Permissions and Galleries and New Shinies, Oh my!

I didn't think there was much going on over here lately, but as I run thru things in my head I realize... oh wait... Yes there is! I seem to measure things in a number of pieces kind of way these days and past that ... doesn't much matter. And lately, number of pieces is rather... low.

Sometimes, the shiny cooperates and things get ta'crankin'. Sometimes... it seems like I have to fight with every shiny, at every turn. Work it, rework it, then rework it some more.

It's definitely been one of /those/ times.

But, slow is not bad. Slow is just slow. More deliberate. And usually full of learning. Learning is good. Vera good. Been lots and LOTS of the learnin' lately. Not all on accident either. :D

In and amongst the slow going new pieces and the lots and lots of learning, the last week has also brought some fantastic news. Some over the top, uber great, fantabulous news even.

First off, I got such a great response on my garnet woven heart pendant when I was planning my giveaway...

Click picture to enter giveaway

...that I decided to stop being shy and nervous, and contact the designer of the pattern/tutorial I used to see if she'd mind  if I made some to sell. Well, I heard back from her last week and... she was so nice!! She said I could make and sell as many as I wanted! :D :D She hoped I had lots of fun, made money and wished me well. I was so excited by that! I really want to learn more weaving, and I want to learn from the best. I want to learn from Nicole Hanna. And the pieces are SO awesome, I also want to be able to sell as I go. And now I can. WhooWHOO! There will definitely be more woven jewelry like the garnet heart pendant coming down the pike.

The other uber fantabulous news was from the Gallery over on the coast. I called them up last week, not expecting anything really, maybe just ... touch base. See what's up. Find out if I ever even gave them everything I needed to, or if I'd forgotten something. Ya know. Like the artist statement I totally spaced O.O

Oops.

I expected her to tell me how it was the off season, no one is shopping until Christmas, but it's ok because that's normal here and send me your statement.

That is not what happened.

Turns out, my stuff started selling right away. O.O
Like the first week even. O.O
Like... my inventory is almost 1/2 gone already. O.O
O.O
I was in shock. Am still in shock. She ended the coversation with...Please to be making more, fast, and send it over. Anything. Everything. Quickly. It's about to pick up. Christmas is coming.
O.O

Um... Ok. Holy wow.

I may start hyperventilating again just thinking about it. I'm still a tad excited.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's why the pieces are so slow in coming. I'm trying to get all caught up so I can make new things for Breach the Moon, AND make new stuff for my Etsy because Christmas IS coming, and and and... I may be pushing it too hard. The shinies don't like to be pushed. They like to do their own thing. Pushing makes them mad and they rebell and won't play nice.

Stubborn little things.

I did manage to win a couple rounds though. I got a new Aquamarine/Amethyst/Sapphire/Quartz Birthstone tree done...

Am rather pleased at how it came out. We wrestled for days. But I won. Finally. :D

Then there was the Autumn Faery Lights Tree...

...it's multi colored Spinel and Ethiopian Fire Opal. :)

2 trees out the 4 tree/2 penandt/1 gold earrings weekend I'd tried for wasn't what I was after, but I guess that's 2 closer than I was. 

The uber big accomplishment was this one...

It's a fully redesigned medallion I've been working on for weeks now. It's a 925 Sterling and 999 Fine Silver Garnet Medallion. It looks like the others, but it's actually quite different. I'm using the new weave I've been playing with for the backing, much tighter this time. I wanted to try to use it in a bit more open design instead of just using it for anchor points. My goal is to figure out how to weave it so it can actually be a design element all by itself.

I see much potential.

Another big deal with this one was the Fine Silver. It's my first time working with it. Now I wonder why it's taken me so long! Wow, oh wow, just wow.

I used it for the unwrapped outer ring and the scrolls. It can be fused, instead of soldered, gets wonderfully soft and malleable when heated and the ends ball up in absolutely wonderful little perfect balls of perfection.

It's soooooooooo different than sterling! I'm in love with it. Absolutely in love.

Can't wait to play with that some more.

My little medallion is a far cry from the pearls and swirls I was going for, but that's ok. I am so proud of this jewel. Lots of cool new things going on it that. Lots and LOTS!

Permissions and Galleries AND new shinies. Twas a busier week than I remembered. :D

W00T!

November Shiny Giveaway !

The holidays are coming fast, right around the corner even, and I wanted to do some special things this year before things got overwhelming and lost in the shuffle. I’ve been thinking maybe things along the lines of special sales, and maybe some giveaways.  I do love giveaways. Yep yep. Been a long while since I've done one, so I figured I’d start there. Wasn't sure what piece to use though. While I was trying to organize things a bit last weekend, I re-found a piece I did several months back when I was trying to teach myself weaving. You may remember it if you follow the blog. It's from a Nicole Hanna tutorial pattern I did; a little copper woven heart shiny, with a big ol' garnet in it…

Want it? :D

Of course you do.

Here's the deal. For your chance to win this antique copper woven garnet heart pendant on an antique copper chain...

Leave a comment telling me you wish to enter for the giveaway on or before Friday, November 15th.  To make things interesting, if you tweet, share, blog or otherwise help promote the giveaway... come back and link me to it on this post and each link will count as another entry for you.

Giveaway is open world wide. The weekend of the 16th, I'll announce the winner. :)

Easy peasy. Now. Let’s play giveaway! :D

Ready, set…

GO!

The fine print...

• Comment on this post to enter. Comment counts as (1) entry. Each verifiable link for a tweet, share, reblog, blog, or other promotion of this giveaway will count as additional entries. 
• giveaway closes at midnight, PST, November 15^th
• giveaway is for pictured antique copper pendant. and chain
• giveaway open world wide, to countries without jewelry restrictions.
• winner will have 7 days to claim their prize. After 7 days, if they have not responded, a new winner will be picked.
• winner will be chosen by random draw
• USPS First Class postage paid by Freia Inguz. Any and all taxes, custom fees or additional charges above and beyond USPS First Class will be the responsibility of the recipient.
• pendant was handmade by Freia Inguz
• pendant pattern by Nicole Hanna

Weekend catchup: New pieces and projects

I had a busy weekend over here. Managed to get caught up on some listings and finish a few pieces I've had laying around 1/2 done.

A new Aurora Borealis tree finally made if off the table and in to the Etsy...

My almost scrapped Seraphinite Full Moon Tree of Life earrings got a second tree to make the pair...

And a new Ethopian Fire Opal mini tree got it's shine one too... 

All finished up and even listed too :D Go me.

The big whoowhoo for the weekend was my new medallion. I've made several now, but I've been trying to come up with a better way of doing them. A faster way. The medallions currently take about 10 - 12 hrs to make, if not more, and that's a lot. I wanted to find a way that works well, takes less time, and looks good too. Surely that's not asking too much. Right?

Well, I think I did it. I've been working on learning some new techniques and it seemed very promising for the backing I'm doing on these. (that part alone took 2-3hrs, if all went well) I was vera excited. It worked up faster, looked better but without actually making a medallion with it, I had no idea if it was going to work out. So, This weekend I tried puting it all together, and voila! 

A new, redesigned, Jade Infinity Medallion. The new backing worked wonderfully!! 

The netting I used before served me pretty well for anchor points for the scrolls and did well for giving the illusion of a solid piece. The problem was, visually it wasn't what I was after, so I had to concentrate of filling all the space on the medallion with scrolls or stones, or... whatever, to hide the web. The new way is not only faster, but it's more solid, works better, gives me more anchor spots, and I think it's going to work well visually when I want more open space in the piece.

I am so vera excited about all these things.

I tried the infinity scroll design with it first, to see how it would work for a piece that needed many anchor points. It all worked out beautifully. Next time I think I'll try it out on a more open piece. I have a couple new designs bouncing around in my head that wouldn't work before and I can't wait to try them. If it works as well as I think, I may have just opened up a gazillion new possibilities for medallions.

That rocks mah socks.

New Pieces and On Going Projects

New pieces and ongoing projects... I haz 'em. Several many even. Getting them listed however... not so much. 

Out of my 6 new pieces, I've managed to get a whole whoppin' 1 listed. My new Malachite Cab Tree, "Kentucky Bluegrass" is up...

... truth be told, it's only listed because an awesome friend wrote the blurb for me. They rock the blurb thing sooooo much better than I do. Truth be told... I totally suck at it. Which is part of the reason it takes me so long to get listings done. Shinies grrl does not rock the wordsmithing. Not even a little bit. I just want to make the shinies. Not write about them. The whole listing thing takes too long. And it's no fun. 

Darn listing thing.

Anyhoo, with one down, that leaves 5 to go...

My once lost but now found Faceted Tsavorite Garnet/Ruby Apple Tree, Gold Rutilated Quartz/Peridot Fall Aspen Tree, Aquamarine Cabochon Tree, Aurora Borealis Labradorite Cab Tree and my new Sterling/Charoite Scroll Medallion. With a little luck, and better time management, hopefully those will be listed this week. :)

In and amongst all this other jazz that's been going on, like taxes and... life... I managed to make some progress one some of my other projects. The one I'm trying to finish up first is a book bling project I've been knockin' around for too many months to count. I've blogged some ideas in the past. Twas the scorpion...

... but in the end, I didn't like it. Wasn't feelin' it. This weekend, the project morphed itself into this...

... a sterling silver scorpion medallion. I love it, love it, love it, love it. I'm holding off finishing it up while I try to decide if I want to put a stone in it somehow, somewhere. Perhaps a tiny garnet in the top infinity loop, or maybe where the frame wires come together at the top in the 'will be bail' section. Not sure yet. Not really even sure it needs a stone at all. Still pondering. Either way, I love it. UBER love it. Problem is... true to form, and as usual and all that jazz, I've kinda gone a bit overboard on the project. As much as I love the piece, I'm not entirely sure it fits the intended end use. Actually... I'm pretty darn sure it doesn't. *blushes* I get a little carried away when I get excited. To those of you that know me... that's probably not a huge shocker. And... I did it again. Can't help it. Excitable shinymaker is excitable. So, since I've gone so over the top with the whole deal, I'm also working on a much more simplified shiny for the project. One that will perhaps fit the intended use of the piece. I figure, options are always good. Can't hurt anyway. Right? Right. So, until I finish that one too, the project remains ongoing.

However, getting the medallion to a mostly finished state, I felt like I had some breathing room. For a minute.  So I let the shiny muse wander. With all the medallions I've been working on and all the scrolls I've been making, I've had a gazillion ideas run thru my head. Sadly, I've not allowed them the time they need to actually become anything. Uber sadly, when I don't allow them to run wild, I lose them. While I was working on the scorpion one last weekend, I thru a few other scrolls in a pile out of the way and when I looked back down they screamed... EARRINGS! Feeling like I could take the time to explore the idea a bit, I went for it; made some of the scrolls larger, wrapped in some garnets and ended up with some accidentally pretty cool little scrolly component thingies...

Surely there is an earring in there somewhere. This week, I let myself play a bit more with it and...

... oh yeah. Earring. Long, dangly, scrolly, garnet earring. Needs a real earwire, but I think even proto-type earring is a winner. Can't wait to try it in silver. Should be all kinds of shiny! :D

New pieces, on going projects and even an accidental pair of earrings. Not to bad, if I do say so mahself.

Now to get on those listings. Silly things don't seem to want to list themselves. Must get busy!

Later taters!

A vera exciting shiny vacation

Things have slowed down a bit over here, shiny wise. Feels that way anyway, considering how much I used to crank out. Life got a little... berserk...so I decided I needed to escape for a bit. Told work I was outta here and went on a short vacation. To the beach.

Everything is just better at the beach.

So I loaded up all my shiny supplies (cuz surely I'd be wire wrapping my little heart out) and headed out. While I was there I managed to make...

nada.

Not a single thing.

When I got home however, I managed to finish up several goodies. A couple of writer's bracelets I had on order, and a new kind of Tree Charm Bracelet...

Rather diggin' the tree charm idea. Bracelet itself needs more stones though. I think.

The big shiny piece I finally finished up has me all excited. It's an Antique Silver Charoite Medallion. Been working on that baby forEVER. It finally all came together and...

is UBER shiny! Note to self: No, you can't keep it. This one isn't for you.

Darn self wants to keep all the shinies these days.

The BIG and vera exciting part of my vacation was...

OMG I'M IN A GALLERY NOW!!!! A REAL LIVE UBER FANCY ONE EVEN!! :D :D :D

It's called Breach the Moon...

and it's down on the historic bayfront in Newport, Oregon. The go to place for shopping on the central part of the Oregon Coast. Not sure if it's even possible to go to the coast and not go to the warf for a bit of shopping fun. It's just not done.

The whole thing came about rather by accident. I'd been approached while shopping for daughter up in Lincoln City by a lady at a rock and gem shop when she noticed my tree necklace. We chatted for a bit and I left... totally turned off and more than a bit scared. I'd brought my trees with me, just in case I got brave, but what that lady was telling me was just... not at all going to work for me. Especially given where and what her shop was. I decided to hold off on the whole getting into real life stores thing, for now.

The next day I headed to Newport for some bayfront awesome, walked in to Breach the Moon to drool over the art and the shinies when the sales woman noticed my necklace too.

"OMG what a beautiful necklace!"

"Thank you. *beams* I made it."

"You did?! Wait.Right.Here. You simply MUST speak to my manager."

"uh... ok..."

The next thing I knew, the manager of the gallery wanted my trees. Whatever I had with me. One, or 100, she didn't care. She just wanted them. NOW.

O.O

Uh...

O.O

Ok. :D :D :D

I went back to the hotel, tried to make some makeshift displays that look 1/2 way decent and carried them in the next day. She took them... ALL.

ALL!

I am now featured in a "Fine Art and Jewelry Gallery".

I still may be full of a bit of ... SKWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE :D :D :D :D

Before I came home, I managed to go back one last time, and they had already started putting the trees out. This time I managed to control my shaking to fire off 1 clear pic of one of the displays. Each display is in a glass case and designed to look like a fancy aquarium... type thingy. With corals and shells and and and...

...lots of shiny. Now with my little ol' tree of life hanging out with the other shinies. :D

I still feel a bit like I'm in a dream. I had hoped someday to be able to be in such a place. Down on the bayfront. In one of a couple of their 'look but don't touch' awesome galleries. This very one even. Someday. Ya know, when I "made it". Never in a million years did I think that day was today.

Best accidental awesome ever.

EVER!!!

I... am in a gallery. Not just a shop, but a gall-er-yyyyyyy.

If I'm dreaming, please don't pinch me. I don't wanna wake up. I wanna be in a gallery. :D :D

And I am.

I still can't breathe when I think about it.

Now I need to make new trees. Because I don't have a single one. Not a single solitary one.

Best get wrappin'!

ps: SKWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

:D :D :D

Best adventure in jewelry ever.

The end.

:D