August 10, 2007

• Making Things

  I haven’t written much, because I’ve been glued (almost literally, damn you cyanoacrylate epoxy!) to my studio. The beads are going really well, and right now I’m just building up stock to put in my online shop. Grand opening, along with new website, will hopefully be next week. I’ve been doing a bunch of “online networking” and putting some ads and marketing stuff, making some little animations, all on top of designing the new site. There are not enough hours in the day. And yet again, i’m up past my bedtime, hehe.
  

  ---

  Edit:

  here’s some links for Moontree Bead Company online. Woohoo!

  Xanga
  Myspace
  IndiePublic

  Coming soon:

  moontree.etsy.com
  thewhole9 online portfolio
  gohuman.com listing
  cutout&keep profile
  craftlister.com

  ---

  For starters, my hands were getting tired from hand-rolling hundreds of paper beads, yargh, so I ventured downtown to the hardware store to pick up some materials for an “invention”. The guy behind the counter was baffled as to why i’d ever need five copper couplings and an electrical box in one go.

  

  It works really well, for being completely jerry-rigged; the broad end of the paper goes between the two pins and you turn the handle, which rolls the paper into a coil. And it looks schnazzy. Heh. Even my tools are artsy.

  So I painted a bunch more sheets of paper, so that should give me a good supply of colors to work with. I’m also getting requests from crafty people who want to buy just the paper for scrapbooking, so i’ll probably make some paper pack assortments, too. Here’s some paper, and the beads I made from it.
   

   
   
  

   

  I didn’t want to slice any of it up. That’s how i know it will make great beads.

  

  

  

  I also fiddled around with the poetry beads some more, but i’m not really satisfied with the white paper. I’ll probably go with vellum or metallics. Or metallic vellum! There must be such a thing. At any rate, I also looked up a tutorial on acrylic gel transfers, which was wicked cool, but it didn’t really fly with transferring text to the beadies.

  

  These will become pendants or bookmarks; the single word beads were Savon’s idea.

  

  Twinkle, twinkle!

  

  This is a really strange and kinda beautiful necklace I made a few years ago out of some yellowed vintage paper beads I bought at a yard sale. I’m sure they’re really old. the necklace has a ton of other things incorporated into it, everything from indian glass beads to murano to cheapo plastic. I call it The Ugly Necklace, but it’s kind of fascinating.

  Oh, and then I ordered a ridiculous amount of stuff from the bead supplier, and got a kickass discount. Some boring stuff like plastic baggies and wire, but also some goofy they they had on sale and a bulk quantity of furnace glass artisan beads to resell. I’ve also been waiting on a shipment  of Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel, which I’ve never heard of before this week, nevermind ever tried before (curse you rubber stamp scrapbookers! curse you all to scrappy hell!), but supposedly it’s the shiznit for glazing and sealing beads. Right now that’s the big holdup- I can’t sell my beads until they’re glazed, and I can’t make any jewelry samples to take to local galleries either. I’m getting impatient.

  In the meantime, I’ve been in contact with a small publisher who asked me to do some illustrations for a book he’s going to print in the fall. If he likes these, i’ve pretty much sealed the deal and my first book will be published by next spring. It’s a children’s story about a ballerina pig and her friend- not really my cup of tea, but cute nonetheless. At any rate, I’ve become really attached to the characters already. Here’s the prelims, which I’ll color tomorrow:

  
   
  

   

  Aaaand then i made some more beads. I bought some clear vinyl and I’ve been trying out different paints on it, and then cutting it up and making long beads from that. So far, i like how slick they are but i can’t get the color bright enough. I’m going to kick it into high gear tomorrow and get them finished, so i can make them into a cuff bracelet by the weekend. Then photograph it ASAP. Lark Book Publishing has a deadline next week for images for their Plastic/Resin Art jewelry book being published in the spring, and i’m going to try to get in. Yikes.

  And then over the past two days I created some jewelry components out of polymer clay. The highlight is this crazy pendant I made for myself, which I know will serve as a good conversation piece and maybe attract some new clientele. Sneaky sneaky.

  

  I also made a bajillion pairs of earrings with crystal and vintage rhinestones, and then after I made the arrings i was like, “oh, hey, hows about some pendants to go with them,” and then after that  I made some more bits and pieces to go into bracelets. They’re all going into the shop next week ; )

  

  

  

  

  So yeah, I’ve been busy. Matt made note of the fact that it seems like I’m working more than ever; it doesn’t feel like work though. i’ll be happy when it comes to fruition. We’ve been having fun. I’m really really happy. Other than needing to go outside more and enjoy the sunshine, yeah, things are really swell.

  Yay, beads!       

  • 1:22 am
  • 10 Comments