Ebay = Fail

Now Ebay has really shot itself in the foot. If you haven't heard the news, you're not an Ebayer. They announced yesterday a reduction in fees. Well, I thought this was not like them, and I was right. After the lower listing fee announcement, they hit you with a big increase in final value fee. Shocking.... I am not sure how I feel about this since I have 3 antique booths that take nearly 100% of my income due to the weakening economy and high gas prices. Maybe I can still be OK on Ebay, but now they are also controlling the searches. Items being sold by Powersellers with 100% feedbacks will be shown first, then 99%, etc. By the time you get to see what the small people have, you will just become bored with the whole thing and give up. This isn't the only stupid Ebay idea that will be in play soon, they are also making it impossible to leave a bad buyer negative feedback unless you file a nonpaying bidder complaint. Well, this isn't a very fair playing field. Imagine all the negatives the sellers will be getting for every little thing the buyer finds wrong? No more worries about the seller returning the negative. They could use this new power to hold it over the seller's heads to get free shipping, discounts and whatever tricks they can come up with. Most buyers are very nice people in my line of sales, but with other types of merchandise, it gets quite dicey. This is very irritating.

Puking Rainbows

What a day I had. My poor Aunt Lynn was so sick. (oh, you know what's coming) She has a bad flu bug and a fever of 101.5. My poor Uncle, who has his blogspot at http://thewigeon.blogspot.com/, could not handle the care and clean-up required, so I ending up being the nurse for the day. I used the Rainbow vacuum they had, for clean up. It's is big bulky thing, with arms of tubing and confusing attachments, but functional for wet cleanup. It works like a baby shop vac. It's a lot of dough just to have a fancy shop vac, but ok... I needed it and used it. I would have preferred to use my Little Green Machine. It would have done a much better job and would not have been such a hulk to set up and drag around. My poor uncle had to wrestled it to the ground to put the top back on the thing. It would not seat properly and had all these clips, and who knows in which direction it goes in? After 1/2 hour of the wrestling match, we finally got it back in order. Takes up half the closet once put away. If you need a good cleaner, please go with the Little Green Machine. I really appreciated the ease of use and the small amount of space it takes. It's a very powerful machine and it will spray out the cleaning solution from the same nozzle as it sucks up the dirt.
So I got all the bedding washed and Aunt Lynn got filled with fluids and started feeling a tiny bit better. I was able to fire up some glass in the studio as well, so I feel like I accomplished a lot today.

Productive? or Crap

Had one of my usual days. Packed items I sold to go to the Post Office, sewed up gift bags that I pack my items in, stamped "thank you/handmade by" cards, played with BeeBee my quaker parrot and listed a bunch of stuff on Ebay and Etsy. Yes I am a busy person, but I just don't know it. I sell on Ebay under "antiqdealr" and Etsy under "glassandfiber" and "oldthings". I like my old stuff too and will sell anything that is not tied down. My house, back room and garage is a warehouse of stuff to sell. I would love to have it all cleared out, but then, what would I sell? I have 3 booths stuffed to the top at 3 different antique shops. Am I crazy? How did I accumulate all this crap? My van is a rolling storage shed. I can't understand how anyone in this country can be lacking. Crap is everywhere. The problem is finding the proper home for the crap and I spend way too much time in crap management. I live in a big two story victorian home and every room is full of crap. I laugh at Simple Magazine. How can it remain Simple when you know you have to collect every issue. By the end of the year, you have 12 Simple Magazines and no simple way to store them. Well, maybe they can be listed on Ebay.

Fingerless Gloves

My newest item is the fingerless glove. I have been wanting these for a long time. My hands get really cold in the winter, typing on the computer, but I needed my fingers. This was the perfect solution. I looked at them and thought to myself, geeeeze I know how to crochet! I haven't crocheted in years and really felt a need to dust off the old crochet hook and go through my large variety of yarns I seem to collect. I was in shock when I opened the old wooden trunk to discover rolls and wads of fancy yarns! I had such a great time twisting and twirling that crochet hook around the warm softness of the yarns. I never use a pattern, I just let the stitches follow the shape I want and it always comes out perfect. It seems my grandmother was so good at crocheting without a pattern, that when she would see a doily in a store window, she would study it for a few minutes, go home and crochet the same one. I seemed to inherit this talent from her.

My newly crocheted fingerless gloves can be found on Etsy.
http://www.glassandfiber.etsy.com/

Come on in and browse my shop. Coffee is on and I baked cookies!

Etsy Buy Handmade glassandfiber

Join the Revolution!

Adventures of an A.D.D. Artist

It's quite possible that creativity and attention deficit disorder go together.  Seems like every creative person I know can not stick with one thing at a time.  They are all over the map with ideas and usually work on many projects at once.  This is me.  I will move from developing some fused glass to hypertufa to needle felting.  I need to know it all and do it all.  I guess it is OK.  I am enjoying the ride and as I run out of gas on one project, I become geared up for something new.

My Aunt and I meet in my glass studio twice a week.  It is set up in her large heated basement, which is wonderful, but since it is so roomy down there, we decided to set up our floor looms.  We are bouncing from glass to fiber and back again.  Soon we will be working on our looms.  One loom is a 2 harness from the 1930's and my loom is a Leclerc 4 harness.  It is probably from the 1950's and was used a a school somewhere near Syracuse, NY.  Now you know why I am "Glass and Fiber".