Earrings, Earrings, Earrings

I didn't get as much done as I probably should have yesterday. I didn't have the concentration to work on the new art piece. Heck I didn't even have the concentration I needed to do the finishing work on the last art pieces. I guess I need some nice uninterrupted time to work on things that need my full brain power. So instead of doing something complex with my my day I remade a couple of small pieces and did some really simple designs.

First I finished up the flower earrings and got them listed. I had a set ready to go for the lovely return custom that requested them in the fist place and I made the listing for whatever color you want. When I get the other posts in I'll do a fresh listing for those which will be just a dollar more a pair.

Then I thought a bit about how I could do a different pair of earrings, ones with a little more me in them. First I tatted one of my dangle earrings onto the base, but that didn't work at all. I mean, sure I could tat it on and it looks fine, until I put it on and it bent and twisted trying to fit next to my face. So I went back to basics again and just added a second set of petals to the flower in a woven fashion and got this swirly, pinwheel design with a seed bead in the center.

I only made the first motif in the black and green colors because they were what was on top of my thread box, but they could be done in any combination of colors. So I went ahead and tatted up a pair on posts in light and medium mocha brown for a nice sepia toned pair. That's about when I decided that I had done enough work for the day.

This morning I have a teacher meeting for the oldest child so the day will be broken up again. This probably means I won't work on the 'hard' stuff today either. I'll probably just play with more earrings and think about the things I should actually be doing. Maybe tomorrow will be normal enough to get some real work done.

Adventure

Another morning exhausted, but at least this time I have an adventure to blame instead of drama or cleaning. We left about 7 yesterday morning and didn't get home until after 7 in the evening. We took a train and then bus to the California State Capitol building in Sacramento. We visited both it and the the California Museum that is a couple of blocks from there. We even got to have a talk with an Assemblyman where I kept my mouth as shut as possible because it was a nice thing for all the kids, not my kids particularly, but the other ones. Then it was a stroll through the mall back to the train station where we took the train all the way home.

My husband left these photos on my desktop this morning...he must have realized that I would want to steal them for the blog. This first one is me and girls in front of the Capitol building in the sun, the only place it was warm. The wind was something else, but otherwise it was a beautiful day. And because apparently no matter where I go, I will run into something tatted we have a picture of a dress from the Suffrage display in the Notable Californian Women section of the museum. Yep, there's a nice tatted collar there and yes, I recognize most of the elements of it from my stash of vintage pattern books.

Since I was out of town all day, I of course had more messages over at etsy than usual and trying to answer them while touring a building was a bit awkward. So today I have a few messages to catch up with and then I have a couple of small pieces that sold during the day that will need to get made. I also need to get back to the post earrings. I was shamed on facebook for the design I think, since they are so simple and really not my style, so I might try to come up with another design that fits the dimensions, but is more me. I was also informed that even surgical steel is not allergy proof, so I did a little more research and ordered up some titanium posts as well which are absolutely nickle free. Of course at the end of this experiment I will have far more posts than I will likely ever use. I'm also feeling pretty lucky to have no real metal sensitivities myself. So here's to a nice, quiet, productive day.

They Work

I'm in a bit of a rush this morning as I still have to get ready for our day long field trip. Usually I'm completely on top of these things, over prepared really, but with this weekends moving nonsense I think my head is just not quite on straight yet.

I managed to get the two pieces I needed to remake yesterday done even though schooling went extra long. Apparently the oldest child is just as fond of book reports as I was. I loved reading, I hated writing the report, but don't tell her that. Anyway, after that I made up another pair of the post earrings, this time in color, just to see how they would look. The first pair passed the shower test with flying colors. They weren't even a little bit warped and dried on their own in a couple of hours while I was still wearing them.

I ran these ones past the folks on my Facebook page and I got some good feedback. One bit was that I used the really inexpensive earring bases from Michael's and after a little internet digging I'm pretty sure they're nickle. That doesn't bother me at all, it's what a lot of fashion jewelry is made from, but it can cause issues for folks with metal sensitivity or allergies. So I'll likely be listing these on Wednesday after I have some time to make a few other colors up and as soon as the Surgical Steel ones I just ordered arrived, I'll offer those as well.

I didn't get any time to work on the other art project idea and I won't have any time to tat today as our trip is a train ride to the State Capitol building and they have a strict, no pointed objects rule. Besides sometimes one just needs to stop and enjoy the view, right? My hands may want to be busy much of the time, but even they should take a break every now and again.

Laborious

I know I do this far too often, but what a weekend. Straight to the point, on Saturday my siblings, and other family members moved my mother out of her rental home into the one she just purchased. I won't go into all the drama that this house buying has been for her and subsequently for me, but hopefully that is all behind us now. We spent much of the day finishing up the packing, and while the others loaded and transported the household, I staged boxes and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned some more. Did I mention she has two large dogs, a cat and since the house was in the country...a mice problem? We won't speak of that again. It was one of the most laborious days I can remember and it left me sore and mentally exhausted so Sunday was almost a wash...almost.

 Well let me go back and say I got some more lovely strange lace pictures on Friday as I was almost done. I was going to put them all here, but I think I'll just put up one and add the rest to my flickr. On Sunday, once I was feeling more focused again I got back to work on the art lace and managed to finish the tatting! Yes, all three are tatted up and now waiting to be cleaned and pressed. Not sure I'm going to rush to do that step, but I'm still pleased that they are done.

I also had a few more interesting tasks to tackle. First was a request for the small flower earrings on posts. I have a bit of a confession first, I generally don't make jewelry that I don't wear, in fact I rarely even think of doing so unless asked. For example I don't wear post earrings ever so it never even occurred to me to make them. I knew that I could tat onto a post, but what I wasn't sure about was whether they would wear well or not with the lace so close to flesh. I don't glue them on, but tat around the base so the lace is on both sides.

So I picked up some inexpensive post bases and made a quick pair for me to test. They tatted up ridiculously easily with almost no pattern adjustment to fit the bases I got and then I popped them in my ears. They're still there now being tested for wear. I'm actually pretty impressed, I slept in them and they're still in perfect shape. Next I'm going to "accidentally" shower in them and see how that works out for them since I never remember to take earrings off myself. If they survive they'll probably get a small crystal or bead in the center to hide the post and then become a shop offering, well not this exact pair of course.

I also have one other task I'm working on that requires much thought and fiddling round as a proposal to create something unique has been passed by me. I didn't get to work on it as much as I would have liked over the weekend because of all the physical labor and recovery time, but that's on tap for today after I get a couple of small pieces remade. It's going to be a bit of an odd week though as we have an all day field trip tomorrow and a teacher meeting for the other child on Thursday, but I'll see what I can do. Hopefully in the middle of all this some of the potential customers that have contacted me with requests will come back and I'll have some paid work to get to as well. Then it would be a perfect sort of week.

Lace and Science

I can't believe it's already Friday again. These short holiday weeks play havoc on my need for structure, but the week wasn't so bad. Doing the giveaway this week boosted my mood and I'm fairly certain the exposure is also the reason I finally got a few days of steady sales. I'm not naive enough to think that the slowness is completely behind me, but I feel better and I've gotten some good work done as well.

After I finished some lovely colorful earrings yesterday I got back to  he white thread. This project really is slow going, but hopefully it will be worth it in the end. For immediate satisfaction, I keep getting some great lace photos with my phone of all things. I Imagine if I was a better photographer I could sell things like this...I'm not though, so they'll just make my blog prettier.

I'm currently halfway through the second round of the last piece and the next round goes very quickly so I'm hoping I'll have this done by Monday. The one thing that will stand in my way is that we're suppose to be moving my mother into her house this weekend. If you were wondering was all the family drama recently had been about, it was all about her buying a house and absolutely nothing going right and money issues and her crazy current landlord, so I'm not certain even this weekend will be on track. It's one of those, 'I'll believe it when I see it,' sort of things.

In other news, after a failed science build in a lesson on electricity, I purchased a circuit making kit for the kids so we could do it again correctly without worrying about which components might be to blame for it not working. It arrived yesterday late in the afternoon and the kids immediately had to get building. It was really neat to see them both excited even though it was technically just the oldest that needs to play with it. It even managed to pull them away from Mine Craft, the game that has stolen their free time away. I just thought you might like to see the two legged kids after all the cat pictures.

Well, here's to a stress free and productive weekend...I'm keeping my fingers crossed.