Sunday projects

I spent a nice quiet day getting some new pieces done up.
I received a large parcel from an aunt of mine this week, she's very much into crafting and occasionally sends me her surplus. This time she sent me a bunch of seed beads!
There were some interesting beads in there that I really wanted to showcase. Here is the first piece.



The second thing I got done up was a little pair of hair clips. Very simple and cute with faux pearl centers.



As a small thank you gift to this aunt, I will be sending her this brooch tomorrow.



Hopefully she'll like it!

One of my goals for June is to complete another bouquet, but this time I want to make all the flower various shades of white and use different types of beads. I've started a lily with very tiny faux pearls. Check back often to see progress pictures on this project!

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.

The strength of a community

This past week has been nothing if not busy. Between my day job, husband/pet obligations and sleep I squeeze in a few hours every evening furthering my artistic pursuits and consequent success in business. (Hopefully)

I spend a considerable amount of time online during this segment of my day, perusing business/handmade related articles, blogs, and forums trying to find some nugget of inspiration, business savvy or opportunity. Well this evening, the third option fell right in my lap and I was so hugely impressed with what I found, I just had to share it.

indieartsstudio is an online catalog of handmade artisans. If you're shopping for handmade goods, this place is the one stop spot! I'm so impressed by this simple little site because of it's lack of pretense. It's totally a "I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine" type of thing. Both shoppers and sellers stand to gain big from this. It's all about pulling together and making the most of what handmade artisans have to offer. The big economy is in the pits, lets have a go at doing it small, for ourselves and our online community. Now that's a sentiment I can get behind.

A few new pieces

After spending all of yesterday setting up my Artfire shop I decided I'd dedicate most of my day to working on some new pieces.

I took apart the mother/daughter brooch of an Aster and Lily of the Valley that I had done a while back. I wasn't too pleased with how it came out and I thought the Aster was pretty enough on it's own to be used as a hair clip.



Then I turned my attention to some vibrant orange beads I had in my collection that had been calling to me for a while. I tend to be inspired by colors. Sometimes when I get stuck I just lay out various strands of beads and let the colors come to life in my head. This is what I did in this case, and these beads wanted to become a gorgeous 6 petaled flower.

This particular color reminds me of persimmons and bright summery things, I also wanted to experiment with the shape of the petals so I made three petals facing in one direction and three in the other. The effect is subtle and my husband didn't notice it at first until I pointed it out to him. The outer most row of every petal usually starts down from the top and goes down the right side of the petal. In this case I reversed the wrapping technique so that the wire would remain on the back side of the petal and in doing so, I also reversed the order of the rows to run right-to-left instead of left-to-right.



It's quite possible that no one else will notice without having read this article, or else wont think it make any difference on the aesthetic quality of the piece, but I know it's there and that makes me happy, that in turn probably makes me a little off center, but oh well.

At this point I can't decide whether I prefer it as a brooch...



or a hat pin.



I guess that'll be a decision left up to the person who purchases it down the road. Both these items will be listed in my shop probably by tomorrow. I attempted to post the listing a little while ago, but had some, ahem, technical difficulties. Enough said.

Grand Opening Announcement!

I'm a pleased to announce the official opening of my Artfire shop today!
I have posted a few items and will be continually updating with new pieces as time permits. I am ecstatic and exhausted!!!

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.