second surf

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Poppytalk!

I'm pleased to announce that I'm participating again in the marketplace at Poppytalk Handmade. I love this market. It is always so lovely. Poppytalk Handmade is a monthly online street market curated by Poppytalk to showcase, buy and sell handmade goods of emerging design talent from around the world. Now is the time to go get your handmade holiday on with the fine selections curated by Poppytalk, the popular Canadian art and design blog. Thanks again, Jan, for the opportunity!

In addition to the market, check out The Handmade Artist, a blog where you can be privy to all kinds of secret sales, giveaways, and interesting insight by the artists participating in Poppytalk Handmade. You'll most likely see several posts by yours truly over the next month.

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Thoughts, the giveaway & Adorned by Morgan

I'm a little late in congratulating the winner of my beads that I was giving away over at The Constant Gatherer. Rachel of Adorned by Morgan won her choice of a multicolored set of birds or owls! She chose birds!

The best part for me, is that I was already an admirer of her work! Rachel's designs are truly unique. Since I am both a bead designer as well as a jewelry maker, it's hard sometimes to rectify making a truly handmade bead to the wealth of equally lovely embellishments that can be purchased on the market for sometimes better prices and fabricated into stunning pieces. You can search on Etsy for hours and not find many pieces that carry the charm of Rachel's work.

What is unique about Rachel's designs is that each piece carries a lovely narrative all it's own, a quality I strive for in my own work. You can tell that they are all carefully considered and each component is thoughtful. Thanks Rachel for participating!

p.s. her work is vegan! how cool is that?

Images:
1) the set of four beads that Rachel won!
2) Sweet Spool of Flowers $32
3)Gypsy Trove Necklace $75
4) Blossoms from Wonderland $36.5
5) Sweet Japanese Baskets {sold}

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Holidays.....

Just letting you know, as a special holiday promotion there is FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING at Floridity from now until 12/31/09. How's that for shopping from the comfort of your own home?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Artsy Accidents...Not for the weak of stomach....

me & trusty Olfa, still together after all these years....

Inspired by this post by Jan over at DaisyJanie, I'm sharing my artsy accident....

As prefaced in the title, if you're not comfortable with mortal wounds or blood...quit reading now!

While I was a senior in an elective bookmaking class at SCAD, our professor was giving us the basics on beginning bookmaking. When she got to the point about cutting, she gave us two simple rule for cutting paper and bookboard:

1) ALWAYS use a sharp blade.
and
2) ALWAYS let the blade do the work. DO NOT push down when cutting.

As she's describing this, I'm thinking to myself, "Is she freaking crazy? We're ART students for chrissakes!! We've been cutting stuff up since our first design class as freshmen. I can't believe she's wasting her time with this...."

So, one night late, deadline approaching, I was working on a project due the next day. I was cutting, cutting, cutting away. I was down to the last piece of blade on my handy olfa snap off knife, and in a hurry to finish, guess who was breaking the rules?

I remember the knife sinking into my thumb, apparently when you PUSH DOWN with a DULL BLADE, that increases the force and momentum with which you stab yourself. It was in slow motion. IT WENT DEEP. AND I KNEW IT. It was STUCK in my THUMB.

I pulled my thumb up really quick and started shaking it, because then the little pain receptors started to hit my brain. And since those Olfa knives, even with dull blades, make excellent cuts, blood started going everywhere. I had white curtains next to my desk, covered in blood. It look like a horror movie.Literally, like someone was murdered. AND, I ruined my project. I think at that point, I would've rather just cut the thumb off than lose that project.

Stubborn, poor college student me, had a project due, no time or money to spend the evening in the emergency room getting my thumb sewn up. So a quick trip to the drug store for gauze, butterfly bandages, medical tape, led to me working the rest of the evening with a bum bleeding thumb, trying to finish a project. I think I changed the dressing three times that night, and about 10 more times over the course of the next several days.

Needless to say, I should've had stitches and didn't, so the nerves are completely dead in that part of my thumb. Ahhh...the price we pay for art.....

Oh it's healed quite nice, even though I'm pretty sure I could see bone...ick.

Since then, each time I give a lesson that involves cutting, guess which two rules I use?

p.s. that ring I'm wearing is my favorite piece in the whole world, made by the talented Kathryn Riechert, a fellow SCAD alumni. I don't think I've taken it off in 5 years, ugly thumb and all. :)

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Good Stuff!!!

Please take a moment to hop on over to The Constant Gatherer and see the giveaway that dear Katie is hosting featuring moi! One lucky reader will receive their choice of 4 beads in their choice of a flock of owls or birds!

Also be sure to check in at Katie's Etsy shop now and in the coming week, as a little birdie told me she might be having a sale, and there are bargains galore to be had! She's cleaning house and I'm keeping a keen eye peeled for any crumbs of her glorious stash of vintage finds that she might need to purge....

Monday, November 2, 2009

Handmade Holiday Vol. 1

Handmade Holiday will be a bi-weekly feature through the Holidays giving you some fun easy thrifty ways to enjoy your holiday, the handmade way! Handmade Holiday will focus on packaging and simple gifting to make your holidays more meaningful, less stressful, and better for Mother Earth.

Simple tips to remember throughout the Handmade Holiday:

1} Use what you have. Don't have pretty baker's string? Use butcher's twine. No butcher's twine? Use yarn or embroidery floss. No, embroidery floss? What about dental floss? In college bookmaking we often used dental floss as a substitute for the waxed linen thread used in bookbinding. And if you want to get really creative, the scented kind already sort of smells like the holidays...

2} When giftwrapping, go on a hunt for all things of a similar color scheme. No red and green? All colors can become festive if you go with a single color scheme. Use that long forgotten orange stamp pad, that ugly orange ribbon you bought for some unbeknownst reason and a simple holiday stamp.

3} Just about anything can become wrapping paper. Newspaper, old grocery bags (paper & plastic), old fabric, leftover ugly wrapping paper turned inside out to show the white side.

Here's a simple pennant wrap idea I made using recycled kraft paper, a homemade rubber stamp, and some baker's string:

1} Cut a simple triangle shape out of an eraser. If you don't have an eraser, you could also use a wine cork, piece of foam, or makeup sponge.

2} Gather your stamp pads. I experimented using both several shades of green as well as just red and green. Yes, I've got that many stamp pads.....

3} Find your paper for your wrap and cut it to approximately the size needed to wrap your gift. Here, since my box was already nicely finished, I decided just to make a sleeve to wrap around it.

4} Stamp your triangle in a straight-ish line. Changing the angle around slightly will give it a presence that it's floating in air like a real pennant.

5} wrap your gift and tie with a thin string just above row of stamped pennants. You could also draw a petite line with a black pen for a cute look as well!

Tune in on Wednesday for some more fun ideas using die cut shapes!