Happy Second Birthday!
April 2008 marked the second full year my blog-web site combo has run! The site averages just about 600 hits a day with 120 unique visits. There are more than 40 pages and 120 blog posts now. There have been nearly 200 comments on my posts and Akismet tells me that it has munched 8,890 spam items since I installed it.
The most common entry pages are my free tutorials. The web shop has more than 80 items (though some seem to regularly, gratifyingly go out of stock!) with a few being added each week.
The site got a redesign and new gadgets added this year. I streamlined some parts and added the widgets for the web shop and contact pages. There are a few new freebie tutorials in the works and I am slowly fleshing out my gallery section. I started using Flickr to keep a record of what is happening with my art over time, added my polymer clay blogroll to my sidebar on the blog front page.
Overall I’ve learned an awful lot just by the exercise of running this place - improving my photography, my technique, focusing on the core parts of a project, social networking and on and on. Here’s hoping that year #3 is just as gratifying as the first two.
My Cane Palette
When I make canes, I cut them into several 2″ pieces to use in my various web stores, selling them. After that there is usually a few inches on each end of good cane that I trim the warped pieces off and save for myself. These used to get tossed into the Plano storage boxes I use for canes.
The storage boxes are almost 3 inches deep. Perfect for holding the nice, neat cane segments I cut and wrap. Not so good for actually using the little odd pieces I keep for myself!
So last week I went through about 4 years of accumulated bad habit, pitched the majority of pieces into the mix up pile (for swirls and Natasha beads) and lay the rest out in two large, shallow plastic containers by loose colour groups. They’re not neat but they’re somewhat organized and easy to use. It has made all the production work of the last week so much simpler, I could kick myself for not having done this much earlier.
More ‘Green’ Hints for the Polymer Clayers
It’s Earth Day again! Last year I posted some tips for clay crafters that use the reduce / reuse / recycle strategy and here are some more, extended a bit to small biz and jewelry makers:
- Improve your skills and be creative with what you have. Creativity does not require every item and tool for your medium.
- On the flip side, use the most efficient tools and supplies for your medium. If there are genuine energy and resource savers that you can take advantage of, do so. For clayers, this includes items like bulk amounts of clay and a good oven thermometer!
- Reuse scuffed bakeware. A lot of my older cookie sheets and pans have moved to my craft studio for use as trays. Sturdy but also ’second hand’ so a little less concerned about drips and damage.
- Reduce shipping materials by using packaging that is saved from your own boxes. For customers that would be offended by clean but used cardboard, use post consumer recycled materials boxes where possible or the least dyed cardboard versions possible.
- Incorporate existing supplies and materials into your displays for your shows where possible. I’ve used scrap woods, existing wire supplies and so on - a good coat of paint and decent workmanship keeps it looking like a whole instead of a mishmash.
- Use thrifted or old orphan jewelry pieces for embellishments and additions.
- Learn how to use your office and studio tools properly - software and paper generating items especially. It may be frustrating but it’ll save money and time down the road! This includes things like using email for correspondence or batching your shipping labels and receipts.
- Recycle the stuff you can - regularly. That includes the extra packaging, jars, bottles and so on that accumulate in studios and offices. It’s great to think that you’ll reuse all the jars for artwork but sometimes it doesn’t happen. Don’t let them accumulate till they get tossed out in a decluttering fit.
- Make the library your friend - do research, read trade magazines, pick up inspiration. Save the money and the paper. Take advantage of your guilds library for the same reason.
- Establish or join an artist’s co-op for use of larger or specific studio equipment - clay is relatively small and inexpensive as far as equipment goes but for kiln related crafts, this could be a real saver.
- Sell online where possible using places like Etsy or Ebay
Some measures I use in my own place - which is a small apartment shared with a 9 year old and housing both my studio and office space (where I do web development) - are:
- using old attractive wine bottles in my artwork
- flyers and newspaper as drip catchers and table liners
- tin packaging and bakeware for baking or varnishing racks
- using old mason and condiment jars for paint waters and storage of taller items like paint brushes, pens, colouring pencils, wire mandrels and so on. I then put the jars on old trays so that they stay corral’d
- a box beside the trashcan in my studio space and in my office space for papers to be put in (and recycled to)
- jar lids for bead and paint mixing
- active recycling center in the kitchen: bottles, tins, jars, boxes, papers, notes, plastic bags, milk jugs go out weekly before they take over.
Year of Clay - Earring Stand
OK, so this one isn’t really clay but I had to scramble a bit because all I’ve made from clay this week are stacks of Natasha beads. I leave for a couple days of Easter break tomorrow and I had gotten the studio cleaned up.
The stand is based off a design in a sweet book called Beader’s Stash: Designs from America’s Favorite Bead Shops by Laura Levaas. I took the book out of the library in this weeks stack of books and it has other interesting, contemporary designs as well.
My stand is made from simpler stuff than the one in the book - plain black plastic coated copper wire. It currently sports my favourite pair of citrus slice earrings and a pair made by the amazing Sarah Shriver. I will probably make a few more of these in colours that match my booth setup better but this time, I found the 16 gauge black first!
2008 Kick Off with Thing a Day
Yup, I noticed that 2008 started a month ago. Lashes with wet noodles all ’round here at HQ. It’s not that I haven’t clayed, it’s just that I haven’t gotten organized at all. So in a bid to get my rear in gear, I set more ambitious goals - even if some were less than successful - and decided to concentrate on the move forward.
Towards THAT goal I signed up for the Thing-a-Day at www.thing-a-day.com - someone on the PCC boards mentioned it. I believe she’s one of the same people who got me trying the NaNoWriMo… a whole other story of insanity.
Anyways, the Thing-A-Day is brutally simple. You make something - anything really - a day and then (ah, the catch) post it to their site. For me, there’s an extra catch - I’m going to try for every one of those things to be clay related. Bonus points if I manage that! It runs the 29 days of February and then you all pass out. Or pat yourself on the back.
Note Taking for Crafty Types - part 1
It’s funny. In school I was almost strictly a ‘its all up here’ type of student. I was lucky enough to coast by on my (lucky) memory a lot of the time.
Of course, where school couldn’t motivate me to become a proficient note taker work / art has. Sometimes I desperately want to remember what that colour I made was or what that flower cane had… 5 or 6 petals? I’ve written copious notes on colour so far, to share and to remind myself but the note taking on my projects is a little slower sometimes.
One easy way to keep a visual record - yes, Virginia, it counts as notes - is to keep your digital camera or scanner hanging near your work surface and to record as you go. Then upload the works to a freebie album software - I do love my Flickr - and consider yourself recorded. An added bonus, if you keep your images available to the public, is that your work is available for peer review and sharing.
For example, these pins are one of the pics I just tossed up to Flickr. They’re a few of the small pieces I made this year and last, on some of my hangtags. They’re some of the stocking stuffers on my table and my daughter helps assemble them. The little snow guys are based on combos of Carolyn’s snowblobs and Heather Powers sweet little snowmen pendants. For an added treat, Heather blogged a whole weeks worth of clay ornaments!
Progress
2007 is my year for self-improvement. I picked up a few ambitious projects - such as my Year of Clay - and part of any project is marking off the milestones.
On the right hand side I made a simplistic little graphic for one of my goals: 5000 beads by the end of the year. I started with 1000 but I finished that by March! So i picked a bigger number.
I’m being generous - it doesn’t matter if it’s a meticulously sanded layered floral bead or a very simple slice bead. In this case, quantity and marking it off is what matters!
Some of my other clay related project-goals include 100 canes, another art doll, entering the PCC challenge, 5 craft shows, another 5 tutorials, 100 pieces of finished jewelry… dozens of things. It’s on a list above my desk and I take great joy in savagely crossing them off.
So, what are you claying towards?
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