The Shop: Etsy Updates
This week I had quite the stack of stuff to list on Etsy (and Artfire and my own web shop)! Most of the work on Etsy is new or new batches of favourite work. Here’s the cute group shot from the bead shop:
And the new in the cane shop pic:
Terry inspired me to try making up some red base beads after seeing her burgundy ones.
In other Etsy news, an enterprising soul went out and made a much needed tool: a treasury searcher. You can now find out if you appear in Etsy’s treasuries (or gift guides) by simply entering your id.
Bowl Goals: Happy St. Patricks
There’s nothing green in that bowl of beads except a few leaves on some of the caned pieces. St. Patrick’s here meant that my daughter made sure her tshirt had some green bits on it and she put a green skin on her Shuffle (which made me think, can I make a clay Shuffle sock? Anyone done that?).
I cheerfully went greenless today, I’m sorry. Here’s the bowl of beadies for my weekly checkin:
They’re off to join the other friends they just came out of the tumbler with to get holes, layers of glossy goo, photo sessions and generally fondled and appreciated as all beads should be. Expect to see them up on Etsy and environs soon.
Combining Interests
In the fuzzy and distant world outside of my clay and bead obsession I am a freelance web developer and computer geek. By the time I was in middle school I was doing not bad in school and had that decidedly geeky bent. While math was never my best subject it was still an interest.
I do love clay for the fact that I can mix and match my interests. Today is ‘Pi Day’ - March 14 - and the little pi cane was the proper celebration. Fellow clayer and inverterate geek, Julie, of Polymer Clay @ Craftgossip has a couple items devoted to the day as well!
Playing with Shells
I live in Calgary which is just about as landlocked as you can get. Seriously. Very far from the ocean. I have happy childhood memories of the summers I spent on the east coast and of the shells I collected. For my summer pieces I decided on some sea inspired charms and cane designs. The second of these is a Nautilus shell design (the first was a sea turtle cane):
Since it’s a cane that’s new to me I’m still tweaking it with the clay blends I have on hand but I’m pretty happy with it. Slices off the first made some cute beads and the next two canes are ‘regular’ canes with sparkly bits in them. Yes, I know they don’t come in glittery blue in real life.
Chloe, my daughter, has asked for pearl oyster shells for the next installment. Terry would like a starfish. I’d like a seahorse and some fish.
Those UFOs
And by UFO I mean the (in)famous Unfinished Objects of the crafting world. My current one is more of an unfinished project. See, last year I scored a nice big chunk of clay from someone who was selling off her supplies. What’s in the picture is just a small portion of it. The rest is partially used, so in plastic baggies and less pretty to pose.
The problem is that this is all old Fimo. By old, I mean mid 1990s. It predates the company making ‘Fimo Classic’ and ‘Fimo Soft’. Every single pretty ounce of it is rock hard.
So I am writing about it to goad me into finally get processing it. I don’t have a food processor and I haven’t found an old, second hand one in my price range that didn’t break two minutes in. So I have to do this the old fashioned way. Dice it up, toss with mineral oil and softer clays and let sit. Blend. Repeat. Eventually I will have about 30 lbs of good clay but it is going to be a while.
Anyone else have some tedious craft projects waiting for them?
Bowl Goals: A Common Theme
This weeks lot of stuff was diverse - little teeny clay heishi, regular cane covered beads, cane slice flower beads and slightly fancier, larger, slice shell beads. There is an underlying theme though: I’m thinking spring and summer stuff. Spring green heishi for stringing. Pastel flower slices. Pink roses on pink beads for mom’s day. Shell beads for summer designs.
With weeks like that I am going to fly past my bead making goal. With the lil’ heishi beads in there, there are around 2000 beads in that bowl. Even without the 20 feet of heishi, there are around 400 beads. Phew! Hope your weeks are similarly productive.
The Shop: Dust Myself Off
My daughter has a Nintendo DS and a Brain Age game for it. When your score on an activity is lower one day, the talking head tells you to dust yourself off tomorrow and get back on track. So here goes!
As you can see, there’s nifty springy stuff in there and some of the little slice beads I like so much. I have a boatload of stuff to add to the site here and my ArtFire in the coming days - Etsy’s per item fees makes it difficult to justify adding 30 or 40 things at a time - and I’ll make sure and post then.
My very first newsletter goes out on Wednesday! If you’re interested in receiving occasional news and specials from me (no more than monthly, I promise!) sign up with the little box on the right hand side there.
Bowl Goals: Mayhem
Life is getting back into the swing of things around here so here’s the weeks bowl o’ beads - and production is on track for my end of May show which is good - that happens to be 45 heart pendants. These are off dancing in the tumbler right now, so we’ll see them later in the week!
My ‘office’ is in the corner of my living room and is still in the process of ordering, packing and unpacking after February’s chaos in the apartment. I’m taking the opportunity to sort all my show and inventory totes while they’re out and floating. The mayhem is slowly clearing up but my little corner is still buried it seems!
Clay Bugs
I joined Connie’s bug swap again this year - I did it in 2005 or 6 as well - and while I won’t post what I made just yet I will show what I made from the scraps of one group and what inspired the other!
One of my bugs for the swap is a butterfly. The remains from making those made a regular butterfly cane. The other bug I made was inspired by these, very bright little Costa Rican shield bug young. Mine are a little bigger than the 1/4″ things in the picture.
A really awesome feature of the online polymer clay community is the sheer number of swaps on every topic happen. It’s a wonderful way to see what techniques others are doing and to contribute in your own way. My next swap is Sarajane Helm’s Mini Mask Swap! A quick spot to get started finding clay swaps is right here.
Chaos and Everything Before
The last we heard from me I was taking a few days off, visiting the town I’m moving to in the summer. I spent my weekend there eating. No joke, everyone kept feeding me. I had two birthday cakes:
The first were part of a care package from the very charming Schimmel’s Dutch Bakery and the second is a slice from the beauty made for me by Cindy of CindyCreativeCrochet.
I got to see how my future studio and office space is coming along. The subflooring just got finished. Next is either the laminate or paint. I got to visit with the house cat Sam who is my daughter’s sole reason for willingly agreeing to move. Then we came back to town.
Tacked to my apartment door was the notice that they were going to be doing major and extensive work on the apartment and that everything had to be boxed, cleaned and moved. By the next morning. Yikes!
Somehow we got that finished up and I tackled an order that was pending for Rycrafty:
I expect it’ll be a few days yet before I’m all recovered!
