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I first used this product for soldering, but then discovered how absolutely wonderful it is when I work with cloisonne enamel. Check out the video and see how simple it is to rotate the piece I'm working on to get to all the angles I need with the flick of a finger rather than picking up a wire screen and having to manually rotate it then set it back down every 2 seconds. I love love love this mini lazy susan.

Not all decals are created equal. Thus, I decided to do one of my favorite things... an experiment.

I did something monumental earlier this week. So if you know me, you know I have been trying to do a big organization and cleaning effort. A paring down, really. I like to refer to it as the "Swedish Death Cleanse" (look it up... it's NOT morbid), but not everyone gets that.

One realization I needed to embrace was: "I am not a general store."

Insightful words/sentiment/advice. Not mine. I'm neither thoughtful nor eloquent, but have no qualms about riding the coattails of the brilliant people before. And this was WAY before me. Some people say it comes from a French proverb: “Qui chasse deux lièvres n'en prend pas un", or... He who chases two hares, catches none. It's found in the 1710 edition of “Dictionnaire des proverbes François”. Others say the phrase is: "If you try to chase two rabbits, both will escape", which is from the late fifteenth century, according to Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch philosopher, who compiled a collection of Greek and Latin proverbs published in 1500 and today known as Adagia or Adages. The original phrase being: “duos insequens lepore's neutrum capit”.

Who is your competition in this world of jewelry making? Is it the other jewelry artist in the local art gallery? Is it people who post their creations on Instagram and have infinity number of followers? Is it the person who has a "shop update" once a month and everything sells out in five minutes? Is it the people who use cheap labor to make cheap jewelry that always undercuts you?