Etsy treasury

I think this is the coolest Etsy treasury I've been in. It's all about geology. Shhh, let's not tell anyone my geode earrings are made of polymer clay... It was made by YadaYadaYada, and you can see it for real until it expires on July 1 at 11 PM.

The Etsy treasury is a cool feature. You choose the work of other artists and display with a catchy title for all to see. Usually people do some sort of theme, and often they're very beautiful. I haven't curated one in a while, but when I do I usually illustrate the lyrics of a song. Good fun.

No kidding? Beads? Really?

They say things come in threes. Well, I am way past three. Things are more coming in around 142 for me lately. I took a gazillion pictures of my beads and actually took the time to edit and make the backgrounds white. Now my beads page at my etsy shop looks really fabulous. Yay photoshop! I also posted them in more reasonable sets of 6 or 8 beads at a time instead of 20, thanks to the good advice of TarkaArt. Of course, I will still be able to make them available in custom amounts, sizes, shapes, colors, flavors... Wait. Scratch that last one.

Here are a few of the beads on white. (Alex pendant and Anya beads.) I love the way these pictures look so clean and bright. (Oh great, now I'll have Edelweiss in my head. Way to go, self.)

I've also gotten the beads organized and ready to sell sell sell, all packed up neatly in fun little hand-folded paper boxes.

My sister and I make these boxes while watching movies and hanging about. I seem to have a never-ending supply of scrapbooking paper, thanks to donations from friends and my tendency to buy just a piece or two whenever I'm at the craft store. The colors are hard to resist.

Now, don't you just want to buy some beads so you can get them in one of these cute boxes?

www.divadea.etsy.com

Tarot card of the day

What can I learn? Because I surely could use some guidance, my brain is a bit confuddled...

Tarot Card: Page of Swords
Character: April
Upright Meaning: An enthusiastic, young emissary. Detachment and therefore unbiased truth. Simple, but well-meaning.
Reversed Meaning: Imposter or spy. A two-faced, snooping meddler.
Questions: Who brought you a bit of information? Was it a person you can trust or perhaps a spy from an unknown quarter?
Advice: Simple things up. Look at the lowest common denominator and find the most straightforward solution.

OK, first of all, what do you suppose it means that out of the whole deck I've pulled three today, and two are robots? (See here for the other two I pulled.) My first thought when I see April is of Buffy saying, "She growls?!?" Seriously, how appalling is the fact that Warren made her so she growls? Yikes. But I'm supposed to be pondering me, not the show. So...

I guess I have been fairly robotic lately, with the constant list making and go go go. "Do you know Warren? I am looking for Warren" translates for me to "I must make beads, I must sell beads." Still, I must, and I think I'm on the right track. Time will tell.

Detachment - yes, a bit, from certain people who I'm not yet ready to confront. For one I may be ready soon or I may let it go. For another, probably I'll never be ready or let it go. And unlike poor April, my battery is fairly unlikely to wind down in the middle of a well-placed aphorism. Sigh.

Spy or imposter? I've felt a bit of that at work. I'll have to watch out for it, I guess. No blogging about work, though, so I'll have to ruminate on that one off screen.

Simple things up. I'm not ready to at the moment. I guess I'm really fighting you here today, April. Sorry. You'll just have to continue to growl.

You should really vote

In the PCAGOE June contest, that is.

The Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy has a monthly contest with a theme. June's theme is "self-portrait." Ee gads. Some folks made literal self portraits, and some made more representational items. They're all very cool. I made a necklace to represent me. It's bright, large, asymmetrical, loud, eclectic, complementary (not to be confused with complimentary, which I only occasionally manage), orange, wild, crazy, one of a kind, and did I mention large? If anyone is so inclined, you can go to http://pcagoe.com/ to vote for your favorite entry - you could win a prize pack of items from various polymer clay artists! Voting is up now through 6/28, so go vote for me, I mean, um, go vote for your favorite entry.

Here are the specs:

Length: a whopping 36 inches, plus the pendant

Pendant: a sort of squarish goddess curly-haired person, just over 2 inches high and just over 1 inch across, strung diagonally

Clay Beads: polymer clay canework stars, suns, butterflies, sunsets, flowers, geometric patterns, and even a yin-yang

Other beads: glass, plastic, brass, wood, stone-- spheres, tubes, cat's eyes, oblong, chunky, square, shiny, iridescent, fun!

And also - it's a lot lighter in weight than you might expect, because polymer clay beads are light :)

It's a one of a kind necklace extravaganza, and it's for sale here at my etsy shop!

Holy beads, batman!

A couple of people from etsy have asked to see some pictures, so I figured I might as well go whole hog and post a whole bunch. No, this isn't all of them, but it's the best ones. Hopefully I will find time to edit this post and add sizes and availability, but in the meantime, feel free to comment here, convo me on etsy, or send me an email at admin@divadea.com with any questions. If you would like to purchase beads, just let me know, and I will set up a custom listing for you at my etsy shop. Thanks for looking! (Psst - if you've never had any polymer clay beads, you need some! I have a sampler listing here.)

Introducing Fern

Just posted at Etsy, right here, in fact. This cane (named Fern) was tiny, and I used up all the beads in this one set. I almost hate to give them up. I absolutely love the little green teardrop beads. If I had a million of them, I would make one of those hippie bead curtains.

The whole set is $32.00 at www.divadea.etsy.com. As always, all comments and questions are welcomed.

The necklace has round millefiori beads. They make me happy.

Peace, good buddy

I'm participating in a peace swap on etsy. Very cool. We have secret buddies (like a secret Santa except without all the holiday unpleasantness) and we're sending each other peace-related items, and/or items that help provide peace in the personal sense. This week my buddy sent me a rainbow of embroidery thread, some orange chocolates, and a peace sign keychain. I really love the keychain sort of obsessively, perhaps because I finally threw out the old one, which was a vestige of my day care years. Ugh.

Behold, the goodies!

(The card has on it a bit of sheet music - thank you so much, peace buddy, for putting "feelin' groovy" in my head all week!)