I’m sending this little note to you as an email, but I’ll snail mail it also… because as you are probably aware blackberry email services are not working and you won’t get it. Just as I haven’t received any emails to my phone from my customers for the last 18 hours.

Anyhow, my message is this. While you have a great alarm clock (about the only thing that’s working right now), I really do need you for more than that. It’s a problem when my clients send me emails and I don’t get them. So I’m leaving you. And just so you know, the problem here IS you, it’s not me.

I hope you’ll consider a hefty refund, after all I think your empty promises were a bit misleading…. “Do more – faster?” “World’s greatest smartphone?” “Get your emails right to your phone even when you’re out of the office?” ‘Instant message with all your friends and associates?” “Really??? Lies!!

So while it was fun at first, now you’re just another pretty mp3 player with a great alarm clock. I need more.
So I’m off to buy an iPhone before they’re all gone.

Sincerely,
Bridget

PS: I never really wanted you… but I was young and inexperienced and when I was ready for my first smartphone my carrier didn’t support or have iPhones yet. Sadly, if I had waited just a bit longer we wouldn’t be going through this messy situation now.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

A bit about it:

The Phaistos Disc (or Festos) is thought to be by many one of the most mysterious archeological objects of all time. Discovered during excavation in the early part of the 20th century in a crypt beneath the floor of the Royal chamber at the Minoan Palace of Phaistos on the Greek island of Crete, it is a small disc of high fired clay dating back to the middle to late Minoan Bronze Age (2 millennium BC). The original can be seen in the Herkalion museum at Crete, it is one of a very few objects recovered from the ruins of the destroyed Minoan civilization.
Both sides of the disc are stamped with a spiral of symbols or “glyphs” depicting a syllabic script the meaning of which to this day remains undeciphered. Thought by some to be a very advanced form of an ancient calendar, or by others possibly a map of the celestial system, many attempts have been made to decipher the code of the disc’s symbols. The purpose and meaning of the disc remain disputed to this day, making it one of the most famous unsolved mysteries of archeaology. It’s generally assumed that unless more examples of the symbols or glyphs are ever found the meaing of the disc will likely remain forever undeciphered.

I picked up this sterling silver charm depicting the Phaistos Disc earlier this year in Greece. I paired it with a sharply faceted blue topaz nugget, a reminder of the clear crisp blue of the waters surrounding the Greek islands. Strung on a sterling silver ball chain that closes with my signature hand forged hook clasp, all metal is sterling silver that has been oxidized and hand buffed to a satin patina. A simple piece meant to be an hommage to the brilliant imaginative spirits of the ancient greeks and to one of the most brilliant and sophisticated civilizations of antiquity, the Minoan.

•The 2010 Olympic “theme” song by Nikki Yanofsky-I Believe.  I am totally in love with this song, it still brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it, and let me tell ya, CTV plays it a lot!
•The 2010 Olympics. In a house that rarely has the tv on, ours has been on about 16 or 18 hrs a day since the opening ceremonies, and will be till the closing ceremonies. My hat is off to all athletes, what you have accomplished to get where you are makes you a hero even if you don’t take home an olympic medal. (well, all athletes except the pouty one taking home the silver for men’s moguls, sorry, that attitude just plain sucked)
•One more about the Olympics… KD Lang! What a wow performance! Yeah yeah, she’s somewhat controversial and some people just love to hate her, but she rocked! What an incredible voice and an amazing performance!  
• My blackberry. How, oh how did I ever live without this baby?? My poor ipod touch is so alone and neglected now, it’s only use now is for music, movies and audio books… my life is now on my blackberry tour.
I would marry it if I could. Really.
And the coolest thing? When my blackberry & my imac hook up via bluetooth, it’s like they’re making out     I keep expecting to see little blue cartoon hearts floating through the air from the imac to the blackberry and back again.

•Last but not least, only 37 more sleeps to 14 days in Italy, Greece and the islands!

Ciao!

One of the hardest issues to deal with on a near ongoing basis is the slowness of shipping from Canada to the US. Many times buyers don’t realize (even though I try to make it very clear multiple times) that I am in Canada, and in my “thank you for your purchase, your items will ship *insert date here*, please allow for delays with US Customs, or slow postal services, or whatever, it still seems that within days I’m getting emails from clients looking for their stuff. I don’t blame them for wanting their purchases. But I state in my profile I am in Canada, I state in my listings I am in Canada and in my emails that I am in Canada. Why is it that I can mail packages from here and they arrive in many countries across the ocean faster than ones arrive in locations on the same continent? I only ship using airmail, doesn’t matter if it’s within Canada, to the US or over the ocean. Always airmail. 

Anyhow, most customers are quite understanding with my second email explaining that I shipped when I said I would, the delay is somewhere else along the line and more than patient. Others, not quite so. Some seem to think that perhaps I’ve not mailed their stuff. With nearly 1000 sales on etsy under my belt and absolutely no feedback (yet!) for slow shipping on my part, it’s fairly obvious that I mail quick. I resent being accused of slow shipping or not shipping at all. I work many late nights in order to get packages out within the 24hr time frame that I state I ship within. Maybe the late nights are making me a bit grumpy. I’ve got one customer right now that is a bit upset her package hasn’t arrived yet, it will be 14 days on Wed that her package was mailed. This customer lives on the east coast of the US, in an area that received record snowfalls in the last few weeks. Many services were shut down for long periods of time in these areas, yet her emails are seemingly accusing. She apparently knows that it simply doesn’t take this long for an item to arrive from Canada. And it sort of hurts and it sort of makes me a bit angry. I try my damndest to get stuff out fast, yet there are so many things out of my control and yet I am the one that has to answer to that.

And I’m getting tired of it. So I am seriously considering bumping my shipping service up to xpresspost only within Canada and expedited only to the US. The costs are crazy for these services, nearly $10 for BC, AB, SK & MB and $15 for the rest of Canada, and will start at about $14 or so for the US. Doing this will obviously hurt my business, and in a big way I am sure. But damn, at least it’s traceable and the customer can go online and see that their package was shipped when I said it would, and that it’s delayed somewhere else along the line.  Peace of mind = priceless??  Not sure yet, and haven’t convinced myself quite yet to take the leap, but it’s coming. The stress of answering “where’s my jewelry!?” emails is just getting to me.

And, while I’m ranting…
my buddy at trader lou’s is at it once again. Copied nearly every item in my etsy shop and is having it “handmade by skilled artisans in India”. The only “bright side” here is that his pictures really suck. like really bad. At first I thought it was just my photos with the backgrounds photo-shopped out, poorly I might add, but I guess not. His inferior photos of his inferior copies of my stuff will likely not really affect me. It sorta bothers me that people may see the photos on his site and think that I am copying or even worse yet, not creating my own stuff. But quite frankly, he’s a loser with a loser website and how bloody much traffic can he be getting?

I work hard at my craft, my designs are my own, created by me, with my two hands, and only my ideas. I take pride in that my designs come from within me, not from someone else. And quite frankly that makes me the artist and him the loser copycat. Hah, haven’t said that since early grade school. Anyhow, que sera sera. Reality will come up and bite that boy in the ass someday. I really believe that. I am so over worrying about his bullshit crap.

Well, what better way to start off a blog than with a rant! Against those who lack morals and ethics and integrity. Those who chose to steal from *the little guy*. Today, it was brought to my attention that my photos and my descriptions were being used, without my permission I must add, on a site claiming to sell “hand made artisan products”.  What this sleezebag did was to lift the photos and item descriptions from online artisans, mostly etsy sellers, but also one large company,  the Sundance catalogue (Robert Redford’s baby) and claim them as his own. The prices, for the most part were way cheaper than any of us could actually afford to create these items for. You could actually check out with these purchases. No, he was not working with us, no he was not reselling our products. He was having our designs reproduced after they ”sold” on his website. Slime ball. I received an email from a customer who had purchase from this company. Items stated to be created in 14k yellow or white gold were received having been crafted in sterling silver, and not at the sizes listed.  When purchasing mulitples of one design, all were a little bit different. Stands to reason, likely all items being mass produced by different people would account for this. 
Anyhow, I was alerted to this by an etsy shopper who recognized my items on his website by my photos. I started a thread in the etsy forums about it, and started to alert other sellers whose images I recognized. link to the thread is here http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6425050
There were 650 posts to this thread before etsy admin chose to shut it down.

Yes, there were posts that revealed information about this slimeball, and etsy chose to close the thread for this “calling out” of someone with absolutely no moral integrity, a criminal. He stole copyrighted photos and verbiage. The info posted in the thread is readily and widely available on the internet, that is where it came from. Personal? I don’t think so.  

Anyhow, before this thread was closed, thanks to a real coming together of members of the etsy community (even ones not directly affected by this guy) we were able to launch enough attacks at this slime, his webhosts and internet providers that he and his staff removed the offending items from all his websites. Yes, all. 3 websites in total (that we found, are there more? still looking) plus an ebay store.  Apalling.

Yes, I am upset with the way it was handled by etsy. They should be there to protect their sellers, their bread and butter so to speak. Yet, because this guy’s websites and name were stated in posts, the entire thread got shut down. A thread that helped not only the affected sellers, but any one else having to deal with this type of copyright infringement. Links of where to turn for help, links with lawyers and groups that help artists with this sort of personal and intellectual copyright theft. Shut down to protect the very one whole did the stealing. Go figure.

Want his name? The websites to avoid? Be very sure to NEVER EVER shop at
traderlou dot com
handtrades dot com
ahsmith dot com
and their store on ebay is southgap

interestingly enough, a bit of research shows that these websites are run by
Robert Frechette (or Robert Frech, conflicting info, he seems to list his name a bit different in a couple registration applications) of Cary, NC.
who was the owner of the infamous ebay store gilbertandfrech of a few years ago!
gilbertandfrech have an F rating with the BBB!!  try googling gilbertandfrech. very interesting reports over many years. total scammers and rip of artists.

Talking with live chat this afternoon at traderlou dotcom, I was speaking with Amy, who happens to be Roberts wife.  Another etsy artist who “chatted” with live help today had a Robert helping her. Interesting. They are their own webstaff. And, for that matter, not very helpful

What came about today was a huge coming together of many etsians, in the shared and vested interests of independant artisans worldwide. And it worked. We won today. But, we will keep watch, because this sleeze will be back. With a total lack of ethics and integrity, he will soon try again, stealing photos of hardworking artists and claim them as his own. Pathetic loser. Less valuable to most of humankind than pond scum. And to know that would really suck.

Please be patient while I figure wordpress out and get this updated and pretty looking!