Interview with Heather from Weaving Web

Today We bring you an interview from Heather of the Weaving Web, a talented crafts-person who draws inspiration from her unique religious beliefs.  Thank you very much for taking the time to share with us, Heather!

 

How did you get started with arts and crafts and how has that relationship developed over time?

I really begin many years ago making simple hemp necklaces and bracelets to wear when I was in high school (1996). In 2006 I started making medicine bags out of leather and collecting stones, and began to read about what healing properties they had. Then in 2010 I decided I wanted to learn how to sew, so I bought and sewing machine and with a help of a friend I learned how to sew. Next came the jewelry making, which came very easy to me and I just started crafting like a mad woman.
I feel a real connection to everything that I make and I do enjoying creating new things all the time. It is just a wonderful thing to do.

According to your profile, A big part of your life and the items you create is your pagan and native American Nature based beliefs, which you say you didn't get into until a few years ago. If you don't mind, can you tell us where you started as far as religion and personal philosophy, how you came to believe in the things you do and how that belief has developed to where you are now.

When I was 16, I decided I wanted to learn more about alternative beliefs. I began reading about Paganism and the different kinds of witchcraft practices. I have been a solitary practicing Witch more many years now. In 2006 I joined a wonderful community that practices Native American (predominately Hopi) practices and saw how I was able to intertwine my own practices with it. Since this time I am doing a seven year apprenticeship with our community leader, learning all I can about Native American ways of healing, ritual, etc. I have been able to intertwine my Pagan practices within this and it has been wonderful. I became an interfaith minister in 2009, and I now teach spiritual circles and do Rune, Card, and other readings at my home in Lexington, KY.

Have you found a lot of resistance to your ideas and your shop or do you find it's easy to connect with people who understand what it is that you do and sell?

I have not found a lot of resistance with others toward my shop. Everyone seems really friendly and very encouraging.

What would you want someone who believes differently from you to understand about you and the items from your shop?

I would want these people to know that everything that I make, I make in a good way and put love, light, and good healing energies in. My motto is "Harm None" and "Walk in Beauty".

Why do you think that the items in your shop are special?

I think what makes my items special is the time and love that I put into making them. I always clear the space with sage and when I'm done I always clear the items so that they are infused with good energy. I never make things if I am not feeling in a good way.

What would you say to other uniquely gifted artists who want to do what you do?

Just do it!! Don't be afraid to create your what you feel you should. You will love the experience and you might be surprised by the response of others loving what you've created!

Last but not least, where can we connect with you and your art?

Right now I'm only online, www.etsy.com/shop/weavingweb
I do have a facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Spider-Womans-Weaving-Web/109828152394437

New Promotion! - Caps for Coupons!

Do you have a unique microbrew or regional soda in your area with awesome bottlecaps?  Send us some and We'll give you a special coupon code for 20% off your next order!  For more details and an address to send them to, email Hillary at hippybeads@gmail.com or contact her on etsy.  Hillary loves creating bottle cap jewelry and wants new ones to play with! 

Shiny metals and rings!

A couple of posts ago, we promised a blog on the creation of our lovely rings. Here is what Hillary had to say:

A couple of months ago, my friend attended a painting class at Daniel Day gallery (which I may talk about more in a later blog post) and told me that the owner was looking for rings to be displayed in his gallery. I had never successfully made rings before but set out to try to make some to display and sell in the gallery.
The first obstacle was design, but it was easily overcome with a quick glance through my bead books. Once I found a suitable design, I made several with the same tarnish resistant copper wire I use for pendants.

I quickly found out that this was not suitable for rings because where they are worn means they are in constant contact with skin on several sides and that they bump up and scrape against desks, door, poles, etc. all the time. This caused the coating to wear off very quickly, which made them look tarnished, and eventually caused them to patina. While patina may be pretty and desirable even in some jewelry pieces, on a ring it means green fingers.

The next step was to try some other materials.

First was a tarnish resistant copper wire with better coating:

It was lovely because it was nice and pliable and could make gorgeous curlicues and zig zags. This copper lasted longer but the coating eventually started wearing off, giving me the same problem I had with the other copper.

The next material I tried was raw stainless steel:


This is wonderfully durable, doesn't rust, doesn't stain, doesn't patina etc. The only drawback to the steel is that it is harder to work than any other metal i've ever worked with which means no tight curlicues, loops or zig zags. However, it does have its own unique type of beauty.

The last type of metal I tried is the most unique and is one of my favorites:
Oxidized Brass.


This is brass wire that has been pre-oxidized. I rub off some of the oxidization layer with a paper towel or magic eraser before I create the piece. The oxidization is what creates the lovely "highlights and shadows" effect that you see in the metal. The extra cool thing about this is that the effect deepens over time. As the ring is exposed to the elements, the inside of the ring becomes more oxidized while the outer sections brighten as the oxidization rubs off.

The only downside to this wire is that this wire is extremely soft so the rings have to be made a certain way so as to maintain structural integrity. However, I think the slight design change is worth it for the lovely antique look that you get from this wire.

I have made several more rings from the steel and brass and hope to post them soon!
Also, if you would like to see more of my rings, check out my sterling and argentium work on my sister blog.

Exciting New Annoucement

Our Jewelry can now be found at Daniel Day Gallery including lovely rings like these:














Look for a post soon about the creation process for the rings!

New piece to be donated to a local charity

Hillary made this lovely butterfly necklace a couple of weeks ago.



He will be donated to a local children's charity so that he can make sure someone has a happy Christmas.

Child's Play Kickoff, new pieces, free shipping and other updates

We mentioned in an earlier post that we would be donating a portion of our profits to Child's Play. Here's the official announcement: 20% of sales from http://hippybeads.etsy.com and http://artfulunity.etsy.com will go to http://childsplaycharity.org, a charity that helps out children's hospitals throughout the world. They have already raised over half a million dollars in the last month and hope we can help give them some more. I started keeping track on thanksgiving and will turn the final donation in on Dec 30th. All sales count including sale items, custom items, and in person sales (if you know me in real life). These guys rock; help them out!

Why do they rock? Because it's a couple of passionate gamers, who write a webcomic, who got tired of the negative light that the media painted gamers in and decided to start a charity for Children's hospitals. They decided to buy toys and raise money for a couple of hospitals in their area. They ended up with about $200,000 in donations and toys that year in a one month period just by putting it out there to their readers. This is their 6th year and they more than doubled that figure their first week this year. They are now up to over $700,000 worth of donations since the beginning of November, and it all goes to help kids.

Hillary is an avid gamer and was raised in an environment of helping. She continues that spirit of helping every day as a social worker. She loves that there is a way that her jewelry businesses can help out and she really loves that there is a charity that promotes a positive image of an amazing group of people that she is proud to belong to.

In celebration of her Child's Play event, Hillary has made shipping to the US and Canada free, and international shipping only $3 per item. She has also updated the shop, put some more items on sale and added some new pieces:







Thanks for stopping by, have a great holiday and remember: http://childsplaycharity.org !

Retro Handmade Etsy Challenge

The Retro Handmade etsy team, which we belong to, is hosting a series of monthly challenges and would like your votes. We didn't participate this month because in addition to Hillary's recent personal projects, we are focusing on custom items and creating new inventory to put in our etsy shop. However, we hope to join the fun in future months. When we do, it looks like we will have a lot of tough competiton if this month is any indicator. The items everyone made are cute, trendy and downright amazing. Go check them out and vote for your favorite.

Behind the scenes: Photography

There's a lot that goes into running a jewelry business, and today we wanted to give you a little behind the scenes look at one of the things we enjoy the most, other than jewelry making. We love the process of photographing jewelry because, like making jewelry, it requires creativity and ingenuity, and, like jewelry, it has its challenges and triumphs.
When we first started our website, we were taking photos with a fujifilm finepix (this was several years ago) in standard indoor lighting on a counter, or a counter covered with a t-shirt. The photos were very plain and utilitarian. In the pictures below, you can see the jewelry fairly clearly, but not in great detail, and it doesn't "jump out and grab you" like the jewelry would in person.





The next change in our photo setup was to take pictures with a newer camera (a canon powershot a-510) in a completely dark room with the flash on. The resulting photos were better, but, like the one below, looked washed out and tended to have noticeable "hot spots".




About this time, we found a great forum of fellow jewelry artists who suggested creating a studio or lightbox. We thought this would probably be more money and more trouble than it was worth but a few of the artists said that the $5 jewelry studio setup actually worked quite well.

As a result, we decided to take on the challenge of creating a light box. It's simple enough--it's just a clear rummbermaid/sterilite/tupperware style box that you take outside in the sunlight. We often weren't able to take pictures during the day, and room lighting wasn't doing enough, so on someone's suggestion, we got clip on aluminum lamps (available at any hardware store), and 100 watt "natural light" bulbs.






At first we had problems with this setup because the light would flow in over the top of the box and we ended up with a lot of pictures like this:




Thanks again to our forum friends, we found this information filled video on photographing jewelry. Unfortunately, the tutorial suggested things involving power tools that we did not have. So, Hillary went to a local wal-mart to see if we could somehow adapt the ideas in the tutorial to our situation. As luck would have it, Sterlite was, at the time, making a container with a hole in the lid. The whole point of the power tools in the tutorial was to make a container with a hole in the top, so the lid was perfect for our purposes.




Once we used the box above, we started getting photos like this:





You'll notice these are much clearer, detailed and brighter, but you might also notice some unevenness in the lighting, especially in the first picture. This was because clipping the lights to the table only lit the pictures from the bottom and sides. It took us a long time to figure out this issue but last month we added one more thing to the set up: A wine rack. Hillary only ever uses a wine rack for about 3 months out of the year during the winter holidays, so she thought we could put it to better use during the rest of the year.







Here are some photos we recently took with this setup (note that the background fabric is different in these than in the others on this page). In case you were wondering, we now have a canon powershot a-590.







Clipping one light on the the top of the wine rack and one on the table makes the appearance of these photos much more even and much less shadowy. We're pretty happy with the setup now. The only foreseeable change would involve the Easter Bunny bringing us a camera or two.



P.S.: look for the last piece to be listed on our etsy this weekend.