A Catch-Up Post

The time just gets away from me! I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last posted.

So, let's catch up.....

I will be part of Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party again! She is an amazing woman, and even more so to put this whole thing together. Over three hundred people are swapping beads and making a jewelry piece with their partner's beads. The last go-around was so much fun, and it's astonishing the creativity that people possess! Stay tuned, because I'll be posting more as time goes on.

I had a dismal sales day at the market this past weekend, which was funny because the market was busy and the weather was fabulous! Oh well. The good part is that I had a great time, chatting with other vendors and talking to folks attending the market. Every day can't be a zillion dollar day.

My enamels order from Fundametals came in and it was like Christmas! Jeanette is a wonderful person to do business with, and I highly recommend her shop for enamel, mixed-media, and metalwork supplies and tools. I got transparent and opaque enamels, and some Klyr-Fire. I had to wait til yesterday (Sunday) to play with everything, but it was SO worth it! I remembered most things from Melissa Manley's Hard Candy class at ArtBliss last year, and I made some nice enameled discs for pendants and earrings.

Apparently, yesterday was a Muse day, because somehow I made five new bracelets, one after the other. Awesome. I love it when that happens! Effortless creativity, using materials that have been sitting there all along, but finally decided to show me how they come together!

Some copper was etched, and this is the unfinished result....starting work on Halloween stuff, too.

Oh, and my shop has been updated with some more pieces. I'm trying to get my stock up before holiday shopping, so look to my Facebook page for updates!

I think that's it for the catch-up....for now, anyway!

Have a great week, everyone, and I hope to have more to show you in a few days!

Getting back to it...

Okay, so I think I took the month of August pretty much off. Too hot to make beads, too hot to do much, kids running around, work stuff needed doing, and frankly, I was out of inspiring ideas.

But fall is (finally!) coming, and it's on, now, baby!

My first big (real) art show is on September 26 (Arts Around The Lake at the University of Richmond), and I am in "make" mode, planning the inventory I am going to need. Thankfully the preschoolers go back on the 14th, and I know that I will be spending every preschool morning at the torch, making the beads, and at the table, making the jewelry.

Halloween is right around the corner, and so is Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's early, for the September show, but I am planning to have all 3 holidays covered in some way for my displays.

Right now, I'm working on a series of bracelets and some necklaces in "theme" colors....I am making bead sets in specific color palettes that will be simply strung and turned into earrings.

For example, the 'Hallowscream' line palettes are:
lime green/orange/black/purple
black/white/grey
lime/orange/black
orange/black/purple

I'll make sets in these color schemes and do a simple bracelet, earrings and necklace for each, and then a number of single sculpted pendants: ghosts, pumpkins, bats, etc.

Here are some of the beads from the first go-round:
I'm planning to do a Fall palette, a Christmas palette, and a Winter palette. I think I can manage enough beads to have 6 bracelets, at least 6 pairs of earrings, and 6 necklaces for each palette, plus any sculptural single pendants I think of.

I'll be making many more beads for the 'Bloomz' line I've been doing, and trying for 8 or so bracelets, earring pairs and pendants. Then there will be the rest, which will be my one-off designs, and the work that has been published recently.

God, I hope that is enough. It might not be, but there is my plan, not having done the show before.

I pray that my sales will be sufficient to allow me to buy my new torch, pay (off?) my kiln, and start paying for an oxygen concentrator.

The sales needed for those goals approaches the $1K mark. Realistically, can I do that in one day? I don't know. Should I try for it and set myself up for it? Absolutely.

And so, I pray.

Please let me stay positive throughout this incredibly busy September, let me get done what needs to be gotten done, and please let me not get to stressed out while doing it. And please help me to see the path clear to the goals I have set up for myself so I can finally, finally get to where I want to be.

And I cross my fingers, and I plan, and make, and think, and create, and design, and set-up and tear down and rearrange.

Wouldn't it be something? A new *real* torch, an oxygen concentrator AND a kiln by the end of 2010?

Halloweeny Fun!

In that batch of beads from my last post was a small group of beads I am designating for a Halloweeny necklace. The vision in my head is fabulous, but as usual, I am still working it out in reality. These are the beads:


I haven't decided if I need more or not. I'm also contemplating taking a Halloween charm bracelet I made last year apart to cull some beads from it, but this is what I have so far. I am making the cord and some coiled and spiraled beads for the project, too, and those pieces so far look like this:


I still have more cord to make, and more spiral beads, too, so hopefully I will be able to get this vision done BEFORE Halloween! I've got one last day at the St. Stephen's Market on the 24th, and I want to have it done for then.

Keeping my fingers crossed and my cord-making constant...

Rejected

Ok, so I won't be doing the Handmade Holiday show in Richmond this year. I guess there were 50 applicants for 23 spots, and 28 of the 50 were from jewelry people. Jewelry is tough -- it's competitive, as a lot of people make jewelry, and it's hard to stand out in a crowd. I'm sure my pictures were not that great, either, so that didn't help. It's hard to represent yourself in only three photographs. I'm sad that my lampwork was considered but not desired, but maybe some other opportunity will open up. I still have the South of the James market until at least the beginning of December, so that's something. I also could put a lot more time into the Etsy shop, so I guess that's what I'll do.

At the torch the other night, I made some more Halloween goodies....some dotty earrings, some bones, a cauldron bubbling with potion...and I also made some leaf beads which I may turn into a necklace, or I may just sell individually as pendants. I can't decide.

Barring terrible weather, I will be at the market this upcoming Saturday, so look for me and all my fun stuff this weekend!

Monsters, oh my!

Yep, Halloween is coming. I have seen the candy and costume displays in the stores, and I have avoided buying any of it in the hopes of staving off my addiction to dark chocolate. And mass-produced cheap costumes. I'm trying to get my oldest daughter to tell me what she wants to be for Halloween so I can start making the costume, but she is undecided. My middle daughter will probably wear her older sister's Cinderella gown (with some hemming), and my son might get a teeny Viking (not the football team) costume or a knight's costume. I can already see Cinderella and her knight strapped into the wagon for trick or treating. If we go with a knight's costume, I might have to them outfit the wagon as Cinderella's coach, somehow. Would that be too over the top? Nope. Crazy, yes, but awesome, too. Heh.

I'll probably have to make some Cinderella beads for Wren to wear, and some scary spider necklace or bats or something for Kira. Noah will not get beads.

And now for some quick and dirty pix of my recent torch time. Sorry for the not so fab pictures, I haven't set up the photo studio yet for this week and didn't want to wait.

More monsters....


And FINALLY!! A successful button!


And a question for you all....what do you think of this bead? It's hollow, a transparent glass spiraled with my favorite red. Tell me how you like the color, the size, the shape...should I make more? In what color combinations?


All of these beads will be visiting the kiln later today. Hopefully, most of them will turn up as pendants on Saturday at the market and on Etsy!