Etsy in the NYT

The New York Times has an article about selling on Etsy, "That Hobby Looks Like a Lot of Work."

QUIT your day job?
To some craft enthusiasts that is just the name of a popular blog on Etsy, the fast-growing Web site that serves as a marketplace for crafts and vintage goods.

But to Yokoo Gibran, it was an epiphany.

Ms. Gibran, who is in her 30s, had been selling her hand-knit scarves and accessories on the site for less than a year when she decided last November to quit her day job at a copy center in Atlanta. Thirteen months later, she would seem to be living the Etsy dream: running a one-woman knitwear operation, Yokoo, from her home and earning more than $140,000 a year, more than many law associates.

Jealous? How could you not be? Her hobby is her job. But consider this before you quit your day job: at the pace she’s working, she might as well be a law associate.
Read more...

Very interesting article... hmmm... I think I'll get to work!

Aurae Light Spacers

I bought a 1/4 lb. of Aurae Light from Double Helix a few weeks ago, just to try it out. I made a small set of spacers with it:The spacers pictured above turned out nice, but there were many more I made that did not turn out well. I found the glass to be more difficult to reduce than regular Aurae. Not that it doesn't reduce, it just reduces more quickly, or it heats up and strikes to a greenish cast more readily than Aurae. I found I had to hold it way, way out in the flame, like 6-8 inches from the torch face while reducing, and not get the bead too hot.

I think that making really shiny solid spacers from reducing glass is harder than using it as decoration. There is something about the smooth, round face of a spacer bead that lends itself to uneven reduction and striking from overheating. I think Aurae Light would be perfect for raised dots, raised decorations, and under encasing (which I've tried and it looks really pretty).

It's similar to the way Dark Silver Plum works. I learned this from Amber (Naos). If you try and make a smooth round spacer bead with DSP, it often stays black and shiny and it's tricky to get the peacock hues. Yet if you make a textured bead with it, it gets the matte metallic look and the colors much more easily. Reducing glass from Double Helix seems to be the same way in a sense - it's easier to get a nice metallic shine when there's some texture in the surface.

Does it sound like I'm complaining about glass? (There is some line about a craftsman who blames his tools... hmm...) Maybe it's because I've got a head cold right now, ugh! Also I seem to have lost my knack for reducing Triton lately which really has me upset. Is it that the recipe for Triton has changed? Have I forgotten how I used to reduce it? It's really weird. It reduces to a dark grey metallic, then goes right to an over-reduced green-tinted yuck right afterwards. Where's the shiny gold I used to get?

I hope you are healthy and enjoying yourself for the holidays!
More soon :-)

Metallic Thread Beads

I have two new sets on Etsy. This first set is a "destash" of orphaned metallic thread beads. They're various sizes and shapes and use combinations of Nyx, Elektra, Kronos and Aurae:This set is made with a base of Nyx and threads of Aurae:I'm waiting anxiously for the UPS lady today who is bringing a pound of Triton from ABR! They're having a sale on Double Helix glass right now.

Terra and Ekho Beads Destash

I have some new "destash" listings in my Etsy shop tonight, Double Helix Terra and Ekho beads encased with Aether clear:

Organic Brown and Metallic Beads

I listed this on Etsy tonight. It's a set of 9 beads with 2 that are larger than the others and could be used as a separate earring pair. To me they look like sandstone with metallic ore running through.I'm also going through my bowls of extra beads and making up some 'destash' listings for Etsy. I have so many extras that are perfectly good, I just never made a complete set of them, or else they're a set of the same style but mis-matched sizes. There are lots of reasons nice beads become orphans.
I put up these two destash listings today and they're now sold, but look for more in my Etsy shop during December.
These are made with ASK Blue Bahia and etched:These are Ivory, not etched:

Thanksgiving

My kids had the week off from school and we went down to Scottsdale, AZ to spend Thanksgiving with family. Relatives came from Tucson, New York, Connecticut and California. My Aunt Ann threw a spectacular Thanksgiving dinner. There were 23 people at the table!Ann is the woman at the opposite end of the table. She is an amazing painter, and in the picture above she's standing in front of one of her paintings. You can see her website HERE.

We're back home in Sedona now and I'm looking forward to getting back to the torch this week.
I hope you had a nice week too!

Those Pesky Hairs! A Photoshop Tut

Troubled by those unsightly hairs that sneak into your bead photos?

I know the story... You're sure you dusted off the bead before you took the picture - but gasp! There it is, another bead fallen victim to a bad hair day! What's a girl to do? Spend another 10 minutes re-taking the photo? It's too late to pluck with tweezers!
Relax... if you've opened the photo in your Photoshop program, just select the "Smudge Tool"!

Here is a photo of a bead that I dusted with a ridiculous amount of lint for dramatic effect:I open the photo in Photoshop and select the "Smudge Tool." I'm using Photoshop CS2 here:Starting with the background of the bead, I'll tackle the areas in the circles first:
How to erase the lint:

1. Select the Smudge Tool and make the tool radius small. I'm using the size "7" and the strength "100%" here.

2. With your cursor, place the Smudge Tool just to the left of but not touching the lint you want to erase.

3. Click and drag left to right across the lint to erase it, using the shortest drag distance necessary.

4. For large pieces of lint, only erase a little bit at a time, lifting and moving the Smudge Tool to the next section of lint until the whole piece is erased. This will give you a better looking smudge than if you try and erase the whole big piece of lint in one drag.

Here is the photo now with the background lint removed:Now I'm removing some of the lint from the bead surface. This part is trickier because I don't want to smudge the details of the bead:And here is the final outcome of the virtual lint removal:Not perfect by any means! But you get the idea. If this were a bead photo I wanted to use in a listing, I obviously would have first questioned the unusual level of dust in my house, then re-taken the picture. I must have spent a half-hour in Photoshop getting rid of all that lint.
I hope this helps. Have fun!