Artisan Component Market Grand Opening!!

Join me and my fellow bead mates for the grand opening of Artisan Component Market Place! To celebrate, I am offering a 25% discount with the code "GRANDE" We are also giving away tons of goodies!! Please help us bring to fruition a true artists selling forum. One that celebrates us fellow artists and won't bury us beneath imported mass produced crap!  

http://artisancomponentmarketplace.com/jeraluna/?page=2

http://artisancomponentmarketplace.com/

Changes

Times are tough. What is usually my most busy season has been some what of a disappointment. I know I should not count my chickens before they hatch but I really was counting on my sales to make the holiday spending easier on us.

I was doing great this last spring and summer and It was exciting to see my shop really take off! Then October hit and my sales came to a grinding halt or a trickle.  Etsy made some changes to the categories that I think was a huge loss for us in the ceramic world. Then Google changed stuff and on top of that there was a new surge of ceramic bead artists that have come up.

I love to see new peoples work and our bead group encourages people too with all kinds of helpful info on the blog.  What I don't get is why they have to undercut our prices so drastically. It drives me crazy to see stuff going for practically nothing and it under values the hard work that it takes to do this.

I can not put that many hours into something and then sell it for nothing it is a waste of my time and makes me unhappy. I don't want to try and cut corners either because that is unfair to the customer.  So I have some thinking to do.

I know I am going to spend more time on my miniature sculptures. So I am looking forward to seeing where that takes me.

So keep a look out for new miniatures and hopefully some new designs in the component category.

Polymer Bead Adventures

A few weeks ago my kiln broke down.  While waiting on parts to fix it, I was perusing the isles of Michael s craft store and I saw a colorful set of Sculpty Clay and what do you know I happened to have a %50 coupon on me!

I had played with Fimo clay when it first came out and even took a cane class so I figured I could remember some of the techniques and google what I did not know.

I pulled out my pasta machine and some clay tools and went to work.  My first attempts at marbling were a disaster.  My clay turned a muddy grey color ..I guess I was overzealous with the pasta machine....opps!  I decided to work with it anyway and textured it and I could add paint later if I still didn't like.

I also made a lumpy rainbow cane, a super bright colored flower cane, and some bird and hedgehog beads.

I was delighted that it took such a short time to bake and that I could sand and paint them right away, which totally feeds my instant gratification part of me.

I have to say I love the results and the ugly grey beads are my favorite ones! I even made a new section in my store for them here Polymer Clay.

These are the beads I made with the ugly grey clay disaster. I used Vintaj Patina on them and I love them!

This is what I made from the "Lumpy Rainbow Cane" I love these too.

Some sweet little birds I made and then painted.

 I really like this set too.  I used white clay and cut it into geometric faceted beads.  I then used Vintaj patina on them. I used a low grit sand paper too scuff them up and applied a clear satin finish.

I think I will continue to experiment with this fun medium.  There is so much to learn and try.