But first, a shameful confession. After much vitriol towards Timothy Ferris, I have realized that I use Etsy Alchemy as my first world sweat shop for stuff I probably could make myself, but am too lazy to. The trick to utilizing this properly (and to max the sliminess) is to set a price you can reasonably pay for something but not crazy below market value. Then you weed through the bids to find the people who are really good seamstresses (judging by their shops), jewelers, etc. but have not yet made many if any sales yet. They are willing to work for a lower price for you so they can start to make their name. The goal is to catch people who are *just* about to make it but haven't yet. I outsourced a capelet for a song made by a Jersey woman who specializes in jersey (fo' real!) and am currently in process outsourcing a set of cocktail party invitations for the party Miss Spice and I are having for our coterie at Arisia and having the designer in question not only make the invitations, but address them and mail them for about $20.
Here is the justification for those of you who need it like me: These people bid of their own free will and it's supporting small businesses/cottage industry and helping people make a name for themselves. So it's good, really!
Some of you may not know this, but handspinning yarn is currently my drug of choice. I'm hoping to graduate to an actual wheel in the next few months. Let's stretch things and say, yarn is magical. It's not really a stretch, actually. The Fates spun and did some bad ass magic with it. Spinning is meditative, one could definitely put intention into yarn. Yarn is often used in "low" magic for binding and making small dolls and tying off mojo bags.
Should you not need a whole skein of yarn but are interested in using yarn in your magic, I will hand dye one ounce of yarn in your color of choice, use 100% wool and can spin it with a general intention (to be approved by me of course) for your use for $8 USD. The transaction will go through Etsy using Paypal. If you're interested, drop me a comment. If you want a private discussion about it, email me at corvaxgirl [at] gmail [dottie] com with the subject line, "Charmed, I'm Sure: Yarn".
For those of you who perhaps crochet or knit or are just curious about my work, here it is:
| Etsy sirenecorbeau |