The Birds and the Beads

Loved this video of a rather unique set of friends – a lab and a dolphin! And you can read about this pair, here.

Okay – this has nothing to do with beads. Or birds. But for us country folk beset and besieged by mosquitoes, I must share this pearl of wisdom.

Because I have an extraordinarily thick head… some things take a while to percolate. But last summer a good friend, covered in welts garnered while swimming in the back yard here, said not to worry – she’d just go home and dab them with a bit of rubbing alcohol, and they’d go right away. I was skeptical. So skeptical, in fact, that it took me about one year, two months, and three days to actually try it.

One night last week, after weeding the garden, I came in with a welt or two on each arm. As I washed the dirt off of my grubby paws, my glance fell upon the bottle of alcohol based hand sanitizer on the counter, left over from the swine flu rigmarole, and I thought, well, why not try it? So I put a little dab on all the welts. By the time it had dried, they no longer itched. Two hours later, the welts were completely gone.

Since then, I’ve treated another dozen mosquito bites thusly, and they’ve all cleared up just as quickly. Had to pass this one on.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled birds and beads.

In addition to selling on the Lytha Studios website, I also have an Etsy store with a limited selection of some of my favorite beads. As my Etsy store has grown, I have became more and more frustrated at how difficult it is to find and edit an item through the “My Etsy” system. Fortunately for me – I’m married to a genius! Eric has made me a “bookmarklet” (a small application that runs from a browser bookmark) that allows me to directly edit my listing if I am viewing it. That is to say – I can use the excellent “shop search” feature to find my listing, open it, and then just click a bookmark to edit my listing. If you have an Etsy store and this sounds useful to you, then read on…

Here is how to use it:

Step 1: Click and drag the following link into your browser bookmarks (either in your browser toolbar, or up into the bookmark folder): Edit This Etsy Listing

Step 2: Browse to your Etsy store, and view one of your listings.

Step 3: Once you are viewing a listing you would like to edit (it should have “listing_id=NNNN” in the URL), click in your new “Edit This Etsy Listing” bookmark.

Step 4: Make your edits and click “Finish”! Don’t forget to click “Finish”, or it will move the listing to your “inactive items” list (even if you didn’t actually make any changes).

For the geeks in the audience, Eric has more information about this on his business blog at New Rivers Digital

Good afternoon bead lovers. I’m in between “regular” newsletters, and have just a few quick updates for you on this gorgeous Thursday afternoon (at least here in Virginia).

In my last newsletter, I passed along some excellent news for makers of children’s jewelry on the CPSIA front. It turns out that celebration was premature – the stay on the enforcement of the new law was overturned by a federal court on February 9th, and the new rules are once again in effect.

The CPSC is considering allowing “natural, lead-free” items to be used without certification – pearls, some precious metals and precious gems. But that is little help to those using jewelry wire, pewter, Swarovski crystal, and other beading necessities. Even if the components have all been certified (such as TierraCast pewter), the CPSIA law still requires that the final product be tested regardless.

I’ve got a more detailed blog post on this subject with lots of links:
http://lythastudios.com/blog/?p=443

If this issue concerns you, please make some phone calls to your congress-critters and send some e-mails to the CPSC!

Have a great March! — Erin
http://www.123bead.com

Continue Reading »

On Friday (Jan 30th, 2009), the CPSC announced a one year stay on the enforcement of the onerously written CPSIA lead-testing law, which would have, in effect, killed the handmade/hand-crafted trade focusing on goods for children.

The law has not been overturned, and it remains for each of us to be vigilant and actively involved in working to rewrite the law so it works as intended. But for the time being, a reprieve.

And now… to the beading table.

– Erin

The new online venue for Handmade art (including Jewelry, of course) has been the subject of discussion recently on my favorite forum – Starving Jewelry Artists. And as excited reports of sales from the Artfire marketplace started to trickle in, I thought well – I’ll go check it out. They don’t charge listing fees or selling fees, but instead offer a flat rate of $7/month (for life) to participate as a seller. So I set up an account, and listed some TierraCast, cats eye, and a few pieces of finished jewelry. In the past twelve hours I’ve gotten more views than I do in a week on Etsy, so that is encouraging, although there isn’t a lot of competition yet.

Artfire is still in Beta testing – they don’t have all the features up and running yet, but it looks like they have thought out some really cool ideas. In any case, I’ll let you know what happens. You can click the link to the right to sign up (they have a free option that lets you list up to 10 items) or the $7/monthly.

A couple of people wrote and asked about my pumpkin cheesecake recipe after the last newsletter, and I’m happy to oblige. I can’t take credit for this recipe – it is from Libby’s (the people who make the cans of pumpkin and pumpkin pie), but I’ve made a few edits, and I hope you enjoy. Two years ago – I made 30 cheesecakes over the holidays – I gave just about everyone I know a cheesecake as a gift that year.

Happy cooking, and Happy Holidays!

Libby’s Pumpkin Cheesecake

Continue Reading »

One of our most popular annual sales is on! All of our gorgeous, versatile TierraCast Bead Caps are currently on 15% off. I love these fantastic caps, and use them in just about every project I make.

• Small Bead Caps
• Large Bead Caps
• Flat & Cone Bead Caps

Prices are good for orders placed through November 7th, 2008.

You can follow us on Twitter now at: twitter.com/lythastudios!

My whole life has been one big obsession with color. As a younger lady, I made embroidery floss bracelets by the barrel full, and had more colors than DMC! My Chemistry teacher was inundated with purple and green inked lab reports. Bob Ross was (and still is) my hero!

I’m still a glutton for color. And I couldn’t pass up the chance to add these fabulous Marvy® Terra Cotta pens to my collection and to my store.

These new indoor and outdoor markers are a fabulous way to bring distinction and color to your terra cotta garden pots, unglazed tiles, and more. They’re great on pottery, wood, plaster statues, most foam products, stone, canvas and more.

The opaque water-based pigmented acrylic paint is lightfast, odorless, water resistant, acid-free and non-toxic. Be sure to sure your markers horizontally to keep them from drying up. 6mm tip.

Well, it has taken weeks of late nights (is it really 4:43am right now?!), but we have completed a significant rebuild of the Lytha Studios site (not the blog). Lots of technology has changed behind the scenes, the design has been updated, and a great deal of the photography has been redone.

123Bead site: you are next!

I’m sure there are still some lurking issues and hidden “gotchas”, so if you come across something, please let us know!

Yesterday was the Winter Solstice, and the official last day of shipping for delivery on Christmas Eve. Hallelujah! The past six weeks have been one big adrenaline rush, and it feels so good to relax today – to putter around the office, catching up on my favorite blogs, doing a little picking up and putting away in between blog articles. The biggest question on my plate today is how I’m going to make my famous pumpkin cheesecake for Christmas, when the local grocery no longer sells plain cans of pumpkin. It feels good to be worrying about cooking, and not inventory, shipping deadlines and rush orders!

On Christmas Eve, we’ll have an early dinner with Eric’s parents in Kilmarnock, followed by an evening at home baking cookies for Santa, and watching Christmas movies. If I can find my tuner, there may be some Christmas harping by yours truly.

My mother is coming to visit on Christmas, and will stay a few days, which is always one of the best parts of Christmas. On the day after Christmas, she spends most of the afternoon in the office with me, making sample bags, putting together TierraCast mixes, and generally reveling in all the beads and goodness. After a good afternoon’s work, we’ll go see the sights and sounds of Kilmarnock, and visit our favorite restaurant for our annual day-after-Christmas dinner.

I’m looking forward to our holiday with friends and family, and excited about what 2008 will bring! Wishing everyone Happy Holidays, and a wonderful New Year! — Erin