If you live in California and have children of school age, you may be aware that there is a HUGE budget crisis for our public schools. Our tiny community of Ojai has had a declining enrollment over the last several years and we may be forced to close schools. The problem with this is the open schools will have to take on extra students which will mean a greater student to teacher ratio and less attention to the individual. From what I saw at the town hall meeting last week they will be forced to cut many other important programs like hot lunches, P.E., busses, and most hugely schools! I am hopeful that we will not have to make such cuts and that everyone will pitch in and help. If you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated http://www.ojaief.org/
We as parents had many questions one big one was "What about the lottery money?" Well... fancy we should ask... turns out it was a bait and switch by the state! You can have lottery money but we are taking away these fund over here... A total sham! What next?!
I was thinking about all the fun new techniques I've been learning, hammered copper, new patinas, working with seed beads and what fun it is to learn something new. What new tips, tricks or techniques have you learned? Leave a comment to share your favorite trick, tip or technique and I'll pick a name to send a few bead and pendant goodies! Enter before Wednesday the 14th and I'll post a winner on the blog Thursday!
This is the copper wire that has the green patina. It was a bit goobery so I rinsed off one of the pieces before adding a clear coat. I think I let them sit too long, thus the excess boogery green. After letting it dry I sprayed a clear coat to keep the green patina from wearing off. It was so much fun playing chemist with the copper wire. I found some of the instructions from the newton.com website. I'm thinking a mermaid necklace with aged green copper wire, awesome charms from PatinaQueen and seed beads would be divine! Happy Mothers Day!
Package! A delivered package. After literally HOURS of phone calls and claims filed and much frustration.... THE PACKAGE WAS DELIVERED!!! I spent less time delivering my two babies! Sheeesh! So the package made it and my customer loves her goodies! They were a special order and special gift for her cousins wedding. The bride and groom's initials inside a heart were stamped on the back of some of the Day of the Dead Pendants! Very cute. I wish I could be there for the reveal! She had spent a lot of time considering what colors and styles her cousin and guests would like and It would have been sad to see all the thought and good intentions go down in flames because I can't type in 5 numbers correctly. So just FYI... double check that zip code! Lesson learned.
Thanks for leaving your stories and comments! I love participation and response! I am super duper excited about the new pendants I'm working on for the May firing. The final necklaces will have charms hanging from the bottom. Check back to see what kind of mischief spills out of Pandora's boxes!
Everyone! Thanks Lorelei, Carlene and White Iris Designs for leaving your comments! Send and email to gaea@gaea.cc with your address and I'll send a few goodies out ASAP! I just hate leaving anyone out! Enjoy!
Come back next Monday for another "Giveaway Monday" event!
This weekend was Ojai's "Village Of Tales" a really great event for kids of all ages. While Robert was at band practice I took the kids to have a scoop of ice cream and hear some stories under the trees. I like to tell tales with jewelry... what is your favorite "Tale"? Leave a comment with your favorite tale and I'll pick one or two names to send a few bead and pendant goodies! Enter before Wednesday the 7th and I'll post a winner on the blog Thursday! Come and join the "Jewelry With A Story" flikr group!
The blue was electric. The green is... mostly dark brown with some gobs of green like bugger substance clinging in a yuckish way. Hmmm. Maybe I let it sit too long? More experiments are needed!
I redid the "Big Bang" necklace. The new blue beads seem to capture the look of the sky at night. Not so carnival unchic! I did notice the moon up in the morning yesterday and it is so beautiful to see a crescent moon early in a light blue sky!
I am circling back around to bead making time. Unfortunately I have some unfinished business from the last bead firing. I would like to think that I am perfect (at least at taking and processing bead orders!) But, alas, tis not true. I had a custom order in the last firing that, because it was custom, did not have any duplicates made. This lovely customer had ordered in plenty of time for a special event. It was even mailed out in a more than reasonable amount of time. So when I got an email inquiring of the status (thankfully I sent it with tracking info!) it showed that her package had been "missent" (a word the post office invented! YAYYY!) to another city (strange?) and upon further calls and investigating, was found to be on its way back to the city it was mailed to. After a few more days of waiting and updates from the tracking number it was still at the P.O. Hmmmm..... And a few more days and it still being at the same location and not being delivered, we are now both franticly calling post offices and hot lines and begging who ever will listen (not many people will!)... PLEASE! THIS PACKAGE IS STUCK IN AN ENDLESS LOOP OF SCANNING AND NOT DELIVERING!!! SOMEONE, ANYONE, PLEASE HELP US!!! Turns out I mistyped her zip code and thus sent her package on a two week wild ride, one that is continuing as I type this. So... I am now making the items over for my lovely customer. She was ever so adamant that I not make them again. I had to break the cycle of denial. The package is lost. I will move on to more constructive actions. Sucks being imperfect. It is awesome that my customer has not driven the 90 miles to kick me in the bahookie!
I managed to get a few photos of things that are for projects. I'm really happy with the formed copper wire elements. I am itching to try the "electric blue" patina on them.
This is a detail of a necklace that I am working on as a collection of jewelry based on Greek Mythology. It seems appropriate and LONG overdue as "Gaea" sometimes spelled "Gaia" was the Greek Goddess of Mother Earth! How did my mom know I would want to play with the earth some day?!
This necklace is Dionysus, the God of agriculture and wine. A green patina on some of the more grape viney pieces would be perfect!
I love the clasp on this necklace. I'm not so sure of the blue color of the seed beads though. Robert described them as "roadside carnival cheap" He is never wrong. I went back to the store and picked a blue that was more spacey. The necklace is supposed to be of the night sky with multi colored stars. It actually looks pretty good in this picture. It is much more garish in real life.
I guess I wasn't the only person with complaints at our local Blockbuster as they have now moved and turned off the monitor with the video games and placed movies with graphic covers to the highest shelves! Thank you! The store manager is always lovely to us and I had to thank her. If only the family owned local video store would find less snotty and unhelpful teens we could go back. I guess cheep labor has it's price. Baby steps.
I've been playing chemist this weekend with copper wire and chemical reactions! Super fun! I love the way copper will patina over time (something I don't ever have enough of) So I looked around online and found some very helpful sites that show how to patina metal with home made ingredients! So now I have BLUE copper and will try the "Green" experiment today! So far I am just playing with the wire alone. Next I will do a whole necklace!!! I've also been playing with hammered copper. I did a few necklaces a while back. I've gotten a great reaction from them and am really loving the effect! Imagine these spirals in an electric blue! Super cool!
Well now I am off to obsess about a new idea. I'm REALLY excited about it and can't wait to get rolling on it. I pushed through the 103 degree heat yesterday to clean the house, or at least I smeared enough of the muck around so that it formed something akin to clean. Either that or I'm a modern artist! 2 adults + 2 kids + 2 dogs + 2 cats - enough time = !#$%#$!@
So, I went to my local Ben Franklin store and got my own copy of Beads2008! There are some really cool things and a great project from Melanie of Earthenwood Studio. The beads from the Golem Studio were awesome! There were so many wonderful new things and so may bead works of artist I am familiar with it was like a who's who of ceramic beads! I'm really pleased to see so many ceramic artist featured! Congrats to all the Beads of Clay artist featured! Good job!
I have been doing the pee-pee dance for days now! The kiln is all cooled and I cracked it open to find some real beauties!
I make a very strong effort to keep my kids from seeing and hearing things that are not age appropriate. Six and 2 year olds should be 6 and 2 year olds for as long as possible. It is getting harder and harder every day to shield them from scary images and inappropriate music. I have decided that even Blockbuster is not appropriate. Just the covers alone for some of the movies should not be seen by kids. Heck, I don't want to see them. How many Saw movies do we need. And video games? Grand Theft Auto 75? I have no problem with them existing but I don't need them being shoved at my curious 6 year old just standing in line at the video store. Our local store decided that it wasn't enough to have multiple viewing screens of features coming soon around the store, now they have a monitor facing us at my child's level in the front of the line. As we were waiting patiently for our turn to rent Scooby-Doo for the 50th time we were forced to watch an increasingly violent clips from several new games. A man getting punched in the stomach by another man. A man then takes a crowbar to the window of a car smashing it into a million LOUD pieces. At this point my Six year olds head whips around to me with a look that says "Did I just see that? And should I see that?" I calmly ask the gentleman behind the counter if we could please turn the monitor off. "It isn't age appropriate." I was horrified by his answer... "I can't turn it off. I don't know how." .... "What about this button here?" So I turn it off. Are you kidding me? I'm not trying to be abrasive. I just want a pleasant trip to the video store. I think we'll just have to stick with Netflix. How do you keep your kids safe from inappropriate things. Am I being too sensitive?
It is "Turn Off Your TV!" week at my son's school. So, we did just that. Sadly, I have come to rely on the TV to do a fair bit of baby sitting. But not last night! We ate dinner and talked (or argued) with each other! We read books. We didn't argue about what to watch. We watched a moth fly around the room and laughed. We had a tickle fight. Not that we don't normally do these things, but the pressure was off. It felt good. Even with a migraine headache things seemed to flow a bit better. Bath time was fun time again. I think I will instate a no TV Monday thru Friday policy. My son even dared to write three sentences in his weekly sharing journal where 2 of the 3 were not "It is cool." and "I like it." Baby steps. I hope to continue the week in this positive direction. It is cool! I like it!
Below are a few things that were almost forgotten about. I will make time to not procrastinate and get them listed...
Well not the letter but the copy of Beads2008 which I apparently have a few items in! Yay me! I have been longing to submit jewelry to magazines for publication but am terrified of both cramping my brain to actually put on paper, IN WORDS, how I've made something and then being rejected. So submitting just the pieces with out all that messy paper work just seemed much less of a harrowing experience. I would gladly give beads up if I didn't have to get brainy about it to get published (any designers out there listening?) This must be how my 6 year old feels when I threaten him with no video games over the weekend if he doesn't do his homework. So if anyone has actually put their eyes on this magazine I'd love to hear about it!
I will have to say that I am not the most... how to say this... dissiplined of people. I guess I really like to do what I like to do and don't really like to do much else. It isn't selfish so much as things don't always go down well when it isn't my idea. Mental block? Probably. Stubborn? Definiately! So when my daughters co-op school called asking If I would like a position on the board next fall to help run the school I didn't mean to blurt out laughing. I really did try to stiffle my guffaw. How desperate are these people? I have trouble keeping up with my own business let alone someone else's. But I guess that is the point of a co-op and we dearly love our little school. It does take up a lot of time with fundraisers and work days, but I love being around the kids and the parents are really wonderful people. I've made so many great friends through my kids. So I've been charmed by the little school that could (along with the free day of school for my daughter!) and will now be the secretary for Ojai Valley Community Nursery School. Those who have come before me have been really great with the advice. So, If you have any words of wisdom, please, chime in!
