in my first Etsy treasury!

"Walrustusk" chose my Easter evening picture of sunset through the pines for her treasury. Yay!



She is a former Alaska girl who now lives in Arizona. Boy, that's a big environmental transition. At the right is one of her meticulously bead-encrusted hair ornaments, available at walrustusk on Etsy.

Etsy Front Page (sort of)

My post tonight in Etsy Promotions Forum:

it WORKED!!!!!

piedras says:
I took a picture of my new earrings http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=12036344 on a background of white card, and whited out the off-white to pure white in my trusty Photoshop Elements, and used it as my first pic.

And they're up at the top of the FP in the little white knock-outs! Wheeeee!

'course, nobody's BOUGHT them. Oh, well, can't have everything.

Abigail



The earrings are here.

my whole name

Every now and then, like most of us, I Google my name. I'm learning to be thankful for my middle name. I always liked it for the family associations; my mother was an only child, so both Crispin and I have her maiden name as a middle name. Crispin has managed to pass it on; LilleTom, almost six now, rejoices in the full name of Rolf Tom Einar Mount-Miller! I, being a spinster aunt (with no hidden love children to my name) can only try to add permanence to the name by using my full name, Abigail Mount Miller, to identify myself and my works -- primarily my jewelry, of which I have sold a few dozen pieces now in various venues.

The specific reason I am glad of my middle name is because of Abigail Miller, the Christian faith singer. If I google just Abigail Miller, I mostly get references to her, and while I am sure she is a worthy person, she is certainly not me (even though I do sing). There's also an Abigail Miller who is head of a Montessori school. I admire her ability tremendously; I taught in a middle school that was associated with a Montessori lower school. I sure couldn't do it, but I think it is by far the best way to learn.

So just for reference:

I am Abigail Mount Miller
the daughter of Mary Isabel Mount Miller and Tom Polk Miller, (who were Mount Miller Architects)
the sister of Crispin Mount Miller (the engineer, not the maker of teddy bears or Mark Crispin Miller the author)
the grand-daughter of Jess Wallace Mount, Ellen Donald Mount, Enoch Lester Miller, and Willie E. Chumley Miller

If I go find the right papers and notes, I can go back further, but I think that identifies me as me, not those other Abigail Millers.

International Mail (preliminary)

I'm working on a digest of the important stuff from the Post Office's International Mailer's Manual ( IMM). I haven't finished it yet. Meanwhile here is the very barest beginning, extracted from the Etsy forum post I made which got me started on the idea.

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Once you start checking the rates, most things have one rate to Canada, one to Mexico, and one to everywhere else. It's a real pain that the P.O. doesn't present it that way, but in separate charts for every country in the world. But that's how it works out.

• Global Express Guaranteed starts at $38.95 for a half pound -- this one does vary, there are some countries, such as Algeria and Lithuania, where it is twice as much
• Express Mail International starts at $25.95 for a half pound
• Priority Mail International starts from $19 to $24 for a pound (flat rate envelope $11.95)
• First Class International starts at $1.40 for one ounce

Everybody has the same size limits of:
42 inches in maximum length and 79 inches in maximum length and girth combined
except for a couple dozen countries that let it be a bit larger.

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More later.

liver of sulfur— NOT

I just finished a choker of stretch maille box chain, to which I attempted to add a Goth feel with a V-shaped pendant "lace" of black chains, terminated with amethysts in hematite rings.

My first accomplishment was in successfully making balled sterling headpins, which was gratifyingly free of major difficulties. Then I wanted to oxidize said pins (once they were assembled into the captive-amethysts-with-wrapped-loops) so that they would not stand out all bright and shiny against the black anodized aluminum.

I knew egg yolk usually produces just a thin golden layer of oxidation on silver, or that's how it's worked for me in the past. So I thought I'd give it extra time and warmth, and put the headpinned assemblies and the yolk in a covered pyrex dish in a 200° oven for an hour. Hmm, still just light silvery-gold.

So after a bit I decided to be more emphatic in the heat treatment, and put it back at around 450°, for maybe 45 minutes, maybe more. I had the kitchen exhaust fan on to keep the house from getting too hot.

Well, I must have stunk up the neighborhood, though I didn't smell it in the house. The egg yolk turned into a NASTY stinky black-brown oily, oozy lump, with condensed droplets of the stuff all over the inside of the dish and lid. I had to wash my silver-and-stone assemblies and tumble them a while to get the oily gunk off them. But they are a PERFECT black!

Here they are in the finished necklace. It is currently for sale in my Etsy shop here. I have matching earrings almost made, save that I want to make handmade silver wires for them too. And sacrifice another egg yolk? Maybe.

etsy treasuries

Ever since I've been on Etsy I have been hearing about treasuries. Some people make them incessantly, apparently. They are, on the face of it, an altruistic way to show your favorites of others work. If you make lots, and get many people kind of feeling like they owe you (kind of like when they've been asked to dinner several times), then you are likely to be in their treasuries. The real payoff comes if a treasury in which you are displayed catches the eye of an administrator, and you find an item of yours on the front page. I don't look at FP that much, but I gather many people do.

Well, anyway, I gave it a shot. Took me several tries to get the hang of it and to manage to be awake at the opportune moment. But I got this fiesta-colored assortment into Treasury West, and then a day later the gray-greenish page of art from Dentonites into the main Treasury.


It was kind of fun. I guess I'll do it again. Of course, to get them SEEN you either have to blazon your accomplishment all over the forums somehow, or think of a REALLY intriguing title. Sigh. I hate promoting. Sigh.