Pomomama: a Feature
I’ve seen Ebb & Flo pretty much since I joined Etsy - I made a particular effort to look up and keep an eye on Canadian sellers - and she’s a pretty familiar face for forum lurkers like me! So when I found out that I had the perfect chance to dig a little bit more as a result of the Blog-a-Day Giveaway, I was happy. Here’s a little more about the artist who sells as both Ebb and Flo (unique, handcrafted jewelry) and Pomomama (handmade supplies, papercrafts and patterns).
Tell us a little about yourself!
I’m a SAHM who crafts in, around and in spite of her family in an effort to stay sane.
What inspires or influences your work? What themes or motifs do you notice most often?
Quirky shapes and unusual presentations influence my work. I’m also noticing colour a lot more than I used to. Blue/green is my comfort zone but I’m trying to break free. Glass is a favourite medium.
Do you have a favourite piece or series? If so, do you have links to them?
I really like my flotsam pieces as I think these are very unusual, combining wire, metal and fibre with felting. Here are some examples.
Have you done any work specifically for the winter holiday season?
I produced a Fall range in copper wire crochet and metal and have been working on winter ‘bling’ for the party season. These will be available at the craft fairs I attend soon.
What lead you to sell online? What’s the best part? The most challenging?
I had a hobby which made me happy but due to household budgeting I needed to make it self sufficient. ….. and it is now but not solely from selling online.
What are your favourite materials to work with?
Wire, metal, fibre and I love setting pieces of art glass from the amazing Etsy glass makers eg. Willowglass, Lis Kidder and Shoozles
Where can we find you online?
At Pomomama Design - www.pomomamadesign.com
Do you have any specials, promos, or upcoming events you’d like to tell us about?
Ebb & Flo goodies will be at Devil May Wear in Vancouver, BC
If YOU are interested in entering the Blog-a-Day Giveaway, all you need to do is check out the goodies on the site, pick one (or several, you can enter multiple times), and write a post about the person’s shop, pieces, blog or some other related item. Once you have done that, return to the Giveaway page and leave a comment with a link to the post. Voila! You have an entry. You have one entry per comment and the giveaways continue till December 4th.
The Craft Show Lament
If I didn’t love doing the darned things so much… This weekend marked the first effort at a fall show by my local community. It was better than their spring show this year and I did make several times my table fee. And the organizer, this time around, was very open to ideas about improving and making it better.
Next year, alas, I won’t be living in this community! Boo! Hiss! So I’ll miss seeing it evolve.
On the plus side, I had the most amusing situation happen! A complete stranger walked up to me at the show, even before I’ve begun setting up. She introduces herself as Mailled, from Etsy. Now, introducing yourself by your online nickname is not that uncommon to me but it still warrants a bit of a look. So I got to sit and chat with Angela of mailled.etsy.com and her mom of grandmarose.etsy.com For icing on the cake, it turned out that Mailled was my secret Santa in our Alberta Street Team’s gift exchange! I got to pick goodies from them! Woohoo!
I make a lot of simple bead on a cord type pendants and they are good sellers. Shiny, pretty bead on a comfy, casual cord. Win. But my previous necklace board was not inviting people to admiring the masses of them or take them off and play with them. People would touch the few laid on the table around it but not the ones on the display. I needed something a little more casual, fun and inviting! Enter a box of brightly coloured (Christmas light like?) pushpins and one of my old cork board. And a MASS of pendants.
It got people to stop and look which is more than half the battle at shows.
Winter Inspiration
Despite the fact that I’ve done half of my seasonal shows already, it’s been a little hard to get in the winter holiday spirit! The fall has been unseasonably warm for Calgary.
The peek outside my window this morning should cure that though. I can almost feel the urge to pop some Christmas carols in my playlist and pull out the “in progress” angel cane I’ve had sitting here for WEEKS. Here is a little blue heart on ribbon that somehow came back with me from this weeks show. It’s sort of winter coloured, no?
This week has me teaching my first class at the Sheep Creek Weaver’s Guild. I’ll be covering the basics of clay and helping the talented group make up some beads, buttons and other embellishments that can be used in their fiber arts.
Saturday is the Craft and Bake Sale held by my own community. It’s usually a leisurely thing with time to chat with friends, drink coffee and do crafts. They are in a busy part of town and, at my last glance, still had space for vendors. If you are in Calgary, give the Albert Park Radisson Heights Community Association lady a call! Or, drop me a line and I’ll forward you her email.
Bloggy Giveaways
My very first blog giveaway! Since this is my first time with this, I think I will keep it simple and offer a $20 shopping spree at my Etsy shops (feel free to mix & match between the bead shop and the cane shop) or website shop. There’s all sorts of good stuff! And to make it even sweeter, free shipping, so the shipping is not counted against your spree.
To enter the giveaway, simple post a comment on this post. I’d love to hear any opinions about the blog re-design, any requests for colours, patterns or shapes for my future work or even clay how-to questions! It’s all good! You can even just say ‘Hi’! You do not need to be a blogger to enter, just need to make that post and use a valid email address in the form.
On Friday, after I’m back from taking my little goblin out trick-or-treating, I will close comments and pick a winner. This should be somewhere around 9pm mountain time. I will announce the winner on Saturday, after my show (wish me luck even!).
I’m happy to ship anywhere, so I welcome entrants from around the world. The more the merrier! And don’t forget shipping is free 
For a truly awesome list of other bloggy giveaways check out the Blog Carnival on Bloggy Giveaways. There’s an expected 1000 plus participants this time around! That’s an awful lot of free goodness! Bloggy Giveaways also does regular giveaways even outside of the Carnival and it’s always fun to watch.
* The very fine print: the $20 is face value - you’re welcome to buy from my web shop or my Etsy shop but in the interest of keeping it simple, I am going to consider the $$$ equal. So you could spend $10 on my Etsy and $10 here and that would be the gift certificate.
7 Things About the Crafty Me
I got tagged by Myrte of Mirthquake (the name is wonderful!) with this meme when I did it not long ago. So this time I am going to do 7 things about the crafty, clayful me.
- Of all the patterns I do, I like the Sea Garden (blue greens) best. My daughter named it that when she was 5.
- My favourite brand of clay is the old Fimo Classic mixed with Premo.
- The most popular canes (sales wise at least) I have are almost all roses.
- I love to make canes best of all my claying activities. Then beads from the canes. Heaven!
- In 2007 I made around 6,000 beads. In 2008, I made that many in the first half year.
- November 20th, I teach my first polymer clay class to the Sheep Creek Weaver’s guild. Very cool.
- The most popular not bead item at craft shows is not my jewelry (alas!) but usually my ring bowls and ornaments. Probably because they are like giant beads!
I’m going to be a spoilsport again and not tag folks but I am always interested in quirky, crafty facts about my favourite artsy folks! So share if you’ve got an urge.
The Shop: Think Pink
October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. In a bit of an effort at fundraising, I listed two sets of beads on Etsy. 20% of the proceeds will go to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation. The little ribbon beads got a nod in SewingGranny’s treasury.
I have all sorts of other beady goodness in the Tooaquarius shop of course. Things with bumps, things with faces and things with butterflies:
The next two months are the crazy fall show months and I’ve been busily making jewelry items to showcase the beads I make. The most recent of those are listed in my flickr but here’s a current fave:
Here’s hoping your week is full of beady goodness!
7 Things About Me
What better way to spend the last twenty minutes before supper is finished up… a meme! Connie sort of tagged everyone who read her post. Some of the items on my list are inspired by hers ’cause it got me thinking.
- I don’t watch TV almost at all. Less than 2 hours a week, most weeks.
- I have a minor vocal cord defect. Therefore I spend a LOT of time online where that doesn’t matter.
- I’m a single mom to a 9 year old.
- I don’t drive. I do live in a city with decent public transit though.
- No makeup, never dyed my hair and I don’t really follow fashion much. So of course I make beads and jewelry. Figures.
- My mom is a ni dan (second black belt) in Karate. It was a fabulous threat to my boyfriends in high school.
- I have more than 100 pounds of clay here. Somewhere.
I hate tagging people but if anyone has little personal things they want to share, fess up!
Welcome, Fall
Lisa from Polkadot had this great idea and I figured I’d join in. When I was little I thought it was called ‘Fall’ because the leaves fell.
It’s still pretty much how I feel about it.
In Calgary, the leaves often fall from the trees in August because the climate is arid - the trees lose their leaves in the summer because of the drought. This year the spring was wet but mild and the summer was wet enough. It hasn’t even really gotten chill and while the nights are hovering at freezing the days are lovely, summer like still. However, the leaves have started to fall and so it’s definitely time to welcome Fall.
My veggies are long picked and eaten because the plants have “We’re cold.” damage by the end of August here but I have kind of fall toned beads! Those count right?
Cute as a Button
I recently got tapped to teach a basic polymer clay class to a local fiber arts guild. I’m excited about it and I suggested buttons as a beginner project (well, buttons, beads and all sorts of good stuff but for this exercise we’ll say buttons). I used to make buttons for sweaters my grandmother would knit so off I went searching for some of those. And I found none.
They’re probably here somewhere - and I always say how hard it is to lose things in a small apartment - but until they show up I made a few more.
These are all caned based ones - either cane slices, cut from cane sheets or cut from cane sheets and coordinating bases - except the two swirlies which would make great toggles for those felted handbags. I don’t suppose that shocks any of us. I have a few in a laundry bag to go through with the jeans to test them out but they were fun to make up!
I wonder if the fiber arts folks would teach me how to sew them on?
The Shop: Friendly Promoting
Etsy Treasuries are a little addictive! I lucked into one today - they were having server issues, so LOTS of people lucked into them - that I got to set up with two favourites: Blue and Clay. You can see the treasury filled with all sorts of blue-toned clay items by clicking the piccie:
Of course, with all the extra treasuries floating about someone kindly put one of my Claychicks canes in theirs. Thanks Bam!
This week my Tooaquarius Etsy shop is also featured on Winklepots blog. Winkle makes some incredibly adorable handpainted lil’ kids wear. I told Chloe she needs to be 4 again but she disagrees with me. Luckily I know other little people now.
I have beads chugging along in the tumbler now, so we’ll have some fresh stuff on the sites this weekend and until then I’ve begun adding beads to the webstore here. These will likely be beads made as they’re ordered and will include my regular themes in my usual shapes: pillows, rounds and lentils in blues, sea garden, sunshine, black and white, coffee tones, sweetheart pink, lavender field, tangerine. I will also add the sets I have on hand that one of a kinds but these mostly find their way to Etsy first.
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