Out with the old

As I mentioned on my Kali Butterfly Facebook page, I'm waiting on 100,000 rings for my chainmaille wedding dress. Because of that, I took it upon myself to get rid of lots of things I don't need and don't use to make room for things that I want and will enjoy.

The first thing I chose to tackle, for sheer numbers alone, was my Magic: The Gathering card collection. Since the only thing it was gathering was dust, I decided to box up my commons and uncommons (and some rares) in a giant flat-rate box.

One fixed-price auction on eBay and they were gone.  Over 5,000 Magic cards and 26 pounds of dead weight out the door.  I'm still selling off my rare cards piecemeal... but chances are those will be in a lot when I get tired of selling everything one at a time.

Click here for a guide to getting rid of your junk. I just watch Hoarders to get motivated, but some people like lists.

Vanessa Walilko

Handmade jewelry
Aluminum chainmail jewelry

Private Tumblr

I just learned something, so I thought I would share.  While figuring out how to share the updates on my chainmaille wedding dress, I found out that it's possible to make a private Tumblr. The heavens rejoice! Now I don't need to worry about updating contact information for nearly 75 people or making all of those kind folks sign up for yet another site. 

If you need to create a site with private access, click here to find out more. It is tremendously easy to make this happen.

Vanessa Walilko

Handmade jewelry
Chainmail jewelry

The Kickstarter Experience

I consider myself tremendously lucky in many ways.  I make jewelry for a living.  People love my chainmaille clothing.  I'm making costumes and props for a Full House murder musical.  My personal life has never been more fun and interesting.  And now--to top it all off--I'm even more affirmed in my belief that people are awesome: my Kickstarter project was 150% funded.

Thanks to the generosity of my friends, family, and strangers I reached my goal and now will be making an epic chainmaille wedding dress.  Fellow chainmaillers donated portions of their sales to my cause, producing some of the coolest cross-promotion ideas I've been a part of.  I'm thrilled.

For those of you unfamiliar with Kickstarter, it's a really neat site.  Creative types can propose clear-cut creative projects (with definite end goals) and hope that people will fund them.  Everything from video games to albums to my own chainmaille wedding dress are up on the website.  And people from around the world can find you and help pledge support if you're able to entice them with interesting rewards.  It's pretty amazing.  In exchange for this service, Kickstarter take 5% of whatever you raise, and then Amazon.com takes another 5% to process credit cards payments.

Last night the funds were deposited into my account, and I just placed an order for 100,000 rings and waiting to hear back from an Etsy seller to purchase a bulk order of glass pearls and aluminum flowers.  I am so excited to start working on this project.  What a weird and awesome life I have.

To those of you who pledged support, I'll be contacting you about your rewards in the next few days.  I'm most excited about the exclusive newsletter that will detail the creation of this piece.  It'll make me document my progress--which was tremendously fun when I did that for my chainmaille flapper dress.

Vanessa Walilko

Handmade jewelry
Chainmail jewelry