haeven

Thanks for the info, big corporate companies. You’re telling me a lot. Wait; let me get my scientific dictionary.

Oh, wow, look! My clothes are so clean! So bright! So white. Okay, I guess that biodegradable whatchamajiggs are okay, aren’t they? Then I saw something else, tucked inbetween all those big ole words that turned my head even further toward 180 degrees:

Fluorescent optical brighteners. Yup. I mean, I know what fluorescent and optical and brightener mean, but when you put them together what do you get? Pancakes?

Okay, so I went looking around the interwebs; because you can believe anything you find on the interwebs, right? In this case, I might as well have climbed some mountain in Tibet and asked the old guy I found at the top. My eyes crossed when I saw the pictures of molecules and words like “ultravioletabsorbing whatsamajiggyalyzer”. So I went to my favorite place; Wikipedia. It may have its problems, but it does break things down into simple language.

Kind of like the way biodegradable surfactants break down… oh, wait, that’s another article.

A fluorescent optical brightener, in common parlance, is a chemical that some companies use to treat clothing so that whites look whiter. You read that right. Look whiter; not be whiter. They “are dyes that absorb light in the UV and violet region of the electromagnetic spectrum, and re-emit light in the blue region.” It makes materials look less yellow by increasing the amount of blue light reflected.
Seriously. A chemical that makes your clothes glow blue-white? Like Photoshop™ for your Maytag™.Think about that; I’ll wait.

I won’t even cover the idea that these are unknown chemicals; unknown because they don’t list them anywhere but on their MSDS sheets. That’s another post all together.

So, about those brighteners. I like my skivvie's nice and white like the next guy, but I'm not going to depend on a dubious set of chemicals to do it for me.

I'll stick with my three ingredients, thanks. At least I know this won't happen the next time I get my undies in a bunch:

Later taters!

Next time: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Yes, it's been a while. Been taking a quick mental health break and getting over the flu, but I'm slowly getting back to normal.

While I've had the flu, I did no creating for two reasons: 1) who wants to create when your head is pounding like a bass drum and 2) i don't want to have to ship out flu cooties. i'm nice like that.

It's super-dooper early in the neighborhood, but I wanted to get the Artisans of the Day under my belt before I got distracted with other things.

So, without further ado (seriously? ado?), here they are:


Usually, when I see something labeled "Steampunk", I end up giving it the greasy eyeball and moving on, but this I couldn't resist. I could totally see a young lassy astride a steam powered iron horse wearing this lovely from dymacreations. If I had the spare money laying about I'd buy it for myself. A true piece of millinery artwork!


This beautiful piece also gave me pause; how serendipitous that it was newly listed. I could see this on the film-set of The Mummy around Rachel Weisz's neck (or in John Hanna's pocket). Go check out the other lovelies in CosmicFirefly's shop... much ooh-ing and aah-ing will be done over there.

Okay, it's back to bed for me for a little while; despite how things look, 6am is just not my cup of mud. Later taters!

I've been quite ninja-like lately with my lurking! Had to take a few days off for brain-health, but I'm coming back! A small down-turn on the depression scale can be rough; I hope to be picking up the energy soon!

Still preparing for the Little Black Box and I can't wait! As soon as the packaging comes in I'll give you a little taste of what's coming.

I have to say, confession-style, that I'm falling a bit behind on my customer service skills, so for anyone out there who is suffering, I humbly apologize.


Business wise, I'm in possession of a cute little camera that I bought from -- of all places -- eBay. For those of you who missed it, my little Tiny Dancer destroyed my previous camera. I believe she wanted to see if i could drink juice... in any case, I'll be spending the weekend photographing all the cool things I've been creating and re-opening the shop to the public.

I've also been thinking about creating some informational posts about the "green world" for my blog to make it a bit less "all about me" and more "all about green". If you have any ideas, give me a holler. I think the first article will be about some of the ingredients I use in my cleaning products.

Okay, off to what I like best about posting -- the Artisans of the Day!



I normally don't look on the front page for my Artisan of the Day, but I couldn't resist this brooch because this is my newest obsession -- my beautiful sewing machine! Chatnoir77 created this cutie from many hours of practice with wire and check it out -- it has a wooden spool! Great gift for the sewing-enthusiast in your life!



To be fair, I took the ArtFire Artisan of the Day from the Front Page as well, but it wasn't hard when I saw this great piece, called the Harmony Ring. This is a great piece for those who like to wear the big and bold jewelry! Sterling silver rings and springs make this a true conversation piece. I totally envy the photography skills of inbalbittan -- as well as that stunningly classic manicure!

A bit of opining... ArtFire has been getting a lot of guff lately and while I completely understand, I have to say that growing pains can sometimes be felt by all. I don't have an inside track on ArtFire's business growth, but I'm guessing that in order for ArtFire to have a larger presence on the interwebz -- therefore bringing all of us sellers more traffic -- they have to grow a bit to be more competitive.

I have both a free shop and a verified shop on ArtFire, and I do appreciate the ability to list more items in the free shop -- it's a temporary shop, set up to destash some of the jewelry supplies in my inventory. In any shop, you got to keep the front window fresh, and with this economy, people are more discriminating when they shop. I think the unlimited listings will give all of us the much needed boost in traffic this holiday season.

As well, the Verified Seller can't beat the extra goodies we get by paying the monthly rate. It's a key budgeting factor when trying to figure out your overhead. And I love the flexibility of being able to adjust the look of my "permanent" shop.

Okay, enough soapbox rambling... go check out those Artisans of the Day and enjoy!

till later, taters!

It's that time again, folks! With everyone gearing up massively early for the holidays (didn't we used to start that in October before???), shops are getting packed to the brim with winning goodies!












Artfire's artisan of the day should be Artfire itself for the new Shop Importer Tool, but I digress.


I know it's easy to stop off at the department store for a cheapie hat for the fall & winter, but why do that when you can have something beautiful, handmade that will last for season after season. With 2 kids, I know the allure of stopping at WallyWorld for a $2.00 hat, but that hat usually falls apart before the winter is out. This Navy Blue with Yellow Stripe Hand Knit Hat - Medium by Rainwolf is a perfect edition to your cold-weather wardrobe.




Later, taters!