It's a predatory world out there.

Photo copyright Aji, 2024; all rights reserved.

Such a look of disdain. At least the magpie's not backing down; it was still there after the Cooper's left.

It's a predatory world out there.

It's also mostly terrible right now. That includes our holiday business season. Our sales are next to nothing, but the bills and expenses won't wait. As it is, there will be no gifts this year, for anyone, if something doesn't break soon. I have to pay too many things right now; the whole of my Patreon is already gone on monthly bills. I don't know how we make it if people don't shift into holiday-buying gear soon. Because at this rate? We can't. Not even through the month on basic expenses, never mind the fact that I have GOT to replace my laptop before the new year when prices skyrocket thanks to that asshole's tariff announcement. We are nowhere near maintaining that kind of pace, and with the well pump and the laptop and the taxes and the medical and everything else? All it would take at this point is a feather to break everything completely.

I don't know what to do. I'm doing everything I can, as fast as I can, at a pace of 16-hour days 7 days a week and at great expense to my body at this point, and here we are, new week, mid-December, and it's never enough. I need help, but there isn't any. What I really need is to bring in sales, but I can't force people to buy. And it's looking really grim.

And yes, I know we're lucky. The housing crisis worsens daily here. On that note, also go here, buy something, or several somethings, off the outreach group's wishlist, and you will literally be saving a life, probably more than one. It's not really possible to overstate how bad it is out there, nor how great the need is. I've sorted it in their Priority order. The outreach program is giving gear out as fast as they get them, and being mostly housebound now, it's hard for me to get out to pick up any before they're gone. To that end, I've put some tents and sleeping bags and other essentials on our own wishlist, with a note that they're for the outreach effort, and if folks would like to hit it up [because I cannot spend $145 on a 10-pack of sleeping bags right now because we don't have the money, but they are so very badly needed] we would be grateful.

Today's feature is another newish pendant, also built around an incredible stone. I've only once seen this intensity of blue in azurite that's included into malachite before, in a pair of earrings that Wings made for me. This pendant is really something else. We dn't have any azurite in anything else in inventory, but we do have three cuffs set with malachite that would be beautiful matches for this [and amazing holiday gifts!]:

• "Lines of an Ancient Earth," sterling silver and malachite, with a heavy-gauge band saw-cut freehand in deeply incised Art Deco linework, with water-motif stampwork at the ends and along the inner band, here; 
• "Earth, Flowering in the Light," sterling silver and malachite; the focal is a floral concha, saw-cut, scored, and stamped freehand with that deep green at its center, with freehand cutwork, scorework, and texturization on the band, here; and
• "The View From the Mountaintop," sterling silver, malachite, and Sleeping Beauty turquoise, seven stones arrayed across a slender, vintage-style band, here.

There's more on the way very soon; he's got something like four more cuffs [a green turquoise one and a rainbow moonstone one that I FINALLY got posted last night, for two of them], a couple of pendants [the one set with incredible genuine spectrolite is yesterday's feature], potentially several new pairs of earrings, and eventually all the new coils he'll need for holiday inventory. And I need to sell them all, because I still need to make sales weekly for us to catch up on the year and cover all the stuff still in the pipeline that needs covering [laptop, roof next year AND now the well pressure pump, more medical, always prepaid taxes, etc.]. So: GO BUY! PLEASE. Links are here:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (Priority is the liquid soaps and Amazon cards, probably most useful at this point); 
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

After such a grim year, this one far worse than the last, we really need to end 2024 on a better footing before 2025 and taxes take every cent, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2024; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.