Andrea found a new online site for selling handmade craft items, 1000 Markets. As soon as she mentioned it on Twitter, I popped over and checked it out. I liked what I saw and signed up right away!

It’s pretty easy to set things up, and the fees are comparable to other venues once you consider that you are paying a single fee, not separate fees like you do when you use PayPal with Etsy. I spent some time the last couple of days getting my shop set up and putting just a few products into it so it could get approved and go live. I haven’t heard back about the approval, but hopefully there will be something in my mailbox by tomorrow morning.

Go check it out — I’m at Art of the Firebird there, of course.  So far it looks like Andrea and I are the only two lampworkers, so if we can get some people visiting there, we may just have a sales venue to work with.

It’s a veritable plethora of bloggy goodness out there this week!!!

• At the new Glass Arts blog on CraftGossip.com, Lori Greenberg finds two bead artists inspired by American Gothic.
• Seraphim Flameworks tests out the latest Double Helix odd lots and test batches.
• Karolen’s still learning about Pandora as she tries restriking some unstruck beads in the kiln.
• Karolen didn’t spend ALL her time at the torch this week, though — she found a useful new tool for Etsy sellers on the Web.
• Can you make a living as a lampworker? Deanna Chase does it.
• That Marcy Lamberson is a busy, busy person! First she finds the perfect tool to help with the glassy details on your beads.
• Then she coaches Fiona in making a blackbird and a penguin at the torch.
• For the week’s Major Eye Candy, Hannah Rosner knocks our collective socks off with her latest necklaces using not just lampwork, but a plethora of seed beads and crystals as well.

Okay, I admit it. I’ve been a slacker for a couple of weeks. My bad! First it was exams for summer term, then a week off when I was a total slug, then a week of meeting and advisement hell. So I am way, way behind on BotW, because people HAVE been posting good stuff!

• Mincot expanded on Rachel’s posting from last time about the costs behind artist-made lampwork beads.
• Lydia Muell shares a bit of the work behind the development of her first-ever lampwork tutorial. Look at the beads, then click over and get the tutorial itself — I highly recommend it!
• Need a quickie guide to the different types of lampworking glass?
• Michelle’s exploring mandalas in lampwork, and the results are fabulous!
• Want pink? Not sure how to get it? Lori Greenberg tells you the pros and cons of all the “pink” soft glass out there. Now if she’d just help me create a true pink in boro…
• Lori is also going back in time for a re-look at her creative process over at Watch Me Create.
• Cindy Gimbrone’s out there singing “I like big wire and I cannot lie…“
• Susan Sheehan recently discovered that doing a bead show isn’t as dreadful as she thought — in fact, it’s a pretty positive experience!
• For those of us who couldn’t make it to The Gathering, Andrea Guarino-Slemmons shares some pictures of Vittorio Constantini’s class.
• A lot of us lampworkers are introverted souls. We’d like to think we can torch all the time, but that’s really not feasible. So what can we do for fun without spending a lot of money OR dealing with those hated crowds of people? The Simple Dollar to the rescue!