Luna's Baublebilities

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!

Two posts in one day? No way.

I stopped by Sharon B's blog (which has moved to Pin Tangle) today and she had a link to a costume exhibit at Kent State University Museum. The exhibit is called - are you ready? The Art of the Embroiderer.

Fabulous stuff. You must go look at it. I've borrowed a couple of photos that link back to the exhibit to tempt you.

As much as I would LOVE to make my living embroidering such marvelous dresses, I live in great dread that someday Molly will expect me to embroider and bead and embellish some amazing dress for her. When she was little, I made her a Flower Fairy Halloween costume - it's still somewhere in my hope chest - with all handmade ribbon roses, beads, sequins, trailing ribbons, a wand, a circlet crown of ribbon rose flowers. It took weeks. She wore it for two hours. Kind of like a wedding dress.

Maybe if I start on one now, It will be ready by the time she finds someone to marry.

I'm really pleased that Kent State has put together such a marvelous online exhibit. What a priceless resource! This is why we need to continue to fund the Arts & Education.

Today is so full of stuff to do, I have no idea how I will get it all done. Lately, it is becoming difficult to avoid despair and despondency when I look about me and see just how much I have to do. It is truly amazing.



But this morning, I had a major accomplishment. I processed 75 photos - ready for posting in my shops - in less than 90 minutes! I love it when I get all the settings right and the white balance adjusted properly on my camera. It saves me so much adjustment time at the computer. Sometimes I think I should buy a cheapo digital camera to use around the house and ONLY use my Dimage in the studio so that I never have to fuss with the settings.

Last night I shot new photos for some of my old earrings and got some of my new beads ready to post. They are truly gorgeous! The last time I got a new box of beads, I went up to my studio to put them away and take photos of them and I realized that I felt happy in a way that I haven't felt since childhood. My imagination was on overdrive creating new ideas for adornment and my eyes and ears were enjoying the sparkle and tinkle of the beads. I love that my new shop allows me the luxury of buying just about any beads I wan and creating all kinds of other adornment related goodies. I play with the ones I need and sell the rest.


That blissful enjoyment of playing with my beads as I put them away led me to put together two mixes of beads. : Fantabulous Blues and The Fantabulous Warm Mix. they both include gorgeous Czech glass rounds and spacers with incredible finishes and cultured freshwater pearls in various shapes and colors. These mixes might just allow another bead addict to enjoy a dazzling assortment of beads without a staggering price tag.

The Fantabulous Blue Mix inspired me to start working on a choker made of a coiled rolled silk cord with various baubles sewn onto it. So far, it isn't really turning out the way I want it to so I may have to take everything apart and start over - but the basic design idea is that of a jewel encrusted rope. It should have lots of drape, be very sparkly and it shouldn't matter which side is up or down or against your neck. I think the problem I'm struggling with right now is the fact that I've put a few very large opalite beads on to dangle near the middle of the necklace. While they are very pretty, I think they are subverting the original concept. I'm not looking for a pendant with symetry, I'm looking for something much more organic. I'll post more photos as it comes along - the Thanksgiving madness should give me some time to be away from this computer and actually work on something. :)
Now I need to go wash some laundry, post more scarves in my store, wash the dishes, clean the living room and kitchen, put some bread in the machine, exercize, take a shower, order scarves for the Scarf Painting workshop next weekend, Pay the mortgage, direct Molly's homeschool efforts, fold laundry (so that it can sit in baskets being churned through twice a day for three weeks when I get another chance to re-fold everyone's laundry), vaccum the hearth, clean the study and find time to feed my family a couple more times today.

Can I just go back to bed?