No, the men in the nice white shirts with the interesting coat for me to wear have not turned up to take me away. I made myself sit down and actually line up the things I am going to get for my blossoming jewellery shop.
Yes, dear readers, Every Girl Deserves Beautiful is going to become a thing!
My primary focus will be pride earrings1, but I can also do steampunky charm earrings or just intricate shiny things that are not the plain old boring buttons you see everywhere that alleges to cater to the non-pierced set.
I'll be sourcing the more interesting beads closer to home, of course. Possibly with the help of friends and relatives. If you have a junk shop near you that sells large grab bags of assorted beads - contact me and we will come to an arrangement2. And I'm talking the kind of grab bags that are at least 200grams of assorted shiny things.
I know that there's one junk shop in Garden City that had them, but I'm blowed if I can remember what they were called, where exactly they were... and they're probably not there any more because that is the story of my frelling life. If they are still there - I know you read this, Mum. We can arrange a weekend shopping spree. I'll reserve some cash.
I have to wait for Tuesday before I go purchasing the 29 items in my virtual shopping cart. And it might be tough to stop me from making it 30 so that I have a nice round number. They have some firkin cute gear charms, dangit...
I'm endeavouring to restrain myself. Beloved has not been so helpful on the restraint side of things, alas. The current bill for all I need is approaching $200. Australian. Which is one of the reasons I'm getting cheaper shinies for other designs closer to home.
This will be bare bones, in the beginning. When I have more money to throw around, customers can expect presentation boxes, or pierced cards with the logo printed on it. Heck, I don't even know if I can still get packaging card thingies that are made for clip-ons. I might have to improvise out of whatever I can get.
And speaking of logos... I decided to save myself an entire shitload of swearing and angst by just doodling my concept for the logo and handing it to Beloved, who has much better photoshop and design skills than I.
Aldi's is offering a magnifying lamp, soon enough. Downside, it costs $60. So I at least have to make that, the $200, and whatever the shit a virtual storefront costs back in order to call this a passing success.
I shall make one each of the Gay, Bi, Pan, Ace, Transgender, Genderqueer, and Genderfluid pride flag earrings[once I get my stuff]. Both for photos, and proof of concept. I will offer, but not expect much business from the straight pride flag. And depending on what I can scrounge, I can offer a few other fun designs with the findings I'm getting.
It's all coming together.
I'm scared to hell that this is going to fail... but I have to try. No matter what the outcome, it's worth it to try.
And look! Beloved already did a logo!
There's an MP3, too, but I don't know how to share it with you. I have plans to tool around with Garageband when I'm done with my writing today. If I can figure out how to bullshit techno, I can plausibly come up with an ear-wormy jingle tune.
Let's see what I can come up with.
At least the ones that have just the stripes on. The more intricate designs are beyond my skill level. ↩
Way back before websites were a thing, fandom called this "pimping". Fans would gather fan-stuff [usually action figures] and offer them to other fans at cost plus postage; listing condition, quality, paint errors etc. And more than a few complained that they felt like pimps. ["I have a mint condition Dr Crusher, no paint errors. Serial number (whatever) comes with Data's cat for some reason." and so forth] ↩