Warm Colours

The current projects on my table need some warm toned canes that I was running low on. I bit the bullet and made a few and more leaf since I was out of that again. The first is a tiger lily I’m happy with. Getting the petals offset like a lily’s are (in two rows of 3 vs 6 petals all around a center) has always been a challenge and this finally came together as a solution.

Tiger Lily

I took a picture of it before filling the background and reducing for posterity sake (and in case it reduced so poorly that I needed better times to remember it by).

Todays canes

As it turns out I didn’t have to worry much. I got two daisies with white-ecru to warm tones, a try at a poppy for upcoming Remembrance Day beads the lily and a leaf. My hands are sore!

My Clay Table

Indulge me in a little creative procrastination. Or productive avoidance. Anyways. I’m avoiding a bead order I should be working on by taking pictures of the clay table in my office. It’s a 5 foot by 2 foot counter top on trestle legs. I’m hoping to have it be white soon because the blue of it is harsh on colour picking.

The Clay Table

If you click the picture, I have notes on the Flickr image. But mostly it’s crowded on the one end because that end is where my chair and computer desk are. So I tend to work where I can swivel back and forth. The far end has my shelves, organizer and my pasta machine. If I shove the chair I can roll right there.

Current Project Ongoing Project

These are the projects on the go: beads in progress for the order and for my shop. Beads that need holes made from the last of a cane by the fabulous Kathi Gose.

Blend Inspiration

And some clay that needs to be tucked back in it’s home and blends that need to be caned ASAP.

The Shelves

These are over the far end of the table and are currently in a sort of ‘See if it works’ arrangement. The very top shelf will hold jewelrymaking supplies as I use those less often. The two below have tubs of cane pieces, various clays, tools, wraps, tiles, glass, cutters… you name it. We see my little Atlas and the green rolling cart in the lower right. The cart has the sort of random additions you can’t live without: more cutters, molds, stencils, sandpaper, pointy things, paints, inks, chalk, brushes, glitter, mica and general chaos.

OK, confessing to this insanity has cured my absent motivation. I now want to go hide and finish the dang beads.

Canada Post and the Slot of Doom

One of the challenges of selling online for Canadian vendors is the Slot of Doom, the term of endearment given to Canada Post’s requirement that packages be 2cm or thinner in order to get the best rates to destinations. If you can fit it through the slot of doom, you can get your small, light item to the US for $2.11, to Canadian destinations for $1.18.

If it doesn’t fit, you are looking at $6.50 or more to the US for the next best air mail option and a similar price for Canadian mail! Bit of a jump there.

Bead Packaging

Most of my items happily go through the slot of doom. My beads generally get tucked in a poly bag, several layers of tissue paper and an envelope. The canes were more of an issue.

Stack of canes

Canes SQUISH. So I needed boxes that fit. At the time that I originally bought boxes no one I found had small, jewelry sized boxes under 2cm(13/16″ or so) at a price even in the ballpark of standard boxes. And so I bought a couple cartons of jewelry boxes and my boyfriend trimmed them down to 5/8″ (15-16mm) for me.

A Solution

Voila! It works. And I use it for sending jewelry or more delicate beads as well. It only chafes a bit that I have to gear what I offer online to Canada Post’s restrictions in order to remain competitive with an international market.

Bring on the Beige

Dining Room

I know, it’s beige and white. But let me take you back a few days.

Dining Room Wall Before

Issues with Moulding Hallway

Despite the fact that I work in a medium that is full of impressively eye popping colours I am not a very colour brave person. So the house here, which had lots of yellow green semi gloss paint on it’s walls always intimidated me a bit. I mean what goes with that?

Next: the living room. And then I can start putting things on the wall and adding items back to the rooms. This is what they call editing and it’s nice to know that it works just the same in rooms as it does in clay. Give yourself a nice base and work from there.

And that is how I make most of my beads, too. Go figure.

Misty Morning

Misty

It looks a bit dreary but believe it or not the day is shaping up bright, sunny and pretty much the last hurrah before winter sets in. It was just a pretty, misty subdued looking scene.

Bright hearts

The bright orange, green, teal, fuschia and gold of these hearts is pretty much the category opposite of the soft, foggy colours of my early morning snapshot. What can I say? I like the contrasts sometimes.