I saw an interesting link on one of my friends' blogs - steampunk jewelry, being sold through a storefront on Etsy. I had my eye on a pair of pieces, and after changing my mind to get the smaller, less expensive pair of earrings, I placed my order in early June. Wait time was billed at 6-8 weeks, for production.

My package arrived, without fanfare or a ship notice, on Friday - just over 5 weeks from the date I placed my initial order.

The stainless steel "caparace" ring, I measured to fit my thumb. I don't love the feel of large-ish rings, especially since I do so much keyboarding; and I figured a ring on my thumb or index finger would let me wear the ring without driving myself batty everytime I tried to type something. I'm apparently not a ring-sizing expert, because if I wear the ring on my thumb I have to be careful about large gestures or the ring slips off and makes a low-trajectory arc across the room. It works fine on the index finger of either hand, though. (For whatever reason, the lower section of my index fingers are a little fatter than the others. Hey, don't ask me, I didn't design the body, I just inhabit it.)

The earrings are beautiful. I'm glad I got the shorter ones, because the other ones I was initially considering - though I like the design just a tiny bit more - would have descended too far down for my preferences, especially for immobile earrings. However..."the hooks are sized at 18 gauge and should fit all standard ear piercings". I got my ears pierced years ago, waybackwhen in the 80s. If something was measured by a gauge, either you were into body modification a bit ahead of the curve or you were talking about a shotgun or tools of some kind. Since it had the phrase "should fit all standard ear piercings", I though I'd be okay. Sadly, though, I can get the hooks about halfway through...and if I try to insert them all the way, the skin around my first set of piercings starts to tear. This isn't the fault of the seller, this is my own fault. I'm going to email him and ask if there's any way that he could start marketing earrings for much smaller piercings, so that people who do not wear spools in their ears (even tiny ones) can wear his earrings. He's got a line in development that looks like it will be using "standard" earring hooks, so possibly something from that line will interest me. I really don't care to try and widen my piercing holes to accomodate these earrings, because I like not having great big obvious pierce-holes that require me to wear earrings every day (and some of my tiny chip-gem earrings might not fit any more, which would make me sad for a different reason), but I don't know if it's possible to modify these earrings so that I can actually wear them. (Update: I tried wearing these two days ago, when the package arrived. I hadn't been wearing earrings in my first set of piercings for about a week, while I wore my studs in my second set. When I had the skin-tearing issue, I wore my studs in the primary piercings for two days. I just tried the earrings on again...and while I can't get the forward part of the hook to slide through my lobe, and while it's just a wee tiny bit uncomfortable especially when my hair catches on the earrings and pulls at them, I can wear them. Maybe it will be a case of having to wear heavier earrings for a day before I wear these? Don't know.)

The service I got was good (probably partially because they're located in the same city that I'm in, so mailing time was a lot shorter), though personally I would have appreciated a ship-notice email. The packaging was good, sturdy, not too much, just boxes for the items and a larger sturdier mailing-box (about the size of a Blu-Ray case, maybe a bit smaller.) The prices were good. I really like the ring, I'm a bit disappointed that I can't wear the earrings because they look pretty, but if I only insert the hooks to my tolerance I have concerns that they'll fall out. (Maybe they can be modified - who knows?)

The shop is on Etsy (improbablecog.etsy.com), the blog is at improbablecog.com, and they're on Twitter (@improbablecog) as well.

Update: pictures! Sadly, my picture-taking ability stinks on ice, so I'm going to have to re-do the photos of the earrings in their box, and the ring on top of the 10-gram jar (for size comparison). But here's what I have that isn't totally crap photography:

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