New international shipping rates, another custom order and another Etsy treasury.

Last weekend the US Postal Service increased the shipping rates for international packages significantly. While the price for first class packages went up, in comparison the priority mail flat rates went up more. What I used to ship priority flat rate will now be shipped first class parcel if possible - I haven't changed all the shipping rates in my Etsy shop yet, for some things I have just taken international shipping back out as it's ridiculous to pay $23.95 for a priority mail flat rate envelope to Europe if the items costs (e.g.) $3.50. I'm working on it as time allows and so far this week there hasn't been much of that. Of course I didn't want to increase shipping ahead of time.

I mentioned the Hilo High School Craft Faire in an earlier post. One of my coworkers came by with his wife and a friend, and the wife really liked some of my lampwork beads.

He came to me the week after and asked would I make a necklace for her in time for Christmas. I had to redesign once because the seed beads went into the holes of the lampwork beads, but this is how it came out (click on the picture for a bigger one):

The lampwork is goldstone chips (worked too hot) on Moretti ivory and Moretti light teal - and I changed the clasp to a sterling silver one after taking the picture. It's strung on softflex as almost always, with 4mm crystal Swarovski bicones, 6/0 seed beads and twisted square liquid silver.

And my lilikoi seeds made it into another Etsy Treasury:

'Passion' by ursulasalcove

Inspired by the passion flower and my own passion for fiber arts, I hope this treasury inspires you to pursue your passion.

Lilikoi seeds - pur... hilobeads $7.00	Deep Purple Handwov... FortuneWeaves $50.00
Silk Ribbon Purple ... lornabateman22 $56.95	Vintage Charm Brace... MoonHollow $19.95
Cagoule feutre/soie... zregine $77.00	Winter Sale Purple ... folkowl $38.00
Passion Flower Neck... jewelrita $35.00	Needle Felting Wool... egprimitives $5.00
Purple Swarovski Cr... ProtectiveSpir... $60.00	Purple Passion Hand... VioletRose258 $27.00
Purple Passion Pin GypsyPurl $58.00	Sangria Throw/Wrap ... VanessaTCunnin... $750.00
Royal Purple and Go... sunrisehandwov... $80.00	Purple Passion Flow... Gypsyharte $38.00
8/0 Czech Glass See... PiecesParts $3.99

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

(and extra spaces again taken out by me. It's really easy - on a Linux/Unix system. You copy and paste into vi/vim, close the file, open in pico (or nano which is basically the same thing), justify with a ^J and copy back out of the result.)

After neglecting my blog for so long ...

... I thought I'd post at least a brief update.

I got back from my trip in July as scheduled and first had a bunch of work to catch up with and then the lilikoi season had started while I was gone. I almost missed entering the East Hawaii Cultural Center Trash Art Show for lack of time to create what I had in mind but as my mind goes, while neither plan A nor plan B got done, plan C did get completed in time (good thing that this time at least I had stripped the wire beforehand) and you can currently see a necklace and earrings entitled "Copper Spirals" at the East Hawaii Cultural Center here in Hilo until Oct. 31. I have a picture of it but that's still in the camera.

To not completely go without pictures, an Etsy treasury I was included in:

'Glass and so Much More!!!' by rosebud101

I am in awe at the talent in the Leteam. It is amazing!

Naos Glass - Dharma... Na0sGlass $100.00	Dolphin Glass Penda... sanctuaryglass $15.00
Copper Leaf and Cry... fragiacomoglas... $22.00	Opal Yellow & Raku ... nlcbeads $30.00
Lampwork glass bead... glassbead $34.00	Etched Copper Charm... DivineSparkDes... $12.00
Murrini Antique Ros... JohnRizziGlass... $12.50	Blue Heart Glass Be... beadsbystephan... $32.00
Gypsy Dance Mixed B... rosebud101 $5.00	Handmade lampwork g... glassbead $22.00
Mixed natural color... hilobeads $18.00	Distressed Brown Re... AstridBoyceBea... $7.50
Handmade Lampwork B... HeatherBehrend... $12.49	Handmade Lampwork G... PrimaDonnaBead... $30.20

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

Not quite a disaster, but that's how the week started ...

Before what happened (or I knew about it) what I posted in the last two posts there was something that affected my weekend rather adversely. Saturday late morning I emailed the telescope system specialist at JCMT that one of the data disks was rather full. As I know very little about what can be deleted from these disks when that's all I could do at the time. The email I used to get from a cron job (automatic procedure) didn't happen either. A bit after midnight I reopened an old fault entitled "No space left on device" - after responding to a new fault that had been filed that night. A long email exchange followed, partly that night, partly the following days. Disk space got sorted out and for all I remember no telescope time was lost due to this. A bunch of people (me included) spent a bunch of time, partly due to confusion of what had happened - and it disrupted the weekend for all of us. It wasn't a real disaster but if we hadn't paid attention, for telescope productivity it could have been.

In more recent news, we just got an update from the UKIRT Board who issued a statement in response to the STFC - the UKIRT Board met in Edinburgh at the ATC at the same time this all happened. You can find the statement on the JAC homepage http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/ - or directly here:http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/UKIRT/news/Statement_from_the_UKIRT_Board.pdf

Note: The tags to this and previous posts aren't in the order I put them. They apparently get sorted alphabetically and I have no control over that.

Another treasury from the Lampwork Etc. Etsy Team follows:

'Handmade on A Sunday' by rosebud101

In all honesty, I don't know if these beautiful items were all made on a Sunday, but I do know that each one was handmade by the artist. Isn't that a nice thing to know?

Upcycled Sweater Co... gailjoseph $125.00	Abstract Hammered R... silverriverjew... $47.00
Naos Glass - Lily P... Na0sGlass $15.00	Blue Boro Bubble Im... MagpieGlasswor... $10.00
Shattered Rainbow D... LeslieDanaDesi... $24.00	Lampwork Glass Bead... MitosisGlass $23.00
Bead Hog - SRA Gell... Gelly $50.00	Loribeads - Freedom... loribeads $12.00
Pink Floral Snail L... nlcbeads $25.00	Hand Painted Card, ... KayTStudio $1.50
White, red and gree... hilobeads $20.00	Copper Hammered Hea... lhughesdesigns... $35.00
Handmade murrini CO... ErikaNooteboom $5.50	Watermelons - lampw... DesignsbyKUrat... $24.00
Handmade Lampwork G... rosebud101 $30.00	Purple Floral Handm... SolarFlareCrea... $40.00

Treasury tool supported by the dog house

- reformatted by the blog author.

Happy New Year from Hilobeads!

A bit late, but better late than never I guess.

Some good news and some bad news: I just renewed the hilobeads.com domain for another 3 years - we're coming up on the 4 year anniversary. I haven't made up my mind yet whether to have a sale of any sort, and where, if.
I have new fresh water pearls but no pictures taken yet.
The bad news: I have to increase the price on drilled mgambo seeds, on Etsy only so far but that's because that's all I got around to yet. I may also have to increase the price on Job's Tears but that depends on how this year's harvest comes out. I sold close to 30 lbs last year and pretty much ran out.

In the ambivalent news (I have those too): the lilikoi picking season for production is over. I like the income but I need the time to pick Job's Tears now.
Clove seeds are again coming in (second harvest, for the first time). Picking 200 per day doesn't get all of them. I have some international orders still waiting but currently my day job takes all the energy I have.

And, having sold some jewelry again got me motivated to make some more (but again no pictures yet).

So that this post isn't completely without pictures, an Etsy treasury curated by redemptionart from Team Hilo Etsy:

'Rock me Gently, Rock me Slowly' by redemptionart

But love me hard!Valentine gifts from the islands of Aloha!

Button Necklace - V... MRSButtons $50.00	Hand Sculpted Organ... EastBayPotters $50.00
rough emerald awanderingpond... $11.00	Black Ring Copper W... stoneandbone $30.00
White Wedding Bell ... doublebrush $11.95	Triangle View PhotographsOfH... $40.00
Red Valentine Eye P... SoulRole $18.00	Teardrop earrings w... Hokulewa $15.00
Hawaii Volcano Hous... MaiAloha $10.00	Rocking Chair - Fan... UpcountryDesig... $250.00
Men's Boxer Bri... 2tiedye4 $16.00	pearl bracelet - c... BayRepublic $42.00
Glass, Bead, Encase... LavaLampwork $18.00	Light Color Hawaiia... hilobeads $12.00
Hawaiian Dolls: Hol... menehunebabies $99.00	Handmade Recycled P... thewhatnaught $11.00

Treasury tool by Red Row Studio.