Preview time!

Some work in progress pics.

I've been working on the Dance Around the Sun project, and already it's not looking much like the tutorial. My frame wires are too short because the cabochon I'm working with is waaaaaaaay too thick. I made stone-shaped beads rather than flatter oval cabochons. It's coming out nice, though. I think having to improvise is helping me understand the process and the order in which to build the frame. The next one will be better for all the guesswork and trial and error I'm doing now, since I'll be able to better map it out ahead of time. I'm really enjoying making this type of pendant and I can't wait to grab some more art wire this weekend... I'm going to give the marble another try, and I'm attempting malachite this weekend.

So here are the progress pics:
It's weird, that first pic should be flipped so it's horizontal. It's that way in the actual picture, but Blogspot is flipping it. Weird. Like all the preview pics, these are just quick snapshots from my work area, so the quality won't be quite as good as the real display photos. You can't see the bail in these, but the bail's nice. The exposed wire on the bottom will be woven/wrapped in red. I should have this done in a couple days. Don't know if it'll be sale-quality yet, but I'm betting not. The clay cracked a little during backing, and while I'm doing a good job of hiding it with the wire, it still may not pass my quality test. We'll see.

The Best Blog Daily Thinker Award

It's nice to be recognized.

I'm new to both etsy and the crafts I find myself enjoying, and already I'm meeting some very nice people whom I hope to become friends with as my journey continues.

I'll admit I'm a little insecure about all this. Insecure about any talent I may or may not have, and insecure that my shop will fail miserably. Insecurity is based in irrational thought. I enjoy the craft, and I like the things I've been making. My girlfriend likes the things I've been making, and my family and friends seem to think they can sell. So I tell my insecurity to go stuff itself and I keep on creating.

Also admittedly, it's very very helpful to have support from strangers and peers, and that happened for me earlier today. I've been pimping my wares on the Promotions forum, and it's actually kind of fun, but I don't know how successful it will be, ultimately. But I've been receiving some kind words for the magnets, which is nice. And now I'm receiving recognition for my blog. I was surprised and flattered when weeknit sent me a convo this afternoon letting me know. If you haven't visited weeknit's blog, you should go do so. It's a very good blog. And visit her store while you're at it. Her finger puppets are absolutely adorable, and I'm pretty sure they'll be part of my holiday/gift shopping this year.

So here's the award:The Best Blog Daily Thinker Award!!

It works a little like this: Pay it forward. Pass it on to ten or so other blogs you think are deserving of the award.

Unfortunately, I don't read many blogs anymore, so I don't really have ten, but here's a few that I'm following that I really enjoy:

Beadwork By Amanda
Belua Designs
Dorset Hill Beads
Piggy's Little Shop

They're all good blogs, and I kept my list to etsy/craft-related blogs. Go read them, and go read weeknit's blog. Share the love. It's helping keep my insecurities at bay so I can keep crafting.

I'll put up a preview of said crafting tomorrow morning sometime. Going to do some clay work tonight while waiting for Lost (and during the commercial breaks), and I'm in the middle of learning a new pendant style that will regularly appear in the shop.

Preview and experiments

The latest project I'm working on is a wonderful tutorial up on Jewelrylessons.com called Dance Around the Sun. I'm taking the name a little literally and doing it with orange and red art wire. I think it'll be pretty, and I'd rather use the materials I have than buy more silver colored copper wire since I don't have any in the right gauge. Once I get the hang of this stuff and start adapting to my own designs, I'll buy the good wire.

Anyway, I'm also experimenting with faux surfaces in polymer clay because I think it's neat, and I'd like to be able to make stuff that looks really nice - malachite or turquoise jewelry, for example - but isn't so expensive. I got these two really neat books on faux materials and I'm starting to try out the techniques. I'll link the books later since I don't have them with me and can't remember their names offhand. The first technique I'm doing is white marble.

As you can see from the pictures to the left, it didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. The clay isn't, well, marbled enough and there are way too many black veins. It sorta looks like a bleached pebble more than a marble cabochon. But that's okay. I think they'll make nice focus stones for my Dance Around the Sun tries. The first guy is going to follow the tutorial as faithfully as I can. The second guy will be more my own design, an experiment to see how well I can adapt the technique. The second guy will also probably be a different color.

I also finished a new face this morning. He still needs a name, but I'll introduce him to you anyway:

As a prominent member of the Graegon warrior caste, this guy to the left was the natural choice to lead the mission to Earth. Tough and resilient, he commands with ease and always looks after his people. He is charismatic, noble, dyslexic, and deathly afraid of chickens.

He's pretty much done. The preview picture gives him a slightly different expression, which is interesting. I'm going to tweak him a little when I get home, but I like the way he turned out. If you think of a good name for him, I'd love to hear it.

The etsy forums

So now that the store is up and running, one has to think about promotion.

Luckily, there's a forum on etsy specifically to pimp your store, and boy is it crazy.

There's so much posting going on that you put up a post and it gets lost within five minutes. But there are also lots of "show me your store" threads going around, so you can just post in all of those. Be sure to check out the other stores in said threads, though - it's only fair.

And on that note, I love etsy. I love that you can find such a diverse range of products online through this wonderful marketplace. I think I added about five new favorite sellers just from fifteen minutes on the Promotions forum.

But the store's been seen and actually favorited by a few people, so it pays off. And it's free - can't beat that.

Once the store's been around a little and I figure out its identity a little more, I'll know where to go to promote my stuff. I mean, the heads are fun and all, but there's so much I want to do with the hobby. And I'm just getting started with the jewelry stuff. Unfortunately, that side of things is a bit more expensive to mess around with than the polymer clay. But I should have a few new things done soon. They'll be on the blog, even if they're not good enough to sell.

New items!!

The store is open! Yay!

I have to admit I'm a little nervous. Now we see if anyone actually wants to buy what I have to sell. In the meantime, I work on more stuff.

We have in the offering three versions of my first necklace/earring design and six face magnets made of polymer clay. Pictures below of my two favorites, Aloysius and Reginald:

Getting started

I'm trying to get the shop in shape this weekend and list my first items. It's definitely going to be a learning curve. I think I'm doing it right, but I can't really tell. The paypal account is all set up, and my shop policies look all right. Now I have to get the item listings up and hope for the best.

Etsy is a remarkable thing. It's really one of the best things to happen to craftspeople and business in general in a very long time. I'm approaching it from a part-time perspective. All I really want is to subsidize the hobby. If I turn out good enough to make a profit, then so much the better. From the business side of things, it'll help me get some basic business skill experience under my belt while I put together a plan for the game store that I want to run one day.

I'm interested to see how this goes. The first batch of items will be modest, but I'm ambitious and improving quickly. Hopefully I'll be able to offer some very nice things.

Now I have to figure out how to get some nice pictures here at work since I left my good backdrop material at home.

A good start.

Welcome to the Crifmer Creations blog!

We'll have musings on the hobby (many hobbies), notes about Etsy and business stuff... and previews and looks at various projects. With pictures. We like pictures.

I guess I should tell a little about myself and what Crifmer Creations will be all about.

I'm Chris, Crifmer on the intermenet. I work in computer operations, and I am a very crafty dude. Crafty as in glue and popsicle sticks. Not the other kind of subterfugal crafty. Although I can be that kind of crafty, too.

I got into jewelry making and wire work a few years back but had to put the pliers down for a little while. I recently picked them back up and found I can make pretty things. I like to make pretty things. My girlfriend also likes me making pretty things.

I've also been into clay for... a very long time. When I was younger I'd make all sorts of stuff out of plasticine. I wanted to go into claymation, and I still might now that the tools are more accessable and YouTube is not just a fad. These days, I've found the joy of polymer clay and I'm having a ball.

I think Crifmer Creations will be more clay-oriented with jewelry on the side. Mainly because clay is less expensive, so I can do stuff with it right now as opposed to shelling out for the wire if I want to sell nice things. I do like making fashion/costume jewelry. I think the stuff I've done so far looks good, and you don't have to play a lot of money to get nice looking stuff. "Why play an ace when a two will do," as a wise dragon once said. I think most of my jewelry stuff will be with homemade beads and colored art wire. I like colored art wire. It's not expensive, but you can be very creative and expressive with it.

For now, I'm still finding myself as an artist. I'm making a bunch of clay head magnets that I think will be a regular feature in the Etsy store. I like making the heads. I also have other "product line" (for lack of a better word) ideas in the works. While I'm not restricting myself as an artist, not everything will go in the Etsy store. There are a lot of wonderful polymer clay artists out there (take a look at my favorite sellers for some) and I don't want to step on any toes.

Well, welcome to the Crifmer Creations blog. I'm sure I'll have more interesting posts later on.