what to wear to a wedding?

i am a card carrying and fee paying seller on ETSY.com.

there, i said it. 

i just don't get to many of my tasks there in time.

it is a huge site and one that may well have saved my life at some point. 

as habits go, our family tries to do things that can encompass our many and widely flung interests. 

otherwise how would a jewelry obsessed woman coexist with an equally interested comic book officianado, an carpenter, and a quirky 14 year old jock ?

before "BORDERS" closed this year,

 we would all pile into the car and go out for an evening of quiet fun. 

our idea of a good time was to claim the squishy chairs, 

order a cup of tea, hot chocolate or coffee 

and sit in their cafe reading until someone started whining, 

we got hungry for dinner 

or 

someone had a game to go to.

it was leisurely and replenishing to my creative needs. 

also extremely cost sensitive. 

during one of these sorties, 

i ran across a magazine that featured an artist that made my jaw drop and my pores sweat. 

i found out that this woman sold the things she made on a site called etsy. 

her jewelry was not inexpensive nor was it made from cheap materials. 

she wound rubies, vintage refitted jewelry and all sorts of things together with style. 

it was style that made my mouth water with a kind of lust not felt for a long time. 

i went home from that bookstore visit to open my own  etsy store. 

i posted some charm bracelets and to my delight 2 sold the very next day!!

i had NO idea of my beginner's luck. 

i was really grateful as well as motivated to make more things and load my store asap. 

the sales that were going to make me rich were very slow in coming, 

but i was getting some interesting feedback. 

someone suggested that they were interested in only enamel flowers. 

and i had quite a few of these. 

i could get more too. 

wishing in retrospect, that i had all of the ones available at the time, sigh,

 i would have made a small fortune. 

it was an interesting enough project, so i started a second store to sell only components. 

things went along for quite a while, busily enough...

but folks who bought my enamel flowers were making nice jewelry. 

i became jealous. 

there i said it. 

not the best of my sensibilities, but an honest one. 

so i started to push my jewelry in the first store. 

many things have happened since this commitment was made, 

but i truly started to follow my heart.

it was a leap of faith so to speak. 

it took a lot of lean days and manipulated wire to get to a steady place with it all. 

still, lacking was the immediate interactions with customers. 

the ones where in face to face situations, you get a lot of info out of one look. 

determined, i kept at things. 

fighting the copyists and just trying to stay true to my own sensibilities. 

one of the things not easily seen was the audience that my  on-line sales were reaching. 

still to this day, i have no idea who is looking and at what. 

so i follow what makes me happy to make when i have the time and materials to do so. 

i made a crazy bib of pearly goodness for speculative sale in 2008. 

it sold to one of the best friends of one of my dear friends. 

it was for a gift from one unknown bff to another. 

these two women had been interwoven since graduate school together and they remain as close as ever. 

so  i had made a necklace that i knew, my friend would not like.

her bff was sure she would. 

it was about the pearls. 

boy i was wrong. 

these two women both loved the necklace. and for ever so many reasons, 

i did too. 

i was thrilled to be a part of their triangle of adoration. 

just recently, another woman requested a reprisal of this neckie. 

and i thought it would eat up time i had no reason to fritter now. 

but its composition and elegance with a heaping side of eccentric, 

made it one of my new all time favorites. 

it just flowed together. 

sometimes that happens, 

sometimes it doesn't. 

happily, this time it really did come together easily and with a mote of self congratulations...

quite beautifully. 

i know no one is supposed to wear white to any wedding. 

not upstaging the bride is a good goal to try to achieve. 

however this new commission was intended to be worn to an upcoming event. 

i think it is quirky and interesting enough to be a gracious guest at the wedding. 

my hats off to the lady who asked me to make this for her. 

her vision and expectations should not do anything to upset her bride. 

and she ought to look most excellent in this confection. 

wishing her and "binney II"

the greatest luck on their journey to witness fresh nuptuals. 

xoxo. 

W.