Let's talk Tanzania.

You may remember a couple weeks back that I put together my very first treasury. It happened because I fell in love with a lioness... photo, that is. I couldn't take it. I bought that gorgeous photograph! It didn't last even a couple days in my treasury. I never get tired of looking at her and can't wait to have her framed to display in my home! She is below in a piece called "queen of the grassland."

I had a couple Etsy convos back and forth with Sharon, the photographer, who told me of her travels to Tanzania, where she shot many of her wildlife photographs. Her work and stories transport you there and, frankly inspired me to want to go there and see these amazing creatures for myself one day. Amongst others in her shop are an absolutely adorable baby elephant, a majestic sleeping lion and curious hyenas. Whether you're looking for a gift for an animal lover or a beautiful piece of artwork for your own home, smrrk photography has something for you. The photographs come well packaged and protected and signed and numbered on the back.

*COPYRIGHT: original photographs by smrrk photography; artist retains copyright after purchase.

One more time!

Okay, I'm not trying to be a pain or a braggart or just have a blog about treasuries, but I'm pretty excited that my new Busy Bee lariat necklace made it into a treasury within a couple days of listing it. Honey Sapphire is the name of this one. I love it! Thank you to ananemone for adding me to this one!

Well, I decided to curate a treasury.

I figured it was about time I figure out how to do it. I really enjoy looking through them and having the glimmer of hope that mine will make the front page is a cool notion too. And, I guess I'm paying it forward for the handful of people who have been kind enough to include me in theirs lately.

It's pretty easy to put one together, although it took me a little while to pick just the right items. Here it is if you'd like to purchase any of these lovely items, please follow the link here. Cheers!

Well, this is a first!

I woke up this morning to a convo from a fellow Etsy seller, Feathers of Artemis, telling me she'd included my new Starry Night earrings in her treasury, Starry Starry Night.

Then, tonight before heading off to bed, I decided to do a treasury search and found my latest listing, Warmth earrings, included in a treasury as well! This one, Fire and Ice, was curated by Carolyn Rachel. It made for an exciting day for me!

Thinking warm thoughts.

I am not a fan of cold weather. Here in Cincinnati where we live, we get our fair share of sticky, icky, humid hot days over the summer. Often times we seem to skip spring altogether. My husband can't stand it, but I enjoy the hot weather. Maybe I could do without some of the humidity, but I like it hot. I'm one of those unfortunate people who seems to be cold far more often than not.

I really can't complain (yet) because we are actually experiencing a pretty nice autumn this year. Temperatures have been relatively mild so far, mostly in the low 60ºs. Last night was the first truly cold night and I think temperatures were supposed to have dipped into the 20ºs. We've had lots of fall color in the foliage this year. It's been quite beautiful.

Most of my plants have withered or are about to, turning in for their winter rest. I know I should given my flower beds one last weeding and I'm supposed to cut back my perennials and remove spent blooms, but I tend to not get around to that major chore. Perhaps it's me trying to hold onto summer or it could just be shear laziness and loss of daylight hours. I tell myself "remember on Martha Stewart, that one time she said to leave the stalks and dried flowers for 'winter interest". Something like that. I took it to heart, whatever it was exactly. One last purple cone flower peeped out from under the dried leaves this week. Every once in a while my laziness is rewarded.

Show season is winding down.

At least summer show season, anyway. A couple weekends ago I participated in Art Off Pike in Covington, KY's arts district. This was my third year as an artist/vendor there. My lack of sales there last year made me reluctant to try it again, but after the success I had at the Mason Arts Festival last month, I guess I was feeling good and lucky. I actually missed the juried entry deadline. And the extended deadline.

I'm the first to admit that I'm a procrastinator. Jewelry is such a tough category at some shows and I honestly figured it was way too late to try. I sent off an email to the nice lady coordinating the event anyway, and she got right back to me and told me to send in my photos and application. I was accepted and I'm glad I gave it another shot! (My point is, it never hurts to ask, even if you're late on a deadline!)

The morning got off to a chilly start, but with promise of highs in the low 80s, I ran out the door with shorts on and a sweater over my short sleeved shirt. Boy, was I freezing. There were a few volunteers who practically unloaded my car for me, and while I parked my car, they set up my tent. I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived back at my booth space. I do hate the tent setting up part! And it's always tricky to do it yourself. I've heard it can be done, but I've never successfully done it myself. I was just so thankful the volunteers were there!

Okay, tent up, jewelry out... still freezing! The day went on with a decent amount of people wandering from booth to booth. It did eventually warm up. To the 80s. It was so HOT! lol I couldn't believe it. If I remember correctly, the high was 86º. Honestly, I'm not complaining, but I was surprised.

The lovely sunny, warm weather kept a steady stream of visitors and people were actually buying this year! It was a pretty drastic difference from last year's show. I didn't get a chance to walk around, but I did not see a bunch of jewelry artists there this year – another pleasant surprise. The couple I could see from my booth were very much different from what I was offering, so that was a definite plus.

I'm not really sure if it's the economy starting to bounce back, the weather or the change in style of my merchandise, but the show had a better energy than previously. Probably a combination of all of those things. I imagine I will try to make the deadline for entry next year!

Here is my booth set-up from this time around. I decided to add some 11"x11" color prints of a few of my pieces. I printed them at work on the nice color printer and mounted them on foamcore. I punched holes in them and hung them from large binder rings. Economical and eye-catching. I had a few comments from passersby that they had drawn them in. One lady actually said they made her buy the earrings, so they did the trick there! I think it's an idea that could work for most types of booths.

View to the right of me.
The Arcade is a passageway that led to the other street with vendors. They had various local musical groups and a duo throughout the day. This one was my personal favorite.
The view to the left of my booth.

My second show of the year came late in the season.

I haven't done a lot of shows this year. Last year I tried to get into every show I could find, it seems like. This time around, I decided to try to stick with the juried art show variety, which seems to be working better for me. Jewelry is generally a very saturated category (I've even had customers mention how many jewelry booths there are at 'this show', and so on). Even in juried shows, there is never a shortage of jewelry booths, but since they are purposefully selecting the artists, they tend to have a better variety. Which works out better for everyone.

For my most recent, the Mason Arts Festival last Sunday, I decided to sort of try to work myself into a niche. I got together a decent amount of new PMC pieces and had far fewer strung bead necklaces. The majority of my pieces were earrings, then quite a few necklaces and three or four bracelets. Overall, it turned out to be a really good day for me sales-wise, and the weather, although starting out with a chance of rain and kind of cool, ended up being warm (okay, hot) and sunny. There was a nice breeze all day, so that was nice!

I have to say, the Mason-Deerfield Arts Alliance did a fantastic job of organizing this festival. It was their 5th year and my first as a participant. Their volunteers were around all day to help with set-up, transporting vendors back and forth to their cars, watching booths for breaks, bringing waters, etc. It was very helpful and I felt very welcome there. You could tell it was well-publicized too. We had a steady stream of shoppers all day long. I really hope to become a yearly participant at this one.

This is my booth set-up this time around.

A couple views of the shoppers from my booth.

This is the bag of freshly popped kettle corn from the booth behind mine. I could smell it all day and finally caved. (How could I not?) It was fantastic. This is the small bag!