This abstract pendant by mamacitabeadworks is so wonderfully modern and classy! I think it would look great for a cocktail party.

When I went shopping through antb’s shop, I saw lots of lovely items, but didn’t expect to find anything as fangirly as this Ferris Bueller bowl! What an awesome surprise.

This CRAFT diorama by beebalalou is amazingly intricate. What a great art piece! I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Ms. Jen Rowan doing her thing at several local craft and art shows, and she has a great personality to match her work!

BirdNerd is a local favorite Etsian of mine. She has so many amazing illustrations and representations of different avian friends (in many different mediums too! including plushies!) that it was hard to decide which one I would feature today–but I decided this barn owl had the best color scheme.

Another really talented local illustrator is jenoaks. I have been stalking this Striped Socks print for months. As you can see, I’m a big fan of stripey socks myself.

I made 30 pendants to be given away at an art show @ Brownie’s Vintage, that was held yesterday. I thought, if any of you all reading were recipients of my little Poem Drop Pendants (as I call them), I would give you some information on what your pendant says and where it comes from.

As of when I first put this up, a couple of the pendants’ quote sources hadn’t been fully identified; they’re in my notebook rather than my computer, and I haven’t had a chance to look them up. So here we go:

	“The lip of the glass gleams in the moonlight like a round razor — how can I lift it to my lips? however much I thirst — how can I lift it — Do you see?” –”Moonlight Sonata,” Yiannis Ritsos
	“She slept the world. You singing god, how did you so perfect her that she did not crave first to be awake? See, she arose and slept.” –”Sonnets to Orpheus,” Rainer Maria Rilke
	“I love you for your hands that calm and bless, The perfume of your sad and slow caress, The avid poison of your subtle kiss.” –”Sonnet Macabre,” Theodore Wratislaw
	“looking down on empty streets, all she can see are the dreams all made solid are the dreams all made real” –”Mercy Street,” Peter Gabriel
	“in our culture, where red is a warning, and men threaten each other with final violence: I will drink your blood. Your kiss is for them” –”Sleeping Beauty,” Olga Broumas

(more…)

MissDandy always seems to have awesome original handmade clothing, but this custom Mondrian skirt is extra-hip and perfect for summer.

This purple lace choker from jewelry artist Aranwen is so beautifully delicate and intricate. I love it!

I love that this adorable tunic was made by thimblescratch using all recycled fabric!

Etsy user omaha made this “primitive” journal to look aged, soft, and well-traveled, and she did an excellent job. I would love to be sitting in a cafe in some little French village, sketching away in this!

sheilasthings is having an extreme sale in her store right now, and so many of her lovely items are going for a song, such as this very round blue pot, for only $7!

I’ve decided to start doing a semi-daily (meaning: the days I remember to do it and/or have time) feature of five neato items found on Etsy. If you found something really cool on Etsy and would like to tell me about it, tell me about it in the comments!

I wouldn’t even be advertizing juror2’s ChefChop Tee or Apron if I didn’t know she could make more. I totally love this and want to buy one for my boyfriend’s younger brother, who’s going to culinary school. I had an opportunity to meet Ms. juror2 at Craftaluma a couple months ago (I bought a magnet with a pirate on it) and her illustrations look even better in person!

aorta makes all kinds of beautiful, one-of-a-kind applique clothing, often incorporating some of my favorite animals, squids! I’m totally digging this “>applique squid tie. She uses upcycled clothing for all of her creations, which gives them even more of a unique feel.

La Traviata- The Fallen Rabbit is one of my favorite paintings currently in amberalexander’s shop–but it was hard to choose because her watercolors are so lovely. I think the item description sells this print better than I ever could: She couldn’t help herself. She was a beautiful, young Rabbit and Men wanted her. Why shouldn’t she enjoy?

I’m really digging the jewelry that philosophia makes, incorporating real butterfly wings, such as this one, which also has a scrap of vintage paper trapped inside. I’m a real sucker for science-meets-art, and this fits the bill nicely.

motleymutton’s little needlefelted animal necklaces are always totally adorable, but I’ve never seen her make a bat before. The little goth girl inside of me is squealing with glee!

And that’s the five for today, folks! Tonight or tomorrow I will have another post talking all about the event that’s happening at Brownies Vintage tomorrow night!

I have been fighting an unusually slow internet connection for the past week or so, trying to get all my new items added to the Etsy shop–and trying to get caught up on items over at Dawanda. But there’s so much to do! I still have many pendants and rings ready to list, and dozens of buttons and beads, animal friends, housewares and more, to photograph and write listings for. I had no idea how much new stuff I’d actually made, until it came time to put it all online!

Meanwhile I seem to be building a little momentum: I’ve appeared on the Etsy homepage several times recently, and it’s earned me 270 hearts as of today. I’ve almost made the 100 sales mark too! It’s very exciting, and I’m working hard to keep promoting. I am considering buying a cooperative Etsy ad spot in CRAFT magazine that would be showing up this fall, I’m trying to get up the nerve to write to some blogs about my products, and I’m donating 30 of my Poem Drop Pendants to the sampler giveaway going on at Brownie’s Vintage in Berkeley, CA on August 15th. I’m in the middle of making them right now!

That’s right, the long-anticipated spiffing-up of my blog is now (mostly) complete! Thanks so much to my boy Orin Zebest for the redesign and for all his help and patience.

Speaking of Orin, he has lots of new photos from my last two craft fairs!

First there was the Renegade Craft Fair: San Francisco, where I, along with many other SFEtsy members, helped to stock the Etsy booth with lots of crafty goodness.

Here’s my display, with handcranked’s also visible in the background. We were right by the entrance–it was so exciting!

A close-up of my bead and button display. I used a vintage half-sized letterpress drawer.

My ring case. It’s a modified cigar box.

A close-up of the rings, on their bed of rice in the box.

And next. only two weeks later, there was the SFEtsy Handcrafter’s Faire, at the home of Linda Davis Designs.

Some of the members of my new line of Animal Friends, which will be going up in my shop any day now.

Napkin rings — more goodies to watch out for in my store!

I made a lot of new beads for this event, only some of which are seen here. There are also lots of new buttons, slightly to the left of what you can see here.

And probably my most exciting new project, this is a display of my Poem Drop Pendants–wee little ceramic droplets stamped with phrases or lines from poetry. These should start trickling into my shop today!

And there are already some new things in my shop today, including this new ring:

These last two craft fairs were fun, but I will be taking a break from public events for a while, to finally make time to organize all my small business registration gobbledegook. I will be doing some fairs in the fall/winter, hopefully, and in the meantime, I will have more time to devote to my online shops!

(”Shops”? Yes, there’s a plural now, because although I pretty much opened and then ran out of time to devote to it, I now also have a shop on the Euro-based site Dawanda, which will hopefully make my items more accessible to international customers, as well as those closer to home!

So, as it turns out, The SFEtsy Street Team, including yours truly, will be working the Etsy booth at the Renegade Craft Fair on July 12-13th, at Fort Mason in San Francisco. I will be selling some of my wares there as well! You can catch me from 1-4 on Saturday and 4-7 on Sunday, but please visit the booth any time you get the chance, as there will be lots of awesome sellers there to see!

I completely forgot to mention before, that my membership application to the Etsy Mud Team (their blog is here) was accepted, which is fantastic! They’re a really active group, with team challenges, an almost eerily active forum thread, and lots more. I’ve only been a member for a short while and I’ve already gotten tons of advice and met some really great people!

And today my custom rings were featured on the Etsy front page! Yaaaaay!

I’m ordering my business cards tonight. I’ll be sharing them with y’all as soon as I receive them!

Speaking of sharing, I finally got around to starting an announcement list for my shop. Please join! I don’t share your information with anyone, and there will be no more than 1 e-mail sent out per week (probably less), so I won’t be clogging up your mailbox. But you’ll be the first to know the latest info about new product lines, events and sales, and I will probably be doing the occasional list-only promotions and contest. Here’s the button to join:

Subscribe to Panopoly Creations

Email:

Visit this group

Oh, poor sad neglected blog, don’t worry–I haven’t forgotten you! Things have been crazy busy in my personal and work world (which at this point are basically one and the same!) and I haven’t had much time to write anything very interesting to put here.

Right now I am hard at work on ways to expand my products’ market, so I have been doing lots of mostly tedious researchy things in order to find good advertizing venues, figure out an advertizing budget, and put together promotional materials. I have found at least one site I would like to advertize with, that uses Project Wonderful, but I haven’t yet put a good banner together. Google AdWords gave me $50 free to advertize with them, so I’ve done that as well, with a small budget there to see how it goes.

I am also doing my first craft fair in July! One of the members of the SFEtsy Street Team is holding a small craft sale in her yard at 17301 E. Vineland Ave, Los Gatos, CA, on July 26, 11am-3pm, and I’m one of the 12 people selling there! Please check out this lovely Handcrafters’ Faire flyer for all the details!

Working on making a new shop banner, avatar, ads and business cards is very difficult for me. I have the skills necessary to do it, but I think like an artist, not a graphic designer, so it’s quite challenging for me to conceptualize this sort of thing. It’s a work in progress. At least I know where I’m getting my business cards now (Overnight Prints), so that’s a step in the right direction.

I am, happily, also working on new things, but my other business/hobby has been taking lots of time away from my ceramics. Nevertheless, my shop is now sporting some new wee little housewares, along with a new listing for custom-made ceramic rings, in any size you like! I’m very very excited about the latter.

In the past month or so I’ve been doing a lot of “behind the scenes” stuff. I’ve made some absolutely adorable animal miniatures, lots and lots more beads and rings, created many new molds and produced lots of buttons from them, and I’ve also gotten a set of tiny little letter stamps so I can start making personalized rings and rings with phrases on them. Whee!

So, I shall be turning my attention more to this blog once I’m not being required to spend so much time on the computer doing researchy and designery things. I get very burnt out on sitting in front of the computer and there’s so many other great things I could be doing!

I have returned from my short reprieve from blogging and internet shenanigans! Unfortunately my break from the internet as a whole never happened–there’s always one more thing that comes up, you know? But, well, it’s not all that unfortunate, and I still managed to get a lot of offline work done. I am sooo excited about the new things I’m working on! Meanwhile, there are lots of new(ish) things in my shop that I have been meaning to show off here!