Red is my favorite colour

Red is by far my favorite colour and when I shop for beads, I am inevitably drawn to red beads. I spent some time yesterday putting together a few red fantasy flowers, trying to use up some of my supplies.

This first piece, a single blossom includes yellow and orange, but the red is what really makes it pop, at least I think so. This little hair clip is now listed in my shop.



The second thing I worked on were small red lilies.


These blooms measure 2 inches across and the narrow petals makes them look quite delicate. So far I have only two made up, but I think a small arrangement of 5 with some delicate foliage will be very pretty. I'm hoping to have this piece done by and listed by the end of the weekend.



Today is also when the follow up to my book review for Vintage Baby Knits gets published. It's a Q&A with the author, Kristen Rengren and the readers of HMN had some fabulous questions. The article turned out wonderfully I think and I'm quite proud of this project on the whole. A big thanks to my HMN editor for all her help getting this piece to the finish line.

To read the Q&A, please follow this link!

Summer time is busy time.

It's been ages since I've blogged, so much so that I'm not sure I remember everything that has happened in those few weeks.

Firstly, I just love writing for the Just for Fun department over at HMN and I have 4 articles already published with a 5th on the way for sometime this week. Follow my tweets for up to date info on that.

I did not get as many pieces listed in my shop this month as I would have like to, but I think that the road ahead for July is smooth enough and I hope to list at least 1 new item per week, if not more. I am rather proud of my latest listing and it is my first bouquet officially for sale too, so I'm very excited about that.




I'm quite excited too since it's received more views in three days than any of my other items. Either people really like it, or the price tag is getting a bunch of curious window shoppers. Doesn't matter to me. Either way, I'm just thrilled that my work is being seen and hopefully admired by that many people. I do think Twitter plays a major part in the increased views and I'm slowly warming up to this whole system. I really didn't want to feel tied down to what seemed to be a very intense marketing tool, but so far, I'm enjoying posting links and updates as much as I'm enjoying reading what others are up to. It's really quite fun actually.

I also really love the gallery feature on Artfire. Since I've worked on a lot of large pieces that I made as gifts, I like being able to show that work off to potential customers to give them ideas for custom orders. One of the many reasons why I love Artfire. The latest piece I added to my Gallery was a bouquet of daisies; a birthday present for my mother in law.

Trying out new things.

Lots of things have been keeping me very busy this week. Writing for HandMadeNews.org is proving to be even more fun than I had anticipated. I just love putting together these little articles and I love seeing them be published through this fabulous site. At this point, I have two articles published under the Just for Fun dept. and I just submitted two more to my editor this morning.

My creative focus seems to be a bit choppy though and I haven't been able to bring any projects to a finish the past little while. I've started several pieces, including a cherry tree banzai tree and a bouquet of red chrysanthemums.

Here's an in progress picture of the chrysanthemum bouquet.



The flowers are a very basic shape. My focus was more on the colour. There are 2 colors of red beads in this arrangement, strung on 2 different colour of wire. The overall effect gives 4 different hues of red. There will be a total of 16 blooms in this bouquet. Hopefully, the colour variation will come out nicely. I'm thinking of adding a few white wild flowers to the mix, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

I spent the last little bit this afternoon trying my hand at something I hadn't done before. Wire wrapped jewelery. Here's what I came up with:




One of my favorite beaded flower supply is actually the wire. I bought several spools of 26 gauge copper wire a while back and I just love the way it feels and looks. It's very soft and warm and has a beautiful sheen.



I combined the wire with natural rose quartz that I had left over from another project.





So what do you think? Should I expand my creative outlet and make more jewelery of this type? The jewelery market is already loaded with very talented artisans, but it's just so much fun to make. Give me some feedback. I'd love to hear what you have to say!

HandMadeNews.org

Being a member on Artfire is a gateway to other fabulous opportunities, one of them is HandMadeNews.org. It's an online mag published by Artfire, with a constant supply of fresh new articles written up by fellow artisans covering "News of the hand made world, or just the crafts in in".

I've been reading some of the articles over the past week and have found some really interesting, and funny pieces. The handmade crowd is definitely a fun bunch. Then I noticed they were looking for new editors, columnist and contributors. My first reaction was "Oh I'd love to do that, but I would never be good enough to write a column". That was Tuesday night. I had a wrestles sleep that night and woke up feeling an intense pressure to reevaluate my priorities on this matter. I thought about it all day and after hours of giving myself a pep talk, I figured, "what have I got to lose?".

I sent in my application Wednesday night and I have to admit, writing that 250 word sample article was easy as pie and fun once I'd decided on a subject. I've always loved writing, and it's been a not so secret fantasy of mine to be a publish writer ever since I was a little girl. Blogging has been great in that it allows me to self publish all the time and I get immense satisfaction from having my "stuff" posting online.

So once I'd handed in my application I waited, and waited for what seemed like an eternity. While driving my husband to the airport this morning, I asked him how long he thought I should wait before sending them an email to verify if they had even received my application (irrational fear of internet submission failure...) and he said, "Oh wait at least a week". What?!! This is the internet, land of instant transactions, instantaneous Twitter updates and over night celebrities. I couldn't imagine waiting that long.

When I got home a little while ago, I checked my email and noticed a response had come in from HMN. Yesterday!!! How could I have missed it? Turns out all my self doubt and anxious anticipation of possible rejection were all for nothing. They were "very impressed" and would love to have me join their team.

So far my start in business has been great. One week in and I've got a great shop on Artfire that people really seem to like, I have a spot at this years Jost Winery Christmas Open House to sell at their little craft market and now this. Can't wait to find out what other opportunities will come knocking on my door.