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Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Labyrinth Ring done, Stardust in the wings
I think I had mentioned before that I had finished a great ring. I finally got it listed on Etsy (you can see the listing by clicking here).
For those of you who don't list things for sale online, it's really quite a process, especially for those of us with slower computers/internet connections. Even if you don't have the "slow" problem, you still have to describe what you're selling. That's actually the hardest part for me. Giving a description of a piece of art when you should be able to SEE it perfectly without my typing anything. Sigh. I'm just not a writer/poet.
I'm starting to feel like I really need to find someone to do my marketing for me. The more time I spend listing things on Etsy and Artfire (well, I've only listed on thing there so far, lol), and trying to sell my stuff at art/craft/misc shows, the less time I have to actually make jewelry. I wonder where I would find someone to do that type of stuff for me...I wonder if I could find someone to work on a percentage of the sales?
Oh, one of the things I've been thinking about lately is the actual artwork that goes along with some of my jewelry. For a little while now, I've been sketching out more elaborate designs in a sketchbook with pencil. I then firm it up in ink, and sometimes add color with watercolors. I'm wondering if I should offer these drawings for sale with the piece of jewelry, or even seperate from it. Does anyone else do this? I'll have to start asking the other jewelry artists that I know.
Some of you who know my in person may know, but the rest of you probably don't, that I got some beautiful henna work done in December at an art show I went to, by a wonderful lady named Wendy, from Rovinghorse Henna. (You can see a picture of my henna here) Anyway, here is a picture of the design that I got. In looking at her Flickr photostream yesterday, I came across a website called The Henna Page. There is a woman there that is doing a survey, and if you complete most of her survey, are over 18, and live in the USA, she will send you a henna kit. Click here for more info on this great deal.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Working on Stardust...
The Wire Artisan's Guild is opening their Etsy shop, and the theme is Stardust. I've got a design drawn out, and have just been working on tweaking that and getting the gems together for a couple of days...now I just have to actually get to the wire-working, lol. Some of the people in my guild have already got theirs done, and their stuff is stunning, as usual. A lot of people are using the movie Stardust for inspiration. I didn't personally like the movie that well, so I'm not doing that, lol.
Last Friday was the Newberg First Friday Art and Wine Walk, and I was a featured artist at Honest Chocolates. We were blessed to have a wonderful acapella choral group there, singing wonderfully romantic music. I can't remember the name of their group, but when I get it I will definitely post it on here. They're doing Singing Valentine's, which is awesome. I got some really good feedback on my jewelry while there, passed out a lot of cards, and sold a couple of things.
The REALLY surprising thing about last weekend is this: Thursday my husband had a poker tournament at a local bar, and wanted me to go with him. I told him I would, but that I would need to take my jewelry and tag it because I had the Newberg show the next day, and not everything was tagged. Being a Thursday, there was plenty of room for me to spread out the jewelry and get busy. I sold a TON of jewelry at the bar, lol. Amazing. I'm going to make it a point to go hang out at the bar with my jewelry more often...it is a different clientele
than I usually deal with, but they seemed to love my jewelry, and were very happy to pay for it.
Oh, one of the recent pieces that I have finished may be interesting to some of you. It's a stainless steel cuff, decorated with a recycled broken guitar string. You can see it on Flickr here, with a mini-tutorial on making yarn-like twisted wire. :-)
On the personal front, my mom is in the hospital. She appears to have pneumonia, and while there it was also discovered that she has emphysema. I sure hope she quits smoking, now, though I don't have high hopes of that.
Last Friday was the Newberg First Friday Art and Wine Walk, and I was a featured artist at Honest Chocolates. We were blessed to have a wonderful acapella choral group there, singing wonderfully romantic music. I can't remember the name of their group, but when I get it I will definitely post it on here. They're doing Singing Valentine's, which is awesome. I got some really good feedback on my jewelry while there, passed out a lot of cards, and sold a couple of things.
The REALLY surprising thing about last weekend is this: Thursday my husband had a poker tournament at a local bar, and wanted me to go with him. I told him I would, but that I would need to take my jewelry and tag it because I had the Newberg show the next day, and not everything was tagged. Being a Thursday, there was plenty of room for me to spread out the jewelry and get busy. I sold a TON of jewelry at the bar, lol. Amazing. I'm going to make it a point to go hang out at the bar with my jewelry more often...it is a different clientele
than I usually deal with, but they seemed to love my jewelry, and were very happy to pay for it.Oh, one of the recent pieces that I have finished may be interesting to some of you. It's a stainless steel cuff, decorated with a recycled broken guitar string. You can see it on Flickr here, with a mini-tutorial on making yarn-like twisted wire. :-)
On the personal front, my mom is in the hospital. She appears to have pneumonia, and while there it was also discovered that she has emphysema. I sure hope she quits smoking, now, though I don't have high hopes of that.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
A long absence...
I've been absent from my blog for a long time. I have some excuses, which I will go into, but I do understand that there's really NO excuse, lol. So, my feeble excuse is that I no longer have high speed internet. I have an air card from my cell company, which they CLAIMED was high speed, but their idea of high speed and mine are obviously greatly different. Consequently, loading pictures onto the internet takes FOREVER. I feel like a very large part of blogging is the pictures, so therefore just decided to stop blogging until I got faster internet. I've now come to the conclusion that it just won't happen for a long long long time, so I'm just going to grin and bear it, and just add pictures when I can, from someone Else's computer that DOES have high speed internet.
While I was gone I made a lot of jewelry. I'm still as obsessed with jewelry as I ever was. Maybe more so. I tend to create original jewelry in spurts. In between bouts of creativity, I just make basic chains and earrings and etc, but I'm always making something.
I've not been doing very well in keeping up with the theme challenges of the Wire Artisan's Guild, even though they dropped the challenges to monthly instead of weekly. I just got too busy with the Holidays. I have started back in, though...the last few challenges have been VERY inspiring.
The most recent one was "Affair of the Hearts". I was lucky enough to go to my local bead store (Jack of All Beads on 3rd Street in McMinnville, OR) and find some lovely Valentine themed lampwork beads made by a local artist, Cincy Campbell. Haha, I say lucky, but the bead store actually calls me now, whenever Cindy brings more stuff in...in this case, I feel like a junkie, and they're definitely my dealer, lol. So, inspired by the heart them from WAG, and the beautiful hearts by Cindy, I've so far created two winged heart necklaces: A Clockwork Heart and Don't Fly Away with my Heart (I'll post a link to the etsy listing when I get to a better computer to list it). I'm really happy with both of those pieces, and I have at least one more original piece planned, as well as another version of A Clockwork Heart, using a different bead.
For the WAG store re-opening, the theme is "Stardust", which I've also found particularly inspiring. I've got a necklace drawn out, and I can't wait to get started on it, but I need to finish these heart themed pieces, first, since Valentine's Day is right around the corner.
To that end, I will be at Honest Chocolates this coming Friday (2/6/09) from 5-8pm for Newberg's First Friday Art and Wine Walk. I am one of the featured artists, along with my sister, Jessica (Alternative Rose) and a wood artist that I haven't met, yet. Dana (my boss) will be there with wine tasting chocolates to sample, and her husband, Byron (of Seven of Hearts Wine) will be there pouring his awesome wine to taste. Make sure to stop in and see me if you're in the area...I will have a great selection of jewelry!
I'll follow with a post later with links to recent pieces I've completed. If you don't want to wait, just go look at my Flickr Photostream, or my Etsy Shop.
While I was gone I made a lot of jewelry. I'm still as obsessed with jewelry as I ever was. Maybe more so. I tend to create original jewelry in spurts. In between bouts of creativity, I just make basic chains and earrings and etc, but I'm always making something.
I've not been doing very well in keeping up with the theme challenges of the Wire Artisan's Guild, even though they dropped the challenges to monthly instead of weekly. I just got too busy with the Holidays. I have started back in, though...the last few challenges have been VERY inspiring.
The most recent one was "Affair of the Hearts". I was lucky enough to go to my local bead store (Jack of All Beads on 3rd Street in McMinnville, OR) and find some lovely Valentine themed lampwork beads made by a local artist, Cincy Campbell. Haha, I say lucky, but the bead store actually calls me now, whenever Cindy brings more stuff in...in this case, I feel like a junkie, and they're definitely my dealer, lol. So, inspired by the heart them from WAG, and the beautiful hearts by Cindy, I've so far created two winged heart necklaces: A Clockwork Heart and Don't Fly Away with my Heart (I'll post a link to the etsy listing when I get to a better computer to list it). I'm really happy with both of those pieces, and I have at least one more original piece planned, as well as another version of A Clockwork Heart, using a different bead.
For the WAG store re-opening, the theme is "Stardust", which I've also found particularly inspiring. I've got a necklace drawn out, and I can't wait to get started on it, but I need to finish these heart themed pieces, first, since Valentine's Day is right around the corner.
To that end, I will be at Honest Chocolates this coming Friday (2/6/09) from 5-8pm for Newberg's First Friday Art and Wine Walk. I am one of the featured artists, along with my sister, Jessica (Alternative Rose) and a wood artist that I haven't met, yet. Dana (my boss) will be there with wine tasting chocolates to sample, and her husband, Byron (of Seven of Hearts Wine) will be there pouring his awesome wine to taste. Make sure to stop in and see me if you're in the area...I will have a great selection of jewelry!
I'll follow with a post later with links to recent pieces I've completed. If you don't want to wait, just go look at my Flickr Photostream, or my Etsy Shop.
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