New resin jewelry

Exciting news!

I have a new line of silver tone resin jewelry!  This has been in the making since January (with a couple of hiccups along the way), but they are looking sooooooooooo good!  So here are the details:

These pieces are like what I've been making, with a few exceptions:

• They are made of pewter
• No open backs
• Sterling silver filled ear wires (Read about sterling silver filled wire)

They still have yummy colors and a soft, satin finish.

Here's a few random pictures:

These are a tray of mostly earrings.  There are earring singles (round or square) or earrings doubles (double circles or square/circle).











A closeup of a couple of the pewter pendants before they are filled with colored resin.

Why make resin jewelry out of pewter?  There are actually a few reasons for this:

Sterling silver prices are obnoxious.  (Get precious metals quotes at kitco.com.)  I have created these new resin jewelry pendants and earrings to have the same artistic look as my sterling silver resin jewelry, but I can do it for about a third of the price.  The other neat thing about pewter is that it is an alloy of tin and copper.  (Sometimes it includes lead, but my jewelry does not.)  It's not going to tarnish like sterling silver does.  I love the silver pieces but with the price of silver now and the economy still on uncertain ground, my retail and wholesale customers have been asking about alternatives.  I still have some sterling silver and resin jewelry pieces and will be happy to do the new designs in sterling silver by special order.



 
A group of the new pewter pieces lined up and ready.













Normally, I only do one color pour a day, but since I need to get samples ready to go to ACRE Las Vegas next week, I've been doing two pours a day:  one in the morning and one in the evening.  Here, I've done an orange and a purple color pour.










These are the same orange and purple colors in earrings.











After I get done pouring a batch, I have to let it cure for 24 hours before I can do another pour (at least in the same piece).  To keep the dust off of the resin jewelry pendants and earrings, I cover them with plastic containers.








Ah, they're starting to come to life!  This is after a couple of days.  At this point, I've also done a green, pink, and yellow pour.  Notice the resin cups and dirty paper towel at the top of the picture?  I'm getting the resin all over my kitchen countertops.  It almost looks like a birthday cake has exploded.









Another closeup of the future earrings with resin.  There are a few mistakes to sand off once they're cured.











More colorful resin pendants.














This picture is the reason why I only do one color then let it cure for 24 hours before pouring the next one.  The orange was poured on Tuesday.  The turquoise was poured on Thursday.  The dark blue was poured today (Friday).  Some of the dark blue spilled onto the orange.  The orange was completely cured (hardened) so I just had to wipe off the dark blue.  If I poured all the colors on the same day, the dark blue would have mixed into the orange if it had still been wet and the piece would have been ICK.






This picture was after today's pour.  You can see that in addition to the previous colors, there are some reds, pinks, turquoise and yellow/green.

Don't they look good enough to eat???  I will try to have some finished pictures up next week. 

  

Is it okay to bring uninvited kids to a party?

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.*

Warning, this is another of a "not really a rant" posting.  This one is somewhere between an etiquette concern and overreaction to how a party invitation was addressed.  Please comment.  Seriously.

I took my oldest two peeps to a birthday party this past weekend at a kids recreation center.  The birthday invitation came with the oldest two peeps name on it, not my youngest peep.  My older two peeps are in the same class in preschool; the invitation was for everyone in the class.  I had no expectations that the youngest peep would be on the invitation.

I got a gift to take and the older peeps were excited to go.  I lined up a babysitter for the youngest peep.

I was a bit surprised when I got to the party.

Their classmates were there, along with some of their classmates' siblings.  Now I don't know the full story; maybe the other siblings were on the invitation.  Maybe those families are all good friends and were not.  (not crying here -- I'm a big girl.)  Personally, I just wasn't going to bring my child to a party he wasn't specifically invited to.  I'm sure the family hosting the party had to pay on a per person basis for everyone in attendance and I just didn't think it was appropriate to save me the cost of a babysitter and bring baby peep.

Am I overreacting?  Do you ever ask to bring the other child?  Do you ask and offer to pay the difference?  Or do you just assume it's okay to bring extras?

Checklist for wholesale jewelry show

I'm heading out to the ACRE Las Vegas wholesale show next week.  This is my checklist I'll be going over for the show.  (Actually, this is the same checklist from the ACRE Orlando show, with a few changes and improvements.  My "lessons learned" are in italics.)

Jewelry.  I'll be taking a large sampling of the scrabble tile jewelry and the new pewter and resin jewelry line.  After attending my first wholesale show in January of this year, I've got a better idea of how much of each style to bring to give shop and gallery owners and idea of what the work is like.

Large duplicate invoice pads.  I need to make sure I have plenty of room to get all the contact information and the specifics of the order.  Plus I need to be sure I keep a copy for myself.  I brought too many for the Orlando show.  I won't bring near as many to Las Vegas (which is especially important since I'm packing to go on a plane.)

Fact sheets about me, KMS Designs, and my jewelry.  Knowing that many of the attendees are coming to gather information and (hopefully) place orders, I need to give them pertinent facts that they can review later and place and order.  I also overdid this for the Orlando show.  I take about a third of what I did before and make more copies later in case I need to.

Mailing list signup.  I need a list and method to collect email addresses for vendors to receive contact from me about what's going on within my jewelry business.  I had forms for vendors to fill out, but actually found that getting their business card was sufficient.

Laptop computer.  This will allow me to coordinate the orders with my account on the ACRE wholesale crafts website.  It will also give me the chance to show gallery and boutique owners my Flickr jewelry page, which has pictures of me doing works in progress.  (There is wi-fi at the show.)  I'm glad I had my computer with me more than I thought I would have.  Definitely will be taking this item with me to Las Vegas.

Business cards.  I need people to have a way to contact me, whether by phone, email or my twitter and facebook pages.  Yep, those were good to have.

Signage about the jewelry prices and a bit of information about how they are made.  This might be overkill, but I like people to get information without having to feel "embarassed" to ask.  I'm taking it one step further this time and am going to have pictures of my jewelry hanging from the walls of the booth.  I need something that people can see from across the aisle to draw them in.

Jewelry display materials.  This includes my velvet displays, tablecloths, and risers.  I'm also taking some DIY wooden shelves to set up as well.  That means I'll need to bring a screwdriver set.

Track lighting, zip ties, and extension cord.  Since the show will be indoors, I need to bring extra lighting so people can fully appreciate the jewelry.  I'm bringing a portable light system this time along with the ties and extension cords.

Cart and associated bungee cords.  It's not going to be a short trip between my booth and my vehicle.  No cart and cords this time.  All but one of the suitcases has wheels.  I'm hoping I don't hate myself in the end for toting all these suitcases around. 

A few new items to go on this trip:  

Table risers.  This will add an extra 6 inches of height to the table.  It will be taller than a kitchen table, but not quite counter height.

Bird netting.  No, I'm not going bird hunting while I'm out there, but I need something to put across the booth to make it "secure".  In Orlando, I draped everything with a sheet, which shuffled everything around daily.  

Fishing line.  I need it to hang the pictures.

Send me your old gift cards

Yes, you're reading that correctly.  I'm working on some new jewelry designs and need old, used up, gift cards.  (Well, I guess they don't have to be used up -- I'm happy to spend what's left.) 

Any color or pattern will do.  Here's what you can do:

1. If you're local, email me at kmsdesigns@hotmail.com.  I can set up a place for you to drop them off.
2. If you're not local, when you get about 10 or so, email me at kmsdesigns@hotmail.com and I will be happy to send you a prepaid envelope to put them in.

Either way, I will be sure to show some GRATITUDE. 

Art show table covers and fabric walls

My fireproof fabrics for my jewelry booth at ACRE Las Vegas arrived this week.  I'm still happy with my color choices.

This will be the table cover.  It can fit a six foot long table, but can adjust to a 4 foot table as well.  It was slightly less pink than I was expecting, but still a good fit.  I think it's going to go great with the green floor.







 

The ivory panel walls are nice too.  I ordered them with clips and a velcro strip at the top the panels.  That way, I can put clips (which also have a velcro side on them) over a bar and velcro the panels to it.






Down to the wire!!  I'll be traveling to Las Vegas two weeks from today!!

Don't tell me, ask me how you can help

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.*

While the Thursday posts are meant to be comical, this one is a bit more serious.  I consider myself to be of above average intelligence.  Not because I'm just naturally that way, but something happened when I hit thirty something:  I had enough life experiences, combined with an awakening of critical thinking, that I learned how to learn and listen.  That listening part is what makes you smarter (in my opinion).  Listening is a very hard skill.  Very hard.  I constantly have to remind myself to listen and sometimes it goes better than others.  I have learned (and tried to learn) things outside of my traditional schooling by listening and realizing others had experiences that I could learn from.

One of the things a former professor used to say was, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do.  Once you're a Roman, build it to suit yourself."  That's just a trumped up way of saying the more often thought of, "Seek first to understand, then be understood."  That mantra, along with intense listening skills, has in great part gotten me to where I am today.

There really is a point to all this I promise......

I own a couple other businesses.  (That's another blog post in of itself, but for another day.)  I have been lucky enough to hire a very highly qualified and motivated intern for one of them.  I say lucky, because I've been looking for someone who can afford to get paid with experience instead of a fat paycheck, and quite frankly, I've been coming up short (something I have a hard time understanding living in a college town).  There have been several projects on the back burner for this other business that I was excited to be able to give to the intern to make her own.

Alas, managing people is never easy. 

In our first meeting, where I had already given her a heads up of the first project that I wanted her to work on, she instead spent the first forty-five minutes going over a list of items that three-quarters of:

1. I had already done and determined it didn't work.
2. Wasn't a priority and didn't see why anyone else would think it was a priority.
3. I was already doing (which I would have the expected the intern to have known that if she had done some research on the business)

Now don't get me wrong.  I'm very excited to have this intern on board.  However, it looks like the first project I should have given her:  listening exercises.

So this brings me to the moral that my husband hears me mutter from time to time (and maybe this will be your takeaway message from this blog post).

"I know what needs to be done.  I don't need people to tell me.  I need to hear people say, 'How can I help you get done what needs to be done?' "

I mean do you think if you're dealing with any other profession or business, they wouldn't want you to take the same approach?  How many teachers have had parents ask 'What can I help you with?'  I mean really, have you ever heard a teacher say I need LESS parental involvement.  I need FEWER people to listen to me when I ask for help!  Do you think your physician doesn't want to hear you ask what else you can do to help him or her take care of you?  I certainly don't mean from this post that people shouldn't be speaking up with their thoughts and suggestions, I'm just saying that maybe there is a reason we have two ears and one mouth.

Science activities for kids

My sister called before Easter and asked what my boys wanted for a gift.  The first thing out of my mouth was what they didn't need:  MORE TOYS!  Our house is exploding at the seams and I look for every excuse possible not to bring more things in.  My suggestion to her:  a butterfly house.

The house came by itself a couple of days later.  There was a coupon inside to redeem for caterpillars.

Two cups of caterpillars came with their food inside.  Within a couple of days, they formed chrysalids and hung from the lid.  (You can see top of them in the picture if you look hard enough)

Once the chrysalids are hanging from the paper, you take the lid off the caterpillar cup and move the paper to the inside of the house.  I clipped them in there with a wire.

About three days or so after that, we had beautiful orange and black butterflies.  We've been feeding them fruit and the boys have loved watching them (along with the cat).  I'm trying to talk them into letting them go.  Yeah.  Haven't gotten that far yet.  The whole process from start to finish has taken about 10 days.

Jewelry pictures for my art show booth

Last Monday, I showed you pictures of jewelry that would end up hanging in my jewelry booth at the ACRE Las Vegas show.  I ordered plastic poster clips from Displays 2 go to hang them with.

If you look at the top of the picture, there is a clear clip.  I put the picture in and clip it shut.  There is one to go at the bottom as well, although I didn't put it on the picture.

I didn't get them all out to try (I may regret that later), but just went ahead and packed everything away.  My fireproof fabric is in transit, so I hope to have pictures to show of that by the end of the week.

Summer family activites

With summer travel plans being discussed, why not add an art museum to your list?  I found Artcyclopedia has a directory of all the art museums in the United States. You can select a state to look at all the museums by cities within that state. The museums are also listed with their website links.  Cool.

Find me in a puddle

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.*

Can't stand to write for long folks.  See, I'm a bit of a cheap-o.  I hate "making donations" to the utility company and don't turn on the air conditioning until I have to.  Which was yesterday.

Nothing.

I mean from the a/c unit.  No cool air, no fan, no nothing.  I am cranky and almost in a puddle. 

"I'm melting" (in my best Wicked Witch of the West voice)

An igloo sounds good right about now......

A creative time waster

What do you get when someone is creative, has some extra time on their hands, and is a little "warped upstairs"?  You get the Bent Objects blog.  I won't spoil it for you, but let's say it's good time buster some afternoon when you're looking for something to do.  (or even if you have plenty to do, it's pretty funny)

Here's a hint:  Author Terry Border has this listed as his profile picture.

Photographing resin jewelry

This past Saturday, I ventured out midday to photograph some of my resin jewelry to be used as a photo enlargement to display on a wall in my art show booth.  The idea is that customers and art gallery and boutique owners can see the photographs from a distance and will be at least intrigued to come into my booth.

I made my own light box by cutting out the sides and top of a cardboard box and replacing the cutouts with white computer paper, which serves to diffuse the light.  The background is a white to gray to black photogradient paper.  This is an industry standard when photographing anything for show entries or magazine advertisements.  (Kind of like that brown/gold background when you get elementary school pictures.)  I used a piece of aluminum foil to reflect light back onto the piece of resin jewelry.


So here are the finished pictures:

Per some other artist recommendations, I am getting these printed at Costco (in a 12 inch by 18 inch size), and will hang them with poster clips.  The Costco price for printing was very affordable, so I'm hoping the pictures will turn out well too.

Wholesale jewelry booth - ACRE Las Vegas

Wow!  It's coming together! 

I'm on the downhill slide of my new resin jewelry booth that will be at the ACRE Las Vegas show.  Here's the list and here's how it's going:


Floor tiles - here, packed and ready to go
Portable track lighting - also here packed and ready to go

Here's what I ordered today:

Table cover, clips to hang photographs on the walls, ivory colored panels to hang for walls.
Brackets to allow me to make portable risers (pack flat, assemble when I get there)

Here's what's left to do/get:

I need to get table risers to put under the table.  This will bring the table up to about 36 inches tall (a bit less than counter height)
I need 4 photographs of more work printed BIG.  I hope to get pictures taken tomorrow.

So you may remember that when I first talked about doing the booth, one of the designs had purple pedestals along with the pink table.  I still like that design better, but don't want to deal with some of the issues of getting all of the display items across country on a plane.  I found some "portable" pedestals that were pretty expensive, so I decided to save my cash and go without.  Maybe next year.

Moms can never be off duty EVER

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.*

Let me bring you up to speed:  I have 3 boys, all aged four and under.  It can get a little crazy here.  A big ninety-eight percent of the time, if I'm lucky enough to get ALL of them to take a nap at the same time, I get to work uniterrupted in the studio.  I'm either pouring resin, or I'm making phone calls:  both things that I don't need little people distractions for.  The exception to this is Saturdays.  Sometimes I work on Saturdays, sometimes I don't.  Mentally for me, it's my day off.  I might get caught up on my magazines, see what the DVR has recorded for me this week, or ever so infrequently,


I take a nap.

Last Saturday was one of the those days.  Two of the three peeps were already worn out.  It was a really, really nice day here -- moderate temperatures and little humidity.  It was also really, really quiet.

Yeah, let's go for it.

Peeps one and three were down.  Peep two seemed tired, but was playing with his cars.  He assured me he was going to nap too, eventually.

So, comfy jammies and a fluffly pillow was all I needed to get started.  Sometime a few minutes later, the phone rang.  My first thought, "I can't believe I forgot to take the phone off the hook."  When I didn't answer, and the caller immediately called back, my next thought was, "Sorry mom, whatever it is, it can wait."

Apparently not.

A few minutes later (not really sure of the exact time here because I was doing everything possible not to open my eyes), there is a BAM BAM BAM at the front door.  "Oh, like now what??  I just want some quiet time.  In fact I've been really bad today and need a time out."

I put on my fluffy pink robe and head to the door.  I open it and stare at the two sheriff's deputies who were wondering why I looked like I was a mom on a mid afternoon bender.

"Ma'am, are you okay?"

With one of the slow blinks (you know, the ones where you take an extra .4 milliseconds to allow you that extra time to think), I answered, "Yes....."  I'm looking past them while they're asking, expecting to see one of my neighbor's houses has exploded or is in the middle of a hostage situation.

"Ma'am, someone here called 911 and hung up."

Once again, blank stare, while I'm thinking to myself, thanks kids, I didn't really need that afternoon off.

"Ma'am are you alone?"

"No, I have 3 kids with me."

"Ma'am, did you hear the phone ring?  No one answered when we called back, TWICE."

By this time, I'm a little punchy.  "Do you answer every phone call that comes to your house??"

Whoops, maybe I shouldn't have said that.

"We need to speak to the child who made the call."  Actually, this turned out to be a good thing.  Deputies in the their cars with flashing lights can be quite a motivator for a four year old to never call 911 again.


They left, last peep took a nap, and I went back to work in the studio.  That will teach me to take a day off.

New resin jewelry

Just a few pictures today of some new patterns I'm working on.  Flowers and birds.  Seemed perfect for Spring!











It's a few basic patterns with mostly color changes from pendant to pendant.














The bird of paradises are my favorites of the florals.  Love the bright colors!!










By the way, did you notice that I spiffed up the blog?  What do you think?

How to Hang Pictures on a Wall

For any of you doing some home redecorating or you're looking to hang some new art, check out this video. Useful information from Lowes about hanging pictures AND the tools and hardware necessary.

5 biggest blunders men make when buying jewelry for Mother's Day

*Ladies, since so many of you responded that this article was helpful to your men, I am sharing it again.*

I love it when guys are buying jewelry for their ladies. It's such a sweet and thoughtful notion on their part. I LOVE to help them! Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out well, so I wanted to share the top five mistakes guys make buying jewelry:

1. Not knowing the details. I have actually had men buy earrings for a gift and not know if the woman had pierced ears. Wow! Major gamble! Find out as much information about your lady as possible. A good start is to find out a ring size, bracelet size, preferred length of necklaces, color preferences, metal preferences and any allergies.

2. Getting her something she doesn't have. This is only a good thing if you have heard her say that she wants a ".....". For example, if she doesn't own any bracelets, there may be a good reason why. Maybe she has a job where it gets in the way or she would have to take it off frequently. Take a quick inventory of her jewelry and get an idea of what she prefers or take notes the next time you are window shopping together.

3. Not considering the "what ifs". Is your jewelry purchase sizable? Can you return or exchange it if she doesn't like it? What if she likes the pendant but wants a different chain? Understand the exchange and return policy on the jewelry BEFORE you purchase it.

4. Buying something that doesn't go with her body type. Believe it or not, how a piece of jewelry is shaped or formed impacts how it looks on a person. For example, round earrings do not look good on a woman with a round face. A small pendant on a short chain isn't particularly flattering to a curvaceous woman with a large bustline. When you're buying the piece, get the person helping you to give suggestions or even the model the jewelry if necessary to help with the decision making process.

5. Buying something that doesn't go with her style. Buy her something she will wear! If she doesn't go to a lot of fancy occasions, she may not get a lot of wear from a big, fancy cocktail ring. Inexpensive earrings may be a better fit for daily wear. If she does a lot of work with her hands, a ring may not hold up to her rough schedule, but a necklace might fit the bill

Mother's Day is coming up and I am happy to help the guys out there get a special gift for the moms in their lives. Contact me at the KMS Designs jewelry website for help getting your special gift.

The Royal Wedding - Did you watch?

Yes, I was one of the crazy people up at 4 AM ET to watch Prince William and Kate Middleton get married today. Why? Mostly because with all the bad news everywhere, it was nice to focus on something truly happy for a few hours, even if I really should have been sleeping. I could have DVR'ed it, but really?? Do those of you who watch sports want to DVR the Super Bowl to watch it later?

No, I think LIVE was the only way to go with this.

Tea and a tiara.  What a better way to celebrate?

So in British style, I broke out the tiara and traded in the coffee for tea this morning.  I would have gotten a picture of me in the tiara, but no one else was up that early.  (Really, I'm not complaining.)

Best wishes to the happy couple!

What's up with this generation???

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series,  tongue in cheek look at my life.*

Before I get started, a few disclaimers:

1. Type A people call me Type B.  The vice versa also happens.
2. I have kids, therefore I am officially "old".
3. I never do anything half baked, especially when there is money involved.

Now, on with the story.

We are losing our babysitter that we have had for the past year.  Any of you with children can relate to the fact that sometimes it's a fine line between leaving your kids with another young adult versus a pack of wolves.  When you find a babysitter you like, (at least I) try to do everything to keep her.

Ours is graduating.  (Maybe I should go with one that can't pass her classes.)

Ah, I forgot how much fun it is to look for a new one.  Here's a few of the recent adventures:

Wow, I got a TXT for an interview.  MayB I can watch the kids this way 2!!  LOL

• Sure, my kids met you at my neighbors house and you hit it off.  Yeah, let's try this Thursday.  And I don't mind AT ALL if you come 45 minutes late, don't call to let me know, then tell me you have to leave early.  I'm only doing this as a favor to you.
• Yes, I am looking for a babysitter.  No I don't mind sharing with you how much I'm paying and how many hours you can expect if you don't mind showing a little interest in my kids first.
• I know you like to text and all, but can you actually answer calls with that phone?  I'm running out of character spaces to set up an interview with you.

In trying to find another one, I suppose one can liken it to dating.  Find one that's not offensive, no major behavioral issues and can pass a drug test.  Wait, I forgot about driving records.  Drat.

Jewelry show booth lighting

Another part of getting ready for ACRE Las Vegas is having lighting for my booth.  Ah but yes, you're thinking, didn't I have this for ACRE Orlando?  You are correct oh wise one, but this time, it needs to fit in a suitcase.

I decided to go with two foot sections of track with gooseneck lamps.  I can focus the goosenecks EXACTLY where I want them to shine light.  Quite frankly, I was pretty surprised how bright the lights got and how far the light projected.

These handy dandy little connectors allow me to bring the track together, then disassemble.

I have a total of 3 two foot tracks, six lights, and all the associated connectors and power source.

And the best news is that it all fits in a large suitcase.  I'm flying Southwest, which doesn't charge for the first two bags.  Awesome!

Resin jewelry making

In case you're interesting in trying your hand at resin jewelry making, John W. Golden has some great tutorials on his You Tube channel. Here's one here:

Easter brunch breakfast casserole

For the blog today, I'm linking to my post last year about this same time for my favorite brunch breakfast casserole recipe. Enjoy and Happy Easter!

Oh yeah, it happens in "three's"

*This is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.

Thank goodness a new day is a "do-over".

Yesterday didn't go so hot.

Bounced a check.  Yeah.  Doesn't help to pay stuff online if you don't write it down.

Babysitter didn't show up.  Not cool.  I wasn't home and hubby had to leave to go to work.  Thank goodness I could drive home at 182 MPH and didn't get caught.

Entered a contest to win a Blackberry Playbook (oh yeah, THE Blackberry Playbook) and found out I WON!!  That is, until the contest administrator found out I'm from Florida.  Not eligible.  Must be Flor-i-duh.

I so need a do-over.

What I learned about the art business from going to a Monster Truck Jam

I had the fun of taking my kids to a Monster Truck Jam this past weekend.  I'm not necessarily a fan, but my kids, who came pre-wired to like anything with wheels, are huge fans of the Monster Trucks (and NASCAR too for that matter).  Part of the joy of being a parent is taking your kids to do fun things they want to do.  It wasn't necessarily my choice for weekend entertainment, but I must say that I liked it better than I thought I would.

Here's what I found intriguing: the drivers of the trucks were genuinely thankful of their fans.  I admit, I'm jaded.  Whether it's fair or not, the few celebrity entertainers that have behaved badly (Lindsay, Charlie, M. Vick et al) have turned me off to the rest of them. Needless to say, I had to rethink that this weekend.

The Swift family talking with Pablo Huffaker, the driver of Gravedigger

Hubby and I took the peeps ahead of time to the "pit party", which is a meet and greet. Fans can get up close and personal with their favorite drivers and trucks.  My boys loved getting to see the trucks.  During the live event, the drivers would take a moment in between stunts and races to engage the crowd, either to give thanks, wave to fans, or do a few crowd pleasing acrobatic truck moves.  Finally, as we were leaving, the announcer let us know the drivers would once again be meeting with fans and signing autographs. 

When was the last time you went to a major sporting event or movie premiere and saw the "players" doing all that to keep the fans happy?

So why am I blogging about this?  Going to the Monster Truck rally taught me:

1. You can never be too big or too important to thank your fans.  
2. Taking time out to speak with fans of your work is always appreciated.
3. Be sincere.  Fans of your work want to learn more and appreciate you taking the time to engage with them.
4. Be gracious.  Fans are the reason you can continue to do what you want to do.

Wow, who knew seeing a bunch of trucks do slap wheelies and big air would make me a better artist.

The "smell" in my house

I am not in any way a green thumb.  In fact, if there was a plants' rights group, I'm sure I would be on the most wanted list.  Perhaps this is why this jasmine vine and I get along so well.  I LOVE the smell of jasmine.  It's blooming now (at least in Florida) and is just heaven.  I decided a couple of years ago to get a plant and put it on the corner of my screened-in porch so that the scent would make its way through my house.  Thank goodness it can take care of itself.

There are hundreds of these little scented blooms all over the vine.  Open up the windows and the porch doors and I have instant scented candle without the fear of my kids starting a fire.  (Don't ask...)

Revisiting jewelry designs

In case you missed my blog post from Friday, my next line of jewelry hit a rather large speed bump on the production highway and to say the least, I wasn't happy about it.  I had the weekend to regroup (and enjoy some wine instead of going postal) and decide what needed to happen next in order to get jewelry pieces into production.  The good news to share is that the pewter caster is seriously motivated about getting my pieces suitable for jewelry.  We're faxing and emailing sketches back and forth and hopefully this all will work out.  I'm a bit relieved as they're trying very hard to make these jewelry pieces suitable for my next line of resin jewelry and help me with my deadline of having finished jewelry to go to ACRE Las Vegas.

The other interesting thing about this "incident" is that it made me realize that you need different friends for different situations.  In my crankiness, I called a good friend just to vent.  This just turned out to be another incident of "I should have know better".  This friend is one of the few that I have that will be honest, and brutally so, if necessary.  I already knew I had been too stupid and trusting of the others involved in the process and took a risk by not inspecting each step after completion. Yes, you're already thinking it, I got the infamous, completely unhelpful, "I told you so" speech.  Yeah, not anywhere close to what I needed at that moment. 

So this entire situation begs the question, do you have different friends for different moments? 

(Apparently) there is a need to micromanage

Ordinarily, a post like this would end up in the Thursday rant section, however, this unfortunately isn't a comical rant.  Back at the beginning of the year, I decided that it was important for me to delegate more of my jewelry making tasks.  Time is a pretty precious commodity in my life, and if I was going to expand my art jewelry business into the wholesale arena, I was going to need help in some areas.

Now, I'm letting the cat out of the bag a bit here, but I'm working on a new line of resin jewelry as an alternative to the increasingly expensive sterling silver variety.  Based upon the feedback I got from the ACRE Orlando wholesale show in January, I had my ideas and decided to make a line of resin jewelry based in pewter.  (similar look, lower retail price). 

Now I will cut to the chase here and just say in gathering my information and doing my research about pewter casting, it was going to be cheaper to have someone make models out of wax, then have those models sent to someone who could do bronze casting.  Once they were cast in bronze, they would be on their way to the pewter caster.  (All of this versus me making master models, then sending them to the pewter caster.)

I started this process the third week in January with the ultimate goal of having finished pieces for me to work with the resin by May 1.  I want to have these ready to show at the ACRE Las Vegas show in early June, not to mention there was interest in customers from the ACRE Orlando show.  I only need a few samples for Las Vegas, so as long as I have something to show shops and galleries, I'm good.

What is Murphy's Law again...."If it can go wrong, it will".

(I would type lots of expletives here, but my kids might read this years from now and think their mom has a serious potty mouth.)

I get pieces back from the pewter caster today and there are two major problems.  One is not salvageable at all (piece won't hang straight) and the other is hopefully salvageable (chain won't fit through the bail).  I need to take responsibility right away and say that I trusted everyone in the process to do their job correctly.  All came with recommendations and good samples and I thought this was a job I could completely delegate and expect it to be done properly.

NOT.

Here's what I have learned:

1.  I should have had each person mail me their piece work in between each step.  I didn't, for the sake of time.  Two to three days coming and going would have added 2 to 3 weeks to the overall process time.  I'm going to be at that now and an additional $500 in the hole.

2.  You can't assume you have anything but drones working on your stuff.  I don't mean that people are stupid, but, especially for the the piece that was unbalanced, I have a hard time believing no one noticed it, when I did only after having the piece in my possession for 30 seconds.  Did people not look?  Didn't notice?  Noticed but thought it was part of the design?  Maybe they all thought I was a two-headed monster that breathed fire and would vaporize them and their elderly grandmother if they approached me about a "problem".

3.  I either need to do things myself, or I need to micromanage.  I REALLY hate this one.  I have been looking for another assistant (my current one is graduating college at the end of the month and leaving town), but now have put that on hold.  I'm trying not to let this situation ruin hiring a new assistant, but it's hard not to.

So, at this point, the unbalanced piece is being reworked by the bronze caster, and the pewter caster is going to try to rework the bails.  I'm on my second glass of wine and it's not even 4 PM yet. 

Is it tomorrow yet?

Technology - love it or hate it? take it or leave it?

*This post is a part of the Thursday rant series, a tongue in cheek look at my life.*

My rant for this week is that I couldn't write last week's rant because my computer was, well, ... "ill".  Apparently all the dust and stuff that flies around my house and studio had piled up on the inside like a Colorado avalanche and had brought things to a almost grinding halt.  Add to that my (mostly unintentional) neglect of using an air can to blast it out from time to time, and a trip to the computer care place was needed.

Things break.  Things need maintenance.  I get it.  What I don't like is that I've come to depend on something so much that it wrecks havoc with my business when I don't have it.  Like I found a box of checks and bank statements from 19 years ago (yeah, don't even ask me why they had been moved four times and were hiding in my garage) where I had reconciled the account by hand.  Seriously?  No way I could do that now. 

Not really me eating my computer, but apparently shows that you can use it for dental floss in the case that it quits working.

Anyway, the computer is back and functional.  It's lightnin' fast...(thanks guys).  Phew.  Glad to be back in the 21st century.

Picking colors for my new jewelry booth

In getting ready for the ACRE Las Vegas wholesale show, I've been working on a new jewelry display.  I came up with a new jewelry booth design using Google Sketch Up a month and a half ago.  After letting the idea "simmer" in my head for a few weeks, I decided I liked how it looked and started buying the display items.


 I really liked the lime green floor.  It's bright and inviting.  I ordered 25 two foot by two foot soft cushion tiles (enough to do a 10 foot by 10 foot booth space).  I don't know what I was expecting, but the box they came in was huge. 









The tiles lock together with edges similar to a jigsaw puzzle.












They were really pretty easy to put together.  (Yes, even a two year old can do it.)












My prior sketch showed an ivory panel backdrop, fuschia hot pink tablecloth and purple pedestals.  I had gotten fabric samples from a company that specializes in fireproof trade show fabrics and put them up next to the floor.  I still like the colors pretty well and will continue to go in that direction.  The only exception is that I'm holding off on the purple pedestals.  Not because I don't like the color, but because I'm not sure how I can get them on a plane to go with me to Las Vegas without them getting destroyed or me paying overage charges.

What do you think about the colors?

Thanksgiving Dinner in April

Yes, you're reading that correctly.  Last Thanksgiving, when hubby was buying ingredients for our Thanksgiving Dinner, he stocked up on turkeys.  We've been enjoying a turkey about every other month since then.  I got one out last week and made a "mini" dinner:  turkey, green bean casserole and a bread stuffing with sage, onions and a bit of thyme.  Yummy!!!

What's your favorite meal you like to have "out of season"?

Little baby oranges

Remember when I blogged a couple of weeks ago about orange blossoms?  The blossoms are gone, and you can see little eensy-teensy oranges.  Yes, I promise you, these will be the oranges that will grow up to make us juice next March.  Promise.


They all won't necessarily get there.  Some fall off. Some just don't develop.  Overall, though, the tree will be loaded with juicy fruit.










Just to give you some perspective, those green "buttons" are about the size of a pea right at the moment.  They will be "full grown" in late fall, then will start to turn orange.

(And while I was taking these pictures, my little tree reminded me to fertilize him.)