Saturday Blog Shoppers

Spring has Sprung (yay!)

Hey, it's the weekend again! Time for Saturday Blog Shoppers. Visit everyone's blogs and post comments, please! Thanks for supporting.

Well it's Spring, finally. I think I said that a week or two ago, and then it snowed again. I think it's really here this time and I'm happy about it. Spring brings the break from cold weather (hopefully), my birthday, my boyfriend's birthday, and our dating anniversary. So for a little "Spring theme", I'm going to feature some of my green and yellow and blue earrings this week.


Green Byzantine Earrings

Yellow Byzantine Earrings


Green and Yellow Byzantine Earrings



Green and Blue Byzantine Earrings

All of these earrings are $12 each pair.

Thanks for visiting! Don't forget the other blogs!

Saturday Blog Shoppers

I've only been to a few craft fairs so far, but one question I almost always get asked is "do you have anything for guys?" At first I didn't; or at least, apparently I didn't, or they probably wouldn't have asked. My problem is, the guys I know don't wear jewelry, even if I give them some, so I don't know what guys like; so I wasn't sure if I had anything or not. But I have seen a few things worn by guys, so I've tried making a few things I think some guys might like.

So this week for Saturday Blog Shoppers I'm featuring one of my guy's necklaces.


Guy's Chainmaille Pendant Necklace

The weave is mostly random: basically I just took some black and silver 16 gauge rings, sat down to watch Ironman, and worked until this came out. Then I put it on this thick necklace cord that a friend gave me.


So, there you go guys (or girls who are shopping for guys)! Hope you like it. If not, I have a few other things in the "For Guys" section as well.

Don't forget to check out the other blogs in the Saturday Shoppers group. Happy Saturday!

Saturday Blog Shoppers

I am now participating in Saturday Blog Shoppers! After looking at my item and my shop, please visit the other blogs by clicking here or on the button on the right.

Today I will feature my Black and Red Chainmaille Handflower:



A handflower is a Medieval-style piece of jewelry made of a combination of bracelet and ring, which fits over the back of the hand. Chainmaille (also spelled chainmail or chain mail) is originally a medieval under-armor made of lots of chain links or rings woven together in a pattern. Today it is mostly used for jewelry.

My chainmaille handflowers are made with the European 6-in-1 chainmaille weave (E6) and a weave called One Hour Less Sleep for the wristband, with chain finger-rings and toggle clasps. I use tarnish resistant colored copper wire for the rings.



I also have bracelets, earrings, chained handflowers and a few rings in my shop. Please take a look: shadowcutter.etsy.com

Thank you for visiting my blog. Please post a comment, and if you purchase anything from me after reading this blog please put "Saturday Blog Shoppers" in Notes to Seller so I can report results to the blogger group. And don't forget to check out the other blogs!

Saturday Blog Shoppers

Green for March

March is here! Oh lovely March. The month of Spring and St. Patrick's Day. The month of Ireland.

I love Ireland. I'm part Irish, and I like everything that is Irish, especially the music and the Claddagh ring with all it's symbolism and meaning. I wear mine every day.

Also my birthday is March 18. I was almost born on St. Patrick's Day. Just missed it.

And I'm quite happy to have warm Spring weather finally start to show up again.

Anyway, one thing about St. Patrick's Day is you have to wear something green, or you'll get pinched. I'm not sure how many people still remember to pinch anyone who isn't wearing green, but that's what's supposed to happen.

I have a few green things in my shop. I just listed my newest bracelet yesterday:

Green Chainmaille Bracelet

And of course I still have a few other green items:


Green Byzantine Earrings



Green and Yellow Byzantine Earrings
-also nice spring colors ;-)


Green and Orange Byzantine Bracelet
(orange, by the way, is also an Irish color, though not the official one)

Hopefully I'll soon be able to list these earrings as well:


They're all slightly different in the color pattern, but the colors are green and gun metal. I like this type of keys. I actually collect keys like this, and I was happy to find these charms at the craft store.

How soon I get to list these and some other new items depends on budget and other expenses vs. income, since listing fees add up, but I hope I can list these soon. We shall see.

St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time -- a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.
-Adrienne Cook

Antivirus Soft is Malware

Sorry I have no pictures or anything especially fun or interesting today; instead I have important computer information (trojan warning and solution), and I couldn't copy and paste the screenshots. Hope this is helpful to someone, though if so I'm sorry you have the problem.

Yesterday I was uploading and editing some jewelry photos, and a notification popped up on my computer saying my computer was infected with Spyware. This note come from a program I hadn't seen before, called Antivirus Soft. When I clicked on the icon (even right click) it brought up the program which would let me scan. There was no way to remove or delete it. This note kept popping up every few minutes, and then an error message started popping up every few minutes randomly and every time I tried to open something, saying "Application cannot be executed. The file [filename].exe is infected." Then Internet Explorer started popping up with porn sites. If I clicked on "yes" or "scan now" on the antivirus warnings it just took me to the website where I could buy this "scanner" called Antivirus Soft. I scanned with SuperAntiSpyware and Avast instead, but they found nothing. Finally I looked this up (on the other computer, since I couldn't open Firefox here), and here's what I found.

What this programs does:

Antivirus Soft is a rogue anti-spyware and ransomware program from the same family as Antivirus Live. These infections are installed on to your computer through the use of malware that installs the program onto your computer without your permission or knowledge. It is also common for this rogue to be installed on your computer through the use of malicious PDF files that exploit known vulnerabilities in older versions of Adobe Reader. Once installed, Antivirus Soft will be configured to start automatically when Windows starts. Once running it will scan your computer and display numerous infections, but will state it will not remove them until you purchase the program. In reality, the infected files it detects are all fake and do not actually exist on your computer.

This program also uses aggressive techniques to protect itself from being removed by anti-malware programs. When the Antivirus Soft process is running it will close almost any running program while falsely stating that they are infected. Antivirus Soft will also change the Proxy settings in Internet Explorer so that you cannot browse to any web site other than the site for Antivirus Soft so that you can purchase the program. It does this so that you cannot browse the web to find removal guides or download software that will help you remove the infection. Using these two methods, the program essentially ransoms the normal use of your computer until you purchase the program or use the guide below to remove the infection.

Here's an example of an alert that pops up (exactly what I saw):

Antivirus Software Alert
Infiltration Alert
Your computer is being attacked by an internet virus. It could be a password-stealing attack, a trojan-dropper or similar.
Threat: Win32/Nuqel.E

Screenshots and instructions for getting rid of this (and the description above) are on bleepingcomputer.com. To sum it up, you'll need to go into safe mode and scan with Malware Bytes Anti-Malware (MBAM)(free); but there are other things you'll need to know on the webpage; there's too much for me to share here. This virus was really frustrating and stressful, and I was really happy to find the website and fix the problem. It doesn't cost anything to use the bleepingcomputer solution, and it worked for me. I just wish I knew how I got this thing in the first place.


EDIT: Update 2.14.10 a couple days ago I scanned with SuperAntiSpyware (just a regular weekly scan) and it found an item of Antivirus Soft although it wasn't bothering my computer anymore. So just keep watching out and scanning if you ever get this problem, even after you fix it.

Shall I make one? ;-)

Old and New Photos

I've finally finished retaking all the photos of my earrings with my new tabletop photo studio (aka the good lightbox). Still working on cropping them and replacing the old photos in the Etsy listings. Got one of them up yesterday; here's a comparison:

Old photo with homemade lighbox, in the garage which only has poor yellowish light (couldn't find enough light elsewhere that day):



Looks ok here, I suppose, but in the listing the photo is smaller and harder to see.

New photo with better lightbox, good lighting:


(Green and Yellow Byzantine Earrings)

Sort of looks darker, but also clearer I think. I think the darkness of it comes from the gray background vs. the white, and there's sort of a shadowy-ness in the first one which isn't really a problem in the second one. So basically, I think there's still something in my photography that needs to be improved, and I need to figure out exactly what to do about it, but the new lightbox is definitely better than the old one. In fact I usually have to iron out the crease in the background cloth before I can use it, but the old one had a seam between the two pieces of poster board (the box was too big for just one), which I couldn't iron out except with the smudge tool in Photobucket.

It seems like the photos with the earrings laying down are better than the ones with them hanging:


I think maybe that's because the two lights and the camera are all pointed down directly at the earrings, and when they're hanging on the display it's kinda difficult to get both lights on them evenly.

Actually the more I look at the old photo, especially comparing it to the new one, the less I like the old one. Maybe the new one could be a little clearer, but there's something really uncomfortable about the lighting in the old one. I think it's like a doctor's office waiting room. Ew I really need to replace the rest of those photos soon. Very sorry about that. It will all be fixed quite soon.