Less Teeth. More Stress

Good Morning!

So the tooth is gone and has only left a mild ache after the fog from all those lovely tylenol 3s dissipated. The time drugged up and beading was like a little slice of heaven and I feel as though I was decently productive. In the vein of that persephone necklace I made this fun piece with sparrows flying down three strands of brass and garnet. I really did almost keep that one, but I was too proud of it to keep it to myself. So, beading is going well and selling is not bad at the moment after a little 8 sale rush.

But even though the hobby  is going well, I should probably follow that old adage of "Don't quit your day job"

Oh... wait... that's EXACTLY what I am about to do.

You see, I had an epiphany. Like, a real, honest to God epiphany. It was a thunderous moment of realization that parted the clouds of confusion and let the sunshine of truth and realization into my soul. It went a little something like this:

So the boyfriend and I are sitting at home and I've just returned from a perfectly horrific day at the office. One of those days where you just feel souless and crushed by everyone around you because you just DON'T want to be where you are. I'm crying just a little on the couch, explaining the horrors of inter office politics and passive aggressive jabs from ego maniacal coworkers as well as expounding on how I really hate that button up dress shirts completely restrict your shoulders. Seriously! Try to lay down in one!

He's tilting his head sympathetically and I'm full on ranting: I'm lost! What do I do? Leave this office job and go to another? I don't love it! Why am I doing it? Do I just hope that if I go somewhere with more potential for earning I can deal better because I will just think of that paycheck? Will I ever get anywhere? Does anyone make a truly comfortable button up shirt???

My boyfriend at this very moment sits up almost angrily and shakes his head, looking over at me with his eyes flashing (most likely in indignant defense of my plight) and says the phrase that is about to change my world forever.

"How about you JUST DON'T DO ANYTHING??"

I am stunned. The silence is deafening. The world stops spinning. The cliches are boundless.

Just. Don't. Do. Anything.

Really?

I could do that. (Or I could not do that? Not sure on the grammar on that one kiddos!) I could leave the pressure of my day job. I could go back to waitressing and go to grad school. I could stop trying to fit into those shirts, I could sling drinks and bury myself in school books. I happen to love school, I would be truly free. There would be no more pointless pressure about stacks of paperwork and being nice wouldn't make me such a good target for people to take advantage of.

Just don't do anything? I could bead ALL DAY! I could waitress at night and BEAD ALL DAY!! It would be like Heaven- but with beads! It would be like summer camp! I could create during the day, then go to class for a few hours and do homework and then go make a little cash... I could just let life take me by following the things that actually make me happy. It's like every poster from middle school- it's FOLLOWING YOUR DREAMS!

Holy Crap! JUST DON'T DO ANYTHING!!!

All of this is bursting out of my mouth like dawn breaking over the darkest part of the night and I am so swept up in feeling an incredibly calling to "just don't do anything" that I almost miss my boyfriend shaking his head slowly.

I look to him, my soft supportive, sensitive listener. His real concern for me and my plight has brought him to give me the answer I needed. I gaze lovingly at my prophet and ask why he's shaking his head. He answers:

"Baby, I was talking about the commercial. The Neosporin one. It's just an ad meant to terrify parents into thinking that they need a product when the human body will really just take care of itself. People don't need to use Neosporin, they can just as easily not do anything and end up with the same result."

Aaaah. Neosporin. My epiphany is the aftermath of my boyfriend's indignity at consumerism. And hey, wait,  I LIKE Neosporin.

The deflating setback was temporary, I'm a ridiculous sort of optimist and quickly decided that it was some sort of higher power that caused that commercial to inspire that world changing idea and save me from my life of drudgery.

So I've written up my two weeks notice and it's sitting in the corner of my desk. It's waiting for tuesday when the manager will be back from leave and I can make this whole dream chasing nonsense an impractical and wonderful reality. It's terrifying. I hate having people mad at me, and though I know the office will continue swimmingly without me, I am afraid of not only the moment when that letter transitions from my desk to the manager's desk but also the two weeks that I will have to sit and absorb the reactions and wrath.

Needless to say, I'm a giant ball of twitching tweakiness, but I'm trying to convince myself that it is like a giant adventure. I am just keeping my eyes on the prize and the glorious idea of returning all my damn button up shirts.

So, in the absense of my troublesome tooth, a new evil fear has risen and I must face it. I can only focus on the end result though, I can only focus on all those beads, just waiting to be arranged and strung. I can't wait to post the more recent ones, I've started playing with shapes and adding weird dangly parts. It's way more appealing than I just made it sound. So here's to major changes and hopefully so much good to come.

Wish me luck and then wish that I won't need it!!!

Yours-

the little miss milyssabeth

D-Day

As in Dentist Day....


dun dun dun dun.....

I fell asleep on the couch last night and slept through until this morning, operating on the idea that if I don't get up and go to bed, then I won't have to wake up and get teeth pulled. Unfortunately, the whole time space continuum thing does not make allowances for couches and now I am about 3 hours away from going under the pliers.

On the bright side of life, sales picked up a little when I least expected it in the ol' Etsy Shop. It's strange how amazingly happy it makes me to get an order and be able to wrap up those items like little birthday gifts and send them happily on their way. It really isn't about money, it's this special sort of sharing. Also, it makes you feel somehow loved by the people who are ordering. It's like someone is undoing all the damage done by years of living and telling you, "I like this thing you did. And I like you. Now go be happy for 20 minutes before reality comes crashing in."

Making things that someone else will love and then selling them is a really special kind of sharing. It's a weird connection to a stranger for just a bit. Maybe I'm a little too Mr. Rodgers about it, but it's definitely a warm and fuzzy sweater kind of feeling...

So anyway, I'd better go get ready for my torture session and also take pictures of the two most recent pieces before I go so that I can attempt to post them tonight.

Wish me luck!

-the little miss milyssabeth

La-dee-da, What's a girl to do?

The wisdom tooth misery persists...

The pain meds have run  out and I'm ready to injure someone.

But the thought of having them gone for good on Wednesday and then all of my doped up creating things time for about 5 days makes me smile again. Briefly. Then I am reminded that my tooth makes it hurt to smile.

Back to the grimace!

I suppose I don't have much else to say, except that this fantastic surgery is going to wipe out my bank account so I dropped a lot of my prices today, plus dropped my shipping cost. FREE US SHIPPING ON ALL EARRINGS! Seriously, unless you offer a deal in ALL CAPS, it doesn't count. It might be just a foolish dream that I can defray the cost of yanking these damn chompers with my beading, but a girl can dream, can't she?

Plus, I had a lot of time on my hands because of all the important things I've been dodging, so it made sense for me to experiment with pricing. I think I might actually end up losing money on the earrings, but it might be worth it just to feel useful.

So, off to all the errands I am avoiding!

Yours-

the little miss milyssabeth

Wisdom Teeth are STUPID

Hello World-

(I'm your wild girl, I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-Cherry Bomb!)  Can you tell I watched "The Runaways" recently?

Joan Jett aside, I have to share that I am one super grumpy lady lately. My back left bottom wisdom tooth has decided that it is an ideal time in my life for it to begin poking it's little toothy head through my gums and get impacted. My dentist decided to give me enough pain medication only to cover me through Saturday and my tooth removal surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. I'm grouchy and puffy. Worst of all, my boyfriend has this bizzare Munchausen by proxy thing going on and thinks I am absolutely adorable when in pain. The worse the pain, the more love and affection I get. I'll be sitting on the couch, silently weeping a little with an ice pack to my cheek and I look across the room to see him making lovely dovey eyes at me. It's slightly unnerving because I am afraid it will give him ideas like "Oh, she's be so much cuter if she was just a little sick all the time... now where is that rat poison?"

On the bright side, my passion for beading has returned, sales aside. I've been a busy lady at every chance I get, with a new obsession for all things brass and gold. I just finished a necklace that I am actually going to have difficulty selling because I want to keep it so badly.
Check it out: http://www.etsy.com/listing/68842193/persephone-pomegranate-necklace
The pain medication has caused a most unusual change in the way I bead. It's becoming like art to me, in that every necklace has a story, albeit an odd rationale to the tale.

This necklace started with my love for those awesome antiqued brass patina cone beads that just remind me of when I was obsessed with Greek Mythology (I'm 1/2 Greek) and my sister and I played "Greek Goddesses". I was always Aphodite and I told her she could be Hera because Hera was the Queen of the Gods. In actuality, I let her be Hera because Hera was a b*tch. Don't tell my sister I said so, and especially don't tell Hera.

So back to the necklace. I just fell in love with deep red lately and decided to use all of these pomegranate colors with it, which of course reminded me of the myth of Persephone and Hades. If you are unfamiliar, I'd look it up; in my current state I am libel to muck the entire story up through pure ditzyness. So here I am, beading away and making artistic choices based solely on the myth.

"Oh! So these deep red beads can represent the pomegranate seeds that she ate..I need to do them in lots of five and seven because I can't remember how many she ate... oh! and now I need the frosted glass because those seeds were more dangerous than she thought! They trapped her in Hades so the jaggedy edges represent that they are baaaad... and, umm, a heart and arrow toggle! Hades had been struck by the arrow of Cupid when he fell in love so that means that... and that awesome feather I've been meaning to use to represent how badly Persephone wanted to escape..."

Next thing you know, I have the entire story written out in necklace form. Now, it's only decipherable to me, I am sure, but there's this hope that someone else will just see the art aspect on some subconscious level because it's there! It's art!

See what pain and pain meds do to the other wise rational? I'm having fun with it though and hoping that it will show in what I create, so there's a silver lining to my chipmunk face and out of control sherbet habit.

Also, I'm getting involved again in trying to advertise in giveaways and blogs so if anyone is reading this I'm going to keep you up to date on what's being given away and where. Hopefully it will spark some interest and some sales so I can actually pay for my wisdom tooth surgery!

Alright folks, until then, "put another dime in the jukebox, baby"

That made no sense. I'm leaving it.

Yours,

the little miss milyssabeth

Where are you, traffic?

Dear Anyone,

So, it's been quiet around the Etsy shop. I'm not going to lie, it's a little discouraging. I've got 40 items up and 1 sale. Now, I will say that I've only been at this for exactly one month and ten days but I am an incredibly impatient lady!

Sometimes it's hard to hear, "Oh your shop is so beautiful! Oh, I love all your items!" but it just seems like no one is buying at the moment. So I'm making ego-excuses for the slow sales. "Oh no, it's just that everyone is still post holiday broke!" and "My colors are really suited to spring and summer, maybe people are waiting for the jewelry to really be in season?"

Simon Cowell is chiming in too, "It's crap. It doesn't even warrant the time it would take me to mock it properly. It mocks itself with it's very existence."

I'm going to keep at it, though. I'm going to re-edit all my short and lazy descriptions and get around to making more items, and then actually posting them. I've just got to get the damn beading bug back!

I think it might all turn out alright if I just smile and wait.

So I'm going to smile, think happy thoughts and do some more stress relieving yoga.

Wish me luck!

Yours,

the little miss milyssabeth

Marketing... oh the horrors!

So, back to the battle of the beads v. me!

At this point, I have about 100 pictures. I'm not exaggerating. Flipping through them is like flipping through your grandparent's scrapbook of their Aruba trip. "Oh look, a beach. Oh look, another beach. Oh look, my grandfather in a funny hat. Oh look, a beach..." only this times it's "Oh look, that necklace I made 20 minutes ago. Oh look, that necklace I made 20 minutes ago. Oh look, the other necklace I made..."

I have to weed through the pictures to find the absolute best ones of each item and I'm really splitting hairs at this point. I have to get 20-30 down to five. It's like American Idol, but I have no Ryan Seacrest to announce which ones to vote off. Delete, Delete. I do, however, have an internal Simon Cowell who chimes in around now.

"Seriously, that necklace is bloody awful. What were you thinking? No one will ever love that piece. It's like the red headed step child of the jewelry world. Why did you think it was great? Why on earth did you like that? To be frank, that bracelet reminds me of armpits. Unwashed armpits. You have no taste. You are NOT going to Hollywood."

I muscle through and start editing anyways. It gets tedious to go through each picture, it's an endless cycle of:
Crop. Resize. Lighten. Change saturation. Change brightness. Change contrast. Sharpen. Hold item up to computer screen. Does the picture match the actual color? If the answer is no, please turn to page one and start over. If the answer is yes, please turn to page one and start over with the next picture. This is most definitely not an adventure I would have chosen.

The worst part is yet to come! Oh... the posting... (dun, dun, dunnnnn)

Here's where I have to do the fantastic math to price the items. Ok- material cost + overhead (10%-15% of material cost) + my "hourly wage" ($15 an hour) TIMES 2-3.

Whhaaaat?? No way. Too much. I can't price it that high!

Math re-do. Material cost + Overhead (5%) + Hourly wage ($9 an hour) TIMES 2.

Nu-uh. No way. Still too much.

Math re-do. Material cost + Hourly wage ($4 an hour) TIMES 1.5

Um... Minus $5.00....

Okay, I've reached a price where I think people will buy and I'm working for half of minimum wage. I post that and click next. Oh, the description. Etsy advice from veterans:
"Keep it simple, don't overwhelm the buyer"
"Describe the item in detail, as though there were no picture"
"Be as thorough as you can! Short desciptions don't sell"

Alright. So I post what I hope is a dreamy and fun description of the item with Simon Cowell ranting in my head, calling me a cheeseball and telling me that I have to remember to include centimeters in the dimensions because the British are people too. He's also mocking the fact that I cannot get a single description written without the words "mix", blend", delicious", and "beautiful". I am no longer describing a necklace, I've drifted into a recipe for angel food cake. I cut myself off before I start to type "add two cups of flour".

Upload the pictures, click the blue FINISH and then the waiting begins.

I click over to my public shop and stare at the views. Click Refresh. Still at 0 views. 30 seconds pass. Click Refresh. 0. 30 seconds. Refresh. 0. 30 seconds. Refresh. 0. Crap. Refresh. 0.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Endlessly.

The first view is a little victory dance of joy. It's after about half an hour after this that I share it on facebook, twitter and stumbleupon.

There is a lot more clicking, refreshing, and a little bit of the pook face. My boyfriend looks annoyed, my soul mate (my cat Loki) tries to sit on the laptop because I have been ignoring him for a full day. I remove him and continue to click until roughly midnight.

Then I get up the next day and the process starts anew.

I look forward to beading time more than I can express. I love picking the colors, I love the act of creating something that is going to make someone feel a little more beautiful. I go through all the posting and clicking of both my camera and my laptop for the peace of little beads sliding down a silverplated wire. I risk the trip to the nuthouse courtesy of my befuddled neighbors so I can have the chance to make you something. Because I like you. Really, I know we don't know each other but I really am a cheeseball just like internal Simon Cowell says. So I guess this is farewell for now and I hope to be back soon.

Yours-

-the little miss milyssabeth

PS. To avoid all confusion: The shop's name is La Femme D'Esprit. My official name is Melissa. My nickname or nom de plume in all things creative is the little miss milyssabeth. People do occasionally call me this. People also occasionally call me Michelle as well, but that's just because they are bad with names and I usually tell them that I will answer to most "M" related names. So there you go.

Making v. Marketing.

Hello Folks!

So I'm struggling with the dual nature of this beading business beast...

It seems like a constant struggle between the creative process and the selling half of things; it's like being two people at once!

Making: So here I am, back on the bead eating couch, happy as a clam with my three tackle boxes and one tin full of beads surrounding me. I've graduated from dinner plates to a beading board (Oh sweet heavenly piece of plastic with fuzzyness on the top to hold all those beads in place and in order! Oh miracle of design.. Oh savior of my sanity and supplies. I love this thing!) and I'm balancing that on my lap while ignoring this horrible crick in my back while mixing those colors and sizes and textures. I'm perfectly at peace and pooking my face so hard that I may actually turn into a duck.

This is my bliss. This is my creative process at it's finest and sometimes the only happy point of my stressful days. When I decided to make jewelry for the purpose of selling it instead of giving it away, this is exactly what I envisioned. I spend my days off on wild bead hunts, both online and in stores, pawing through everything I can find for that just right color and size before I scamper home to make something pretty. This, in short, is a heck of a lot of fun.

But what they never tell you is that there is a dark side. Oh yes, a dark side.

Marketing: So over the course of a day I churn out a whole bunch of stuff I love while wearing my favorite piece of the day around my neck and sometimes tiara style around my head. Don't you dare judge, you know you'd do it too! Then the sun comes out. It's picture time.

The picture process is probably the most amusing part of the day for my neighbors. I know they've watched me, I know they think I'm batsh*t crazy. I have the perfect outfit for setting off the necklaces, I wrap a white scarf I have from Paris around my midsection and put on a cute little white twill-ish spring jacket I bought on a whim and never wear. Side note- the jacket is so inappropriate for winter and the scarf covers my ta's and that's about it. So here I go, running out into the snow and stand squarely halfway up my walk, turning at the right angle to face my neighbor's house which is where the sun is. Click, turn, click, turn, click, zoom, click. All they can see is that I'm wearing pajama pants, a belly shirt with fringe and a little white blazer, photographing myself roughly at noon each day. Did I mention the heels? I live in black heels. It keeps those pesky pj pants out of the snow.

Click. Run into the house, freezing. Change necklaces. Back outside. Click, turn, click, turn, click, zoom, click. Try not to imagine what the man next door who is shoveling thinks. I repeat this process for roughly 20 minutes until I see the neighbors calling the local mental health clinic. Next comes the pictures of the pieces on their own. I use an old cream colored sweater and a cutting board as my background and I tromp out, not fully in pajamas and heels and bend over the three foot high snow bank with my behind squarely pointed at the neighbor's house I was just facing. There are plows up the street. I pretend not to notice that they are watching. They look seriously amused but I can't be bothered, I'm working!

Click, arrange. Click, angle myself and my rump differently, step on pj pants with heels, pull down pj pants slightly and moon the street. Yank up the waist band and pretend I don't hear the plow guys. Click, arrange, zoom, click. Roughly 20 pictures per piece later, it's back in the house. I'm snow blind but ready for the next part... now the fun really begins.

Stay tuned for the rest of the dark side of beading.

I've got to stop for now.

-the little miss milyssabeth