13 new things

Thanks so much for all the comments, I love you guys!  
Lord of the Stars.
And don't worry, I'm not changing the way I blog. The blog got two thumbs up. If anything, I'm making my listings more like my blog, OK?

Hear me, Lord of the Stars!
For thee I have worshipped ever
With stains and sorrows and scars,
With joyful, joyful endeavor.

-Aleister Crowley

Chthonic- concerning or inhabiting the underworld
And idk, that's hard for me. I can babble all I want here but in the shop, where I'm supposedly trying to convince people to buy something, I suddenly clam up. I'm like, "I dunno, get it if you want it, I'm not gonna twist your arm, jeez."

What is that about guys? This reticence to show real enthusiasm for what I do when I clearly am super enthusiastic about what I do. I've always had this problem.

Natural Philosophy. 
Is it some kind of intelligensia-class distaste for anything to do with commerce?
Or unwillingness to pimp myself? Insecurity?  Massive laziness?

D) All of the above.
Idk, here's some stupid bracelets.

Uxorious.

And look at them, they're not stupid at all they're awesome.





And while some commenters said if my approach to my shop ain't broke don't fix it, I think it is broke.




Ouranus.
I mean, I should be able to charge more for stuff and have it sell, that's what's broken.

Circumlunar.
I've had people say they don't charge more for their own things because "If fanci only charges X, little ol' me certainly can't charge Y."

Telegnosis.
That means I'm fucking things up for all of us and that sucks.

There's an undervaluing of our kind of art and us the makers doing it means the shoppers will do it for sure.

Blushing Apex.
So yeah, I'm trying to change stuff so that I can confidently charge more, is pretty much it. We'll see how that goes.

Mutagenic Symbiont.
Can we all just stop and look at these earrings? I'm obsessed with them. I took forever to color them, changing out colors by actually penciling over other colors repeatedly until the previous color just gave up the fight agains the newer color.  Like, many times.
I loved making these beads with shipwreck because polymer takes sooo many steps to make look descent and when someone's already taken care of the first half, you sort of enthusiastically put in tons of time without getting frustrated that you're throwing your life down the drain or whatever.
Here's what I'm working on with the rest of these beads. Not quite done yet but I couldn't wait to share cuz I'm freaking out about these stupid beads!!!!! Looooook at them!!! Now look at them some more. Now write me a comment that I'm not crazy they really are that cool. Thank you.

Ganesha.
Check out my smelli-phants. Squee!!! See, see how one of them is off-white with a brown dangle and the other is brown with an off-white dangle? And yes, yes the dangle represents their giant testicles. So that's what you'd be wearing if you bought this.
I hadn't thought they were anything like testicles until just now I thought of the term "under-dangle" to describe them. So yeah. See why I'm not good at promoting myself?

Otiose.
Here's a very found-object type one and I think it's just adorbs. Look at that spotted olive bead. I have no idea where it came from or what it is but I LOVE it.

Why do I have trouble admitting that, yes, I absolutely love everything I make. They're all my babies.

Azoth.

Here's the weirdest one of the pack. The stitched bits were more gifts from shipwreck. The top wonky beads were a co-effort. I know it looks a bit like an alien artifact but, again, I just love it.

Epicedium.
And this smaller one with the whole Victorian-tribal balance on point.

I also make this sweet baby for Teapotsandtelephones to say thanks for all the gifts, with the two elements from the hoard that she most wanted to keep- enameled bee clip-on earrings and links from the Kuchi necklace.

And I used the amazing decals she sent to embellish this mop piece and old tape measure. I don't know what to do with them from here but aren't they awesome?
Other sides...

And I put the sterling ear wire option up on all the earrings.

 I even found time to break my own heart while making this cute piece. It's one of those old toys where you try to get the little balls into the indents at the little chef's eyes.

When gluing the edge of the "glass" down, (because I saw water was seeping in) I managed to glue the two little steel balls in place. To get them out I'd have to ... drill a hole into the edge and pry them off somehow? I also got the top all cloudy. I want to cry. I'll probably keep this nearby until I can face the fact that I did, in fact, ruin it and there's no hope.





Lets have a moment of silence for the necklace that never was.

Humanity's Dilemma.
Plus I'm sloooowly retaking item photos against my new background ...

Gaudiloquent.
... and re-writing the listings.

Gratulation.
Plus I'm trying to be more co-ordinated between my shop, blog and Instagram.

Frabjovus.
So far response has been positive.

Recondite.
Now for a long nap.
Look at my parent's dumb little cats! They're so happy cuz the folks were in Cali for a week and now they're back and they're just so happy. Sleeping together without fighting. Mr. Devices and I were taking care of them and Bingo didn't like the time spent away from him.
My old dog has gone deaf you guys, it's strangely adorable.

Now watch this Koala cry like a baby after being kicked out of his favorite tree.

An if you're about to tell me Koalas aren't cute then SHUT IT.

(You know who you are, I'm not about to say your name so as not to incur the wrath of the entire Internet.)

ALL mammals are amazing. They say things like Swiggity Swooty.

Did I tell y'all the other day my 6 year-old niece said, "I like this question mark it's sorta swaggy."
And I just sat there going, "Did you just say- did you- did you just-..." Like that for five minutes.

A Fresh New Voice

So I'm super excited to share with y'all the shake ups I've been shaking up here at fanfuldevices. (Right after we take a moment to admire this juicy-ass necklace right here. Damn.)

Luminous Night.
If you go to my shop's about page, shop announcement and listings, you're going to hear a whole new voice from what I used before. Basically, my girl Penny of SparrowSalvage is helping me meld together the spaz I am here with the pretentious, autistic, minimalist, I-don't-know-what voice I was using in my shop.

Even my section names are just straight forwards now. And instead of coming up with clever quotes and stuff for the listings, I'm focused more on describing each element in detail, much more like I sometimes do here, really letting out my excitement for each piece. Telling its story and showing it off more.

Bluebell’s Ring. 
Like here, that ring is torch enamel from RomAntiqueSoul- isn't it awesome? The dangle on the left I made in collaboration with shipwreckdandy, isn't that awesome? All the links are soldered together and everything glows- isn't it awesome?


Basically streamlined everything to be more SEO friendly (like she specifically told me which tags to use) and just more... me.  
Sister Moon.
And the photos! She's been helping me a lot with those too. As you can see- sexy new background. I had an old printer's tray that I washed in black acrylic and voila, problem solved. (Although thank you Kirsten Jakobsen for suggesting slate in the comments section. I actually had a big slab of slate somewhere and that would be a really good background.)



Also been learning from Sparrow not to obsess over tiny little flecks and stuff. Like here, above, that big scratch mark in the middle of the necklace would've driven me crazy before and I would've spent ten minutes getting rid of it. Now I'm letting it be. Though I still obsess over tiny white flecks that appear everywhere I photograph but I'm trying to get over it.

←Check it, I used one of my faux druzies here and idk, I think it looks awesome.
Chronos.
She's also advised me to take bigger pictures, which meant getting a memory card for my camera for the first time ever, like a grown up.

And now my images are big enough to print into a book or pamphlet or portfolio if I ever wanted to do that.


Tectonic. 
[Check out this freaking bracelet though. Kuchi between two crocheted connectors by shipwreckdandy, wow. Also, vintage button solder-pinned (I made up that term) to textured copper. Double wow. Ancient archeological find button clasp. I really like how this turned out I don't know if you can tell.]


Golden Roses.
I even got a mouse after struggling with that damned track pad for months, and I purchased the latest version of Photoshop Elements. Not that I think 14 is a huge improvement over the version 6 I was using, but my version wasn't very happy in the new computer and kept shutting down.

Addendum.
PHEW! Like, this is my career and I'm not poor so it's time to loosen the immigrant-raised-by-socialists pursestrings and buy some basic stuff, sheesh.

Clay Underfoot.
In that vein, I'm going to be making all sterling silver ear wires now cuz why not. L'oreal tells me I'm worth it. I got a load of 21 gauge sterling eye pins to give myself a head start on that.

Sky Fire.
Though I haven't set it up yet, I'm going to make an option using the etsy 'variations' feature where you can switch out the lever backs to sterling hooks for an additional maybe $4 or so.
Havisham.
Should I just oxidize everything or make oxidizing an option?

Frostfell.
Nah, screw it. You come to fanci D's, you be ready for some oxidized metals, son. (I'd like to see the day when I address potential buyers as "son" in my listing descriptions.*guffaw*)

Blazing Unnatural Light.
Oh so another thing I did is to re-take a lot of pictures using the new background and more help from Sparrow.

Crepuscule.
Cuz people need to know how freakin' pretty my makies are.

Brume.
Especically the stuff in my last batch with that awful rubber mat background. I need to retake all of those.

Euphonia.
So far I have some done and already my shop is looking way sexier.

Sundrops.
Like, look at the dimension in these images.

Mask of Divinity.
Looks like you could reach right in and pick them up.

Tartarus.
I sold this one already right after updating the images. Look at this odd little creation, this little character I made. Great googly moogly I love making things.

So the first step in this shop facelift was a report Sparrow made for me in which she explained exactly what I was doing right and what needed fixing and WHY. Like, why her solutions made sense. And she held my hand through the whole process.
It was so cool to have someone just tell me specifically what needed doing to take my online presence to the next level in a way that was tailored to me, to where I was, and not just general advice you get from, say, the etsy seller handbook or even courses and ebooks which you can find out there for $300-900.
Anyways, she's selling this service right here. No she hasn't asked me to promote it here, I just wanted to share, like I share everything. Now, my cheap self, this is exactly the kind of thing I would never have bought if I just saw this listing. My choice came after I realized I was so burnt out writing descriptions and she said yeah you could tell that. In the descriptions.
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Today in honor of Wee Wee, the piglet that was saved from a blizzard in Maryland by this nice family over the weekend, we're doing pig gifs.


Did I ever tell you guys I have a neighbor nearby who owns a pixie pig and walks it around like a dog?

And he grunts all happily and snuffles its crazy snout into your hand. He wags his tail like a dog and 
tries to make friends with the other dogs which are sometimes terrified and sometimes don't even notice.

And every time I've seen him- which have been heartbreakingly few- I just sit on the ground with this stupid expression on my face as he does his grunting and snuffling and tail wagging at me, the ground, and other dogs. Just sit there until the woman is all awkwardly, "Ok, time to go back home..."