It's Christmas in July!

Except for the occasional TV commercials, mostly by used car dealerships, I don't really have much experience with the concept of "Christmas in July". I just thought that someone thought it was a clever way to make a sale, and every once in awhile, someone else thinks they are clever by using the phrase themselves. The Etsy Bloggers are celebrating it this year, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.



First, I looked up the concept on Wikipedia. Apparently, it's kind of a big deal in the Southern Hemisphere because down there winter is in full spring come July. For them, it is a social event, an excuse to throw parties and celebrate with friends. The US and other Norther Hemisphere countries have taken the idea and used it for marketing purposes - capitalism at its finest!



I'm not a huge fan of capitalism, but I do quite like making money, so I kept poking around Etsy to see if this bandwagon was worth jumping on. A lot of shops are having sales, mostly very low-key, so I figured I should join in the fun! But how to celebrate? Or rather, how to turn my shop into a Christmas sale?



I decided I was going to mark all my items in green or red at a discount. I spent a few days creating some new green jewelry to list, because that color has been woefully absent in my shop so far. Today I listed the new jewelry, marked down the prices of all my green and red jewelry by 20%, and put everything in a new section called "Christmas In July".



Now all I need to do is get the word out:



HEY YOU! Yes, YOU! There's a sale in my shop with your name on it! All "Christmas in July" items have been marked down by 20%. Sale ends 7/26/09 - so come on down and bring a friend!



Here are some new items just listed for this sale - happy shopping!







ps: I've also been working hard on my photography, so be sure to take a look around to catch the new looks of some older items!

My knees are too old for this soapbox climbing $hit!

Everybody go check out my very first Treasury at Etsy! Show me some lovin' so I get some free advertising - the more you click on the items I've selected, the more popular I become! And YOU get to see the awesomeness that is Etsy, and become tempted to buy!



So elsewhere, on the mysie's soapbox front...



I'm looking into becoming a blogging contributor at The Gay Atheist website.



OMG, why didn't anyone think of this sooner? I'm not bisexual, I'm biromantic! Awesome!! :)



Here's a great pic about Vermont getting ready to make same-sex marriage legal.



This is an awesome little video (3 minutes) giving advice on how to tell someone they've said something racist (or sexist, homophobic, etc)



That blog post had a comment about this article.A political cartoon is stirring controversy as being racist and insensitive. It "depicts Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as a strung-up pinata that President Obama is inviting Republicans to whack."



While I see what the Latinas quoted in the story are talking about, I'm going to have to side with the artist and the publishing newspaper on this one. Because it's satire. Spot-on satire at that.



Racism would be Sotomayer as a pinata with sombrero while quoting her or saying something about her. But this cartoon isn't about her - it's about people's reaction to her.



Specifically, it's pointing out that while President Obama may not have chosen her because of her heritage, it was definitely an important factor in at least the consideration stage. So Obama himself is partly responsible for race being such a large issue during her nomination process. The Republicans are there as Elephants because they cry foul at Obama allowing affirmative-action on a national level. Personally, I'm surprised that the elephants aren't a little angry or blood-thirsty looking. I guess they look a bit confused because although the party is opposed to her nomination, they don't know how to voice that without seeming racist. Then there is the media represented by all the cameras and microphones. That represents how hungry they are to report such a spectacle. And so finally, Sotomayor is dressed as a pinata because everyone around her has reduced her to nothing more than her race.



I believe that the artist, Chip Bok, has made a very eloquent statement about the idiocy of this whole subject by pointing out how ridiculously one-dimensional everyone involved has become.



And FUCK I can't believe that I've painted The Republicans as fair and Obama as a dick. Worse, I can't believe I believe it's true. Saint Obama, what's up with you?!

Beading Tips: Wire-Wrapped Loops

I started making my own jewelry a few years ago when I became disgusted at the mark-up on even the simplest jewelry pieces. I bought a few magazines, visited a few bead shops, and tooled around the net. It was unbelievably easy to learn how to make jewelry for myself, my family, and my friends. It took a bit longer than that to elevate my skills enough to feel comfortable selling my items, but that's another story.



I wanted to pass on some tips on one of the basics of making beaded jewelry: wire-wrapped loops. First, you need a good visual guide. I spent countless hours and dollars pouring over magazine and website guides before finally finding an illustration that "clicked". In that moment, I realized the mistakes I had been making and knew right away how to correct them.



I'm not an artist, so I'm going to refer you to two of my favorite guides online:



From Fusion Beads, Techniques: Wire Wrapping



BeadStyle Magazine, Basics: Wrapped loop (scroll down below the "Plain loop" instructions)



So on to some tips that may help you from making some of the rookie mistakes I did!



1. Practice on base-metal wire first. It will take a few (or a lot!) of tries before you perfect the technique, so save your expensive wire by practicing on the cheap stuff first.



2. Yes, you DO want to use chainnose/flat pliers when the instructions tell you to. Jumping from tool to tool may seem tiresome, but in the end it is worth it.



3. Make sure your tools are in good shape: you want sharp wire cutters, non-ridged flat/chainnose pliers, and round nose pliers that align properly. My biggest pet peeve: all my round nose pliers eventually become misaligned to the point that they can't hold wire between their jaws properly.



4. Your hands, especially your fingers, are very valuable, yet delicate tools. Make sure your hands are clean when you start work, and check that they stay that way during your project. Also, be nice to your hands! If they start to cramp, take a 15 minute break.



5. Your eyes get fatigued as well! Use good lighting, and allow your eyes to relax every few minutes - all that concentration on tiny stuff right in front of your face can eventually lead to a headache.



6. Always use Sterling Silver if you intend to sell the item you're making. A majority of customers will specifically look for this, and the others will be impressed that you used such quality materials.



7. Use soft, narrow gauge wire. Sterling silver is a perfect medium because it is so easily maleable. The narrower the gauge and the softer the silver, the easier it is to manipulate the wire with your fingers. Be careful not to use anything too fine if you're working on a heavy piece!



8. Count your wraps. Most projects using wire-wrapped loops will involve more than just one loop, so do your best to make all your loops in the piece look consistent. So if you make one earring with 3 wraps under the loop, make sure to make the other earring have 3 wraps around as well.



9. This may only appeal to fellow beaders with OCD, but here it is: when attaching wrap-looped items to the main piece (necklace, earring back, etc), make sure they all face in the same direction. Confused? I've got visuals!

Front of Loop





vs.



Back of Loop





If you don't see the difference, congratulations, you don't have OCD - continue on to Tip #10. If you do see a difference, then I'll tell you that a long time ago I decided I preferred the side shown in the first picture best - so I called it the "front" of the loop. Hence, when hanging the dangle from an earring back, I always make sure that the dangle's loop faces "front".



10. Relax! The longer you sit and fret at perfecting one thing, the more frustrated you become, and the more mistakes you make. So take breaks to walk around, flex your fingers, correct your back, grab a snack, or just go to the potty. Also, music can be very relaxing, but NEVER watch television when beading - it is so distracting, I eventually look down at my project and realize I've been trying to complete the same wrap for the past two commercial breaks!

San Juan Island Bulletin: 2009, Day 1

Can you hear my satisfied sigh from here? What an amazing day! We ferried out to San Juan Island last night, where we are staying at this charming B&B called States Inn & Ranch. It's a working ranch, but I haven't been out to commune with the sheepies & alpacas yet - probably going to do that tomorrow morning.



Today we went out to South Beach at American Camp, and wondered what happened to all the rabbits. Not a single one in sight. :( The foxes made their appearances, getting astonishingly close - one came within about 2 feet of me when I was standing outside of the car to take pictures. The friendliness of the foxes, as compared to their indifference last time we were here, confirms my suspicions that the rabbit population has been severely cut. I queried a park ranger who said they were still there, and maybe they were just hiding in the long grass. Well, last time we were here there was NO grass because the rabbits had eaten it all - there was just a barren field with almost as many rabbit holes as there were rabbits. Small estimate would be there were 200+ rabbits at the time. Maybe that was the problem - too many rabbits, they ate all the food and starved too death. Helped along by feasting foxes, eagles, & hawks, and ta-da! Rabbit no-man's land. :(



So then we actually went down to the beach. We trekked out to the rock out cropping we'd gone to last time, in my mind hoping we'd glimpse the same giant river otter float by and then come on land nearby. No river otter, but there were constantly seals. I told Eric that I couldn't figure out if it was the same group of seals hanging around, or if we were witnessing the great seal highway were they all traffic from South to North. No Orcas today, no good eagle sightings. :(



We spent 2 hours at the beach, with our fold-out chairs on the rock outcrop. It was perfect. Exactly what I had been hoping for.



Last time we came here, I kept hoping as we went from quiet nook to solitary beach that I would find some comfort, some happiness, some inspiration. I was in this depressive state where nothing was really bad, but nothing was happy no matter what I did. I left the islands with lots of images in my head, but no happiness in my heart. Well, the past few years, it is always those quiet moments from that trip that I think on wistfully when thinking of the islands. There is this wonderful calm & contented feeling in my heart when I think of those times.



I think there is something different in me now. I think it's the part of me that has decided to put down the camera, and enjoy the scenery for awhile. If what you're watching sticks around long enough, take a few shots after you've enjoyed it for a bit, instead of living the moment through your camera lens trying to get the perfect shot. I just sat and watched the ocean, taking note of the occasional seal head bobbing by, and listening to the waves. I closed my eyes and tried my best to clear my mind and just experience the sensations. It was perfect. The peace and tranquility and comfort that I had been seeking all those years ago seeped into me as easily as the sun roasted my face. It was bliss. Definitely.



After almost 2 hours, I finally got up and started examining tide pools and taking pictures. I took out the earrings I had made the other day to do a mini photoshoot. There was lots of sun by that point, and lots of interesting places to get photos. I hope they turned out well. Unfortunately I've discovered that although my pictures can look awesome in my new large-screen camera, that is no way to judge if they are blurry or not. Here's to hoping I've finally figured out how to use the Macro setting properly!!! I only wish I'd brought more jewelry to photograph.



We had a wonderful lunch and then later at great dinner at this little Italian restaurant called Pazzo Vivo. At least I think that's what the name was. I bought a needle felting kit from the wool & yarn shop. We checked out the awesome local-artist gallery where we bought some awesome pieces last time, and although the same artists had their stuff there, nothing new by them jumped out at us, so it was kind of disappointing. I asked about having my jewelry there, but that store specializes in art that's only made in the islands. Oh well. The woman behind the counter recommended this other shop that I had just been browsing. Unfortunately, I was browsing to check out their prices - they're the shop that I found last time that was charging about 5 times as much for what I would sell the same pieces for. Pieces that I could make easily or better. And that was still their trend, although there were more reasonably priced items there this time. Still, I remain disgruntled and offended by their damn boutique prices.



OK, time for bed. TTFN!

fucking camera

So I got an amazing camera for Christmas! It has a million settings, and I can zoom in to read the house number of the neighbors half-way down the block. But apparently it doesn't want to focus on something small that's in front of it - like the pendant on a necklace. Working in the right lighting, it takes very crisp, clear pictures of my jewelry. However, if I want to zoom in to show the detail or pendant of a piece, the auto-zoom has an epileptic fit trying to figure out what to focus on, gets close to focusing, and then gives up in the end at the most blurry point of the focusing process. With my manual camera, I can focus until it's at least visible, and then manually focus the rest of the way in by twisting the lens. HA! Good luck with that on a digital camera!!

And I'm having problems with it taking good pictures in less-than-optimum lighting. That was a specific feature I looked for, so I'm really extra pissed about that.

However. I refuse to believe that this expensive camera is as crappy (or crappier) than my old camera. So I am withholding my final opinion until I can find the manual (I found the Spanish version yesterday! *sigh*) and read up on how to use it without the auto-focus. I would love to spend an hour with someone who knows cameras to talk to me about speed settings for different lighting. I think that's called ISO? For $65 I can take a 2-hour seminar at NSCC to learn the basics - the description focused on "getting to know" a digital camera, how to hook it up to a computer to upload files, and how to print pictures. Somehow I don't think this is the class I'm looking for.

Oh yes! Uploading files! *insert ironic belly laugh here*

I took a bunch of jewelry pictures last week, which I needed to upload to the computer and modify with GIMP to create new listings in my etsy shop. Guess what happens when you hook up the camera to the computer? NOTHING! After a number of adjustments to the camera, turning the computer on and off, I resorted to the Software Installation guide - the main camera guide being missing. Guess what - downloading pictures straight from the camera to computer without the software is possible, but you will experience problems such as it taking many minutes to access the camera. WTF? So I had to install their software just to grab my pictures! And then I had to figure out how to get the camera "ready" for the process - the software guide was very helpful when it told me that my camera needed to be put in the correct setting, and such setting would be explained to me in the main camera guide. So more fussing. Finally, everything worked, and I got my pictures. But then when you're finished, it quits the photo transfer program and automatically loads a 2nd program to view the pictures. WTF? I didn't ask it to do that!!!

This whole process took about a half hour. Half-way through I decided to give up, put the memory card in the old camera, and take the 45 seconds required to transfer files from it to my computer. There were no batteries in the camera. Not that I could find the USB cable for it, or that the new camera's USB wouldn't work on it.

And after that, GIMP died. It refuses to start up. Have I ever mentioned how many hours it took to figure out how to install GIMP in the first place??? So now I am back to ZERO photo-manipulation software programs. The camera's suite of software doesn't have one. And I have railed against iPhoto for years. I finally broke down and used iPhoto. 15 minutes to figure out how to tell iPhoto I wanted to look at pictures in a different folder than it had auto-selected. Resized my photos via cropping and scaling - holy shit, last time I tried, it didn't allow scaling!!! But guess what? When you alter a photo, it saves it as the same document. So your original photo is forever LOST. There is no Save-As feature. WTFWTFWTF??????

And then... Oh yes, and then. I went downstairs to make etsy listings on my laptop and spend time with Eric watching our nightly shows so I could calm down and stop being pissed off. This required me putting those iPhoto-manipulated files into our network to grab with the other computer.

The other computer being a PC that was so confused by the iPhoto files that it refused to even copy them over. Back upstairs, grab the old camera and the new memory card, find batteries and USB cable. Hook up old camera to move images to laptop. Use laptop to manipulate images AGAIN, this time with Photoshop.

There is no Photoshop on my machine.

I was about ready to throw every piece of technology in our house out a window.

Eric got me his laptop which allegedly had Photoshop on it. I couldn't find it anywhere. Because the only way I know how to start programs on a PC is to either click the shortcut on the desktop, or go to the Applications folder and find the program there. Want to ask Eric why Photoshop was not in the Applications folder? Neither did I. I was going to throw his laptop into the TV if I did not just give up right then and there.

He found photoshop. Launched it for me. Discovered there was almost no battery life left and he'd left his AC charger at the office. Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? He saw the manic disbelief turning my face into the freaking Joker, took both laptops in the other room, and when he came back my laptop had photoshop on it.

So something that should have taken me 15 minutes tops took about 1.5 hours. And then I still had to alter the images and create the listing. HA! Oh, and Eric couldn't keep from telling me that the new camera hooked up to his PC just fine without the software to do the file transfer.

Eric has a very similar story to tell about how his Mustang didn't work after we got back from Italy. I say point for me because I didn't throw anything in the end. It was a close thing though. Very, very close.