Civility 101

Four years in college and not once was I offered Civility 101 and, boy howdy, I could have used it. This Sunday Hubby and I are going back to Astoria Market hoping to sell enough jewelry to cover our drinking, like the last time we were there. What I need to learn between now and then is how to interact with the public in a way that shows how much I appreciate their interest in my junk without sarcasm, or being patronizing, or letting the public catch on to how damn stupid they are and especially, not wanting to clock a biotch at least once an hour. In short, I need to be more like Hubby.

Let's take a few common senarios and do a typical me reaction and hubby reaction:

Senario #1-- Someone approaches the table in the first half hour or so.

Me: (smile)
Hubby: (smile) Hi! How ya doin'?

See the difference? Hubby is right there with a friendly greeting. Me, I don't know that person and can already see exactly how they are doing. They're doing fine and shopping at a craft show. And if they aren't doing fine and are dying of eyebrow cancer-- I don't wanna know. Therefore I do not ask. You'd be surprised how many people will break social convention and answer 'How ya doin'?' without the word 'fine' thrown in.


Senario #2-- Someone approaches the table in the seocnd through third hour.

Me: (really forced smile)
Hubby: (smile) Hi! How ya doin'?


Hubby is just as fresh and sincere as he was all during the first hour. Me? My ass is hurting and I'm already tired of people passing by, touching everything and not buying anything. Really, why must people touch every single thing on every single table? By the time they leave the market, they must be drenched with every bacteria and virus known to man.


Senario #3-- Someone approaches the table in the fifth or sixth hour.

Me: (not even bothering to look up from my iPod Touch) grunt.
Hubby:(smiling) Hi! How ya doin'?

Where?! Where does the man get the stamina to be so friendly for so long? How can he nod sympathetically when some random and strange fat man tells him all about his gout? How does he not even notice when his friendly question is ignored and the public acts as if he's invisible or, even worse, annoying. I gotta tell ya, individual people can be very nice. They can be tired, hungry, curious, happy and the whole gamut of human emotions. But The Public? The Public is stupid, pushy, stupid, greedy, smelly, rude and stupid.


I won't even tell you how fast my husband has to jump in when The Public has been studying my Display Thingy chock-full of earrings for 15 minutes, fingering every single one, pulling some down to look at more closely at them and then asks "Are these earrings?" Before the words "Can't pull the wool over your eyes" has even started to leave my lips, Hubby jumps right in with, "Yes, they are. My wife specializes in earrings, although she does have other things for sale. . ." And he does it with a genuine smile. That man, he is a saint.

Today's beauty shot is silver clay. One day when I'm rich, I'm gonna get my hands on some silver clay and I'm gonna make this or something like this. This is doable, I think, and really cute.

After that, with a great deal of practice, I may be able to pull something like this off. I can't imagine the planning that went into cutting and molding that pendant. And then to fashion so many leaves juuust so to make the ring. If I were a rich girl (Ya ha deedle deedle beedle beedle bum)





Last but not in the least bit least, My pared down Etsy. Notice the prices. It had to be done. Sigh.

I Am Too Disorganized To Hope To Make A Dime

My display thingy is awaiting its molding. That's not gonna happen until Friday or Saturday. I will have to watch The Boy make them so that I can learn how to make the angle cuts with the chop saw my own damned self. I've made 4 of those 'gift boxes'-- the decoupage boxes with either a pendant or a ring inside. What I need to do and am putting off doing, is taking everything down off the Etsy (please visit, yadda, yadda) and starting all over again.

I could deactivate them one at a time. Edit them and then reactivate them. But I've dragged my feet so long on this that I'm going either sell them at the old prices at Astoria Market or have much cheaper prices on the internet than at face to face sales. You know, I should be deactivating and editing right now, instead of writing in this here blog.

Ayeup. I should get right on that. This second. No more procrastinating. Jump to it-- chop! chop!. I'm getting to it riiiiiight noo. . .. Hey, I didn't do a pic today! What should this picture be of? I want it to be personal. Something that when a reader sees it, they'll learn a little something about me and what kind of person I really am deep inside. Lemme go search the internet for that one, perfect picture of the inner me.




Found it!

Yay For The Comforter!

Last night Hubby pulled the comforter out of the closet and we snuggled. So different than the summer when, if Hubby accidentally in his sleep unconsciously threw an arm around me, I'd yell, "Don't touch me! I'm melting!" Because I'm such a loving wife.

What does that have to do with crafting? Nothing except I may get the backyard back. Lemme tell ya, it ain't easy trying to put frames together in a bedroom on a bed. Plus, nobody likes sleeping with sawdust. I can ignore the haunted lob-sided shed, the five foot tall overturned tree stump and the smashed fence-- mostly. But I cannot ignore the waves of bloodsucking MFers that not even citronella candles can disperse. The last time I was out there I spent more time smacking my legs than woodworking. When I got back into the house, my legs were covered in blood and black gunk, I apparently caught quite a few of those evil disease vectors right in the middle of eating me alive. I looked like I was hit by shrapnel.

Finally, today's wire wrapping piece that is not-yet-on-my-Etsy-but-hey-click-here-to-check-it-out-anyways is this here anhkross. Kinda Christian, kinda hieroglyphicy.

Welp, gotta cut this short. Must get screws. Confession time: my woodworking skills are pretty hit or miss.

Soon The Mattress Will Be Fused To My Ass

In order to avoid the cursed old Indian burial ground that is my backyard, I have moved all display thingy operations inside and onto my bed. You would think that woodworking would be impossible to do in bed. You would be wrong. With today's modern marvels like portable, handheld power tools and lazy, old fat women anything is possible.

Work on the display thingies came to a screeching halt when, after I drilled the pilot holes, I could not find a chuck to fit the screws. This problem was not solved until my son came home, looked at the collection of crap on my bed and said, "Hey, here's the bit for the Phillips screw." If the preceding makes no sense to you, I'm happy because that means you have no clue as to how monumentally stupid I am. If you understood my day-long brain fart, I'll give you a few moments to stop laughing at me.

Since I was in the throes of mental numbness and couldn't work on the display thingies, I made rings instead. They're to go into the boxes I'm making. The box the rings are sitting on top of in the picture will not make the cut as the epoxy I used to glue the adornments on turned an ugly color. And it was a very cool box, too. The lesson I learned: use clear drying mosaic glue. The rings, by the way, are not on my Etsy. That doesn't mean you shouldn't visit it.


The boxes and rings should make it to Astoria Market since they have invited me back. Astoria Market invited me back, not the rings (damned free floating pronouns). Like I reported when it happened, I had fun at the craft show but didn't make any money. I didn't lose any money, but I didn't make any either. When I mentioned the re-invite to Hubby, he excitedly said (well, as excitedly as Hubby ever gets) we should do it again. This surprised me at first. But as I thought about it I realized that this craft show was as close to hanging out as me and Hubby have gotten since I lost my job.

We used to hang out twice a month. The Nautical Mile, Loki's, South Street Seaport-- hell, even Buster & Dave's. However, without my job every single dime of our disposable income disappeared. At Astoria Market we met new people, socialized with the other vendors, drank very good beer and ate some delicious bar food-- all for free! Well, not for free. We had to pay for the beer and food but the jewelry I sold made up for it.

What I mean is, if you're in Astoria on September 25th, come by and say 'Hi'.

Kinda Precious: Carnelion and Amazonite

Using rubies and emeralds is nice and all-- at least I think it would be nice and all -- but budget constraints limit the amount of precious stones I can buy to exactly zero. But that doesn't mean I have to limit myself to plastic, resin and glass. Don't get me wrong, resin and glass can be beautiful (screw plastic. It always looks cheap) but there is something about a gemstone that's just. . . sensually gorgeous. And if you go the semi-precious route, you won't have to slash the pockets of Hasidim diamond dealers in the middle of Times Square in the middle of the day in the middle of the street (I saw this happening once with my very eyes).

Take carnelian, for example. These can be bought for as little as 6 dollars for a strand of 8mm rounds. I find it beautiful and interesting. I have seen it in a solid caramel red color but I think the variegated type is more visually interesting.

That's a carnelion at the bottom of these long drops. Of course it isn't an 8mm round but it was still plenty affordable.

Amazonite is always blue and I have a particular liking to it. Early on in my jewelry making experience I bought a strand of square amazonite and made the first pair of earrings that I thought worthy of showing off to friends and family. They were so nice my daughter and niece fought over who would have them.

Here are amazonite squares in a pair of earrings. Not the fought over ones. Those a long gone.















And on a totally out of left field note, I feel compelled to say that I did, in fact, work on the inventory spreadsheet yesterday. I figure if I do at least a page a day, it'll get done in ten days. As opposed to doing no pages a day whereupon I can drive myself insane with guilt for all eternity. Also done yesterday, work on the mini-display things.

P.S., you can find the earrings pictured above for sale at my Etsy shop. Get 'em while they're cheap.

Back In The Swing

Vacation is over. For me, anyway. Yesterday I got supplies for the mini display thingies and stayed up 'til 5 am making boxes and jewelry to go in them. Lookit.

Closed box:

Opened box-- Surprise Jesus!:

Today the plan is to get Hubby to fire up the grill sso we can keep each other company as I work on the display thingies and he makes us all delicious food. It'll be fun. Or it would be fun if our backyard wasn't a cursed mosquito filled old Indian burial ground. Did I tell you? Yesterday (yes yesterday ! When was Irene?) the men came to remove the tree. And they did. Except for the part of the tree that's IN MY YARD! Yeah, we paid them and they cut down the tree all the way to the uprooted part. The part that's pushing over the mishuginah shed and crushing our fence. When he got to that part he said that he needs machinery to do it and the machinery wouldn't fit so. . . good luck with that gigantic tree stump! And then he left.

Not on the to-do list: Finishing up the spreadsheet. Because I just don't wanna. It's all in a notebook anyways. Who needs modern technology? Well, I do but I'm too lazy to make it work. I'll just have to re-adjusted it when I raise the prices at my Etsy shop. Where the prices are still low, low, low, low, low.


Anyone who wanted to add Playworld! at the end of the last sentence, here's a video just for you.

Didja Miss Me?

See, what had happened was. . . hubby was on vacation. Which means I'm on vacation too. I didn't mean to be on vacation but somebody had to keep him company as he laid about doing nothing.

I didn't do absolutely nothing. I did get a tax ID and a vendor's license. A vendor's license is needed in my state in order to do outdoor craft shows and flea markets. I also ordered more business cards. These will be needed if I'm going to change my prices.

What didn't get done: Any jewelry making; spreadsheet filling out; display thingy building; and, of course, blog posts.

About changing my prices-- I don't wanna do it. I know I have to do it in order to have a chance at a real going concern, but I just don't wanna. I am cheap. I look at some of these pieces of jewelry on sale and think "They have got to be kidding!" Only they are not kidding. And I won't be, either.

Another thing I need to get a handle on: How to take pictures of jewelry that isn't earrings. I have a bracelet, multiple bracelet/earring combos, and two necklaces (one is an earring combo) that I could put up on my Etsy ( My Etsy. Take a look. Buy something before the prices go up. They will go up. Eventually. I swear.) but haven't because I have no idea how to take a nice picture of them.

In not-crafty news. I begged hubby for a puppy. He says "No way, Josefina!" We've got two cats and they make enough mess that this lazy family barely deals with. So I say, "How 'bout an aquarium?" And hubby is cool with that. So. . . what should I put in the aquarium? My choices are:

A Chilean Rose Hair Tranantula.

A Striped Knee Tarantula.

Or an Anole Lizard.






Please don't tell hubby what I plan to put in the aquarium. Nor my daughter. If she found out, we may not get her back into the house. When we first moved into the house, the backyard was filled with junk. As we were moving a pile of rotted lumber and iron weights (don't ask me, I had just moved in), we uncovered a teeny, tiny garter snake. I mean this guy barely made it out of the worm sized category. And he was kinda cute. My daughter ran screaming until she was hoarse and did not go back into the yard until there was snow on the ground We moved here in the month of July.


So, um, jewelry. I should make some. I should take some pictures of some. Hubby goes back to work tomorrow and so will I.