Owls for October

I don’t need to tell you that Halloween is coming up.  In honor of the best holiday of the year, here are some owls that you will find at Paper Demon Jewelry.

 

TODAY (9/16) ONLY–EVERY CUSTOMER GETS $10 GIFT CERTIFICATE!

Dear Readers of Paper Demon:

I woke up and decided, it’s a good day for a spontaneous promotion!

Today (9/16) Only: Every customer at Paper Demon Jewelry gets a $10 Gift Certificate for the Paper Demon Jewelry shop.  No strings attached, no fine print.  Can use yourself or give as a gift.  10 bucks in your hands.  Christmas/Hannukah shopping anyone?

**But Hurry:  Ends 6 PM Pacific Time!!**

I’d be most grateful if you’d tell your friends, post on your facebook, twitter etc.  Remember: It’s today only!

Paper Demon Jewelry

thank you, dear readers!

Karen

 

Mercury Retrograde on Etsy??

OK, this is weird.  I am not a fan of astrology.  I am mostly pretty skeptical.  (Yeah, I know I just brought up my sign in my last post.  What can I say?  Consistency is the hallmark of the small mind)   But, Mercury went retrograde this week, and the SAME DAY the traffic to my Etsy shop and blog fell 50%.  What?

Etsy Seller During Mercury Retrograde

Come to my store.  Buy things.  Prove astrology wrong.   I so don’t want to go there…

Please?

 

Fall is my Favorite Season

Fall, now THAT is a season of inspiration.

It’s my birthday season, for one thing.   I share a birthday with Joan Jett (yay!) and Andrea Boccelli (yikes!)  and Thomas Felton (cool! [he’s the diabolical Draco Malfoy on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone!])

Being a Virgo on the cusp of Libra makes for a slightly schizoid combination of the fiery and the anal–pretty useful for a jewelry-maker!  I wonder how that works out for Joan Jett?   I’m not seeing a lot of Virgo there…

But I love Fall for a whole bunch of other reasons too.  Sure, Spring has its adorable pink blossoms, and Summer has its gardens in wild profusion…. (and Winter has its icy glitter…. or, in Oregon, its sodden gloom, which I suppose is inspiring in its way [we shall soon find out…])….

But Fall—well, look at the obvious reasons—the breathtaking colors of changing leaves, the crisp mornings, the excitement of new beginnings….

Of course Halloween is the best holiday.  That requires no explanation.

And turtleneck sweaters.  I know Stacy and Clinton said not to wear them.   But what can I do?   Who doesn’t love pulling on that first turtleneck of the season?

But above all, I love the colors.  I love the  the cranberries, the clarets, and the rusts, the firy oranges, the maroons and the fuschias and the olive greens, the saffrons, and the champagnes.  Set off with pops of robins egg blue and turquoise too.

And it so happens that I have in my collection several sheets of rare handmade washi in the deepest, firiest colors…So, my Fall jewelry bursts out in a mad rush of inspiration—in honor of Libra, in the colors of fire.  In honor of Virgo–exceedingly well made 🙂

Blackbird Singing Pendant in Autumn Colors

Spooky Washi and Antiqued Silver Spiderweb

 

Giveaway: Only 3 Sales Away from 50 on Etsy!

50 is a watershed.  A landmark.  I’m coming up on 50 in a few years.  Can’t say I’m thrilled about that.

I am thrilled, though, that I’m only 3 sales away from 50 sales on Etsy.  That is a good 50.  That’s a 50 a person can embrace with enthusiasm.  No downsides to 50 sales on Etsy (well, except maybe that there aren’t 51!)

Anyway, to get us to 50 as FAST as possible, I’m offering a cool giveaway for blog readers ONLY!  Free Shoji Pendants to PDJ blog readers who make purchase #48, 49, or 50 (or all three at once!).  You can check them out in different colors at Paper Demon Jewelry’s Etsy store.  To qualify, you MUST type in “BLOG FAN” in the Mssg to seller at checkout!  That’s the only way I’ll know you saw this on the blog, and not on Facebook or Twitter (where I’m also doing a giveaway promotion, but NOT with Shoji Pendants!)  Offer only good ’til we reach 50!

Shoji Pendant in Robins' Egg Blue

 

Check Our Chiyogami! New in the PDJ Etsy Shop

It’s been crazy at Paper Demon Jewelry this past month!   Gift bags, giveaways, promotions, 4 local markets, teaching my first series of Japanese Papercrafting classes at the splendid EMU  Craft Center, and a steady stream of orders on Etsy.  Amidst all that, trying to find time to create and perfect new jewelry designs, and switch our entire operations over to all-green mediums, sealers and finishes.  (I’m excited to post on this cool all-natural specialty fiber hardening product I’ve discovered–Paverpol–that comes from the Netherlands!)

But for tonight, let’s keep it short.  I want to introduce my latest items on Etsy.  I’ve been doing a lot with chiyogami/yuzen paper lately.  Actually, ever since my post on the Japanese Paper Place.  For awhile there I was completely entranced with my stained glass, sculptural, and shoji jewelry, all of which played on the color, translucence, and fiber texture of pure plain washi.

But as I explored the hundreds and hundreds of brilliantly colored patterns of chiyogami/yuzen washi at the Japanese Paper Place, I started to feel that maybe I’d abandoned it prematurely!

Chiyogami/yuzen, by the way, is the colorful patterned Japanese paper that so many Japanese crafts are made from.  Here’s how The Japanese Paper Place defines the term:

These wonderfully decorative patterns on paper, known as Chiyogami, are silkscreened onto machine made sheets of mixed kozo and sulphite.  They are more popularly known as Yuzen in the United States.

Originally, Chiyogami designs were developed in the Edo period as woodblock prints by papermakers during the farming season for use as accessories in the house to enliven the interiors. They were based on the bright kimono textiles which the papermakers from the countryside saw on the fashionable wealthier ladies in the larger cities, especially in Kyoto, where the area known as Yuzen had become famous for its sophisticated techniques for dyeing cloth.

Chiyogami was meant to be cut into pieces and made into paper dolls or pasted on tea tins or small paper boxes; still today the scale of the patterns is reminiscent of these early uses.  And still many of the symbols depicted hearken back to auspicious occasions when fancy kimonos would be worn: cranes for long life; bamboo for flexibility; plum blossoms and pine boughs for beauty and longevity.

The striking pigment colours, careful registration of screens and wide range of designs make these papers ideal for picture mats, books and box making.

The range of Chiyogami patterns is endless, and Japanese designers today are tireless in their development of new fascinating patterns.  These patterns are constantly stocked at The Japanese Paper Place.”

Yuzen patterns are the ones that look most like kimono fabric patterns and contain a lot of gold.  Chiyogami are traditionally more repetitive, with smaller scale repeating patterns that are excellent for utilitarian crafts (ie, wrapping tea canisters).

Here are some chiyogami images, taken from The Japanese Paper Place’s website.  The first block are quite modern patterns; the second block are more traditional (don’t stress about the ‘discontinued’ note–the JPP stocks over 1000 patterns and is constantly cycling in new ones and phasing out old ones, and can order anything a person needs, as I found out this past week!  Thanks Nancy!)

Some modern chiyogami

Some more-traditional chiyogami patterns

How can you not yearn to create with these papers?

I mean, the austere simplicity of kozo washi is a fine thing….  But look at these colors! 

So, to make a very long story (with nice pictures) short….  I am working on chiyogami jewelry this past couple of weeks.  And here it is.  Even Chiyogami Gem Pencils for Back to School!  They’re selling like hotcakes–especially the Chiyogami Gem Bracelet.

The Geometric Possibilities of Chiyogami

"All Our Efforts Must Tend Toward Light" inscribed on back

Chiyogami Gem Pencils

Sleek Modern Sterling silver dangle earrings

On a chunky Susan Kazmer Bezel

Chiyogami Gem Bracelet

 

New in Paper Demon Jewelry’s Etsy Store

It’s all about the colors.   At Paper Demon Jewelry, we HAVE THE ABILITY!  The ability, that is, to make jewelry in the most eye-popping, mind-blowing colors on the planet.  Sure there are beads out there, and crystals, and felt, and resin, and many fine and colorful products.  But really, in the end, there is nothing that makes jewelry as SATURATED with color as paper.

And the funny thing is, it doesn’t have to be special handmade Japanese washi paper to do that.  Good old American crepe paper produces some of the richest, most saturated color tones possible, as long as it is treated right.  The trick with crepe paper is treating it right. It is a tempermental little beastie.

The Paper Demon scored a box of recycled crepe paper at MECCA awhile back, and I’ve been experimenting with it.  Here is my favorite item to date, just listed today in the Etsy store:  REDCOSMOS Spinning Sphere REcycled Paper Sculpture and Pearl Choker.

I love this piece.  I love the way the red is a fiery red. I love the organic shape of the spiral.  I love the freshwater pearls and how their lopsidedness mirrors the bead, and vice versa.  I love that it looks super cool on.

And I love the inspiration of this piece:  The Team Challenge of the Crafting in Color Team on Etsy, of which Paper Demon Jewelry is now a proud member!  This is, you know, kind of a big thing.    You see, jewelry makers can’t get onto the Crafting in Color Team, unless they request “special consideration” and prove to be, in the eyes of the administrators, “truly extraordinary.”  Well, who’s truly extraordinary now?  Hmm?  Oh yeah.  That’s right.

Crafting in Color is all about finding the most colorful, most color-forward, color-innovative, color-inspired artists on Etsy.   I like the sound of that.  Because at Paper Demon Jewelry, it’s all about the color.

 

ESellers Ads

For any jewelry-makers or Etsy artists just starting out and wanting a tip on advertising:  ESellers generates free ads to Etsy shops!  It’s a 5 minute process and you get a free ad to post on your blog, facebook page, and anywhere else you want.  Check them out by clicking on the small E in the corner of my ad.   The ad in this post will move downward, but the ad in the blog column to the right will stay put if you copy and paste the ad code into a widget.   I’ve had mine up for a couple months, and there’s no catch!  It really is free!  But you have to update it to keep current inventory appearing on it–it doesn’t update automatically as you list new things to your shop. 

 

Newest Pieces in the Paper Demon Etsy Store

I’ve been making jewelry like mad, trying to get ready for the opening of Eugene’s 5th Street Market Artisan’s Market.   It’s supposed to open in July, so they say, and I need inventory!   Bit by bit, it’s making it onto the Paper Demon Etsy store too.

I am still obsessed with washi and wire!  But now I’m exploring solid colors.

Solid blues and whites:

LoveBubbles Robin’s Egg Blue

Gradations of orange:

YuzuCocktail Washi and Copper Choker

Contrasts of deep jewel tones like purple, orange and green.

LuciousFruits Washi and Copper Wire Earrings

And contrasts of the palest blues and greens:

AfterTheRain Choker

It’s so vivid!  Where else can you find jewely in colors like this?   Sure, you can find swarovski crystals in every color of the rainbow.  But that’s all about the glitz (nothing wrong with the glitz, I’m just sayin’).  My biggest problem–i can’t make them fast enough to try out all the colors I want!