The legality of buying supplies

I was a bit horrified when I saw this article in my feed reader this morning. No…”horrified” doesn’t even come close to explaining how I felt. If nothing else, it’s taught me to exercise caution about where I get my supplies from in this copyright-protection-happy world.

I have a friend who has considered making glass beads, and when he does, I’m looking forward to incorporating them into my own work. I love being able to search for the right beads and wires for any project. They’re supplies; that’s what they’re there for. It’s expected that someone will buy the supplies and create something with them. In this age of hobbyists-turned-businesspeople, it’s even expected that these supplies will end up resold as part of something the crafter made.

Can you imagine if you honestly had to license rather than purchase your materials? How would it change the face of designing, of crafting?

Perhaps we each as artists need to consider why we create. I know that discussion has already started in Canada, but it will be interesting to see how this all settles.

On running a web storefront

I mentioned on Tuesday that I spent Sunday putting three jewelry pieces in the Etsy shop, and that things didn’t go so smoothly. That’s something of an understatement.

You see, in the process of trying to make these lovely chains available to the world, I blew up a router and a server. Actually, I’m sure I’ve been exonerated on both counts now, but…

The chains had already been scanned and cleaned up when I sat down to work Sunday afternoon. I moved them off the other computer onto this one, and uploaded them all to Flickr. That was perhaps the easiest part of the afternoon. The pictures uploaded, and I wrote great labels for them. Then I focused my attention on the Etsy tab.

I started trying to list the first chain. Everything went fine until I got to uploading the images. Etsy repeatedly told me my images didn’t exist or weren’t the right size. Realizing I hadn’t actully thought to check file sizes, I started investigating. All but one of the images was the proper size. Snarling, I set about to upload one set of pictures again. This time, I was successful. I posted the chain, linked it to its Flickr photo, and started on the second.

This is where it all fell apart. When I got to the uploading page, I only tried to upload the images that were the correct size, figuring I could fix the third later and edit the listing. It was a moot point. Etsy adamantly refused to let me upload anything. I was thinking about crying…and then the Gmail notifier informed me there was no network connection.

Okay…fine… I’m a big girl. The network had been flaky all day. I was okay with this. My roommate would fix it when he got home, and life would be happy. So, I went ahead and resized the overly big file to make it smaller so it would be ready when the web came back. Then I sat down to read my manga magazine. (All of my non-network work had been finished earlier that day.)

I was just debating working on the outline for my NaNovel when my other roommate came in and announced that the network was up. (This is maybe three hours after it went down.) I jumped back to my laptop, excited that I was going to be able to get everything done…only to find that right as our router died, Etsy’s servers crashed.

Yes, I blew up a router and a server. I’m proud, really.

It took another hour or so for the server to come back up, and from there it was fifteen minutes of work uploading, writing copy, and linking to Flickr.

I had to wait four hours to do fifteen minutes’ worth of work.

And somehow, I wouldn’t give up my web storefront for the world!

Keep your glasses close!

Despite a rather large comedy of errors, I managed to put some new pieces in the Etsy shop over the weekend.

For lack of a better idea, I’m calling these chains “eyeglass minders”. You’ve seen these before, mostly on little old ladies and sterotyped pictures of librarians. They’re the chains you slide onto your glasses so that when you aren’t wearing them on your eyes, you can just let them hang from your neck. The chain keeps them convenient and findable.

A few years ago, I was wandering through some craft store and saw a pattern for one of these chains. The chain in the image wasn’t my style, but I was fascinated to see how they made the loop ends. It was another couple of years before I sat down to design my own chains (and yes, I do have a chain I designed for myself), but I’m really pleased with the way these are turning out.

I thought it might be fun to let the DIY types in the audience in on how to make the ends. You start with a bail and about and inch and a half of elasticord. Fold the elasticord in half and place the ends in the bail so that the loop goes away from the link on the bail. With a pair of either needle-nosed or flat-nosed pliers, flatten one side of the bail over the elasticord, and then flatten the other side over the first side. It will be difficult to flatten the second side, but make it wrap as firmly as you can. Voila! End loop for the eyeglass minder!

A string of pearls

They say a string of pearls is a sign of utter elegance. My students often wander about with pearl strands over their track suits or otherwise uncoordinated outfits. The strands vary in color, length, and bead size.

It got me to thinking- how much personality can be set into a pearl necklace. Last year, inspired by a book on elegance, I actually created my own strand of pearls, incorporating 5mm white pearls into my Linnea design.

It’s cute. It’s catchy. I really want to redo the necklace with black pearls for fun. But I’m wondering how else I could design a pearl necklace.

My challenge to you all is to design your own pearl necklace. Make it fit your personality. It can be strung on beading wire. It can be accented with non-pearl beads. It can be wrapped wire. Use your imagination and design a pearl necklace. Then post a picture of it and link the picture in the comments!

Let’s see how we can redesign the pearl necklace!