mossofthewoodsjewelry - Tumblr blog

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

how much do you all need to get out of the negatives? do you have somewhere we could send some donations?

Thank you so much for asking! 😭🙏

I answered a similar question here (for a long explanation lol)

But basically, in short, you can support our sales coming this month to help us the most. The other thing that would really help would be buying some of the new journals or prints.

And, finally, a more long term way of support is to subscribe to the Patreon I’m working on. I’m going to launch it soon, and I will continue to work on it regardless of if we end up having to close the shop. The Patreon I’m making is going to have a bunch of things - talks about minerals, my crafting, foraging, nature talks, gardening, cultural things, story telling, recipes… and whatever else I can do. It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for so long, and this really seems like the best time to finally do it!

Thank you again so much for your support. It means so much. I really, REALLY hope we can pull through this month so we can keep the shop going. I would miss doing this so much. ❤️

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

I sincerely want to come back. I think my burnout is finally cured, after a couple years away. I was making some christmas presents for some friends recently and realized, as I was in my studio, that as much as I adore the complexity of the digital art I make, I once more had a yearning to just make things with my hands. So, I'm making plans to come back, but when/if I do, it's going to be with a total refresh of my inventory, my website, and my process. I'm no longer going to put pressure on myself to make things quickly, or stick to a rigid aesthetic. When it is no longer my sole source of income, it gives me the freedom to be much more playful with what I make, and gives me room for failure. That's the ideal, but I'm trying to figure out time in my schedule to do so. My hope is that I can fit some schedule handmaking time into my schedule now that I am starting up a new queue with my other freelance work, but time will tell if I'm able to do it.

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Are you ever coming back? 🥺

First of all hello anon you made me cry

The short answer: I want to

The long answer, if you'll indulge me on a little self reflection, is:

As I said before, for basically all of 2020 through 2021 (and probably much before that? Time feels fake these days) I hit an impassible wall of burnout with my jewelry, combined with the adult content ban on tumblr basically driving away such a big chunk of the audience I had spent years comfortable with. I knew I needed to branch out to other sites if I wanted to continue to have making jewelry be my full time job, and I tried twitter, and I tried instagram, but I really just couldn't bring myself to do the whole social media brand building thing again, especially not least of all on sites where I liked the vibe and community much less than here. A big part of it was, and continues to be, an exhaustion and burnout with social media in general. With twitter, it felt like you were way too pressured to be always present, always posting. With Instagram, it felt like too much pressure to be "personality as product", to have a consumable public Self (difficult for someone with serious self image issues).

All that is to say, as I have said in the past, I wound up getting really invested in and learning how to 3d model and eventually how to make 3d vtuber models. It's really fun and rewarding work for me, known nerd, who loves to get into really meticulous and technical art. I was very lucky that there is a high demand for that work, and I lucked out getting commissions fairly regularly.

However, it's also deeply time consuming work, and no matter how much I work, I still fall behind the speed at which I would like to finish peoples' commissions for them. So, for the time being, I just haven't had time to work on any other art.

I've been thinking a lot about my jewelry here and there, now that enough time has passed that the burnout has subsided. I would like to be able to make it once again, now with the renewed freedom of not having to make it be a full time job, or even really need to make much money off of it at all. I miss doing in-person fairs. I miss working with my hands.

If I manage to get a better handle on my time, and get the chance to make some more stuff, I'll come back. It will be irregular and it will be more relaxed and I will not be able to make as many things, and that's okay with me now. I'm hoping I will get that chance when I finish with my current batch of commissions, which at this point will not be until well into 2023.

I do understand the melancholy of being suddenly deprived of a creative voice you were used to being a part of your life. If for some reason I can't imagine, you miss me, and don't particularly care what I'm doing, message me off anon and I'll give you my twitter for my 3d modelling work. In addition, I still have my personal miscellaneous blog here, @skwivr as well as my photography blog, @rabbitinthemeadow which I have also been inactive on for months, but at least have every plan to come back to just as soon as I have time to process my big backlog of photos for it.

Either way, I miss you all, thank you for all the years you gave me, and I hope to see you soon as we both grow and change together.

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

It’s now officially live! Moss of the Woods “Small Business Saturday” shop update, with a bunch of brand new moss pieces I’ve been working on for months now, including these brand new octahedral shapes and long, thin moss rectangular necklaces.

Each contain a real piece of moss preserved lovingly in glass-like resin.

From now, Saturday November 27th until Monday November 29th at 11:59 EST, feel free to use the coupon code “SMALLSAT” for 20% off anything purchased in the shop!

My shop link is in my bio!

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Brand new moss necklaces up in my shop today! I’ll have a fancy little picture later but here’s a preview of a few of the new moss necklace shapes I’ve made!

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Small Business Saturday, and a little update about my life!

Hey folks! I wanted to make a little post both to announce that I’ll be having an update tomorrow for Small Business Saturday, and also give a quick little update to anyone who maybe was wondering why I’ve been so absent here the past several months.

First, the update: I’ve made a HUGE batch of new moss necklaces, including several of a brand new shape that I’ve been working on for a while. I’ll hopefully have a proper post about it soon, so stay tuned!

Secondly, under the cut:

Anyone who’s been following me for a while must have noticed that I’ve been absent for several months now. Initially I said that I was just taking a short hiatus but really, during that short hiatus, it was made apparent to me how unsustainable business as usual had become for me. It’s no secret that Tumblr has less of a following on here than it used to, first of all, and so for all of the immense work that I was putting in to my jewelry, I was getting less and less in return for that work.

I was also simply getting very burned out; being expected to have new jewelry ready EVERY week, every Sunday, when resin takes so long to cure and process, meant that all of my mental energy was being devoted just to getting bare minimum done each week, and the end result just being more and more of the exact same pieces for months and months on end. I simply had no energy left to come up with new ideas let alone put in all the work that comes with executing on new ideas.

So, I decided to slow down my work to what I was comfortable with. No more updates until I actually have a substantial update with work that I’m proud of. No more forcing myself to make art under duress. I’ve been making these new moss pieces that will be in the update for literally months now, little by little, designing sanding and polishing new pieces, before finally casting them.

So, what else have I been doing for an income? Well, you’ll have to bear with me because this one might come across as coming out of left field - in all that time that I was gone I also found myself getting more and more addicted to 3D modeling, and specifically making 3D Vtuber models from scratch, and I’m now in a lucky enough position that I have a queue of commissions that I’m working on. It’s very comfortable work for me - something technically intricate that requires a lot of care and attention to detail to make, that I get to make personalized for another person. It’s really rewarding to me.

(If you’d like to know my twitter handle or anything for my Vtuber work, please DM me - I’d love to share, just nowhere that is searchable, as tumblr is.)

At any rate, I wanted this to be concise but it got rather rambling. The point is, I’ve now come to realize as an independent artist of many years, and one with severe ADHD, that it’s best not to put all my eggs in a single basket. I’m constantly very busy, but I like being busy with several different things all at once.

For those that are still here and listening, I hope you enjoy the pieces I will make in the future, now made more slowly but made with the renewed passion that comes from taking the necessary time to build up an idea from the ground up.

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Moss crystal specimen necklaces, available at the link in my bio! 🌿

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Had a dream last night where I went to a craft fair and there was a woman at a sort of shoddy looking table who at first blush appeared to be just reselling my old pieces under the pretense that she hand made them, but then I took a closer look and realized she was selling exact recreations of my pieces but with the shoddiest imaginable craftsmanship. Ribbons of resin hung off the side, plant material poking out the back, and the resin was actually just a thin shell over the plant material so thin I could break it with my fingernail and pull out the moss inside. Also her “shop name” was like “Moss in the Forest” or some other close knock off approximation.

Anyway I looked at her like “hey these look a lot like... uh...” and she gave me a look like “😬” and I looked at her like “😬” and then I just walked away and pretended like I didn’t see it because I didn’t wanna deal with it.

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Will you have grave moss again this year?

Almost certainly, yeah! (Suppose I should start working on that pretty soon, I can't believe it's literally September already)

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Small moss specimen necklaces, available at the link in my bio 🌿

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Rectangular prism moss specimen necklaces, available at the link in my bio! 🌿

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

I want you all to know I’m still trying and turns out this is harder than it seems! Who would have thought!

Are u-quizzes still cool can I make a botanical u-quiz

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

These are now available at the shop link in my bio! 💚

Some preview photos of my brand new moss collection that will be added to my shop tomorrow 🌿🍂

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

This week’s shop update is now live over at www.mossofthewoods.com!

This week is a big new moss collection including crystals, rectangular prisms, knick knacks, and a healthy supply of my tried and true small moss necklaces!

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Available now at the shop link in my bio!

Hey folks! At long last, I’m putting out a new update with a bunch of new and improved moss necklaces!

I’ve re-made two old molds, the square moss necklace mold as well as all three sizes of my crystal mold, now with a new technique that finally, finally, has perfectly smooth, flat sides and perfect edges. I’m so happy to have finally perfected my crystalline pieces. They’re sharp enough now to easily refract light.

Tomorrow is going to be a moss only update, with a few of these crystals and rectangular prisms, as well as a healthy serving of my tried and true small moss necklaces, $15 each.

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Some preview photos of my brand new moss collection that will be added to my shop tomorrow 🌿🍂

[mossofthewoodsjewelry]

Hey folks! At long last, I’m putting out a new update with a bunch of new and improved moss necklaces!

I’ve re-made two old molds, the square moss necklace mold as well as all three sizes of my crystal mold, now with a new technique that finally, finally, has perfectly smooth, flat sides and perfect edges. I’m so happy to have finally perfected my crystalline pieces. They’re sharp enough now to easily refract light.

Tomorrow is going to be a moss only update, with a few of these crystals and rectangular prisms, as well as a healthy serving of my tried and true small moss necklaces, $15 each.