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. :)

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.

It's time to revive the shop blog!

I mean, it's only been 5 years since I posted anything at all.

The best years I had on Etsy were 2008 and 2009, and I spent the morning editing old posts in this blog so that it would hopefully remain relevant if anyone wanted to see my earliest beginnings.  I stopped focusing on Etsy during mid-2010 when my photography career took off, and I spent the next two years building that. For more information, see my website: http://meganmcgory.com .

I'm up to 332 Etsy sales, 2 artfire sales, and over 100 positive feedback on eBay, and I'm hitting Etsy hard as I come up on a new period of extended-no-day-job-ness.

Not like I'm losing the post office job, I have that as long as I want it.  I left it once, I went back.  Now I'm preparing for a maternity leave and am using it as a springboard to hopefully build my Etsy store like I never did before.

In the past month, the size of the shop has tripled and I now have more listings than I ever did in 2008/09/10.

What else has changed in the past five years?

Damn near everything.

I have a new camera.  My last posts mentioned my learning process with the Canon Rebel XS I had just received the previous January.  I have all new lenses, two Canon 7D's and when I look at my product photos from 2008, frankly, I'm embarrassed. lol  Go see the part about my photography career taking off.  There's an ebb and flow to the working world now.  Maybe there always has been.

Oh, and since my blog idolizes Lunatic Sophie Saab, let's update that too.

#operationrescuesaab on Instagram.

My 1984 Saab 900 S served me well until January 2010 when it stalled in the road five times on my way home from the post office, a distance of 1/2 mile, and I pushed it home.  I parked it that day.  I couldn't afford to keep dumping money into it and mechanics were raking me over the coals. Turns out there was nothing wrong with it but a bad battery (that I had just purchased, but that happens, apparently).  And it had been parked for almost three years before I found that out.

My poor 1984 Saab.  It sat so long for nothing.  Now it has a host of many, many more problems while I was out driving all over kingdom come in my used Subarus, a 2005 Legacy, and a 2010 Forester.

 Sally Subaru, which I drove from February 1, 2010-June 30, 2011

 Rhonda the Mafia Mobile, which I drove from June 30, 2011-May 2, 2014

Meanwhile, during an ebb in my photography work, when I figured I would eventually have to sell my Forester, my loving fiance (Brent!) found me a 1993 Saab 900 S. So this is the new Saab that will be turning up in obligatory saab shots.

 This is Grumpy Sophie Saab II of Buggyshire, purchased February 19, 2013! See this Saab in still-life action on Instagram! #grumpysophiesaab2ofbuggyshire

So as it turns out, the transmission from the 1984 Saab is compatible with the 1993 Saab, so I do still have both, though the original saab is a sad saab sitting over at my future in-laws.  Brent is my only trusted mechanic, and his dad owned SEVEN Saab 900's while he was growing up, so guess what he's worked on more than he knows?

And we still go up Lantern Hill every year with my now 83-year-old grandfather. 

So what's new in my Etsy shop?  I got rid of all the half-assed crap that I thought was so special (Polymer secret beads from Feb. '08?  No one cared.) I debuted new magnets, which I made in 2009 but never listed because I wanted to make sure the glue was sturdy enough.  I GUESS AFTER 5 YEARS WE KNOW THE ANSWER.

So here they are!  Magnets -  Neon Jewels Variety Pack

And in case you were wondering, I am in fact still listing hand-made jewelry, and making more!  Here are some of my latest creations!

 Art Deco Steampunk Clock Hand Earrings with Antique Buttons

  Ruby Red Steampunk Romance Necklace

As always, I have a wide variety of crafting supplies (especially buttons!) and vintage clothes!  Check out all my links to pinterest and twitter on the side of the page, and check back soon for more regular blog posts (that hopefully won't ramble as badly as the old ones, oh hell, maybe not. haha)

I'm back!

Okay....maybe I didn't go anywhere to begin with. HA. First off, my apologies for not posting anything in over a month. The post office had me running ragged (and they still do, just not as often. lol) Mom ended up in the hospital the weekend of Father's Day because she had an esophagus spasm (which has the same symptoms of a heart attack, so the hospital wanted to make sure it wasn't one). We DID go up Lantern Hill about a week later with my grandfather (see Indy in the last post!), so here's some pictures!

Resting just before the top (490 feet).

Over near the silica mine after coming down from the top, looking for quartz crystals!

Mom found a turkey buzzard feather, which made her happy :).

Strange carved stone in the woods bearing the number 3. An old railroad used to circle Lantern Hill until about WWI, so maybe this is a leftover from back then, or earlier? There are several old foundations around the base as well.
BUTTONS. These buttons came from Mig, (my mom's boyfriend's mother). She's a professional seamstress but said she had no use for these buttons anymore, and some of these even belonged to her mother. I spent weeks sorting through these picking out ones I wanted to keep vs. ones I want to sell (keep an eye out on Etsy, these buttons will be making their appearance shortly!)Oh yeah, and I went digging for an hour one day. I wish it could have been longer but all I found was half a doll head and a broken vaseline glass thing (heartbreakers!). I also found a tiny Listerine bottle.
FINALLY, I moved into my office area, so here's my new workspace! Yeah, it's crammed and tiny, but it will have to do. :)
This is the room I do my Etsy shipping out of, but that part of the room is not so photogenic at the moment.
To celebrate, I made some fruit-rollup "sushi" with home-made rice-krispy treat & gusher filling and fruit rollup. This was so much fun to make, not to mention now I know how to make my own rice-krispy treats (incredibly easy).

The following are some product photos I took for Etsy that are not just photos, but also art! How fun is that? Avocado Art Glass Fruit Bowl & Candy Dish, $25

Number 107, my latest Steampunk creation! $35

Kodak Kodascope Eight 33, movie projector, $50

And this beauty... I think I'll actually hate parting with it because it's so vibrant and colorful, not to mention one of my favorite colors! 1968 Remington Ten Forty Typewriter (works!) - $55.

So that's what I've been up to...busy month! I hope to post pictures of me outside the post office truck, but I actually don't have any yet. I'll be delivering my grandparent's mail tomorrow though, so they'll probably take some of me next to the truck :D.

Spring's here! Get out of the house!

Remember when I said I was going to sew my socks to my steering wheel cover? Well here's the almost finished product. It's a little too sloppy at the moment but that cover is very hard to sew through, and any work I'm going to do on it from here on has to be done with the cover on the wheel. It does need some extra stitches, just to make it neat. (It's so comfy!) What else can you see in the car? 2-liter of Mt. Dew...bag for hunting sea glass and other things (I keep shovels and digging tools in it...lol)...and an Etsy order sitting there.
The Etsy order was for Number 18--the steampunk brooch I made the night before ITema laid me off. It was the first of its kind that I made so I was a little attached to it, but when I got this convo from Fyrecreek, it made it so worth it!

I wanted to let you know the broach arrived yesterday. I saw in your profile that this is the first one you made in this style. That was actually the deciding factor for me when I bought it. I had made a list of all the many things available that I liked the most, and then went through reading profiles to help make a decision on which I was going to get this time around. The Irish stamp and the cool little hand is what put this one on my list to begin with. But your profile mentioned it was your first, and I think no one's first piece should stay in the storefront for very long. Keep making them, you're very good.

Etsy has been good to me, even though I actually stepped back and took a breather from it for about a week. I need to post some new stuff tonight, actually I need to make some new stuff too. I will be moving into the last of the rooms downstairs soon so we're cleaning and re-arranging and it doesn't leave much time for jewelry making.

I've been loving the beautiful weather we've had all week. Granted, I guess we could use some rain as things have been catching on fire like crazy because everything is so dried up. For those of you who knew me in middle school (which is like ...no one who reads this blog...) the 3-story chicken coop across the street from my old house caught fire yesterday. Crazy, because 10 years ago Patrick and I were wandering around the woods over there (big bottle dump, and a "floating door"...I'll explain that some other time maybe)...and we just discovered this huge chicken coop that people were living in. Curtains and ACs in the windows.

I guess no one was living there now, as the newspaper said today that it was abandoned. Or was it?

Add this to the huge fire I saw while coming home the other night from a lovely Saturday. A huge McMansion burned about two miles from my house, and I saw it when I was driving down the hill in Wauregan (about 3 miles from the fire).


And that was my lovely Saturday. I came home and watched The Village (zip it....all of you...though I finally saw Scary Movie 4 where they make fun of it XD "Come Ezekiel, shall we have a foot race?")

Sunday's flea market day was a bit slow, so I think I'm going to bow out of there either this weekend or next (probably next weekend). I've had a great time during my 5 months there, but now I want to shift my focus, at least till the good weather is over.

Monday I went out looking for sea glass, for the first time in almost a month (because of the car problems, and now the price of gas is keeping me away as well...). I went to my two favorites and actually didn't find much. At Narragansett I found a huge bottom of a bottle or a jar, which is embossed "E.B. Co. Ld. 10710".



At Scarborough, I walked out a bit farther than normal and stumbled upon this odd concrete retaining wall, and at the back of it was a 1970's bottle dump...though everything's smashed to bits, against this wall. I found fragments which read "Liquor Bottle" and the bottom of a glass Sprite 2 liter. When I worked at Soda Warehouse (5 longggggg years ago...though pretty soon if I don't get a job I might go try going back there), someone actually thought they could get the redemption on one of those. (No, because the distributor who picks up the empties would not pick up something like that...so my boss put the bottle on his shelf along with other very old bottles people would bring back).


Total sea glass finds for the day; 158 pieces.

Tuesday was a bit of a waste...

Yesterday, after dropping off 3 boxes of magazines for recycling, I drove to Moosup so I could go for a walk in the shade. I decided to go to the place with the crystals, and when I got there I wanted to walk on the bridge (near the mill) to look at the river.

But while I was looking along the river banks, aqua shards of glass caught my eye. Now some of you can tell how badly I've been wanting to get out there and dig bottles like my mom and I used to back in 1996-1998...and when I spotted those shards I knew that might mean bottle dump. (These photos are like a reenactment...lol...the angle of the sun was different and they really popped).

So I madly went right down the riverbank, almost on my butt. It was a pretty steep incline.

There wasn't much down there that wasn't broken, and I scrambled back up the bank after about 15 minutes.

But!!!!!! I had plans to return today.

Obligatory car shot!

The fenced off remains of a building? Maybe?

So I stumbled upon this while poking around, looking for an easier way down the bank without sliding on my butt. Bottle dump..finally!
Too bad the lip on this one was busted. SAWYERS CRYSTAL BLUE INC. I took it home anyway.

Lots of plain, unembossed screw-top bottles. This dump's age varies a bit. And this bottle (below) was sitting right on top. Now I want to see one of these whole! lol

HENRY K. WAMPOLE & COMPANY. Whole. Sitting at a base of a tree.

A button!

The whole finds from yesterday & today.

The almost, but not quite whole finds from yesterday & today (that cobalt blue had me...oh..it was sitting right on the edge of the riverbank looking nice and whole...turned it over and there's a big crack. Bottles: 1 Megan: 0)

AND THE BROKEN MESS that I took home anyway.