Short and sweet: don't panic

There are eighteen days until Christmas, and not just my blog readers but almost everyone I can think of will be busy – if not frantically busy! So let's keep this short and sweet.

Here is a suitably short and sweet – like an iced biscuit – blog post by Crissy Herron of IndieBizChicks.com. It contains four quick tips to help you keep your sanity and your business in one piece over the busiest time of year.

Don’t Let Your Biz Fall Apart During The Holidays

Also, remember the immortal words that are inscribed on the back of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy: 

And here's my own best bit of advice for this time of year: 

Keep Calm, 

Carry On, 

And 

Enjoy. 

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Fantastic plastic arms

I was going to put a clever pun in the title of this post, but all I could think of were ones that involved pronouncing 'harmless' without the H, and that just seemed a bit desperate. Not to mention really old.

The fact remains that I am now the proud owner of two arms! (Oh, go on: insert bad joke here.)

Plastic, ex-mannequin arms. I bought them on Trade Me for $28.50 (including postage - bargain!), for the purposes of modelling bracelets.
Next year I am planning to introduce some gorgeous, bohemian cuffs to the Silverlight Jewellery brand, and I knew that I would need some way of modelling them. Wearing the cuffs on my left hand and photographing them with my right proved less than satisfactory, for a number of reasons. So I knew that once again I would have to turn to plastic, and I started searching on Trade Me. I was outbid on the first set of arms I wanted, but a few weeks later I saw these ones, and they were perfect.

The left arm modelling an as-yet unreleased Whiteleaf Jewellery bracelet.

The arms are a very pale nude, almost ivory, in colour - paler than Zara, and smoother in texture. They arrived wrapped in bubble wrap and sticky tape. It was quite easy to see, through the bubble wrap, what was in the parcel. I wonder if it was one of the more unusual packages that New Zealand Post has carried, but I suspect that none of their employees would have batted an eyelid. I'm sure they carry many strange things.

Zara now has some plastic company.

The arms do look a bit weird, propped against the wall in a corner of the room where I have my workspace. Full-length plastic arms, with no mannequin attached to them, casually leaning against the wall.
And now I've just spent an hour or more blogging about plastic arms. 
The things we artists do. 
What's the weirdest piece of equipment that you own?

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Why Mannequins Are The Best Models ... Or, How I Met Zara

Many of you will have met my lovely mannequin, Zara. (Or not. Depends if you've looked at any of my necklaces online.)
She is indispensable to my business. I bought her on Trade Me for around $70.00 - some of the best money I've ever spent.
When I realised that prospective buyers really do want to see how jewellery looks when being worn, I considered using live models ... for about two seconds. Models have this irritating habit of wanting to be paid ... and not suiting the jewellery that they are modelling ... and not doing as they are told ... and not understanding what pose to assume ...
Ugh.
So I needed a mannequin. I looked on Trade Me (usually my first stop when I want anything specific that isn't jewellery supplies) and found several that would have suited. I lost the first one I was bidding on (it had arms, which would have been useful for modelling bracelets), and then I found Zara. She didn't have arms, but other than that she was perfect. When she arrived, she was even more perfect. I washed her thoroughly in the shower (because you just never know where things have been ... and because I'm paranoid), and so began our fulfilling relationship.
Zara is the best model I have ever worked with. She stands perfectly still, does exactly as she's told without having to be told, and never ever complains about anything. In fact, I think she loves the jewellery she gets to wear. She holds my magnifying headset sometimes, to keep it safe and off the floor, and I often leave necklaces on her for a few days while I decide whether or not I'm happy with them (or just admire them).
She is so versatile, too. When modelling pieces that have an ancient, historical feel to them, Zara does a sublime Greek marble statue look.

She can do bold, plunging statement pieces ...

... and smaller, more subtle jewellery.

She doesn't even have to change outfits. All I do is change the camera angle and Zara's angle. She can model both my - very different - jewellery brands with equal ease. She can work with almost any lighting, is utterly professional, and never upstages the jewellery itself. True, some things suit her better than others, but that is true of any model, and more so of many others than of Zara.
So, while I know that some jewellery designers use live models all the time, and while it undoubtedly works well for some, Zara's the gal for me.
Do you have fantastic plastic mannequin like Zara? Do you use live models? Or have you found another solution entirely? I'd love to hear in the comments.