For those of you not subscribed to the Raven’s Nest feed (or the LJ syn, it exists!), here are the pieces I made this weekend based on the votes and such:
Optimism in the Face of Darkness
Sanguine Spring Bracelet
They are for sale. Just click the pics. (You’ll be able to see hi-res images, too.)
There’s also a new Reader’s Choice today in honor of Jill Sobule, one of my favorite musicians. She has a new album out soon.
This is so cool. The Sound Advice Project is a website where you can record a short message to your kids which is translated into a visual representation of soundwaves which is then turned into a bracelet you can give your kid. It’s really awesome! You can customize the colors and the prices look very reasonable — $18 – $25 or so for a bracelet.
I found this on Popgadget and I agree that it would make a great gift for anyone. Imagine recording “Will You Marry Me?” and then giving it as a gift?
I can already see the awesome possibilities in custom jewelry — take the sound wave bit and create a necklace for it, or even make a long, dangly earring.
If I were creating a special piece of jewelry for someone, I’d definitely consider this.
In between the 10 million other things I have been and need to be doing, I spent a couple of hours last night updating The Raven’s Nest, my little portfolio/blog for jewelry and prayer beads. As I mentioned not too long ago, I want to start beading again to make a little extra money. Now more than ever, right?
The site is now all controlled via WordPress with galleries conveniently taken care of by the Flickr Photo Album plugin. There’s an RSS feed and an email notification thing. No LJ-syndication of said feed yet because I don’t have a paid account anymore. I’ll start selling stuff as soon as I make it.
Speaking of: remember me mentioning that I wanted to make a game out of it? I solidified that idea into a feature on the site called Reader’s Choice. That is, you pick the beads and the theme, I then work within those constraints. Check out the first post and vote and stuff!
This week I discovered that my workplace is raising my contribution to our health insurance to $50/paycheck. (Before it was $30.) I’m not too upset about that (whatever keeps my insurance from going away is fine, plus, they are paying a big chunk), but it does mean more of a crunch on my budget. I decided that the best way to deal with it is to resolve to make fifty extra bucks a month via creative means.
In some months I’ll get money from stories I sell (and yay that), for the others I think I will again attempt to sell jewelry. Or, I should say, I will start making jewelry again. I haven’t for a while, mainly because I have so much else to do.
It used to be that I would make websites for extra cash. But now that both of my jobs involve dealing with web stuff, I DO NOT want to spend my free time doing it. At all. Besides, Jeremy Tolbert is far better at it than me and he is more in need of serious gigs at the moment.
I think that I can swing making two reasonably priced necklaces or five $10 earrings a month. I may even make a game out of it and solicit your participation. That’s right, I’m making my readers my accomplices. Mwahaha.
