A Sale!- Here Lie Sleeping Dragons (coral)

After a bit of a lull in business, I was pleased to sell these smokin' little beauties!

After finally getting a dedicated work space for my jewelry as well as a storage cabinet, I was able to finally clear out my aging and groaning toolbox. At the bottom, I discovered an extremely large coil of heavy sterling silver wire that I'd completely forgotten about that was just ITCHING to be used in all manner of lovlies.

I found that it was especially suitable for hammering into beautiful organic shapes, hence the Here Lie Sleeping Dragons series.

These coral beauties are on their way to their new home!

Digging For Treasuries

Treasuries on Etsy are rather like busses. You won't find yourself in one for AGES, and then your lovelies will turn up in three at once! Many thanks again to Kanka, Paisley and Cerra for including me in their beautiful lists.

As well as being featured, I managed to snag my own Treasury West. (The main Treasury seems to be terminally crowded these days.)

The Garden Under My Skin

Sometimes I get pretty excited about pieces that I churn out.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I went to get some new ink. I'm going to be that mother at PTA meetings that all of the other mothers talk behind their hands about. Well, I can still make brownies, bitches, having a big descending swallow on my back isn't going to change that. At any rate, I added a new flower tattoo on my ankle in the shape of a traditional cherry blossom with some added scrolly bits and leaves thrown into the bargain.

Since making a bird pendant earlier in the week, I felt like going for another big, bold shape and thought my tat would be a great pattern to work from.

My daughter obliged with a long-ish nap this afternoon allowing me to get the whole piece almost entirely finished except for the polishing, which, unfortunately, I have to complete in my in-law's garage so that I don't splatter the walls of our first floor flat with incredibly stain-y polishing rouge. It turned out so lovely and shiny, I was tickled as pink as the coral bead.

Check it out here.

Drilling For Common Sense

Let's face it; tools are pretty boring. I grew up in a house with a father who was adept at using all manner of frightening implements that he used to build miraculous things, like our house. But the weekly trips to lumber yards or home centres had me looking around for ways to kill myself. However, tools become a good deal less boring when one has need of them, so a few weeks ago, I bought my first power tool, a Proxxon Precision Drill/Grinder FBS 240/E.

What that means, I'm not totally sure. I can't give you specs, because I don't know them. All that I care about it that it drills very small holes, which it what I need it to do. It might have the capability of doing my taxes too, but hole drilling is all I'm really interested in.

I invested in the drill first, sensibly deciding to wait until next pay period to order the stand that it fits in. But, having a new toy in a box without playing with it became too great a temptation this morning and I set about testing the thing out.

I thought, "Who needs a bloody drill stand anyhow?"

Well, apparently /I/ do. After the fine drill bit that I knew in my heart was a bad choice for free hand drilling broke off and pinged across the garage into the unknown, taking the piece of silver I'd be drilling with it, I trudged upstairs, went back to the Proxxon site and sheepishly ordered the drill stand and a replacement bit.

It seems that my Proxxon Precision Drill/Grinder FBS 240/E is not the only tool in the house.

Excuse My Dust

I've been lucky enough in the past week or so to get not one, but TWO lovely treasuries.

The first, entitled, "The Book Thief" in homage to one of my new favorite reads, featured book and text themed items of all sorts.



The second was to feature some of the lovely ladies of the UK Sellers group and their items in "the Secret Life of Flowers".



Rather than working on new items during The Prawn's morning nap, I had a play with my new light box that I spent Saturday morning building. The light is much more diffuse and not as harsh, allowing for much better and more controlled photography. I haven't tried yet with artificial lighting, but it definitely makes photographing in glorious sunlight MUCH easier!

In addition I've been trying to implement some of the fixes that folks kind enough to critique my shop have recommended, including photography, re-listing and changes to my banner and avatar, so there's still a bit of dust around and more still to come, but I'm hoping the work will pay off in sales!

Tempest in a Teapot Necklaces

Four new necklaces have just popped up in the shop in time for the warm weather and increasingly barer necks and shoulders!

At the moment, I'm working on the Etsy UK Team's May challenge, which is "Space", so expect some celestial creations in the near future!