Monday, April 26, 2010

Mesh Open House!

Jenny & Heather, the lovely co-owners of Mesh Boutique, are having a Spring Open House.  Loads of discounts on their fantastic inventory, which includes pieces by your truly, as well many other talented mid-state artisans. Designer clothes, breathtaking handmade jewelry, handcrafted home decor, fine art, accessories, the list goes on and on, all ready & waiting to fill your home with handmade goodness and at the same time support local artists.
Make a day of it, bring your friends, stay for lunch on the square, it'll be great!

Monday, April 12, 2010

The perils of online selling

For those of you keeping score at home, I recently posted this lovely, vintage, silvertone cha-cha necklace for sale on my etsy vintage shop, Meretricious Vintage.  Almost immediately someone bought it, I was thrilled.  The strange thing was that they didn't pay for it. Today, I was going to their site to drop them a line reminding then that payment is past due, (it is etsy's policy that a buyer pay at the time of purchase) when I noticed that they have a 45% rating on the site.  45%!!!  How does it even get that low without etsy disabling the account?  It is obvious from large number of negative feedback comments that this is a habitual thing and should have been halted long ago.  This person obviously does this often, very often.
What I completely don't understand is, why?
Why would you click to buy something that you have no intention of paying for?  Why would you actively seek out screwing over people you have never met by falsely buying jewelry?  If you're short on cash and can't afford to buy it from me right now, contact me and I will make a custom listing and reserve it for you.  Really any communication about not being able to pay immediately for any reason should be a given.  I was just sure that this was the case before I saw the feedback page. (of which I sampled some of) At that point I didn't see any reason to pursue payment, I followed up the friendly reminder to the "buyer" that I had just sent almost immediately with this:






Upon reviewing your massive quantities of negative feedback for this exact problem, I will be contacting etsy to cancel the sale. I'm not really sure how someone with feedback that low is still allowed to maintain an account on this site, nor do I quite understand what it is that you're playing at ordering things and not paying for them. Please show some respect for the people who go out and pound the pavement & work hard in order to bring great vintage items (not to mention slaving away to make handmade) to people all over the world.
Any future orders from you in my shop will immediately be canceled and I am requesting that due to a pattern of behavior that etsy disable your account.
  

And I have done just that and left yet more negative feedback to boot.  I would hope that etsy could put some sort of filter in place that once a user's feedback reaches a certain point that the account is at least flagged for review, if not immediately disabled.  I am not holding my breath that etsy will disable this account, they are notorious for letting things slide as long as possible, if they ever do anything at all.  Sure they're quick to jump on and disable people selling iPhones on their site but apparently flagrantly terrible business practices take a little more time to deal with.  We shall see how this scenario plays out.  The good news is that this beauty of a vintage necklace is available again for purchase by any legitimate etsy buyers!











Wednesday, April 7, 2010

New jewelry pieces

So I've been venturing back into jewelry-making waters.  More to the point I've finally decided to start using all of the spiffy odds & ends that I collect and rework them into necklaces.  Below are the first 3 pieces created.  Only one of the 3 is finished, the other 2 need clasps.

Made with an old liquor medallion, salvaged rosary chain, copper Art Nouveau reproduction connectors and thick copper chain.

The centerpiece of this necklace is actually a part of an old Art Nouveau gas powered chandelier from the late 1800's.  The rest are vintage looking modern items.

Detail shot of the same piece.

Made using a salvaged, decorative lamp pendant and modern vintage-look findings.

Detail shot.