First off, thanks to all who left comments on my Remembrance post!  It was so, so, so wonderful!

Secondly, I've been burning the candle at both ends so am taking a mini blog vacation.  Plus this weekend is a Cub Scout camp out and it would be totally dorky to take a laptop (taking wire, pliers, and some beads, however, is not dorky, EVER).   I have about 4 half-finished bead projects and with all of the rain can't get very good pictures, so maybe it's time to take a step back for a couple days and reattack (in an airy fairy crafty way :-)) after the camp out.  Have I mentioned it's been raining a lot?  I am thinking lots of mud will be involved in our adventure.  Have a great weekend everyone, and enjoy these pix from the summer!

In our house, after the kids are in bed, Layla has gotten her evening walk, and the usual daily chores are complete, we retreat to our office.  We spend quality time together with our backs to each other at our desks, mumbling under our breaths as Greg tackles his CFO duties and I blog and bead or do other Mom electronic chores.  Poor Greg is interrupted often by my demanding his opinion on whatever piece of jewelry I might be working on.  On one recent occasion he (to my delight) said "Wow!" and then "Where is all this creativeness coming from?"





I had already been thinking about my Dad as a subject for my Art Bead Scene carnival blog post on the theme REMEMBRANCE, but I have realized that my current work/craft situation is so much like my Dad, Ted.  He was in the Navy, drove ships, then retired and worked with radars and traffic signal equipment.  But he was also a life long model railroader.  And a genius designer/problem solver.  When my brother and I were young and struggled with the camp chore of refilling the water jugs, he designed one on wheels.  At our church he figured out how to design wooden candelabras that fit securely onto the railings to make for a beautiful Christmas Eve service. 

Litterally as I was filing off a rough edge of a non-bead I am using as a focal, I turned on the computer, friended someone on Facebook (yay, Erin!) and decided to write a quick post, and then, and then...perhaps meditation would help?  Doubtful! 

I have too many ideas in my head, and awesome learning events like ArtBliss add more (like the long list of tools that I NOW NEED DEPERATELY :-)).  Plus I'm a jump in with two feet kinda gal when I am jazzed about something, so now that I have joined this or that group, I've added to my deadlines and to do lists.  And this is just beading...there are the other parts of my life crowded in there too...family and my (paying) day job.  (stop...breathe) 

So one thing I have been thinking about is how to get Beads for Busy Gals "out there."  The moms I hang out with like the jewelry I wear, but how do I turn them into customers?  One avenue I am investigating is putting an ad in the school directory.  It's only $50 for a business card space, so I am going to give it a try and see what happens.  I took my current business card and added some more info, what do you think?  The "make and take parties" is another new avenue I am pursuing...I had such a good time teaching at Emma's summer camp I thought it might be something I could offer locally for birthday parties.  Anyone else try something similar?

I posted, oh, 2 months ago, about an impromptu visit to a Borders and the craft biz books I bought.  I also probably warned you that I am horrible about finishing non-fiction books, but I did actually finish one - Craft Inc - Turn Your Creative Hobby Into a Business by Meg Mateo Ilasco.  A couple things I liked right off:  It's a purse sized book, it's made with luscious paper, and the graphic design is beautiful.  The book was also sprinkled with interviews of successful craft based business owners that covered the spectrum from a single mom that started selling her crocheted scarves to make some extra money for her family (Sunshine Scarves - very cool pictures!) to a struggling potter who grew his business into a "design empire" (Jonathan Adler).  I really LOVE personal stories - makes it seem less text book-y.

This book was the kind of read where I filled the inside front cover with a to do list as I read through the chapters, but I especially liked the very beginning.  Meg started with a couple pages on what she calls, "Creative Mythology," which speaks to the thoughts you have that are keeping you from launching a creative, crafty business:

1.  To be an artist you have to have a background in fine arts or design.
2.  I'm too old to tap into my creativity and start my own creative business.
3.  All the creative ideas have already been done.
4.  You need to quit your full time job to make time for your craft.
5.  You need to wait for the right time to start your creative business.

Have any of you had those thoughts?  I know I have!  So with that bit of "You CAN do it" confidence and a "Hey, this book is for ME" I finished it full of ideas for how to do what I am doing now better and where I can take my dream business.  And that was a run-on sentance worthy of Juls. :-)

Wow - what a great weekend of learning, socializing, bead talk, getting to know you talk, and excellent brownies to top it all off!

Yesterday I took Deryn Mentock's awesome Link Love class, and today I got the chance to take Kerry Bogert's Bang-a-Rang class.  First, a word about Kerry...

If you read her blog or have read her book, you would expect a lovely, creative, giving teacher and you would be completely correct.  Not only that, but she refused to let us fall into silent concentration...she kept the conversation flowing and floated from student to student, seemingly with a 6th sense for when our wiring was going off of the tracks!  We made two bangles from her book - Unhinged and Bang-a-rang, plus a third bangle that she added to the class just for ArtBLISS (note all the blingidy blingly bling on my wrist).  All of the beads in our kits were made by Kerry, to include the "create" bead that is the focal for the third bangle.  What was great about the class is that we started with copper, the Coiling Gizmo, and some colored copper wire to get the hang of things before getting down to business with her handmade beads and sterling silver.  I can't say enough about what a relaxing and fun class it was, yet I walked away filled with ideas.  Here are some quick pix of what I got to make today:

I am participating in the awesome bead retreat put on by Cindy Wimmer and Jeanette Blix Ryan of ArtBliss fame.  The Friday night meet and great was great fun - always wonderful to meet fellow-minded jewelry obsessors and meet virtual friends in person.  You can see a video of the meet and great on Cindy's blog here.


Today I took the Link Love course taught by Deryn Mentock.  She is an incredible artist and incredibly generous with her talent.  She has an excellent blog, Something Sublime, where I found this much better than I could write description of her work:  Her designs mingle unique, worn and well-loved finds, religious pieces and faceted, semi-precious stones as well as one-of-a-kind handmade elements, combined in unexpected ways.    You can tell by her genuine smile as I hovered for a picture what a nice gal she is!

Imagine 15 or so women with hammers and steel wire in hand as Deryn put us through our paces...it was loud!  My friend Pam provides the hands for this video:

We visited our good friends Andy and Sandy in Seattle in August - you might remember that I made this for Sandy.  Her daughter loved it too, so I made a 6 year old version to send as a thank you after we got home.  During our visit, Sandy and I got a chance to spend some girl-only time shopping, and we spent some time admiring beautiful sparkly accessories and wispy, delicate scarfs...which we never get a chance to wear.  Sandy also mentioned that the now required at almost all work places badge and badge lanyard made it difficult to accessorize.  With that in mind, I added to the thank you package a more girly, jewelry inspired lanyard for Sandy that included a silver and a matte black chain that could be switched out depending on what Sandy was wearing.  I also added a small lobster clasp to the chains so the size could be easily adjusted (Sandy is petite).  Did I take a picture of this of-the-moment inspiration?  No!

Earlier this week Sandy sent me a text asking for the Beads for Busy Gals web site and Etsy shop because many of her co-workers had admired her spiffy new lanyard and wanted to know where to get one.  This is wonderful news, except that Sandy was wearing the second ever lanyard I had made (the one before was for my Mom).

Not to be daunted by this fact, I worked in a trip to Michaels while my Michael was at choir practice last night for more chain and large lobster clasps.  They also had a lot of cool and funky charms on sale, and hey look at those cool crackled resin beads...so easily distracted...but I found what I needed (plus quite a bit more, naturally) to get started on some lanyards for my shop.  The pictures are not the best, because I am lacking daylight time to take better pictures, but you'll get the idea.  For whatever reason, I decided to give them all names of women that I am related to or should be related to:

Sandy - because (I hope) this resembles the one I made for her.  The original design had an Eiffel Tower charm, one of the places we've visited together:

  

I received a surprise package in the mail this week - my prize from the Art with a Heart challenge.  There was a couple strands of stone and glass beads, a Softflex wire trio of lime green, purple and turquoise (Egg Hunt) and a large bag of resin beads.  I've been dying to try all the cool shapes that Happy Mango Beads has for sale, so this will give me a great start.  Also among the goodies was a purple stone peace sign.  It caught the attention of my daughter Emma, and although she would never come right out and say "I want that", I recognized that look of beady covetiveness in her eyes.  So late last night ('cause all beading in my world happens late at night) I wire wrapped it, and attached a small amethyst stone, to use with the cord from her first day of school necklace.  I left it on the kitchen island for her to find this morning.

About two months ago I set some summer goals, and since September is almost over, I thought I would review and see how I did.

1. I MUST FIGURE OUT a better way to take pictures - something that works after dark since my daylight beading time is limited.

HOW DID I DO:  I just made more of an effort to take pictures outside before the sun went down.  I took pictures of everything I have made and replaced EVERY PICTURE I have on Etsy.   Man!  That was hard but I think it will be worth it.

2. I MUST FIGURE OUT a way to store/display completed pieces.

HOW DID I DO:  I bought key hooks from Target and mini drawers from the Container Store and now have a neater work area (although the clutter is creeping in again - yikes!)  Check out the results here.

3. I need to act upon the couple ideas in my head right now and make the pieces I have imagined.

HOW DID I DO:  Got a couple things made, and have been enjoying the Art Bead Scene Blog monthly challenges and La Bella Joya's weekly Margie and Me challenges to stretch a little here and there.  They are all listed in my Etsy shop.

4. I need to start what I am calling my Emma Challenge.

HOW DID I DO:  This one is still on the to do list.

5. It seems I have volunteered to teach my kids day camp how to make some jewelry.

HOW DID I DO:  It was great fun!  And it gave me the idea that maybe this is an area I should look into as a new business area - beading birthday parties!  Need to ponder that one more.

This week's Designer of the Week is...me!  What a thrill to open up Google Reader and see my name!  To say it made my day is a HUGE understatement.  Shannon from Miss Fickle Media selected me and I will now be her devoted slave.  My entry in this month's challenge was this:

After action report, hot wash, post-mortem, lessons learned  - whatever the term you use it's important I think to reflect on events that are important to you and see how you can do it better next time.  In this case, I am talking about my participation in the St Luke's Craft Fair in Alexandria, VA.

A bit of a crazy weekend here at the Auld household.  Let me recap:  Saturday morning craft fair set up, after set up Greg takes Emma to Emergency Room 'cause the shoulder she fell on Thursday doesn't seem to be getting better.  Greg drops off Michael with DS and Legos and we hang at the fair.   In relatively short order the text report arrives that there is no sign of fracture.  Greg brings Emma to craft fair, we have lunch, boys depart, 'cause really, craft fairs are kind of a female scene.  Greg calls an hour later saying that on second look, the Emergency Room staff thinks it might be a green stick fracture and they want to see her again to splint it.  Not to be totally bad parents, but how to work this in with the other scheduled Saturday events?

Greg takes Michael to planned play date with BFF and fellow Lego aficionado Nathanial.  Returns to craft fair to pick us and all our stuff up.  We drop stuff at home and head to our hair cut appointments.  I know, I know - the girl needs a splint and I took her to get her hair cut first?  Yep.  But we both looked like Shuan White and the haircuts were completely necessary.  We get Emma in early, then Greg picks her up and heads to Emergency Room.  After I finish, I head home via Nathanial's.  At this point we are already late for a dinner party with a close friend.  I know, I know - again - but this is an annual dinner my friend hosts in honor of her brother who died in an airplane crash 15 years ago.  It was a lovely dinner, Emma was really doing okay plus gets oodles of sympathy.  We get home late and crash, to awaken this morning to Sunday School teaching, church, then the boys head out on a Scout hike.  Emma and I I chill and attempt to get the 3 tons of laundry under control, get the trash out, and get dinner started.  Okay, she mostly chills, I mostly run around like a crazy person.  Whew!

I'll post more on the craft fair tomorrow (let's call it a semi-success), but while there I worked on a project to keep my hands busy and well, to seem more like the jewelry designer I aspire to be.  My inspiration was this week's Margie and Me challenge put together by La Bella Joya, a slipper orchid:

Have a great week everyone!

I am participating in my second ever craft fair Saturday, at St Lukes in Alexandria, VA.  Last year's St Lukes craft fair would be my first craft fair experience :-)  and while it was pretty positive, I didn't sell tons.  This year I am a little more organized, have my Etsy shop full of all my inventory and plan to hand out little fliers on where to find me after the fair.  I have a cool new banner from Vista Print that arrived today and we have a new canopy (wicked summer storm destroyed the last one!).  Emma is fired up to be my assistant, and there is a BBQ and pony rides as well, so I am sure it will be a fun day. 

Many of you have lots of craft fair experience - what's your best advice?

I love the Art Bead Scene Blog's monthly challenges because they always pick such interesting topics for inspiration.  This month's inspiration is called Persia by George Barbier (1882 - 1932), and you can find more details here.

When I was deployed to Iraq, we called our unit "The Posse."  Our rally call was, "Posse Up," our version of "Let's roll!"  Sounds goofy I know, but when you spend a year on essentially an island surrounded by desert, the silly becomes normal.  One of the most memorable members of the Posse, for me, was April.  She is an awesome woman, smart and professional -- I know she will be a future leader of the Air Force -- but she also was the spirit of the squadron.  The pie-in-the-face fundraiser, the America's Got Talent night, you name it, April was involved, and by being involved, she made it better for all of us there.  She signed up all of the females in the unit for the Fire Muster -- sort of a fun fire department Olympics -- and told the male team we would beat them.  We did (only by a couple seconds, but that totally counted for bragging rights).  She asked me to reenlist her - a small ceremony where we recite the oath of office, and April figured out how to get us all on an Army helicopter to do it. (April on left of both pictures)

April:  If I wanted to buy the Pink Flamenco Earrings you have on Etsy...what are the chances I could get some sort of necklace made to go with them???

Me:  Definitely possible - not sure if I have the exact same pink beads but I bet I could come up with something :-)

April:  i mostly like the big metal-y part and the fact that the beads are pink...so if you have more of the metal-y things and some other pink beads maybe you could do something else. I don't have to that exact pair of earrings...but something like them would be awesome!

Me:  Can do - ideas already brewing in my head :-)

April:  before you get going on that jewelry set (since i know it will be first on your priority list when you return home (from vacation)...ha ha ha!) any chance you can make the necklace with more than one strand that are different lengths? make sense? I'm into those right now. I'm sure I'll love whatever you come up with...and if I'm getting too picky let me know...just throwing ideas at you of what i like. oh, and i like necklaces that sit more in the middle of my chest, not too far past the collar bone...instead of the longer type. a girl can never bee too picky you know! ha ha ha! =O) I'm so excited to have an Auld Origional!

Me:  April - don't want you to think that I have forgotten - been gathering supplies and recovering from the Auld Summer Adventure. I have some ideas so will work on it this week and send pictures. No obligation to like what I make :-)

Me (next day):  Here is my idea for the necklace - ignore the wires sticking out from the beads - I won't loop and trim until we are happy. Hopefully you can see the black chain - thought that and silver and pink crystals would be so April


Me (again):  Imagine all of these pieces connected and hanging from an earring wire :-) Black chain piece is optional...heck...all of it is optional :-)


April:  I love love love the necklace! And I think I'd like the earrings better without the black chain. Now I am just going to need to pick something out to wear this with!! =O)

I couldn't leave behind the notion of the black chain bits becoming earrings, so April gets two pairs:

 

As is usual for me, it is half past 11 on Sunday night and my to do list is not quite done.  I have all the "have tos" done - soccer medical forms, swim team registration forms, two packages wrapped up to get into the mail - but am now out of time to do the "like tos" - get a couple posts written or fiddle with bead combinations until inspiration strikes.  Think about the beading possibilities if only I could get by without sleeping :-) 

So instead of a usual post here is some lovely inspiration for the week - the wonderful greens, cool water, and incredible wild flowers of Mt Rainier, Washington.  We set out for a 1 mile hike up to the closest waterfalls, then decided to walk further, and then a bit further, until it became more like a 5 mile hike.  It was beautiful, but we set out without water and right before lunch time.  We parents failed in the "be prepared" department but we all survived.  The kids got to throw snow balls at each other in August and we got within a foot or two of a marmot (I will spare you the zillions of pictures we took of Mr Marmot) so all in all it was a great day.  Have a wonderful week!