Happy New Year!

I am SO close to releasing a new beadweaving tutorial - it just needs to be proofread. That was on my list for today, but I, well ..... just didn't feel like it. It was one of those rainy, take-a-nap kind of days!

So I will get it taken care of tomorrow, and publish my first tutorial of 2016 sometime tomorrow evening. I'll post here and on Facebook to let everyone know, but here is a sneak peak of ONE of the FIVE bracelets included in the tutorial:

More details tomorrow!

Meanwhile, as I was sitting around doing not much today, reading random forum threads on Etsy, I saw some folks talking about their views from Pinterest (y'all know I have a bit of a Pinterest addiction.....), and one poster commented that she'd had only a handful of views from Pinterest for the whole year, and didn't know if Pinterest was worthwhile. I got curious, because Pinterest is always my #2 source of views, after views from Etsy itself.

Of course, I post on Pinterest because of my little addiction, but...so far in 2015, I have had 4802 views from Pinterest! I wish I had more information ... like a way to know how many of those converted to sales, but I don't.

Anyway - have a fantastic and safe New Year's Eve, and best wishes for 2016!

New Year, New Start

After much deliberation, I have finally decided to move my (fairly) new Etsy Supply Shop over to Zibbet.

For all the bells, whistles, and traffic that Etsy has, I just can't get past a few issues, like the utter disregard for sellers' requests and needs, the lack of customer service (whether seller or buyer), the refusal to deal with obvious resellers, and the cavalier abandonment of the site's founding dedication to handmade. Don't be fooled by their "redefinition" of handmade; Etsy now allows manufactured goods under the guise of handmade.

Zibbet, on the other hand, listens to its sellers. Really! They are ALL about customer service, they swiftly boot resellers, and they remain steadfastly devoted to those whose work is truly handmade.
And as far as the bells and whistles available on Etsy? Well, Zibbet will be rolling out a total rebuild in 2014: New Year, New Start!

One small example of how they listen to sellers? They created a brand new category (handmade supplies) within 5 minutes of my mentioning, in an e-mail to one of the site's founders, that there was a need for such. 5 minutes!

So, with all the negatives on Etsy, plus the fact that views dropped drastically (for almost everyone) in September (don't even get me started on this - theories abound as to the reason, but Etsy is mum on the topic), I have set up my supply shop on Zibbet, under the name "Sweet Supplies" - to reflect it being a division of Sweet Freedom Designs. Starting last night, I began moving my existing listings over from Etsy. The migration process is a slow, tedious one; while Zibbet has a fantastic tool for automatically importing the listings, I have decided that this is a great opportunity to redo photos where needed, and just in general tweak each listing: New Year, New Start. So I'm keeping all the listings deactivated until every one of them is migrated, and then I'll have the grand opening, so to speak; I'm aiming for January 1.

And if I have time during this Holiday break from the bead shop, I'll also be migrating over the last 45 or so listings in my Etsy jewelry shop - my jewelry will all be available on Zibbet.

I brought home 3 separate beading projects that I really wanted to work on during this down time, but I realized yesterday, while working on a new bracelet, that there would never be a better concentrated stretch of time for all the drudgery involved in re-doing the photos and re-working all the listings. And once I return to the bead shop, I have a lot of enameled beads to make (and photograph, and list). It never ends, right?

I hope you have a Happy New Year! Do you have any changes planned?

Happy New Year! and reflections on last year

I am not the New Year's Resolution type. I don't believe putting things off (going on a diet? Start today - don't wait until the weekend's over, or the Holidays are over - quit procrastinating!) I don't believe in saving things up for one particular day of the year, and then putting a bunch of promises out there - if you have goals, go for it! No time like the present!

I have found that for me, making a promise to yourself (which is basically what a resolution is) can be fraught with peril, figuratively speaking - because I tend toward obsessive thinking, and I feel like I've let myself down (failure!) if I don't follow through and keep my promises. And sometimes a simple promise starts out looking like one thing, and then takes on a life of its own...

So, it's a brand new year, but I don't celebrate by making a shiny new list of resolutions.

That said, I DID resolve last year to be a better blogger. And I have been - at least as far as sheer volume of posts. I blogged everyday last year, and sometimes twice a day. Now, as far as content? Only my readers can decide whether I succeeded at being a better blogger in that respect.

Reflections on a year of daily blogging:

Blogging everyday definitely made me more productive. I wanted to have something useful to say everyday, and since this is a blog about jewelry design, that meant getting busy and producing some designs! I made a lot more things this year than any year before.

Another way daily blogging made me more productive was that I found myself setting goals, and putting them out into the universe - so I felt like I really needed to follow through - which was great, as I followed through on lots of things I might have otherwise let lapse.

But this goal setting also let to one of my disappointments: one goal I set for myself, and really wanted to achieve, was to revive at least one of my Zombie projects every week. I have been piling up unfinished projects for years, and I need to either finish them, or take them apart and recycle the ingredients into new projects. I thought it would be smart to tackle the "biggest" Zombie first - the one I dreaded most, and knew would take the most time -but I never dreamed it would take over 3 months to finish! I love the result, but didn't love the process! And it took the wind out of my Zombie sails - I just didn't want to tackle another one!

Zombie No More: The Iolite Fringe Necklace

Part of that came from sheer fatigue. But part of it came from the realization that every project I do seems to take way longer than I anticipated, and I felt a bit hopeless when I looked at the remaining boxes of unfinished projects! It was pretty easy to forget about them, shoved in their dark cabinet, where they still remain today. And, let's be honest: part of not wanting to tackle another zombie came from the huge volume of bright & shiny NEW projects that distract me everyday!

So, I need to accept that I CANNOT DO IT ALL. (Boy, wouldn't THAT make a great resolution? If I was the resolving type, that is...)

But, I want ALL THE BEADS. I want to make EVERYTHING! I want to beadweave, and do chainmaille, and metalsmithing, and enamel, and so on. I want to do it all! But I need more time!! And lots more money...

Another benefit of daily blogging? I love having this online "diary", where I can go back and look at everything I've accomplished and been through (I lost my precious Gumball this year). I also learned some new things - I traveled to Florida and learned how to torch fire enamel, and I took a webinar on the Picasso glass fusing technique (and also learned how to etch glass, which was really cool!) I taught myself wet felting! I taught myself to Zentangle!

My little Gumball

I met some really nice people through blogging - I have some of the nicest commenters and bloggy friends! And I have even gotten to meet some of them in person!

But here's the thing: somewhere along the way, my goal to"be a better blogger" morphed into "you must blog everyday." Unfortunately, my brain can be very obsessive with little details like this. So despite all the benefits, a year of daily blogging  made me resent blogging daily. It never got easier to blog, but it sometimes felt like a chore. There were days I just didn't feel like blogging, and days where I was racking my brain to think of a single thing to say. Along about, say, September, I just wanted to skip a day - but I kept saying "you're so close..." (obsessing about the daily thing).  By December, I wanted nothing more than to Just. Stop. Blogging. But there was no way I was going to bail - the year was almost up (obsessive, much?)! But I had gone on record with my blogging goal, and was committed to meeting my goal!

Thing is, I don't want to be a blogger who designs jewelry. I want to be a jewelry designer who blogs!

So here's the deal - I'm letting myself off the hook.

I am not going to blog daily.

I will blog when I have something interesting to say, or something new and shiny to share.

I AM going to try to tackle the zombies again - but no promises - I may do one, I may do ten, I may do more - but no pressure. This is supposed to be fun!! If it stops being fun, you're doing something wrong!

And I want to keep learning new things.

How about you? Are you the resolution-type? What's on your agenda for 2013?

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

I am going to try to post something here everyday (I know, you are on the edge of your seat!)


Maybe just a simple picture, or a book recommendation, or the story behind one of my designs; no promises, but I am going to try.

Blogger is a user-unfriendly platform, especially if the user is on an iPad (where Blogger will not allow spell-checking, or the embedding of pics), so I have been lax about blogging. And much like my jewelry photo-taking, the more I put it off, the more it piles up, and so when I would finally sit down to blog, the shear volume of information I wanted to share was overwhelming. Few people want to read all that stuff, and I didn't want to plod through the posting, so I trying a new approach. Snippets here and there.

Hope you have a wonderful 2012!

[A photo-less post from my iPad]

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, everybody!


As usual, I "rocked out" at home with some champagne and some TV.

I am SUCH a party animal.....

And speaking of party animals, Bailey, of course, was my date for New Year's, just like every year - and just like every other New Year's Eve, he spent it in my bedroom closet.

Bailey is absolutely terrified of fireworks, and I have the world's WORST next-door neighbors, who find it impossible to "celebrate" any occasion without throwing a big ole shindig in their driveway (which is right outside my bedroom window) - complete with a keg, and a bunch of pick-'em up trucks blasting country music. They all get out there in their lawn chairs and hoot and holler and shoot off fireworks for, and this is no exaggeration - 3 or 4 hours, starting around 11:30 PM.

So Bailey whines for me to open the closet, and then he settles in for the night, refusing to go outside even long after the dreadfulness ends, just in case it should start up again.

Which is not a totally ridiculous notion, because they usually manage to have fireworks left over, some how, and manage another 45 minute or so show the NEXT night.

And these aren't the nice, pretty fireworks you see on TV - just stupid, dangerous noise-making fireworks that keep turning up spent all over my yard, and my roof, and my driveway, for the next few weeks.

And speaking of stupid, what is with this Google-Analytics brouhaha over at Etsy?

What a freakin' mess.

This is a screenshot of the Help Forum from, a few minutes ago - nearly every single thread is about Google-analytics.

When will people (and by people, I mean both Etsy admin AND Etsy sellers) learn NOT to jump on every fast shiny train that speeds by until you're sure it's going where you want to go?

Gotta run - "24" just started, and I have been missing Jack Bauer something fierce!


See ya!