I have to tell you.

I feel a little bit put out by the Ebola thing being only THREE HOURS away from me.

It brings back bad memories of the terror I had of throwing up when I was a kid, not to mention the whole dying part.

All I ever wanted was a quiet life, minding my own business, making some art stuff, with no one bothering me.

Then this happens!

It’s enough to make me throw my hands up and go scream in a corner.

Probably in my closet which is my ‘go to’ screaming place.

Thank god I cleaned it out. I might be spending a lot of time in there.

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I finally opened my website.

coldfeetstudio.com

I’ve been procrastinating about it for far too long and the whole thing was beginning to get on my nerves.

I had been fiddling around with Wix for some time and really liked it, but couldn’t get over that I would be paying for a site which would probably get no traffic.

It was a nightmare with all the discussion going on in my head.

I had used Tictail before, which I like, but thought that no one would ever go there either. But it’s free.

P tells me that I’m very cheap. I say look at my stash of jewelry supplies and say that to my face.

Finally I had to write in big, grown up, capitals.

MAKE A DECISION WILL YOU!

And I did.

I transferred my domain name over to Tictail. Changed up the theme. Toyed with the coding, once I’d found out where it was hiding that is. Heads up, they hide it in plain sight. And stood looking at my computer in awe that I had managed to do all those things.

Coding looks very special and untouchable, but it’s amazing what you can do when you throw caution to the wind and say, dammit, I’m special too, so don’t you be thinking you can do the I’m specialer than you thing to me Johnny boy.

I still can’t find the code part which changes the background of the navigation bar which is a dark, glaring grey, but I am determined that this will not defeat me.

I do believe the Ebola scare has set me free.

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So while I’m waiting to hear back from Tictail about how to change the colour, here’s a new piece.

I took my bloooood red crazy lace agate from Jim.

And made a doodle, but forgot to photograph it.

Basically it looked like all the other doodles I do so I’ll leave it up to your imagination.

Jump ahead to a little leaf making session.

My way is to take some masking tape, roll it up, stick in on my steel block, and tape it down at the open sides with scotch tape, or more masking tape to stop it from sliding around.

This enables you to stick the leaf shapes to the tape to hold them in place but also giving them a little bounce which allows you to move your stamp across the surface of the silver as well as still allowing some resistance from the block.

You’ll just have to try it to understand what I’m talking about.

The stress of the Ebola is muddling my mind.

To get the veins of the leaves I took my line chasing tool from Larry and chased it across the surface. The tape allowed me to do this smoothly. The chasing gives a nice continual line rather than a disjointed stamping line.

Next I took a texture tool, again from Larry, and chased that across the surface also.

If you hold the tool as I am in the previous photograph, you can rest your little finger on the block and bounce the tool off the surface with each hit of the hammer. This means you can constantly move the tool across the surface of the leaf as you tap the hammer.

Again, this is my way, there are loads of other ways.

So.

Once that’s done, you’re going to twist them slightly,

Trim them up a bit so that the edges fit flush to the outside of the bezel collar.

And solder them onto the bezel setting.

These are some little plain leaves I made to go underneath the leaves I made above.

This is the piece with the top layer of leaves soldered to them.

Next I added some balls and doohickeys.

And Bob’s your uncle.

A new piece.

It’s a bit big, and I always wonder about that. Also I never really know what length of chain to put on them.

Maybe I’ll get the hang of that one day.

NOTE:

Use a charcoal block – here – to make the silver balls. This is the only way I’ve found to make consistently round balls. Other blocks tend to make little flat plops of silver that just don’t look as good.

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Happening stuff

I’ve been adding new pieces of jewelry to my Tictail shop.

I’m quite pleased with Tictail. It’s easy to use and I think it looks nice. So far not many sales so I guess I’d better get my act together and take my chicken boots off and start handing out business cards. I was going to ask to leave some at the hairdressers this morning, but accidentally, on purpose, left them at home.

No hope for me yet.

But, I did send out postcards :)

I think they came out pretty good.

If you need some you can get them from vistaprint

I’ve haven’t seen one in person yet, but you can put the addresses on the card along with the postage which saves a lot of fussing and post officing later.

I’ve always worried about my photographs, but think they’re definitely getting better.

Oh the burdens of being a perfectionist …

I’ve also been working on some rack cards which are longer. I’ve been thinking of leaving them in shops for wholesale, but I haven’t quite got my head around the wholesale thing yet so I keep procrastinating.

They’re pretty much the same, but I thought I could get more information on the back.

I don’t know, I might just stick with the postcards.

So that’s what I’ve been up to.

That and finishing the quilt.

I think I’ve got about 36 stitches to go then I’m done. I’ve only been quilting in the evenings, but I’ve been dragging my feet over it a little. It’s still in time for Christmas though so I consider that a success :)

I also was just able to send $2,000 to Care for the Philippines. So I’m pleased about that.

Oh, and I’ve also been working on my mailing list.

Like a big girl.

HERE

It’s all happening at my house :)

What have you been doing?

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I’ve been.

Revamping my shops.

Sounds impressive to have shops. I almost feel grown up.

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Shop 1

Etsy

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Shop 2

Tictail

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I spent a lot of time yesterday trying to set up a website, other than Etsy, or Tictail, from which I could sell my jewelry. I already have my own domain website, which I’ve created myself using I Web, which Mac doesn’t support hosting anymore, but is still available to me as a template designer. I use Go Daddy for hosting that.

Wow, it almost sounds as if I’m website savvy. Believe me when I tell you – I’m not.

Here’s my website.

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Mac Version

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I really like the freedom I have with the Mac. I can do almost anything with it, I have control of how it looks, AND it’s idiot friendly, but although I have access to PayPal shopping carts, etc., it’s a pain in the you know where to add a cart to each and every item on these particular templates. I’m still working on it, and am determined to figure out how I can have it my way, (always stubborn, I know), but for now this website is pretty much just a portfolio.

Insert disappointed sad face here.

Etsy is great. It’s easy to use, using their posting and insurance services is a cinch, but it’s huge and I feel lost there, and although it’s only 20 cents per item to list, it all adds up and I want that money to go to my charities.

Another sad face.

I’ve looked at Squarespace, which looks great, but I’m not ready to spend $8 a month as I’m such a small fry right now.

Wix, which doesn’t look as great.

WordPress ecommerce templates, which never got back to me when I signed up for their free trial.

And yesterday, omg! Shopify. This is the one I wanted – here. Let’s just say that I don’t have a hair left on my head.

I opened up my Tictail shop maybe a year ago, but wasn’t sure about it as it was new, and just looked so low key behind the scenes that it somehow didn’t seem right to me. The themes are limited to about five, or were when I joined. But I found one that is crisp, clean and really quite nice looking. And it’s free. Great for a beginner like me. But I still wasn’t sure.

I couldn’t set up sales tax just for Texas, and got worried about that, but then I found out that it wasn’t my fault (forums are a wonderful thing) and that they just hadn’t got around to doing that yet.

Paypal worried me. I had a friend buy something to check it out, and then refunded her, but she never got the money back. It’s still lurking around somewhere in the depths of the Paypal vaults. I think.

Or is it?

So that freaked me out a bit, I mean what if that happened to a real person.

(Sorry J, I know you’re real too).

Also, I’d have to use a third party for shipping insurance unless I was prepared to charge mega bucks for posting internationally with insurance from the usual suspects. But Shipsurance seems easy enough to use. I just haven’t tried it out yet.

With all that I’ve been ignoring Tictail.

But after yesterday and the whole Shopify drama, I decided to give Tictail another chance. So we’re dating again.

To be honest selling my jewelry freaks me out. I get all het up nervous about doing something wrong, and worse, not living up to the buyer’s expectation.

I feel anxious just telling you about it here.

Where’s that SuperChicken outfit when you need it?

Well I’m not going to worry about it. Tictail and I have kissed and made up, and I’m just going to leave it at that. I just hope it doesn’t mind too much that I two time it with Etsy.

Gosh these relationships are hard.

Now I’ve got to stop worrying about that, and start feeling sorry for myself because I have to clean the house.

My dad’s coming from England tomorrow to visit for a couple of weeks, AND next week my sister’s coming! So the shops will have to be put on the back burner for now.

Blood is thicker than water as they say, and family first, right?

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If you’re looking for an online shop, go check out Tictail and let me know what you think.

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I’ve been

Listing new things on Etsy.

Man it’s long work.

I also put something new on Tictail but I’m not sure anyone really goes to look at that.

Now I feel like this.

I think I’ll go play with a cat.

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