Spring is FINALLY here. Talk about fashionably late.

This winter was brutal and yet this was the first winter I didn't have to actually work outside in the cold in 6 years.

It was also a winter where I didn't make it to the beach, not even once.  That's hardly surprising considering I have a little human in tow now though.

Is this going to be a sea glassing post?

NOPE. I WISH.

I mean, remember when I used to post every. sea. glass. haul. EVER?

We did try to make it to Bluff Point yesterday though. 

In the jogging stroller for the first time!

We drove all the way to Groton to meet his dad for a walk after he got out of work (he works as a carrier for USPS in Westbrook, CT), and we hadn't even gone walking there since almost exactly a year to the day--the day we saw Buddybear during the ultrasound for the first time (Well, the first time where he actually looked like a human being and not just a gestational sac.)  Once we got Buddybear out of the car and into the jogging stroller, we made it about two minutes down the path before we had to admit it was far too windy and cold for our little tyke.

Which led to a very confusing 10 minutes for Buddybear.  

We decided to go home and walk there, where we thought it was less windy, since it was hardly windy at all yesterday. Turns out the wind was here to stay, so we gave up.

Today it's considerably warmer, but I tried to drink a coffee on the porch in a tank top and decided I was better off indoors.  AGAIN.

Meanwhile, in additon to the #buttonaday posts on instagram, I decided to tackle @lu_and_ed 's #creativedaily . I'm really having a blast with my shop instagram account.

In other news, Buddybear is going to be 6 months old on the 13th--when did that happen? I know I'm going to be saying the same thing when he's 6 years old, which is going to be like tomorrow, right?

I mean, it's been 7 years since I first went specifically sea glassing in Watch Hill, and Watch Hill is where Taylor Swift lives, and Shake it Off is one of Buddybear's favorite songs.  No joke.  It's my fault but he smiles every time it comes on.

 Oh, remember when my sea glass display looked like this?  I don't either. (September 2009)  That white cabinet is definitely my spice rack in my kitchen now.

Since I moved out of my mother's basement in 2010, my sea glass has been bagged up and put away.  I think we're going to eventually put it in the bay window in our bedroom, but I don't want the window to fall off the house. LOL

It's a massive work in progress, though I do miss taking my sea glass out and just messing around for photos.

Also September 2009...definitely curious as to how I will photograph it differently whenever I unpack it!  I started working as a photographer professionally a year after this and I've learned a ton since.

I know, short blog post.  I'm still getting back into the hang of things. :)

Instagram!

Last week I started a new Instagram account for my Etsy shop.  I had been using my @meganmcgory account for Etsy related posts but realized I needed to break it out if I was going to grow my shop and traffic to it.

Follow here!

@mannequinreject

Search #mannequinreject for all the earlier posts under @meganmcgory.

So far I'm doing a daily "Button a Day" post where I feature different buttons!  A couple other button collectors and I are also doing this, so check out #buttonaday.  I think, after I amass enough photos of buttons, I'm going to offer button photo prints for sale through my smugmug and maybe even through Etsy.  Maybe I'll do a photobook and sell that too.  I am still a photographer and a writer, after all.

Check out #buttonaday !  Also #buttonlove

These buttons sold a couple months ago.

In other news, it's FINALLY spring!  And that means it's time for SPRING CLEANING, which I've been dying to do because my craft room (above) sure as heck isn't that clean right now, and the rest of the house needs a good do-over.  We've only been here just over a year but my god with all the baby stuff that he's growing out of and all the stuff we never really finished, the whole house looks like it's exploded from every angle you look at it.

Meanwhile, this morning I had my biggest Etsy sale EVER.  So big that it actually trumped every MONTH's worth of sales on Etsy EVER.  I just about fainted.  However, I had just awakened when I saw the email and promptly made myself an entire pot of coffee, since I'm the only one around here who drinks it.

Biggest. Sale. EVER.  And they were all the boho bracelets --one rainbow bracelet and two others.  Why did I not think to make those sooner? Wow!

A part of me wants to get out of selling vintage clothes.  I've had a bunch of clothes in the shop going on 7 years now and (as I usually do) I go through phases of wanting to sell off the entire lot and be done with it.  They are just so much work and I have about 75 pieces of clothes to list and it takes all day to do just 1/10th of that if I were working on it full time.  I hate to say I just don't have that kind of time, because a 5 month old demands a lot of work.  There is no such thing as putting in a solid 8 or 12 hours of work on dresses right now, unless I had help, and I don't make enough money to hire an assistant.  So...the dresses either have to go or they have to wait.  I'm not sure what I should do there. 

I'm back with a new little sidekick and a new line of jewelry!

Hello again! Remember how I kept mentioning how pregnant I was?  

Here's my little sidekick! (And his daddy!)

 

This is Little Roger.

He's growing WICKED fast.

Little Roger is almost 4 months old already, and it took just about that long for me to get used to juggling the needs of a very new and loveable baby and just about everything else.  I let my Etsy shop coast for quite a while since I had built it up so much over the summer but all I had energy/time to do was ship orders out as they came in.

While out and about just before Christmas, hanging out with my mother-in-law just so I could get the heck out of the house, this new jewelry line hatched.  She was looking for an inspirational bracelet for her pastor and couldn't find anything she liked.

Suddenly, something clicked.

So I went home and made this.

There's a similar one listed in my Etsy shop.

Boho Wrap Bracelet - Inspirational Jewelry, Trust, Faith, Hope, Believe in Denim Blue with Sodalite, Lapis, Labradorite, Czech Glass Beads

Ever since I started making jewelry for my flea market booth and Etsy shop in 2007-8, I've struggled with finding a voice.  I love love LOVE Czech glass beads and I LOVE semi-precious stones and I have a ton of both but there's only so many pairs of earrings I can make and hardly any of my stone jewelry/nature line ever sold...EVER.  All of the sudden, all of these materials came together in Boho Wrap Bracelets, which I can't seem to stop making and I'm finally using all these beads that I bought a ton of, way back when.  That night, I made a bracelet for my mother in law for Christmas, and I made a bracelet for my own mother to match the necklace I made her for her 50th birthday in 2009.

I made wrap bracelets until I ran out of wire, and then I bought some more and kept right on going.

#309 Boho Wrap Bracelet - Deep Ruby Red with Garnets, Labradorite, Antique Buttons, Smokey Quartz, Freshwater Pearls, Czech Glass Beads & Charms

#319 Boho Wrap Bracelet - Pink and Green Czech Glass Beads with Malachite, Aventurine, Chrysoprase, Dyed Agate, and Charms

And then...I made a huge one...for ME. Because I wanted to make an attention grabber that I could use to advertise my shop.  I have made a few pieces for myself over the years and handed out business cards when people ask.  I've heard whispers of "hey, she's wearing clock hands for earrings" while out at Ocean State Job Lot. 

So here is the most awesome piece of jewelry I've ever made, which I call "The Button Box (#326)."  I've been hoarding glass buttons ever since I started selling buttons on Etsy, and started putting them in my jewelry during the past year.  There are some buttons I would admit that I would miss if I sent them off to new homes, so I used many of them in this bracelet, and I used the best of the beads I own, as well as semiprecious stones.

The Button Box - Vintage and Czech buttons with Czech beads and Labradorite, Fluorite, Garnets, Carnelian, Aventurine, Chrysoprase, Peridot, Malachite, Turquoise, Amazonite, Lapis, and Amethyst.

Of course, I'm open to making another one, but they're extremely limited as I don't have many yellow or orange buttons.  If there's a high demand, I'll source more, but a lot of these buttons came from lots I got at yardsales so the colors were up to chance.  (I used to buy small buttons from EKSupplies on Etsy, but she doesn't seem to have any left to sell.  Still, she's a fab seller!)

So that's bringing you up to date.  I also started a new little website, Adventures with Meg, since I used to post some adventures in here and that site also has Saab shots. 

I hope to be able to post new blog posts once a week, but that might be a bit too ambitious.  We'll see. :)

A necklace for Buggy kitty.

Last Sunday, I spent all day making jewelry at my inlaw's while Brent worked on the race car with his brother and his dad.  I seriously hauled like 6 bead trays and probably 50 pounds of beads and wire and clock hands and you name it over there.  I ransacked my entire studio rather than just...staying home.

I've been having a bit of a creative streak lately and have been making a lot of jewelry to deal with some bad news we received about three weeks ago.  I've made some of the most beautiful jewelry yet during the past three weeks and last Sunday was no exception.  I'm kind of baffled by this because sometimes I don't exactly make pretty things.

Anyway, one piece I made took several hours because I couldn't get it to work right with the ideas I had for it, so here it is in the later stages of being made.

Anyway, at my inlaws, there was a cat named Buggy. 

Buggy was such a sweet cat and she was Brent's buddy for 14 years.

Buggy disappeared Sunday night after we departed my inlaw's for home.  We found out she was missing on Monday afternoon after dealing with some other stuff that had to do with the bad news I mentioned earlier.  We spent hours looking for her on Tuesday, but she vanished.  We checked surveillance cameras until we couldn't bear to watch anymore, and it didn't get us any closer to finding out what happened to her.

As for the necklace, I realized it was the last thing I made while she was still alive.  I last saw her when we were leaving for home that night.  At one point I dropped a bunch of the seed beads and accidentally picked up some cat food crumbs thinking it was the beads (haha).  Every time I looked at the necklace, I thought of Buggy, and if it were to sell in my Etsy shop, I would be sad to see it go.

So I added a little cat bead to remind us of our tabby Buggy, and turned it into a little memorial to her.  I can make more necklaces similar to this one, but this one is special.  I wore it out to a bunch of yardsales yesterday and got a lot of compliments.

 It's been a week and Buggy hasn't come home.  We live in rural eastern Connecticut, we're not delusional about what could have happened to her and we've taken it really hard.  When we get cats of our own, they're not going out after dark.

 Brent and Buggy, the first time I ever met little Buggy at dinner at his parents back in 2012.

 As for the other bad news, if anything comes of it, then it will show up in the blog.  Otherwise, here's some of the jewelry I made while dealing with that.

I haven't made a pair of earrings like these since 2008, and we'll see how they do!

 I love uranium/vaseline glass beads, as well as electric blue!  This will be listed soon.

 

Fossil Necklace #264

This was made from a couple upcycled pieces of jewelry I've had laying around for years, and I love how it came out!

Otherwise, not much else has been going on.  Obviously I'm moving a bit slower these days since I'm 38 weeks pregnant and fully expect this kid to barely make it into October before birth.  I had my strongest contractions yet after we were looking for Buggy on Tuesday because I over did it while hiking through the woods.  

Making jewelry in massive amounts is not nesting, right?  Or is that an Etsy thing...

Ain't nobody got time to wrestle a mannequin!

One of the biggest draws in my shop are my vintage dresses.  I made the leap into selling vintage dresses back in 2008 when my Etsy shop was still fairly new and I was new to product photography and all the rest.  This week, though I've been putting it off for quite some time, I decided to re-shoot all the dresses I've had for sale in my shop now for more than five years.  I mean, in 2010 I finally bit the bullet and bought a mannequin--I'd been using a plus-sized dress form that my mom scored from a yardsale and half the time I was photographing dresses completely unzipped down the back because they just didn't fit the form.

Despite having bought the mannequin in 2010, I only re-shot the dresses I already had for sale in 2012...

I've been putting it off.  I remembered the 2012 shoot taking FOREVER because dressing and undressing the mannequin is a bear.  The 2012 shoot had my studio lights, which aren't that bright, shot at nighttime in a dark basement.

Not to mention the fact that my black backdrop was in the wrong place for the angles that I needed, so my photos from that night were terrible with half a backdrop or some awful such thing.


Now? I'm 34 weeks pregnant. Ain't nobody got time (or energy) to wrestle a mannequin!


However, if I want to get these dresses sold, the terrible pictures from 2008-9...2012... have to go. I know I don't have a good photo setup for the mannequin and clothing despite being a professional photographer. I've got pro equipment but I'm not a portrait photographer by any means, so I don't have a studio setup with legit backdrops.  I'm a photojournalist with a white tablecloth and I sold my mediocre light setup to my brother in law because it suits his videography needs far better than it ever suited my still needs.  As a result, my lighting for clothing photogaphy consists of a 40 year old overhead fluorescent light and a big ol' window.

Yikes.

So I shot 8 dresses for my Etsy shop before my body and baby were like, "LOL UR DONE IT'S NAPTIME"  and I brought my tiny photoshoot home to be edited.  Then I noticed this photo.

What the hell happened to her wig?  Where's her bottle of Jack?

And since I can't drink my sorrows away at the moment, I went straight to the Etsy forums to mention how I thought my mannequin looked like she rolled out of bed.  Because quite clearly, she did.  And my long white tablecloth idea is just not working either, I can see that.

So I'm replacing crappy five year old product photos with mediocre product photos. OK.  On the Etsy forums, someone mentioned how if I photographed her with a bottle of Jack in her hand, she would show it to all her friends, which reminded me of my past clothing photography endeavors.

Like...before I had the plus size dress form, I had a five foot plastic skeleton with a stuffed bra as such a gimmick.  I remembered selling at least one dress like that, but there were actually two sold, and so I went off in search of my bad clothing photos from way back.

And that is what this post is about-- the TERRIBLE clothing photos I started out with, and where I am still struggling today.  At least the latest round isn't nearly as cringe-worthy as some of these!

2008:

 Oh look, here's a dress hanging off my mother's porch!  Look at her shed in the background!

 OMG so like that angle wasn't good enough, here's the VFW next door and OMG LOOK AT MY SAAB!!!!

Well none of those shots worked.  Here's the money shot.  THIS DRESS SOLD WITH THIS PHOTO.

Here's another look at the dress that's been in my shop the absolute longest.  It's hard to photograph because of that pattern, which almost never looked as good as it does in person until the 2012 shoot.

 2008: Shot on a hanger tacked to the living room wall in almost direct sunlight with a Kodak DX7590, and below, shot in a basement with the same Kodak and the flash!  For the love of all that is holy...

 2009: Dress on the plus-size dress form, completely unzipped down the back since it's a US size 4.  At least this was better than say...hanging off my mom's porch.  Shot with a Canon Rebel XS in my mother's living room.  There are still quite a few of the April 2009 photo shoot images still floating around my Etsy shop, but not as the main photo.  There were some others shot in the basement in October 2009 that are also still in existence.  Honestly, I think the April 2009 was the most successful but not the best they could have been due to lighting/equipment/etc.  There were a lot of motion blur photos or just out of focus, etc, and they all got listed that way...

I had high hopes for the 2012 shoot, which went so horribly I didn't want to even tackle it again for another two years.  I couldn't even find the photos, which apparently never made it to my archive from my laptop.

And this week. 

(This shot was posted on my photography blog, found here.)

 Huge improvement, but nothing spectacular...

The search for the perfect setup continues...

Recent creations and some news!

With so much going on in my life as of late (got married, whole wedding planned and executed in FIVE DAYS --another post, another time!) I've neglected all my blogs!  (I have a photography blog, which can be found here.)

I've been hard at work on my Etsy shop and officially off from my day job since August 9.  I'd say all the new listings don't leave a lot of time for working on social media and blogs, but they're an important component to selling online.  Check out these uploads from my instagram while I was brainstorming and creating one night!

These earrings have since been listed, here.

 A small taste of things to come? 

I have to admit, I've been having fun teasing on Instagram as I create new jewelry.  I haven't really been hard at work at creating new things since 2009 or so--other than re-making clock hand earrings when I could, I hadn't felt too creative over the past few years.  My photography career made everything else take a back seat, as well it should have, because it supported me for years.

So here, check out this necklace I made, from start to finish!

Brainstorming! Let's play with beads!  If that pendant looks familiar, it's because it was part of my #21 pendant, created on January 15, 2008.  I decided to take it apart and re-work the design.

The old #21 pendant.

The new necklace, #225 Quarry Queen - Necklace with Quartz, Labradorite, Fluorite, Amethyst, and Dyed Agate.

Oh by the way, check out how my product photos have improved! The Number #21 Pendant photo was actually listed like that on Etsy (and I know if you hunt around my Etsy shop enough, you will find plenty of crappy product photos shot that same night).  I didn't know what I was doing back then with either photography or jewelry making, apparently.  I mean, there's a reason I'm re-working my oldest designs.  Speaking of re-working, I've been taking apart my oldest clock hand earrings and fixing the wiring technique. Not that my earrings have come apart through the years, they just used way too much wire and looked a mess.

Stay tuned for some awesome wedding posts, including a tutorial on wedding party favors!

P.S. I signed up for a Craftori account, we'll see how that goes!  Check it out, here. http://craftori.com/items/author/mannequinreject/

Also, my Mannequin Reject Emporium has a Pinterest page, separate from my personal one.

WHATTA CROCK

Oh hey, remember that crock I found in the Moosup River back in April 2008?

Of course not, who the heck was reading this blog now who was reading it back then?  Let's refresh your memory. 

D.I.Y. Archaeology aka Girls Who Dig Rock!

So there was this grody crock.

Anyway, I couldn't get it fully clean that day, figuring I would take a toothbrush to it and scrub the hell out of it.  I always intended to do exactly that.  So it sat.

And sat.

I moved two years later. 

It stayed at my mother's and sat.

I moved again, two years later.

And again a year after that.

Finally, I put it in the trunk of my saab. It was full of spiders and cobwebs.

I finally cleaned it.

THIS YEAR.

So six years later, you know how hard that river muck was to get off of it?  Mr. Clean knocked it on it's rear end in 15 minutes, no toothbrushes even needed.

It's my garbage can in my craft room now (I line it, it's not grody).  The one thing I never admitted when I had spent 90 minutes digging it out of the river was that its only flaw was a crack, which is why I never bothered selling it.  I mean come on, 90 minutes of work and it's cracked?  Now I have a good story and a good trash can.