Saturday, September 10, 2011

Holy Etsy, Batman!

This week I have been quite productive!  I started cleaning my studio and moved a table in.  This was no easy feat - I didn't really have room for it, but I stacked my paper holder cart things on top of each other and moved other things around.  I wanted a better Cricut station - where I had the machine before the cutting mat drooped down unless I held it, and with the weight of the magnets it fell out or moved enough to screw up the cuts.  Also, since I've been working with polymer clay more, I wanted a permanent place for my pasta machine.  My desk is too thick for the clamp, and I wouldn't have wanted it there anyway.  The room still needs lots of cleaning, but at least I have some open workspace on my desk and more space to spread out to if needed.

The other thing I've done is add many listings on Etsy.  Now, I'm not planning on "promoting" Etsy listings here (have I said that before?), but I did want to mention what I've been up to and to show you pictures of some of the new polymer clay pieces I've made since the Christi Friesen classes I took in August.  No, I'm not yet ready to show you what I scribbled about in my last blog post.  Not yet, but soon.

Here are some hearts:

Chunky heart
Heart with flower

Twisty heart
A few flowers:

Purple flower

Blue flower

Yellow flower
What's interesting about the above flowers is that they're created with the same clay, but using different colors of PearlEx changes the look completely!

Here are a few more flowers:

Blue flower adjustable ring

Blue starflower
Finally, here's a pair of "California Roll" earrings.  I also have a ring up on Etsy, and other California Roll items will be added soon.  See the second picture for the details.

Post earrings


That's not all of it, but it gives you an idea of what I've been up to.  I guess I've been busier than I thought!

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Today's experiment......

.....failed. (and it's only 4:30a!)

This was going to be a Facebook status update, but it's becoming too long, and I thought my readers would like to learn from my (copious) mistakes.

Steve and I were at our friends' house yesterday (Saturday) to play games, eat, chat, etc...  Cindy and Russ are our "couples friends", and we have a blast with them.  We played Scrabble (I won), Balderdash (which is a stupid game, but I somehow won anyway), Yahtzee (I think Cindy won that), and Shanghai Rummy (This is a GREAT game I wish I could play online.  You can find rules online, but not the actual game.  I think Cindy won this one, too).

Anyway.

Cindy, Steve, and I were talking about my influx of ideas while trying to sleep and that I could use a notebook next to my bed to write things down instead of getting up to do so and/or to experiment. Well, I didn't want to use the book light - I thought it would wake Steve up. I wrote copious notes, flipping pages all over the place as I'm flipping around in the bed trying to sleep.  On my left side... ooh!  I could try this... On my stomach... ooh!  I need to add this to the notes.  Flipped to my right side....  you get the idea.  With the Fibromyalgia, it's difficult for me to get comfortable, especially since I've had a number of nights where I've gotten up because I was over-hot or wanted to try something out (either with labeling my goods in a nicer, more professional way - that was my friend Judy's fault) or with making something).


Anyway.  Flip, write, flop, write, flip...


I got up for no reason you need to know about (I had a lot of water the first time I got up tonight), then wanted to add something to my notes...


Checked them in the bathroom night light.  Ack!  Things were written on top of each other because I flipped the notebook around (a few times), and other things are invisible because the pen didn't have a good angle on the paper.  So now I'm up, with the light on in my craft room, trying to decipher my notes, rubbing pencil over the invisible parts, and trying to remember what my ideas were.  Ack!

Here's a taste of what I ended up with:





Yes, it's something about a tree and clay.  I tell you NO MORE until I do my experimenting!


Needless to say, based on these results I'm less than convinced.  I'm going to use a pencil next time - a REGULAR one, not a mechanical one, and I'll have to tie a ribbon on the top of the spiral so I know which way is up.

On a side note, I've had a few sleep studies done this last month, and I seem to have moderate to severe sleep apnea, plus some restless leg/limb stuff thrown in for good measure.  It seems highly likely I'm going to have to use a CPAP machine (information about it can be found on Wikipedia here).  Although I slept well with it during my second sleep study, I still got up a number of times to use the bathroom.  Highly irritating.

One thing I'm concerned about, though, is if my sleep gets fixed, when will I come up with my ideas?

Wait.  I've been writing this blog instead of finishing my notes.  Oops.  Hope I remember everything!  Off I go!