Luna's Baublebilities

Several weeks ago, RoseWorks Jewelry nominated me for a sunshine award and featured my Buttercup earrings.  It was so very sweet of her and I've been meaning to do something reciprocal for her and my other EtsyBloggers teammates, who I have neglected for at least the last 6 months. 

Ruthie created her fun spotlight over on byhand.me so I thought I would go over and see what that site is all about.  It seems to be another social media outlet for artists and crafters - the site is very clean, easy to navigate and quick to join.  It took me maybe an hour to create my profile and put together a spotlight of my own.  The really cool thing is that you don't seem to have to wait and play any lottery games to get a chance to create a spotlight (which is much like an Etsy treasury) AND you can include items from ArtFire, Zibett, Etsy and many other handmade venues in the same spotlight.  Yay!

I'm really struggling with my online shops, particularly Etsy.  They keep tweaking things in ways that might make sense for their admins abut that continually throw wrenches of every size and type into shop profits.  The latest debacle involves searches (again) and their dropdown menu, which recently was adjusted to eliminate "supplies" from the options.  They fixed it after much rabble rousing in the forums, but it just doesn't sit well with me.  They seem to be trying but I continually get the sense that they are out of touch with their true customer base. 

Last year, I paid Etsy  over $670.00 - they represent my third largest vendor expense category and that amount represents approximately 10% of my income from Etsy sales.  I categorize these payments as "advertisement expenses" since the bulk of it is listing fees, but when I pay listing fees, I have no guarantees about how many people will see the items or for how long they will stay near the top of searches.  This is the big problem with jewelry sales online - so many sellers are out there that your items are buried before anyone sees them. 

I really want to move more of my business over to ArtFire and eventually onto my own website.  ArtFire charges me $7.00 a month for an annual total of  $84.00.  If I want to spend more on targeted marketing on or off site, I can do so under contracts that guarantee either a certain number of views or a specific length of time on a specific  webpage.  I would much rather spend a few hundred a year on targeted advertising than keep shelling out hundreds that I have little control over to Etsy. 

BTW - I have removed several items from my Etsy jewelry shop and discounted them by 50% over on ArtFire.  Go take a look!

Anyway,

Here's my pretty sunshine spotlight - composed of items from other EtsyBloggers' shops. I included one of RoseWorks' lovely necklaces - I'm so jealous that she has the time and patience for doing an entire necklace in spiral helix stitch!  You can see the spotlight in person and even clicky on links over here.

Now I have to go get some cleaning done and enamel some dragonflies so I can ship them tomorrow!  I've been fighting off a cold so a morning in front of the computer felt like a good idea today.  (Ug- have to do taxes, soon, too!)



. . . .

But I still had to build a fire yesterday. June 1st and it was only 54 degrees in my house. I don't function well below 65 or so, the urge to curl up with a blankie and take a nap is just too great. I hate the fact that the Summer Solstice is upon us every year before school is even out. Other school districts in the country are finishing up (or are finished) right now but we have to go straight through the third week of June. Of course that is all related to the weather. We can't even reliably plant gardens here until after Memorial day, unless we have tons of mulch and plastic coverings to keep baby plants alive, so Upstate NY has a later end of school year date than warmer areas because there was not much need to let the farmers' kids out any earlier than this and those last few weeks of August are so precious for our growing season.

Etsy Bloggers carnival theme this week is to write about our summer plans. - Boy do we have a big summer ahead of us. We are anxiously awaiting a lending decision from the bank about our new place and as soon as we have a go ahead, we have got to start working. We are currently boxing up all non-essentials in our house to be put away in storage so we can start listing this home for sale. Once we close on the new pace, we have got to do a few cosmetic repairs, put in all new wiring and plumbing (because the Amish ripped everything electrical and almost all the plumbing out) remove the outhouse, build an entirely new bathroom in the upstairs attic, replace several windows, wash and paint all the walls, sand and re-finish several floors, install appliances, counters and cupboards in the kitchen, bath and my studio(!!) and maybe we'll be able to move in before the Winter Solstice!

Molly Bryn has been wanting to learn how to blog so I'm planning to have her blog the progress of the new Beorningstead down in Burnett Hollow. I'm so exited to see the progress of our new home as we prepare to move in. I'll let everyone know when we begin that blog - Molly has a great voice and loves to take photos so I'm sure it will be a fun blog to read. I'm also excited about the prospect of boxing up all of our non-essentials for several months. I suspect that there will be lots of things I don't miss tripping over that we will not put back into our new home. As it is, I have at least one huge box of orphan projects that will NOT be coming to my new studio. Anyone want it?

I also hope that we get to do some hiking this summer. Bryan aspires to hike all the high peaks in the Adirondacks and 4 years ago our family climbed Mt. Marcy - the highest peak in NYS. Bryan has climbed it many times and enjoys it but it was really more of a hike than I like and my mother-in-law said that she would probably not attempt such a long hike again, either. I like a quick, easy climb with lots of time to enjoy the scenery on the way up and a pretty view when you get there. We have talked about climbing all the ADK peaks that still have fire towers, I believe that there are 17 of them. Maybe we'll get in one or two of those this summer, if I can get my body back in hiking shape.

The mixed media drawing at the top of this post (which I cannot seem to convince GIMP or Blogger to resize for me - aaaargh!) was inspired by a hike up Mt Van Hovenberg when Molly was about 7. It is titled "There Was an Orange Salamander on the Trail." We have since discovered that our salamander was actually a red eft, which has since become one of my favorite teeny crawling things. What you cannot see in this composite scan is that the clouds, water and contour lines have a lot of sparkley gel-pen accent work and there is a teeneency little eft on the trail. The scanner just seems to read the sparkley as grey and the eft is invisible. Oh well.

Can one have a favorite Fairy Tale??? That is the question posed by this month's Blog Carnival Topic for Etsy Bloggers' Street Team. Actually, we have been asked to either discuss the difference between Art & Craft or tell about our favorite Fairy Tale. I have serious opinions about Art & Craft and Art vs. Craft and Craftmanship vs. Crafty-ness and I tend to get a bit snarky and long winded about the whole thing so I think I'll avoid it and discuss Fairy Tales instead.



Fairy Tales are one of the great loves of my life. When I was small, my grandpappy's house had two huge books that I loved to look at. One was a book of nursery rhymes and one was a massive book of fairy tales, both with wonderful illustrations. The Princess and the Pea was a favorite and Puss in Boots was particularly fun - I liked the illustrations of the cat dressed up in boots. I remember really liking the story of the soldier and the tinderbox, though I cannot imagine why. Maybe it was the illustrations of dogs with really big eyes.

I also loved the Twelve Dancing Princesses. I was intrigued by the idea of a secret world where one might escape authority and responsibility. I was always disappointed that the soldier ruined the fun. I still often dream of finding doors to previously undiscovered parts of my house containing highly desirable rooms and furnishings. In my dreams I have discovered fully equipped fiber studios with tall windows and lots of cupboards & counter space, elegant and comfortable sitting rooms with curtained off reading nooks full of beautifully bound leather books (full of illustrations, I'm sure) and bedroom suites with gorgeous built-in cabinetry and drawers.

Can you tell that I crave solitude, time to create and better organization?














Still, I think it would be impossible for me to choose an all time favorite Fairy Tale as I'm still discovering them. My favorites change as I age and I delight in learning new stories, new reworkings of old themes, and new ways of telling tales. As a young Adult, I discovered The Maid of The North, compiled by Ethel Johnston Phelps. I was relatively unfamiliar with stories seperate from the classic Grimm and Anderson tales so thse multi-cultural tales were a real treat. The fact that I was discoverig feminism at the time made them all the more desireable.

Later on, as a married non-trad college student, I was assigned to read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter in a class on the literature of Fairy Tales. For the first time, the magic of a tale and the crafting of exquisite words to tell it came together for me. The first story took my breath away - Bluebeard's eloquent bride, the sinister, stalking courtship, the astounding rescue by a resourceful mother - no sillyheaded victim with a team of blustering brothers here; "On her eighteenth birthday, my mother had disposed of a man-eating tiger that had ravaged the villages in the hills north of Haonoi. Now, without a moment's hesitation, she raised my father's gun, took aim and put a single, irreproachable bullet through my husband's head."

Oh -to have a mother like that - to BE a mother like that.

I must warn you, Angela Carter is no child's plaything. Her stories include the bawdy, the erotic and the truly sinister. You can't read them to your 5 year old at bedtime. You maybe don't want your 15 year old to read them, you may find them disturbing. Angela Carter's re-tellings remind us that Fairy tales were stories made to frighten children out of forests at night while entertaining the grown ups around the fire. Step between the covers of her boks with the greatest trepidation and infinite precautions.

Finally - a story you can, and should, read to your 5 year old at bedtime. The Story of the Eldest Prncess by A.. Byatt is found in Jack Zipes collection, The Outspoken Princess and the Gentle Knight. It is a story of a Princess who is set out on a quest that she knows she is destined to fail at so she steps of the expected role in order to discover and create her own story. The language is rich and descriptive - we would expect no less from Byatt, no? Listen to this:

"And the blue day were further and further apart, and the grens were more and more varied until a time when it became quite clear that the fundamental colour of the sy was no longer what they still called sky-blue, but a new sky-green, a pale flat green someweher between the colours which had once been apple and grass and fern. But of course, apple, grass and fern looked very different against this new light, and something very odd and dimming happened to lemons and oranges, and something more savage and hectic to poppies and pomengranates and ripe chiles."

Beautiful prose continues through the rest of the story to the end where the Eldest Princess finds her true home and we learn that "there is always an old woman ahead of you on a journey, and there is always an old woman behind you too, and they are not always the same, they may be fearful or kindly, dangerous or delightful, as the road shifts, and you speed along it."

Take some time today to stop speeding along your road and ground yourself with some fairy tales. Re-examine your motives, ponder the possibilities of True Love and listen for the wisdom in the old women in your life. You can find lots of annotated tales and illustratioons over at SurLaLune, one of my favorite places on the web. You'll also find links to and reviews of new fairy tale literature.

I do so love getting new beads!

I've enjoyed selling my creations at local galleries and in my LunasBaublebilities shop for several years now. However, every year I spent almost as much on supplies as I brought in from sold items. I don't like to do production work - or making multiples of the same design, so my bead and supply inventory was always feeling stale and boring to me. I was always scrimping, trying to place the smallest possible order to avoid spending too much or having lots of leftovers. This made designing stressful and uninspiring as I would get "precious" about certain beads and supplies, trying not to use them all up in one piece. But no longer!



These lovelies just arrived today.









The ones I am most excited about are the pearls in sand and copper colors. My niece is getting married next month and I get to make her wedding jewelry! ( I love making wedding jewelry.) She wanted pearls in earthy colors in a vintage looking style so I ordered lots of warm sand and copper colors in button and rice shapes. I have some wine colored pearls to round out the colors in my existing stash. I am thinking that they will be linked together with wire and a little bit of chain with maybe a vintagey doo-dad slightly off center in front.





I'll be sure to post my progress as I work on it.






I also ordered some blues ad soft sage-y greens just for good measure. I'll probably put up some more pearl mixes in GoblinsMarket in the next few days as I unstring and sort these babies into jars.















I also got more of these incredible sparkling glass spacers and a strand of copper spacers. There are at least 500 beads on the strand of copper spacers. I do not want to take them off the string - they look so amazing all stacked together like that!


The really great thing about selling supplies is that I can order tons and tons of stuff at once and have plenty to work with in my own designs without worrying about having a huge deadweight inventory left over. Buying in such enormous quantities gets me great prices and I can then re-sell things in my Etsy shop for approximately the same price per bead that a customer would get if she bought from my suppliers in smaller quantities - but she can get more variety for a lower cost. For instance - the large faceted glass beads sell at GoblinsMarket for about the same price per bead as they would from my supplier in their highest price point, but a customer can buy just two beads from me instead of having to buy the whole strand.

That is a deal that seems to work for everyone. I get lots of beads and unload my leftovers. My customers get great beads at reasonable prices without having to meet a ridiculously high wholesale minimum orders or buy hundreds of dollars worth of beads to get the lowest possible price. Plus Maxx & Molly love to play pirate. The hardest pat of unpacking is keeping track of where all the strands of pearls and beads end up!

I have found that running a supply shop takes up more of my time than I would sometimes like. Our house is only marginally clean this week because Bryan is off work for mid-winter break and molly conjured up some magic - or some helpers - and scrubbed the living room and kitchen while I was at work last Thursday. But I am learning how to manage my time and my tasks. For instane, I've trained myself to only go to the Post Offuice once per week s I was originally spending at least an hour each day trying to package a few small orders - packaging 18 or 20 orders assembly line style with Molly's help once a week actually takes only a couple of hours and therefore I save lots of time.

The fun I get from unpacking new beads almost evey week, the increased inspiration I find in having lots of beads and supplies to design with and the financial freedom to take a wild chance on some expensive new beads (like these incredible aqua terra jasper beads) are totally worth the extra time I'm putting into rnning a supply shop. Sometimes I even toy with the idea of opening a real life bead store - maybe in a cute little yurt out back . . .

This month's Featured Etsy Blogger is Donna Pool. Donna has a very nifty shop filled with all sorts of interesting trinkets, mostly buttons, pocket mirrors and photographs.























She is obviously bolder than I am because she is wiling and able to cut up vintage magazines and turn them into buttons or magnets or push pins or key chains . . . . .





This is something that I would really love to do but I can't bring myself to cut up literature of any kind. Believe me,I've tried. I've purchased old books at garage sales, intending to chop them up for their illustrations or use them as altered books. I get my scissors out or a bottle of gesso and . . . freeze. The book goes on my shelf. It is insane.

Possibly I need a support group to overcome this phobia as the results look like so much fun!



Donna also has lots of cat related buttons and photos. I have heard that one can sell anything with a cat on it, and often feel that putting cats on everything is a bit of a sell out. But Donna's black and white cat photos are really wonderful and I'm still a sucker for sleeping kitten posters. Dona also has a few photos of rural Texas countryside and material culture that will feel homey for anyone who has grown up anywhere in Backwoods America.









If you need a bit of vintage silliness or some warm and fuzzy kitens in your life right now, pop over to Donna's shop. Her items are perfectly priced for gift giving or office decorating. Donna obviously does a good job of making her customers happy, too, because the feedback left for her shop is fabulous! Have a great February, Donna!

So - I don't usually do this sort of thing, but today I was over at Magdeline Jewels because she is the lucky proprietress of the Etsy Mini-Monday shop for this week and her blog has this nifty link to a Tarot widget.

I know next to nothing about the Tarot besides finding the cards beautiful and fascinating. On this website there's a quick set of questions and answers for you to select before it hands you your card. It's quick and nifty. Here's mine:

You are The Star

Hope, expectation, Bright promises.

The Star is one of the great cards of faith, dreams realised

The Star is a card that looks to the future. It does not predict any immediate or powerful change, but it does predict hope and healing. This card suggests clarity of vision, spiritual insight. And, most importantly, that unexpected help will be coming, with water to quench your thirst, with a guiding light to the future. They might say you're a dreamer, but you're not the only one.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

If you want to see other amazingly cool stuff online today - check out some of Bioephemera's recent posts. She finds the most amazing stuff and I love seeing the many ways that art and science collide.

Now, I really have to go wash some dishes. Enough procrastination.

I hate always failing at my New Year's Resolutions. Often I pretend not to make any but end up keeping a secret mental list of untrackable and therefore unattainable goals. This year will be different. I have just a few main goals and I'll be blogging about them so hopefully I'll be able to keep track of my progress and actually succeed at something.




#1 goal - more important than anything else - is to establish a habit of caring for my body. I am beyond the upper healthy limits of weight for my body size and I have very little energy for most physical activities. Also, I have been sick at least one week out of each month this year and this winter, one sickness has blended into the next one since mid-October. I know that regular daily exercise will change the state of my body dramatically. I intend to exercise every day that I am not incapacitated for at least half an hour. I'll log my progress each week here. This week, I exercised on Monday and then came down with the flu. I'm feeling better today so I need to spend some time with a video or the treadmill before the day ends. (I welcome anyone who wants to be part of an exercise club or support group that reports regularly here.)




My next goal is to learn how to effectively manage all aspects of my business without allowing them to overtake my life. I am working with a schedule of daily and weekly tasks that include product development, production, photography, posting items, shipping, bookwork & financial management and blogging. I hate spending most of January going through all of the previous year's receipts and categorizing everything for my books. An hour or so every other week this year should help me eliminate that problem next year. I am also developing an inventory system so that I know when to re-order and eliminate my sloppy guestimation system for tax reporting.






























For this blog, I intend to post regularly, including the following topics:

- my progress with my exercising/health goal
- new tutorials for fiber and jewely arts
- new development in my shops
- Etsy Bloggers Street Team monthly topics
- My participation in Sharon Boggon's Stitch Explorer 2009




I'm not sure what the schedule for blogging will be yet and I'm sure I'll post fun stuff about my family fairly regularly, but I'm really more interested in creating a journal of my professional growth as opposed to a family travelogue. Molly Bryn is very interested in blogging, perhaps this year she will start a family blog.










One thing I am very concerned with professionally is how to keep my business moving forward without becoming simply a reseller on Etsy. I love selling beautiful beads and findings and that s certainly bringing in a beter cash flow than my jewelry and scarves but the time I've been investing on that is eating away at my time for family needs and creative time. If I can't create with the stuff, it is no fun to have thousands of beads and hundreds of yards of silk lying around!





That is part of the reson I ant to participate in Stitch Explorer this year. I really love embroidery and I have so many fond memories of atching my sweet Grandmother embroider beautiful things that i want to make it a regular part of my life, rather than just something I drag to Church conferences two or three times a year. Taking on an embroidery project like that should teach me new skills while allowing me to use my beads and silks in small amounts for embellishing my project(s). maybe some of my projects will turn into profitable product lines, otherwise, they will be portable pressure-free creative outlets.

Speaing of time for family needs - it is almost time for lunch. Scattered about the page here are some photos of my new beads and some earrings I worked on last week. They are not all up in my shops yet, but they will be by the end of next week!

No photos today, I'm afraid. My system crashed Tuesday and I've lost everything, at least temporarily. Friends assure me that thyere May be a way to recover my financial data and our photos from the hard drive. Meanwhile, I'm learning how to use Vista on our new system.

A lack of photos seems appropriate to my subject today. Can you imagine what life would be like without the millions of American handcrafters and artists like me? If CIPSA goes into efect, it could very well shut us all down.

Here's a quote from Change.org that explains the situation:

"In 2007, large toy manufacturers who outsource their production to China and other developing countries violated the public's trust. They were selling toys containing dangerously high lead content, unsafe small parts, and chemicals that made kids sick.

"The United States Congress rightly recognized that the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) lacked the authority and staffing to prevent dangerous toys from being imported into the US. So, they passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) in August 2008. Among other things, the CPSIA bans lead and phthalates in children's products, mandates third party testing and certification, and requires manufacturers of all goods for children under the age of 12, to permanently label each item with a date and batch number.

"All of these changes will be fairly easy for large, multinational companies to comply with. Large manufacturers who make thousands of units of each item have very little incremental cost to pay for testing and updating their systems to include batch labels. Small businesses however, will likely be driven out of business by the costs of mandatory testing, to the tune of as much as $4,000 or more per item. And the few larger manufacturers who still employ workers in the United States face increased costs to comply with the CPSIA, even though American-made toys had nothing to do with the toy safety problems of 2007.

"Anyone who produces or sells any of the following new or used items will be required to comply with the law: toys, books, clothing, art, educational supplies, materials for the learning disabled, bicycles, and more. Any uncertified item intended for children under the age of 12 will be considered contraband after February 10, 2009. It will be illegal to sell or give these items away to charities, and the government will require their destruction or permanent disposal, resulting in millions of tons of unnecessary waste, and placing an enormous strain on our landfills."


The law is already having an impact on families and communities in the U.S. This is what Dawnella of MothersMoon over on Etsy had to say yesterday:


"Today was a sad day for me... I went into the store front for the work at home moms co-op I have been a part of for two years, and picked up all my goods as the store will be closing at the end of the month. With more than half the inventory being items handmade by local moms...moms chosing to stay home with thier children to make their lives better...and the other products coming from small manufacturers (such as Sarah's Silks) there would be nothing left to sell if this law takes effect. This is/was a shop mainly of baby goods...cloth diapers, baby slings, quilts, natural soaps, nursing necklaces, handwoven bassinetts, wooden toys, creative playthings...but it was more, it was a place where moms came in to support each other. Sometimes purchasing items made by those other moms, but more than that a place to talk about their pregnancies, ask questions of other moms, take babywearing classes or cloth diapering classes...a local resource for finding breastfeeding support groups, and getting the scoop on local peditricians or midwives. Not only is the town losing a business filled with locally made goods, but the town is losing a vital community element."

So, if you want to continue to see, make, buy and sell handcrafted good of all kinds across America, please contact your legislators and visit Change.org to vote for amending CIPSA. The grassroots demands are working - CIPA has already proposed an ammendment to exclude consignment shops and resellers, but they have not yet made exceptions for American cottage industry. A reasonable ammendment might include a mandate that crafters and artists provide a list of all materials used in the manufacture of their items and any safety precautions parents should take but would remove the requirement to submit a sample of each item produced for expensive testing. We know the problems are coming from China and large industry. Most crafters I know don't mix up any lead based paint to sell to toddlers in their home studio.

I woke to an interesting surprise this morning , , which I will tell you about in a minute. First, let me remind you that a couple of weeks ago, I featured a product from Twin Birch Bath and Body and mentioned that it might be time to get some Shake! Dry Doggy shampoo for my Zig-wiggy because Bry has been complaining that he is getting stinky.

I tend to disagree. Ziggy is a clean dog - he hasn't rolled in the mud or played with anything rotten or hiked through a swamp or tangled with a skunk lately. He just smells like a dog.

I like dog smell. Little Puppy smell is one of the best possible smells in the world, in my opinion, but I had an unusual childhood. I spent a great deal of my pre-school childhood - most of it, in fact, living at my paternal grandparents' home. There were rarely any other children to play with but there were always 5 or 6 dogs around the house and at least one batch of pups a year. If I was really lucky, there would be two batches of puppies at a time! I woke each morning to a joyful gathering of doggie tongues and snouts and paws and tails waiting for me outside my bedroom door. I don't think my feet ever actually touched the stairs on the way down - they just sort of swept me along on their backs. I played and cuddled with dogs inside and outside all day long. Dog smell is good and I prefer the company of dogs to that of most humans. A house without a dog is like a mausoleum, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, as a concession to the Holiday spirit, I agreed that Ziggy needed a bath. I don't like to wet bathe Ziggy in the winter because he has so very little fur on his belly and he generally resists bathing anyway. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a Shepherd/Boxer mix to stay in a tub of water? Ziggy can leap straight up about 3 feet in the air without any warning whatsoever and land wherever he wants to in the room. Bathtime is very messy.

So I bought the Dry Doggie shampoo and we gave it a go. Ziggy had to sniff the bottle of powder and seemed to find the contents agreeable because he stood patiently while I sprinkled it on him and rubbed it in. Then we waited a few minutes and brushed his coat with a comb. Boy, does he love to be combed! Mollly must not have been doing a thorough job lately because I combed and combed and when I thought I was done, he has stayed and leaned against my legs looking up at me until I combed some more.

He does smell sweeter now (sort of an outdoorsy, herbal scent) but the really amazing thing is how soft his fur is. He feels like a puppy! As he has aged, his fur has gotten a bit coarse along his back but today his coat is shinier and softer than it has been since he was young. So, happy Ziggy not only smells more agreeable to those who do not think that dog smell is the best smell in the world, he is also nicer to touch.

He must be feeling younger on the inside as well, because he had a great, victorious adventure in the early morning hours today.

We have been growing a great monster of a mouse here. I think Ziggy has been raising it, actually - he is rather messy with his food and gets it behind the fridge and the cupboard all the time. Lately, he has taken to barking and sniffing at little corners and under the piano and behind the stove. If you say "mousie," to him, he will jump up and start barking and snuffling and whining all over the house. So we knew one was here, and that it was big, so we put little "mice cube" traps out in hopes of catching it safely. We hadn't had any luck, though, which seemed strange - the traps usually work quite quickly.

I had to come downstairs around 5 this morning and as I stepped down the last stair, a large mouse shaped shadow scurried across the floor.

Actually, it bounded. The floor shook. It was a big mouse. I was worried that it might not be a mouse, it was so big.

Ziggy had been sleeping but as soon as he head the pounder-patter of big-little feet, he jumped up and gave chase. He missed it the first time around but the mouse must have been either stupid or bold or too big to squeeze into his favorite hiding space because I head a great commotion in the living room after I went back to bed. The was a great deal of scuffling, some barking and thumping and then things settled down.

When I got up to get Maxx ready for school, I turned on the light downstairs and saw the carnage left behind. There was blood all over the couch and scattered throughout the room. The mouse monster was dead on the floor. Ziggy was so proud!

The thing was a good 6 inches long NOT counting the tail and weighed a full 4 ounces after significant blood loss. That mouse represented more protein than many third world families get in a week.

It was not a rat - it had a nice, furry tail and was built & colored like an average field mouse - just a really, really well fed field mouse. The reason that the Mice Cube traps hadn't worked is because the thing was far to big to have fit inside one. The idea of catching a monster like that one with such a trap is laughable! It took a bold, leaping dog to catch that mousie!

Today I had better re-inspect my food storage to make sure that Mousie and his possible family have not also been eating away at that and then I need to paint 2 more scarves, cure and embellish 6 other scarves, post new products at Goblins Market and make Peas & cheese for tonight's Christmas party.

And make a special snack for my mouse-slayer.

What a weekend we had around here! The kids had fun with their cousins at Gramma's house and I had a few nice sales from good friends over at Etsy. I've got a list longer than my arms and legs combined for this week but I wanted to post a few of my favorite Etsy Blogger's Cyber Monday deals here.

Ziggy is getting stinky. It might be time for me to order something from Twin Birch Bath and Body:


















I love this hand carved Morning Glory stamp from winemakerssister.














My favorite tree Skirt is one that my Mother-In-Law made years and years ago and gave to us for our first Christmas. But if I needed one - I might get one from BrightBlack's shop.














I know they are not Christmasy - but AthenaWorkman hs some fun prints and photos in her shop - including these wonderfully grainy gargoyles.


















Maclancy's shop amazes me! She collects vintage images and reproduces them - sometimes with tinting. I love this one of the little French boy on his scooter.


















That's all I have time for today - I have to get Maxx ready for another trip to the doctor. :( This being sick thing is getting old.

Just in case you didn't know already, the Etsy Bloggers Street Team is sponsoring a Holiday Sale. Over 50 Etsy Sellers on our team are offering discounts and/or shipping deals on orders placed between this Friday and December 1st.

I am offering 10% off all orders at Lunasbaublebilities plus free shipping on all orders over $45.00. At GoblinsMarket, all orders get free shipping.

Plenty of other stores will be offering similar specials so check them out. You can see all of the Etsy Bloggers Team sales by clicking on the announcement. You'll find handmade everything from Soap and Scarves to Chainmalle and Childrens' clothes. People who make and sell Fine art (including Photography) and art and crafting supplies are also particiating.

Buying on handmade Etsy may seem a little strange, but it is a truly revolutionary way to shop. Everything on Etsy (excluding supplies and vintage goods) has been handmade by one individual artist/craftsperson or a by small cooperative of two or three artists sharing resources. The money you pay for your items minus a small listing fee and any PayPal fees (usually about 10% total) goes directly into that artist's pocket. The artist earns what he or she has decided is a reasonable & fair wage for their labor and goes on to make more beautiful things. You recieve something unique, carefully crafted and valuable.

No frantic bidding. No major corporations and greedy middlemen. No child labor. No sweatshops or human rights abuses. No mass produced junk. No shopping malls or giant retail stores. Just you, the artist and something beautiful that comes to your home in time for the Holidays. You can even do a search for artists and craftspeople who live in your little corner of the world so that you can buy local and well as handmade.

Go check it out!

Does this look familiar?














I stopped wearing jewelry when Molly was a baby - breastfeeding and carrying around a curious little person completely changed the way I accessorized. She yanked at my earrings, she broke necklaces, bracelets got in the way.

Don't get me wrong - she and I were good at breastfeeding. When she was small, I could do my shopping and breastfeeding at the same time. But by the time she was 4 months old, she really wanted to be seeing things and doing something while she was eating. In public she would happily eat for about 3 minutes and then reach up with her little arm and remove our privacy blanket in one large, dramatic swoop.

And then she would grin widely at her audience and go back to eating. She scandalized more than one elderly gentleman at church with that behavior. I never worried about it - we didn't have a mothers' room back then and I didn't feel like it was realistic to relegate breastfeeding moms to the changing bench in the back of the ladies room for half their time at church. So she ate in public and probably made lots of people uncomfortable.

I wonder if it would have been easier to remain private if she had had a pretty necklace to play with while she ate?

Jen over at bfbeads makes wonderful breastfeeding jewelry; Pendants for babies to play with and reminder bracelets that move easily from one wrist to the other so mom always remembers which side to start with next time. This is what she says about her products:

"Designed to keep baby happy at the breast, each necklace is also crafted with mom in mind. Baby can hold the pendant or slide the beads on the necklace cord itself. Since both necklace and pendant are made from one continuous length of cord, there's no chance of one part breaking off from the other. These necklaces are sturdy: I do not use any findings or clasps, because they are often the weakest part of a necklace, and each is secured with a double knot in the back. (If your necklace breaks during the first year of use, assuming normal wear and tear, I will restring your beads for free!) They are long enough for mom to put on over her head and for baby to comfortably play with while nursing, but they can easily be shortened all the way to choker length simply by sliding the adjustable bead at the back."


















What a great concept. If you have a baby to feed, check this shop out. If you are done feeding babies, you might want to pop over anyway - her designs are well executed and affordable.

It is official. Autumn is here. Soon the greeny greens will be gone. No longer will a floaty silk scarf keep your bare shoulders comfy of an evening. The nights are cold - not just cool - we have had at least two hard frosts here in Almost Canada and actually had to build a fire last night. Last night Bry and I went for a walk and I was wishing for a pair of long underwear even though we kept up a pretty brick pace! Even Ziggy was happy to get back into the house and warm up afterward.

I have a love-hate relationship with Autumn. It is one of the most beautiful seasons of the year here with glorious colors in the foliage and dramatic skies. The bugs all die in the first frost and the days are still bright and sunny. Clear nights allow for an amazing view of the sky without the bitter cold of winter. Harvest starts to come in, including Beets and squash and this year, purple potatoes! The first payroll check of the year shows up mid September and we can afford to buy tissues again.

However it is also the time of year that Bry has to go back to work and I hate that. I wish I could keep him home all year long. I hear that lots of married couples get tired of each other during vacations. Hasn't happened to us yet. Of course, I love having the Daddy around to take some of the demands of childrearing but the main thing is that we still love to talk and listen to music and work and play together. The fact that we can't get outside together during this beautiful time of year is particularly galling.

This year has it's own stresses associated with Autumn. Bry has had to take a half-time position with BOCES because the other available offer was just not reasonable for our family. He probably could have pulled rank with his seniority and kicked some other teacher out of a position they were comfortable in but neither of us felt that was an appropriate response to our situation. Make someone else miserable, too? Not likely.

So that first paycheck of the year was pretty pitiful. In fact, I believe that we now qualify for food stamps! I am currently lamenting my month spent recovering from whiplash (thanks, Maxx) which allowed the garden to get out of control and significantly reduced our yield. However, I'm not panicking about money. Bry is scheduled to start tearing down a barn on Friday and he should be able to re-sell and/or re-use some of that lumber. He and his brothers are talking about starting a guide service in the spring and GoblinsMarket is growing at a pace I'm comfortable with. It is not bringing in a lot right now but it is paying the credit cards and meeting its own needs financially. Studio Tour and Holidays are coming and that always bings in steady trickle of comission payments through February. In spite of the fact that our family is systematically being weaned away from a steady, regular paycheck, I feel pretty confident about our ability to get by.

My creative goals for this autumn are to
- get ready for holiday sales by producing many more scarves than I have in previous years - don't have a real number yet.
- make christmas gifts for the family
- start a line of holiday ornaments for Luna's Baublebilities for the local markets.
- get vintage style earrings and pendants into ForArtSake in Malone
- bring in new filigree findings at GoblinsMarket
- get silk fusion kits and hand dyed fabric up at GoblinsMarket
- help get the insulation in and the wall board up, window casings stripped and re-installed so we can stay warmer
- Give LunasBaublebilities Etsy a bit more attention, especially with scarves, so that it can be successful, also
- Finish participating in the Take it Further challenges this year
- get studio cleaned so that I can do some real silk painting some days when Maxxis off at Pre-K. I miss silk painting!


I could go on, but that is probably more than I can actually handle! Now - Off to get some of those things done!

Oh - and here is my favorite Pickled Beets recipe:

7# beets
4 cups vinegar (I use white)
1/4 cup pickling salt
2 cups sugar
2 cups water
2 cinnamon sticks
12 Allspice seeds (I hate cloves)
4-6 onions

Trim the beet tops, leaving 1" of roots and stems to prevent color loss, wash and cook until tender. Cool.

Trim off roots and stems, slip skins off and slice into 1/4 inch slices. Slice onions to similar size.

Put spices in a bag and mix in large pot with vinegar, salt, sugar and water. Boil. Add beets and onions, simmer 5 minutes. remove spice bag. Pack beets and onions in cans, leaving 1/2" of head space. Process in boiling water bath for 30 minutes.

Yum, yum. These make excellent tangy treats during the long dim. Bry particularly likes to have them with tuna noodle casserole.