Opening soon and some babies on the way.

I've been taking things a bit easy the past few weeks, was on vacation doing other things. Now I'm back in full swing and things are really starting to move. I have 4 finished pieces ready to list!!! More projects are in the works. I expect to have my grand opening this weekend, so stay tuned for an update!

In other news, our peahen has finally found a perfect spot to cover her eggs and she's been sitting on her clutch since yesterday. Another 28 days and we should have some peachicks running around. I don't know what the chickens will think of little babies running around but it should make for some great adventure this summer. :)

In the mean time her mate is looking all over for her. She's quite well hidden.

Change of venue.

Ten days out of surgery and I'm fit to be tied. I need to get back to creating but my hand is still much too sore and lacking strength to get back to work, so in the mean time I've been doing lots of research.

I think that the main thing I'm taking away from this week is how many tools are available for online selling and especially the force that drives the handmade movement. I have to admit, it's all a bit overwhelming and at this point.

Having said that, I had a bit of a crisis this week; I can't load Etsy! I don't know if this is a problem on my end or theirs, the problem has been ongoing for at least two weeks now. I've spend hours putting together a banner, writing up a profile and getting my shop ready to open, now 95% of the time I can't load the site. I tried different browsers but that didn't help.

Out of frustration, I went looking for other similar venues and to my surprise, I found several. Artfire.com seems by far to be the most promising and I've signed up with them. I'm really impressed with the sense of community that comes through on their forums. No problems loading their pages either. Sounds like a rather basic thing, but apparently not all venues are created equal... So Etsy has been dropped even before I was able to make any use of it.

I've also just discovered VoteHandmade. What a fabulous site!

Overall, I have to say that despite a few hurdles, I'm extremely positive about the opportunities available.

Mother/daughter brooch

I spent a bit of time working on my latest idea tonight and created my first birth month brooch. (pictures to come in the next few days).

I used my birth month, May and my mom's birth month, September. I'd never made either flower, nor did I have any reference books to help me on this one, so I looked at some pictures of Lilies of the Valley and Asters online and let the creative juices flow. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I think I'm going to find some white 15/0 beads for the next LotV I make, I think they would be prettier made with smaller beads.

In less than two weeks I go under the knife for carpal tunnel. As much as I'm looking forward to be rid of night time numbness in my hand, I'm just starting to feel as though I'm really progressing in developing ideas and building up inventory for opening on Etsy. I hope this hiatus wont set me back too much. I plan on spending my recovery time continuing my research into the world of business, marketing, craft shows etc. Should be informative and I know this is necessary prep work that will help me along later on, but I know I'll much rather be actively creating.

First Bouquet!

I was hoping to finish work on my first beaded wedding bouquet by next weekend. I beat my schedule by a full week and I'm absolutely thrilled with how it came out. It's a little smaller than I was planning it, but it's just the right size to cover both hands. It's small and sweet and packs a punch of beautiful colour. Makes me want to get married all over again, just so I could use it! The stem will be finished with a light yellow ribbon (I think, still have to go shopping for it.)



My next project will probably be birth month brooches. One possibility I'm thinking for these would be as baby shower gifts for the mommas to be. One flower for their own birth month, and another for their baby's, combined into one very sweet little brooch. I think the idea would work well for Mother's day gifts, wedding shower present (bride/groom birth month flowers) etc. I'm so excited about all the possibilities.

Another lily and a dahlia

I finished the two coloured lily a few weeks ago. I'm pleased with the overall effect, but it was a lot of work to string all the beads individually, so I'm not sure I want to under take too many more in this style.



I wanted to try a new type of flower so I followed a dahlia pattern in one of my books. This one is also two toned, but the colours are so close that it's not very noticable other than for a very light effect.



At this point, I'm thinking of making a few more dahlias, a dark red one for sure to tie in the colours of the lily, some various little wild flowers, maybe another lily and see what type of bouquet all of those will give me. So far, I do like the two flowers together.



My plan is to have this bouquet finished before my carpal tunnel surgery in two weeks. Wish me luck! After I've had a few weeks to heal, I'm hoping to get back into full swing by late May.

Lily

I wanted to see what design I could come up with just by looking at pictures of lilies. The interesting thing is there are countless variations in natural lilies, size, colour, shape etc.



This lily has been through a few changes since I started working on it probably about 3 months ago. The first incarnation was not laced at all, and it didn't retain it's shape very well, the petals were also very loose. I took the original apart and reassembled it more sturdily. I also laced the petals, first individually, and then together to retain the shape of the flower. Then I added leaves, and beaded the stem. I finished the stem with green wire all the way down. I really like this finishing touch as it adds a bit more sturdiness to the finished piece and looks a bit more polished then simple floral tape. These pictures show it as it is now.



There are a few elements such as petal shape and size that I'm planning on fine tunning along the way with new projects. I've currently started work on another lily; this latest one is orange and dark red and will be patterned like a tiger lily. After I see how the first one turns out, I may decide to continue with that design and create a bouquet. This is the first petal that I completed last night. I'm not sure what I think of the colours at this point, or the dispersal of colour, but I'll hold off judgement until I have more petals assembled to see the overall effect.

Gift for my mother

We finally have a battery charger that works and so I've taken a few pictures of the little hydrangea plant I created as a gift for my mom.




It started out as an experiment in creating little balls of floral buds, I wanted to see how they would look. I had a lot of blue beads, so started with that.


The basic design for the floret is used in geranium, lilacs etc. but I'm sure it can be used in a multitude of other ways as well. As I progressed along, I started to find that the buds reminded me of the blue hydrangea my mother gave me on my 27th birthday. With that in mind, I set out to create a little plant to give to her in return.





It didn't quite come out the way I would have liked it too. I ran out of the primary blue I was using and I had to change beads. As my husband pointed out, in nature plants are seldom perfectly uniform and he thought it gave the plant a more natural look. I think he was just trying to be nice. In this case, not only did I use two different colours, but the beads are also differently cut and are not the same finish. The darker blue has a square cut interior with a silver lining whereas the lighter blue are round cut and transparent. I think in this case, the difference in cut and style is what I'm not happy with rather than the colour difference.

If I decide at some point to create another hydrangea, I might consider mixing two different shades of the same colour throughout the florets. A lighter interior with a darker edging, or something like that.

I actually did decide on that design element for the leaves and I am really happy with how those turned out. The outer edge of each leaf is highlighted in a slightly lighter green. Making leaves or petals like that takes much longer as the last row of beads has to be hand threaded, but I think the additional time was well worth the effort.