (also in Allentown), From Scratch, on the 14th of November. Plus, I have an in Gallery Jewelry Party coming up on the 11th of October in Beacon.

More details on all that later though. I'm adding brooches to my online store this week and I have one more to get up there. So, I'm off to write a description and crop some photos. Oh, and I have some jewelry I have to get made too!

Hurray!

Squisharita Anyone?

So, I spent the day at the Arsenal in Brooklyn yesterday - at the inaugural Squish Art Market. It was slow. But it was a lot of fun! Met some Fabulous people, drank some wine, sold some rings, drank a Squisharita (you'll have to come to the next one to find out what that is!), chatted with fabulous people, and sold some more rings. At the end of the day, all my sales were rings. I almost sold a watch and a pair of earrings... but all I sold were rings. So, I guess I'll have to make some more rings.

Not too many customers, like I said but, it was a beautiful day out and there was an outdoor market nearby... would have been packed if the clouds hadn't parted. So most of the crowd came in at the end. Unfortunately, several of the vendors had already packed up and left by then. Oh well. Their loss!

I'm going to do it again in September, or October - whenever the next one is - so I'll let you know as soon as I know so you can all be sure to be there! The Arsenal wasn't that hard to find - but I did Google Street View it before I went. There does need to be a little better signage, but all in good time, I'm sure. It is on the 4th floor though... so it'll be good exercise! Oh and Thanks to Justine for thinking of it and to Bob for the hosting venue. Squish!

Among the fabulous people I met yesterday was another Andrea (who happens to run an Etsy Street Team of 700 people!!). She told me I could link Twitter to my Etsy store so that it would tweet every time I added a new item.

Now, you all know I'm one of those people that says: Twitter?! Bah Humbug! Why would I want to update people on the minutiae of my life when that would be really boring for everyone involved AND I already feel like I spend too much time online and not enough making and showing my jewelry anyway? Actually, most of the people I know don't even have a Twitter account. But, I know a lot of people do and, since I won't have to actually send the updates myself once it's set up, I thought: Why not?! I'll just add my pictures and listings and blog posts and let this twitter feed tweet them out to the masses - or the minuses or thin air as the case may be.

So, since I had the laptop and a good bit of down time yesterday waiting for people to come in and buy rings, I set up a Twitter account and linked it to my Etsy store, Flickr page and my Blog. So, if you're a Twitterer, you can get a tweet from me whenever I put up new pictures, add items to my store, and write something new (like right now). Or you can tell the people you know who Twitter to do it... Doo it. Doo it. Comon. Doo it. Follow my Tweets. ;]

Ok. Now, there is a little not rightness with the account name so you can't just look for Custom Adornments. For some reason, Twitter wouldn't let me add the last "S" for my name. Though, I didn't see anywhere that mentioned this character limitation. So, my Twitter address is @customadornment. I think. I haven't really spent much time on the site and I'm not following anyone... Phil has an account, so I guess I should follow his non-existent updates. Anyway, if you know how that works, then just don't add the 's' at the end when you look for my Twitter self.

Oh, and if you're up this way: this week I'll be finishing up some small word necklaces for Paper Presence (in Beacon) and the Pink Cloud Boutique (in Harriman). There'll be different designs at each store, because I like to have every store get exclusive designs. Which means you should be able to pop over to one or both stores and get a couple this weekend... ;] Also, I've been asked to man the posts at Raindance this weekend as well. So, I'll be at Mower's Market in Woodstock on Monday... if anyones going to be in the area...

Sorry. No pictures this week, but I'll try to add some to my next post - promise!

Home, home, not on the range...

Well, I made it cross country and all is just as I left it... sort of.

All my stuff is just as I left it but, there are no more weekly Saturday Markets in Beacon. Going to be the Second Saturday only now. So, I'll be there on September 12th. Which means I'll be at the Mower's Market in Woodstock a little more regularly until I start doing more jewelry parties. Oh, and I'm going to be at the first Squish Art Market at the Arsenal in Brooklyn on Sunday August 30th.

I'll have some more jewelry in different retail locations around by next month too.

But more about that later. I want to tell ya'll about the trip back across to NY.

I met up with my dad in Denio Junction and went hunting for Opals. That was fun AND I found a few too. They're all Opalized wood and some of them are pretty cool. Of course, that means I have a lot of partially Opalized wood AND plain old fossilized wood too. We also went to a place where there were supposed to be Fire Agates on the way out and I found a piece of rock that looks like it could actually be Fire Opal OR, a really nice Banded Red Agate or Carnelian. Not really sure since I haven't found any pictures like it or someone to tell me what it is. Let you know when I figure it out.

We're already planning another trip out there for next year though. Til then, the Opals will be curing and then I'll figure out what to do with them. (Dad took all the pictures on that leg, so I got nothing for you. Sorry).

After the Opal hunting, I drove up to Missoula to visit Bill. We hiked and saw some high mountain glacial lakes (it was raining so, again, no pictures) and then went to Gem Mountain and found some Sapphires. Only two were deemed ok for cutting, but they said it would take 6-9 months for me to get them back, so I took them home with me. Along with the smaller and fractured ones AND a couple Garnets and a nice little pebble of Hematite. Oh, and a bag of bigger rocks too.

That was fun too.

I love digging around in the dirt for nice rocks. I have a LOT of them to wrap and polish and play with too. Guess I know what I'll be doing this Winter;}

Oh, and here's a picture of the Gem Mountain part of the trip.

The rest was DRIVING, driving, Driving. I saw some great things - as I drove by - and got stuck in a LOT of construction traffic past Illinois. Probably would have been back a few hours earlier if it weren't for all the stopped dead then 15 miles of 20 MPH driving that occurred from Indiana to NY. Road rage did also ensue (after 9 hours of driving through that kind of thing, it is really inevitable).

One of the really amazing things I saw I couldn't get a picture of. No place to pull over and then it was dark. Along my right side there were plateaus as far as the eye could see AND it was raining on that side (not where I was or the other side though) and really wide rainbows were coming down - STRAIGHT down - from the clouds and landing on the plateaus. I saw a double one with lightening striking to the side of the smaller second one.

Really beautiful and amazing! Wish I had that picture!

Wish I was still in dry heat with cold mountain nights too... well, I never did like the humidity much and it's been raining a lot with high temps so, it's pretty much like living in a sauna. Not my favorite place to live....

Ok. So I'm ready for Fall, what can I say? That IS my favorite season.