Amanda’s Musings

I got this list of questions from A Blustery Day’s blog and she got them from Chili’s Blog (who I’ve just found). I’ll attempt to answer them as honestly as I can.

How did you start blogging?
After returning from Africa in 2001 I wanted to keep in touch with my students from Sahel Academy in Niger. I discovered that a lot of them had blogs on something called Xanga. This was my introduction to blogging. I soon opened a Xanga blog and just started writing random things about my week. It wasn’t long before I found Xanga a bit too young for me and moved on to Blogger. After a few years on Blogger I found it to be full of too many bugs and with a bit of persuading from my hubby I moved over here to Wordpress. I’m happy with it so far.

Did you intend to be a blog w/a big following? If so, how did you go about it?
Not really, I just wanted to keep in touch with the kids from the school and I really don’t think I have a following even now as I don’t get a lot of comments unless its Wordless Wednesday, Illustration Friday or Photo Friday.

What do you hope to achieve or accomplish with your blog? Have you been successful? If not, do you have a plan to achieve those goals?
I just wanted to give people the chance to keep in touch and to get to know me better. I also wanted to be braver with sharing my artwork. I’m actually brave enough to do that now but not quite brave enough to seriously look into doing an exhibition of any sort! I think I’ve achieved these goals so far.

Has the focus of your blog changed since you started blogging? How?
Yes. Since I started blogging I’ve;
been to university and got an Art Degree,
been to two different churches,
become an Aunty,
had our daughter Keziah,
become the youth ministries coordinator for SIM in WA and then that role has morphed into being a PA for my hubby. He’s now the SIM WA Ministry Director
and last but not least, my daschund died at the age of 15

What do you know now that you wish you’d known when you started?
About Wordpress. Then there wouldn’t have been so many moves!

Do you make money with your blog?
Not unless you count any sales on my Etsy store or wahmania store.

Does your immediate or extended family know about your blog? If so, do they read it? If not, why?
They do. As far as I know my hubby reads this via bloglines and my brother and sister in law read it when they get a moment. My parents do but not that often I don’t think.

What two pieces of advice would you give to a new blogger?
Don’t worry about composing your posts like you are writing a book. Be honest and share your mind (if thats what you want to do!). If you can’t think of anything just go with the wordless wednesday type posts for a while.

The following items will be coming up in my Etsy and Wahmania stores. As we’re going to be quite busy in the next month I probably won’t be adding them for a few weeks but here’s a sneek peek:

Some Kids Jewellery:

Earrings

Necklaces

Waiting.

So hard to do.

Ok, its not so hard when you don’t have to wait very long but when the waiting thats required seems to go on for a long time its very difficult to keep focus.

Patience.

What a hard character trait to gain. The hard thing is that true patience is only learnt in waiting for longer periods of time!

I did a bit of a search for verses that look at patience in the Bible and this is one that stood out:

‘The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.’
Ecclesiastes 7:8

What can I learn from this little verse?
1. Learning to be patient can make us humble. I must really need humbling at the moment!
2. Its worth the wait for the end result.

What does this say to you? Feel free to share.

Recently I took part in a group activity of the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy (pcagoe). Those who wanted to join in were allocated a letter or two to create using polyclay and then we sent it over to Dawn in the USA (who’s blog is here and shop is here). I was given the letter ‘T’ and a full stop. Here’s the T that I created:

The letters were all put together to create the following sign:

(from the Etsy Labs flickr site)

You can read the write up by the Etsy team on their blog which is here.

My shop has a link on their blog entry which is great adverstising (for me and the other participants) as there are thousands of sellers on Etsy. To be highlighted is a big help.

Well done PCAGOE!!!

Today I read this article on news.com.au about how Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham has opened a Creation Museum in the USA.

I am a Creationist and belive the God created the world in 7 days. I don’t believe in evolution, not even a little bit. I’ve heard Ken Ham speak, quite a while ago now and he’s well known amongst Aussie Christian churches so I was surprised to see a news headline about him on our regular news.com.au site.

The journalist from the Courier Mail writes:
“It challenges evolutionary theory by arguing the world is only 6000 years old, created in six days by God, and dinosaurs walked the planet alongside humans.

The Biblical tourist attraction, located in Petersburg, Kentucky, attracted 4000 visitors when it opened on Monday.

It has a Garden of Eden, dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark and preaches the message of salvation. ”

I think its wonderful that Ken Ham is so proactive and sticks to his guns with this message. I don’t know if I’ll be saving up to go to the museum though in the same way that I’m not going to save up to go and visit Israel. I’m not saying that these two places wouldn’t be fascinating or interesting (and if anyone offered me a free ticket to Jerusalem I’d be interested) but its not on my priority list.

If you want to see what the museum is like you can go to this link and have a walk through it: Creation Museum.

I went through a bit of a pendant making stage in my polymer clay learning curve and tonight I took a look at what I’ve created over the last 7 months. Actually, these are just the ones I haven’t listed yet for sale. There’s about another 30 that aren’t in this picture! I’ve made just as many beads of different varieties too. I’ve decided to try and slow down as I’ve got plenty of stock and need to start selling more. I also want to focus on developing new skills in the combination of painting and polymer claying, especially with oil paint. Ahh, so much to try!

If theres something here that catches your eye, feel free to contact me and see about a sale. I’m happy to string it for you too.

Recently I was thumbing through a magazine from 1980 and found this lovely little ‘treasure’. A whole section about crocheting baithers and sets. The thing that caught my eye though is the strange setting in which these photos were taken. The models seem to be standing amongst people from another country (I’m not going to guess which one but someone might be able to tell) proudly showing off their crocheted outfits. There’s just something wrong with this picture. The women seem oblivious to the poor around them. What made the photographer think this was a good idea? It bothered me.

It does make me wonder how often we do the same thing, stand oblivous to the needy around us, proudly showing off our new ‘this’ or ‘that’. Here’s the photos:

If you are interested in using polymer clay as a medium then this new site will appeal to you. I am part of the admin on this site, actually, I’m the new flickr manager when the flickr group is set up. I will be moderating the flickr group on a daily basis and directing people over to the website.

The website is called Polymer Clay Productions (just click there for the link)

The two ladies who started this site have their focus on podcasting and videocasting of polymer clay tutorials. The first episode of their podcast was launched today so feel free to go over and have a listen. You can hear it here: Episode One

Every Friday a new podcast or video cast (alternating) will be launched on their site which is free to listen to. You are invited to purchase the kits you will need to create the things they are talking about. You can also subscribe to their forum and newsletter.

I will eventually have my photo and a blurb up on their site as part of the admin. Its all very exciting and nice to be involved in.

I just wanted to let you know that we have started a new website for SIM in WA. It has forums, information and other links about the work of SIM in Western Australia. In order to join in you will need to register. Please take a look here - SIM WA Team Site