Rain in the forecast

The weather forecast around here is calling for cold and steady rain Saturday morning. I will not be at the South of the James market on Saturday October 26. I am also not at market day on Saturday November 1.

My next market day will be Saturday, November 8th, in time for Christmas shopping to start! Look for Christmas goodies....snowmen and snowwomen pendants and earrings, Christmas trees, mittens, and all kinds of winter and holiday items!

I am working on a line of other beaded products, like napkin rings and wine bottle stoppers, so hopefully I will have some of those, too, on the 8th.

As always, let me know if there is anything you would like before my next market day. I am taking limited custom orders before Christmas. My Etsy shop should be updated by the end of the weekend, too!

New posts and good stuff elsewhere!

I just finished a post on another blog about medieval glass. Some of you may know about my interest in historical glass. I had started a blog called The Medieval Glassworker as a way to keep my research together and communicate with a wider audience, but I have neglected it almost since I started it. Well, I added a post today, and am thinking I am going to be a lot more regular about posting there. Anyway, go check it out!

Another cool thing I found a while back is the Art Bead Scene blog. There's a lot of good information and inspiring design over there.

And have you seen this place? Beaducation is awesome! Online jewelry classes whenever you want to take them. I've taken a couple of the free classes so far, and they have been terrific! The video is excellent quality, and the pacing of the instruction is really good. I recommend them, for sure.

So there you have it, my recommendations for today! I'll see everyone at the market on Saturday!

I'm really excited!!

Yesterday, I met with Ellie Coyne, the volunteer coordinator for the Thomas Palliative Care Unit at the VCU Medical Center here in Richmond. She had seen my work on a friend of mine (hi Cosette!) and liked it. Ellie asked Cosette if I could make glass butterflies for a fundraiser for the unit. I sent her some samples, which she liked, and yesterday, I took some more to show her. We refined the design and colors some more, and now I will make five pendants for the unit to sell at their next fundraiser in November. Ellie plans for these to be sort of iconic and representative of the unit, so we are sticking to a small palette of pinks and purples and some yellow, so that they will all look similar. Ellie's plan is to have me make the pendants periodically throughout the year, and eventually have a display set up on the unit so that families and loved ones of patients can purchase them to support the unit and have a remembrance of their loved one who passed on.

I'm working on a design for glass butterfly cabochons that can be turned into tie tacs or lapel pins for the gentlemen, as well. Can't let the ladies have all the glass goodies! ;)

I'm really excited about doing this, partially because hospice services are close to my heart (my mom and aunt are hospice nurses), but also because I am happy to be supporting a great group of people who make this stage of life easier on all involved. And hey, it doesn't hurt to have my work associated with such a prestigious hospital system, either.

I'll post some pictures of the butterflies as I complete them, so you all can see what I'm up to. I'll also let you know how you can purchase a butterfly to support the care unit, too, if you like, once we get going on the project.

Now, I'm off to order large amounts of pink and purple glass!

Update!

I know I've been slack about updating this blog....I've been busy making beads! Well, more or less. I did write a post for Watch Me Create, which is online here for the next little while, so go check that out if you haven't already.

It's difficult for me to start thinking about Christmas, what with Halloween and Thanksgiving not even over and done with yet, but such is the way of things in retail sales. I've been slooooowly starting in on Christmas stuff....random candy canes here, Christmas trees there, stuff like that. I still can't wrap my head around it yet, so it's been slow going. I'll get holiday goodies done in plenty of time for Santa's visit, though, so no worries.

My market schedule is getting firmed up for the next couple of months, though. Not getting into a holiday show bummed me out in a major way, but another jewelrymaker who has gorgeous stuff didn't get in either, so now I don't feel so bad about it. Here are my plans for those who want to know...

South of the James Market (Saturdays 8am to noon, Forest Hill Park)
October 11 (this date is tentative as of today), 18, 25
November 8 and 22
December 6

ArtWorks Gallery
Day After Thanksgiving Art Affair
November 28, 10am to 10pm

After all that, I'm planning on taking a break through at least February! Seriously, though, my work will be available through my Etsy shop pretty much from now til forever.

ANyway, that's the update from my end. Hope to see you out at the markets soon!

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!

Watch Me Create!

Hey there! I have been invited to participate in a great collaborative blog that is all about bead artists and the creative processes we go through to make our work. It's written by a bunch of different folks, myself now included, and it's been really interesting to hear from others about how glass gets turned into beads and jewelry in their workshops. Everyone has a different approach. The site is Watch Me Create, so go and check it out! You can subscribe to it for easier reading, too.

I also just wanted to let everyone know I have a bunch of new Halloween things for next week's market! Ghosts, bats, pumpkins, eyeballs, skulls, bones, and a monster. Earrings *and* pendants. They might get up on Etsy this weekend, and I'll be sure to let you all know when they do!