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)

Getting back into the swing just in time for spring!

I am SO READY for this winter to be over. I wanted it gone sometime after I had to work through the second snowstorm. And...if you live in New England, that was a few months ago. HA.

Anyway, on Wednesday I got a phone call from the store I had some of my clock hand earrings in consignment in. They're going out of business, and they wanted me to come down and pick up what I had left. Come to find out, the two pairs I sold in August were the ONLY pairs I ever sold in that shop. I'm glad to have the remaining eight pairs back home and just finished editing the photos of them so I can get them up in my Artfire Studio. Here's a little tease of what's going up once I measure them and get them listed sometime this weekend:

Number 94


Number 104

Well, since I was heading out to Rhode Island to pick up the remaining earrings, I couldn't pass up a trip down to my favorite sea glass beach! I found two items I've never found on a beach before, a blue glass bead and the stem from a clay pipe!

And now for something a little old, but got missed because I was so incredibly sick. On my birthday, I went a little crazy and drove all the way out to the tip of Cape Cod. I was on a strict schedule, so as soon as I got there, I had to turn right around and come back home. Leave it to me to NOT realize that I had embarked on a 320-mile round trip that was entirely pointless, but an amusing adventure.

I also got the Lowepro Slingshot 100 camera backpack for my birthday. Having two different camera cases, one for the camera, and one for the lenses, was a huge pain...and I couldn't have actually afforded this for myself so thankfully my birthday was right around the corner from when I got the Canon! I don't really know how I would ever get along without it, and I've thought that ever since I realized I can utilize it as almost a portable workspace. So here it is next to my new purse and some new orange shoes that cost $5 and some really cute socks that I got some months ago that just match this whole hot mess really well. lol.

The socks really don't make any sense (cloud & crossbones?) , but they're so cute!

Ugly new messenger bag!

I'll spare you the rest of the stuff for the next update, but I've been having a lot of fun with the Canon experimenting with night shots and the rest. :)

Anyway, over the past couple of days I've been hard at work listing new things on ebay and getting my artfire shop up to speed. Surprisingly, I had a sale on Etsy today...first time since Feb. 1! I still haven't really decided where I'm going to list the whole truckload of fabric I picked up at auction just about a month ago. I can't believe how fast time flew this month, especially after I got sick. Now my mom is sick too, but it's with something different. Hopefully it will pass soon, and we'll all be enjoying spring and not getting sick, and all that fun stuff.

Now...off to Google Analytics to see if I can actually learn anything. lol

Getting settled in on Artfire

I haven't had a post about my shops lately either on Artfire or on Etsy. Both aren't selling well at all but I'll blame that on working as much as I can at the post office, and the economy. Ebay has always required less effort to sell if all you care about is sales numbers and not profit, and even ebay is doing poorly for me at the moment. (Look ma, no listings!)

Anyway! I moved all my steampunk jewelry over to my Artfire studio, and got kicked out of the Steamteam on Etsy, but that's okay. I'm part of the new Steampunk Guild on Artfire which is not so high-maintenance. I was never one of those high-maintenance girlfriends and wasn't interested in people who were high-maintenance either. If I faked interest, it was because he owed me money. (And still does! At least he finally took down that picture of him sitting in the driver's seat of my Grand Am on Myspace, because he was such a dirtbag he wanted to look good but he could never afford a car as hot looking as my Grand Am from HELL. That picture was still up long after the car got totaled, too. LOL) Sorry about that. Just had to rant for a bit because I'm so glad that picture is down. hahaha. SAAAAAAAAAB. Much better.

My etsy shop is looking rather bare-bones. I just don't know what to do with it. I deleted a bunch of listings because as Etsy is now, they will never sell and I just don't care. I made my money so I won't feel so bad sending some boxes of stuff off to Salvation Army, but first I'm going to have a big yardsale in the spring. SPRING IS COMING! YARDSALES! My business cards still point to Etsy, which I need to fix pronto because I'm focusing more on the affordable and efficient Artfire. Etsy had its chance, and they will never care about their sellers. My sales were awesome last year until September 1, and then tanked. Artfire hasn't picked up yet, but I didn't jump all in like I did with Etsy at this time last year.

Hell, I haven't even made any jewelry since October 30, and that's SAD.

My stomach hates me

I was sick, again, with gastroenteritis. All I know was that there was a lot of throwing up involved with a fever too. And I had to work yesterday, which was hell on earth, but I did it anyway. As many of you have heard, the Postmaster General has gone before Congress to propose eliminating one delivery day. Well, what does that mean for me? It means I'll be out of a job when it happens, because I'm a sub. It seems many people of the public actually think their carriers work 6 days a week. Are you kidding? They're union! lol. So I work on the 6th day, and any day I'm needed. Currently I usually work two days a week--Saturdays I work on a route with a mail truck and Monday's I work on a route with my own jeep. That's just how the relief days work. I usually work more than 2 days per week, too. But...if I'm not guaranteed at least one day per week, well who knows how long it would be when I'm working! Yikes!

So I picked up an entire truckload of fabric to sell on artfire/ebay/etsy. And some bottles too. But getting sick this weekend put all my projects on the back burner.

Anyway, about a week or so ago I finally made it to the beach.

and again!And here's a picture of the ice at Indian Leap in Norwich, CT.

Meanwhile, I'm still not really over that awful bug I had this weekend and can't figure out what I should tackle first...bottles or fabric? My etsy to artfire shop conversion is still coming along. I'm also cleaning out shop and donating some things that aren't selling and are taking too much space to Salvation Army, mainly craft magazines and vintage decor that doesn't fit in flat rate boxes, or worthless plain bottles that aren't worth the effort on ebay.

NOTE: I totally forgot to mention that I got an ID on that green piece of sea glass I love. It's the Lacy Medallion pattern which dates from 1898-1920 or so. Check it out!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We got our first snow of the year, which is already starting to melt. I'm actually glad because I have to deliver the worst route in the office tomorrow driving from the wrong side of my jeep in Bozrah...and frankly don't feel like dealing with iced over roads and the rest. I mean, it's not like I can wear a seat belt while driving from the passenger side (wouldn't be able to reach brake/gas pedals) so to say I'm nervous while driving on less than ideal roads like that is an understatement.

Anyway! Since many bloggers are posting their Christmas lists, I'm going to post mine.


And here we go!

1. Nikon D60 D-SLR camera. I've only wanted a new camera for a year now, especially ever since my Kodak DX7590 that I got for my 21st birthday (I'll be 25 in February) broke in the fall of 2007.. Many of the buttons wore out suddenly and my camera lags in orienting itself (so pictures that I take right-side-up come out upside-down...this problem preceded the buttons failing by about 2 months but easily fixed in any photo editor). Anyway...A digital SLR would be a logical upgrade now that they're affordable. My Kodak cost almost $500 in 2005, and the Nikon D60 costs about $550. I would also settle for a Nikon D40, but for about $50 more you can get the D60 so therefore the D60 is a better value. One of the differences is that the D40 is 6 megapixel, and the D60 is 10.2MP. I would be extremely happy if I got this and nothing else...the Kodak is still going but the last 5000 pictures have produced more than its share of disappointments. (During its whole life, my Kodak has taken roughly 18,000 pictures.)

2. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb. Wally Lamb is my favorite author by far, though I could be biased because my mom had him for a teacher for her poetry class at NFA around 1975. He's since been on Oprah's Book Club. His books are well written and if you grew up in and love eastern Connecticut, it's fun to try to relate to the story by finding the little clues he leaves that you would only know if you lived here. Not to mention his plots are fantastic. I often wonder if he would remember my mom. It's not like she looks any different. lol

3. Elect the Dead (CD by Serj Tankian, lead vocalist from System of a Down). I love SOAD and I don't listen to the radio much anymore since I have a CD player in my car, so I only found out recently that Serj has solo projects going on. I like what I've heard so far.

4. Talking Heads - Once in a Lifetime Boxset. It's the Talking Heads. I love them. A lot. Watched True Stories last night and still never cease to be amazed by how much that movie had an influence on current pop culture (or late 90's at least...both American Beauty and Titanic have obvious references to two clips from that movie less than 5 minutes apart.) I'm sure there's others. Not to mention the Love for Sale video, which is the most demented music video I've seen. Even Hell by the Squirrel Nut Zippers takes a back seat to Love for Sale.



and Hell (not that great quality):



5. Custom Nightmare Snatcher Journal - Mugwump (in blue!). From the Spiderbite Boutique on Etsy. Looks like she shut down for a bit to fulfill a large order. Oh well, my birthday is coming too.

Also, please support your local brick and mortar stores, buy as much handmade as you can! The big box stores will survive.

This vaguely reminds me of 2006, when I boycotted all malls and Walmart for my holiday shopping, just to mix things up a bit. Of course, in 2006 I got strep throat out of the blue just before I bought plane tickets for Egypt, and so my entire Christmas budget that year was $125. I think I did end up going over that, but it was such a blast! This year I've done most of my shopping on Ebay, Etsy, and Amazon. But I do avoid the huge powersellers on Ebay...you know, those people with 100,000 positive feedbacks. Take a closer look, 4000 positive feedback in one month with 50 negatives that they never even reply to...well...I'd be willing to pay just a little bit more to a seller with 300 positive feedbacks and only 1 negative, just so I know I'm helping someone in their quest to be successful independently!

I have several ebay auctions ending today but have to work extra hard to get the next round of items up. I'm going to have a very long day at work tomorrow and be exhausted when I get home. Better to be productive today!

Day at the beach...SCORE! And a new toy!

First off, beach finds from yesterday. I hit the beach at low tide finally (those online tide charts are so handy!) and it wasn't too cold. Here is one of the best finds of the day, which was this lime green patterned piece that's now one of my new favorites.
When I had first arrived at this beach (where we found 99% of the day's glass), there was this neurotic woman who was dashing all over the place picking up small bits of something and hiding it in her hand like the nearest person who might be looking for the same thing would mug her for it or something...I discovered she wasn't picking up sea glass, but rather bits of brick and shells. Seriously, this is why I take a ridiculously large bag. Anyone wants to mug me, feel free, I'll hit you with 5lbs of sea glass and then pelt you with any nearby rocks. Shows you. Anyway, Neurotic Woman and I were heading in the same direction down the beach, but then I found this!
My third marble, and second from this beach! I started jumping for joy and celebrating. Well, Neurotic Woman just turned around and ran away as fast as she possibly could. This is now the second time I have managed to scare someone away from the beach just by being myself. Also in that picture is an awesome piece of sea pottery, and the back is marked Greenwood Trent.
I also found my first piece of true teal, one of the hardest colors to find in the blue category. This is a lovely piece and only found at the end of the day, far far away from the other awesome finds at the same beach.
Some other finds. Who's ever lost a cell phone at the beach? Well...I found it. haha. The knob is pretty cool and the other thing is bronze and copper.

All finds for the day! After a day like that it's really hard not to hop in the car and go back, especially since gas is now $1.81 (compared to $3.81 when I was going back in the spring!)

Now, new toy! I finally bought a handheld UV light to test for uranium glass (better known as Vaseline glass). My first sea glass post back in March mentions Vaseline glass because I suspected that one of the pieces I found at Charleston beach on March 7 was a piece of Vaseline glass. (Below, it's the light green piece near the center).
It barely glowed at all when I held it up to my mom's blacklight lightbulb from the 70s.
So...while I was disappointed, I tried to tell myself it really was there, and freaked out about it anyway. On March 10, I found a piece that I suspected glowed (below, next to the cobalt blue pieces)...

...and I found another piece on March 11 (below under the marbles)...

...but under the blacklight there was NO GLOW AT ALL. So no pictures.

I had better luck with finding glowing things while bottle digging. They showed up slightly under the light

And need I say that unscrewing a lightbulb in the dark stairwell and screwing in a blacklight which gets impossibly hot after 30 seconds is a huge pain in the behind for a glow that sucks anyway? I held off on testing this beautiful heartbreaking shard I dug in August until I got a REAL light.


So finally, after months of disappointments, I got my handheld UV light from apexminerals on Ebay. And here's the difference between a normal $5 blacklight and a UV light:

And I was in for a surprise with my sea glass collection!

The two on top, Charleston Beach finds from March 7 and March 10, and the large frosty one on the bottom was found on March 11. I also found that old clear glass that will turn lavender/purple in the sun turns light yellow under UV light, and some of my clear buttons with a quartz content turn orange. Awesome. When I get some extra time I'm going to make a video on the difference between black lights and UV "black light".

After I run all my errands today I'm going to poke through my collection of sea glass from this year and thin it out a bit and put it up for grabs on ebay (or Etsy...haven't decided). I have a few pieces of plain sea pottery/porcelain and of course many shards of beach glass that's still glassy...I'm sure there's some mosaic artists out there who'll have a field day!

Sea Glass & Shipwreck Pottery

Whilst bouncing around Etsy today, I came across a shop that features sea glass & shipwreck pottery. And after looking at every item in their shop, I want to go to the beach. Right. Now.

I'm going to make myself some coffee instead. I have a lot of magazines to go through. Right now my sort piles are as follows:

-Craft magazines & stuff I want
-Stuff to research for eBay
-Books to donate to Salvation Army (3 boxes donated yesterday)
-Stuff to go back to the flea market

-Craft magazines I don't want

I really would like to make all the craft magazines I don't want available to the crafters and artisans in the Etsy community, but I'm unsure as to how to go about it.

I snagged a book learning crochet basics. I have no idea why I want to try this. I'm a person that doesn't like super long projects, and I can't imagine knitting an afghan...but little things like crochet flower pins and cool things like that. What's wrong with me? lol.

I still think it's completely ironic that I have made dozens of pairs of earrings, yet I don't have pierced ears. Of course I've made some clip ons (custom) and a pair for myself, but the ones I made for etsy haven't sold yet. But still...I make TONS of earrings. And I can't wear any of them. (Maybe that's a good thing?)


Can't believe it's Wednesday already. Where is the week going?

Another day, more etsy and more ebay

I have another junk jewelry lot up for sale, but it doesn't appear to be doing as well as the last one. oy. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=320220345099&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

I can't believe it's already Thursday though! It's almost the weekend and the weekend means YARDSALES. YEAHHHHHHHHHH. And Flea Market, which I didn't give up after all :) Not after my best Sunday ever.

New stuff this Sunday, btw. Can't wait.

I have a lot of new things on Etsy, but mostly supplies. It took me a good 7 hours to get that mess ready for photographing and sale on teh internetz.

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.

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 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.