How Exciting!!

When I launched my Etsy shop "RockYourNose"
(http://rockyournose.etsy.com/) I just knew I wanted to have some real gold pieces available, so with great trepidation (gold is expensive!), I bought some gold and got started.


I created this lovely flower out of 14 karat gold and listed it for sale in the shop. It was viewed just over one hundred times and I wondered if I had made a mistake in thinking there was a marketplace for quality, handmade gold nose jewellery.


Yesterday my fears were proved unfounded when it sold. Now the exciting thing is not only that it sold but where it went. I shipped a package today to Israel! It's incredible for me to think that something made by my own hands will be worn by a woman who lives halfway around the world from me. It is inspiring and humbling all at the same time.

Taking a Break!

Oh man, have I been busy the last two days! My last post mentioned thinking about moving my nose jewellery to it's own shop and I decided it had to be done so the last two days have been work driven getting it done. It's not totally completed but I created the shop, took photos, and listed 28 items - no easy feat. I am SO pleased with the cohesive look of the shop and can't wait to continue stocking it with neat items.

I have gold waiting for me at the post office so be on the lookout for new pieces made from 14 karat gold wire. Check out the new shop if you get a chance: http://rockyournose.etsy.com/. I figured it makes sense to stick with the "Rock Your" name - branding of sorts. Let me know what you think.

Works in Progress

I thought I'd start out with a view of my studio bench. This is where most of my fabrication takes place, and as you can see, I like to have everything nearby and on hand. It looks a little messy, but oh well, it works for me.

On the bench itself you can see the brick where I like to fuse and solder things, the torch to the left, a big cup of water to dunk things into to cool them off - I don't like to wait - flux, paintbrushes to apply it, small tools, etc. At the back of the bench is the shelf with my metal supply, and to the left, the containers that hold a lot of my beads. What you can't see is the table to the right where I keep my pickle pot, fire extinguisher, oxidizing station, and a bit of clear table space. On the floor is my lap tray where I do finer work that requires no torch. When I'm doing that, I clear off the workbench and put the lap tray on top of the bench. A small operation, really, and I crave a larger space with TONS of work area and a floor I can really dirty up, but it's sufficient and I feel lucky to have it.

I've been a bit mesmerized with fabrication lately - fusing, melting, soldering metals. To the right is a photo of a fusion of my scraps that will eventually become a pendant called "The Boneyard". This is a term commonly used for scrap metal and vehicles and I thought it was a fitting name for this piece. I took a bunch of my leftover pieces, arranged them in a pleasing (to me) way, and applied some flux to them and then lit the torch. The pieces fused to each other, but what I love about it is that you can still see the origins of them - the earwire that didn't quite make it into a design, the wire wrapped end of something, the remnants of sterling left from cutting out guitar picks. The mind can see anything else in there too - I've allowed mine to wander over this piece many times. I oxidized it and polished the forefront pieces to add some depth and contrast. The lighting in this photo doesn't entirely capture it but it's strikingly beautiful in its simplicity. Here is a close up:

Another project I played with was making this unique, organic sterling silver and copper ring. It still needs some finishing and polishing and maybe oxidization in some places. I'll let you know when it's ready to hit the shop. Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday Giveaway!

It's my 41st birthday today and I thought I'd celebrate by giving YOU presents. Purchase anything from my shop today only and receive a pair of handmade sterling silver buds post earring with backs absolutely free!

The Woman Behind the Designs

When I first decided to start blogging, I did some research. I do a LOT of research on a lot of topics, so this was no exception. Everything indicated that you should have an idea behind the purpose of your blog before you start. What is the theme? Should it be business or personal? A combination of both? Most recommendations were that you choose one and stick with it, and that if you have a business, your blog should stick to business topics and stay away from personal ones.

I think there's some merit to that. It's unlikely you want to know if my dog is sick, or if my son didn't make the local hockey team. These are fine things to blog about if your blog is about pets or hockey, but mine is about jewellery and my business of creating it and selling it. Today, though, I thought I would let you (my whole 156 people who have read my blog) know a little more about who I am, why I do what I do, and where the creations came from.

I'm forty (gulp) almost one years old - I have two days left to be forty. I was a crafty kid who couldn't get enough of macrame (any of you remember macrame?), braiding, stringing, making pom poms, crocheting.... you get the picture. As I got older and started having children I somehow didn't find the time to pursue creation. I guess I had created two little someones and that's a pretty big thing to create.

As I approached forty years old, a year ago, in fact, I began to have some strange things happen to me physically. My arms went numb. My legs went numb. My leg would feel like someone had wrapped a tensor bandage around it too tightly and left it there. I began having sensations of pins and needles in my limbs, as well as stabbing sensations. My back became hypersensitive, so that feeling a simple drop of water running down my back was almost painful it was so annoying. Sometimes it felt like mosquitos were biting my limbs - quick, stinging pains. I went to the doctor and was referred to a neurologist.

I began to crave creation again - the urge to create became very strong. My husband brought me home some copper wire and I wrapped a bunch of beach glass my children had collected years ago. When I created, I didn't notice the pain as much. I researched online to find out more about jewellery making and found a wealth of information: how-to's, articles, opinions, ideas, and outlets to sell your goods. And I practiced - man, did I practice.

I got brave and ordered some sterling silver and then was too afraid to cut into it for about a week. One day when I was ready, I made the first cut and lost the fear. I fell in love with the process of twisting wire to make it what I saw in my mind and on the drawings on little scraps of paper that began to follow me everywhere. And when I created, I was fully present with the creation; allowing the pain to be in the background, instead of the foreground.

The neurologist did a test. The neurologist pronounced me fine before he even did the test. "Yes, sir, I am fine. I'm forty years old and I don't know what is happening to me and you have no answer, but I am fine it seems." I had to accept that there was no answer just then.

A look back in my history shows numerous 'minor' things going on for years: a feeling of being off balance, a sensation of walking 'funny' all of a sudden - was it me or the new shoes? Fatigue. Bone crushing, can't lift my head, no energy for language kind of fatigue.

I have continued the creations over this past year; growing more confident with my materials and moving into the world of fabrication. The 'phantom' mostly hid away for a bit but I was always aware of its presence. It left my back sensations and a couple other things but steered clear for a while. And then it returned and it was the same but different. I began limping - always on the right leg and many times being unaware I was doing it. Some days my hands won't work on the keyboard for any length of time. It is like there's a disconnect between brain and hands. Sometimes I'm fatigued, I trip over things even when I know they're there, and life is different than it used to be. And the other day there was a brown spot in my vision on my left eye. And I know. In my heart, I know. I see another neurologist in June.

When I am at my bench, my hands work just fine. And I am grateful - for this life, for the gift I've been given, and for this opportunity to share a little more about who I am.

The Pull of Copper

I'm finding myself more and more drawn to copper these days - perhaps because it lends itself so well to the types of designs I enjoy creating. I love jewellery that just has that handmade look to it!

Rustic, and not so perfect in form; something for
the eye and the mind to be curious about.

Copper is reputed to have healing properties and many swear by its use for relieving pain, particularly in diseases such as arthritis and rheumatic illnesses. I can't attest to its abilities for these purposes, but I remember my grandmother always wore a copper bangle and swore it helped her arthritis pain.

It is a beautiful metal, and one that is experiencing a "come back" in popularity. It Rocks! in my opinion ;)

Live and Learn

Well, I did my first craft show, and overall it turned out pretty well. I learned a LOT in the process though, and thought I'd share some of my observations here.

I set up everything on my bar counter before I went because I only had half a table, which isn't a lot of space. It looked really good on the counter but I hadn't counted on two things:

1. my bar counter is wider than the table was
2. my bar counter is MUCH higher than the table was

The display that looked good on my counter didn't work as well on the table. I also used black to display most of my things and the lovely stones get completely lost on the black backdrops. On day one I wasn't selling at all and on day two I decided I needed to do something to show off the jewellery. The table looked lovely but the jewellery just didn't stand out at all.

Finally I decided to do something quick and simple. I took my earring cards (lots of white space) and put the earrings on them and sat them in some silver gift boxes and just set them out on the table. On the board that I had earrings hung on, I put the white earring cards behind them. Simple, not terribly pretty really, but it was effective enough to make me start selling.

So I have learned that in the future I will:
* Use white for displays to better highlight my pieces
* Get stuff UP from the table to eye level

Just a couple of tips - there will be more to come :)

Fun With Form

You know, every now and then it's important to just have some fun, and that's what I chose to do this evening. Rather than second guess what someone might like, or want, or buy, you gotta just pull out the rocks and the wire and play a little - that's what tonight was about for me. I played and created, and posted a few new things to the shop. I love the new mannequins too!

Thrifty Finds

I’m doing my first show next week and needed some racks for earrings. I haven’t seen any commercial ones that I can’t live without so I thought I’d get creative. I went out to our local thrift shops and within 2 stores I came up with two pieces.
Both of them started off an ugly brassy gold colour (I should have taken before and after pics!). This is the first one I picked up for $2.50. Many of my earrings are on earring cards in small Ziploc bags to keep them clean and to resist tarnish. I could easily see the little bags hanging on this rack – it’s perfect for them and it spins, so I bought it right away.

This second one was the same awful colour but I could see the potential in it. I thought if I painted it black I could hang earrings freely from the loops in the center and on the outside edge; potentially being able to display a lot of earrings on it. I didn’t have a sense of how to keep it upright at that point, but for $2.00 I decided the ‘how to’ could come later.

I brought them both home and my husband and I sat at our bar counter in the kitchen with them in front of us and talked about how to hold the wreath upright. We finally came up with a stand idea that we thought would work okay and then he went to pick them up and take them out to the shop, and when he did, he hung the wreath on the side of the other rack to make it easy to carry and we both looked at it and at each other and….eureka! There it was – the perfect rack. It still spins and it takes up half the space that the two of them would separately. He took them out and painted them black and here is the finished rack.

These are just two simple finds for a total of $4.50, which shows that displays don’t have to cost a bundle to be effective. The last pictures are from one of my favourite stories. I told my husband I was looking for something that looked like a treasure chest but the closest thing I had seen was a box and it was $17.95. He remembered a gift that we were given that was really quite tacky but it came in a little trunk that he thought might be what I was looking for. I didn’t remember it at all but he thought it might still be at his dad’s – leftovers from our last year’s joint garage sale. Sure enough it was there. We painted it black and it’s the perfect chest for some bargains to go into.





Now I’m excited to get set up! I’ll be taking pictures of the final display next week and posting it here so stay tuned :)

Going into creative mode!

Oh boy, does this weekend ever need to see some production time! I've been so busy getting the promotional aspects of things set up that I haven't had time (sigh) to create very much. I suppose that will always be the fine balancing act of this type of business venture. I'm the whole show - the person who creates the pieces, the one who promotes them, and the one who keeps the business records (okay, who am I kidding? LOL - you should SEE my horrible mess of paperwork waiting to be entered into a spreadsheet!).


The beautiful thing is that I can choose to leave the paperwork for another time, and I can go for a walk and get inspiration for my next piece. It's fall in my part of the world and the trees are all this lovely golden colour, interspersed with the odd tree turning red, and there are big leaves scattered on the road and the walkways - it's truly lovely. What a gift to be alive and well!

I think I might be ready

Well, I got this set up (finally) and I think I'm finally ready to begin. Blogging is new to me and I find it fascinating that people might want to read what I have to say. I'm going to use this blog to share a little more of who I am, and what I do.

When I was a kid I was always creating something - macrame, little bracelets, braiding, key chains, pom poms for my shoelaces, you name it - I did it. And then somehow, the years went by and I lost that spark. But thankfully, only for a while. I turned forty this year and the magic is back. I've taught myself how to make amazing jewellery (at least I'm amazed;) from sterling silver, copper and gemstones. I've set up a small shop on Etsy to showcase my work, and hopefully make a few sales. I take pride in what I do and love the creative process! I've been asked over the years, "what would you do for a living if you never got paid for it". I didn't have an answer until now - make jewellery!

I get lost in it and I love it.