Slowness and Snack Shushing

Sometimes I feel like I am swimming against the current with too much that I want to do and not enough time or energy. For example, I really want to put images on my website of my new paintings. I have mentioned this a million times, and mentioning it does make me feel like I am closer to achieving it, but really, I am no closer. That's life, I guess. I hope that when I am ready to die that I don't feel like I have so much I want to do... 

maybe I should just surrender.

Above is a plate/bowl hybrid that I am making.  It is made with recycled newspaper and other bits and pieces that I am painting on to seal it, making it waterproof (hopefully).  

I am not sure why he is shushing me.  

What about black pepper-flavored snacks make ninjas shush people?  

Just a quick blog for today.  

Thanks to Michelle for her endless and amazingly helpful comments!  

Thanks also to my other lovely comment writers (and for Grammy's e-mails)!

Thank you! Thank you! 

I am starting to feel like I am not writing letters and throwing them into an empty abyss.

Looking, Watching and Exploding

This is a picture I took on my way home last week.  

The building on the left is an elementary school I teach at.  

Beautiful flowers, huh?

No matter how often I clean off my studio table, I somehow end up with this much room to work with.  I guess I just have to trust my natural process and don't fight the tidal wave of craft that takes over my space.  As you can see, I still try to wear my apron 24/7.  

I promise not to get paint on it!!!!

For my birthday, I bought a beautiful owl clock from the thrift store.  It is AMAZING.  It is tacky in a perfect way and the eyes move back and forth with the seconds.  I feel like I have a new pet that talks to me and watches me while I am making.  

The thing I am holding is a bracelet I was commissioned to make by my friend Charlie.  She is a fashionable English teacher in a city near here.  She requested crazy, brightly colored and a bit of tackiness.  She came to the right woman!

This is a perfect example of why I am in Japan.  Even the snack food bags are beautiful in just the way I like them.  These were delicious, by the way.  They tasted like healthy "Cheetos" because they are made of beans (hence the giant bean-being).

Our buddies Eric and Mai!  They are showing off two pairs of earrings I made. I this this photo is the "kaboom" that Mai's shirt warns about. The paintings, and Mai and Eric's shirts are explosive!

The painting in the middle is a glance at my newer work. Much more space!

I am working on documenting all of my finished paintings and posting them on my website. I teach two full days of elementary school tomorrow and Wednesday so I am pretty sure I will be a tired lady, but I am excited to get newer work out into Internet Land.

Time to go search for plane tickets!  I get to go home in July after almost a year.  Yay!  

an apron and a little needed help

 

I received this BEAUTIFUL apron in the mail last night for my birthday from the Dunn family in Tampa Florida.  Thanks guys!  It is perfect and it makes me want to cook AND to make aprons myself (perhaps with Japanese fabric?)  This apron has love birds on it.  I love the style.  It is very vintage and it has two cute but very practical pockets on the front.  Yay!  I wore it all evening, and then this morning, after Mikel took this photo, I almost didn't take it off before going to work.  

"Flower Soup"

The "needed help" which I mention in the title is this:

I have the worst photography skills.  Ok, not the worst, but when I think about what I want my photos to look like,  I can's seem to find a fool-proof way to take images that will look funky, beautiful and detailed all in one.  I am talking, of course, about my jewelry photos.  I want my images to be as inspiring as those in a book I REALLY want (and am looking to buy soon) called Bazaar Style.  I also want them to be consistent without being exactly the same; in other words, I want them to all portray the feeling that I feel when I make and wear my jewelry, and the way that I want other people to want to feel.  I want to inspire creativity, making other people want to wear my jewelry and to make their own art as well.  

How do I do that?  

If anyone has a tip or suggestion for my photos I would really REALLY appreciate it.  How do you want to see my jewelry?  What is most interesting?  Funky?  Informative? Any suggestion would be helpful because I am a little clueless.  Maybe Mikel has some new ideas.....

I have been checking out amazing crafters on ETSY for ideas about photos and everything, really. 

I also found a cool interview of a crafter named Allyson Hill.  I like her work (the image above: a garbage bag for your car), but I like her story of success even more because she is a full-time crafter and single mother of a 7-year-old in Upstate NY.  Cool photos and cool life, I think.

Birthday, Beads and Buddies

I didn't know that Mikel was taking this photo of me AND my sculpture, but think it is a nice shot of my cool new boots, the view from our apartment and my funky new Japan-style sweater.  

This is a cool little assemblage I made.  It isn't a professional shot, but it is playful anyway.

Ninja boots!  They finally came in the mail!!

These are called "Tabi."  They are worn by construction workers mostly, but I think they used to be worn by ninjas.  They are very comfortable and functional.  I might indulge in a polka-dot pair.  Check out more at this website: Sou Sou

This is a rushed, blurry image from the sale in Matsumoto on Saturday.  The reason I look like I am rushed is because I was.  The talent show ran long and the security guard kicked us all out. In a frantic last ten minutes (as about six people helped me put my stuff back in boxes and bags) I sold a few pairs of earrings to some nice English teachers who were patient with my frantic-ness.

The sale went pretty well. I didn't sell as much as I would have hoped, but I did get a lot of positive feedback, and I gave away many business cards.  I also met some really cool people.  It is a great feeling to be able to communicate in the language that I am fluent in, especially with interesting, worldly people who live and work abroad.  

This sale also planted the seed for a possible beading workshop taught by me in the next few months.  I hope it works out!  I have always wanted to teach workshops to people who are enthusiastic for learning a creative craft.

The coolest part of the weekend was that Sunday was my 25th birthday!  Mikel and I had a great day.  We ate Indian food at a place we love and bought some cool new clothing at a flea market in the city.  I'll post pictures soon! This was a great weekend for a birthday!! 

Business-ness

***One last reminder***

My sale at Beaded Weeds will end tomorrow and I will take all of the jewelry off the site.  I will load new pieces soon after, but if you have been eyeing something for a while, grab it (with free shipping!) before someone else does in Matsumoto 

tomorrow night.

Otherwise, check back soon for new pieces on ETSY.

Have a great day!

Stress Mess

This is a bracelet I made for my sister, Jaime, for her graduation last year.  I think the photo looks so nice.  It is on the cover of my press release booklet.  I decided to chill out and not try and finish the press release for this weekend.  I kinda had a little... okay, BIG stress breakdown last night.  It is a little too ambitious and I still haven't even priced my pieces yet!  I have about 100 pieces of jewelry to price before we leave for The Moto tomorrow morning.  Priorities!

Good News!

My new website is in action!  

It is a bit under construction, but for now it connects my online personality at one site.  

Check it out! 

I am so excited about it.  

Worm Teeth and Sweaty Stealth

Well, it's official:  I have more than one cavity.  I have been bragging for years that I only had one, and that it was the fault of my braces, not me.  Fortunately (unfortunately?) thanks to the magic of the Japanese dentist office I went to yesterday, I now know that I have three.  I even got to take home detailed pictures of my, "worm teeth" (get it?  holes in teeth as if worms ate through them...eww!)  

The visit was actually quite spectacular, despite my bad news.  Even though the dentist and the hygienists didn't speak much English, I got by on my skills of nodding a lot and trying to remember what I normally do in the dentist chair (try not to breath through my mouth when the mirror is in there, don't look at the light...)  They took x-rays and the detailed photos of my bouche (mouth in French?  Feel free to correct me.  My computer doesn't have French spellcheck... or does it?)   They put the digital photos on to a computer which then showed up on the computer screen in front of me.  AMAZING!  The tiny black dots on my teeth were way too big for comfort and the dentist was able to talk/mime the problems to me as we looked at my teeth together.  

Then, my top teeth were luxuriously cleaned with delicious apple flavored tooth paste (for some reason I have to get the bottoms cleaned next week.  I guess we ran out of time.)  It wasn't a normal teeth cleaning.  It was like my teeth went to the spa!

The last time... okay, the only time that I went to the spa, I dropped $80.00 after a 50% discount.   So you can imagine how floored I was when I was charged about $15.00 for my appointment yesterday.  Woohoo! I don't know how much it will be to fix my worm teeth, but I am not worried anymore.

My new business cards!!

I finally finished designing my press release for my jewelry and my new business cards.  I am trying to be stealthy so that I can use the printers and scanners at school.  The stress of it makes me sweat (okay, what doesn't make me sweat?)  It's like I have a twisted flower-pedal-plucking going on on my head, "I'm a bad kid.  I'm not a bad kid. I'm a bad kid.  I'm not a bad kid."  I have pretty much come to the conclusion that I should just buy my own laser printer so I can sweat at home. 

Mikel spent hours last night filing and wiggling my earring hooks while I worked on my computer business.  I finally went to bed at 11:00 when Mikel started to work on my website (It'll be up soon!!)  I think he went to bed around 1:00 am.  What would I do with out him?   

Thanks Mikey!!

Also, thanks to Madame Hirota for translating my press release into Japanese for me!  When I figure out how to scan it onto my lovely press release I will be psyched!

The Jewelry Show Preparation Marathon continues!