Frogs and Jewelry

My last sale on Earthly Creations was on February 27, six plus long weeks of waiting and last night I finally sold another piece. A buyer who likes to collect frog items bought it. It was such a relief to break the stalemate of no sales. It is so depressing and discouraging to see others sell left and right and there are not only few views in my shop, but also, more importantly, no sales. Today I renewed the listing on the Amazonite bracelet to increase the exposure it's getting (from wherever, I'm assuming the ad) and it has gotten up to 99 views just a few minutes ago. I hope it sells, I can use the encouragement.

As per the frog earrings, here's the story. I bought these lead-free pewter frogs at a bead store and thought how it looked like it was about to leap. I had also bought these turqouise flat square stones. It occurred to me a vision of the frog on a mossy stone ready to leap into the blue pool below the rock. Hence the idea for the main photo.

Today I also opened a shop at Dawanda, the German online shop site, a Etsy wannabe. I now have four shops, two at Etsy.com (EarthlyCreations and ArizonaSkies), one at iCraft.ca (Aurora Creations), and the latest at Dawanda.com (FilomenaDesigns). The idea is to see which one or two of the four does the best twelve months from now and then keep the best two. I really could use the extra income but don't want to have to have a REAL job, with set hours and days. I had enough of that for most of my life. I really enjoy making jewelry and crafts and want it to stay pleasurable.

Amazonite bracelet

This is something unusual in my three months at Etsy (celebrated yesterday, April 9). This bracelet made with Amazonite, New Jade, and sterling silver had only 43 views late April 8, the day I bought an ad at JLC Designs's blog with a photo of this bracelet. Today it has 84 views. I thought I had been in a treasury and checked both the regular and west treasuries, but it was not in either so the extra views must have come from the the blog ad. That ad was a good buy too, $5 for the month of May and I got the rest of April for free. Jen also charged me $5 for making the ad, which was great since I am a complete tech-challenged person.

I feel ambivalent about views. If they have too few views I worry that no one likes the item, if there are too many views I wonder why all those viewers didn't want to buy it. It's a catch-22 situation.

Copying and copyrights

Today there was a discussion/thread in the Etsy forums about copying and copyrights, one of many. The gist is that you cannot by law copy someone else's creation or idea.

The truth is that since the beginning of time things have been invented and made and improved upon and evolved by someone trying to imitate someone else and making little changes along the way. And nothing ever stops evolving, nothing is ever perfected to the point that no other changes can be made to it. So, in essence, every one has been a copier.

Even the inventor of the wheel must have seen and been inspired by other things. Perhaps one windy day he saw a round stone or piece of wood rolling along easily and effortlessly on the ground and he thought what a neat and fast way it would be to move things with such a contraption. And he may or may not have invented the wheel to the point where it could be useful, but someone else must have improved on his idea and ad infinitum until today we have wheels that move cars and machinery, and even those may eventually be improved upon or even become absolete because better forms of locomotion could have been invented.

I find it laughable when they speak of "copying" when the issue is merely imitation, which we all in one way or another, a little or a lot, have been guilty of. I simply call it "inspiration" since most artists and inventors use it as a base for their designs and inventions.

Devil's Claw wildflower

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0801.htm

The Devil's Claw is one of the most beautiful, resilient, tough, and well adapted to the desert wildflower. It starts out green and beautiful, it's seed pod looks like a smooth and long okra. When the plant, and the pod, dries, the pod will split open. It will then be carried by any big animal or human that steps on it to a new location where it's seeds will be dispersed. I find it's story irresistible in it's tenacity and innovation of evolution. Here are photos of one that I have collected.

Never say Never

One of the quirks of my personality is that I always make fast judgements. I either endorse something enthusiastically, as in "this is THE thing", or thumb it down negatively, as in "it will never work". Most of the time I find that the answer is in the comfortable medium zone.

In my defense, I will say that I also have, or try to have, an open mind and will change my attitude when the time or circumstances are right.

Such is my attitude on the subject of blogs. I said I would NEVER keep one, and here I am, on the very first day of creating one, doing what I said I would never do. Life is full of ironies.

So, having taken such a big step, I will now retrench and close this post and see what I want to write about next. To be honest, I have NO idea what I will write about next and even have less of an inkling if anyone will ever read it. But, the future will tell, and I nor anyone can foresee the future in our lives.