On the Horizon

I've been busy lately. My brother's movie got into Sundance (yay!), so the family's all headed up there, and his lead actress has graciously agreed to wear some of my jewelry. I'm having a hard time designing with big, bulky sweaters in mind, though (given that it's gonna be COLD up there!), so I've mostly been cranking out earrings. We'll see how it goes.

Friday morning, I'm meeting with some friends to discuss some custom wedding jewelry. I'm excited by the prospect. I had such fun designing my own, so I'm really looking forward to the opportunity. Maybe if I get a decent-sized collection going, I can approach some of the local boutiques that might specialize in that sort of thing.

With that in mind, I've been designing some flyers and promos (such as the one to the left). I wish I were more comfy with this whole self-promotion thing. I love designing flyers and whatnot, but when it comes to handing 'em out and approaching shops about carrying my work, and basically being one of those pushy you-should-totally-buy-my-stuff kinda people, I balk. It's just not really in my nature. I'd much rather just crank out the jewelry and leave that to someone else. But who? I imagine this is the number-one drawback for most creative would-be entrepreneurs; we're all much happier behind the scenes. That's why we do this sort of thing in the first place, isn't it?

Still, should be some good stuff on the horizon. Wedding jewelry and Sundance. Looking forward to both!

-Astra

Vampire Night

This really just started out as a brainstorm one night while I was making jewelry. I'd been watching a lot of "True Blood" (my husband and I are both hooked), and then I just started thinking of vampires in general, and I decided, hey, I should make some "vampire-themed" jewelry. At first, I was just going to make pieces modeled after those worn by characters on TV and in movies. But my web-searching wasn't turning up a whole helluva lot to go by.

So it morphed from there, into just generic vampy-jewelry, but I thought, hey, I could do another photo shoot and get the models to dress like vampires, and, oooh, what if we had a show/exhibit afterwards, of all the work? I hated asking my resident photographer, Jessica, to just do another show for free, but this was a way we could both potentially come out ahead. She gets to show off her photos, I show off my jewelry... everyone's happy.

And then it kept growing from there. I roped in another photographer, four models, and we shot on location at Prague, an underground nightclub straight out of Transylvania, with all its gargoyles and brick walls and old-world decor. The photos all look great -- I was second-guessing myself and wondering if all this planning was going to pay off, but y'know, I'm happy just to have those pictures. I didn't take them myself, but they wouldn't have existed if it weren't for that initial late-night brainstorm.

So it's all underway. The event is next Friday, October 30, the night before Halloween. I've dubbed it "Vampire Night" -- a nice, simple title that gets the idea across. We've been advertising and planning and putting up flyers -- I hope we get a good turnout. Mostly I hope it's a success so that I can justify doing it again -- I've already got ideas churning for future photo shoot/events. Maybe this'll be the start of something pretty damn cool!

We shall see.

-Astra

Jewelry Slide Show

It's really pretty amazing what you can do on the internet these days. I remember laboriously writing out code just to change a background -- now everything's made easy and all the code is done for you. Anyway, I was browsing the forums on Etsy and saw that some folks had made slide shows of their stuff, so I figured that couldn't hurt. More excuses to play with pictures, and this time you can add music, too!

So here's my slide show. If you don't like the music, just click on the little volume icon and it'll turn itself off. I think it's a pretty song, though; I browsed through quite a few selections before I found this one.

(Edited to add) I decided to link rather than embed -- it's less intrusive that way. Click here to see the slideshow.

As always, you can find the jewelry itself at: astraeadesigns.etsy.com.

Thanks!

-Astra

New Flickr Page

A couple of folks have advised me to use Flickr as a means of promoting my work. Of course, you have to be careful, since Flickr frowns upon including price info on your photos. But as long as you obey the rules, I guess it can be a handy way to showcase your stuff.

I had a Flickr account already, and had been using that to post my jewelry in groups, but I finally decided to just make a specific one for my work. That way I can keep the original for photos of family and friends and all that good stuff.

Therefore, here's the new Flickr site, just for my jewelry: www.flickr.com/photos/astraeadesigns

If you've got a Flickr account of your own, feel free to add me!

Latest Additions

I'm planning to do another jewelry shoot in a couple weeks; some friends of mine have agreed to model for me, and hopefully Jessica will join us to lend her photographic wizardry to the mix. In the meantime, though, I went ahead and added several of my latest to my Etsy page. Figured I might as well show 'em off. And, y'know, there's always the vague possibility of selling them.

I've been on a roll. I'm going to be teaching a class in early August on how to do the chainmail-around-the-pendants technique. It's easy, in principle -- a bit difficult in execution. There's a lot of tweaking involved, and re-doing your work when you mess up. I'm a little nervous about how my students will react. If they thought the Japanese Chainmail earrings were hard, they ain't seen nothin' yet!

But I've been putting in a lot of practice. I really ought to do some less "showy" pieces, though. I guess I always figure, more is better. But not always. I need to try and keep it simple. I'll see if I can shift gears and whip out some necklaces & earrings that don't take me all day!

-Astra

Jewelry Shoot

Did a big jewelry shoot yesterday. Three models showed up (Lily, Stacey, & Keli), plus a jewelry-making colleague of mine, Ayanna, and a photographer-friend, Jessica. We all got together at Jace's house, who was nice enough to host the whole shindig -- he even made fruit salad, and Jessica brought donuts, so it was a nice little brunch.

I think it went pretty well. It took longer than I expected, but with that many people involved, that's probably typical. I mostly focused on wedding stuff -- I've been making a "wedding line," plus I'm doing a wedding-webpage for Nomadic Notions, to let brides know they have the option of making their own jewelry -- or at least getting help from us in designing something, instead of spending oodles of money at some high-priced boutique.

Ayanna's a woman I met through Nomadic -- she worked there for a little while, and we became friends. We're both focused on trying to turn our hobby into a business. She does a lot of metal-work and silversmithing, and produces some really gorgeous tribal/ethnic type stuff. I think the photos we took of hers are my favorites -- she brought lots of colorful scarves to wrap the models in, and arranged the shots to look all artsy, and I think the results are pretty cool. I should try getting a little more creative with my own shots.

Jessica was kind enough to lend her photography talents to the venture. She'd commented in a blog not long ago that she really wanted more practice with live models, which is what prompted me to invite her. I think she's got a really good eye for capturing the perfect shot, and I can't wait to see her batch of photos.

I uploaded a number of mine onto my Flickr account, so take a peek if you're curious. Once everything's priced, I'll put it up on Etsy, but for now, that's your sneak preview. Enjoy!

-Astra

Jewelry for Gettin' Hitched

I've got wedding on the brain. No surprise, I guess, given that I'm gettin' hitched on June 13! I was more excited about making my jewelry than I ever was about getting the dress. And, given that that particular ordeal is out of the way (yay!) I'm wide open for the jewelry-making.

And since I'm all inspired, I think I'll probably just make lots of wedding jewelry, and start a little wedding line on my Etsy page. I cranked out a couple last night, and today I'm off to the hobby stores and bead stores to get more supplies.

Ahhh, I love days like this!

Hopefully I can post pictures of the finished pieces soon.