Diary of a Handcrafter

Ideas and Decisions

2011-10-27T20:19:00.002-06:00

Wow... over two months since my last post! I'm sorry, life got away from me and I'm just now catching up.

Etsy’s question of the day on Facebook today asked “What are you most afraid of?” Most people answered with typical things like snakes, heights, spiders, clowns, some rational and some irrational. My greatest fear when I was younger was rejection or disapproval, either by the “cool kids” or my parents or teachers. That fear steered me into a lot of self-criticism, low self-esteem, and bad relationships based on the fact that I didn’t think I deserved anything better, regardless of what anyone else told me. As I got older and realized how defeating and untrue that was, my fear of rejection morphed into something else: a fear of being merely ordinary. My greatest fear now is to one day look back on a humdrum unsatisfying life devoid of all things extraordinary. Granted, I still hold myself to (often unrealistically) high standards, and the things that I would consider satisfying and extraordinary don’t necessarily fall into those categories for everyone, but my life is my life, no one else’s. Does everyone take pride and satisfaction in a home-cooked meal? No, but I certainly do. It’s one of the little things that reminds me how to really live.

It’s easy to get caught up in the minutae of everyday life. It’s easy to drown in to-do lists, especially this time of year, and I’m horribly guilty of that. It’s easy to grab fast food or a pre-packaged overly processed “dinner,” “forget” to go to the gym or turn on the exercise video, and slug out in front of the television for the rest of the evening because the rest of the day was so exhausting. It’s easy to stay in the rut of a job that doesn’t use you to your full potential, especially in this economic climate. It’s easy to let your hectic lifestyle drown your personality. It’s easy to let your passions die if they’re not convenient.

It’s easy to get caught up in emotional causes like the Occupy movement but stop short of doing anything to make a difference. I do support the movement because of the underlying belief that money shouldn’t speak louder than a person’s vote and I applaud those who are actually working to make the movement worthwhile. There are some who are turning it into a gripe-fest and some on the other side who refuse to acknowledge the true goals of the protestors, which just leads to more nonproductive finger-pointing. Luckily, there are many people involved that are trying to keep things nonviolent and productive so I hope things continue that way. I am taking the energy of the movement personally to challenge myself and make my life feel worthwhile. I have taken the stories of the 99% to heart, not as collective whining as some would call it but as solidarity and comfort that I’m not the only one struggling here and many of them have it far worse than I do.

The fact that I’m struggling like millions of others doesn’t give me an excuse to abandon my passions and sit around complaining. My job is good enough for now, and will get better when other peoples’ fortunes improve and they can bring in more insurance policies, but it doesn’t define me. Luckily it’s regular and I know exactly what my paychecks will be. Symphony started up again and we just had our first concert of the season, so it’s nice to be playing again. I auditioned on French Horn for the concert coming up in April, but it turns out they might move me to that section before then. One of the current members lives nearby so she and I will be getting together to play duets, which could open up opportunities for holiday gigs, as well as with the rest of the horn section. It’s really good to be playing again and especially nice that there are opportunities for it opening up before my eyes.

As part of these decisions I’ve been making, I had to cancel violin lessons with my little student. She was finally doing really well and I miss her, but her parents both work on the railroad so their schedules were just too crazy for them to commit to anything. Lessons were getting cancelled left and right, and sometimes they’d just forget about it and leave home, so I’d show up to an empty house. I don’t have the passion for teaching, I learned that in college, and I had taken on this one student to see how things went, mostly out of obligation for trying to make any money with music. That’s the one thing that EVERYONE suggests when I say I’m a musician… “Why don’t you teach?” (I have a long answer for that one… don’t get me started!) It had gotten to the point where the flakiness of the parents was regularly disrupting my day and I just couldn’t be okay with that anymore. It comes down to them making decisions for their daughters and it’s not my place to be critical of their parenting, but every week it became my problem. Instead, I have now blocked off Monday mornings solely for writing music. It’s difficult, since I’m used to running all kinds of errands on Mondays and getting as much done as I can during business hours, but it’s an exercise in self-discipline that I need if my writing is ever going to go anywhere. What better time to work on it than now, when I’m only working part-time? My goal is to apply for a state Arts grant in the spring and I need a body of work to show them, plus I need to be in a good routine of writing regularly enough to actually earn that grant. More on that later.

Where does this leave my jewelry business? Nowhere. It’s a hobby that basically keeps up with costs and I can make gifts for people instead of buying them. That’s worth it, for now. I may bump it up when I can, but I can’t make it a higher priority than my music.

Today I’ve also seen a few good articles on the unsustainability (it’s a word now!) of the American lifestyle, which has given me ideas about my garden for next year and possibly starting up a community garden or farmer’s market program in town to make our little community a little more self-sufficient, thereby helping everyone in the process. Part of my realization about the Occupy movement is that we can’t depend on the “top” to take care of us, we have to depend on each other, so we need to find ways to do that and keep this world healthy for future generations. That starts at home, in each household, changing the demand so that the top has no choice but to support it. That’s my theory anyway, we’ll see how it goes.

Summer Fun: More days at home please?

2011-08-20T22:11:00.000-06:00

The last couple of months have been kinda crazy. My days fill up with various things that I don't want to give as much attention as they demand, but they all have their reasons so I just sort of grit my teeth and deal with it. Taking care of Mom's house really took a lot out of me and I'm still recovering from that, but next week I'll have to do it again, this time without Dad to help with the kitties. They're going to a kubelwagen convention in Ohio and although Mom isn't thrilled to be going, she's not insisting on staying either. They'll be gone for a week or so while I'm trying to prepare an audition and get the house (and myself) ready for my boyfriend to be here from Alabama for a week or so. I have 3 days at home this weekend so I'm pushing myself pretty hard to get as much done as I can before my parents leave so I don't go crazy before my man gets here. Last week I was home all day Sunday only, and the week or two before that I hadn't had any full days at home so my poor house was rather neglected. On top of that, it makes me crazy when I can't have a day or two at home, I need the time to myself to fill with projects as I see fit. Having 3 days this weekend is a wonderful thing and I wish it would happen more often like it was in the spring.

Quick rundown of what I did on Saturday: Got up later than usual but still kinda early for yoga with my friends. It's been at least 2 months since we were all 3 able to be together, the way our schedules have been. The yoga was good, the girl talk was great, and I'm sure we all needed it. We're hoping to meet on Monday too. When I got home and before it got too hot out, I cleaned out my car, wiped down the dash, washed the inside of the windshield and windows, sprayed down the floormats, and vacuumed. It needed to be done... badly... and that's one thing I wanted to cross off the list before he gets here.

Next I worked on my poor little garden that has been as neglected as my house. I've been able to water it enough and we do get occasional rainstorms that help with that, but something has been eating some of my plants and I hadn't had a chance to pull out the dead stuff and find more chicken wire to put up. The first thing to go was my beans. I'm still rather unhappy about that... the plants were doing so well and they had lots of flowers, in a few more days I would've had a good handful of beans to harvest, and overnight they were eaten down to the dirt. That made me so mad. I got some wire and put it up to keep the deer out, but since then something smaller has been getting in and nipping off my garlic. That makes me suspect it's not a rabbit, since theoretically they don't like garlic, but I don't know that for sure either. We've seen a couple squirrels out here, which is very unusual, and yesterday Mom had a skunk look in the back door at her, so who knows what's gnawing on my garden!

The lettuce and one tomato plant and all of the petunias have been nibbled down too, but that's probably from the grasshoppers. Not much I can do about them, except I did have a lovely black and yellow garden spider that I had to move to work in the garden today. She's not as big as the one down at Mom's house, but I'm glad to have her around. I hope she finds her way back up into the plants and sets up camp again, she eats all kinds of bugs that we have too many of, like mosquitos and mud wasps and grasshoppers. I was sad to move her, but I had to. See that very sad cherry tomato plant behind her? Yeah... Also, the fabric pot on the left used to have my beans in it.

I planted more beans in that pot, more carrots in another pot, Italian salad greens, and sugar snap peas and transplanted a couple petunias. I found some more chicken wire to put up, so hopefully that keeps whatever it is out. My cucumber plant is doing really well so I moved it so it has more room to do its thing. I got 3 nice sized cucs off of it today and there are plenty of little ones there now.

I pulled a bunch of weeds out of my flowerbed and along the "walkway" to my front door, gathered rocks from my "yard" (if you can call it that lol) to put up against the skirting to keep the weeds down and help keep the weather out from under my house, and got another section of deck railing stained before it got dark. The rock project will take a while to get all the way around, but there are plenty of rocks to do it with and when I get to actually moving dirt to fill the gaps there will be rocks in that too so it will kinda do itself once I get that far. These red bricks will be replaced with limestone slabs like my little steps but for now, they'll do. They're basically useless in the summer but in the winter they shovel easily, melt snow quickly, and the ice forms around them instead of on them. They were a quick fix when the mud was horrible so they're not ideal by any stretch, but they work. At any rate, I need to continue the gravel edging partly for aesthetics and partly to help with insulation and make upkeep easier. It's gonna take forever to pick up all the rocks...there may come a point where I just buy several bags of pea gravel and use that instead. We'll see.

Sunday's plan: First thing, stain the rest of the deck railing. The top part at least, since the slats take a while to do, but the top really needs to get sealed before the weather beats up the wood too much more. It's already warped and splitting from the extremes, so that needs to stop. Staining when it's too hot out does strange things when it dries, but doing it in the evenings means it gets dark before I can get very far and the water rinse to get the dust off doesn't dry quickly enough. It's supposed to get into the high 90s again tomorrow so I'll get as much of that done first thing as I can before the heat kicks in. After that, laundry needs to happen (which of course will heat up the house...but I can't put it off for too much longer), and if I'm lucky Dad and I might work on the terrace a little. Maybe that's just wishful thinking... but the Deere has the front shovel on it now, and I'd like to see what it can do so I can maybe get some shrubs and fall bulbs planted before winter hits and I have to deal with the incessant mud for another 6 months. If that doesn't happen, or if it's too hot to do it for long, I'll probably spend the rest of the day working inside.

My office needs rearranging or something, the office closet needs painting and shelves put up, and there are a couple piles in the living room/kitchen that need to be gone through and dealt with before I'm comfortable having company. The office closet is a big project that I can't get done in one day, so I may not attempt it just yet. It took a day to do the front closet and that one's much smaller, although some of that included putting linoleum down and I don't have to do that in here. I need to decide what I want to do about my desk too...hrm. Well, for now it's time to get my horn out and practice, then bedtime.

Fresh from the desk: Biker chic

2011-08-05T17:50:00.003-06:00

The hills are rumbling with the sound of Harleys. It's that time of year again and for the next few weeks all the little towns throughout the Hills will be swarming with bikers on their vacations. Of course, I hope to get in on the action a little. ;) However, that means I need to gear a few pieces towards them, without looking like everything else they can find at any gift shop anywhere in the area. Behind the leather and spikes they're all just normal people, dentists and such, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much, but there are specific styles and motifs that biker style tends to gravitate to. Namely, chunky silver chains and skulls (the more skulls the better lol) mostly in black, silver, gunmetal, red, orange. A lot of them go for the more tribal look with leather, bone beads, feathers, teeth, claws, etc. Problem is, all of those things are all over every store in the area, so how to make mine different?

My plan, if you can call it a plan, is to stay with the same style sensibility I am used to working in but use the darker colors and keep everything on the masculine side with just a touch of femininity. The fire agate hemp necklace I made last week should do well. Last night I made this one, with a carved bone pendant, leopard jasper, rose quartz, and hematite strung with black seed beads and gunmetal silver bugle beads, with the metal-free closure I had basically abandoned for too long just for the ease of using a toggle clasp. It's strong, a little tough, a little frilly, hypoallergenic, and I hope it bridges the gap a little bit. If nothing else, I like it a lot!

This one was simple enough. Carved bone pendant in the shape of an acorn, hematite beads, red horn beads, black and white bone beads, and glass beads with a slightly greenish mottled finish on sterling silver memory wire. The acorn came in the same package as the other black bone pendant above, so I guess we'll see if anyone is interested in that one at the show. I have other pendants I can switch out, or just leave the pendant out entirely. We'll see how it goes. As the evening goes on, I'm toying with the idea of switching it out for the other that was in that package, which is carved to look sort of like a claw. Maybe I should do that, it would probably appeal to more people than the acorn does.

One more on memory wire. I'm not sure what the stones are exactly, but the large center stone is dyed turquoise with goldish veins throughout. The silver spacers jangle a little on the sterling silver memory wire and the white stone chips have grey veins throughout. This one is definitely something I'd wear regularly, but it's not overly girly. It's a simple but slightly chunky light statement piece that should make people take notice without being too loud. I just wish I knew what the stones were... people do ask about that.

I'll make more tonight to get ready for another Saturday sale tomorrow. Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy the Rally if you're headed North!

*UPDATE* I did end up reworking the acorn necklace with the carved bone claw and replaced the seed beads with all hematite beads. Much better, yes?

Fresh from the desk: Pink camo purse

2011-08-01T12:34:00.001-06:00

Yes, that's what it is! The button is mother-of-pearl, hand-crocheted in 100% US-grown cotton yarn. I wasn't expecting the color to turn out like this, since I'm new to crocheting and hadn't worked with anything variegated, so I didn't think the color would be so blocky, but the purse pattern was cute and I wanted to try it and by the time I realized that it looked like pink camo I wanted to just finish the thing. When I was picking out the yarn, I had been browsing Fall runway fashion and was looking for something slightly more interesting than khaki (which is EVERYWHERE on the runways... seriously...) but was still basically neutral. Oh well.

So, here we are! It is a cute pattern, and as much as people love camo out here I'm sure it's perfect for someone. The next one I make will have a longer strap but otherwise I like the pattern a lot. And maybe some fringe or beads or something...hmmmmm...

Summer Fun: Stone steps

2011-07-31T12:27:00.000-06:00

My dad has a new riding mower. A fancy one, that likely cost more than my car. (Granted, my car is old, and it was old when we bought it... but still!) And, it came with 2 hats! Lol. Anyway, this thing has a nice cart and a front shovel/blade combo thing, is powerful enough to mow down the prairie, and it makes him giggle like a schoolgirl. It's rather hilarious. Point is, this thing can get the dirt work done that I need and haul stuff up and down the hill without any trouble.

Yesterday we took it out onto the back acres to find some big, flat limestone rocks. I know there are tons back there, it was just a matter of having a way to get them hauled to where i could do something with them. I need them for walkways and such around my trailer so I don't have to trudge through the mud all the time, something that would last and look nice and not cost much (if anything), and I knew we had lots of limestone. We loaded up the cart and took that load of rocks up the hill, sorted them a little, then picked one little spot we could finish up in just a couple of hours. It was pretty hot out there and I've been fighting off a pseudo cold all week and didn't want to push too hard and he's been at work a lot and needed to get a nap in before he went back.

We picked the little hill just outside my back door. When my water pipes froze repeatedly last winter (I'm in negotiations with the contractor who built the skirting to get the gaps filled in so it doesn't happen again... that's all kinds of fun, let me tell ya) I had to keep getting underneath the trailer to turn the space heater up, move it, turn it down when it was nice out, all that. I had to get under there at least once a week for probably 3 months, usually in the deep snow and subzero temps. Out my back door is a little walkway from the door to the back hill... not sure why he built it that way, instead of connecting it to the deck or building some stairs... but the hill is steep right there and every time I had to get under the trailer I had to slide down the hill on my butt so I didn't land on my face in the snow. Getting back up was fun too.

So, we built some stairs. They're cute, they'll get the job done, and they were free. Unless you count what my parents paid for the land and the mower... Point is, we didn't have to buy anything extra for them and now I don't have to slide down the snowy hill in the middle of the night anymore. Hooray! We have more rocks that we brought up that will need to be a walking path from the deck stairs to the front door eventually. I'll probably start at the deck and work my way around one little load at a time, so that maybe by the time I turn the corner toward the front door there will be an entryway room built on with some real stairs! Well, maybe not. A girl can dream, anyway... it'll be a while before the contractor we like can get out here for that. At least I need to get something by the deck stairs because the first step is too high off the ground and a nice thick slab right there will help with that considerably.

That's a project for another day. That's as far as we got yesterday because I got overheated, even in the shade... guess I didn't drink enough before we got started or something. But all is well now, and the little stairs look good!

Next weekend is another show, possibly the last one of the summer, and I need to get some biker chic stuff made. I've been crocheting like mad to fill out my inventory a bit, so I need to get back on the jewelry bandwagon. Cheers!

Brain Flexing

2011-07-27T23:05:00.000-06:00

The mind is like a muscle. It needs to be exercised or it will get fat, lazy, sluggish, and just otherwise nonproductive. I've been feeling this exact thing the last couple of years since finishing my Master's. I seriously needed a break after all that, as I had been in school basically nonstop from age 5 to age 26 and frankly, I was worn out. The end of my Master's was very intense and I tried to hit the ground running with the inevitable post-graduation job search, which was rather draining in itself, especially after hearing "no" (or nothing at all) as many times as I did, even when I set my goal to send out 5-10 applications and/or resumes a day. I did this for months, got very sick a couple of times, broke my foot, found a couple horrible jobs, started making jewelry in the hopes of selling it, then moved back home. While relieved to be home where I could actually get full-time work, I was extremely discouraged about my future as a composer. I've been telling myself ever since that I have more opportunities for that here because I'm local and I likely know people involved in such projects simply because I grew up here and was out at the Black Hills Playhouse a few times. That's several stories in itself, but suffice it to say that I do have connections to the arts community in the Hills, should I choose to take advantage of that.

I tried to stay at my first job here as long as I could. It was good money for here, but I was working something like 55 hours a week without overtime and I was barely making it to Symphony rehearsals and concerts, never mind sleeping and eating and trying to be creative in any fashion. It was a truly horrid job... I was the manager of a small loan company whose entire goal was to get people stuck in a credit hole so we could keep collecting loan fees off of them. I've never had any management experience or training, never worked with any kind of financial institution, and they tossed me in with minimal training so I had no idea what I was doing, and the poor girl that was already working there was mad at me for getting hired off the street for the management position. Don't blame her one bit for that, and we ended up being friends once she realized how little they prepared me for it. I got in serious trouble the one day we didn't make a new loan... it was a Saturday, we were only open half the day, and it was blizzarding. I saw maybe 3 cars all morning, and none of them stopped for us. We were expected, and actually required, to entice people to renew their loans (after a certain point, they would be eligible to miss a payment if they renewed), and a renewed loan collects a new loan fee and keeps the ridiculous interest rate rolling in. I couldn't sleep at night with that job. I only lasted about 6 weeks.

After that was full-time retail and that was significantly less stressful, but still not a good job. Irregular schedule (sporadic enough that it was impractical to get another job), hours not guaranteed, minimum wage (started out a tiny bit over that, because of my retail experience... whoopee.), and the store made it quite clear that there was no room for advancement for any of us when they hired a new assistant manager off the street with a little management experience but not in retail. Shortly after that, and partly because they refused to hold one employee to the same standards that they expected from everyone else, I started looking around for new jobs, found my insurance one, and put in my notice.

I do like my job. I'm still just part-time, but the better work I do the better our agency does and I get directly rewarded for that, so I have some sort of control over where I go here. It gives me time to go to Symphony, make and sell my jewelry, and work on my house. I'm still ridiculously poor, but I'm much happier here than I was at the other two jobs.

Back to my point. My job now has its challenging moments when I need to figure out how to solve someone's insurance problem, remember how to work the policy management program or enter a new homeowners policy, decipher a confusing billing statement, things like that. Mostly, I sit there by myself and scan and upload documents to their appropriate policies. It's rather brain-melting once you've done it for a few hours. I definitely feel like I'm losing sharpness (as can be proven by the rambly nature of this entire post... apologies!) and I'm riddled with guilt about not working on my music. I'm getting a decent amount done with jewelry, and though I need to shift gears a little for the fall, it's basically in line with what it needs to be for now. I need to be writing more. I need to be practicing my instruments. My symphony will need me on horn in the spring when we play Mahler's 1st Symphony and I'd really like to put together a decent audition for that in the fall so that maybe I can play horn in a couple other concerts too. That's the instrument I got my degree in, so I'd rather be on that, it was just so much easier to get the cello skills back up and I didn't have to audition on that.

I got my cello out for a bit tonight and after I'm done writing here I'll get my horn out for a little bit before bed. I took a mouthpiece to work to buzz on when I'm alone so that will help a lot to get my chops back up.

Creativity is also like a muscle, but one that needs a certain set of parameters in order to cooperate. Only when one is regularly working with it can it come at will; before that it's very hard to snuff out and give up on. That's what I've been wrestling with since I graduated. I worked so hard on my thesis that I was pretty well burned out and it's been ridiculously hard to get back on the bandwagon. My dad and I went to the 1345 Film Festival last weekend and I was impressed and inspired by the short, cute, low-budget films that 100+ people showed up to watch in Art Alley downtown. It inspired me to get back on track and submit a short or 2 next year so I can make some connections with these people and start working on films again.

Next thing I need to do is figure out how I can start to get my composer brain back. Maybe I should take a pad of staff paper to work and jot down ideas to work on when I get home? I can't find the pad I was using in school so I'll need to get a new one. I'll probably need to retrain my ear as far as getting the right intervals from my head to the page. I don't want to skimp on my filing responsibilities, but I do need to be able to take 10-15 minutes here and there to do something that actually uses my brain, otherwise I feel like a pile of mush by the time I get home.

I didn't intend this to be as rambling or whiny as it ended up to be, but I think I needed to get all that written down so I can get on with finding solutions and making a plan. Now, time for a little horn blowing, then bedtime!

Fresh from the desk: Ideas for Fall/Winter designs!

2011-07-20T21:57:00.000-06:00

I've been doing a little bit of trend research for Fall/Winter jewelry and I've got some ideas. Several of the trends are just horrid, I think... like the chunky neon chain thing... bleh. I won't make anything like that, I'm sorry. I try to use as little metal as possible most of the time and that would be entirely counterproductive. I saw a crochet pattern for large chain links that could be strung together, but I didn't like the look of that either. I'll stick with what I know.

There are a few things that did sound good though: Mixed media is huge. Wood and pearls on leather with a ribbon, braided denim cuffs, feathers, you name it. That's very good news for me considering the materials I like to use. Stacked bangle bracelets and cuffs are big too, and while I can't do the metalworking to make bangles I can figure out how to crochet cuffs with beads. I have a couple of patterns I'm playing around with to get that to work. Statement necklaces are still in, and while some of them are gawdy, that still leaves me with plenty of room to experiment. My statement pieces usually end up smaller than what's on the runway anyway, just because I know so few people who would actually buy something like that, but it does mean I can still use color. While I work on crocheting cuff bracelets, I'll work on crochet chokers as well. Vintage-made-new is something I should look into... maybe a couple trips to some local flea markets are in order.

Clothing trends are surprisingly bland. Lots of colorblocks, mostly with variations of beige, with occasionally something in red. Runway fashion makes me crazy... so little of it is actually wearable. A lot of it reminded me of a large taupe square paper sack that even makes the model look stupid.

This next batch of jewelry I'm working on is for the Sturgis Rally that's coming up. Soon, the Hills will be swarming with motorcycles and they will definitely be around town at the next Saturday show, so I have some ideas for biker-chic pieces to cater to that crowd.

We'll see how this one does... It has a fire agate center donut, hematite, bone, horn, and glass beads, strung on hemp 20" long when tied. The differing textures of all the beads didn't quite come through, but Mom took the good camera with her to Cleveland so this is what I'm stuck with. Oh well.

The heat has finally lifted a little. Finally, opening my windows lets in the cool evening air like usual! That hasn't been the case this last week or so. Hope you're all staying cool and hydrated!

Fresh from the desk: New chain stitch

2011-07-18T08:53:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of only using daisy chain and seed-bugle-seed-bugle all in a row. Those stitches are fine when appropriate, but I'm bored with only having those two options if I'm trying to keep production time down. I know there are much nicer/fancier stitches out there, but they're so time-consuming that I'd need to raise my prices and I'm not willing to go there just yet.

However, I did come across this one that takes more time than a daisy chain but not near as much as a spiral rope. It's a little hard to tell with this resolution, but it's a flat chain of small squares with a contrasting color in each corner. I had redone necklaces with the butterfly pendant a couple of times already. It's so large that nothing else I tried laid right, but I think the contrast of the frilly butterfly and the square chain with hematite balances the whole piece nicely. A daisy chain was too much fluff for the pendant and a plain bugle strand was too bland, but this works nicely.

This one is choker-length with navy blue delicas beads and mint green seed beads for contrast. The squares in the chain echo the geometrics on the ceramic pendant and the green shell discs tie it all together. I love this little choker and I'll definitely make some more to sell in various places so I can keep one for myself!

All in all, this stitch takes a bit longer than the others but it's useful in ways they lack. I'm looking at trends for the Fall so I'm sure I'll be able to work this one in more. I'm also working on some crochet jewelry, so once I have something to show there I'll definitely blog it. I have an idea for a lace choker with an amethyst nugget front and center... maybe I'll work on that one tonight!

Fresh from the desk: Coin pouches and cat toys

2011-07-17T22:13:00.000-06:00

It's been suggested (twice, and somewhat strongly) that I expand my inventory to include items other than jewelry for the shows so that more people are drawn to my table, spend more time looking at the variety, and are more likely to buy something. It makes sense, and I figured I could do that with some simple crochet projects.

Enter the "hundred yen pouch" pattern. It's fun, it's easy, it's quick, and they're just plain adorable. I can get small skeins of 100% USA-grown cotton yarn for a decent price at our local discount/department store in town, so I got a few colors and got to work.

The first one I made (the green one) took about the length of a movie to make, but once I got the hang of the pattern I managed to cut the time to make one about in half. I should get some more colors, but I'll just stick with these 4 for now and see how they do at the next show before I make too many. The mostly white one has flecks of purple, green, pink, and blue, in case you can't tell. It's my favorite color so far but I liked how the variegated brown/white/blue one turned out with the twist.

My other idea was toys, so I have a couple started. The bunny pattern is behaving strangely... I always end up with the wrong number of stitches for each round but I think I'm doing it like the pattern says... guess we'll see how it turns out once I finish it or if it ends up horribly disfigured halfway through.

I did get a couple cat toys finished though, and Cricket loves them! The first was a "kitty tweet" which turned out pretty darn cute. It was a little time-consuming for something so small, so the next one I made was just a stuffed disk, and not surprisingly, she likes that one better. It skids across the floor nicely or something; it's hard to tell exactly what cats prefer other than "the simpler the better." I didn't put any catnip in the first two, but I will for the next handful I make for the show. Catnip grows wild out here and my mom has some in her garden so I harvested some of that to dry and put in the cat toys.

I haven't tried a purse yet, but I'm thinking this one will be a good place to start. Once I get there, I'll update on how it turns out. Maybe I'll do that this week when it's too hot to do anything but sit in front of the air conditioner, like today was. Today resulted in lots of lounging, 2 coin pouches, a necklace that I'll blog next, and a little bit of furniture rearranging while trying desperately to keep the house from getting too hot. I failed in that attempt, so now I have all of the fans on and windows open hoping the cool air from outside will come in. There's not much breeze so it's not working as well as usual, unfortunately. Time for a cool shower!

Summer Fun: Front closet renovated in one day!

2011-07-10T20:40:00.000-06:00

I've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus... oopsie. Life happens. I have some interesting projects to show you once I get some pictures done, so we'll see if I can get that done this week.

Today's project was a bit daunting at first, but I got it done and I'm rather proud of myself! This is what the front closet looked like. It also has a little shelf and bar for coat hangers, but this was the nasty part. There had been some carpet stapled down, but I took that out before I moved in. It helped to reduce the general stink of the house to get the carpet out, but doing a whole gutting of this closet was a bit too much to tackle that day. I promptly loaded it up with stuff and ignored it until now because, frankly, it was easier to close the door than to actually deal with it. As I cleaned the stuff out, I ran my winter coats through the wash and rinsed the mud off my winter boots so they could go in a plastic tub for storage elsewhere. My eventual plan is to use this closet for cleaning supplies and tools, and once I get the tall cupboard gutted and transformed into a pantry with pull-out drawers it will be closer to what I want. Also, to completely finish that plan, my coats will need another place to live, but the front room won't be constructed for a while still so in storage they go.

As in the rest of the house, there were a ton of staples in the floor. First order of business was to get those out so I could pull up the old (and terribly ugly) linoleum.

When the trailer was parked last spring, before we could get it moved, it was parked in our field on a sideways incline with the front door facing uphill. We had to park it because it wouldn't stop raining and we couldn't get it in position until we had 3 dry days in a row, so the rain dripped in the front door and got everything there wet. Including this closet. Thanks to the linoleum, it was still wet underneath. Great, huh? Made me gag. I wondered if it was a leak from the roof or something, but the roof was fine and there were no signs of moisture on the walls, so it should just be left over moisture from then.

So, I covered it with mildew/mold killer sealing primer and let it dry, like I had done with many other spots in the house. I took the door off for accessibility but also to paint the frame gloss white like I've done with the rest of the woodwork in the house. At some point I'll set up an assembly line outside and get all the doors painted too. A couple of them had been done already, and the woodwork was beyond saving, so it's all going white.

My parents had saved some of their old linoleum at some point. I don't remember if it was in their old trailer or if it was on the porch in the house they built when I was 1, but they had saved a little scrap for whatever reason and it was nearly the right size for this. I had already gotten some flooring adhesive for this project several months ago, just to be ready when I actually got around to doing it, so all I had to get was a grout spreader and box cutter from dad to get the new linoleum down.

Next was to decide what to do with the walls. Most of my wall colors came from the same paint chip, just in varying shades, so they all look good together but it's not all the same. The kitchen cupboards are the lightest version, the living room and hallway is 3-4 shades darker, and the office and bedroom are one shade darker than that. They all turned out to be pinker than I expected from the paint chip, but the shade grew on me. It's sort of fleshy, a neutral with a little personality but not too flashy. I decided to use the bedroom color in the closet. Maybe so it wasn't quite the same as the rest of the living room, although the door will usually be closed so it really shouldn't matter. This picture shows the start of the first coat on the back wall and the gloss white on the door frame.

Two coats of paint later, here we are! I also added a little white shelf to expand my storage capabilities, but I'll need to keep in mind that there are no studs behind the wall so the shelf can't hold a whole lot of weight, even with wall anchors. I'm pleased with the results after this sweaty day!

Fresh from the desk: Lots of new listings up!

2011-06-27T22:47:00.000-06:00

My Etsy page saw its first sale today to a complete stranger! While I love my family and friends for ordering jewelry from me, it's a nice little ego boost to sell to someone I've never met. I was very excited about this today (as everyone close to me can attest, as I let several of them know right away) and made a conscious effort tonight to photograph and list the new items I've made in the last couple of weeks. I haven't figured out how to use Mom's new camera very well yet, so these pictures aren't much better than the ones I was taking with my cheap camera, but I'll get there. Tomorrow I'll mess with it some more and get some clearer close-ups.

For now, it's bedtime, but I wanted to share the news. Check out my new listings if you feel so inclined, and have a wonderful night!

Fresh from the desk: Doing better at shows

2011-06-26T09:53:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was a good day. The weather was gorgeous (if a little bit warm, and a couple of clouds would've been nice since we were on blacktop but Mom brought in their tent so I was out of the sun at least), there were people everywhere in town thanks to the Arts & Crafts Festival and the Miss South Dakota Pageant and the antique car show, and there were lots of vendors on our corner so it worked out great. I made more sales yesterday than I had on my own before, without Mom's garage sale-type stuff to help with traffic. Any sale makes it a good day when there's no booth rent, but 4 sales when last time was 2 makes for a great day! There was so much going on in town that we weren't sure we'd get any traffic at all, considering how much was available at the A&C Festival, but we figured it was worth a try and it actually worked better than we expected. It's open for one more day so I may go wander around today to see what my direct competition looks like in town. A friend commented that everything over there was more expensive than mine, which I don't doubt, but I want to see the quality too.

I decided to make a couple changes this time. My signs are smaller and more specific and placed where the items are on the table so there's no confusion. I need to get a real banner made at some point, but I thought a little shop sign at the front might help people know what I have. The bookmarks are all together on the tree with one on a book for demonstration, I got a little black display hand for the bracelets and anklets, a sign on the earrings but one pair is over with its matching necklace, and the necklaces spread out to encourage touching but grouped generally by style. Hemp together, toggle clasps together, memory wire together. I've found that when the necklaces are displayed on a velvet card, they get visual attention, but when people are comfortable picking up the pieces to get a better look at them they seem more likely to buy. Also, the cards fall over too easily in the wind so it's not really worth it.

It was a long day. I was there from 8am to about 4:30pm, and if I hadn't had the tent I wouldn't have lasted near that long. The problem with the tent is it's rather short, anyone taller than 5 feet has to duck to get under it and I don't have anything to raise it with, especially spur-of-the moment like that, so people weren't really approaching the table when it was under the tent. I moved the table out, so just I was under the tent, but then I wasn't using up very much of it and there were other people struggling with sun parasols and such, so I moved my whole setup over to the other jeweler's table so we could all share my shade. They were incredibly grateful and wouldn't let me pay for the beads, bamboo flute, and pickles I picked out from their tables. It made the day go faster to have someone to chat with. Whitaker Jewelers is run by a middle-aged couple, and they recently moved down from Hill City so they're still trying to establish a presence in Hot Springs. We're not in competition with each other so I'm sure we'll end up with some kind of working relationship before too long. They work with Black Hills Gold, silver, wire wrapping, gemstones, wax casting, all kinds of stuff I can't do, and they don't do a whole lot of beading, especially not the kind I do, but they have access to beads and gemstones that I don't so they will probably end up being my stone suppliers. I have no problem paying them more than cost, because whatever they would charge me will definitely be less than a chain hobby store would. She and I chatted a lot yesterday, it was fun.

Since next Saturday is the first weekend of the month again, we'll be back. I need to keep up with my high production this week so I have more to show and more to list. I'm also looking at easy crochet patterns for bags, purses, wallets, cat toys, and other various small things I could make to expand my audience a little bit. Handmade beaded crocheted bag? Yes please! I also had an idea for beaded hat bands on straw hats for all the ladies who loved my floppy hat yesterday and wished they had one. Question now is where to find the hats for cheap enough (and decent enough quality) to sell them at a decent price. That will take some research and I'm not sure if that will get done this summer or not.

At any rate, I need to clean my house today. Also, my cats have made it clear that I'm not allowed to leave today. I'll have to, since I need to go to the store for some printer ink and I'd like to wander the A&C to see what's there, but I intend to stay home the rest of the day. Somebody has to hold these kitties.

Fresh from the desk: Push to Pageant Weekend!

2011-06-21T23:37:00.001-06:00

Hot Springs is a small town, but for some reason or another, the Miss South Dakota Pageant has been held here for decades (if not since the beginning... having some trouble finding the dates for that, but it's not terribly relevant for my purposes). Having grown up here, left, and moved back, I can't quite figure out why something so big would stay here, but it's a huge deal for this little town. There's a whole weekend's worth of events structured around the pageant.

The event that's of most interest to me at this point is the annual Arts & Crafts Festival held in Centennial Park. It's a wonderful display of art, handicrafts, local businesses, local musicians, all of that. Someday I hope to be able to afford a table there (as well as the 3 days the event runs... I'd have to miss a day of work for that now), but this year it isn't in the cards. I'd need to sell everything I have to break even, so it's not an option. What I will do, however, is set up my table on Saturday morning on my usual corner at the White Elephant and hope to catch some of the parade traffic there. It may or may not work, we'll see.

Partly because of this and partly because of my decision to build my inventory and post more listings online, I'm beading like mad this week. Tonight I made two memory wire necklaces, a pair of earrings to match a necklace I made yesterday, and reworked the green necklace I made a couple of weeks ago.

This one has a yellow carved bone pendant and two similarly yellow carved soapstone beads. I employed my trusty color wheel to come up with the purple glass beads, and luckily I had a large amount of varying shades and finishes that were the first package of beads I ever bought. I thought it was time to try to use them up. That's a bit of a theme for me lately... I have lots of partially-used packages of beads that really just need to be worked with. I'm not a huge fan of using straight-across complementary colors on the color wheel... they tend to be a little too jarring for me, but after I worked with this combination a little it started to grow on me. I may try it more, if I have the right beads for it. We'll see what the public thinks this weekend. This is also the first memory wire necklace that I've beaded the whole way around. It really is a bit of an experimental piece, but what else to do with such a stunning pendant?

This one is more typical of my style. I have a package of dainty large leaf pendants, so I chose one of the smaller ones and added a symmetrical arrangement of shell and wood beads in greens, browns, and white, natural greenery tones to complement the leaf itself and lend their different textures. I love this piece, and it went together in about 10 minutes flat, so we'll see what the public thinks of this one also. Personally, it's one of my new favorites.

After making the green necklace a few weeks ago, I immediately started second-guessing myself. I took it to the Saturday show right after and I wore it for a little while, and my suspicions were confirmed. It was too long, it didn't lay right, and the daisy chain stitch just didn't work with the heavy soapstone centerpiece. Tonight I cut it apart and put the soapstone where it belongs, on a piece of hemp surrounded by shiny glass beads, unfinished wood beads, jade-green pony beads, and pale green soapstone. It's long enough to be about 18", but I prefer to tie it tighter. The center bead just lays better when it's closer to a choker length. This is a much better use of it.

Yesterday I made this necklace. One of these weeks I'll take the time to get some good photos. Maybe after Saturday.

It's simple, purple and white, 16" daisy chain with a faceted purple glass pendant and two small white shell beads on each side. It's sparkly, just sparkly enough to be a little dressy but not overly formal. Purple may be my new favorite color... it keeps showing up in my new clothes, new beads, new designs... I'm okay with that.

Luckily for me, there were smaller matching purple beads available, so I got them at the same time with the goal of making matching earrings. It's still a daisy chain, still the same white shells around the purple pendant, but in earring form they almost look like a helix, don't they? I like it. Lots. Again, we'll see how this set does this weekend.

Tomorrow I need to make more bracelets and anklets like this one just because they're fun (and to use up leftover beads). No two will be exactly the same of course, but I should try to do matching bracelets and anklets just in case. Hooray for progress! It was a good night!

Spring Fever: Weekend Digging part 2

2011-06-19T17:56:00.003-06:00

I was disappointed with the fact that it rained this morning and the forecast made it look as though it would be raining nonstop for the next 4 days. I really wanted to get that little plot done that I started yesterday so I could have one thing truly finished outside, for once. Luckily, the sun came out for long enough that I was able to finish digging, edging, and planting!

Slightly farther than yesterday, I got a bag of peat moss to work into the naturally-occurring rocky clay and planted Mom's baby tiger lilies along the edge. I put down a little landscape fabric in the tongue and started filling it with rocks and gravel, which I'll continue to do as more rocks surface in the beds and the terrace.

After about 6 work hours total, it's finished! I dug out all the prairie grass and weeds, worked in some more peat moss, and leveled out the ground to allow for drainage and to fill the gap between the ground and the skirting. You can't really see it from this angle, but I put the last of the edger bricks against the little hill up to the deck so the water wouldn't wash down quite as bad as it does now. I planted a row of red morning glories to climb up the deck railing just for fun.

Looking at it now, the plots are too small for big bushes. Unfortunately, they're too close to the house, so it probably wouldn't work very well. Oh well, it's not like I have a bunch of bushes in pots waiting to be planted. I wanted to get the dirt work done first, and for good reason. My parents and neighbors have plenty of daylilies and irises to donate to my cause, and they'll work perfectly here. It's just a matter of digging up and splitting what they have, which won't take very long once we get started. The tiger lilies are small with bright orange flowers... should I get some of Mom's larger orange daylilies or peachy irises? Or yellow irises? I don't have many options without going to a store, but I'm not sure what would work best. Thoughts?

It was very nice to start a project one day and finish it the next, for once. That's not how things normally go in this house so the confidence boost was definitely needed. I also went through old pictures from last spring when we first got the trailer (many of which can be found here)and remembered how far I've really come... that helped a lot too. Overall, I'm pleased with my progress today! Now to clean myself up, make some food, and set up for an evening of beading.

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there!

Spring Fever: Weekend Digging

2011-06-18T22:34:00.000-06:00

Hi! It's almost time to drop the "spring" label, isn't it? Maybe when I feel ready for summer to hit... lol! I have done a little beading this weekend, and I will be doing more after I'm done here, but I wanted to update you on my garden plan.

Today I spent a few hours digging at the end of my trailer to make room for two spirea bushes. I'm pleased with the progress I made today!

I should've taken a true "before" picture, but oh well. Just imagine that the front area looked like the back does. This is after I had cleaned out some of the grass/weeds and worked up the soil a little. As you can see, the tongue of the trailer sticks out, there's lots of prairie (read: tall, thick, sharp) grass growing everywhere around the house, and there's a little spot in the siding on the skirting that was falling off. For the record, we paid quite a lot for a professional skirting job last fall, and we keep finding corners he cut, and we're not pleased.

At any rate, I dug up all the dirt on one side of the tongue, screwed the siding back on the skirting (it had been just stapled, which is why pieces like to fall off... one of these days I'll just go around the house with a bag of screws and my screw gun and get it over with), and pulled out the grass and weeds. I went down to my parents' house for something and Dad pointed out some small edging bricks he had lying around that he didn't have a use for, so I measured them and the space and figured out that he has almost exactly the right number to edge my little plot I'm digging! Bonus! They're also a good color, a red-grey, which works well with the other reddish touches I have out there. The siding on the skirting is pinkish-red, the deck is a lighter pinkish-red (thankfully in the same color family!), when I get the deck railing and picnic table stained they'll be red, the dirt is red, it just all seems to be working out that way. The same thing happened in my living room and I'm pleased with it, so why not?

So, after a couple of hours of digging and a few trips down to my parents' house, this little plot is almost halfway done! Tomorrow I'll get some peat moss to work into the soil and plant some of Mom's tiger lilies around the edge, then work on digging the rest back to the deck. I don't have the spirea bushes yet, but on my next trip to Rapid City I'll go to Jolly Lane and see what they have that won't get too big for the plot. Looks like their Renaissance, Mellow Yellow, or Firefold varieties should work... need to see what they look like. I have nice big windows at the end of the trailer and I don't want them to get covered up, nor do I want to have to prune the bushes back much.

I'm not sure what to do about the gap in the tongue itself... it's not big enough or accessible enough to plant and I don't want to be pulling grass out of it all the time. Maybe I'll just pile a bunch of rocks in there so nothing will grow and call it good. If there's one thing I have up here, it's rocks!

My yellow siding is ugly, isn't it? Alas, that part's pretty far down on the priority list. Oh well. I got pretty far on this little spot of ground today, and maybe tomorrow I can finish it up. It feels good to do a project like this and finally see some progress! I'm so used to staring at the huge amount of work left on the terrace and feeling like I'm getting nowhere. Maybe the occasional smaller project is necessary to boost confidence a little.

Fresh from the desk: Plan for the weekend

2011-06-17T18:47:00.003-06:00

I have a plan for the weekend. I’m going to bead. A lot. I watched a little of a webinar yesterday on Etsy critiquing a few shops and a couple of things really hit me: Don’t just list a few things and wait for them to sell before listing more. That’s like opening a clothing store and only having one rack of shirts out… people want to browse through your selection, see your variety, and if they see what they need they’ll get it, and if they get inspired they’ll contact you further. Keeping only a few listings up, while it’s cheaper, doesn’t help a beginner’s shop to only show a small sampling of the work. People want to see a lot of variety to get an idea of what you can do for them or they’ll just browse on by. That’s my goal now, I have plenty of beads to get it done and the listing fees aren’t bad at all so I just need to get to work. Maybe that will help my booth business too, but in both cases, I just need to get down to some serious beading.

The other thing that struck me is that I need a new banner for my Etsy shop. I have a dear friend who designed my logo who can do that for me so I asked for her help again. We’ll probably spruce up the logo too, make it look more professional and reflect my art style.

Dad and I got Mom a new camera for her birthday/Mother’s Day so maybe I can borrow it to get some better photos too. Certainly can’t hurt to try, right?

However, I can’t sit on my butt all weekend. Depending on how the weather cooperates, I need to finish digging for the terrace. We have an idea for that also, using the frames from Mom’s old garden beds for the retaining wall instead of buying new bricks for it. Mom thinks it’ll be super easy to just take the wood up and plop it down into place, but I suspect it’ll be a little more complicated than that. At any rate, we need to take apart her old beds (some of them are so terribly overgrown I’m not sure how we’ll get to them…), which will take a while, but a couple are already in pieces so I could theoretically take them up the hill and try to make them fit. I’m sure I’ll need to move some more dirt to make the corners square enough for something like that. The tractor still needs some wiring work, but at least the problem was identified and the solution is in the works so I’m not worried about that much anymore.

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Spring Fever: Thumb greening, fever breaking!

2011-06-12T12:38:00.000-06:00

Finally! The last couple of weeks we've gotten some nice summery weather. It's not quite consistent yet... and we're still getting some heavy thunderstorms that cause flooding in the prone areas... but it's finally warm enough that my little ash trees are taking off! Took long enough. It's been such a bizarre spring.

Yesterday I got the urge to plant things. Lots. My terrace still needs some dirt work done (but at least the tractor should be working soon, we finally got that part of it going) but I'm eating lots of salads so I needed some more vegetables growing to support my salad habit. Mom and I planned out some containers for me with seeds she had and made a short list of plants to pick up at the store and got to work. Here's my plan:

Medium Smart Pot: Cherry tomatoes and petunias. We had to get full plants for this pot, which is fine. We ended up getting a cherry tomato plant, a yellow pear tomato plant, and a package of white petunias. Why are people nervous about mixing flowers and vegetables in containers? I was... I never even thought it was an option until Mom got a book like this one (might even be this one, I'm not entirely sure) that gave me permission to try it. Why the stigma there? Hmm.

I'll start some Lavender in a pot until I have a good spot to plant it permanently outside.

I started some catnip in a pot and I might split some to leave outside as a perennial and bring the rest inside. Aside from the obvious feline uses (hehe!), catnip tea has a list of benefits that are definitely worth a try. Those of most interest to me are relaxation, relieving pain from menstrual cramps and migraines, and helping clear sinus congestion. There are more, like relieving fever symptoms caused by a cold or flu. Definitely sounds like something worth trying. I already have some spearmint growing for tea, might as well try this too.

Medium plastic pot: cucumbers and dwarf sweet pea flowers. The sweet peas I planted don't grow tall enough to need support. My favorite summer snack is fresh refrigerator pickles. I'm an admitted pickle fiend (for some reason, that's the only thing that can calm my stomach when I'm feeling a little carsick. Not sure why that is.) and these are so easy to make! Slice up 1-2 cucumbers into a colander or strainer, sprinkle a good amount of kosher salt over them, stir them with your hand a little, and let them sweat for about 15 minutes. Rinse the salt off, put the cucumbers in a bowl or plastic container, pour some vinegar over them (enough that 1/2 or a little more of the cucumbers are sitting in the vinegar), sprinkle with some dill weed and white pepper, stir, and place in the refrigerator. Stir or shake again after 20 minutes or so. You can vary this by trying other kinds of vinegar, other spices, or even adding onions or peppers. It's entirely up to you. I use a lot of dill because I love dill, but you can also find different spice packets at grocery stores. Nothing tastes better to me than cold dilly vinegar when I've been out in the sun!

Small Smart Pot: beans and carrots. Again, doing a combination I'm a little nervous about, but the plants grow at different heights so it should be alright. I looooooove fresh beans and I eat lots of carrots in my salads.

I started a new batch of baby lettuce greens and threw in a few seeds for butter lettuce from an old packet. They may not come up, but if I don't have to buy wilty lettuce from the grocery store it's a win all around. I had one pot already but not enough to keep up with all of my salads. Eventually, we'll probably bring the really big container up for salad stuff to take over. It's really a stock water bucket, with a drain out the bottom, and mom used to use it as a little pond, but it works really well for container gardening. Mom has no use for it at the moment so it'll come up here until she does again. I may try to keep garlic going in that too, but it needs to get up here first and that won't happen today.

So, once I get my rear in gear, I have some work to do outside. The soil up here is very rocky so I'm picking out the rocks I can as I come across them, but there are lots out in my "lawn" that will make mowing difficult, so I need to bring up the cart and start filling it with little rocks that I can use for edging. I have a plan to put a pair of spirea shrubs at the end of the trailer, on the parking side, so I need to start clearing the ground for that so when we do get to the greenhouse to buy them they can go right in the ground. I need to take my native wildflower book to the store and find seeds for some of our native wildflowers to spread out in my "lawn." Let me clarify... I live in the country, in the middle of native prairie in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, tucked up against a hill amongst Ponderosa pines. There's no point in me fighting the prairie to make a nice barefoot-grass lawn on the side of a hill. It's a "fool's errand," as one friend pointed out. However, I can encourage the wildflowers so it looks nice. Bonus with that, they live out here already so they're already fine in this climate so that makes for minimal maintenance. In fact, the less you mow them the better they do. One good mow in fall serves to spread the seeds and that's really all you need to do. Most of the perennials I want to plant on the terrace are similarly low-maintenance.

I hope the weather is as lovely where you are as it is here today! We had a big storm last night, but it was thankfully short-lived. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Fresh from the desk: Multicolored summer anklet

2011-06-08T09:13:00.001-06:00

For my first custom order outside of my circle of family and friends, I was asked to make a fun multicolored anklet out of whatever extra beads I had. I suggested a few that I had used on my bookmarks, just to get an idea of what she wanted, and she liked these lentil-shaped glass beads with swirls of orange/red, yellow, and blue on a slightly purple-ish base. There's some foil worked in there too, so these beads are really quite fun to look at, though the picture doesn't do them justice.

True to what she asked for, I used other beads I had lying around. I have a couple packages of bead mixtures in blues and blues/purples, so those are perfect for projects like this. I accented the blues/purples with red and yellow seed beads, both colors present in the focal beads, just to liven it up a bit. The order of beads is cautiously random, without having too many of one color or size close together and making sure to flank the bugle beads and others with sharp-ish edges with large rounded beads to make sure they don't scratch the wearer. I learned about that the hard way, which was sad because I really liked that necklace I had made. Maybe I'll just have to try again on that one.

II think I may make more anklets and bracelets like this, with some Millefiori beads and others like these. It's easy to find those in clearance racks and they're always quite fun, so maybe that'll bump up my impulse purchases. Today I'll call her to pick it up, so we'll see how she likes it!

Saturday show on my own went well :)

2011-06-07T21:14:00.000-06:00

This time, Mom and Dad were at a gun shoot in Wall so I went by myself and I didn't have their garage-sale-ish items to boost my table traffic like usual. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, 75 degrees and sunny with a slight breeze, and I tucked my table up on the west side of the building so I got as much morning shade as I could. I borrowed one of Mom's straw hats and a can of spray sunscreen because I didn't have any of my own. That was a mistake... I'm horrible with spray sunscreen on myself and I missed a large chunk on my arm that's still red, days later. Sigh.

I made 2 sales to strangers, which is an improvement in that the other sales were mostly to one of Mom's friends, and handed out several business cards to people that seemed genuinely interested in what I could build custom for them. Time will tell on that one, but it's nice that I was able to get a couple pure sales from people I don't know. I also got an order that day for an anklet from someone I barely know from work, which I need to go work on when I'm done writing, then the next day an order for earrings to match a hemp necklace I made as a gift for my masseuse (who was also my best friend in elementary school, otherwise I wouldn't have a masseuse! lol!). I have some work to do tonight, that's for sure, but neither of them should take terribly long.

I got to chat quite a bit with the other vendors that were there, which was nice. One is a professional jeweler in town who does metalsmithing with Black Hills Gold (characterized by the grape-and-leaf patterns that make up most of the designs, colored to be pink and green - it's fairly widely available, but not everyone knows about it), casting, and wire wrapping, among other fancy things. I won't get into much of that, I'll leave it to her since I don't plan on investing in the equipment, but I think she and I could work out a mutually beneficial arrangement somehow. Maybe, we'll see. I'm not sure what I could do to benefit her, but she took one of my cards so we'll see if there's something I can help her with.

I finished my first crochet project! Pictures to come, I just don't want to spoil the surprise!

Spring Fever: Updates

2011-06-02T22:59:00.000-06:00

I'm still digging on the terrace. I get about 1/6 of the way in 30-45 minutes once a week, at most. It's been raining too much to get it done faster and the nice days have inevitably been during the week when I'm at work, and the dirt needs a day to dry out after a good rain before I can dig in it without needing the rubber boots. Hooray for clay that holds moisture! Sigh. I'm fast approaching the time where I truly need some help from a machine and Dad still hasn't tried to get the hoist working on the tractor, so every day I dig I get a little more frustrated with the whole thing. We got up well into the 80s today, so soon it'll be too hot to work outside during the day. I'm getting rather impatient with that project.

I've done a couple more batches of yogurt since the last post on it. I've reduced the amount of dry milk I use to 1/4 cup per 4 cups of skim milk and it's closer to what I want. I've also noticed that using the previous batch to culture ends up with a tangier flavor than I like after 3-4 batches. I ordered some probiotic starter this week so we'll see how I like that after a batch or two. I'm enjoying yogurt for breakfast with some homemade granola, sweetened slightly with some applesauce. It sticks with me all morning, better than a bowl of cereal does. On that note, I've lost a solid 7 pounds since April (maybe up to 9... not sure my first weigh-in was entirely accurate), so it's nice to see a little progress, but as each of my projects gets a bit more demanding my exercising gets pushed farther down the priority list. I may not stay with Weight Watchers after my promo period ends, for now it's just more stress to plan the meals as rigidly as I need to to make any real progress so there's no point in paying for it if I can't go full-out. My health is important, but I'm healthy now, if just a bit heavy. I can handle a little more time like this if I have to, then when I can truly devote the time I need to meal planning and exercising enough I'll get back on the bandwagon. There's just too much going on right now to make it the #1 priority.

My 4-day work weeks are going well. :) Last week, my first week of that schedule, was a little bizarre. My brain skipped Wednesday entirely or something, since normally (for a solid 8 months with few variations) when I worked 2 days in a row it was Thursday-Friday, so I spent all day last Thursday trying to remind myself that it was in fact Thursday, not Friday. This week has gone better, but tonight I'll probably skip packing my lunch and just go to bed early. The dishwasher is still running anyway, I'm too tired to wait up for it just to pack a salad.

I'm debating how to get more students and where to hold the lessons. Going to houses isn't ideal, at this point mostly because of the distractions but also because of the impracticality of me wasting time between each lesson driving all over town lugging all my instruments around if I get more students. However, it's also not a great idea to expect everyone to come out to my house. It's out in the country, on a nasty muddy road with all the rain we've had, I don't have insurance on the house yet or a solid set of front steps or walkway, and there's still a major unfinished renovation project right inside the front door with tools and such... My 6-year-old student would probably impale herself on the tools there, if her parents could get her (and probably her sister too) packed up and out to my house for a 30-minute lesson in my small-ish living room. As such, I really just need a little studio space centrally located in town so I could do several lessons in a row without having to drive all over creation. Such a place is probably out of my budget for the one day a week I'd use it, so I'm not sure what to do there. I need to get my instrument chops back up a little more and get a viola lesson to be sure my technique is good enough to teach beginners. I did find out today that there's a real violin teacher in town, so that takes some of the pressure off of me, but she's booked. Maybe I can do the super beginners then pass them off to her? Need to talk to her. Long to-do list for that one, huh?

Saturday is another show at The White Elephant so I've been beading a bunch this week. I'll get more pictures up as I go, but at the moment my cell phone isn't working so I can't email them to myself to get a post up tonight. Sounds like bedtime, yes? Yes.

Fresh from the desk: Abstract in green

2011-05-30T22:28:00.000-06:00

Spring is very slow to get started here. We've only broken 75 degrees a couple of days so far, the vast majority hovering around 60 with rain and wind. Let me tell you how un-thrilled I am about this. It's abnormal for this area for it to be so wet and chilly coming up on June, though I guess last year was about like this too. Not for this long, maybe... it took us until the middle of May last year to get 3 dry days in a row so that my mobile home could be moved up the hill, since it got stuck in the mud the first day we moved it. We haven't had many more dry days in a row than that so far this spring. It's wearing on my nerves and patience, being the solar-powered girl I am and considering the number of projects I need to work on outside that I'd like to get done before the heat of the summer hits.

I didn't start this post to whine! I'm sorry! What I meant to say was I have green on the brain. In more ways than one really, I'm ready for the lush leafy summer we're destined to have after all this moisture and I'm looking for more ways to be self-sufficient and reduce my carbon footprint. So far, that includes yogurt, which I'm still experimenting with, but that's for another day.

I found the soapstone centerpiece for this and have been wondering what to do with it. It's rather thick, mostly a pale green with some flecks of orange/coral, with a symmetrical shape and an asymmetrical carving on both the front and back. Considering the shape and size of it, I figured the necklace should be around choker length so it would lay the best. A comfortable slightly long choker length for me is 16", so that's what I went with here. It lays comfortably just below the hollow of my throat. Since the hole is drilled lengthways, it's not a pendant really on its own, but it's simple enough that I didn't want to overload it with anything too flashy. I beaded a simple daisy chain for it, alternating between green foil-lined bugle beads and matte bone white large seed beads, all surrounded by forest green seed beads. It's a simple piece, but I think the soapstone is showcased the way it should be.

It's time to build up my inventory for my next Saturday show. This one I'll be doing alone, but that's alright. More to come!

Spring Fever: Playing with milk

2011-05-22T11:32:00.001-06:00

Spring is the time to plant gardens in an attempt to lessen your family's dependence on the outside world a little bit, yes? It's fun, it's a good teaching/learning opportunity for all family members no matter how young or old, and if planned well can be pretty easy. I'm not an expert gardener, and at this point I'm still working on landscaping so I don't have a place to plant anything yet... but my point is along these lines.

I love yogurt. I grew up on yogurt and vegetable soup. I've always been picky about which brands I like, what flavors, all of that. I'm a picky eater and I'm finding it easier to work around foods I don't like but still come up with fantastic meals. One ingredient that I absolutely can't tolerate is mayonnaise. If mayo has come within 6 inches of anything I'm planning to eat I can taste it on there and it makes me gag. I'm not sure why, exactly... the ingredients are all fine. Do you know how hard it is to go to a cookout and avoid mayo? It's the go-to base for most typical American salads and dressings. I won't even go into fried foods.

Before I get too far off track, back to yogurt. Thick yogurt can be substituted in most recipes that use sour cream or mayo, both things I don't like the taste of, as well as a surprising list of other personal-care uses. Mom used to make her own yogurt all the time so she had a little yogurt maker. With the food prices rising the way they are now and our recent discovery of how much we all looooove Greek yogurt, she got the yogurt maker back out, much to my surprise. I was so little when she used it before I didn't even realize she had it and how easy it was.

Start with milk. Any kind you like, any fat content, cow or goat. I haven't tried almond or soy milk with this yet, and it may not work with the cultures, but I haven't done any research on it. Next you need some starter cultures. There are tons of options here depending on how probiotic or specialized you want it to be. We started with this one that we found at the Earth Goods store in town. Actually, you really only need one starter packet to get started if you reserve 1/4-1/2 cup of your yogurt from your batch to start the next one. My yogurt maker will hold 4 cups of milk, so to allow for my starter I heat up 3 1/4 cups skim milk to about 110 degrees F. Most instruction booklets tell you to boil the milk then let it cool, but all that does is pasteurize the milk again and kill more of the beneficial enzymes that survived pasteurizing in the first place. Starting with regular pasteurized milk, I don't boil it because I don't want to scorch it and I want some nutrition to survive. Then I add 1/2 cup dry fat free milk to naturally thicken it up. Mom found a great article in one of her magazines about yogurt making so that's where I got most of these tips. First I tried a packet of gelatin to thicken it after my first batch was way too runny, but that didn't work either. Dry milk is just right! When the milk is the right temperature (too hot and it kills the cultures, too cold and they don't activate), I add in my reserved previous batch and stir it in well before pouring it all into the yogurt maker jars.

All yogurt makers are essentially the same. They come with 5-8 small jars and keep the cultured milk at a steady temperature of 105-115 degrees F for as long as you set the timer for. Mom ordered this one for me and it works great. Hers is about 30 years old and she ordered some replacement jars at the same time, but it still works just fine. The longer the yogurt cultures, the tangier it gets. At first I thought longer culturing would result in thicker yogurt, but instead it ended up way too tart for me. The instructions that came with my yogurt maker said to start with 10 hours and adjust from there, but this time I only went for 8 hours. With the dry milk, it was nice and thick but with a smooth mild flavor. Make sure it chills first before you eat it, though.

Next, you can strain it to thicken it a little more. If you can get the hang of cheesecloth, that's great, but it ended up being way too much trouble for us. When Mom ordered her replacement jars and the yogurt maker for me she also ordered a yogurt cheese maker, which really is just a plastic container with a built-in strainer. If you just strain your yogurt for a couple of hours it'll thicken nicely and you won't get that watery separation. The watery part is whey, which has a long list of health benefits and i plan to experiment with it so as to not waste something so nutritionally potent. First thing I'll try with mine is substituting it for milk when I make bread. The mistake I made with this batch of yogurt, being my first batch with dry milk, was that I let it strain overnight so I ended up with a very thick cream-cheese textured yogurt cheese, which wasn't what I wanted, but it's great on toast with a touch of unsweetened strawberry preserves! Also, that one little piece of toast was surprisingly filling. I have another batch running now so I'll probably save some yogurt cheese for toast but mix the rest in with today's batch so I have one large batch of thick, mild yogurt to eat for breakfast with some of my homemade granola. Yum!

Fresh from the desk: Changes in motion

2011-05-21T13:08:00.001-06:00

Just a quick update. I decided to let go of my extra day job up in Rapid City. It always ended up wasting the whole day for not enough profit, so I told them last Monday that it would be my last day there. They were a little bummed but they understood my situation and the agent was actually going to ask me soon if it was still worth it. It was an iffy experimental job really, they needed some work done and I needed a little money but it was just not quite practical.

Good thing I told them when I was there, actually, so I got a chance to really say goodbye. The next day, my boss at my main job and I sat down to chat about my progress with various areas of my job, sort of a mini-evaluation but I wasn't really nervous about it. As it turns out, he can give me a $.25 raise and one more day per week, so now I'm up to 4 days! We'll keep it up while business is decent for sure, though if the economy doesn't pick up by the time winter hits we may need to go back down to 3 days. That's alright, it's definitely great news!

Lessons with my violin student have been going okay. She's only 6, and she's a touch on the hyper side, and not being a mother or babysitter or ever having any siblings, I don't know what to do with a wired 6-year-old! I have a few ideas to use at the next lesson, some rhythm games and such, so maybe I'll be better prepared when her mind takes off in a different direction. I'm still thinking I should put an ad out for more lessons, get a few on one day a week. I need to get a few things planned out first before I launch into that, and I want to take a viola lesson from my cello teacher just to be sure my technique is on the right track.

Crocheting is going well! My first project is a blanket. It's a surprise present for a friend (sssshhhhh! lol) so I'll hold off on pictures until it's done. It's a ridiculously easy pattern that's coming together fairly quickly. Oddly enough, it seems to be the perfect thing to do after supper when my cat insists on sitting on my lap (and I mean insists... he'd climb onto my dinner plate if it was in the way) but I can't handle just sitting there not working on something. He doesn't mess with the yarn, we just turn on a movie and chill for a bit.

I had a few custom jewelry orders to work on over the past week or two, and the most challenging was definitely a pair of earrings to match a necklace owned by the woman who was my babysitter when I was 2 or 3. I barely remember from that... but since I've been home, I've seen her and her husband around town a lot so we keep in touch a little now. This picture didn't turn out the greatest... the lighting was a little odd that day, but the necklace had a few red lampwork beads and several square and round faceted red beads, each flanked by a small hematite, spaced out on 3 strands. I suspect the red beads may have been plastic... they weren't heavy enough to be glass. What she wanted was a pair of drop post earrings like these that I had on display in bright red and amber, but with round darker red beads to match the necklace. It was tough to find them, but I did after much shopping, and it was easy to put them together. I forgot to take the necklace with me when I went shopping (oops... good thing I studied the color when she handed it to me!) so I didn't really notice the little hematite beads until I got everything home and started working on it. Luckily, i always keep some hematite beads on hand since they're so versatile, even if they were a little larger than the ones on the necklace. She loved them! She has some graduation parties to attend this weekend and next for some grandchildren, so she was glad to have a matching set to wear to them all. Success!

I've been away from home way too much the last few weeks so having a 3-day weekend with minimal plans is sooooo nice for me right now. Speaking of that, I need to plan some meals. Enjoy your weekend!

Spring Fever: Spring Cleaning Part 1

2011-05-15T16:28:00.001-06:00

Greetings my loyal followers! It's been a wet, chilly spring here, which has caused its share of issues and frustration compared to how spring used to be here. The weather has been just plain crazy for a few years... but I won't get into the climate change debate here. ;) Today's exciting news is that my two little ash trees we planted last fall survived the winter and have brand new leaves on them today! Yesterday the little buds were still sealed up so tight I wasn't sure they'd ever leaf out. Those poor trees lived in their gallon buckets for too long, and we didn't get them planted until very late in the summer, plus it was a nasty winter, so because they had taken so long to show any sign of life I was wondering if they made it.

Now it's finally getting nice enough outside to see some progress outside as well as inside the house. I've been doing some of these things in stages over the last month or so, but here's a full list of what I've done so far that would be considered "spring cleaning." Some of it may be a stretch to fit that definition...hehe!

1. Winter clothes are washed and stored in plastic tubs and spring/summer clothes are now out of storage. I keep a few hoodies and a sweater cardigan around to toss on when it's chilly, but the heavy work sweaters are all put away now. There are a few reasons I do this twice a year. It gives me a reason to go through everything and purge items that don't fit, never fit quite right, didn't get worn much, or are just plain wrong and get them ready to donate to the Salvation Army. (They got a new building last year and the store is HUGE! We always donate there because we know it will immediately be shopped for locally and it's easy enough to drop stuff off when we go up there). It's been a struggle to let go of the "wishful thinking" jeans that I wore a few years ago and other similar pieces; they don't provide any true motivation to actually lose, all they do is take up space and give me a pang of guilt every time I see them. The other main reason, other than just to keep my dresser and closet minimal, is that often I'll get a blouse or something on clearance at the end of the season, wear it a couple of times, then put it away. When I get it back out for the next season, it's fun to take out because I often forgot I even had it!
2. Mattress is vacuumed and turned. I flipped it in January or so, but it's wearing out so I decided to turn it 180 degrees so it wears a little more evenly. In a few months I'll flip it again. Why vacuum? Dust mites. Gross, huh? Yeah. Just a little vac is probably not doing me a whole lot of good there, but at least I try, right? I have lots to get done elsewhere so that's probably about as far as I'll get on this particular project for now. My allergies haven't been near as bad lately as they used to be so I'm doing alright. :)
3. My computer and cello have both been taken in for service. This one's probably a stretch... but it certainly can't hurt to have the computer cleaned out or the cello soundpost adjusted and bridge replaced. Probably needs new strings too but we'll see how it is when I get it back. Both were behaving badly for the last several months so it was time to at least get them looked at, if not fixed. The computer's just plain dying, which is sad and nervewracking, but I'm saving up for a new one. The cello just probably needs a couple adjustments and it'll be alright.
4. I've wiped out and disinfected the bottom cabinets in my kitchen, and everything in them. I've had lots of mice recently and they can get into the wall and therefore the bottom cabinets, so that was a necessity. It should be done every couple of months anyway. I'm not sure whether the mice are coming in on their own or if the cats are bringing them in to play with... it's really hard to tell... but now I have a couple mousetraps working 24/7 to get it under control if the cats aren't helping lol.
5. Another stretch... I've joined Weight Watchers. It's working slowly, and it's tricky to plan my meals right, but I'm working on it steadily. I have a vow renewal to go to (and look good for!) in July and I was sick of the plateau I was stuck on since January. Overhauling my eating habits is like a spring cleaning project, right? hehe!
6. I'm in the process of cleaning and ironing the curtains. They haven't been up for very long but I still had to paint a few of my window frames so I figured while I had them down I could get them ironed nicely before they go back up. Some of them can't be machine-washed, mostly the nice new thermal/dark ones (not sure they're complete blackouts, but they do a darn good job), and that's okay. I'll vac the fluff off of them and iron them too when I get done painting those windows. I'll get the office ones back up today, though I need to adjust the rod first. It got put up rather crooked... oops!

I have lots left to do. This is by no means the end of my spring cleaning projects, just what I've done so far. We'll be installing baseboards in the next few weeks so my next project today is to vacuum really well down in all the edges and corners so I'm not permanently sealing Q-tips into the floor! My younger cat loves to steal my used Q-tips out of the bathroom garbage and play with them. Of course, because I have no baseboards yet, they easily roll into the gap between the wood floor and the wall and promptly get stuck. Why does she do this? I have no idea! She's a strange little kitty lol. She likes my used cotton balls too, even with astringent on them. Beats me.

When I need to be done cleaning for the day, I have a necklace, anklet, and earrings to work on (each from separate custom orders), then to get started on my first crocheted baby blanket! I practiced my stitches last night so I'm just about ready to get going on it. Happy Spring!

Spring Fever: I'm just plain crazy.

2011-05-13T21:21:00.000-06:00

I'm seriously considering taking up crochet. Why does this make me crazy? I have a million other things on my plate already and I still haven't decided for sure what to do about my job situation so time is still a major issue.

Pros:
1. I always have trouble finding belts, headbands, cardigans, etc. that do what I need them to do. This will make all that MUCH easier on me considering how often I get to actually go clothes shopping for a specific item like that.
2. I already have ideas for crochet-bead jewelry.
3. Looks like fun, and not too hard to figure out considering many, many hours of my childhood were spent tying the house up in knots, right Mom?

Cons:
1. Time. I'll have to make room for it and I rarely sit down long enough for anything like that because, frankly, I have a lot to get done. All the time.
2. I'm good at starting gung-ho on projects that never get past halfway finished. I must have inherited that.
3. Cost...kinda, if I get into the fancy yarns, which I won't for a while... but again, this will expand opportunities for my crafting business.

I should pick up some macrame anyway since I'm working in hemp now too. Perhaps I'm just fidgety and feel that learning something new will kinda propel me out of the rut I'm in. I've only been out of school for a couple of years, maybe my way of coping with that and the transition to "real life" is to need to learn something completely new once or twice a year or so. Hmmm, there may be something to that. For now, I need to paint my window frames so I can maybe put my curtains back up this weekend. It's finally a nice weekend and I'm finally getting some work done around here! Yay!