Glow and QnA

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!
I DID IT! I GOT THE MUDDAFOOKIN SPARROW GLOW!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally. It's a combo of the 'multiply' and 'screen' layers on photoshop elements. Phew.
Check it, bitches:

Autosmartfix, then lower saturation if needed, then layers, then multiply and screen then mess with opacity, then merge layers...  Something like that.

Katy, it makes me very happy to know my vocab is so uselessly florid and convoluted as to not be instantaneously understood. Means I'm fancy.

From wikipedia:
"Tetanus is often associated with rust, especially rusty nails, but this concept is misleading. Objects that accumulate rust are often found outdoors, or in places that harbor anaerobic bacteria, but the rust itself does not cause tetanus nor does it contain more C. tetani bacteria. The rough surface of rusty metal merely provides a prime habitat for a C. tetani endospore to reside, and the nail affords a means to puncture skin and deliver endospore into the wound."

As for how to search reserves, just put the buyer's name in the 'handmade' search. Since seller's put RESERVED FOR X in the title... etc. Some don't but, you get a good idea anyways.

Also, it's taking me a while to mail off the rest of the giveaway prizes. Since they're overseas and stuff, I gotta get my ass to the post office an I don't have a car... I should go to the UPS store... For things I sell, I always use priority boxes. But 2 of the winners are overseas and priority for that is $13... hurts me in my cheaps.

What else, oh, we're allowed to say we don't like things here. In this female-centric society of craftblog/etsy, people are crazy polite about each other's feelings, and I think that's sweet and great, but I'm a teeny bit more thick skinned... especially about a video I didn't even make. Though I did think it was funny as all hell. Didj'all notice the dude's shirts? I loved the fugly shirts.

To make up for the creepy video, I bring you, straight from the cuteporters over at cuteoverload, momma red panda picking up baby.Click photos for cute-hance.
Swing:

Well, now if you now need to get the saccharine taste outcher mouth, here's a free and printable pdf for a 12-page booklet of horrifyingly creative profanities, brought to you by the readership of regretsy.com.

These are all details of the ever-growing pile of amber/brown pile. From the last set of darker piles. They've gone from 'stacks' to 'piles' b/c I can't keep them in stack formation anymore.

Imna go list all these after some grub.

Things and stuff.

Hey all. What a pleasure got some new commenters in the last 2 posts. Welcome, ladies.
The bracelet stacks are your average bracelet bangles you see anywhere, carol with a little 'c'. If you can fit into bangles you'd buy at Target or Walmart, they fit. I make the beaded and wrapped ones by holding them up to the 'filler' ones that I get off etsy or ebay.
The last lot I got were:

For $3.49 a pop plus shipping for 20 or so.

<--And I paint-brushed them with Jax Pewter Black.
And that's how I get things old and crusty, Carol with a big 'C'. (There's a total of 59 Carols reading this blog. I counted.) Also, non-plated metal is best. Gold plated is OK, but silver plated in horrible. Bare copper is kinda hard, brass is easy but steel is by far the easiest to oxidize. Steel is such a slut. Though if you're new to oxidizing, Novacan is cheaper and less intense-->
I gotta put a FAQs page link on my sidebar. I get asked this every other post! What else should I put? A disclaimer saying I'm not a male Chinese peasant from the 1800s? Ummm... for the question of where I get my stuff a link to etsy 'vintage' and 'supplies' and a tourist site for Uruguay? No, really. I'm asking.

Oh, I also never toss away any remaining oxidizer in the cap. I look around for absolutely anything to slap it on. This stuff is pure gold to me, gold I tell ya! So, this means there's rust dust all over everything in the studio. So when I mess around with fabrics and stuff, inevitably they get grunged up, too. See how that works out? Also, I'm fast and I make my sloppiness work for me. Of course, I'm going back and correcting a lot. I obsess over details. But the fast-n-sloppy produces that spontaneous je-ne-sais-what. Anywho, it gives me time to obsess over details, undo everything and do it all over again if need be, that kind of thing.
So I reworked these:
 into these:

(Insert usual crap night photo disclaimer.)

Props to stillpointworks, of course.

Because I'm so massively frustrated with night-time photos in artificial light, nighttime being my prime awake time, I was experimenting in 'going with it' and came up with:

What did I learn? That I'll have to get up before 3 now that winter's coming to Chicago and it starts getting dark at 4pm. Dagnabit.

Below is another peek.

Imna have to seriously wash these. The rust slime got all over the moonstones til they no longer look like moonstones. So there's a downside to my methods. I even removed the muddy cast on the image, it's much worse in reality. But that's why there's Lava soap!
Anywho, as you can see I'm trying out some gem rondelle wrapping. It may be altogether too tidy for me, I dunno.
To sum up... Who wants to make me a FAQs page? I'm tired and its bedtime.


In an unrelated note- these have been un-reserved:

Sorrows Grown Fruitful.

Did you seller gals know you can search for a username on etsy to see how many reserves a person is holding? Hmmmm?

Carlos at age 1, perusing the wine selection.

My sister has the lil' goblins up for the weekend. I sang them the song about the old lady who swallowed the fly and right in the middle, 5-yr-old Carlos turns to his mom (my little sister who I still remember making up songs about boogers with her best friend) and whispers, "That song's kinda inappropriate," making my brain explode from the lols.

Then later, at a sushi restaurant, the 2-yr-old turns to the waitress from her usual position standing on her chain and yells,
                    "I need POON!"
 Meaning a spoon. So bits of my brain go flying everywhere. And now I fall to my knees to thank the god(ess[es]) of ovaries for never granting me fecundity. Phew.

OMFG

OK, I never thought I'd hear anyone say I don't blog enough, but Sparrow said just that last night! Or convoed it. She said I didn't blog enough for her! I was all:

Even though she blogs, like, on the equinox exclusively.

 So here I am, as ordered.

Now that there's no giveaways, it'll proly be all slow and useless around here.

Well, I finally put up these mofos:

Behind the Seal of Sacred Writings.

Do not leave anything that breathes.
I decided to just up and slap a bible quote on this baby. One of those scary ones.


Phantom Limb.
Why do I name all my cuffs Phantom Limb, you ask? Cuz I'm lazy, I answer.


I got like 20 people asking about this guy:
Which makes me ask- what's the magical formula these guys hit upon that other things don't? Cuz I need to exploit it!
I made some more bangle stacks.

These are earthy in an amber/brown color range.

(My usual disclaimer, pictures were taken under crappy artificial light at night.)

Next is a more fancified black and grey set:

These are very big stacks, but to only descent images are close ups of some details.

There's a velvet wrapped piece on the upper right...

Finally, a slightly more colorful stack:

This has some rusty and some blingy.

Next, some earrings. Keeping in mind how much the populace loved the pearly dangles:

 I've been hoarding these pieces of bone (ivory from a piano key?) forever. M'kay, these photos are crap but I'm really in love with those little pieces. Even though ivory-which I'm not sure thesee are- is beyond bad. It's just that they're so teeny and amazingly old looking... aw, screw you! I didn't kill no elephants. And no one's going to see these and be all- 'Let's go elephant hunting!' I also don't believe in Jesus but I use crucifixes all the time. It's more about taking the past as is (as was?) and using it all as fodder for whatever I'm doing. What the hell am I doing?

 And another thing! Anyone out there- you have my permission to copy whatever you see here. Artists are all inspired by the work of other artists. It's all a churning ocean of inspiration and theft. It's all good. Hell, we all say 'bling' and that started as a rap thing. Are we stealing, or does culture just disseminate itself like a living organism?

Rant over. As you were.

These are also things. Look at them. Look at them!

OK. Work's over. Time to gather the family around and share some entertainment.

Call the kids in.

Things thingy things.

Since my giveaway is ending, I'll let you know of another: lizmathews.blogspot.com- but don't go! I don't want any more competition. Speaking of, she has this shop selling these Bone Counting Sticks which are making me pant. But damn, I don't need 150 of them! for $75... I need, like, 10 of them for... um 150 divided by... yo mama.... 

Anyways, here's a new thing:

It's like half a cuff with a closure. Is that photo too dark?  Dang, I just realized I forgot to take a picture of the thing closed...

What else? Oh, I tried to make another no-focal necklace since I've already had queries about it. Instead of being a necklace w/no focal, though, it seems to have become one with, like, 50 small focals. I'm a maximalist, you see.

BTW, I wanna share a tip-"The Lava Bar is the original heavy-duty hand cleaner. Since 1893, do-it-yourselfers, coal miners, and oil rig workers have depended on the power of pumice in Lava to cut through even the toughest grease and grime.

Lava's name was derived from one of its key ingredients-pumice. A by-product of volcanic activity, pumice is used in combination with other cleaning and moisturizing agents to clean and soften even the dirtiest of hands."

My hubs just got me some. His dad's a roofer so he knew about it. Alls I can say is wowza. If you live your life with oxidation-crap-covered hands, you need this. Also, lately I've been painting- and who has the patience for brushes? Though it also works on brushes!

No, not painting paintings, just painting beads. Thus, paint all over the hands. Thus the Lava soap.
 I do recommend painting if you need elements of a certain color. I painted 2 of these chains:

Well, they're behind the neck... But as you can see, this is a lariat. 

And here's a cuff. A full cuff.

So, as for the winner of the final giveaway. I liked Brittany's comment the most because they are the kinds of things I could actually put on a listing. However, I have to reward Chelsea for A- commenting on almost every post, B- giving me the craftopolis 'edit express' tip that's already making my life easier, and, C- The eagerness with which she answered the query with such impossible-to-work-into-one-of-my-listings as the fact that cats are allergic to lilies, or that cow hearts make extra noises. Those datum are interesting... If I ever make a cow-heart-themed or cat-allergy-themed piece, I'll totally go with that. OK, that sentence took a sarcastic turn. It really was interesting. So etsyconvo me so's you can gimme your address.

Brittany- etsyconvo me so I can give you a coupon. Cuz I'm gonna steal the crap out of your ideas. "Pillars of Star Creation" totally sounds like the name of a piece I'd make. Piece o' what? Piece o' yo mama. (I wanna see if I can work at least 2 'yo mama's into each blog post. We all need goals.)

I haven't listed any of these yet. I'm way too lazy right now. I think da pims is coming back. Again.
Are these pictures too dark? When I do layers everything turns out so dark.

The eye connectors and hoops here are, of course, the incomparable stillpointworks.