Ornaments

At the gallery demo last weekend I took an order for some tree ornaments, and I kicked myself for not thinking of that before, duh!  They were to be red wire and star like. I did a couple trials before I settled on one, and the test ones make great holiday pendants! The first one looks like a poinsetta flower:

The second one is half the size and makes a nice little star pendant for those less into chunky jewelry:

But I finally came up with adjusting another pattern to come up with this 6 pointed star pattern:

She wanted a set of 6, so I was busy making them this week, and because I have orders to fill this is when I started baby sitting a teething 1 yr old. LOL never a dull moment around here I tell ya!

I think they turned out rather well myself. And I found another ideas for holly leaves with red bead berries. But before I tackle ornaments I need to play with the lovely sterling silver wire I got from The Ring Lord:  http://theringlord.com/  They are based in Saskatoon, and have loads of different wire. I'll still need to order my coloured stuff from the States tho, sigh.

Anyway I need to make something really amazing with the silver and see if I can get it into the winter amateur display at the art gallery next month.  I think I have done what I'd like shown with my can tabs, so just need to go nuts with nice wire and semiprecious beads. Wish me luck!

Art Gallery demo/new display colours

 

Sun Oct 3 I did a wire crochet demo at the art gallery. And got to test the new colour scheme for my display. In mini display form. I like the way that the colour turned out, everything stands out better than the black.

There weren't many people who came to look, but I sold earrings and a ring. and a well known local artist was interested in one of my older sets that I have always wondered why hadn't sold. However she didn't have her wallet along, sigh.

 At the time I was demoing there was a stained glass class happening, and the instructor ordered a set of tree ornaments based on a pendant I had crocheted. which lead to Laurie (education director) to suggest I join a few other artists in Nov to teach various ornament making. 5 people who came indicated that I should teach wire crochet. So, I am going to try to teach a class in 2011 sometime. EEK!! So much new stuff to try and do, and all of it at the same time, why can't new happen slowly? I don't like too much change... Taurus I suppose. Anyway it was a rather interesting day.

Studio Tour

Over the weekend I took the afternoon to to a semi-local studio tour of 9 artists.

Luckily the weather co-operated and it was a nice day out. (Sitting in the tour van and getting up and out all the time was torture, for me though. I managed to injure my tailbone slipping on the step and bouncing on my tail down to the concrete pad.)

The first stop was a charming pottery/painting studio. The artist uses her painting skills to decorate her pottery work. lovely fruit and floral themes on all amnner of pottery creations.

The next artist raises alpaca and uses their wool to create luxuriously soft knits, and amazingly soft stuffed animals. Here is an alpaca mom and her baby.

Some of the alpaca items, hats, scarves, mitts, sweaters, stuffies ect..

Elaine was part of the tour as well with her polymer clay work, but alas, there were too many admirers at her display to get a good photo.

Here we have a fibre artist, she mostly does various dye and dye techniques, but she also does amazing quilting work, which wasn't displayed. as well as photography of local wildlife which she uses in her cards and prints.

Another artist has her studio on her farm in a nice sized building, huge windows and wall to wall paintings and artworks. She does acryllic and water color painting, felting, all sorts of different needle works, everything really.

The same artist as above. I had to show this dragon, all needleworked in gold thread, beads and sequins, the details are amazing. It took her 2 weeks of 10-12 hr days to stitch this gorgeous and priceless work. I drool, seriously.

This pottery artist is very different from the first one, the patterns in her work are more textural, though there were a few painted pieces. She also does amusing little faces, and "mosquitoe house" garden decorations.

The last 2 artists are a husband and wife team who have thier studios in the basement of an old old schoolhouse they have renovated. The live in the upper floor.

She does plaster casting impressions of nature scenes, animal tracks, feathers, different plantlife ect.

This one is a huge casting of a busy gopher area, full of rodent tracks.

Her husband does black and white classic photography using a bellows style camera, which my photo didn't turn out of, sadly. lots of nature scenes, and he does images in a totally darkroom, slowexposure where he runs a flashlite around the subject and ends up with a wild light outlining the photo subject.

It was a really fun and busy day seeing all the different local artisans, and their equally different studio areas. So much talent, and so much inspiration. I hope they do a tour next year too!

Easter 2010

Easter has come and gone for another year, PHEW!! My family and their extensions always get together good friday and rent the hall in Eastend to colour eggs together while the men play poker. 40 dozen eggs folks... and I think 16 or so kids.



wouldn't be fun without greenish blue digits after either!

Before the eggstravavganza we had supper with my folks and my brothers family. we got all 7 of the grandkids on the couch for an adorable photo moment.


Ok so aside from Easter the first United Church had a weekly rummage sale. I haven't gone for awhile. but the past one my pal jaime went to and called saying there was a bunch of yarn I might like. She picked me up and I got all this for $6. Sweet!

Speaking of whom I also just finished her purse order for her mom, zipper and all!


I also did a custom pair of earrings for a lady who is in my knitting and crochet group and recently our Tuesday makers meeting.



So that's what I have been busy at the last week!

craft sales

On the 20th Elaine and I did a craft sale in the small community of Herbert, half an hours drive from Swift Current. It was a very well planned and advertised event, however there were too many things going on, and VERY few people showed up for it:(
I booked 2 tables and didn't make enough to cover even one table fee, which was cheap.


Then this past weekend (27th and 28th) we did the local Gun and Hobby show.Yeah it doesn't sound too good a place for crafters, but it's usually a really good show for me, lots of hunters wives and lady gun enthusiasts go. Day one was busier than i have ever seen this show! Tons of people. Didn't do the best I ever have but did well enough. Elizabeth from my Tuesday crafters group also had a table with her bags and antiques. actually all but 1 person from the group came to look about. A lot of the people I know came at some point. Day 2 not so much, still a lot of people came after the worlds womens curling closed ceremony, but not many shoppers. But I did hand out a lot of cards and there was one interested in hosting a home show. And funny enough even though I do this show and the fall one every year and have for the last 4 years there were peoiple who had never seen crocheted wire. Elaine had a wonderful show and got several people interested in taking her polymer clay class in April at the art gallery.



No other shows on the radar this spring, so I can chill and fill purse orders. I like doing shows/sales, but it's nice when they are over too. It does go by faster with a friend in the next booth though!

zombie blog

I keep forgetting to post every day or week, and months later I am sitting here going "well lets revive this puppy" My poor dead blog must be a zombie all the times it's died.
So I have had a lot of interest in my work recently.
I am being featured in a blog on the 22nd and doing a give away from there:
http://naturemanipulated.blogspot.com/
There is a local shop called Eden's Apple and the owner saw me out with my pop tab purse and wants to make a whole sale purchase for her shop. I LOVE this shop it's full of funky cool stuff.
There is now a local crochet and knitters club in town, yay!!
the local art gallery is having me do a wire crochet demo this Sunday! Totally pumped there!
There is a local crafters club starting tomorrow and I volunteered to do a demo for the members once we get established enoguh to do them.
I have 2 craft sales this month as well.
Whew all of a sudden there's a lot on my creative plate!

Kaylen my 8 yr old went on air with her school for a major provincial fundraiser, so yesterday every TV station in the province showed the telethon. They even got to sing with original Sesame Streets Bob. Too bad none of the kids had a clue how cool all of us parents thought that was LOL.
I was so proud of her! She is NOT happy being on stage at all and this was a huge event. She did tell me that she will never perform again but wants to sing with the choir for practices only. This is odd to me as she is normally the wild and crazy extrovert. But maybe it's different at home... which is a good thing, wild and crazy at school can cause problems.
Anyway This should count as a revival, ad I am off to make biscuits to go with the ham and lentil with wildrice soup for supper.

I'm Back

Ok I am back now!
No pictures for this post as my computer in in the tech hospital while Dr Lloyd fixes him. and all my pictures were there and all my favourite sites ect.

So the renovation is STILL not done! we were supposed to be able to be living in the new space in August, or so the contractor said. Will NEVER use him again. We were going to do all the drywall ourselves, however hubby over did it and has carpal tunnel in BOTH wrists! And I have weak wrists from a previous injury and while i could do a bit at a time it would take months. so we hired a guy who is doing fabulous work, a wizard with mudding compound. If luck holds I'll be able to paint this weekend. The 4 kids with new rooms or new walls (1 had horrid panelling before) all want sky blue. 3 want clouds painted on the walls and the 4th wants a blue winter tree pattern. luckily the 5th kid is fine with her wall colour for now. So I googled how to paint clouds on walls and the 5 sites i hit all had the same instructions so that's reassuring. So as far as the reno goes all I need to panic about is getting the cat to stop "going" in there instead of the litter box.

crafting news
I am selling a bunch of the poptab purses just from people seeing mine and asking. I don't have any in my etsy shop, and at shows people ooh and ahh at the ones displayed but no buyers. But I have had enough buyers to make me think that after Christmas I should list them. i am starting to make tab book marks and my 12 yr old DD wants me to attempt a tank top. we shall see after all the painting in my near future is done. jewelry sales have been a dissapointment. I lost a lot of money trying to do big city shows. And even my usual big sale show in Eastend was lower than usual, no loss but maybe made 1/3 of my usual. So next year I will go back to the tiny rural shows and maybe even put one on with a friend who has been tossing the idea around with me.

Adaira
As you know my now 12 yr old has been having major issues with her diabetes which is the major reason I haven't been posting. her health declined rapidly going from once a month hospitalization to every other week to every week. her specialist still insisted it was our fault and hinted we didn't know how to count carbs or that she was rebelling and not taking her insulin. so we ignored him and went hunting for a pediatrition who would listen and care. (I know i ask a lot in the "don't care" health system) finally we found Dr. Addai. at first he was the same as her specialist, but after a few weeks he realized that I was right, something was wrong. and then he noticed that the insulin type at home is not the same as the stuff given in hospital. so we switched insulins and poof her numbers are good. Ends up she DID have a resistance to the insulin she had been on. Even though it is very rare to have happen. He actually appologised for the way he treated us (like we were not taking care of her right) when do Drs EVER do that?!
During all this there were a few visits to hospital where she should have been in a coma. she was in ICU enough for the nurses to notice when she had growth spurts. I know some of the peds nurses birthdays, stories about their families, and things you really shouldn't be able to recall about the peds nurses.

So thank-you to everyone who prayed for and supported us through this struggle!! it looks like we have it figured out! There will be a few weeks of tweeking her new doses, but her blood sugar is still a lot better.

The purse

Several weeks (months?) ago I saw a purse made from pop can tabs, naturally I needed to try it. So first I gathered up all the pop tabs I could find and got my ever patient and amused husband to collect them from his office too. This took a good while, as we aren't huge pop drinkers. Finally I thought I should have enough to start. Being me I used purple cotton DMC thread, and also being me I crocheted them all together, designing it as I made it. After about week of work I got it done.



But it needed a liner with all those holes. Luckily my parents got me a sewing machine for Christmas, so it's maiden use was to make the liner. I had some mystery fabric in lavendar and decided to use it. I think it turned out pretty cool if I do say so myself! Now I don't think I'll be selling any on my etsy shop, partially because they are a lot of work. and partially because I don't want to copy anyone and start up another round of bashing in the forums. Can't wait to go somewhere and use ( show off) it!

Moose Jaw

Yet another craft show has come and gone. And once again I take a loss, the other repeat vendors of this show say it's the worst they've ever seen it, attendance is low. Lotta people very interested in my craft and comments od "oh, really? Wow I've never heard of crocheting wire. I can barely crochet yarn, wow!" and then they look/ inspect half the table, call friends over to look, ooh and aahs and then they walk off. All of this is not making me confidant that i can make a go of a big show in Calgary coming up.
So, spendmore money I don't earn to buy another table, lighting, and such and plan to get fabric and props to up the ooh and aah value of my displays... am I crazed? likely. How long will Icontinue to pour money I don't have into this? can't say for sure. R says to keep trying next year as well. we shall see. I'm too stubborn to to just quit. plus what else am I gonna do with all this wire and beads?
But I did manage to do some great trades for Christmas gifts, including an autographed print from Glen Scrimshaw. It was a very warm and happy atmosphere, just no-one is feeling Christmasy yet coupled with the economy doesn't lend to a great selling show I guess.

So the next 2 weeks will be busy making stuff to fill the new tables and refiningmy displays!