link love?

I know I said I was finished with this blog, but I don't think I am. I may try to "double fist" the blogs for awhile. I have an odd increment of time on my hands this morning: we have a 10:30 AM playdate, but we slept in until 6:30, so I don't feel like we have time to go to the Y, the library, get a shower, and make it to the playdate by the appointed time, so I decided instead to work on some "link love" on Facebook. I have discovered that it's not really my thing.

I have, right this minute, 71 fans on my FB page. I know most of those people. Mostly they are existing clients, friends, family members of friends. I only have a few people on there who I don't know at all. I don't think randomly fanning pages accomplishes anything. Okay, some people have 800 fans, but many of those people just want to have 800 fans on their own pages. Do they immediately hide your posts? Do they ever look at your Etsy shop when it's time to buy gifts? I decided to only fan pages that interest me. People can make self-promotional posts on my FB page all they want--I'll check it out, and if I like their work, I'll let them know.

This, of course, goes along with the whole "not lying" thing. I don't tell my child that a monster will get her if she doesn't brush her teeth. If she asks what happens to the cute baby cow she is petting, I let her know that it will be probably be someone's dinner some day. I try very hard to be kind yet honest in interpersonal relationships. Some people live by the ten commandments. Great if it works for them, but I live by the nine noble virtues. I have found that when I rediscovered my faith and stopped trying to keep silent about what I believed, in order to blend in with the Judeo-Christian matrix of our society, I became much happier. Truth, honor, and fidelity are the most important to me, though all nine are interconnected and work best together.

So there. That's my preaching. I never say these things to people unsolicited, because that's just as bad as knocking on doors with pamphlets. You made the decision to read this, though, so. . .thanks. And if I like your work, you'll know. :)

new blog

Here's what I plan to do: I'm going to start writing a new blog. The reason I started this one is that every helpful selling strategies email from Etsy says that shoppers love blogs, and good sellers write blogs. That may be true, but I think the problem with mine is that of all the things I am thinking about minute to minute, rarely is making jewelry or accessories among them. I still create things, because I enjoy it. I am no great photographer, so when there's 2 feet of snow outside it's hard for me to photograph anything since I have not yet found a feasible way to put myself inside a lightbox. My main Etsy shop will carry on, and I plan to add some of the more eco-conscious things I've been working on to the other Etsy shop, Duck & Cover,like recycled yarns, but this blog is dead. nobody needs to listen to me bitch about the things and people that annoy me, or to read the myriad ways I can grasp at straws as I try to relate what I'm actually thinking about to my shop.

So here it is: I give you. . .

The last Octavia's Beads blog post!

Making yarn is my new favorite thing. I spun some nice super bulky undyed yarn from some wool roving that i picked up at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival last weekend. I knitted a few rows with it and it is soft, cuddly, and amazing. I was so proud of myself. I also bought some pinkish-peach and cream roving with bronze glitzy-stuff in it at the PASA conference and I think the two combined will make a stunning wrap.
At the K&C festival, I took a class on recycled yarn. Some of it was probably common sense, but as I have none, I needed this class. The instructor even pointed out that all of the things she taught were available to learn from youtube, but I am not likely to pay rapt attention to youtube for more than a few minutes. To be fair, though, that is how I taught myself to use a drop spindle. That and a library book from the U.K. which was published in the 1960s and never checked out before. I'm certainly on the crest of a trendy wave, aren't I? Anyway, T-shirt yarn, plastic bag yarn, leather yarn. . . it's all possible, it's all doable, and it can look really fantastic. I knitted a headband out of T-shirt yarn that I made while I was there that day.

So. . . if you'd like to see what I make with the yarn, to find out what I plant in my new, bigger garden and how I plan to add wheat, nuts, hops, and kiwis, read the new blog. If you want to follow the drama and the learning curve as I manage my first multi-farm CSA group this summer, read the new blog. If you're curious about how much of one family's food supply one person without training or experience can produce from an acre of challenging clay soil, read the new blog at http://www.finianvalley.blogspot.com. Thanks!

rock and a hard place

You know how they (whoever "they" are)say that there's just no pleasing some people? I suppose I'm one of those people. I moved away from the city because I was tired of being harassed by crackheads at the laundromat. I left because people saved their parking spaces with chairs. I left because in just one neighborhood there were enough seats in bars for EVERY PERSON living in all of the 90+ neighborhoods of Pittsburgh. I left because I expect to speak English to most people, in most situations.
When I left, I left a lot of friends behind. The really fun people. The people who were/are really important to me I have kept in touch with, of course, but it's the loss of a hundred or so aquaintainces that makes the move to the sticks really bitter.
I am so pleased to have enough land that I can grow (a lot of) my own food, but I miss being able to go out for Thai food at 10 P.M. with drunk psychobilly kids. I am so very happy that I have a driveway rather than on-street parking that must be secured by way of various intrigues and diversions, but I miss all the crusty, badass old bikers. It's surprising that this town can support three tattoo shops, yet somehow when men (even young men) see my arms they can't stop themselves from telling me that tattooed women have never been their thing, or that their fathers would scream if they brough a girl home with that much ink. It's great to live right on the water, but it was also great, in the past, to be able to go see a decent live band every week. I love it that my kid can go outside and literally hug a tree, but I hate it that here in the country where you can actually feel nature, all of the earth-religion people (aside from a few eccentrics at a Unitarian Church) are in hiding. The overwhelmingly oppressive conservative Christian atmosphere is suffocating. I have a pair of friends who have a child about the same age as mine, and they are great playmates. We agree on many parenting issues, and the Christianity-in-your-face environment is difficult for them too. I think that they are planning to move away from this town within the year. Not because of that--it's the whole 'rural living' package, I think.
The other thing about being here is that it's difficult for someone who works from home to make friends, and damn near impossible to find someone interesting to date. The pool of single men is pretty small, and when you remove all the miserable bastards, the men afflicted by paralyzing shyness, and everyone with basic interests so different from mine that it just can't be ignored, that leaves. . . well. . . let's just say that I'm not dating anyone and the last guy I dated turned out to be a train wreck.

Haiti Relief

It may be a bit after the fact, but I'm sure the need for help in Haiti isn't going away any time in the near future. Doctors Without Borders could use your help, and so I made a section in my Etsy shop that's a fundraiser. 20% of profits from everything in that section go to the Haitian Relief effort through Doctors Without Borders. There is also a special vintage item in the Duck n' Cover shop that's a similar fundraiser.

This is the special vintage item.

up early, again

Good morning, everyone! It's only 7:18 A.M. here, and I have already had breakfast and put yesterday's dishes away. Laundry has been started, my pot of coffee is half gone already (note to self: figure out how to get into the building where they sell the organic coffee and undercut the grocery store--the building has about eight doors, but where in the hell is the actual store?), and my plan for later is taking the crib in my daughter's room apart. Our babysitter returns from winter break today, so am looking forward to three hours of getting my own work done. That is, of course, assuming that she doesn't have a meltdown because she hasn't seen this girl in a month. We'll see.

For about two months I haven't been bending over backwards to make new jewelry and hair accessories. I had a lot of work to do for the co-op until the end of December, and for the last few weeks I just wanted a break. I am, however, trying to sort out which festivals I will be doing this season, so I wanted to start making some knockout pieces to draw people in, stuff that will photograph well and look good in applications. A craft supply store nearby is moving to another location, so I picked up piles of beads and chain for next to nothing. It's not super high-quality stuff, but for pretty costume jewelry, a person would be insane to pass up those deals. I've made some sentimental Valentine's Day-themed stuff out of these beads. My thinking is that sane people don't need to buy sterling heart charms to wear one week each year, so why not resin and base metal with sparkly bits thrown in?Below is a work in progress. I plan to add hot pink ribbon and bows. I'm nothing if not classy. . .




My favorite early Spring festival has been cancelled this year, which blows me away. I thought it was a great success for vendors and the community. It's the Kaleidoscope on Main event in Slippery Rock, PA, and it's part of the month-long Kaleidoscope Festival that SRU puts on. The reson I was given was "inadequate event staff." Um, hello? Bad answer! It's a university, full of young people grudgingly completing community service requirements, and you expect people to be satisfied with "inadequate event staff" as an answer? Grrr. I'm especially annoyed about it because it's 3 1/2 miles from my house and has been suprisingly lucrative for me.

I've made the decision to forego festivals over Memorial Day Weekend in favor of cleaning out my garage for money. What I mean is that after two years of having a little being in my household, I now have so much stuff in the garage and the attic that it's almost difficult to believe. It's insane! I'm only going to keep what has sentimental value, especially since it would take divine intervention for me to have another child at this point. That sort of thing doesn't happen on its own, you know. Anyway, my neighborhood has a big, well advertised yard sale every year that weekend, and while I'm okay with giving some of the surplus kid stuff to charity, some of it is definitely worth selling. I will probably have to do more preparation for the yard sale than for a festival and I will almost definitely make less profit, but festivals don't clean out my garage!

Random on a Monday

Above: fascinator I made last night and listed on Etsy today.


Firstly, some random information that I must get off my chest:

I cannot think of a piece of meat that isn't improved by boiling it in beer, preferably with jalapenos.

I completely understand, after getting 'help' from a 2-year old while making pumpkin bread, why people just go buy a bag of Chips Ahoy.

I'm going to the PASA conference, taking a class at the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival on making recycled yarn, and going to my first Penguins game all during February. I am making up for lost 'adult time' all in one go, apparently.

Am I the only person who thinks that my time and effort are important enough to be certain I have given accurate invoices to the people who sell me stuff? Our co-op has far, far more surplus money as of 31 December than we should, presumably because I have not been giving the growers credit for everything they sold. Why, you ask? Because quite a few people have been selling themselves short by giving me incomplete invoices, and then apparently they never realized. Money is too tight in my world to make that sort of mistake!

I know I need to make more jewelry and fascinators. That's my primary occupation, and in the depths of frigid Pennsylvania winter, my commission from the co-op isn't going to be much for the next few weeks. I don't want to start preparing for spring and early summer festivals, though. I want to go through all my seed catalogs, decide what type of chickens to get, buy a drop spindle and try my hand at some other fiber arts, make soap (properly) for the first time. . . there's no time in all of that to string beads and glue feathers to things. I'm knitting my daughter a pair of socks. Without a pattern. I'm about to make a batch of root beer for the kid, since just making beer for myself doesn't do her any good. . . I'd like to try my hand at making mead, but thirteen pounds of honey doesn't just drop on one's doorstep!
People seem to think that being self-employed means that you have nothing but free time. Absolutely wrong! I probably work more hours than alot of people who work for other people. I love having this part-time job for the co-op, in spite of the problems we've been experiencing with our supply chain recently, but sometimes that job on top of everything else is a bit much for me to work with!

Gasp! Nail Polish?

I was looking through stuff from the EWG and other groups who focus on green products, trying to find the safest nail polish. I usually use OPI, and happily, it's among the best.There's another company out there called Suncoat that makes water based polishes, and their colors are not bad, but what I want more than any other color is agreat matte gray--no pearliness. That's why I just spent $26.50 on Rescue Beauty Lounge Stormy polish. It damn well better be everything it's reviewed to be! And it has the same set of non-toxic claims as OPI, by the way.