Wolf's Den

I realized after listing my latest cuff, that I haven't done a recent new items post. So here we go!



'Green Leaves'
Handmade Kumihimo cuff
7.5" long x 2" wide

Fits wrists 7.5" to 9"





'Tiger Burning Bright'
Handmade Kumihimo and beadwork cuff
7" long x 2" wide

Fits wrists 6.5" to 8.5"




'Fire and Ice'
Handmade Kumihimo bracelet
5" long x .5" wide

Fits wrists 5.5" to 7"




'Desert Sagebrush'
Handmade Kumihimo cuff
6.5"long x 2" wide

Fits wrists 6.5" to 8.75"

I have 6 other cuffs in progress- well, 4 cuffs and 2 bracelets- and one kumihimo necklace in the works. So I'll be busy for the next week or so.}:) Stay tuned!

Safety First!
Handmade Kumihimo Cuff
7" long x 2" wide

Fits wrists 7" to 9"

* * *

Tired of not coordinating your accesories with your safety orange hunting vest? Missing the neon orange of the 80s? Want some dayglo orange for that rave coming up? Want to dazzle the school kids at your crossing guard job?

Look no more!

Safety First! is a handmade 8 strand kumihimo cuff made from dayglo/safety orange yarn, I believe to be 100% acrylic, possibly acrylic/wool blend. This awesomely bright yarn is from the Team BNA Traveling Swap Box and found its home with me.

This is a fun cuff! It features a gloriously cool handmade stoneware flower by Lisa Peters ART, securely attached to the cuff with a Czech glass druk bead in teal with a vitrial coating. The flower itself color coordinates with the cuff itself, with a glazing of cobalt, hints of teal and bright orange.

The ends of this spectacularly bright- and I mean bright!- cuff are handbeaded in peyote stitch, using 6lb FireLine, with Czech glass seed beads in cobalt and teal. The clasp is a silver plated extension chain and lobster claw clasp.

Amaze your friends! Blind the deer or wild turkey or men or whatever you chose to hunt! Flash back to the 80s! Where ever you wear it, Safety First! is sure to turn heads! If not completely blind people!

The first 3 photos are taken in direct sunlight- including this one. They serve to show just how bright this cuff is. The last 2 photos were taken in indirect sunlight. When I say neon, I mean neon!

Available HERE!(For now, Zibbet and Artfire soon.)

So I ordered some more yarn from an Etsy seller I bought a skein from last month.

Enroute to me, before it even left their CITY, it somehow got 'Missent', according to the tracking.

Contacted the seller, and said hey, we might want to keep an eye on this because of what it's saying. I'd never had it happen to me before, I'd never seen a 'missent' tracking update, so wasn't sure what we needed to do.

Well, the good news is, the seller has had this happen before.

The bad news is, the seller has had this happen before.

They said it'll go to the town my brother lives in, back to their town, then SHOULD come to me.

Their closing statement doesn't fill me with confidence in our postal system or in them either- 'Hope you get it!:)'

Yeah.}:/

Last night, I filled out a stolen/missing mail online form and sent it in. Tracking never updated until early this morning.

You know what's worse than seeing the tracking updated to 'out for delivery', knowing that your mail has already gone and it's not here?

The SELLER saying, well, hope you get it and doing nothing on their end to find out what has happened to the package THEY sent.

Congrats, seller, no matter how much I love your yarns, that just cost you future purchases from me.

I'm not perfect, but holy cow, part of a seller's job is to make sure the package gets to the customer, not wash your hands of it as soon as it's in the mail and say well, hope you get it, leaving it to the customer to figure out what happened to the package, when it never arrives.

What a farce this has become.

Long story short- This seller/blogger asked what other ETSY SELLERS thought of someone taking one of their items and posting a DIY tutorial online about it. Overwhelming negative responses.

She apparently had done it anyway...

http://slapdashmom.com/diy-tile-coasters/

And the backlash was astounding. So much so, that she made another blog post about the fact that people were literally questioning the existance of her kids, the validity of her daughter's shop -which IS legit, by the way- the validity of one of her blog posts about surrogacy, etc...

So I tried being polite, unlike others who started tearing into her kids, etc (that ain't kosher in my book. You may have a beef with someone, but don't bring their kids into it, they didn't do a damn thing to deserve it.)

Kestris - Please don’t ever buy anything from me. Ever.

A lot of time, care, joy and effort goes into creating my items. It would be a big slap to the face if you bought something and tried to recreate it, only to fail miserably because you don’t have the proper materials, supplies, experience and then to have my shops’ names on that blog would be the icing on the insult cake.

Do yourself a favor and create your own items, stop trying to dissect what others do simply because you feel you can do better, for cheaper. Eventually you’re going to do that to the wrong person’s items and they’ll end up sueing you for copyright infringement.

And yes, the sharpie WILL wear off. Run them through the dishwasher and they’ll start coming off immediately. Why? Because you didn’t use the proper tools for the job.

SlapDashMom - I don’t have a dishwasher, but thanks for the tip. :) I never said I could do better (I even poked fun at myself because I am NOT an artist), just said I wouldn’t spend $32 on coasters and recreated a set for 52 cents.

Kestris - Even handwashing them, the sharpie will wear off. They may say ‘permanent marker’ but on ceramic, plastics, and even fabrics, they are not.
Like I said before, you’d do better with your own designs instead of trying to copy someone else’s, artist or not.

SlapDashMom - They’re coasters. We don’t really wash them too often… but like I said, so far so good! :) There are literally thousands of people that post tiles + sharpies, yet because I was trying to link to an Etsy shop and get them some attention it’s “oh so horrible”. Go troll elsewhere and for heaven’s sake stop trying to get traffic from my blog by linking yours… I’m going to remove your link every. single. time.

Kestris - Oh for cryin’ out loud.

If I was trying to get clicks for my blog, I’d have linked to my public one, not the one with a single public post from well over a month ago.

And yes, there ARE many DIY tile coasters with sharpies out there. And I bet all of them didn’t link to an Etsy shop and make it inadvertantly look like you were deriding the cost of them and saying you could do better.

I tried being polite to you, unlike some of the other commenters and now you call me a troll. I tried giving you some advice about the sharpies- so your KIDS wouldn’t be disappointed when the tiles they may make for your mom inevitably wear off- cause coasters DO get dirty, you know, they will need to be washed eventually, even if it’s just a dusting once in awhile, the sharpie WILL come off.

And you called me a troll. That’s real mature. Nice example to set for your children. (Your comment is awaiting moderation.)

(And my last comment was still showing as waiting to be moderated, which means, it'll likely never show up on the blog.)


Maybe I was rather blunt, but compared to the other comments both here, on the Regretsy forums AND in the Etsy forums- I was downright sugarcoated nice. Why? Because I've used sharpies as they were intended before, and hey, guess what? They came back off when I washed the items in question (mini tupperware bowl lids I had used as misc. bead holders and written the contents of on). It will wash out of fabric- sharpie was used to mark my Marine Corps uniforms, after 3 washings, the name was gone and had to be remarked. Even on ceramic and glass it will wipe off, maybe not right away but eventually it will. Been there, done that.

And she called me a troll.

So I hand dyed some 100% pima cotton yarn a few days ago. Ok, actually I did it Friday, it sat over the weekend and I rinsed it yesterday.



I am in love with these colors. Rich, vibrant and deep. They're only 5-10 yd skeins, but that's plenty for what I do with it. And they're exactly the colors I wanted.



These two are mixed colors. The top one is Butterscotch and Rust Orange. The bottom one is Camel and Khaki.



These two are single colors. Top is Curry. Bottom is Pumpkin Spice.

Why'd I dye these in such autumny colors?



For these of course.}:P A whole slew of gorgeous new pieces from Lisa Peters ART.

Hope to have a few new cuffs listed on Etsy, Artfire and Zibbet in the next week or so! Stay tuned!

'Wine and Roses'




'Rose and Lavender'




'Whirligig'




'Meditation'

These are also available at Artfire and Zibbet

Ok. Making a choice here.

Despite not being happy about the AF Assurance plan thingy- I still plan to opt out- I've worked too hard to just walk away flat out. So I guess, until I see it starting to affect my views and sales, I'll keep listing things here in the meantime. And promoting my Zibbet and Big Cartel shops more and more as well.

And just like that, as soon as I put the 2 cuffs and 1 necklace I had over on Zibbet and Big Cartel up on Artfire, double digit views. Ok, I might have twittered the links too, like usual. But still. THAT is why I stick around, honestly. If I avoid the forums which are turning into a bullying playground, and only read what I need to read to keep up with whatever new program I'm going to have to decide whether I want to opt out or in to, I should be ok.

I walked away from Etsy cold, selling wise and I definitely saw a change in views, mostly for the better. But my sales didn't really increase either. So, who knows. I've yet to find a site that works better over the others yet. But I keep trying.