Bye bye birdie!

As you may have noticed if you are following me on Twitter, I have closed the Twitter account of Silverlight and Whiteleaf Jewellery. 
Twitter is a lot of fun, and I have enjoyed using it. However, in the past month or so I realised that I was spending time tweeting when I should have been creating new designs. This simply wasn't good for my business or for my customers.
There are so many people on Twitter, and so many crafters and small businesses using Twitter to drum up business instead of using Twitter as it was intended to be used: for conversing, keeping in touch, and chatting with people all over the world. It is so easy to become a spammer on Twitter rather than using it as a natural extension of one's business and activities.
So I have decided to close down Silverlight and Whiteleaf Jewellery's Twitter account, ten months after I opened it in July 2010 (as posted here). In that ten months, I amassed 2,450 followers, but I doubt that any of them will miss my tweets. And maybe that's a good thing.

So: farewell, Twitter, and happy tweeting to all of my fellow Twitterers! Thank you for all the fun times. May the little blue birdie continue to bring you happiness.

sweetwilliam

$17.00

boocraft

$22.00

artdivine

$30.00

wishingtree

$110.00

mightymouse

$80.00

justemily

$60.00

lisajhoney

$20.00

wendyj

$20.00

ilovethat

$14.99

craftyart

$15.00

studiok

$65.00

erink

$40.00

xy-design

$39.50

onetrickpony

$14.00

mantis

$55.00

cheekpinchy

$24.00

cloudnine

$49.00

onetrickpony

$8.00

Thank you and merry Christmas!

I've just put this notice into all of my online shops: "Please note: I will be away from 22 December to 30 December. I will attend to all messages and purchases when I return. Merry Christmas!"

I'm taking a break from blogging and Twitter, too.

Below is one of my favourite necklaces from the old Silverlight Jewellery branding. I love it because it is so simple, and also because I named it 'Arigato' – 'thank you' in Japanese. Such a simple, beautiful sentiment seemed to suit a simple, beautiful necklace. Since the necklace no longer fits with my new branding, I recently gave it away to a friend of mine as a gift for his wife, in return for some bottles of home-brewed mead that he had given me – so it was a trade, really, rather than a gift; but I felt grateful as I gave it to him.
It felt right to give 'Arigato' as a thank-you gift.

 'Arigato' – abstract, Japanese-inspired pendant on satiny black cord.

Thank you, blog readers, customers, suppliers, and friends, for an amazing 2010. 

Here's wishing you all a fun, peaceful Christmas and an exciting, joyful new year.

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Wikipedia

"Knowledge is power." 

– Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacræ. De Hæresibus. (1597)
English author, courtier, & philosopher (1561 - 1626)

Like many people, I use Wikipedia frequently for innumerable things. I often use it when I need instant information on various stones or materials that I use in my jewellery, which means that Wikipedia helps me to earn a living. With that in mind, I made a donation to the Wikimedia Foundation this year during their annual appeal. It wasn't much, but it's a start. Below is the thank-you E-mail I received in response.

_______

Dear Emma,

Thank you for your gift [...] to the Wikimedia Foundation, received on December 8, 2010. I’m very grateful for your support.

Your donation celebrates everything Wikipedia and its sister sites stand for: the power of information to help people live better lives, and the importance of sharing, freedom, learning and discovery. Thank you so much for helping to keep these projects freely available for their more than 400 million monthly readers around the world.

Your money supports technology and people. The Wikimedia Foundation develops and improves the technology behind Wikipedia and nine other projects, and sustains the infrastructure that keeps them up and running. The Foundation has a staff of about fifty, which provides technical, administrative, legal and outreach support for the global community of volunteers who write and edit Wikipedia.

Many people love Wikipedia, but a surprising number don't know it's run by a non-profit. Please help us spread the word by telling a few of your friends.

And again, thank you for supporting free knowledge.

Sincerely Yours,

Sue Gardner

Executive Director

_______

I am immensely grateful to the people who created Wikipedia, and who run, edit, and support it. To me, Wikipedia represents everything that the Internet should be about: 'sharing, freedom, learning and discovery'. The existence of Wikipedia alone justifies the invention of the Internet. It may not be perfect, but for the first time in human history we have a way of sharing reliable information about anything which is freely available to anyone.
Knowledge is power, and Wikipedia offers free knowledge. No strings attached.
I don't think the value of that can be overestimated.

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Seth Godin's Thanksgiving

Americans have just celebrated their Thanksgiving holiday. I've often thought that giving thanks is a jolly good reason for a celebration, and I think it's a pity that more nations – and people – don't have some kind of thanksgiving celebration.

Seth Godin said something similar in this recent blog post: 'A Modern Thanksgiving', only his idea is even better than mine.
Have a read – Godin's posts are short, concise, and brilliant.

A further thought: we don't need a set day to give thanks. I give thanks every day, for a huge number of things. And, curiously enough, the more I give thanks for the things that I already have, the more things I find to be thankful for, and the less I feel the lack of the things that I don't have. It's quite magical.

 Burning Sky photograph by Raceytay on Etsy

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