One more day of this horrid weather. Tomorrow a cool front moves in, and we’ll say goodbye to the 90s. What a crazy year, but then I’ve been saying that for years now.

It’s been too hot to work on the torch too much, so I’ve dug out my coring equipment to try my hand at that again. I started out with copper and brass, since that’s a bit cheaper than sterling silver.

I really like the copper and brass layers on the 2nd bead. Need to make more of those with some different glass for the plunges.

I did one with sterling silver, and wasn’t really happy with the gaps between the flare of the silver and the bead. So I went onto Etsy and searched for silver cored Pandora beads because I wanted to see what others’ looked like. It was pretty shocking to see all of the $2.99 ‘sterling silver’ cored beads there. I wish people would remember that you get what you pay for. A month ago, a lampworker who is also a supplier posted an email she had gotten from someone (from China) trying to sell her coring rivets. Yup, stamped 925 for sterling silver, made of white copper (an alloy of copper and nickel).

And that’s not even considering the ‘handmade’ aspect of these beads. Not surprisingly, these shops don’t give any details about the production of the beads. Nothing about their ‘studio’ (or more likely, factory in China), or even if they’re been annealed. But this is Etsy’s fault. I would have no gripe with these beads if they were sold as supplies. But they’re being sold as handmade by the seller. This has been a big problem with Etsy, and it just doesn’t seem they care enough to stop it.

ArtFire, on the other hand, now has an option where you can be certified handmade. Sure, a person could still slip under the wire by lying, but you at least have to go through a proving process to get the certificate.

OK, enough of my ranting.

Oh, and Peaches is getting rather close to her 9th life. She jumped up on my computer desk this morning and knocked my keyboard on the floor. Batteries and keys went flying. I still haven’t found the door for the batteries, and my space bar isn’t working all that well. Grrrr!