The
first two links below take you to the camp’s website and our own personal story,
respectively. The third and last link takes you to the contest where your daily
vote for Camp John Marc's tree (on all available browsers--Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, etc!) can make a huge difference
in a sick child’s life next year. Please take the 5 seconds needed to click on
that green Vote button and help support this fabulous camp!
Monday, December 17, 2012
Please help Camp John Marc love on sick kids!
Please
help! The nonprofit camp that so helped our chronically ill child is running
neck and neck with another top contender (Humane Society) in a contest for a
large charitable gift - one which could send many more chronically sick or
disabled kids from Scottish Rite and other Texas children's hospitals to their spring
and summer camps. This camp is directed
by a dear couple we know well, with volunteer medical staff and counselors who can
love on kids with burns, arthritis, cancer, spina bifida, heart disease, hemophilia,
muscular dystrophy, and other chronic conditions. The children are given the
opportunity to meet other kids who share their same challenges along with the
tools to best manage their condition in day to day life.
Friday, August 10, 2012
You Gotta Look the Part
The lady who brought us the little black dress, Chanel suits, and my favorite perfume also worked in style, apparently. I don't know why it never occurred to me to wear a hat and five strands of pearls at my beading table.
Please tell me she has an Ott lamp somewhere. (And an ash tray.)
Please tell me she has an Ott lamp somewhere. (And an ash tray.)
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Oh eBay, you make me laugh... ;D
Okay...I thought I'd seen some outspoken sellers on eBay, but this one ranks up there with the best. I mean, don't these listing sentiments just make you want to jump in and BID??
"SO SELLERS LOOK CLOSELY BEFORE YOU BUY BECAUSE THIS ITEM WILL NOT BE RETURNDE. I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE YOU TRY TO RIP ME OFF BY PICKING WHICH ITEMS YOU WANT AND RETURN THE REST."
Now there's a business relationship of mutual respect and trust.
Um, think I'll pass. ;)
"SO SELLERS LOOK CLOSELY BEFORE YOU BUY BECAUSE THIS ITEM WILL NOT BE RETURNDE. I AM NOT GOING TO HAVE YOU TRY TO RIP ME OFF BY PICKING WHICH ITEMS YOU WANT AND RETURN THE REST."
Now there's a business relationship of mutual respect and trust.
Um, think I'll pass. ;)
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Genuine Beauty - Audrey's Take On It...
Today I'm sharing a great quote from Etsy's Vintage Penny Lane:
"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone."
Audrey Hepburn
"For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone."
Audrey Hepburn
Monday, April 30, 2012
Tell me about your best vintage jewelry find!
If you've been collecting long enough, you're sure to have at least one good story about a terrific find. Maybe it was at a garage sale, maybe it was put curbside with the trash, and maybe you even snapped it up online. For me, half the fun of collecting is the hunt, and the stories that go with some of the finds.
One of my very good finds was a 1950 Trifari faux moonstone and sapphire necklace that someone had put curbside...but that's another tale. For my all-time best buy, it has to be the rhinestone, pearl, and blue-black enameled parure that I bought on eBay several years ago that turned out to be a set from Trifari's Empress Eugenie Series.
Designed by Trifari's premiere designer, Alfred Philippe, in 1940, the series was one of several based on the crown jewels of Empress Eugenie. I've seen the necklace elsewhere online, but without the three drops. My necklace has alternating pave rhinestone links, another variation to the other one I've seen where the links are all goldtone. It must have hardly been worn--it's in pristine condition.
The bracelet has the same beautiful pave rhinestone, pearl, and blue-black enameling. The earrings are screw back style, though I've since acquired a clam shell shape in this series also that are clip.
How good a price did I get? My lips are sealed, but I will admit that I was the only bidder. ;D It was listed simply as "Pearl Necklace Set" and it had two exceedingly crummy, blurry pictures. While I didn't know it was Trifari at the time I bought it, I could at least tell it was likely quality workmanship--even in the blur, it seemed there was a lot of 'texture' in the design. When I opened up the blue velvet display box it arrived in I was speechless with delight. At the time I hadn't been collecting Trifari very long, but I could tell it was an old and exceptional set. A little research confirmed that, and established Trifari as my favorite of all the old designer jewelry companies.
So tell me, what's your favorite buy/story?
One of my very good finds was a 1950 Trifari faux moonstone and sapphire necklace that someone had put curbside...but that's another tale. For my all-time best buy, it has to be the rhinestone, pearl, and blue-black enameled parure that I bought on eBay several years ago that turned out to be a set from Trifari's Empress Eugenie Series.
Designed by Trifari's premiere designer, Alfred Philippe, in 1940, the series was one of several based on the crown jewels of Empress Eugenie. I've seen the necklace elsewhere online, but without the three drops. My necklace has alternating pave rhinestone links, another variation to the other one I've seen where the links are all goldtone. It must have hardly been worn--it's in pristine condition.
The bracelet has the same beautiful pave rhinestone, pearl, and blue-black enameling. The earrings are screw back style, though I've since acquired a clam shell shape in this series also that are clip.
How good a price did I get? My lips are sealed, but I will admit that I was the only bidder. ;D It was listed simply as "Pearl Necklace Set" and it had two exceedingly crummy, blurry pictures. While I didn't know it was Trifari at the time I bought it, I could at least tell it was likely quality workmanship--even in the blur, it seemed there was a lot of 'texture' in the design. When I opened up the blue velvet display box it arrived in I was speechless with delight. At the time I hadn't been collecting Trifari very long, but I could tell it was an old and exceptional set. A little research confirmed that, and established Trifari as my favorite of all the old designer jewelry companies.
So tell me, what's your favorite buy/story?
Saturday, April 28, 2012
A Follow Up to "Of Bali Boats & Scallywags"
Today’s post is a follow-up to Wednesday’s post. Yesterday, Etsy's CEO Chad Dickerson wrote a lengthy 'note' to the Etsy community concerning the recent furor over the items offered by the unnamed shop. I had hoped to offer it here as a reassurance from the top to sellers of handmade on Etsy. Unfortunately, as you'll see if you read it, it offered nothing of the kind.
Instead, all I can offer to you is the response I made in the Etsy forums today, since he invited it at the end of his letter:
DelectablyDiva from DelectablyDiva says
I read Chad's letter yesterday, hoping it'd be something positive I could post on my blog as a follow up. But instead, I found a lengthy tome that skillfully managed to say nothing...and yet, upon reflection, everything (to me). The slippery slide has begun.
[Earlier in these comments] GiftsAndTalents said:
"Just to be sure I am understanding the situation...instead of working endless hours making my products (12-16 hrs. a day 7 days a week). It is now okay for me to outsource all of this labor and call it "collective" as long as I disclose that I have hired a bunch of people to do the work? Is this correct? Also, if I find something that is handmade in a foreign country, as long as it's handmade, it is now okay for me to import it and say I handmade it? Is this correct?"
While I have not had time to read all the comments on these pages, I could bet the contents of my shop that that question has not been answered by Etsy admin yet--nor is it likely to be.
In that Etsy has declared a policy of having no egalitarian policy, but instead, reviews each shop's case "individually," I predict the outcome will be that many, many shops here (particularly the newer ones) will begin to do what is most economically advantageous for them, individually. Since the shop accounts on Etsy are multiplying exponentially, sellers can count on the fact that 1) they will not be discovered, or 2) if flagged, and if they are pulling in the $, they can "work with" Etsy to rewrite their shop/item descriptions in such a way that they, too, can say 'nothing, yet everything.'
Chad, any company that relies on the uninformed nature of their consumers is bound to go down. Consumers that know about Overstock.com, Alibaba, or similar online sites WILL NOT BE BACK to shop on Etsy if they discover products listed here that they see offered there. (And they will discover them, eventually.) That is because Etsy bills itself as being made up of entrepreneurial, small businesses offering one-of-a-kind, uniquely handmade products. Moreover, these buyers will be justifiably inflamed about being taken, and will spread the angry word.
You've been quoted as saying you want to take Etsy public. The article also states, "While many artisans have made a good amount of money by selling through Etsy, Dickerson said the next step is to help them grow and expand in whatever way they want to. And that means rethinking what Etsy is and its value proposition for its sellers." gigaom.com/2012/02/02/etsy-to-become-an-indie-biz-one-stop-shop/
But going public means Etsy had better get a handle on its PR...which is very, very bad right now--particularly internally. Can a company ultimately have good PR with its customers if it can't have the same internally, with the people that supposedly make it what it is? I don't think so; it would be doomed to implode.
And if 'rethinking Etsy' truly means letting them "grow and expand in whatever way they want to," then...I think that's really the beginning of the end of what Etsy used to be all about. With the change in CEO leadership, it seems we really do have a change in definition re Etsy.
Instead, all I can offer to you is the response I made in the Etsy forums today, since he invited it at the end of his letter:
DelectablyDiva from DelectablyDiva says
I read Chad's letter yesterday, hoping it'd be something positive I could post on my blog as a follow up. But instead, I found a lengthy tome that skillfully managed to say nothing...and yet, upon reflection, everything (to me). The slippery slide has begun.
[Earlier in these comments] GiftsAndTalents said:
"Just to be sure I am understanding the situation...instead of working endless hours making my products (12-16 hrs. a day 7 days a week). It is now okay for me to outsource all of this labor and call it "collective" as long as I disclose that I have hired a bunch of people to do the work? Is this correct? Also, if I find something that is handmade in a foreign country, as long as it's handmade, it is now okay for me to import it and say I handmade it? Is this correct?"
While I have not had time to read all the comments on these pages, I could bet the contents of my shop that that question has not been answered by Etsy admin yet--nor is it likely to be.
In that Etsy has declared a policy of having no egalitarian policy, but instead, reviews each shop's case "individually," I predict the outcome will be that many, many shops here (particularly the newer ones) will begin to do what is most economically advantageous for them, individually. Since the shop accounts on Etsy are multiplying exponentially, sellers can count on the fact that 1) they will not be discovered, or 2) if flagged, and if they are pulling in the $, they can "work with" Etsy to rewrite their shop/item descriptions in such a way that they, too, can say 'nothing, yet everything.'
Chad, any company that relies on the uninformed nature of their consumers is bound to go down. Consumers that know about Overstock.com, Alibaba, or similar online sites WILL NOT BE BACK to shop on Etsy if they discover products listed here that they see offered there. (And they will discover them, eventually.) That is because Etsy bills itself as being made up of entrepreneurial, small businesses offering one-of-a-kind, uniquely handmade products. Moreover, these buyers will be justifiably inflamed about being taken, and will spread the angry word.
You've been quoted as saying you want to take Etsy public. The article also states, "While many artisans have made a good amount of money by selling through Etsy, Dickerson said the next step is to help them grow and expand in whatever way they want to. And that means rethinking what Etsy is and its value proposition for its sellers." gigaom.com/2012/02/02/etsy-to-become-an-indie-biz-one-stop-shop/
But going public means Etsy had better get a handle on its PR...which is very, very bad right now--particularly internally. Can a company ultimately have good PR with its customers if it can't have the same internally, with the people that supposedly make it what it is? I don't think so; it would be doomed to implode.
And if 'rethinking Etsy' truly means letting them "grow and expand in whatever way they want to," then...I think that's really the beginning of the end of what Etsy used to be all about. With the change in CEO leadership, it seems we really do have a change in definition re Etsy.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Walnut jewelry...prettier than you'd think
I bought this pendant on eBay a few years ago simply because it fascinated me:
It reminds me of a brain scan. ;) It's made of sterling silver, turquoise chips, and what appeared to be petrified wood. But...that brown framing holding the chips is actually a cross-section of sliced walnut.
Not only clever, but beautiful.
It reminds me of a brain scan. ;) It's made of sterling silver, turquoise chips, and what appeared to be petrified wood. But...that brown framing holding the chips is actually a cross-section of sliced walnut.
Not only clever, but beautiful.
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