Fresh Glass 11.23

I've decided to try and have my annual trunk show... gee, I guess I should start promoting it! I've had two intense days on the torch, trying to fill orders. The Jaunty hatted snowmen are repeats / requests. The first one had mean bead release and he ended up a two parter...

Also in this batch, 2 pair of bellflower earring sets. I really hate the Jupiter glass didn't strike on the ribbed disk. I reannealed them with the bellflowers and they look much better. There is a tree parts 3 piece set, and three pieces of snowmen tiles... ran out of time to make his hat! And an aventurine earring pair for good measure.

Fresh Glass 9.30.15

More experiments: More Double Helix... the red set was for a custom order. The two most prominient barrels were DH's striking color. The one on the left was in the kiln an hour longer.

Homeless Beads Placed In Good Homes!

I haven't done a bead post in a while... Life has been crazy...just running all the time. But, today is a torch day! Whooo Hooo!

I finally broke down and took apart the only MASSIVE set I've ever made... These are from rare / extinct z99 glass and the set was so large, I had it prices around $150... well, selling off the parts, I should make even more money. But it breaks my heart that they are all slowly going to separate homes... 

I called this set 'One Shade of Grey.' LOL:

 

 I've done several remakes on this one:

 

Still Selling in the Facebook Groups! 

Earrings Galore

I was thinking I would show off some earrings I made from when I created a "Year of Earrings" ... colors of earring pairs for each month of the year. And Whaddya KNOW?? I never shared them here! Aiyiyi!!!   Oh well!

But here's some earrings from those sets:

7.31.14 Fresh Glass

I was in a horrible mood yesterday...best not to torch when my head is off. So I took a break and paid commissions and taxes for the quarter.  But hit the torch again this morning! MUCH better day!

This set was made on Sunday... I "thought" someone had asked for a remake of this... I was wrong. So, they'll get worked into the Facebook rotation. I broke one of the ovals taking it off the mandrel yesterday! See?? Good thing I didn't torch!

There's still a bunch of active listings on Facebook. Links on my fan page. Don't forget to comment on the post to enter the drawing!

Memorial Beads: Mabel Lou

I wrote about my beloved Mabel Lou's funeral over on Creekhiker but thought I would do a post here just sharing the beads. We had a hiking funeral for her with all her favorite people and most of her favorite canine friends.

 

Mabel Lou

I made Memorial Beads for everyone in attendance at the funeral, an extra to send my mom and a few extras "just in case" as I had put off making them until the last possible day! I used temperamental Clio and a variety of under glasses to try and make pink beads... and this is what I got:

 

At first I was really upset that they didn't come out all pink like I wanted, but after just sitting with them for a while, I started to see our sky and river and the amazing sunsets we have. 

 

 The creek / wilderness where Mabel and I hiked every single day.

And I guess, they look the way Mabel Lou wanted them to look. All the friends got to pick theirs. 

I was so distraught, I forgot to take pics of the clean beads! So these were all taken as they were being worn. 

		From L-R, Top-Bottom: Atilla's Dad, Hank n Sue's Mom, Chloe's Dad, The Rottrover, Bart's Mom.

And these are the ones I ended up with:

 I chose this heart for me because of the little hole where Mabel's ashes came through.

The funny thing about these beads...they pick up what ever color I wear. The Rottrover Mom has told me the same. She's worn hers  with teal, purple, ivory and pink... and her bead works with all. I've worn mine with denim, aqua, olive, brown, pink, orange and black... and they just seem to be versatile enough work with whatever I put on! Besides the fact my Baby Lou is with me...they are some of my all time faves!

Another view, reversed,  against the sky:

Custom Work

Now that tax time if finally put to bed, I'm having to catch up on my custom work.

I sold  a seashell on Lampwork Beads For Sale. My customer wanted me to wire wrap it. Here it is, ready to go:

 

My college bestie's daughter, who I've known since she was a few weeks old, asked me to make a pendant for her best friend. The girls are into the virtual reality game SIMS and wanted a "plumb bob" which is green when a player is active in the game. This is a little simple for my tastes but the girlie seems happy with it:

 

 I also got to torch a bit and made some prototypes for a memorial glass bead and one little kitty cat. You'll get to see those soon..

 

Bracelet Fix

I've been busy with taxes, custom orders, a new job and my mother coming to visit and all the cleaning that entails! But I thought I would share a quick post on a not-so recent order. I sold this bracelet to a blogger buddy at my August trunk show.

 

I always list the sizes of my bracelets and my friend liked a looser fit than this one had. She asked me to resize it. Here are the measurements before on a bracelet sizing cone... this is one handy apparatus if you make bracelets!

 The original was just shy of 7" and my friend needed 7 1/4". When designing a bracelet, I never like to put really bulky beads at the back of the design. I find I have a hard time taking notes or writing or typing, so I added some 6mm crystals to the back of the piece. Of course the whole thing had to be re-strung to make it even.

This bracelet has a sturdy magnetic clasp. I live alone and just love  a clasp that I can close by myself! Here it is after the addition:

For my last trunk show, I left a few bracelets with one end un-crimped so it would be easier and less wasteful to adjust.

Resizing is a PITA but...it's also great customer service.

Fresh Glass 2.3.14 Ebay Auction

This is some of what has been keeping me busy. Not much of a haul but keep in mind, bellflower presses get HOT and I can only make a few per session.

I have a new auction up on ebay ending a few days. My strategy there is to ask the lowest price I will take for a bead (including feebay fees!)....NOT what I hope it would go for... I never have a bidding war so best to just ask what I want....

There's a few other close outs up there as well as myriad of crafts and collectibles...

Thanks as always for l@@king! I so appreciate your support!

Custom Work Keeping Me Busy

Good Morning! My wire work class at Glendale College was AWESOME this past Saturday! Everyone got it and made a lovely bracelet and earrings! It was such a fun group! And none had tried wire before! Eight new wire workers out in the world now!

 

These custom boobie pendants went to Sweden!

My 2nd bakery show was a bust. Zero sales. I had pre-arranged to sell an earring display, so by the time I paid my breakfast / lunch tab, I had a profit of $8. Well, I always thought my stuff was a little to ritzy for this area. But it was January...people are in shock paying off Christmas. There was almost NO promotion this time. It was cloudy and breezy. We had one less vendor so the sidewalk didn't look as full. I left early because my sinuses were killing me. It was an experiment. C'est la vie! I know I'm going to busy with weekend classes for the next several months so maybe I'll try again before Mother's Day.

I still feel good about it. I always share the show with the fan page for our local paper. This time, they showed up and took pics! And, asked me to write about my Memorial Glass Beads! So that's really good!

 Scenes from the Bakery Show

And I made significant progress on a bracelet I've been doodling with for years! 

I still have a couple of custom orders to wrap up and I'm waiting and waiting for the next steps in my "real job hunt." I'm told I just need the final hiring appointment but... no word as to when that will be. 8-/

Vino Love

I FINALLY finished a customer order for Bar-ware I've had on the books since November! It's been so hard not being able to torch while working on the job hunt!

I really like how this one came out. Same colors as my Uptown Girl Series. The bead reads "Vino Love" and there are heats for the "o" letters and tiny heart dotting the "i" in Vino. Another heart between the L and e... in love.

My customer also wanted a dichroic floral and the tiger bead with just for play.

Very happy to be catching up on work... I hate to keep customers waiting. But then, if I had more customers... I wouldn't be job hunting.... sigh.

Fresh Glass Beads 8.14.13

I have decided that with the glass bead skills I do have... Ok, not easy for me to brag but I think I rock the huge silver glass focals and the loooong skinny bead...there is simply NO reason on Earth that I shouldn't be able to master stripes! So I worked and worked on it yesterday.

I will be blogging about stripes soon... and I FINALLY have a decent version of the leaf for the business logo I was asked to do... Whew!

Boobie Charm

A customer asked me for a boobie glass bead charm as a gift for a lactating coach. What a great use for the "odd boobs" in my collection! (I make MANY to create matching pairs and sometimes have between 5 and 10 in any one color that don't make a pair! I know; picky picky!)

 I really love how they came out and ended up creating a made to order listing on Etsy for them!

Silly Me

Do you ever feel like you are in some perpetual classroom of life... that there are always lessons to be learned? I do. I never seem to feel like, "I got this. I KNOW what I'm doing." No, there is always a lesson and sometimes I don't like it.

Such is the case with this bead:

The Blue Goddess

She was commissioned on Etsy (really, do I need to say more? My thoughts on the value of Etsy drop almost daily!) by a survivor. I made SEVERAL beads...first wrongly assuming that the customer wanted pink flowers. I've since learned that many breast cancer warriors come to hate the color pink. But pink is one of those moody colors that does NOT play nice with ivory.

She was also the first customer that wanted a flower and a CZ... I finished the piece. I think she's lovely. And I sent pics... weeks went by, then months. No response to several emails. 

I know, I know...you are wondering why I didn't get a deposit. I make these beads in honor of my sister. They are so personal to me and, like my cremains beads... they touch my heart. And while it is a lot of work to make a bead with cremains...much prep goes into those, these really are "just a bead*!"  There is no excessive prep time, so I do what I always do with custom work. I make a few and hope the customer likes one enough to buy it. 

So maybe I should ask for a few bucks deposit...but I hate the bookkeeping that goes with refunds and Paypal keeps their cut no matter what... sigh.

But that leads me to Lesson #2: I rarely share beads anywhere but my Fan Page. Even though I'm a member of MANY bead groups on Facebook. I don't know why... I hate to feel like I'm spamming friends?? But I did share this bead yesterday and... as I started writing this post, it sold! Wow!

I HAVE to get better at promoting my work... sigh... Any suggestions? What's YOUR best promo tip???

{Update 7/15 - *This phrase hit a nerve. I didn't mean to imply that I don't value my work. I was only saying that as the goddesses are a basic bead with very little prep compared to the work that goes into a cremains based bead. Hence, I didn't feel I needed to ask to a deposit}

Fresh Glass 1/7

Not my first glass beads of the year...just the first I remembered to photograph. Sigh... so hard to get back into a routine after the hollydays!

Lots of alphabet beads and three metallic kissed rounds...

Stretchin'

My last few torch sessions have been a lesson for me in what I can do.  Sometimes a customer makes a request and my first instinct is.. "I can't do that."

And then I stew on it for a bit... grousing about the lost work...wondering what people see in my art that makes them think I can do anything...feeling like I have no skills at all.

Months can go by. Then one day, it just hits me.

"Try it," that little voice whispers.

"But I can't, " I whine.

"Just try. See what happens... you never know," it pleads.

"NO!" I argue.

"TRY IT!!!" it screams.

And so it goes until it hits me at just the right time.

One customer asked me to make a cross. I've never made one; don't have the commercial press that is available for crosses. And that voice said, "How did they make them before there were presses?"

I gave a surprisingly technical answer! Which made me realize, I DO know how to make a cross. And so I did. I loved it! Unfortuantely, my hiking buddy called just as I was fire polishing and ... it cracked. But, I know I can do it... and I can do it again!

The other bead someone inspired me to stretch and create was a small, TINY version of my breast cancer goddess beads. I simply told her...I don't do small beads. Then I was making scads of boobies for a custom order last week. I got distracted and added WAY too much glass to the mandrel. Normally, I will pick small amounts off to deal with volume control issues. But it was a bit too much for that. So I started to think about what I could make with that smallish blob of ivory on my mandrel.

And there was that voice again, "Try it!"

So with nothing to lose but time, I tried a small goddess! And she's so cute!

She is for sale, made to order, in my Etsy shop.

I'm very thankful for customers that push me to try new things. They are a tremendous asset when my muse is otherwise occupied!

Next

So, in the aftermath of discovering glass bead "artists" selling their work for Chinese wages, what's next???

Well, the truth is I don't know. I've spent most of the last several weeks deeply depressed. It's not just that beads aren't selling...jewelry isn't either. At least not the high end stuff that I love to make beads for.

Pendants that were for part of a custom order

Midas Wages & Walmart Shoppers

I lost my best repeat customer this year. After buying my beads and those of many other artisan beadmakers for years, she started selling her jewelry. Make that... attempting to sell.


While I found her jewelry designs to be some of the most unique, fun, edgy and amazing stuff I've ever seen... the way she combined materials would blow my mind... within weeks, she found her prices being criticized.

Mind you, she was using huge glass bead focals that run around $50 bucks and usually a nice set costing $50 - $60 in her work, adding in antique beads, fine metal findings and not to mention her precious time designing. I felt in the end she was only recouping her costs plus maybe an hour of her time at a fair wage, which, considering the cost of her materials, she should have been charging MORE.

But many told her they would only be willing to pay $30 - $50 for one of her gorgeous necklaces! Even when she explained the quality of the materials used, the opinion was still the same. So what did she do??? She shut down her Etsy shop, packed up all her beads and supplies and gave them to a friend!

This was supposed to be fun... a way to relieve stress and maybe make a little money. Not a thing to cause stress and be criticized!

Doesn't that just seem to sum up the times we live in? Everyone wants to be paid like King Midas but we all want that deal.

 The gorgeous "Barbie Bead" was also part of that custom order

The Get It Cheaper Effect

Have you ever thought about how Walmart sells for less??? It's not simply that they buy in volume...no, they manipulate in volume. Michael's does something similar which is how they can afford those 40% off coupons. Walmart goes to -  say a vacuum company that sells their vacuums wholesale for - say $75 and says to them, "We're going to buy 100,000 of your vacuums but we're only going to pay you $64."

The vacuum company doesn't simply just take a cut on labor...no, they go to each and every supplier: the plastic mold maker, the nuts and screws people,  motor designers and (the scary part for me) the electric cord makers. The vacuum company does the same thing to each of them and says, "I'll take 100K units but, you gotta make it for 13% LESS."

To me, copper wire can only be so thin before it all blows up! As vendors, I'm sure they feel they are giving us a quality product at a great value. But as consumers, don't we all feel it??? Things break more often. The price of bleach goes up and container gets smaller... same with ice cream and sausage!

There is some illusion that things are the same, but they are not.

Color shifting glass beads are some of my faves. Sold this made to order set out of the blue last week!

Make Quality, Make it Better

I think the thing that hurt so much in finding someone I once thought highly of is selling her beads so cheaply is... our beads are the same. No, not the same same... we have different styles. But as first world artisans, the best argument we had against buying cheaper crap was: the glass is not annealed for strength, it will break; the beads are not cleaned and will muck up the the other beads and the stringing material, and often the skills were lacking in Chinese beads.

But with an American artist selling for Chinese wages, when I know she anneals her work and cleans her beads and her skills are just fine... well, it HURTS!

And while I hadn't torched in almost two months thanks to my depression, when I lit up the baby the other day, I was happy. I was excited. So no, I'm not gonna give this up.

As I sat there at the flame, trying two new ideas suggested by customers, I realized my skills had changed. This often happens to me when I'm away from the torch for a while. You would think my skills might deteriorate... but like so many breaks before... I found I was BETTER! My work was more delicate and the glass just flowed... I only made two beads... but they were the two I set out to make and they came out exactly as the vision in my head!

I realized I'm not going to lower my prices and play her game. If someone wants my beads, they better be willing to part with some paper. And isn't it strange how during this time of re-grouping and re-thinking my art, I landed my biggest custom order ever and the biggest order to a customer out of the blue??? Two huge orders just when I need a little validation! Wow!

But Stuff Isn't Selling

Nope it's not... But I'm still not willing to give my work away. I have a bottom line....which has helped form  my plan. I'm not going to list my beads ad infinitum on Etsy, save for made to order designs.  I'm still using them for their powerful SEO and I'm using Facebook and Ebay the same way. From now on, my sales order goes like this:

• Preview on Fan page w/ 10% discount (no listing, html or multiple photos required)
• Regular items to my glass bead website
• Timely / holiday items to Etsy
• Regular items posted to Etsy after time on HollysFolly
• Two - three rotations through Etsy and move on to Ebay
• Items not sold on Ebay = donated to Beads of Courage

If I have to give my beads away, they are going to children and a charity that desperately needs them! Not to people too cheap to pay for quality!  I'm happy about that!

In the Meantime

I still need a job... at least a part time one. I'm terribly torn... my stamp business actually makes money in the fall and I need to be around for all the last minute restaurant orders that fly in! So, I think full time is not going to work. Of course I could always hire someone to pack orders if need be. Having money again would mean I could throw money at my problem...

I have a teaching certificate for grade school. I got it two years ago, just as my school district went through major layoffs and a hiring freeze... my timing is always impeccable...NOT!  But I've started teaching at a nearby town's community center. Driving there, I suddenly realized my little mountain community that is part of Los Angeles, is surrounded by THREE other school districts and they all need subs!

So, I'm polishing up the teaching section of my resume. And I'm also trying to pick up more jewelry design classes at other community colleges and craft / glass shops.

While these last few weeks have been so challenging, I realize I can only be good at what I do. I can't worry about what others do. I have a plan.I can only keep putting one foot in front of the other!


And if you are still with me on this journey... THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

The Fallout

 Dark Waters - Custom order




I had promised an update two weeks ago... and got sidelined by a nasty fever AND a severe tummy ache from recalled almond butter! Oy! What a two weeks it's been!

I was amazed at the outpouring of support for my last post...mostly private... because so many didn't want to post publicly and appear "unsupportive of women." I also was ripped to shreds by many who didn't get the point. I'm always amazed that someone can read an article that has nothing to do with them or their business and still think it's about them.  They can't just read it and think "well, I pay myself a fair wage and account for my materials so this isn't about ME." I also got ripped for using such broad and general language... but I intended to be controversial to make a point. It's just sad to me that people can't read between the lines.

The most common thing said to me is I should try to be more helpful. I shouldn't be so hurtful and call them names. Excuse me but I need a laughter break! REALLY??? Let me see, I work about 18 hours a day running two failing businesses and teaching, looking for a "real" job for four years, taking freelance gigs when they come along. My house is a wreck and the dog needs to be fed and walked daily, as do I. My sister is dying from metastasized breast cancer and my mom is 90. There is so little left at the end of my day and yet, I'm supposed to find time to help IDIOTS who clearly don't care about themselves much less their impact on the marketplace??? WOW!

Let me just say that I didn't become a television producer at the tender age of 30 because I was warm and fuzzy. No, I'm direct as speeding bullet. And the one thing that pisses me off is that, because I am a woman, I am expected / told / ordered to be "softer." What bullshit! If a man gets to the point and says what he thinks, NO ONE says a word. But let a woman do it... I come from a long line of direct women. Women who held "male" positions with national corporations. And the one thing I've learned from these women is that when someone hurts me and my business, I want to punch and HARD... not give someone a hug and thank them for destroying my business.

It just says to me that the people who think this didn't really read the article... there is lots of good pricing info in there...

Bottom line, I write for me. I just do it publicly.  If someone wants to make a tender loving supportive post for women who want to earn less than two bucks an hour, they can do that on their blog.

But on my blog, I call those women, as well as men who don't value their time, stupid. 

I HATE You Vetrofond!

I got a custom order from an Avon Walker...making custom boobie bracelets for the group of ladies she's walking with. She wanted half pink and half ivory. OK... easy peasy... but I quickly discovered I was out of my beloved Vetrofond dark ivory.

I know many bead makers think "Ivory is Ivory." Oh, but it is NOT!  Case in point... These two beads were made with two colors... the only difference being one is Effetre and one is Vetrofond. And, you know it... my favorite is the green which is vetrofond!

But my tale of woe gets worse! I found out Vetrofond is "no longer making rod for beadmakers".... GRRRR! So instead of making nice little perfectly pale tan boobies like these:

 ...they came out like this:

I think they are too pale and kinda anemic looking ( so yes, these are ON SALE! on the Fan Page at the moment)

But at least my customer liked the pink ones...

At least I got the chance to make my customer happy but... I feel so betrayed by a favorite glass maker...