I Am Feeling Poorly.

This Sunday, Hubby offered me the last beer and I turned it down. This alarmed Hubby so much he felt my forehead and told me to go lay down. On the advice of Hubby-- who called just now and told me not to lay in bed all day long like I did yesterday and go make myself something to eat-- I made myself a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich, cursing the lack of marshmallow Fluff. I was excited when I made it but, after two bites, I really don't want it. It's official: I'm sick.

Why am I typing this in a blog about wire wrapping for survival? Because the house is empty except for me and I need somebody to whine to. You, faceless reader, are it.

I know! I'll look at some Art Nouveau jewelry to make me feel better.

I could do this all day if I didn't feel the urgent need to get back to bed and sleep for an hour or 48. Nighty night. Don't forget to check out my Etsy shop and Artfire studio.

I Was Made Wrong.

Because I was made without a third hand. Who is responsible for this mix-up? On the one hand we could blame genetics since the human genome dictates that anyone born with a third hand is a mutant. On the other hand we can blame the grand designer, who didn't look far enough ahead into the future to see that, once we stopped swinging from the trees and lost the use of our feet as a tool, an extra hand would have been, well, handy. And on the gripping hand. . . there is no gripping hand.

Well there is a cure for this. It's called Third Hand and it's better than anything our genes could have pulled out of our extra rib. Because this third hand comes equipped with a magnifying glass and built in light. Take that Mother Nature!

The only problem that could arise from having been born with a third hand would be finding stylish dresses and shirts that fit.

Sunday Sillies.

I've been having what I call "patch dreams". I quit smoking for the second time. And instead of relapsing like I did the first time I quit, whenever I feel like I could really use a cigarette, I slap on a nicotine patch. The patches make for some of the best dreams ever. I think they should be made into movies or TV shows. Some of my favorites:

1. Twilight President.
During the last presidential elections, I dreamed that Obama had mesmerized the electorate with his secret vampire abilities. He tried to personally mesmerized me but couldn't. He didn't realize my first name was Michele. It was impossible for him to use his powers over women named Michele. But he didn't need to mesmerize me. I explained that he could win the election with the power of his policies alone. His vampire skills were unneeded.

This would be the perfect vehicle for Disney to jump on the vampire bandwagon.


2. Trapped In The Museum.
I so dreamed this long before Night In The Museum. Me and a girlfriend where in the Brooklyn Museum of Art. We knew the museum was closing but we were too engrossed in an exhibit that displayed found pottery shards at different famous construction sites in Brooklyn (there is no exhibit like that. I dreamed it up) to care.

And then the museum closed. The doors in and out of each exhibit locked and the only way me and Meanie could get out of the museum was to solve the mystery of each room between us and the outside door. Each room had it's demon to deal with. The pottery room held the ghost of all the dead of turn of the century babies that drank dirty water from the pottery.

This movie can still me made. It could be sold as a Night In The Museum/Da'Vinci Code mash up.


3.Iceball Earth

Last night I watched this movie in my dream. It was about how humans had fucked up the Earth so bad, we made a new ice age, this one was so bad the whole world was covered in ice. Humans lived under the ice in domes. The humans would have liked to build domes on the surface of the ice, but aliens had decided that humans were pests and had set up an automatic roach spray satellites that encircled the Earth. Whenever a human colony tried to surface, it would get sprayed with raid.

In one of these underground domed biospheres that was trying to break out onto the surface, lived Cybil Shepard, an airhead receptionist. Jack Black loved her from afar. Now that the colony was going to surface and probably be roach-sprayed to death, he found the courage to ask her out.

At one point they try to make out in puffy spacesuits with goldfish bowl type space helmets. It's a Sci-Fi Rom-Com.



I know people who don't like to have vivid dreams. These people are crazy. Where else can you be chased by an stone Egyptian asp and live to tell about it?



This entry has absolutely nothing to do with my Etsy shop. Nor is my Artfire studio mentioned in anyway whatsoever. I thought I'd mention that.

Hello Blog, I'm Not Feeling You Today.

So howzabout a bunch of pictures of handmade blown glass?

Silver Lake Studios.

Robert Kaindl.

Lino Tagliapietra.

Rosetree.

Light Opera.

Sonja Blomdahl.






























I can look at and post these things all day long. You will not find any blown glass at either My Etsy or my Artfire shops

My Brush With Greatness

I hear Andy Rooney is retiring from 60 Minutes so I get to relate this story once again.

A long, long time ago when I was much younger and less hideous, me and my BFF worked in the same building were 60 Minutes is taped. The DEA also had offices in the building and we were always getting bomb threats long, looonnnggg before 9/11. This fact has nothing to do with the story I'm relating. Just thought I'd mention it.

So. . . it's Friday night. My and BFF are all tarted up and ready to dance the night away at the Copa. Really. We were going to the Copacabana. It was that long ago. We're outside the building trying to hail a cab and Andy Rooney walks out and tries to hail a cab too. Well, we were not gonna stand for that. We were there first. We walk out onto the street and act as pretty as we can. It doesn't take long before a taxi screeches to a stop in front of us.

The taxi pulls off and the driver slows down a bit and asks, "Hey, do you girls know that guy?" He indicates his rearview mirror.

We turn around and see Andy Rooney chasing the taxi down the street, waving his hands and yelling. He chased the cab for the whole damned block and, lemme tell ya, the blocks between the avenues in midtown Manhattan are very long.

I turn to BFF and say, "We're gonna be on TV. 'Doncha hate it when young tarted up girls steal your taxi? I know I do!'"

P.S. We did NOT steal his taxi. We were there first. He shoulda worn a mini-skirt and glitter make-up.

Yeup, that's how I remember it. Except with much less tables. We went there to disco the night away, not watch a show.

Still Trying To Find Ways To Make Money

. . . that don't include being pushy and obnoxious. I've started re-listing on Etsy. I am re-listing the jewelry as new items as an experiment. Etsy used to list according to recency, which meant you had to list as often as possible to show up in a search. They have changed their search from recency to relevance. I am not sure how that works. If you list your item as 'earring, chandelier, crystal'-- pretty standard search terms-- and 100 other sellers use those same terms, how does Etsy decide who will be listed on top and who will be listed way on the bottom?

So far I have found that the only difference the relevance search has done for my items is to drop them more quickly from the top of the search page. They still show up near the top of the search page when they are first listed but they drop very quickly thereafter.

The one thing this new Etsy search thingy has done is to make me write really boring descriptions of my items since Etsy insists they use item descriptions as part of their relevancy algorithm. Soooo. . . I am now going to delete the earrings I de-listed and add them again one by one with new, boring descriptions. Let's hope that helps. Here's the first example of a boring listing. Contrast and compare to the other listings. See what I mean?

Over at Artfire I've gotten a whole lot more looky-loos in one day than I ever got on Etsy. This could be due to the fact that I had to ask a question in their forums. Talking in the forums tends to drive up views since people wanna know where the hell your coming from and what kind of crap your selling. Here, take a looky-loo at the crap I'm selling on Artfire.

Ya know, one of the ways I can try to sell more of my crap is to stop calling it crap. Must work on that. Got a list going now.

• Smile
• Say "Hello"
• Don't call your jewelry "crap"

Yeah, I'll be on my first million in no time!

Today's beauty shot is a mosaic from Chest of Hope, a money raising art project for cancer. Well, not for cancer, that would be stupid. Nobody's for cancer. If anything, it's an art project against cancer. You all know what I mean.

I Needed You, My Invisible Friends!

Yesterday's Astoria Market Fair was a major bust. The time before I made enough money to cover the table and the beer and food me and Hubby ate and drank. Yesterday we sold a total of no earrings, no bracelets, no necklaces and no boxes. Making a grand total of negative one hundred and ten dollars. That's table, food and beer. We still had a blast. There were live bands. The first, a cover band, rocked out. The played Led Zep, Steve Wonder, Bon Jovi, Earth, Wind and Fire, The Doors-- all the songs old folks like me and the Hub could groove to. Except P-Funk. There was no bop-gun to shoot Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk with.

And, as always, the other vendors were the best. Friendly, lovely people quick to lend a hand and give advice. The painter next to me told me she made a thousand dollars at Astoria three shows ago but she barely made table the last two show. "That's how it goes. Sometimes you make a killing, sometimes it kills you." I'm a little bloodthirsty, I'd like to kill and kill again.

Another thing I'd like to do is to somehow get this show mobile. I'd like to be able to pack my crap up, load it on a luggage rack or similar and haul it by public transportation all by my lonesome. This will require me to buy something else. I have decided that I cannot buy another damned thing for selling jewelry until I make something selling jewelry. In the beginning I sold lots of stuff but, not only did I put every dime I made right back into "the business", but the month of September was a big, gigantic bust making me quite leery of sinking more money into an enterprise that sells nothing.

What I am going to do is open up a second internet storefront. This one with Artfire. From what I understand, Artfire is free for a month and then you get to choose from a Basic Plan, which is virtually free, and a Pro Plan, which is 11 dollars a month-- no listing fee or percentage paid. On Artfire I plan to list my boxes, necklaces and bracelets. Earrings and pins will remain at Etsy.




Now all I gotta do is figure out how to take nice pics of the boxes indoors. And how to sneak in links to two sites instead of the one Etsy site. How's this picture?