Betsy & Iya Jewelry

Before: The heely dream——-

Last night my wares were on display and for sale at the CRAVE shopping party. Some of my favorite parts of the evening include: meeting other great vendors, admiring all the talent and hard work, making sales, people watching, playing dress up, women in general, bright pink fuchsia scarves, neon royal blue shoes, overly expensive (plastic) glasses of red wine, Will (my “paid” “employee”), compliments, genuine conversation, and trading for a coupla bottles of exotic sake.

Least favorite part of the evening: getting footed.

It’s a new term (brand new, actually, Will and I made it up last night). I don’t typically dress really fancily, much less, wear high heels. I’m quite tall as it is and in my world those heely bleeps are more of a pain than a beauty. Though every once and awhile, I like to bust out my hotness from the winter cedar chest of summer protection. I mean, I like to show the world that I can do it too! And it’s pure, baby!! Sure, I might be a little wobbly, but I’m capable. I can!

The past three days, however, have been incredibly intense for me. My body has been in overdrive trying to bust out as many new designs and construct as many pieces as my little calloused hands can handle. The awesome thing is that I have some super sweet new things that I’ve quickly created (like: fat huge hoops made from old curtain rod holders, some new necklaces made from the same, new necklaces from old door numbers (all one-of-a-kind…look out for all these newbies, I’ll be posting soon). I’ve also done a new product photo shoot for a bunch of new designs that I haven’t listed yet. AND I’m making rings now!!! Soooooo exciting. That’s all happened in the past three days. So…you can tell that I was a little ill prepared to add the heels to an already shaky frame.

Yesterday was a 16 hour day for me. WHAT!?!!! I just counted that and I’m a little stunned myself. I had no idea I worked that much. yikes. I gotsta get a hold on that.

But I WAS brave …I turned the blinds down in my studio, heated up the hair straightener, hiked up my nylons, put on my smokey look + rouge, threw on my black dress, picked out the perfect jewels (which would change twice through the evening), and finally, slipped on my heels (high boot wedge thingys). That was around 3 yesterday.

By the time Will and I put the last display item back into the car, around 10, I was SPENT and my feet had disappeared…except I could feel them. And I mean really feel them. I kept thinking up powerful images and scenarios, like someone had shot my legs through the bottom of my feet…OR that I had hypothermia in my feet and the feeling was starting to come back, but without any painkillers…man that would be wretched…OR that I was walking on fire, veery sloooowly…OR that I was strapped to a bed where people were constantly tickling my feet and I couldn’t escape.

All really great thoughts, but FINALLY I came up with the perfect analogy: I had been SCALPED, but on my feet.

I disclosed my thoughts to Will immediately and felt proud of how perfectly they described my current status. Then I said, “HEELED, I’VE BEEN HEELED”! (and kind of liked how ironic that sounded) But then I realized that only covered one area of my WHOLE two feet whose blood was ready to burst out into a new creek if given the opportunity.

Then he said it, he coined it, perfectly and so cooly, “Betsy, you’ve been footed“.

Duh.

We had a nice laugh about that one and I added an awesome new word to my vocabulary. Hopefully, you all will add it too.

After, looks like:

Feels like:

Thanks, everyone, for getting through that one with me.

***Song of the Moment: Thriftstore Jewelry, by The Bad Plus***