Something You Need To Do

Dudes, don’t allow Ellen Kushner to buy up all the awesome necklaces based on my story!  You know she’s collecting them for some nefarious purpose.  Don’t be scared to outbid her.  I’ll use my special rune casting skills to block any attempts at retaliation.

You only have a few hours to derail her evil scheme!

Bid on this necklace or I will smack you around

Don’t make me be the one to buy it, because I love it. YOU need to buy it and give it to someone you love.

You love me, don’t you??

Five Things Make A Post (at wiscon)

1. Due to my Internet troubles some IAFAuctions did not go up on schedule!  Luckily one did.  Cris did a beautiful necklace for Prester John and I got to poke it for the first time yesterday.  It stood up to poking!  The other auction was JoSelle’s piece based on Black Feather, which is so awesome I can’t believe it.  It makes me feel so shivery inside to see these beautiful things that were inspired by some story I wrote.  I need to give JoSelle a big hug when I see her this weekend.  I’m in the midst of running around now, but I will have a blog badge for all the new auctions soon so that people can promote.  In the meantime, take note: Cris’s is the last Prester John piece going up for this auction, so if you want to get a bit of Valente’s magic as interpreted by amazing artists, you should bid on that or JoSelle’s Prester John piece (at $75 now!).  The Black Feather necklace is also the last chance to get something by JoSelle.

2. I finished redesigning my web design portfolio.  It’s a work in progress, as I may want to do something flashier with the header.  But it has all the information organized the way I want, and that was the main thing.  I need to add links to it, yes, but I am trying to decide how I will do so.  Go see in the meantime.

3. Did you know that my writing group the Black Beans has a website now?  You should go look at it and maybe keep an eye on the news section, because some big ass news is going up there soon.  (Not anything concerning me, mind, but something I am very excited about.)

4. I arrived in Madison a few hours ago and am very tired, and yet I’ll be up late tonight just as I will be up late every night. Ah well, tomorrow I can sleep in.

5. WisCon is finally here.  It will be over too soon.  Better savor every second!

More 1am stuff

I finally finished the last of my pieces for the IAFAuction plus one for the Tiptree auction at WisCon and something for myself.  Wanna see?  Nah, you don’t wanna see.  If you did, you’d click on the cut.

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Hell Week!

Probably not for the reasons you think. I’m still in the midst of a hellish job hunt and I have a million billion things to do before going to WisCon and this auction is eating my brain! However, once it’s over I will have pulled off something major and raised money for IAF, so yay. But still, omg!

Speaking of, my earrings went up and everyone reading this needs to go and bid on them. Also up, a freaking gorgeous piece by Elizabeth Genco:

Anyway, now I need to write some sort of ad for myself to advertise my abilities so I can post it places people are looking for freelancers and I have no idea how to even do that. (but first I need to learn to fucking spell.) And I need to get started on Timmi’s site!

Like I said, Hell Week.

Why the hell am I up at 1am?

Because I had to complete some jewelry then take pictures of it.

Can I just say: taking pictures of jewelry is fucking hard! I need a better lightbox or something. Or maybe just some classes on how to get all the yellow out of images.

Anyway, the fruits of all my labor:

These are called Inwood Hill. Click the image for a bigger pic (not excessively big, tho). This is the completed version of the WiP I showed you last week. And, like I said, I was inspired by Deborah’s necklace. It’s made from glass beads, small fancy jasper, small wood beads (the red), a few glass leaves, some coral (the gold/brown), all dangling from loopy chain. You may also notice that one earring looks fuller than the other. That’s because one of the pair has two dangly chains. And if you look really close, you may see the glass black feather hidden in the woods.

The earrings are slightly heavy, but not very much so. I’m going to put them on posts with wide backs for support.

And then…

That’s a bracelet. I haven’t named it yet, but it’s meant to symbolize the shirts that the sister in The Twelve Ravens/Seven Swans/etc. has to make. I used cotton ribbon and interweaved it with a metal chain (it’s sort of meant to evoke this trendy bracelet, but be more awesome) then sewed buttons on. You can wrap it around the arm 2 or 3 times, depending on the thickness of your wrist. I suppose it could also be a choker.

Those are both going up for auction soon. And then there’s The Hidden Heart:

If you click the image, there’s an extremely large version where you can see a little more detail on the heart. I chose that bead because it has black bits at the center that look a bit like wings or birds. This is another piece based on “Black Feather”. I’m being a bit obvious with this one — hiding the heart or the core behind a bunch of restrictive chains. I’m thinking of just selling these since I have three things already going on the IAF Auction and I’d feel a bit like an attention hog if I just kept putting up my own stuff. Plus, it would be nice to make some money!

I suppose I should get to bed now…

Busy Day in the Betweenisphere

Lots to do!  Firstly, you should travel on over to the IAFAuction site and bid on some stuff.  There’s plenty of stuff!  Yesterday two new auctions went up, a jewelry set and a necklace.  We only had one set sent to us for auction, and it’s really awesome.  The earrings are worth the opening bid alone!  Like, go grab that and some stuff.  The necklace is by Leslie What… yes THE Leslie What.  What more reason do you need?

Also, the auctions for Willow Pattern & And Then She Flew end soon.  Not to be pushy or anything, but that necklace based on my story is so super awesome that the bidding should go higher.  It’s based on my story, how can you not want to pay hundreds for it?  And Willow Pattern is an original Elise creation!  Even if you were to bid $80 for it you’d still be getting it for significantly less than if she just sold it.  So go bid $80!

And after all that hard selling, here’s something fun.  The third Interstitial salon started today. We’re talking about jewelry as art and as interstitial art:

We’ll be talking about creating visual art inspired by texts, about the relationships between narrative and wearable art, the cultural history of personal adornment — anything we can think of!

The conversation has already started, so join in!

Guess what’s on IAFAuctions today?

Why it’s a necklace based on my story. Woo! And it’s really, really beautiful. The artist is Deborah J. Brannon and, much to my surprise, she says it’s the first necklace she’s ever made. Way to come charging out of the gate there…

Deborah is the author of one of the most beautiful reviews of Black Feather, which she then incorporated into her artist statement:

…the story is a river: it fetches you in with intriguing shallows, soft eddies of water, refracting light as it swirls over half-obscured and winking stones. And then, once you’ve waded out so far, a strong current seizes you and pulls you under into terror and wonder and understanding.

!!  Okay, go bid.  You must.  I insist.  It’s so awesome!

(p.s. other awesomeness today includes a superfantasticohmygoditsamazing pendant from Elise.  Bid on that, too!)