The Blame Game - and new earrings.

steely2
Originally uploaded by ensojewelry

I love using these vintage lucite beads as a base rather than the customary painted wood - where there is some show-through you can really get interesting color effects.

I'm getting testy about the tendency of people on etsy to be so much more worried about what everyone else is doing and trying to find some locus for blame whenever they're not selling.

If I'm not selling it's because there's so much vintage and supplies, or because someone has a lower price point, or because of foreign resellers, or batman, or bananas or the government --- enough already.

Take a look at your own shop and do something about it. Put a tenth of that energy into refining your work, your marketing, your promotion, and you won't have to blame anyone but yourself.

That's a good theme, actually. I did a craft fair where I really tanked lately - I did not do what I expected.

I could easily have blamed the fact that I was next to someone with lower priced merch and blame the shoppers, but no - I wasn't prepared, my stuff was not presented NEARLY as nicely as the seller next to me, I didn't go in with as much stock as I should have . It was me, all me, and an object lesson rather than something to beat myself up over! When I told my mother her first instinct was to ask "oh what was her work like" about the person next to me who was rocking - I told her no, that's not the issue, it was nice and it was all beautifully carded and displayed - I had fallen down on my job of making my stuff look its best and I was paying for it.

That's the only blame game I'm interested in, the one which makes me do better next time.

Hippies eat your heart out

Today I made these using citrine, goldfill, vermeil hoops and garnets.

And the technique?

Brick stitch!

That sound is the sound of a million horrid pairs of fringey hippie earrings screaming.

I hope I've redeemed the stitch a little from its usual fate.