Uli's Creative Corner

to the blog carnival question "How do the Holidays affect your work?".  And what do I mean by that........ well, look back at the last 4 years of seasonal preparations in this blog and you'll see.  I do it to myself every year and plan way many more projects than I can accomplish for gifts and other things.  So my creative work goes from moderately crazy throughout the year to a frenzy of activities.

Take hubby's and my first Christmas together................. I was making something for everyone on the planet and driving to Christmas Eve dinner at my Mom's house, I was weaving in the ends on something knitted for her and while enjoying a nice Christmas Eve with my family, I was sitting in the corner cross stitching a table runner for my new mother in-law.  I think I was still stitching on the way to her house the next day and out of desperation, I never did stitch the centre motif of the design. :-)

Even when I don't plan to give handmade gifts, I just can't let it go and end up doing more than I had anticipated.  It's just not right to go out there with little thought, put a wad of cash down and walk away with some inanimate object.................

In comes 2007, the year of Etsy.  I've almost been on the site for a year now and am enjoying the community and my little business immensely and yes, it is a business to me even though hubby can't see beyond the "hobbyism" of it all.  Last Christmas, I was too new to Etsy to do much with it.  A sale here, a sale there............. no big deal.  I'm not sure what to expect from the season this year but I am getting enough sales to keep me going at a steady pace - given that I have 2 very busy children, a husband, inlaws moving in tomorrow, a basement under construction and I almost forgot, a very busy and demanding full time job.  So how has my work been affected?  Well, in anticipation of a fun, maybe even busier than last year, time on Etsy, I have been making key chains, bracelets, and of course, seasonal items such as earrings or these adorable cell phone charms.  I've been crafting at lunch time at work.  I was waiting for my daughter at catechism tonight and while talking to another Mom, I made stars and tomorrow at the gym, while watching the Little Miss tumble, I'll probably be making earrings or something.  Not busy enough yet?  I've committed to 3 (a total of 4 days) craft shows.  I'm kind of thinking that I won't sell anything so I'll be okay but what if I do sell stuff at the first one?  How will I have enough for the second one?  Let's not even talk about #3 then.  So, yes, my work and my brain are affected by the seasonal preparations and I'm thinking the frenzy is going to be even greater this year than it has ever been before.

BUT.............. I love every minute of it or I wouldn't be doing it.

And there will be some (I say SOME - please remind me of that in December) holiday knitting going on, too and I just had a great knitter's stocking stuffer idea............ stay tuned because maybe it will end up at a store near you soon.

Back to regular scheduled blogging soon.  This was an attempt to partake in the Trans-Canada Etsy Team's blog carnival for today.  I've never participated in something like this before but this Etsy team is made up of so many talented Canadian crafters and artists.  Awesome!!!

Isn't it the truth?

For a nice laugh..............

I guess nobody liked all my socks?

Little Miss is just in the shower............... she plays with all her "shower friends" and they all have names and personalities - the octopus and the whale and all.  It's kind of fun listening to her because it's like she's repeating what we say to her and treating her little animals like we would ask her to behave. :-)  One can really see their own reflection in that sort of play.

I had a busy week............ very busy.  I'm trying to mostly get ready for the upcoming craft fairs I have committed to and of course my Dad phones today to ask me to make a necklace and 2 bracelets for Mom - just because - he is a paying customer......... but he's up to something and I don't really have the time.  I'm already feeling stressed enough.  Hmmm.... I'll have to see what I can come up with.  But what I really want to know is what he really wants out of her................. I'm thinking he's found a lot and wants to build another house and he wants to soften her up.  Especially since he wants a necklace now and then the bracelets to throw in at a later date - just because - no special occassion.  Even when I told hubby his immediate response was "what's your Dad up to now?"  We know him too well.....

Tonight, I'm just going to leave off with a few new chainmaille creations.  I worked on all of these quite a bit this week.  Just enjoy the pictures and let me know what you think.  They'll probably pop up in the store at some point during the week - or they may just go straight into the craft show inventory. 

The first two images are of a chunky solid copper bracelet made in a weave called Byzantine.  The toggle clasp is a copper plated pewter clasp and I love the clasp.  It makes this piece exciting. 

I love working with copper.  It's a soft material that just conforms nicely under the pliers.  Along the same lines of this copper bracelet is a bracelet made from anodized Titanium.  While copper is nice and soft, Titanium is very, very hard.  It doesn't like to conform to the power of the pliers.  Geez......... that little sucker took a lot of elbow grease and quite a bit more time than the copper bracelet even though the wire gauge and size of rings are exactly the same.  In knitting, I've always loved variegated yarn so I carried that forward into playing with the anodized colour palette and just grabbed whatever ring came to me pliers.  My own version of variegated chainmaille.

And back to copper, here's a new weave I just learned - it's called "double spiral".  I learned it by someone telling me: "You know the spiral, right? Well, then just double up the rings."  Took me a bit of trial and error but all of a sudden I had it and then it was easy.  This is done with smaller gauge wire so the resulting bracelet, of course, is way more delicate and not quite so "in your face" - shall I say dramatic?

I really like this weave so I'll be experiementing with it.  I'm thinking of getting out the stainless steel and some enameled copper to do a piece with some colour in it.

And last but not least, here are some new colour combos for my big, fun key chains.  There's red and black and violet and black.

Well, that's about it for the moment.  I'd better get the kiddo out of the shower.  Where did the time go?  I can't believe it's already 8:30.  Yikes, she should be in bed by now but she's still in the shower.  Oh, she just turned the water off.  I'd better get going. :-)  Have a great week.

I haven't showed off a lot of these socks yet but I can prove there is knitting going on. :-)

First pair - black Alpacca fingering weight socks - can you say BORING!!!!  They are lovely though and I made them for a fellow Etsy store owner.  She makes the cutest needle felted little things like animals etc.  Those socks are a Christmas gift for her Mom and I hope they'll both love them.

Size 6/7 - waffle pattern - black fingering weight Alpacca

The next pair of socks, I call my girlie camo socks.  Don't you think these socks have a definite Camo feel to them?

And last but not least, a pair of Regia Silks - loveley to knit with but I'm not sure how the socks will hold up.  They feel a bit limp and loose.  Maybe I need to knit them on smaller needles next time to a tighter gauge?

Now I'm going to switch my knitting over to a sweater I'm working on for JR and some Christmas socks for Evan's aunt.  I have to do some Christmas gift knitting, especially since I joined the Holiday KAL.  I joined as a knitter and a prize contributor.  My prize package will be one of my celtic star key chains (just a sample) and a copy of my sock pattern.

On the weekend I visited the Fraser Valley Bead show.  On Friday night, I didn't get much done (in terms of shopping and even "focused looking" as I ran into a bunch of people I knew and I also had made plans to meet up with my chainmaille supply vendors.  It was still a fun evening.  I did come back with a pile of Kazuri beads like the one I used for this pin:

The Kazuri bead story is a very neat and in my opinion, empowering story.  There are some details if you're interested on this web site.  So I now have many more beads, all the long shaped tubular beads to make more wonderful scarf and shawl pins.  And then on Saturday, I showed my pin to a lampwork glass artist from Northern BC - I didn't get her contact info and I'm bummed about that - but she wanted to trade me on the spot for my pin and I ended up with these lovely lampwork beads in return:

Aren't they lovely?  More pins, maybe???

She then also wanted to trade me for my shaggy necklace I showed off the other day but I just couldn't part with it yet.  One thing nice about it though was that it reassured me - the stuff I am making is liked and that's kind of a cool feeling.

And just a few odds and Etsy ends........... wow, these little earrings were popular at the office today:

Aren't they cute, though?  I have them in all red, too.

I made these little butterflies for a colleague's niece:

And here is a new cell phone charm:

I will list at least one of thsoe tomorrow.  I have them in different colours.

Plus a new bracelet:

Oh, and I LOOOOVVVEE my new camera.  Better than diamonds for our 10th anniversary.  Hubby's birthday is tomorrow and I don't even have a gift yet.  Yikes!!!!

See you all later.

I'm in love with this piece that I created yesterday - I'm calling it Silver Simplicity - it's chunky, it's bold, it's beautiful (or at least I think so), it's heavy and it's solid sterling silver from clasp to each ring, lovingly woven into a custom bracelet.

Do you love it like I do?  I may not want to part with it although it is already spoken for - or at least it is a custom order but you never know if the potential customer will love it.   I wish I had asked my "ring pushers" to hand deliver me some more of the yummy sterling silver when I meet them later this weekend but I just can't afford any more expensive materials for the moment.

So here she is:

This is a heavy, thick bracelet made from 18 gauge wire.  It might be a bit bold for some but I am working on a more delicate version of the same bracelet as well as a chain like necklace with a lovely lampworked focal bead from this fellow Canadian Etsy seller.  Those craft shows are starting to haunt me!!!!  I anticipate some late nights.

So, what do you think? I definitely know I'll be making more.  I may just have enough stock of sterling to make one more bracelet just like this one.  I'd love to have one ready for my shows.

Should have some finished knitting to show this weekend.  TGIF tomorrow.  Even with the long weekend, I was confused and thought today was Friday already.  Yikes.  Gotta get up to go to work one more time tomorrow.

So when I was "just" a knit blogger, I tried to get good pictures but at most, they were mediocre and I was fine with that.  Just as long as I had pics to blog with.  Then, of course, I got into jewelry and my Etsy store and all of a sudden, I needed to learn how to take better pictures - enticing pictures of my work and creations for listing purposes but also for creating a nice little portfolio of my designs.  Jewelry is hard to photograph.............. Hubby bought me a nice new camera when we were on our cruise last weekend (still have to blog about that) and I kind of thought, miraculously, all my pics would turn out perfectly.  Well, yes, some of them are turning out great but I still have lots of trial and error.  I made this great necklace and earring set this weekend and I really want to list it but I can't get the pictures right.  The colours are off, the detail isn't clear blah, blah, blah........... I'll show you two of the better ones and I have many that aren't even show off worthy:

I've got to work on thos pictures............. what do you think of the necklace from what you can make out?  Like it, hate it?

This weekend really showed to me the phrase "Like Mother, Like Daughter" - look at Little Miss.......... at first we're knitting and you know what... she blows me away... she's almost got it!!!!

We hadn't worked on her knitting for a while and she just got back into it, knowing how to insert the needle etc.  It was pretty cool.

And then, of course, here she is trying to practice with my pliers - learning chainmaille at an early age:

And look at my little boy............... we leave him for the first weekend every with the grandparents and this is what he looks like when we get back:

He had a nasty little fall into a wrought iron table.  My little Bam Bam......... all boy and he just never slows down.

Well, I'm stuffed tonight!!!  It was a Happy Thanksgiving weekend for our family - I just don't want to go back to work quite yet but I have to..... bummer.