Why would someone with so much potential...

...be delivering newspapers at ungodly hours?

Easy. Because I don't give a damn about so-called careers and don't want one. Potential doesn't mean slave away at some miserable paper-pushing job for your entire working life and die at 50 because you have a Type A personality and never really accomplish anything to be proud of. This pays my bills but at the same time, allows me to work on my art. Sacrifice. I've been sacrificing the wrong thing for too long and suppressing my creativity...for what? To lose all the talent I worked so hard on 10 years ago and let it all go to waste in corporate America? I don't think so.

You know, I haven't been this relaxed since forever. Maybe it's because I don't have bosses anymore. lol

Really...what accomplishments am I proud of over the past 3 years? In order: The Resident...making my zine...my photography...the video tribute I made for Uncle Larry...starting the flea market...making jewelry and being artsy.

Notice that nothing at Yankee Retail, Verizon, ITema, Norwich Bulletin, Crunchy Kids etc etc etc made that list. I don't feel like wasting my life anymore because that's not the reason we live.

Etsy, eBay, Norwich Bulletin, & a headache

Since my first sale on etsy, there hasn't been any more. -sigh- a girl can dream, right?

I've been away from the computer quite a bit lately as using the mouse really kills my hands if I use it for more than 1 hour or so. I can't believe that I'm not even 24 yet and I have these kinds of problems.

The good news (for those of you who know the kinds of problems I have with my hands) is that my right hand, while yes, it hurts to use a mouse, has gained back all reflexes below the elbow AND strength back in the fingers I haven't been able to use since 2003!!! My left hand still has two useless fingers but hey...I thought I'd be stuck with 4 useless fingers for life and now I'm down to two...so maybe by the time I'm 26 I'll be all fixed. BY MYSELF. WOW.

My last package I was waiting for came in today--the last thing I ordered before I lost my job!

And speaking of day jobs, I have a new one. I deliver your morning newspaper, if you get the Norwich Bulletin and live within the zipcodes 06239, 06332, and 06354. That's Danielson, Central Village, and Moosup. The hours are a bit of getting used to--I have to pick up the paper at 1:45 and finish delivering around 5:30AM, but once I get adjusted to the new hours I'll be good. I'm all excited because the pay is the same as it was at Yankee Retail but it's only 24 hours a week instead of 40...and that in itself will allow me to make a go of the jewelry/flea market/ebay.

I have my first listing up on ebay, btw. It's that lot of junk jewelry (there's some decent stuff in there too) as well as most of those 50 pairs of earrings I picked up at the auction like I previously mentioned...I tried selling them for $1 a pair and no one wanted them (surprise!)...but that's ok, I don't want them either. Not like I actually have pierced ears (yet I make earrings...)

:)

Life is still good. At least I'm still making money, even if I have to do it the hard way...but it's more rewarding. Really. I'd rather be freezing my ass off in a car for 3 1/2 hours throwing things at people's houses (LOL...and you think I'm kidding)...than sit in an office staring at a screen. For all you aspiring artists out there who think you'll just "get an easy office job" and you'll have time to do your art at night/weekends/whatever...think again. Office jobs rot your brain. lol

But don't be stupid. If you want to be an artist you still need to feed your crack habit, yourself, and pay your bills. If you're an artist, you'll know what I mean by crack. lol

The hours might suck (especially getting used to them), but the peace of mind is well worth it :D

I'm off to shower and do some laundry, and then off to start on the first of 59 pairs of clock-hand earrings. It was supposed to be 54 but I was blessed with 5 extra pairs.

As blood trickles down my thumb, I wonder

Why do I keep buying junk broken watches at auction to take apart rather than just buying all the separate pieces online?

I've successfully dissected three old watches. The first watch I bought from Salvation Army and in the process of taking it apart, I stabbed myself with an exacto knife, a thumbtack, and a screwdriver went under my fingernail. I gave up at that point and came back to it a few days later, where it seemed to fall apart like magic.

Last night I picked up two matching old broken watches at the auction. (AND 60 SKELETON KEYS! OMGGGGGGG)...but in taking those apart I got the exacto blade down my cuticle. And of course, this was about 15 minutes after I finished cleaning rust off the previously mentioned 60 skeleton keys. Do I need a tetanus shot? Well if my thumb falls off, I guess that would be a yes. Anyway. At this point I just smashed both watches with a hammer, and they fell apart quite nicely. Actually...they didn't, I had to cut the un-interesting faces off ( trust me if they looked like normal watches, I wouldn't have), and access the gears of the watch, and then pry the sections apart by ripping off that knob thing you use to change the time. When all was said and done, I was pleasantly surprised that a--these weren't battery operated and b--they had a lot more nicely shaped gears than the last watch.

But I smashed them with a hammer! There has got to be a more efficient way.

And vinegar to clean rust is a decent solution, but it really wrecks your hands in the morning. Off to make more jewelry, I'm pretty far behind on my 10-a-week goal but then again I had a pretty busy week.

I started incorporating coins into my work as well. weeeeee!

First item sold!

During our snow day on Monday, I finally got my Etsy shop up and running.

Mannequin Reject Emporium

And before I could even post it here, I got laid off from my day job AND sold my first item, lined up 2 job interviews and made some more jewelry! So, I'm incredibly optimistic for the future!

Packages out of the sky!

When I woke up this morning, I found a package sitting on my office chair. I guess when my mom got the newspaper this morning she found a package for me somewhere.

It was my Egyptian goods from Delta Collections! I was starting to think it was never going to show up, but it did and therefore I'm quite pleased.

And now I have to stop spending money until I start making money. Though I think I will budget $5 or $10 for beads per week.

Things to look forward to for Sunday:

--Egyptian snake bracelets!
--Egyptian statues!
--Scarabs!
--Quite possibly the painted heads, if I have time.
--Peacock feathers!
--AND WE NOW HAVE STOCK OF THE #1 MOST REQUESTED ITEM, which I'm not saying, but we only have two of them and they'll probably be gone first thing in the morning!

And my goal for tomorrow is to open my ETSY shop. I might have to stay up all night tonight to do it, but I really need to start selling the jewelry. I spent way more this month than I thought I did and thank God today is payday! lol

The book, you took it from the Old House. The book? THE HAND!

Ok, so no one is going to catch that Dark Shadows reference, but I don't care. Yesterday my hand charms finally came in from primitiveearthbeads.com and now I can finally finish the first of my beaded projects.

I want to move into my new "apartment", aka the two rooms that my grandfather completely renovated just after our massive August yardsale. (We're not renovating the third room till the spring, as it was a huge project.)

Still haven't gotten my shop up on Etsy. I'm hoping to do so tonight, but there's a lot of work involved and I'm torn between setting up the shop or working on jewelry, and both need to be done. (So little time!) But after seeing my bank account today...I think I'll set up the shop. All flea market/bead purchases are done at least till the next auction night now, because I need to stop. lol. I need to gather some stuffs to sell on eBay too.

Haven't had time to further paint the heads, but we have 2 nights and 1 whole day till the flea market so I might do some knockout work before showtime. Or so I can hope. Life has a funny way of slapping you silly 5 ways till the weekend. This whole paragraph makes no sense, please ignore and move on!

I picked up some awesome stuff for the flea market finally...the most asked about item will finally be for sale THIS WEEKEND!

I'm inspired by all the art work I've been seeing lately. Would love to work with glass--you know, actually working with torch, but also want to learn to work with resin.

I swear I'm at the point where if I have to make another web site, I'm going to scream.

I love receiving packages

The other night I admittedly never made it to the auction but that's because I was pretty tired and got all tangled up in stuffs that arrived in the mail. The package I had to pick up were my 50 peacock feathers, but two other packages arrived as well--about 20 skeleton keys and a pink vase. What am I up to, anyway? Only time will tell.

Yesterday I finally managed to get the broken watch I'd picked up at Salvation Army apart. The first night I tried it I stabbed myself with a utility knife, a screwdriver, and a thumbtack. And last night it just came apart. That figures.

I also have a beaded project that's taking a lot longer than I originally imagined, now going on 6 hours of beadwork. I'm probably not even going to sell this piece, but I will be making more like it. We'll see if I make my goal of making 10 pieces of jewelry per week.

I need to set a budget like $5 week for more beads, too. Teehee. I can't wait till some more packages come in, hopefully today. And I need some time to take tons of cool pictures so I can start selling on Etsy.

I have a package waiting for me at the post office!

Sooooooooo on Saturday when I got back from raiding Salvation Army looking for broken clocks and watches I found a little card waiting for me in my mail box. I have a package waiting for me at the post office...and I can't wait to go pick it up to see what on earth it could be. I'm currently waiting for about 6 packages coming in from all over the US, which is wicked exciting except that I was expecting half of them last week, and so I feel delayed, just a tad.

But that's ok. My styrofoam heads came in finally and I set to work on those (new project!) HOWEVER...I didn't realize that SPRAYPAINT EATS STYROFOAM. So don't do it. So I'll try to save the heads and if I'm lucky, I'll be able to sell the finished product. If not...well..I'll do it right, try again, and if that screams FAIL, then I'll continue making jewelry.

Oh. I'll be posting stuff on Etsy fairly soon, and when I do I'll be sure to make a big deal about it.

So auction update!: Friday night I went to the auction house...which is just in another section of the same old textile mill that the flea market is in, and had a lovely night. I didn't bid on much until a rotating jewelry display full of earrings went up. And I got it for a good price, not to mention that it came with 50 pairs of earrings.

I also bought a box lot of stuff which turned out to be a little disappointing, the auctioneer said paper goods and the last box lot that was paper goods was all cool stuff from the 50's. My "paper goods" lot was a bunch of unused calendars from 1981 and a book that's entirely in Hebrew. Maybe I'll ebay it because someone's always looking for cheap wholesale lots on there. There was an old jewelry box in the lot as well, but it's broken and the cloth inside is stained something fierce. There was some stuff in it but not much for mention, and I could still get more than what I paid for it on ebay. I'll throw in some junk plastic jewelry and call it a day.

I bought a Victorian dresser, complete with mirror, for $10 . It's a beauty. Unfortunately, when I got it home, I discovered it's too tall for the future bedroom, which only has a 6'5" ceiling...and the dresser is about 6'6". It's ok, I won't be living there forever.

Speaking of auctions, there's another one tonight that I haven't admittedly heard much about but I want to give it a shot because I heard there are wholesale lots...which are good if you have a flea market booth.

And speaking of flea markets: Sunday was better than my worst day, but I didn't make the rent. It seems to me that my booth is slowly gaining ground because I didn't miss the rent by much, and I'm seeing the same people over and over. These things take time to build and I am somewhat patient!

Hopefully all of you are still patient, because I still haven't posted pics of the jewelry I made. I now have 11 pieces and growing, and I work on this project in every spare moment. But this project is a huge one with many, many facets.

Note: I got over my 3 week EBAY obsession without spending too much money! Three of the most expensive things I bid on, I lost. Which is also good, because it just allowed me to step back and breathe and learn that YES, I can say no to increasing my maximum bid and let that thing get away. Especially if I'm going to make myself stick to a budget. Last week I really did blow $200 on beads, but it's ok. I still have my day job.

Mannequin Reject

In addition to my other two blogs, The Indie Historian and Is This Your License Plate? I decided to start a blog about my booth at the College Mart Flea Market in Jewett City, CT.

But it's not just about the booth, it's about my artwork and crafts and things I'm working on at the moment.

Which until New Year's Eve, "Things I'm working on" was usually NOTHING. This was something that bothered me greatly ever since I finished high school. I mean...I went to college and did some things around 2003, finished my last novel in 2004, and wrote my zine, Mannequin Reject in 2005...and then became employed full time and all my artsy dreams vaporized.

I just realized this blog entry has the potential to become extremely long and not-internet-typical-ADD-reader-friendly. lol

So my latest mission is making jewelry.  Since New Year's Eve I've probably purchased about $200 worth of beads (went to a different store every day...Michaels....Walmart...A.C. Moore...Michael's again...ordered some online from beadworld.com)...and made 1 brooch, 1 straight pin, 7 pairs of earrings, and 2 necklaces.

The auction that's every other week (http://www.leonesauctions.com) is tonight and while I completely blew my entire auction budget on beads/jewelry/ebay, I am still going to go at least for a couple hours. I mean, I'm always looking for cheap antique furniture and auctions are the way to go.

I mean, I picked up a 1930's white velvet chair for $5 at the last auction. And a side table for the same amount.

Looking for pics? Check out the Mannequin Reject/ Egyptian Emporium myspace page. I'll get around to posting some here, when I go off on some rant about how artsy I feel. www.myspace.com/mannequinreject

So...WHY was my 2005 zine called Mannequin Reject? To be honest, I don't remember. It has something to do with the mannequin head I bought from the same flea market I now have a booth in. :)