But the Camera, Not So Much

It gave me absolute fits today. Out of focus - a dozen shots in a row. I finally got it to do what I wanted, and so I present to you,

The Magical Fish That Grants Any Wish (in a nice cream sauce)
This is actually a scan of the whole fishy:


Here are the camera shots I got:

Fish Face

Fish Side

Fish Tail

Fish Button

A while back I mentioned one of my sources of inspiration, a French decorating magazine. The genesis of this "fish-t-cuff" was a photo of some wooden serving spoons that were carved and dyed to resemble fish, with the tails being the spoon bowls. I love the distressed French Country colors and used that palette. As it started to take shape, I was reminded of the fairy tale about the fisherman who catches a magic fish. The fish, in order to avoid being eaten, grants the fisherman a series of wishes, which end with the fisherman and his wife right back where they started. The story never says what happened to the fish after that. My idea on the subject is fairly evident in the title of the piece.

OH! And I got my contract from Interweave Press in the mail today - for the project I worked up for publication in StepByStep Beads. I'm pretty jazzed about that - now I've committed to doing two more projects.

Just wish the Etsy sales would pick back up.

I Love My Lightbox.

I found these great instructions for building my own lightbox here.

So at long last I got some decent pictures of my fuzzy cuffs - I've got them all listed over at lov.li, but due to the nature of Etsy, I'll only be listing them there one day at a time.

What do I mean by that? I mean at Etsy, due to the massive quantity of Stuff there, one must aggressively try to post a new item every day and lurk around on the forums in order to bring yourself to the attention of the general viewership there, which can be massively time consuming.

But I digress. Somehow the photos disappeared from the blog - but you can see them all in the Lov.Li sidebar ---------------------------->>>

See what you can do with baling wire and a little imagination? HA!

And I Ran

Ain't it a doozy? I built a light box yesterday and had a few minutes to futz around with my camera, and I managed to take some GREAT shots of my cuff. I posted pics of it and the little story it tells on my lov.li site - here.

But I can't help myself- here's another shot:



I'm starting work on a "Fish-T-Cuff" - more on that later.

The Frog Princess

I finished her last night and posted her on Etsy this morning. Originally, this was going to be part of a lariat to support the fabulous Bead by Susan Jones, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized it had to be all on its own. The colors are just a bit too strong to work with the lampwork, and its construction is visually too much to go with anything other than solid colors.

I am dead mad keen for these beads - the color set I used in this piece are from Whimbeads, one of my favorite online shops, and the color is listed as F460E. I used size 11s, 8s, 3 mm cubes and size 8 Delicas, along with some size 11 cream seeds. I learned this variation on bead crochet from the book I've mentioned before, The Art and Elegance of Beadweaving, by Carol Wilcox Wells.

Now that I've found my rhythm with the technique, I'll be forging ahead with my plans for the big lampwork piece - again, something Just For Me.

Nan did come by on Sunday and we talked beadwork. And I wish she had a website with her Sprite dolls on display - they need to be seen by the whole wide world.

The Way of All Things

Or at least all things with me - I finished the bigass cuff!! and decided the name was all wrong. So here's the first pic of it (I need to take another with better lighting):


And I Ran.

I really love the little charms dangling from the clasp. One says "trust" and the other "believe." It's a pictograph that tells a story. I just love this one and it's mine all mine.

Nan-Who-Is-Now-Creed came by the Other Job yesterday!! I haven't seen her in years! She wants to get together on Sunday and talk bead embroidery. She's gonna show me what she's been up to, and I'm gonna show her my dolls and we're gonna swap techniques. She reminded me of one of my favorite beaders - Robin Atkins - once I got into bead embroidery I searched the internet for more techniques or at the very least more examples - and that's when I found her stuff. If you've got some time, check out her blog, too - inspirational AND fun!

And Then I Wrote . . .

Something fun happened the other day. I got an Etsy convo from Leslie Rogalski, the editor-in-chief of Step by Step Beads magazine. She saw my beaded bead bangles on Etsy and felt they'd make a great project. She asked me to write it up and submit it, and I finished doing so this afternoon. My only sticking point right now is that they also want a photo of the author. I don't have anything recent. Hell, I don't have anything old! Last time I had my picture taken it went onto my driver's license. Euww.

Having the Cold/Flu from Hell for the last few days hasn't made me all that photogenic, either. I'll get Asa to snap a pic tomorrow after I've had at least one more day of rest.

Here's two shots of the project:



This was a nice digression from the business at hand - to wit, the fact that (Big Surprise!) I took apart the bracelet I've been working on, Nothing Exceeds Like Excess. The focal bead, the big Chinese turquoise bead, was just too heavy for the sculptural peyote framework. I thought about it long and hard and decided to do a pictographic bead embroidery piece instead. So here it is as of this moment:



Sales on Etsy have slowed to nonexistent, but then I've been too sick to really care. My focus has been on getting rid of the rest of the magazines. Two weeks from today they come off the site, no matter what. They're getting in the way of the jewelry. I've been practicing my photography. I know I need to take much better pictures, since this is what will sell the pieces.

I'm putting together some card making kits I think might do very well on Etsy, too. Helps thin out my paper boxes in the back room stash. A dirty job, but it must be done. And sooner is better.

After 7 Days, You KNOW It's The Flu

This is the worst. If you are the kind of person who multi-tasks, then you know what a pain in the ass it is to have to sit on your hands for almost a week. Just because you're too tired to sit up for longer than half an hour at a time. Just because you can barely breathe. Just because you think you might have coughed up a substantial portion of a lung in the night. I'm such a friggin' baby.

Nothing gets done. No jewelry gets made. The Other Job has to take care of itself. Putting together this blog post has taken over half an hour so far. Insane. But there you are. As updates go, how am I doing as an apologist?? Eh?