I've added some more animals to the collection. I'm fond of the rabbit/ tortoise pink pendant, as well as the latest design: hedgehog. With hedgehog, I decided to add some color to the drawing, with red ink and brown color pencil, and the result looked great! Why didn't I color in any of my drawings before??

Today I've been working on my displays. I've crafted a 2D cardboard tree on which to hang jewelry (held in place by a wooden clothespin, most likely). After cutting out the tree silhouettes from re-used cardboard, I decoupaged them with some wrapping paper. The paper is dark brown with light slate-blue fuzzy stuff making up the pattern. Pretty cool. Then the challenge was figuring out hot to get the trees to stand up. At first I thought of using 2 simple bookends, back to back, and attaching the tree to that. But I couldn't find bookends. I rummaged around and found a wooden sushi display/platform and a small piece of wood I'd bought many years ago in Tokyo - back in my wood block printing days -that I'd never used. I glue-gunned the wood block to the sushi platform, tied the tree to block, and voila. The ribbon looks a bit awkward, I'll try to find some other way of non-permanent attachment.

I've been thinking about fabric necklaces for a while. Not just a fabric centerpiece, or fabric beads/ components, but an entirely fabric necklace. I cut out various U-shapes using scrap paper, tweaking it so that I came up with a version that sat nicely over my clavicle, and the arms of the U draped slightly over the apex of my shoulders. I didn't want it too wide (and bib-like) - yet it had to be wide enough to not twist or fold like a piece of thick ribbon.

The backing is felt, to give shape to the necklace, and the front is printed cotton. I matched it to the background of a decoupage bird wood tile that I made a few months ago. The matching makes the otherwise slightly chunky centerpiece more subtle. I'm pleased with the result. I've not yet seen anything like this in the crafty jewelry world.

My second craft fair = "Craft + Destroy". I shared a table with my co-crafter of charinacharina once again. Now I have a reference when people ask me how well a craft fair went. The first one went better than this more recent one. The more recent one was much smaller, and cheaper to rent a table too. A few changes to my display: use of 3 microphone stands, 2 to hold up a clothes line stretched across the table, and one to serve as a t-shirt rack. I brought along a laminated garibaldi and pinned him to the top of my jewelry display.

The North Park Craft Mafia Spring Line Up was my first craft fair. I shared a table with a co-crafter, pictured above at our little shop. She makes bags and little baby blankets and books. I liked our display, which seemed piled and cluttered with stuff (not unlike my desk) - seemed more inviting than displays that were flat and neat. However, improvements could be made to the display, for example: the t-shirts should be hand and more prominent (I don't think it was apparent that they were t-shirts), text could be bigger (people didn't realize that the wood decoupage tiles included individually hand drawn drawings, even though I'd included a little sign), and I don't think that anyone noticed the lamp worked pendants at all.

Pricing is difficult. Artists always tell other artists to never undersell one's self, and in the long run I'll be glad not to have done so. And considering the time / skill / investment in materials, hand made stuff really shouldn't be cheap. But people don't go to craft fairs planning to spend a hunk of money at once. So there's a balance to be struck.

2/3 of all sales were made to friends!! Thanks to all of you who came out to support us. Thus, if I do multiple craft fairs per year, I should probably expect to make 1/3 of what I did, as I wouldn't expect friends to come out and buy something every time. Then again maybe not; now that I have a better idea of what "random" people like to buy, I can focus on expanding that collection of items and make more sales. I referring to the wood decoupage tiles. Almost all of my Random sales were of either Avian Life or French Cats decoupage pendants. It makes sense... there was a lot of beaded jewelry competition, but the decoupage tiles were completely unique.

Anyways, I'm exhausted.

I'm very excited about the possibilities for this. I'd been pondering a way to put my drawings on potentially jewelry-making pieces. I bought wood tiles from Michael's, as well as Mod Podge (Matte Mat; "waterbase sealer, glue and finish...") and Delta Ceramcoat Varnish ("a durable protective finish"), dug out some rice paper from my paper collection, and quickly inked out some doodles using speedball superblack ink and an ink-dipping fine nib pen, which I use for comics. I did the French Cat first; cut him out and glued him on the wood piece, then covered the whole thing in varnish. The rice paper disappears (dissolves?) as it is so thin (I learned this technique when I had to paint a surfboard design; they asked for the design on rice paper, to be covered in resin or whatever), leaving the ink on the surface.

Next I tried a fabric version. This is nothing new; it even has a fancy French name: Decoupage. Glue fabric on, slather with varnish, but I also added a little drawing. I know, flowers and hummingbirds, so cliche, but I was in a hurry to try out the technique. It works! Now I have to figure out how to make it into a pendant.

It is almost Valentine's day, after all. I've finally put up a portfolio of jewelry on my website at www.jzeestudio.com . This red version of Swing Set was a special request by some one whose favorite colors are pink and red.

I'm going to throw some tag words out there, so that search engines might lead potential shoppers here to go on to check out my website. Indie jewelry. Pressed glass. Glass beads. Heart beads. Wire wrap. Pendant. Hand made jewelry. Artist made jewelry.

I aspire to sell at some craft fairs this year, such as the North Park Craft Mafia Spring Line Up in March. That's a juried show so we'll see...

Swing Set is my first attempt at combining two jewelry styles that I developed. The first: the twisty wire branchings, and second: the asymmetrical hanging things. Of course I'm not the first to do either separately, (though the aesthetic results of how I have used those techniques are unique, I believe), I've not seen the two together.

I'd been mulling over designs in my head when this suddenly came to me. Working with wire is tedious, getting all those branches to come out in the right places. Even now, after I've made six, I still have to concentrate. Very soon, my jewelry will by for sale online. Stay tuned.

It's been a hectic week of jewelry creation. I was inspired to make jewelry after attending Thread last weekend, a fashion and shopping event. I was hoping to buy accessories for presents, but I didn't see any designs that were perfect, (nor prices that were perfect) so I figured I'd make my own.

When buying beads, it's cheaper to buy in bulk. So, I didn't get just one Black Gold Amazonite rectangular bead as seen above, but a strand of 10 or so. Same with bird and leaf charms. So why not sell to friends? The featured Cirrus Circus was a big hit.

Parting with artwork, even when it is made in multiples, is difficult for me. Thus I took lots of photos. Hopefully the recipients will appreciate the stones and aesthetics as much as I! So far it seems that people do.