Goodbye Website Shop, Chronic Blog Neglect and more bleedin' Lockdown to get through. . .

Blog neglect taken to the lengths that I have taken it to is probably a criminal offence. . . But I just don't feel the urge these days. The Groundhog Day existence this Covid virus has caused doesn't help. At least my repetitive life involves some repetitive selling. Grateful thanks to all the bead buyers out there still accumulating the raw materials for their jewellery projects.

My website has also suffered. I only have one because I feel I ought to, and my website shop is only there because people say that a stand alone shop is a good thing to have. I am not convinced. I am even less motivated to promote it than I am to make blog posts so it is somewhat unloved right now. Most of all by me. I do OK on Etsy and sell on Facebook so really it is surplus to requirements. I am going to wind the shop up and put the beads etc on Etsy, or FB from time to time. The website itself I will keep as a source of info if anyone wishes to find out anything about my work that isn't obvious by looking at it. .

Black and white scratch design spindle bead

On the domestic front, we are down to two chickens. Not sure what happened to the two that went missing but the F word is the obvious answer, a fox got them I am guessing. No stray tell-tale clumps of feathers though so it was a clean job. Must have been a daylight raid as they sleep in their firmly shut chicken coop thingy (a converted child's Wendy House according to the previous house owner. .) They had also stopped laying a week or two ago, not sure why but it does happen from time to time I am told. I will probably get a couple of replacements next spring, maybe some more arty, feathery legged ones this time, we shall see.

We have four adult geese now as the two goslings have grown into healthy adults, just as raggedy looking as their parents. Sebastopol geese are such eccentric looking things, like they just had a fight with a shredder ;-) Noisy, but amusing have around, mostly. .

Work - More of the same sort of thing. Variations on stripe painted 'spindles' and spikes, with some nice scratch design beads thrown in. Less of the Industrial Boho side of things but I am moving in that direction again.

I did make some moulds using plastic dinosaurs. Not as popular as I had hoped but fun to make and fun to use.

I have made a couple of small assemblage/diorama things but am awaiting a bit more inspiration before I take them any further.

'Nicholson'

Backing Singers. .

I would really like to make more actual jewellery, but it is a whole new ball game and I need to get more confident that I am making the most of my work and my particular way of creating. It has to fit my aesthetic so to speak. Also, if I am going to tie up fifty quids worth of beads and focal etc in a necklace, I would need to sell stuff for a decent price. I have to feel that what I make is 'worth it', not to mention whether there is a receptive audience for it out there.

Earrings do seem to be the way to go too. Everyone else seems to make them, and they keep on selling. I assume that earrings are the sort of thing that buyers like to have lots of around, unlike necklaces. Still considering this. . .

Oh yes, I also made a couple of pieces into cool wall art, by deepening a couple of small, ornate-ish frames that I had knocking around, to make shallow, shadow box type things, into which I put a couple of pieces that were once intended to be pendants but looked good just as they were. I think they came out well. The trouble is that now we have another Lockdown I can't pay a visit to the framing shop to see what other small frames they have lurking on their shelves so I can make some more. Fah!

Oh well, I shall persevere and we will all get through this. . . The vaccine news is good, so far, and though I hate to mention politics, the US election 'should' work out for the best eventually. I must admit it has been depressing the life out of me and I don't even live there!

Anyway, stay safe and stay well,

Jon x

Stripes, Glitches, Multi Image Trans Veneers, Model Railway Figures and Fancy Lawn Mowers

Well, still in the throes of this lockdown thing though the situation has eased slightly. Shops are open again apparently, which makes no difference to me as I am not remotely interested in risking my life and that of others in order to 'shop'. To be fair I don't do 'shopping' at the best of times, I buy stuff as and when I need it, so I don't see shopping as a recreational activity in it's own right and can't understand why anyone does ;-) Especially in those hideous, charmless and soul destroying places known as Malls. . .

Of course being a hypocrite, I enjoy trawling through charity shops and the scruffier kind of antique shops and finding interesting things therein. . . That doesn't count as shopping though, obviously. . .

My wife went to the coast yesterday to scope out the seaside town for possible painting locations, she is part of a 'plein air' landscape group who intend to meet up on Sunday for the first time since lockdown began. The place was heaving with visitors, no masks, no social distancing, just crowds of idiots. So she came home pretty quick. What is wrong with people? Silly question, don't get me started. . So no plein air meeting on Sunday, or if there is, she won't be going.

While I am on the subject of domestic life, the two goslings are growing apace and are over half as big as mum and dad. They are growing white feathers to replace the downy yellow ones they had up to now. Big fat healthy buggers they are too. Good to see. The moorhens have several babies but are being quite shy about it all, very protective, so I'm not sure how many babies. At least three.

Anyway, I'm still making and selling stuff, so not a lot has changed for me really. I tend to move between obsessions, bead wise, and have been exploring striped tube type beads and 'spindles' for a while. Encouraged, it has to be said, by buyers being quite keen on them. I try to avoid the temptation to make things because I 'know' they will sell, but I fall prey to it from time to time. I usually find that when that happens it turns and bites me in the bum. The surefire sellers don't sell and I am left feeling suitable chastened for my presumption, and determined not to get caught again. Until next time ;-)

The stripey stuff is getting to the bum biting stage I think so I need to move on again.

Luckily, I still have my obsession with image transfer tiles on upcycled wire frames. I have been messing around with veneers. Not very much, but I have been having fun painting and distressing sheets of poly clay and using the results instead of image transfers on tile beads. I have also combined paint and multiple image transfers, distressing and overlaying them. All great fun. I shall try some more in due course.

I also made use of what would otherwise have been an annoying glitch. The laser printer decided to splatter and splurge ink on the back of the paper, while printing faded rubbish on the front. It hadn't been used for a while so I think it was getting back into the swing of things via a mistake or two. Anyway, the splurges on the back looked interesting so I used them as image transfers. 

I also have an ongoing obsession with model railway figures, the little people that model railway enthusiasts position on platforms etc. I have used them before on wire frames, but it occurred to me that I could embed them in a sheet of poly clay, with other suitable and unsuitable objects. That is how my most recent pendant things were born. 

I am reluctant to sell them, but am not sure what else I would do with them. I may see how difficult or otherwise it is to make brooches, or try to find a way of hanging them on some kind of string/thing/whatever to make a pendant necklace, I dunno. No hurry. I do need to source some more figures though. Ebay is the place by the look of it. They ain't cheap though.

That's all very well, but what about the fancy lawnmower? I hear you cry. . Well, my wife finally got so fed up with having to ask me to start the old lawnmower as she couldn't muster the physical oomph to do it herself, that she went out and bought a small, sit on lawn tractor type thing. One that starts with key. It's red and shiny. . . It also doesn't cut shorter than 3mm, which is a bit long for a lawn. The solution to this problem? Let the tyres down! Only a bit, but it brings the blades lower and makes a nice neat cut. . . Technology eh?

See you next time, 

Jon x