Happy Accidents, The Tedium of Transferring Listings, Etsy Rumours and Soft Fruit. . .

Ridged beads - click the pic for the link to my new shop

Not a lot going on here over the last week or two. Well, not a lot that is worth sharing anyway ;-)
I have had a some time in the workshop, and managed to knock out a few rather fetching beads, but I haven't had time to get stuck in, so to speak.

Makes for an exciting blog post doesn't it?

Some random(ish) ridged, long bicone beads, click the pic for the link etc

Anyway, a lot of time has been spent transferring my Etsy listings to my new Indiemade shop. Still got about 150 listings to edit. It does get very boring, but needs to be done.

As far as shop stuff goes, which is taking up my headspace rather too much these days, Etsy is still causing headaches for a great many sellers, if the forums are anything to go by. Yes, the level of griping there has always been high, but this is something over and above that. Rumour is that the powers that be are prepping it for a sale/takeover. We shall see. I will keep a small presence there until things become clearer but will be working on my new venue primarily.
To that end I even bought the jbdrusticorganic.com domain and will transfer the URL over, once I work out how that is done.

Earring beads, in a 'pot' style. In my new shop now - click the pic. . .

I keep telling myself that I am going to move on to something else from my 'turned' effect 'pot' and 'candlestick' beads, as I don't like to keep on the same track for very long generally. I guess I don't want things to get stale. But despite my intentions, once I get in the workshop it's pots and candlesticks all the way ;-) .
I know enough not to try to fight my intuition and instinct, so I just go with it. There is always more to discover about a technique. And usually, it's a small, unlooked for distraction that wouldn't otherwise have happened, that leads to a new idea and the next obsession. . . I'm a believer in 'happy accidents' after all. The trick is to notice a potential good thing when you stumble across it. You can't go hunting for inspiration, you have to supply the circumstances for it to happen naturally. . .

Candlestick beads - in my shop now. . . clickety click. . .

In the garden, the raspberries and loganberries are ripe. I have been freezing some of them, as we can't eat them all and I hate wasting such things. Broad bean pods are appearing too. I will pick them young as they are much more palatable then, than the big floury things I remember from my youth. Courgettes are happening too. (cool yellow ones!) I only have one plant this year so the backlog in the fridge, and the despair at the pile of marrow sized ones I didn't pick in time should be much reduced. I hope ;-)
The rain and hot weather seems to have conspired to firstly, shrivel, and then rot the strawberries, which is a shame. . . Well, can't be helped.

A long focal bead, rustic ridged etc - the pic is a link

The best news of the last few days is that our neighbour, who helps out the local cat rescue charity says there are some kittens becoming available in the next few days. . . Two little silver tabbies amongst them. I think I am going to be tempted ;-) Obviously photos will be shared if and when this cat acquisition happens. . . It's been a long time since I had a cat around the place.
Yay! KITTENS!
Jon x

White Point mutterings, a Cool Cutter Set and a small Varnish Revelation. . . Oh, and NEW SHOP!

The image is also a link. . .

Well, the exciting news first. . . Vic, from up the road fixed my lawn mower. . .

Yeah, OK, that's not really the exciting news, though it did mean that I could finish my assault on the nettles and knee high grass in the orchard. . .

No, the potentially exciting news is that I have started up a new shop at another selling venue!
My ingratitude for the special gift of invisibility bestowed upon my shop by Etsy knows no bounds. ;-)

The images all link to the relevant page in my new shop. . .

I did a bit of research and found a site that is reasonably cheap per month, has no listing fees or sales fees, has usable themes, has the ability to import Etsy listings and link to them etc, and has good and quick customer support (unlike Etsy).
It has very little traffic of it's own, but I figure that if I am going to get stuck into generating my own traffic, I may as well point it to my own standalone shop rather than the train wreck (imho) that Etsy (especially Etsy Studio) seems to be set on becoming.

Except this one hasn't been listed yet. . .

So I have spent long hours working my way through the 300 or so listings I imported into my new shop, tweaking the seo and taking out any etsy links etc. I am about half way through the process so I think I am ready to share what I have been doing with a hopefully sympathetic audience. The site I chose is called 'Indiemade' and has been set up with sellers of handmade stuff in mind.

https://jbdrusticorganic.indiemade.com/store    is the link to my new shop.

Please feel free to check it out. If you feel moved to let me know what you think, don't let me stop you. Anything that bothers you about it, or that is confusing, please give me the benefit of your opinion. Many thanks x Meanwhile I shall continue the tweaking. BTW, all my newer stuff is on there, and at least most of the pics on this post are all linked to those items in my shop. Efficient or what? Phew. . .

Pic is a link as before. . .

So, on to the mutterings. . .
I've been having trouble getting my photos consistent between my camera and my computer. I am setting the white point manually, so that the different colours of the beads I am photographing don't affect each pic differently, but however close I get the colours on my camera screen, the exposure and white point seem way off on my computer. At least they are fairly consistently way off, so I can bring them back in Pshop to a certain extent, but it is a bit of a pain. The monitor is calibrated and all that so I am not quite sure what I am doing wrong if anything. Never mind, just moaning, I'll sort it, ignore,

And this one. . .

As you may be able to tell from the photos sprinkled lovingly throughout this post, I have bought a set of interesting shaped cutters. They are meant for working with leather, but are great for polymer clay. They come in sets of 26 or so and can be found on the usual big online venues for around ten pounds.

This one too. . .

So far I have just used them to make relatively crisp and clean image transfer charm type things, but I will explore further, texturing and distressing and all that.

And of course, this one. . .

My small Varnish Revelation is only a personal revelation, as most sensible people would have worked it out ages ago. . . I started applying Varathene varnish before baking! gasp! It does brighten up the resulting image a bit and seems to prevent any fading during baking. Obviously, the down side is that any distressing of said beads after baking might be harder. I haven't tested this yet, but I will in due course.

Aye well, it's all a learning curve,

Cheers,
Jon x

The Art of Invisibility

So, I have discovered that one of the  most sought after super powers in human history is incredibly simple to attain. I have achieved invisibility! . . .

Well, all right, I haven't really, but as far as my bead shop on Etsy goes I might as well have done. . . As the powers that be at Etsy tend to do, they are tinkering and fiddling behind the scenes, but this time it's radical fiddling and it's messing a lot of thing up.

I suspect the tinkering etc is only part of the story, I do understand that retail is not predictable but when your views drop by half suddenly and don't recover over a period of three weeks, and sales dry up for a much longer period than what passes for normal, conspiracy theories start to come into play.

The psychological effect is surprising. If you had asked me how I would take a situation like this, I would have sworn blind that I could suck it up and stay calm, but disconcertingly, I find myself worrying about what I might have done wrong or how I might have lost touch with my audience etc etc. I find myself losing motivation to make stuff, even though I know this is a silly over reaction. So I seem to be more reliant on others reactions to my work than I imagined. I guess that is useful information.

I now know a bit more about myself, and my motivations. And what I should really address in order to have a better relationship with my work. I want to make my work stand on my terms and I have obviously been distracted by the idea of the approval of others. . .
I'm not beating myself up about this you understand, just having a bit of a rant.

And, 'predictably' in the overnight pause between me writing the above and getting round to posting it I have had a large order come in that just about makes up for the lack of sales in the past week or two. . . ;-)

You gotta laugh, innit?

Funny thing is, this morning when I woke up, I just felt better, I felt a bit lighter somehow, as if something had lifted. Then the order came in, and the broody chicken has returned to normal behaviour, and the ducks have had 13 ducklings, along with the five little moorhen chicks on the pond. Must be the full moon. . .