Photography help from Bomobob

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a handmade item in possession of an online listing must be in want of an excellent photograph.

(O.K., that was dreadful. Apologies to Jane Austen.)

One of my better photographs: Green Forest earrings, available on Felt and Zibbet.

Time and time again, sellers on Etsy and other handmade-goods venues are reminded to work on their photographs. Superb photos are the best way - arguably the only way - to attract buyers to your handmade or vintage items. Below is a link to an excellent guest post by Bomobob, an Etsy seller who is known in the Etsy forums for his helpful photography advice, on Morphologica's Etsy Business Tips blog (which is a very helpful blog and I recommend it).

http://www.thebusinesstipsblog.com/2010/07/guest-post-by-famous-bomobob-etsy.html

Christmas in July sale on Zibbet

I am participating in the 'Christmas in July' sale on Zibbet!
Artists from around the world are putting items on sale or offering free shipping as part of this promotion. For my part, all the one-off pieces in my Silverlight Jewellery Zibbet shop are marked down by 15%.
Here are some of the lovelies on sale:

Old Copper Gadgets - a vintage cluster necklace

Halo - vintage brass cross with amber

Locket And Key - vintage brass ball-locket with rusty old key

The Golden Acorn - vintage cluster necklace with faux pearls

Orange Squash On The Verandah - Dahling!

Vintage Rose In Bloom - vintage magnifying-dome necklace on Singapore-style brass chain

Imperial Red - wire-wrapped glass bracelet in deep scarlet and black

Zibbet has one of the loveliest, friendliest communities of sellers I have ever come across. Really nice people.
To find other artists who are participating in the Christmas in July sale, simply search on Zibbet using the term 'XmasJuly' - you'll find all the handmade gorgeousness that is on sale. Have fun!

Twitter!

My second big step into the world of social media (this blog being the first): I joined Twitter last night.

Wow. It is huge. 
Hundreds of thousands of people, all talking.

You will see, in the sidebar on the left of this blog, a little 'Follow me on Twitter' gadget. I have spent most of today playing around with my account, following people, and trying to get my head around how the whole thing works. It really is enormous. It feels like I'm wasting time, but I remind myself that once I have a grip on Twitter, I will not need to spend all day on it. And yes, I will be tweeting special discount codes for my followers.

One of the first things I did this morning was go to Zibbet's community and search for 'Twitter'. I found a handful of discussion threads with advice on how to use Twitter. The Zibbet community is very helpful and friendly. I found some information that I'm very grateful I found now, rather than later on in my Twitter career. As a result, I've signed up on bit.ly, and am planning to sign up on HootSuite to manage my tweets.

But not tonight. Tonight I need to go and do some of the work that has been piling up while I have been getting to know my new, little, blue birdy friend.
So, here's to Twittering success, and many happy tweeple for all of us!

Whiteleaf update and new pieces

I'm very happy with the way my new brand is developing. There are a whole lot of new product lines that I want to introduce: pottery raku vessel necklaces, multistrand hemp bracelets, agate tusk necklaces, and others.
Below are a few of the newest pieces that I am particularly proud of.

 Relics. This necklace is one of my more unusual pieces. It features a sea glass 'tusk', hand carved vintage stone beads from Israel, an old ring, and a bronze casting of an antique coin.

Bronze leaf earrings. Light, bold, and earthy. And, of course, hypoallergenic.

Baneberry earrings. I made them, then, because I didn't know what to call them, Googled for plants with white berries. The first plant that came up was the baneberry plant (actaea pachypoda), and it was perfect. I could not have made earrings that look more like the baneberry if I had tried!

Lily Pad necklace. A gorgeous wee frog on a beautifully detailed and realistic lily pad.

These earrings haven't got a name yet, and haven't been listed yet. I love the fat, glistening glass pearls, like dollops of butter that are about to melt. Golden yellow and copper ... gorgeous combination.

Nettle earrings. Another botany-inspired pair of earrings. Dark green, irregularly shaped glass pearls with antiqued-brass coloured leaf charms. As a vegetarian with vegan sympathies, I don't like to use real pearls, so I go out of my way to find irregularly shaped faux pearls that will imitate the organic beauty of freshwater pearls.

Earth Dancer earrings. These, and their companion Earth Jester earrings, are a one-off design. The iridescent pumpkin-shaped beads photographed so well. I was pleasantly surprised.

Featherdown earrings. Another one-off design, featuring rhyolite rounds and antiqued-brass coloured feather charms. The soft, feathery markings of the rhyolite were difficult to capture on camera.

Lawrence of Arabia

"Nothing is written unless I write it."

- T. E. Lawrence in Lawrence Of Arabia.

Lawrence Of Arabia is a long, fascinating film. The line above sticks with me.
The Bedouins with whom Lawrence travels fatalistically say, "It is written!" whenever they encounter a situation that they feel cannot be helped. 'It is fate; it is beyond our control; it is futile to try to change it.' In one scene, the redoubtable Lawrence retorts,

"Nothing is written unless I write it."

How much could we change if we stopped believing that it couldn't be changed?