wandering spirit designs

New Learning Curve and a SALE!

So we now have a super nifty new camera as a Christmas present from my in-laws that I’ve been trying to get the hang of using. I’ve been meaning to get some photos of my work to post on Etsy but keep getting distracted with taking cute photos of the kids, oopsie.
Today, just now actually, I sat down and took photos of my nearest bead and this is what’s what:

 Still needs some work, but it will suffice for listing on Etsy. Just in case I don’t post beforehand, Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year!
OH, Oh! I’ve decided to do a HUGE sale in my shop:
Code Gimme40 will give you 40% off everything in the shop!! From now until Christmas Eve, help empty my shop since momma has to pay for a new drier.

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2012 Pismo Bead Invitational
Something I’ve been working on to send to the Pismo Fine Art Glass Gallery in Denver, Co for the 2012 Bead Invitational.
Lawdy, but I’ve been procrastinating- have you seen some of the amazing work at this gallery?! I finally just bit the bullet and decided to send in what I was going to in the first place. I did decide to fire some more Bronzclay beadcaps since I was running low and got some great colors on a few of them. So here’s to pulling up my bootstraps and hoping for the best.

Time Rushing
 These past few weeks since our move have been slipping by rapidly- can’t believe I’m nearly 8 months along now. The San Antonio heat has been sapping my motivation to get things done, and it’s not even summer yet.
 Decisions for our baby girl’s room took me forever, nothing seemed right and I couldn’t make up my mind..similar story for these bronzclay pieces. There is a nebulous idea floating about in my head, but the harder I try to focus on it, the more blurry it becomes. So my favorite fall-back option is in effect- I’ll just wing it. It seems like forever since I’ve fired any metal clay, even had to look up the firing schedule to jog my memory.
 I’ll have to show a pic of the backs after they finish firing, my idea was to have the option of stringing or wearing them as a brooch. A technician I am not, so we’ll see if my idea pans out. What a pain in the posterior curved hollow forms are! Not sure why this was my idea of a smooth re-integration with metal clay.
Color is also something that has been nagging at my thoughts, and getting to use up some polymer clay that has been lurking in my closet (some of it for years!) is a bonus. Maggie Maggio and Lindly Haunani’s book was a great learning tool. Maggie has a lot of great info and videos floating about on her website and youtube. Her color aesthetic is very appealing to me since I usually reach for those earthy/mud colors because they usually fume so nicely in glass. I’m proud of myself for getting all those colors mixed together and finishing this exercise, it will be a wonderful color tool for whichever medium I decide to use.
If the hollow pieces survive my somewhat inept touch, I’ll post pics tomorrow.

From Mole Hill to Mountain
I should know better than to procrastinate with this many sets to photograph and put up on Etsy. This happens to me every year after BABE- what is at first a mole hill becomes a mountain and so I continue to put off photographing 50+ sets of beads for the shop. So here is my first step, and you can be my witness 🙂 You can check out my flickr for more pics and size reference.

I think what is causing me the most angst is the thought of having to untie allll those sets to photograph them loose, and then retying them…so then the thought of ‘why not just photograph them tied?’. Although the rules of online selling recommends lots of photos, I’ll most likely err on the side of sanity and take pics as they are to save myself time. This way I know I’ll get them listed before Christmas, lol.

Ebb and Flow

I’ve been neglecting the blog since we’ve had family visiting and have been busy getting inventory built up for BABE! 2011..eek, only three weeks away!
Many things are percolating on the sidelines, will get to these soon enough.
My boy seems to be growing so fast, it tugs on my heart strings some of the things he’ll say without prompting.
Example:
Me: How do I look? (Asking hubby before heading to a glass meeting out of town this past Sat.)
Him: Shiny.
Me: What?! (in all fairness, I knew he wasn’t crazy about the beads I had strung into a quick necklace for the meeting)
Son: No, Dada- Pretty! Mama pretty.
Him: What?!
Me: Did you tell him to say that? ( I sneak a quick peek at the boy and he’s grinning ear to ear as he looks at me from the living room where he was busy watching cartoons)
Him: We’re going to have our hands full.
Me: Yep. (then I send a quick wink to my boy before heading out the door)

 Here is the culprit from the above conversation. 🙂

True Blue

Totally smitten with Zimmerman Mountain Blue Powder Z-971, it’s such a luscious color! Really hating that it’s impossible to find w/o paying thru the teeth – the Zimmerman family stopped producing their colors years ago and the glass industry is starting to miss certain colors like this one and Z-99 Purple Rose Special..along with others. I plan to enjoy using it until I run out.

After

 What a huge relief to have this space more organized, not sure how I worked before with all the mess. I even managed to recover some buried treasure! Always a plus in my book. There are still a few things left to finish- but it’s now much easier to find a place to stick my work and keep track of inventory for my upcoming show in November.
The crazy thing is that I’ll be breaking all this down and moving to San Antonio early next year, the joys of being married to the military.