Broken Bindings

I am not going to talk about my vintage stuff, my teenage sons or my writing (lack of) career today.

Not even going to show you any weird stuff I found on the thrift store shelves (even though I saw a ceramic angel this week with huge nipples - but the picture didn't come out very well, so no one would believe anyway how disturbing it was to see an angelic little cherub with giant headlights).

After a snowy pre-Halloween weekend where I was grounded from all yard saling, I'm going to write instead about my second shop on etsy.com that I opened a little over a month ago, Broken Bindings.

After a slow start I was losing all hope that any of my handmade jewelry from old children's books, atlases and dictionaries would sell, and then five pieces went in the last few weeks - and that just makes me happy.

This Sacred pendant made with a piece of antique dictionary was the one to break the ice. Felt like a spiritual blessing of the shop as its first sale.

 The next two sales to leave my worktable, made their way to the same customer. One is made from an old reading primer, See Pat Go, and a silver vintage Sarah Coventry bracelet.

The other is this fun set of a ring and earrings made from an old Lets Go to the Circus children's book. These are both some of my favorites that were sitting unnoticed in my other shop for quite awhile, so I was extra happy to see them make their way out into the word. 

I almost kept this one for myself, but decided to put it in the shop as well, and glad I did as it sold next. A little Yoga and Yogi definitions from an old dictionary, now a necklace.

And last (hopefully just for now) is a piece of vintage atlas of Key West I put under a glass cabochon and mounted on a silver-toned pendant setting with little flowers around it. Kind of wanted to keep this one for myself too, but I was a good shopkeeper and sold it to a lovely lady in Alabama.

My sales in Broken Bindings are not near those in my vintage shop Found Things, but there are only 17 pieces in total for sale (vs. 250 in the vintage shop) and it has just started so doesn't have the same exposure, but I'm good with that. Just enjoy making these pieces from old paper and hope someone else will enjoy wearing them...although certainly an added bonus to make a little extra money doing something I enjoy so much.

Quirky

Quirky...love that word...quirky.

One of those words that if you say it over and over again, it starts to sound weirder and weirder...or quirkier.

I have been called "quirky" myself, actually. I've been called much worse, so I don't mind.
And maybe that's why I have some odd little things in my etsy shop.

Here's some highlights.Who doesn't need a snake charmer bank from the 70's? I certainly do.
And Book Worm bookends. Everyone needs a set of these.


I'm not even sure why I grabbed this funky little dish off the thrift store shelf, but she appealed to me.

I even like to make quirky jewelry. Put these little crows from a vintage "Four and Twenty Black Birds" children's book under a glass cabochon, and then mounted it to an old metal brooch I found at an estate sale.

Can't wait to find the next weird...I mean quirky...thing.

St. Pauls and a New Shop

It was a busy weekend for me in the etsy world. I did make a few sales, but it was more about trying to find some fresh merchandise for Found Things, my vintage on-line shop. September was busy getting kids back to school and fall sports...blah, blah, blah...long and short, it was not so great a month in sales and I had to take a hard look at my stock.

Conclusion. A little shabby.

Luckily, the best cure for adding new, and good quality, merchandise to the old etsy shop is a church sale...and there were two this weekend (my hands still fly to my mouth as I think of this, so exciting). Yes, I am that pathetically simple that even the thought of a church fundraiser, filled with little old church lady things for sale, makes me bounce in my seat.
Even more luckily for me, Linda (aka: the other blond), her mom Lee and even her daughter Emily - who was visiting from Philadelphia -- are also like minded, or simple minded, whatever, so I was in good company bright and early on Saturday morning as we made our way to St. Pauls in York and filled our bags with goodies.

The first thing I spotted was this beautiful porcelain figure of Kwan Yin, goddess of mercy and goodness - she rocks.
She is standing, holding a tall lotus blossom while her robes are blowing in the wind. The base is decorated with water, waves and more lotus flower blossoms. She is also known as Guanyin and Quan Yin. I may have trouble parting with her.

On the other end of the spectrum of cool was this exercise video from the 80's that made me giggle. I think my mom might have worked-out to this in our living room in front of the console TV when I was a teenager, and I think I might have laughed at her...in fact I'm certain I did. Of course I was probably snorting through my braces, ponytail on top of my head and striped leg-warmers pulled up too high, so I'm sure she was laughing right back at me.


In addition to hunting down old stuff, I love making pendants, rings and bracelets with bits and pieces of vintage jewelry, mixed with old illustrations, dictionary pages and atlases.

My Jewelry felt like it was getting lost in the vintage items in my etsy shop, so I decided to open a second shop just for the jewelry called Broken Bindings...

http://www.etsy.com/shop/heathermosko1?ref=si_shop

This is a piece I just made using an old dictionary - the word "Divination" under a glass cabochon. Hoping it will appeal to people during the Halloween Season.
So here's hoping October is a more profitable one than September with some lucky goddesses and a fresh etsy shop...fingers crossed.

Halloween is Coming...yay

You wouldn't know it to look at me..housewife, 43, driving the car pool to football practice...but inside beats the heart of the Queen of the Damned Vampires from the Underworld Werewolf Coven..in other words, I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

It probably stems from Halloween being my first taste of freedom. When I was little my father and our neighbor would follow far behind us, sipping beers (this wasn't frowned upon in 1975) and letting us run ahead to ring doorbells. We felt like we were big kids out there on our own - although secretly happy to catch a glimpse of moonlight reflecting off the Bud cans in the distance.

When I was eleven my parents released the reins completely on Halloween and my friends and I were allowed to go out in the neighborhood on our own unsupervised...at night...dressed up...scoring Reeses Peanut Butter cups...in the dark and everything...it was the coolest thing EVER. None of this was frowned upon in 1975 either in case you were thinking of calling child protective services.

So when October 31st approaches, I get that old giddy feeling and my jewelry-making takes a decided turn to the spooky. I already enjoy making steam punk pieces, so it doesn't take much to push a little more over to the dark side

Here are some pieces I made the other night and put in my etsy shop.
This is a vintage necklace and pendant I found at a yard sale, but it once held a plastic cabochon with a smiley-faced-sun picture...not anymore...bwaahaaa...I ripped out that smiley face and replaced it with an illustration of a cobweb from an old children's fairy tale book and sealed it with resin. Hoping this will make some little witch very happy.

I got a little spooky-Steam Punk with this piece made from a vintage chain and adorned with a crystal from an antique chandelier (picked up at an estate sale last summer). Also with a pendant made using an illustration from an old Four and Twenty Black-Birds book.


This one isn't really macabre, but has an old, mysterious feel. I cut out the word "sacred" from an antique dictionary and put it behind glass. The clear sealant gave it an even darker, more aged look than it had originally. Perfect gift for your secret society friends.

I am just a little sad this year that the boys might be officially too old to go out trick-or-treating. But maybe not, they may surprise me. They also like the freedom of running around with their friends in the dark without parental supervision. Although I never walked behind them with a beer in my hand...some spiked cider or a Cosmo in a coffee-cup maybe...but not beer.

So International

Along with selling old stuff that appeals to people who like to buy old stuff in my etsy.com shop, I also make and sell jewelry (also made from old stuff) as well.

My favorite way to make jewelry is to re-purpose old pendants and necklaces, and create cabochons by cutting out pieces of old (damaged beyond repair) children's book illustrations or maps and atlases.

The last three pieces I sold were made by placing text from vintage books under glass cabochons and mounting them in findings from another etsy.com seller who sells jewelry-making supplies. This "go" ring is a favorite of mine and I'm very happy it is headed to a buyer in the mid-west.I enjoy creating jewelry from items that were once discarded and I really get a kick out of it when someone likes these creations enough to spend their hard-earned cash to buy them. And I get a double-kick out of it when it is someone from another country - I don't know why, just makes me feel all international and cool and stuff.

These two necklaces were just sent off to their new home in Nice, France.

And these two pendants I made from re-purposing vintage jewelry pieces and illustrations from an old "Four And Twenty Black Birds" children's book wended their way to Greece.And this brooch is currently adorning the lapel of someone's coat on the Isle of Kent in the UK.Now if I could just figure out how to package myself up and mail myself along with my jewelry to these wonderful places, I'd really be excited!

Two Steps Forward and Three Steps Back - A Rant

Linda and I want to open a little shop to sell books, vintage and antique items and handmade gifts...that's all. We don't want to open a brothel, or a business that creates loud noise or pollution.

And we would like to make this little low-key venture in a building that was created over a hundred-years ago for the express purpose of being a store front in the business district also created expressly for small businesses.

So you would think, given this information, that it would be a fairly painless process in our small Pennsylvania burg to set about opening our shop and start the, not inconsiderable, process of fixing up the place and stocking it with merchandise...but you would be wrong.

Just to start the process requires zoning reviews and plot plans and parking waivers and Planning Board approval meetings...ahhh. And seriously, that is just the first step. So this is my rant...OK, now I'm done.

Tomorrow morning the other blond and I are going to set out early to a few local yard sales and do what we love, hunt for stuff other people are looking to buy. I am remembering why having virtual store is a whole lot less complicated than a real one. No Planning Board meetings or plot plans required.

Where to Begin

Now that Linda and I have moved from "kinda sure" we want to open a used book/vintage/handmade store into "yes, let's do this" territory, I am feeling a little overwhelmed with where to begin.

I have written a list...ok, five...of what has to get done to start on the road to business ownership, and its a long one. Tax ID numbers, should we be a LLC or Inc. and how where do we even start on the paperwork we need to get approved by the town? Haven't even gotten into insurance and remodeling...ugh.

I'm going to try to take this one line item on our list....lists...at a time. First is to meet tomorrow with the guy from the township who steers us to the forms and committees needed to start the approval process. Fun times.

I am looking forward to the point when we dig into sheet rock, paint, shelves and inventory, this I have control over. Finding inventory and getting my hands dirty is my thing, committees and forms, not so much.

At least tomorrow morning I can check off the first item on our list...only twenty-eight more to go.

twoblondsandavan.blogspot.com/

Etsy Treasuries

If you have not explored the Etsy.com site yet, you gotta. I am continually amazed at the things people can create.

One of the fun ways to see all the different kinds of things etsy.com has to offer, is to explore the "Treasuries." These are themed collages of items for sale, created by etsy members.

This is a list of the treasuries I've created (click on the title to see the full collage)...

http://www.etsy.com/people/hmmosko/treasury?sort=creation_date&order=desc

Once you start exploring the wares for sale on etsy and realize the beautiful things you can buy directly from the artists, you will find yourself going back again and again. Enjoy!

Blogging and Etsy

I have talked before about the connections made through etsy - online magazines and bloggers. Today, Aleya, who has a blog called StyleMache, contacted me through etsy and let me know she had added one of my up-cycled necklaces to her blog about creating with found objects (use what you have).

Here's the necklace I made with odd bits of vintage jewelry she added to her blog...


And here is the link to her blog...

http://stylemache.blogspot.com/2011/02/etsy-round-up-upcycling2008-recycling20.html

Playing with Words

I love words.

I love writing them in stories and creating characters, dialog, places, relationships. They are my paintbrush.

Since I have decided to give that part of me - the author, writing part of my brain -- a sabbatical, I find it funny that even as I try a new creative outlet in jewelry making, I still come back to words.

Here are a few pieces I made last night and put up on my etsy.com shop tonight...

Words, words, words...it always comes back to words.

Now?....Now?...Did I sell something now?

Hello, my name is Heather and I am addicted...to checking my etsy.com shop.

I am sure there has been some study done somewhere, sometime, with rats, where they step on a button and a food pellet is released into their cage. One rodent steps on it and every time a pellet comes shooting out at them, while a different rat in the next cage steps on it and only randomly does a food pellet appear.

If I had to guess, the rat that always received the food whenever it stepped on the button would just step on it when he, or she, was hungry, with calm certainly that each time they would be rewarded...not obsessively, like the rat who is randomly given the food, I bet that rat hits that damn button every chance it gets thinking that this time...no, this time...no, this time...ahhh...the *&%*?! pellet will shoot out.

Sometimes I feel like the rat with the random rewards. There are times when it seems that I have the right stuff in my shop and I sell one, maybe two, items in a day. This makes me feel on the right track with what I'm selling and that I'm not wasting my time or my life -- and I am rewarded by the food pellet gods.

Other times, I can go several days without a sale, and each day that ticks by, I notice the amount of time between when I check the etsy site becomes shorter and shorter. Did I sell something now...now...now... (where are the darn food pellets!)

Winter Makes Me Feel Crafty

And not in the "crafty" way of being clever either...just in the way that I like to sit on a cold, gray day by the fire with a bunch of old buttons, glue, jewelry findings and falling apart children's books...ooh, how romantic.

I know there are probably people who would rather be skiing (actually, that does sound good), or snuggled up with their honeys with a cup of hot cocoa (oh, that sounds good too), but I love to spend a nice winter's afternoon, like yesterday, with scissors and pliers - don't ask, had a brain storm about using old electronic boards to make steam punk jewelry, still working the bugs out on that idea -- and made a few rings, necklaces and a brooch.

Here are a few of my creations...

Oh, I hope its a long winter, I've got a lot of ideas!