Shutting down, starting anew...

Shutting down... I have decided to shut down my Etsy shop for the time being. I love selling my jewelry, but I don't feel like this is the time for it. I have other things I want to persue and and put my time into and I also feel I need to organize better before I start it again. Oh, I forgot to mention the SIX packages that have gone AWOL recently!!! (Darn post office!!!)

Starting anew... I want to focus on actually DOING. Doing my art, making my jewelry, being a mom.

I also want to become a La Leche League Leader, and this will take some of my time also. I have a feeling this will also be a new source of artistic inspiration for me. This is an area I truly am passionate about and I desire to spread that passion - the passion of actively being a mother - to other mothers who feel the same.

How slack am I?

I really have no good excuse for it. Even though we have all taken turns getting sick, and my son broke his arm, but I still have no good excuse for not blogging. So today is a new day, and I am going to do my best to blog at leat once a week, so everyone knows what's going on!!!

For the birds!

This is what happens when you have a bunch of bamboo tiles that you don't know what to do with! I took some varnish and tinted it blue with watercolors. I took old sewing patterns and painted over them with the varnish, and I cut the images from an antique book page that I had purchased. A few layers of varnish over top that and Volia!! I wired them together with a very thin copper wire and brown bugle beads and finished it off with a copper toggle clasp. I am going to have to shorten it, as it is too big for me (that's a miracle, because most I make end up being too short!) Sorry for the crappy pic, I'll get a better one.

He who Holds the Key...

I made this for my Mom today. I used a book as a base, so I guess it could be considered an altered book, but I thought of it just as a base. The key actually holds the tin in place. The vial will hold whatever my Mom wants to put in there that reminds her of my dad (he died this past March). The key is attached to the same eye screw that the vial hangs on. I like it... I think it turned out good. I'll be making another, but instead of the vial it will contain a vintage picture... that one will be for sale.

What a day for the camera to break...

So, here I go out the door on this BEAUTIFUL sunny day and... my camera won't work. The one day I actually get motivation to take pictures of my recent work and this is what I get... Oh Cruel World!!!

Organizing the impossible...

So, being the toatlly UNorganized person I am I have a ton of stuff sitting around in boxes. Often times I go looking for a particular item and I can't quite place my finger on it. I have also gone out and purchased more of said item thinking I had used what I had... only to find out weeks (or even months) later that I had said item all along!!!

So this weekend I have taken on the daunting task of organizing all of my craftiness in one place (instead of boxes everywhere). Sometimes I feel like it's a total waste of time because the only thing I seem to be accomplishing is making an even bigger mess. But I know that, once it is finished, it will be so much easier to find things. I have already found SOOOO many things I forgot that I had (and things I knew I had, just couldn't find)!!!

I have officially worked for two days and still have at least ten more boxes to go through! Although the boxes are small (like two shoe boxes could fit in them) they are all packed to the rim!!!

Oh, if only there was such thing as an "Easy" button!!!

Train of thought... Collect me...

How do I get my name out more? I want to be collected. I want my work to be coveted by my customers... Hmmm... I want. Maybe I should change my point of view. What was it that Crystal said in her blog? "For art's sake..." Maybe I should be doing that instead of trying to make items that would sell. Maybe I should not try so hard and just do for a change. Make stuff I like. Try new things I have been wanting to try.

I think today I shall try some new things. Maybe I'll start that alterd book I have been dying to start, but scared to. Or maybe do a little Papier Mache?

I could also start on my camera lens project. I bought this on ebay and was going to use the entire thing as one project, but I think I will use the lenes separately and the box for something totally different... I want to do something "Ocean-y" with the box for some reason... it seems to be telling me that. I would love to do an ocean themed mixed media something-or-other on the outside and in each space on the inside do a piece of ocean-y jewelry. But would six jewelry pieces for a set be too much? Should I do three jewelry pieces and and something else - little shrine like things maybe - in the other three spaces? Oh goodness, I think I'm even more frustrated than when I started this!