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Etsy
The Shop: Slices
This week, the shop has the Ode to Slice Beads as a theme I swear! There are my little 25 cent slices and the larger, more complicated ones I use in my charm bracelets. There’s a selection in my ArtFire shop to start – take a look:
The larger slices will be a dollar a piece or a dozen for $10. AF allows me to easily list multiple quantities, so if you need more than what’s there, do let me know. For example, my bracelets use between 10 and 30 of each flower type in them. I will probably make larger, mixed, quantities available soon.
And these will roll out to my Etsy shop in the coming days or weeks. Just have to start somewhere.
Meet CreativeCritters
The Smoosher of the week is Michelle of CreativeCritters. Based in Fairview Park, Ohio Michelle is a talented sculptor. She creates primarily fantasy and whimsical pieces from polymer clay and other materials (check out her bears! so cute!)
Kitties (fast kitties!) and dragons make me happy.
Michelle is also participating in the ArtFire Twelve Days of Christmas in July promotion. You can take advantage of her promo by using the code XMASINJULY on the items in her Christmas in July section.
Check out her blog at: http://creativecrittersblog.blogspot.com/
And view her studio: http://www.artfire.com/users/CreativeCritters
Meet Emily Claire Creations
The Smoosher of the week is Valerie of Emily Claire Creations. This mom of Emily and Claire is from Youngstown, Ohio and is a talented polymer clay jewelry artist.
Her work involves beautiful, textured clay, metallic and pearlescent colours, and primarily copper wire accents. This bracelet is a perfect example.
Is a pretty example of how you can make polymer clay look aged but still stylish.
And this is just a nice little piece of eye candy because I’m always a fan of pretty wire work.
You can see more of Valerie’s work and journey:
- on her blog
- on her facebook fan page
- on her twitter
- and in her studio
Meet SassyClayCreations
The ongoing Smooshers Guild project is a bit of a blogring about each participating member over the course of several months. We get to meet and promote a member each week. This week we have Dori of SassyClayCreations!
I love bowls and little vessels. Maybe as much as beads (shhh! don’t tell my beads) if that’s possible! Sassy has several bowls in her shop and they’re all cute.
She also tries out several other techniques including beadmaking (see the cute charms above?) and faux. This faux ivory piece is nicely done and definitely easier on the elephants!
You can follow her claying journey on her blog !
Life in a Small Town
My friends who live in smaller places are going to laugh at me but after a million people Swift Current, Saskatchewan is tiny. Even if it is 16,000+ people. And yesterday I had a craft show in a smaller, neighbouring community called Herbert. The show was perfectly organized, well advertised and unfortunately poorly attended. Still had some fun there meeting up with people.
One of my latest pieces, another dangly bracelet – I made a few of those in 2008 I think – is this one with little pink flowers, pearls and antiqued brass wire.
And finally, to catch you all up, I had my demonstration today at the gallery. It was great, lots of interest in classes about polymer clay, oohs and aahs about my beads and good chit chat. I completely forgot to get a picture of me doing my thing! So, here is a picture of my friend Cindy doing HER thing last weekend. You just have to picture me in approximately the same spot with spread out messes of clay.
One Heart One World Winner
Random.org tells me commenter #59 – MissMary of lilliansstitches.blogspot.com – is my winner! Thanks to everyone for visiting and saying sweet things!
The Brother
This summer I moved about 5 hours east to a small town well away from where my family lives. My brother came out to visit for the weekend.
Being a smart man he brought me clay from the latest Michael’s sale. I remember the days when 5lbs of clay was a lot. But now it’s just a nice top up on my box.
The boyfriend and my brother, being men, decided they would get sledgehammers and pry bars and go help demolish the inside of a condemned house. The house was bulldozed today but the guys wanted to see if they could find any interesting oddities inside and there were all sorts of papers and boxes used in the walls that were from the 40s, 50s, 60s.
Of course, part of the reason they get along – or we all do – is the video game hobby thing. Much of the weekend was spent eating yummy treats, playing games, relaxing and just goofing off.
The Move
Just a note to let you all know I’m offline from tomorrow through Monday-ish as we finish picking up and hauling the contents of my world 500 km east of here.
I hope you all have an amazing weekend!
A Week Into Spring
Up here, in Canada, we’re not known for the kind weather. Spring is rarely here by the calendar date and we always get soggy snow well into April or May. It’s just part of the appeal.
My corner neighbour has a little border around her house which is on the way to the bus stop. Chloe and I watch that strip of garden for signs of spring and fall every year. We took friendly wagers as to which week the first tulips would break through and I win: spotted this one today! Chloe, wagered on the week after next.
Perhaps it’s because it’s spring and maybe it’s due to having pretty much the best week ever in my bead shop but I’m going to take the leap and extend my ‘made to order’ status to my Etsy and Artfire shops beginning next week.
In addition to that, I’m going to reorganize by colour in the bead shops since I seem to get customers buying several shapes in one colour way at a time. This would make it easier to shop that way.
Far away from here – well about 300 miles – a nice guy is working on my studio space. It’s coming along just lovely. There is a neat faux oak floor, some bright aqua walls and crisp white panels and little pot lights already. I’ll blog about it a bit more, closer to the move in date, so I can string it together into a more coherent narrative.
Tomorrow from 6 to 10pm the Market Collective is holding a craft fair as a part of a larger fundraiser for Doctors without Border’s efforts in Sudan. I’ll be there as will at least one other of my Etsy Alberta teamies: CheekyNado
Bowl Goals: Belatedly
I realized, belatedly, that I had missed my Bowl Goals post last week (and all the other posts too but there’s another story!). I can only plead distraction as I was busy making Thing-a-Days. Here’s my catch up and it’s been a regular bead making factory around here this week:
As to what was distracting me, there were orders for which some of those beads are, preparing for an oncoming long weekend trip and my upcoming birthday! Valentines Day is my birthday and this year we’ll be in the small town I’m heading to at the end of the school year.
