Fun hobby day

I've been working on a pair of earrings for someone and I finished them today. They're here . I thought they were gorgeous! I used the pink amethyst stones I bought at the show the other weekend. I can't wait to use some of the other stones that I bought. Right now, I keep picking them up and playing at them, looking at them in the light, and looking at the facets and the shine and the colours.

I've started work on another dress in a plaid - I thought it was a brown and black plaid but it's got navy blue and forest green in there, too. I'm using a pattern I'd sort of used before - it's a vintage reproduction pattern. So it was an actual pattern issued in the 60s but it's been updated with current sizing and (possibly) construction. I hope this doesn't take too long as I want to start work on a new pattern - I think it'll work in the corduroy I have. It's got tabs under the collar and in the center back that I think might look good in a red contrast (like, say, the red contrast I used on the last dress ). We'll see.

Another movie

We finally got around to watching Save the Green Planet, a movie we'd recorded ages ago. It's a South Korean movie with English subtitles. The subtitles were one reason that we hadn't watched it yet because they require more attention than a non-subtitled movie.

The movie is very, very good. The main characters' acting is amazing; they were able to convey their emotions and thoughts even though I couldn't actually understand a word they were saying. The movie references a number of different genres and incorporates them all seamlessly. The plot is believable and the dialogue well-written and there are twists in this movie that make it quite compelling. Some of the movie could be quite disturbing as while there is quite a bit of implied violence, but this violence is an intrinsic part of the movie. We highly recommend this movie.

BTW, in case you're interested, here's a picture of the beads that I bought yesterday. I didn't get a chance to brighten the picture or anything but the beads are still quite visible. You may notice that much of the picture is sparkly because all of the beads are faceted :)



From left to right, the beads are: faceted crystal coins (2), faceted rose quartz rounds (2), faceted pink amethyst hearts, faceted amethyst hearts, faceted amethyst rondells (2), faceted amethyst rounds (2), onion-cut iolite briolettes, onion-cut labradorite briolettes. Some of the strands have been doubled in this photo and these are noted with a (2) in the list of items. Aren't they gorgeous? Don't you just want to reach out and play with them and start making things?

A little shopping

Remember I was working on that vintage pattern and I finally finished the dress? I wore the dress today and we got a picture of it.

Here's the pattern and the dress:

I think that it turned out ok. I don't look as thin as the pictures but I think that the dress looks pretty good, all things considered and I'm quite pleased with it.

There was a bead show in Toronto today and I went. I haven't had the "pleasure" of driving in downtown Toronto for a while. I didn't know that the Gardiner was closed or that there was a baseball game this afternoon, both of which made the drive in and out that much more difficult.

I managed to buy the most beautiful faceted pink and purple gem-quality amethyst teardrops (don't worry, I got a very good price!) as well as some gorgeous labradorite onion-cut briolettes with flash on almost every stone. And I got the rose quartz and amethyst faceted round stones that I'd been looking for. Not only that, I got some beautiful onion-cut iolite briolettes. I can hardly wait to play with them!

I'm finding that I'm much more selective in what beads I'll buy these days. Before I'd buy a strand of beads as long as they were the rightish colour and shape but now I check the strands very carefully to make sure that the beads look the best possible. This isn't possible when buying off of the internet but in-person, at least, I can get some quality stuff.

It's busker time again!

We popped into the Waterloo Busker Festival today. We had thought about staying longer but it was very crowded and neither of us felt like fighting with the crowds. For some reason, they've reduced the number of stages from six to five and so there isn't an empty stage between performing acts. As well, the parking lot where they used to have the main stage is under construction and inaccessible so they've just put the main stage facing the construction area. These two things mean that certain areas get very, very crowded and very nearly impassable. It would have been better if they'd moved the main stage down the street just a little bit so that the crowd could push back into the cross-street.

We saw Les Walkyries tonight. We'd seen them a few years ago and wanted to know how their act had changed. They take a much more comic approach now and talk quite a bit more; before, they hardly talked at all, filling time with acrobatics. They did some interesting fire things but they didn't do all of the same tricks as they did before. In particular, before they had done something where they each were spinning two poi on each hand but they didn't do that this time.The group was in better sync with their movements this year. The show was entertaining so if you're walking by and performing you could stop and watch them.

On a completely different topic, I'm also thinking about trying to change my photographs on angelstuff again. There's something about the photos that I don't like and I've started playing with aiming the lights differently and using different paper and whatnot. We'll see if it works. I'm also thinking that I'd like to re-section my items out of the colours and into sections like, "Sparkle it up", "Just for fun", "Everyday elegance", and "Inspired by nature". I'm not sure if those will be my final sections but they're what I've got in mind for now.

I'm also sort of thinking about doing some kind of banner and avatar for branding purposes. For that I'm sort of thinking of trying to use the idea of "stuff made by/from/(for?) angels" as a starting point. It's still very early in this process for me but it's something that I'm thinking I want to do.

Pamidronate day

I got to have my Pamidronate today. Normally what happens is that I get my Pamidronate hooked up and the chemo nurses faxes the home care nurse the time that my port needs to be de-accessed. Wellll, this time, that didn't really happen. I guess the nurse didn't fax the information over until 50 minutes after the port should have been de-accessed. One of the home care nurses had left a message asking me to call her but when I tried, I got an answering machine. But it turned out that I'd called the wrong number (I thought she said "9" and she said "1"), which didn't matter because she'd stopped working by the time I'd called.

So now I have to call the home care nurses the night before I get Pamidronate along with the estimated time that the Pamidronate will be started so that I'm on their schedule and things won't be so hectic. And they want me to call as I'm leaving the hospital so that they know exactly what time they need to de-access my port. Sigh. I don't mind calling one time so that things don't get all rushed and messed up like they did today, but two times? Well, hopefully I won't have to do that forever.

I'm feeling ever so much better - I almost feel like I'm a new person and all better. This comes just in time to get knocked over by Pamidronate, of course :)

I did a little fabric shopping today and managed to get a lovely grey/black herringbone fabric that has a bit of a vertical stripe to it. I also got it on sale so I'm happy with that. This evening, for the first time in a long time, I made some earrings. It's been a while since I've actually sat down and played with my beads. I actually want to make some necklaces and bracelets, too... we'll see how that plays out.

Yellow tulips

The people who lived in our place before us had planted some kinds of flowers in our front patch. For the last couple of years the only thing that showed up were big green floppy leaves. This year the conditions were just right and for the first time, we have gorgeous yellow tulips growing there. What a nice way to start the summer!

I must be getting better at sewing because I don't have to rip things out or redo them much anymore. It takes a lot less time to make something if I don't have to sew each seam at least twice :) It has taken a long, long time to get to this point and there are certain things that I can almost guarantee that I'll have trouble with - like collars. But I'm getting better at those, too, and over time I hope to improve even more.

I know that I've been obsessed with sewing and dresses (50s dresses..... sigh) but believe it or not, I have had a few ideas for some jewelry. Yes, really :) I haven't been making much of that lately, as I think you know. I'm hoping to get back to that, a bit, because I'd like to get the designs out of my head and constructed. Not that I've photographed or listed the last couple of pairs I made, of course, but that doesn't matter. The point is to get stuff made. :)

I want to make things

It is some kind of cold here in Edmonton! Between that and the change in altitude, I'm really tired. At least I've been sleeping. :) I'm hoping while I'm here to maybe find a bellydance studio that accepts drop-in students so that I can keep up some of my dancing. I'm going to wait on that for a little while, though.

I have almost all of my beads here in Edmonton (funny, at the Waterloo airport I watched them search my suitcase because of all of the little bits of metal in that bag) and I've pulled them out this evening. I'm hoping to create some new pieces as I've been itching to really make things. This happened when I took all those new background photos for the earrings - I realized that I loved making things and I wanted to be able to make more things. It's a vicious cycle, I tell you :)

Anyways, I'm hoping that I'll make some things while I'm here. I'm also hoping to edit my current items for sale with the new photos! I'll let you know when I do that, though - if you were to have put any of those items in your cart before I edit them, then you will have to remove and re-add the items when I'm finished editing in order to actually purchase your items. It's a little "quirk of etsy's.

More and more photos and a movie

I'm still working on photos for my jewelry - I got some more cardstock and took some more pictures today. This time I took photos of eight different pairs of earrings that are both light, dark, and combinations of light and dark, so I should have a good idea of what will work once I've edited all the photos. I'll be very happy once I'm only taking pictures on a few backgrounds :)

This evening we watched 28 Weeks Later. I thought it was nowhere near as good as 28 Days Later. The characters did some really stupid things and so I couldn't empathize with them as well as I usually do. Yeah, I know, horror movie characters are supposed to do stupid things, but they didn't do that in 28 Days Later or in some of the other movies we've watched. Even the stupid actions in Cloverfield were sort of understandable. The ones in 28 Weeks Later couldn't be adequately explained rationally or emotionally so I ended up thinking it was sort of silly in parts. It was sort of an interesting story. This movie is quite gory, so be forewarned, but it's not that scary; I hardly jumped at all and there was no danger that I'd dissolve in a puddle of fear while watching it.

Ian liked the movie because It was gory and had lots of action and it had an ok story. Maybe if I was in a different mood (as in, able to ignore the stuff I didn't like so much) I might have liked it as much as Ian did. I will admit that there were some good and interesting scenes, and I particularly liked the ending.

I'd say that 28 Weeks Later is good enough to see as a rental.

That's a lot of sales!

I mailed out the bracelet I made and another pair of earrings that someone bought today. I've had a few sales since the beginning of January - enough that I now have 96 sales since I first started listing things at the end of February. That's pretty good for a hobby :) Seriously, I never expected to sell that many pieces when I first started making things. Thank you all for helping me get to this point.

I'm hoping to get to 100 sales by the end of February.... I expect that I'll be having a sale in a few weeks :)

Thank you!!!

Thanks very much for your thoughts and comments on the new photos! I really appreciate all of your help. I have to sit down and sift through the comments and stuff, and I expect to work on that this weekend. I meant to do some today but I slept in until 3:30pm so didn't have much time for anything.

Tomorrow if I'm up at a decent hour (and I should be because I need a doctor's appointment for some prescription refills), I hope to finish the dress I'm working on. It would be nice to be done with it! :)

Oh and by the way, the earrings in the second column of the earring photos are high-quality aquamarine stones; they are a very light clear aqua gemstone. They look completely colourless a lot pf the time with a hint of light aqua around the edges. Therefore, ideally, some light aqua colour should show up in the photos. If you look at the original listing for this pair, the ruler photo shows the aqua colour quite well.

Photo comments

It turns out that I can allow comments for the album and for individual photos of the backgrounds :) You need to be viewing the photo (not just the gallery view) to add a comment for that photo.

Feel free to add comments to the individual photos about what you like and don't like. Once again, the photos are here. Thanks very much for your help - I really appreciate it.

Edit: Photos have been rearranged so that the earrings are in columns. Thanks for the suggestions :)

Non-boring jewelry news!

I found an online source for surgical steel wire. I love the round earwires in this pair of earrings but I can't buy them anymore so I have to make them. I figure if I'm going to make them in sterling silver then I could make them in surgical steel, too, so that those of us with sensitive ears could have stylish earwires, too. I may also be able to make instead of modify surgical steel earwires for some. Yay! I'm looking forward to the wire coming in.

In even more exciting news, I have finally finished taking and editing photos showing some jewelry on different backgrounds. I chose four pairs of earrings that are difficult to photograph and photographed them on all of the backgrounds. I ended up getting rid of some because there was a moire effect in the thumbnail.

I'd like to ask for your help now. Can you please go and have a look at the photos over here? I need to choose at least two and preferably three different backgrounds. I'm only looking at replacing the first "arty" pic in my jewelry item listings as I'll keep the black hanging and white ruler pics. I just want an initial thumbnail for my earrings that makes the items pop more in a list of thumbnails.

So, which backgrounds do you like best? Not every earring is going to look good on every background - that's why I need several backgrounds - and so if you like specific background/earring combinations, that's ok and I'd like to hear about those, too. Please leave a comment or email me with your preference. I will consider all of your responses before making my final decision (and before re-taking all of my pics). I'd appreciate any feedback you can give me. Thank you for your help :)

Nothing much, I'm afraid

You know how some people have nothing to say, really, and write blogs anyways? I'm feeling like that today :)

Seriously - I'm still working on the dress and vacillating back and forth between contrast fabric banding for the sleeves and neck. I've cut out several different possibilities and I still can't make up my mind. I've left samples in the sewing room so that the next time I go in there I can be surprised by all of them again. Hopefully one will jump out as the best option.

And I'm still taking photos. I'm about to try and edit about 40 of them: 10 different earring pairs on 4 different backgrounds (well, 3 - one of them developed a moire effect at this close-up range). I'm using a wide range of earring styles and components to really get an idea of how things will look if I use them.

Robin, you might be the winner - the backgrounds I'm looking at are different shades of cream and brown :) The darkest brown is handmade paper and it has sort of a reddish cast so it's quite warm. We'll see - I still have a lot of photos to edit :)

More and more photos

I'm still working on the photos for the items in my etsy shop. The light source over the jewelry brightens it considerably. I'm also photographing the items with the camera almost resting on the table on which backgrounds are sitting. This gives the photos depth and interest.

I'm still figuring out which scrapbook paper will make the best backgrounds. I have a great cream colour with some very faint swirls and stuff on it that works for a LOT of the earrings. I'm also looking at some other brown or tan papers and an aqua paper (all with faint patterns) that might work as well.

All of this photography is pretty tiring, that's for sure. I haven't edited any of the latest photos but I'll do that tomorrow and post them somewhere. After I do whatever sewing I'm going to do tomorrow, of course :)

Thanks! (and more about my etsy photos)

Thanks for your comments, everyone. I like the crispness of the photos and I do like the darker backgrounds. I've managed to add an additional Ott-lite to the front of my lightbox that brightens up the ambient light and item to be photographed. This definitely is making a difference in my test photos.

I don't think that the dark backgrounds are going to work for all of my stuff, though, as much as I'd like it to. It's really hard to get the right aperture and shutter speed for pictures on the really dark backgrounds - I'm finding that the background colours aren't staying true but are being washed out.

Michael's has a sale on most of their scrapbook paper so I bought a bunch today in different colours and patterns. The one we like the best so far looks sort of like sand. It's tan with some different shading in it and that's probably why it works for different colours. Plus the fact that natural colours or backgrounds tend to look good with a lot of things. It seems to work for some colours. The lightest-coloured earrings do need a darker background, though (they're still not popping off of the sand colour) so we'll go back tomorrow and see if I can find some darker browns.

Thanks again for all of your opinions on this: I really appreciate your help. When I have a few more test photos I'll put them up for you to see.

Oh - I've left the Jewelry on Etsy Team. I've been thinking of doing that for a while and since they left my name off the roster recently, this seemed like a good time to actually leave. Honestly, I've felt consistently ignored by the leaders and that the team wasn't doing much for me. Also, the organizer behaves badly in the etsy forums and has been muted at least twice from the forums for poor behaviour. Hopefully I'll find a team that is more suited to me.

Etsy shop photos

I'm still trying to think of ways of re-do the photos on my etsy shop. Not that my sales are suffering; I'm actually getting sales from people I don't know. But I think that my photos could be better. Someone has suggested using quilt batting but I'm worried that they would come out too grey - although it might work.

There was also a thread about this on etsy, and there are some tips there: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=5419864

I've been looking at etsy and trunkt sites that I like. Here are a few:
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5472288
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5043503
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_more.cfm/id/1452
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_more.cfm/id/2940
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_detail.cfm/id/1482
http://www.trunkt.org/client.listing_detail.cfm/id/718

Looking at these, they all have solid-coloured, muted backgrounds. Some are grey to black as well. The lighting in these is very similar in that they each appear to be using at three or four lights and at least one is a direct light. Right now, I'm using indirect lights only.

So what do you think? Any ideas as to how I could make my jewelry pop in photos?

Etsy shop things

Members of the Jewelry on Etsy Team are setting up a couple of buys for the team at different suppliers. Going together on a purchase means that we're able to get the deepest discount on the products which is quite nice :) I'm in need of sterling silver chain in certain sizes and I've been trying to figure out where I can get it the cheapest. I think that I've found a supplier from which I can get relatively inexpensive chain. It's not cheap, really, what with sterling silver trading at $15/oz.

I'm also looking at possibly changing my photos for my etsy shop. Not all of the current ones are good; I'm not happy with the pink or purple backgrounds, for example. I'd like the pictures to feel warm, with warm-coloured backgrounds. I need at least three different colours: a light one for non-light earrings, a dark one for non-dark earrings, and a medium one for everything in-between. I'm not sure what the best colour would be - any ideas?

I'm thinking of going with fabric backgrounds, but my first tries didn't work - the fabric weave created a moire effect in the thumbnails and I wasn't happy with that. I do have some microfiber fabrics and some velvets that might work better. What do you all think?

My family Christmas

My family Christmas went really well - certainly better than the last few years. Yay! The saddest part was that one of my sisters was much to sick (and apparently contagious) to attend and so she and her family drove back to Southern Alberta today. We all missed her and her family a lot.

When we got there, we chatted and nibbled on food a bit, ordered Chinese food, opened gifts while nibbling on food, chatted more, and ate Chinese food. After that, everyone else chatted while I slept on the couch. I think I had nibbled and eaten too much and my tummy felt upset. For some reason my body told me to go to sleep, so I did.

When I woke up about an hour later everyone was chatting and stuff. It was really nice.

I felt really welcomed by my family and it seemed that everyone else there felt the same way. I hope that this is the beginning of better Christmas celebrations for my family.

Oh! In case you were wondering what I decided to wear to the celebration, I wore my new red top and my long stretch-velvet mermaid skirt that I made for bellydancing. I wore some great Cubic Zirconia earrings, a grey headband with rhinestones on it, and a sparkly silver bangle. I looked quite nice, if I do say so myself :)

And just to clean up something else - I am keeping the extra pair of shoes (pair #1) that I bought the other day. They'll be useful.

Snow day

There was a snow storm in Southern Ontario last night through this afternoon and so I spent the day lazing around. Well, I did some sewing since I'd washed the chiffon lining I'd bought, and I took some photos of new earrings I've made, but that's it.

The dress I'm making has a yoke in the front and back into which the dress front and back are gathered. Normally the dress has sleeves but I wanted something sleeveless so I took them out and raised the armhole. Leaving the yoke plain would be boring so I'm choosing to embellish it. I've looked at glue-on acrylic "rhinestones" (I can't find sew-in ones here) and silver paillettes..... and while I love love love paillettes, in this case the rhinestones really work.

So anyway, all I have to do is glue the rhinestones on and then finish the dress. I hope it looks good when I'm finished!

More stuff for my crafts

Everything is on sale at the Fabricland in Mississauga at Dundas and Winston Churchill. Everything. Fashion fabrics are 30-50% off - even silks and woolens and everything. I spent a couple of hours there and bought a number of fabrics.

I'm also in the mood to do some sewing - not just to finish this bag or for New Year's Eve but for fun - and I got a ton of patterns today. They were on sale, too.

With Ian's help, I was finally able to take photos of the new earrings I've made. I'll be listing them in my etsy store over the next few days. I plan to have a sale on the weekend, too - just in time for the holidays.

A crafty Thanksgiving

I spent most of the day working on the dress that I'll be wearing to the wedding. I bought it to fit my hips and so the top is too big because my top size is smaller than my bottom size. It took a while to fix up the seams that had come undone because I'm not accustomed to working with that fabric.

I got the shoulders taken up (part of fixing the dress was to shorten the bodice by shortening it at the shoulder seam) and as I was checking the fit, Ian and I realized that the dress might look better sleeveless. If it was sleeveless, it would make a cleaner, sleeker line, making me look taller. We'll see. I'd hoped to finish the alterations today but didn't have time, so I'll be doing them through this week. We'll be in Mississauga starting tomorrow afternoon and I'll just take my sewing machine there to finish up.

I don't yet know whether I'll take all my beads or just some of them to Mississauga. I've been making some earrings lately and part of me would like to pick through my beads and create more. Then again, I should be working on this custom stuff so I should only bring things associated with that. At least I've made some new earrings recently; I hope to get these ones photographed and listed over the next while, so if I don't make anything new it's not the end of the world.

Cleaning up

My sale is still on! I've even added new stock and expect to add a few more pieces over the next few days. Happy shopping!

I was thinking tonight that it was eight years ago this weekend that I moved here to Waterloo. I have such vivid memories of that time. I remember being so excited about school; I was really looking forward to starting over. Not that things were that bad before.... but the person I was before I went to UW is very, very different from the person I am now. In many ways I did start over by going to school, and while it was very hard, it was definitely a good choice.

I spent most of today organizing things. I finally re-organized all of my beads and put all of my purchases away. Finally. We also bought some small shelving units on sale for $5 (regular $15) and I'm able to keep my beads there when I'm not using them. My beads, craft show, and shipping paraphernalia take up much, much less space than they did before. The living room is quite a bit tidier :)

Making jewelry again!

For the first time in a very long time, I made earrings today. Before the last craft show in June I'd gone kind of overboard by creating lots and lots and lots of earrings. I'd hoped to sell a lot at that show but I was sick :( Anyways, since I'd worked so hard on jewelry before that I couldn't really make myself make more.

Until today, anyways. I was able to make six relatively simple pairs of earrings. I even listed three pairs so that I'd have some new stock for my sale. Tomorrow I'm going to work on the bag (the parts I can do, anyways) and when I take breaks I'll organize my beads. While I haven't made anything, I've certainly been buying beads :) I haven't put anything away and I have a ton of re-organizing to do. I hope that I'll be able to do that over the weekend and then work on the custom necklace and some more complicated pieces.

I'm very much looking forward to getting everything in its place and getting my work area set up again. I'm itching to do some more jewelry work for the holiday season. I'm glad that my jewelry dry spell is finally over.

Lots o' bead shopping

I did go to the show today :) It wasn't very busy at all and I heard some vendors telling others that they didn't think they were going to make as much as they'd hoped. Some retailers who had an unusual selection did quite well, though. Most of the vendors had similar bead strands in rose quartz, turquoise, and coral. There was one selling very high-end gemstone strands but I couldn't afford to pay $400+ (some were $1000!!) for beads, even if they were gorgeous. Some vendors sold rough rocks which were beautiful and others sold finished jewelry. The finished jewelry was pretty ugly and/or cheap looking and they weren't selling at all (I think the vendor mentioned above was a jewelry vendor). Some of the vendors I've seen before didn't bring all of their stock; I'll see them at the Oasis show at the end of September.

I love shopping for beads with other people as a fun activity but when I'm by myself I can meander back and forth between vendors and make several passes over the vendor area. It was quite satisfying to wander around with no real purpose or direction for a long time comparing things. I enjoyed myself very much :) Since Ian went to a movie, I was able to spend about three hours there.

I looked around to be sure I would be getting things that I really needed or loved. Of course I bought some things. I got a few strands of gemstones that were on sale as well as three types of sterling silver chain and some sterling silver spacers and beads. I did spend more than I'd budgeted but I'm ok with that. I'm very happy with all of my purchases :)

It was a very satisfying, if very long, day. Now I have to actually organize all my beads from my recent purchases :)

Sale still on!

I sold some earrings - thanks! I have finally finished listing all of my stock so if you haven't checked out my store yet, now is a good time to do it :) There is a lot of variety in the earring colours and styles so there is something for everyone. For those of you that like the Waves of the ocean earrings, you might like these Green waves of grass earrings. They both have similar beads in different colours and evoke a similar impression in me.

I also have some lovely earrings using millefiori beads - these are glass beads that have flowers embedded in them. They are gorgeous when the light shines through them. I have these simple green ones, these other simple green ones, these yellow ones, these orange ones, these bigger green ones, and these aqua ones. As well, if you like interesting, fun earrings, have a look at these Flourite cube earrings. And of course I have quite a few simple glass earrings with two or three beads; these are about $10-20 each, depending on the number of beads.

Don't forget to look at my older stock as well; there are some beautiful earrings there. There are also a few necklaces that you might like. I like them, myself :) As I've said before, there is something for almost everyone in my store. Please note that all the jewelry in my store is arranged by dominant colour of the item. Now go and shop :)

The sternum pain is flaring up a bit and the skin is definitely red. There's a red rectangle in the center of my chest; it looks strange. I hope it goes away soon. I'm definitely keeping it out of sight so that the sun doesn't get at it. I'm also more tired than usual, but I'm managing to get by. I hope tomorrow is better.

A long treatment day

The ultrasound went well. The technician definitely got the tender spot, so we'll see if anything shows or whether I just have aches and pains from getting old. I'm thinking it's just aches and pains :) The results should be at the doctor's in five business days, or by Monday, July 9. I'm not worried.

It turns out that I'll only have one radiation treatment, and that was today! The pain might flare up over the weekend but should subside and get even better within 10-20 days. I can hardly wait :) Funny, the radiation technician treated me up in Thunder Bay back when I had my first cancer. This is a small, small world. They did say that I might feel tired, which I do. I hope that this goes away.

I have listed over half of my new stock. My goodness, I have a lot of it!!! Anyways, check out my store - there are lots of new and exciting pieces; I'm pretty sure there's something for everyone :) I will add the rest tomorrow. I hope you all enjoy the sale - don't forget the secret blog sale mentioned below as well!

Sale has started!

My etsy store sale has begun!! Buy any one item in the store and get another item of equal or lesser value for half price! Just put JET in the notes to seller box and wait until I send you an updated invoice before paying. The sale lasts until 6pm July 2, 2007.

I also have a special sale for my faithful blog readers: buy the Hand-beaded evening purse and get up to four free pieces of jewelry (maximum value $100)! To get this secret sale, put JET BLOG in the notes to seller box and wait for me to send you an updated invoice before paying.

I am adding new items even now and hope to have everything added by tonight. Happy shopping!!!

Tomorrow is a big day

Thank you to everyone who gave me their preference for sorting the earrings. I'll be sorting them by colour. I really appreciate your input!

I was able to get all of the first pictures and about 2/3 of the black background pictures edited. I still have to edit the ruler pictures, which shouldn't take too long. I hope to get the pictures all edited after the ultrasound tomorrow and before the appointment with the radiologist. I think I'm scheduled to have my first radiation treatment at 1:15pm tomorrow so I'll be able to spend most of the afternoon tomorrow adding new jewelry to my store. I'm pretty excited about that - I have some really great pieces that I think you'll all like :)

My sale will start sometime tomorrow - I'm a part of the JET team on etsy and we're all having a sale over the weekend. I'll post in my blog when the sale begins :) I'm actually glad that I have this sale and the new pieces to focus on because that means that I'm not nervous about either the liver ultrasound or the radiation :)

Radiation starts soon

The radiation oncologist's office called and I have an appointment on Friday at 11:15am with the oncologist and the radiation technician. After that, we'll mark me up for radiation and we will start radiation that day beginning at 1:15pm. That is much faster than I thought it would be - I didn't think that I would get in so quickly. I don't know how many radiation treatments I'll have. I think it will be 5 or 10. I hope that the pain flare is over (or hasn't started) when we go to North Carolina. When a treatment works the pain usually gets much worse before getting much better.

I started taking the Ritalin today and didn't really notice any difference. I'll have to see over the next couple of days if there's any change. I really, really hope it works.

I got to spend pretty well the entire afternoon taking photographs. I have about 60-odd pieces of jewelry that I'd like to have up in my etsy store before the sale this weekend. I did all of the coloured background pics; now all I have to do is edit all of the pictures. I hope to do that tomorrow and Friday to have the stuff up by Friday. Given that there are so many pieces, I'll probably end up adding a few on Saturday.

Because there are so many pairs of earrings, I'll need to split them up somehow. Each item can only go in one section... so is it better to separate the earrings by colour or by length? What do you think?

The retreat is over

I don't know what was wrong with me today, but I was not in the mood for the retreat today. I think I may have been the only person who was more annoyed leaving than I was going in. The days are pretty intense and I was really tired because the days started at 9am. I'm also having wicked pain problems - I was taking Percocet all day long.

I did get stuff out of the day today - in particular, there was one visualization that I found very powerful. Basically, while relaxing, imagine that you are holding a bowl in your lap. Any kind of bowl is fine. Imagine the love and light from inside you filling the bowl so that the bowl is now filled with light and sparkles and good. Then take each of the dark, negative emotions that you're experiencing, one by one, and drop them into the bowl. Let the sparkly light and love surround and overcome the dark negative bits until they're all gone (they said to imagine them swirling together, but I saw the light surrounding the dark bits and making them smaller until there was no more dark). Once that happens and the bowl is filled with sparkly light only again, lift the bowl and pour the light back into you. I really liked the cleansing aspect of this visualization. I felt energized and whole afterwards in a way that I haven't felt in some time.

Other than that visualization, the day pretty well sucked for me. At one point we were talking about our greatest fears.... mine, in case you were interested, is that I will lose the ability to reason or think logically; that I will lose my smarts, as it were. This fear is real because this happened after treatments for my first cancer. Anyways, someone in my group gave me this look when I said this and said "you're afraid you won't be smart anymore?"in this shocked, "I can't believe you just said that out loud" kind of a voice. Like I should be grateful for any smarts I have.

I explained that I'm not all that smart, but that I identify with my intellect, logic, and reasoning abilities. I use them in every aspect of my life, and I'm terrified that they'll go away again because I wasn't me when it happened before. I kind of felt like that when the person made that comment they were thinking that I'm some snob who's better than everyone else. I'm not - wanting to be my smartest is no comment on anyone else or their abilities - but I don't know if that person got that. Sigh.

I was really glad when the day was over. I think Ian got some interesting things out of it - if nothing else, the doctor who facilitated the event validated our view that you have to be your own advocate in this health care system. I don't know that either of us would go to one of these again, though. I've had enough support in that kind of environment to last me a long, long time.

When we got home, we watched 5ive Girls. It was pretty good in a cheesy, low-budget horror movie kind of way. I'd recommend it if you like those sorts of movies. There's not much gore, and the story is kind of interesting.

On a much more positive note, this weekend, the JET members on etsy will be having a sale. Each member picks their own sale; mine will be "Buy one, get one 1/2 off (of equal or lesser value)". I'll be adding a LOT of things to my store this week. So if you were thinking of buying something for yourself or for someone you know, I'd encourage you to buy it next weekend as you'll be getting a fantastic deal!!! :)

In Edmonton!

I managed to make it to Edmonton! I tell you, traveling on WestJet is so much nicer than traveling on Air Canada. On Air Canada, as you may recall, they turn the overhead lights on when they're doing dinner and beverage service during a redeye flight. Westjet didn't! They kept the overhead lights off which was a much more pleasurable experience. I was actually able to sleep uninterrupted for a couple of hours, which I liked.

It's been raining here and I miss the way Edmonton smells in the rain. It's so fresh and clean and green and, well, nice. I don't know how to describe it, except to say that it smells nothing like Southern Ontario in the rain - which has a wormy, pollutiony smell. I'm very much looking forward to my stay here. I don't know what my days will have in store for me yet as I've done virtually no planning, but I'm prepared for almost anything. I certainly brought enough clothes!

I also brought all of my beads. Ummmm, they take up a pretty big suitcase and weigh about 40 pounds altogether. That seems like a lot of beads :) Even though I don't need to make anything because I have so much stock, I still want to be able to make things. And I figured that people here might want to take a look at my stash in case they want custom orders or something :)

Tomorrow's the show

I think I have everything ready for the show tomorrow - I've tested out the display, got all the jewelry categorized and priced, and loaded up the car. It's supposed to be clear and 24C tomorrow so it should be a nice day for an outdoor craft show. I'm a little nervous, of course; between yesterday and the show tomorrow I was snappish all day. I'll let you know how things go tomorrow :)

Bone scan day

So I had the bone scan today. A bone scan, as I'm sure you remember, has two parts: the injection of a radioactive tracer into me, which settles in the bones, and then the scan (much like a geiger counter) three hours later. They had trouble with the injection - I guess she got the needle in and then the vein disappeared, so she had to poke my veins twice. This is not a surprise, as my veins don't like to be poked.

When I came back for the scan, they said that they would do an extra close-up scan of my sternum because that was the area that was hurting. They did do this extra scan in the same orientation as the last time, on the left side of me. The top of the field was around my shoulder and the bottom was around my stomach.

But then they did another close-up on the right side of my chest. The top part of the field was at about underarm level. This means that they weren't just doing a scan of the sternum from the other side, you know? And the scan was completely unexpected; they'd said that they would do a closeup scan of the sternum, but they didn't mention a second scan.

Needless to say, I freaked out and am still freaking out. I'm scared, and I didn't think that that was going to happen since I suspected that I had more mets anyways. Now the idea that there might in fact be something going on scares the crap out of me. I don't get my test results until after I come back from Edmonton, so I have to live with this for just under two weeks. The best thing I can do is to put this out of my head until the night before I get my results back. And I will do that, but today I need to work through the fear. I hope that none of you ever experience this kind of fear - it makes my knees weak, my heart pound, and I feel like I'm moving in slow-motion.

Today we also did bloodwork including the usual complete blood count and my CA 15-3 tumour marker. I'll get those when I'm back from Edmonton, too.

The pain hasn't completely decreased. I hope that it goes away before Monday, but it's not really showing signs of doing that yet. It's still quite painful at times, although I guess it'll take some time to get used to the new dosage. I'm a little light-headed and woozy at times, too, which will be a direct result of the new dose.

The best part of today was that we worked on my display for the show on Saturday. So far, I'm liking the way things are being set up. I think I'll have less space than last time, but I think I'm using the space better. I hope that I sell lots :) If you are in the Hamilton-Ancaster area on Saturday between 9:30am and 3pm, please stop by. I have a lot of stock that hasn't been posted on my store :) You may find even more things that you like in person!

Doctor days

You might be wondering why I didn't post last night. Well, around suppertime, my back started to get really woogly and so I took a clonazepam. Bam! I was out like a light. Today I took one by accident and am abut to fall asleep. This entry will be short.

I saw my family doctor and he's increased my Oxycodone from 360 mg/day to 480mg/day. That may not seem like much, but 3 weeks ago I was taking 280mg/day. I can't believe how much the pain has gone up :( My doctor says that if my pain isn't better by Monday I have to go in and see him before I leave.

I have my bone scan tomorrow as well as my bloodwork. I get the results in two weeks.

In preparation for the show on Saturday, we're getting the display together. I decided that I wanted a black background. Originally I wanted velveteen, but after some thought at the fabric store, I decided to get some black linen-look polyester fabric. It drapes really well and has a bit of a sheen to it, making it very attractive. I still have to get all of my things priced and inventoried, too. Guess what I'm doing tomorrow and Friday? :)

If you haven't already, please have a look at my treasury - it's the best I've ever done. Enjoy! I love it so much!

Shopping and wire

I had bought a couple of skirts from H&M recently, as you may recall. Well, I loved them so much that I convinced Ian to go back so that I could buy more. I ended up buying two more black skirts and two black and white skirts. I know it seems unusual to have three identical black skirts, but I love the skirt so much that I've been wearing it every day. A person probably shouldn't wear the same skirt or pants every single day, so this way I can switch it up.

I also bought a bunch of wire today. I was running out and so I managed to get a spool (75 yards) or 24 gauge and a spool (120 yards) of 26 gauge sterling silver. I use a lot of the wire because I wire-wrap the closure on every bead, making the items more secure. It requires a lot of wire for complex projects and sometimes I make a lot of mistakes so I waste wire accidentally. At least now I'm going to have enough wire for a while.

I'd also ordered wire from petitespoon on etsy; I got a mixed bunch of wire from 16 gauge all the way to 24 gauge. The lower the number, the thicker the wire. I'm excited to have these new wires; I've never worked with the lower gauges before and can hardly wait to make some interesting designs.

Creating, creating, creating...

I spent some time today making more jewelry. I now have almost 100 pieces which I think will be almost enough. I want to make a few more necklaces, of course, and maybe a few more earrings. I'm pleased that I'll have enough stock.

I'm also thinking about the displays. I bought some similar things to the display things I used last time; I think what I'll do is string black wire back and forth to make sort of a chicken-wire or sea effect and hang the things off of that. At least, that's my current plan; I hope it works out. I expect to be making jewelry until Wednesday and then spending Thursday and Friday (when I'm not doing scans and stuff) working on the displays. I think that'll be an effective use of my time.

The show on Saturday is in Ancaster, ON and runs from 9:30am - 3pm. I've put a link on the side for you; there's more information on the June 9 part of the events page.

A fun shopping day

I decided to go shopping today because, well, I love shopping. I went to the largest Winners in the area and tried on a bunch of things. I ended up buying four more shirts, two of which have lots of printing and sparkles on them. I have a thing for lots of printing on shirts. And sparkles. I share some qualities with crows.

I also bought some shoes :). They have a 4 1/4" heel with a 3/4" platform, are red patent, have a stacked wood sole, have a comfortable peep toe, and are slingback. They are these shoes (with leopard coat and black tights); I guess they're not part of the current collection because I can't find a better picture, but that's ok. These shoes are amazingly comfortable. I walked around in the store wearing them for about 30 minutes and my feet weren't rubbing anywhere, there were no incipient blisters, and the bottoms of my