Amanda’s Musings

As regular readers know, Michael and I spent a year at Sahel Academy in Niger from June 2000 to June 2001. We have kept in contact with several Sahelians since then and take an active interest in how the school develops. We are also concerned about their annual need for Christian missionary teachers. I have just found this short video on Google Video that Sahel has put together. It shows the school, the teachers, students and dorm life, please take a few minutes to have a peek. I will be linking to different short videos that SIM has on YouTube from time to time.

After I finished the post below I was looking at the front page of Mintd and discovered that I’d actually made the front page as well today! Thats very exciting for me so I had to share. Here it is (bottom left):

I have been finding myself in a few treasuries on Etsy this week as well as making it to the ‘front of the pack’ on Mintd. I’ll explain. Firstly, you can read about what a Treasury is in my previous post here. The first treasury is an all Aussie one put together by crochetroo. My Aussie Bush beads are there on the bottom right hand corner. A few weeks back these made it to the front page of Etsy (the first and only time I’ve been featured on there) but they still haven’t sold. You can view (and maybe buy!! grin) them here or here.

The next one I’ve been in this week was put together by Route166Artisans and it featured different food related items. my hamburger thumb tacks were in there (third row on the right):

Finally, the pcagoe competition that I mentioned in a previous post here, has its treasury up at the moment. My Down in the Garden bracelet is featured. You can vote for your favourite entry at our guild website here.

Now to Mintd. I have been busy adding to my Mintd store daily as they have now removed the restrictions on the number of items in your store. This seems to have had the effect of increasing what they call my store ‘interesting-ness’. Its a rating system which moves your store or your products closer to the top of the list and eventually onto the front page. There are a few hundred stores on there and currently my store is sitting at number 21 for interesting-ness. Mind you, I haven’t had a sale just yet but it can’t be that far off! Here’s my store (bottom left) in their Interesting Stores List:

And heres my ‘Give Me Swirls’ Magnets in their list of Intersting Products (far right third row):

Its a real buzz getting featured in these ways but an even bigger buzz when sales happen!!

I’ve been meaning to try wire wrapping to add to my creations for a while now. My biggest dilemma was whether to go with sterling silver or silver plated wire (or gold filled or gold plated). I decided I just couldn’t afford the sterling wire so for now I’ve gone with the plated. So, here’s my first experiments:

and here’s some I’ve turned into bookmarks:

These are for sale in my Etsy and Mintd Stores at the moment.

Wordless Wednesday

I was standing in Kmart this morning, shopping with Keziah and observed a lady at the end of the isle who was very very pregnant. I looked at her and her cute little girl (who looked about 3 years old) and thought, ‘cute kid!’. Just as I was looking at her and thinking this the mother reached over and yanked something from the child’s hands. It was a Wiggles DVD that she was going to buy.

As she yanked it from her hands she yelled ‘don’t do that!’ and proceeded to whack her daughter over the head and look at the ‘damage’ she did the the sticker on the front of the DVD cover. She then looked at her daughter and said ‘you’re such and idiot!’.

I stared in disbelief and the very first thought that came into my head was ‘I AM a good mother’. Now, that may sound selfish but its the truth. I felt awful for the little girl and can’t imagine what her childhood will be like if thats a regular occurance.

Now, by saying that I’m a good mother, I’m basically comparing myself to this lady and saying she’s a bad mother. There could be several reasons for her doing what she did:
1. She could be very tired being so heavily pregnant and walking around with a toddler all day.
2. Hormones.
3. She was having a rough morning.
4. Stress.

For all I know she may have felt bad and apologised to her daughter later on but I didn’t get that vibe. Is she a bad mother…….hmmmm that may be a harsh judgement call and I don’t know all her circumstances. All I do know is that I would never do that to Keziah and I immediately felt as if my mothering skills aren’t as bad as I thought. Is that a bad conclusion? What do you think?

Yesterday in the post I got the special stamp that Suki (her blog is here) kindly made for me. I wrote a post about it here. Its so exciting to see one of my own designs in a form that I can use over and over!!

As you can see from the first print I did, I seriously need a new stamp pad. I think I’ll look into some fabric inks as well as better quaility paper inks!!! Look out for some cards and whatever else I manage to put together using this stamp, in my Etsy and Mintd stores! I think I might have to ask (and pay) Suki to do me some more stamps!! Thank you Suki!

Your foot gets stuck in your toy.

PS She wasn’t hurt, she was annoyed and when she saw these pics on my screen she went and did it again with a smile!

I have been posting a lot about my polymer clay creations here this year and just wanted to take a minute to summarize a few things completely outside of that. I suppose to be honest, creating and being creative is an integral part of my everyday and this year I have been trying to get my Etsy and Wahmania (and now Mintd) stores up and running.

There are however other facets of my life that I would like to share. I’m sure that you’ve probably figured out what they are by now but here’s a summary of the things that I’m passionate about besides Etsy and selling my polymer clay.

1. God. Underlying all my decisions, behaviour, attitudes and reactions is God who reminds me gently when I’m off kilter or acting selfishly. No matter how undisciplined I might get as far as reading my Bible, its ingrained firmly in me that I need to pull myself back into line.

2. Family. My hubby, daughter, parents, brother, sister-in-law, nephew, in-laws and extended family are all very important to me. Our family is very close and yet most of us live very far apart. This is very hard but something I have accepted as I believe my parents and brother and sister-in-law are following what God has laid on their hearts to do (they are all missionaries in Papua New Guinea). Yay for Skype!

3. Missions. I have always been passionate about seeing others around the world hear the good news that they are not alone in this world. When I say always I mean since I was a little kid. Whether its SIM or another mission doesn’t matter to me. I also believe strongly in a holistic approach to this. There is no point in preaching at someone that Christ died for them and loves them if they have no food, water, education, skills or shelter. In order to really tell someone that Christ loves them you must first display this love GENUINELY. If someone chooses not to accept that Christ died for them then that is their choice. It makes me sad though.

4. Some General and Less Serious Passions. Op (thrift) shopping, Moleskine doodling, painting, drawing, playing with Keziah, white chocolate, malted milk, jam donuts, patterns, damask, being tidy, journaling, traveling, Africa, watching Survivor, watching the amazing race.

Ok, so if you didn’t really know me, now you’re getting a little closer. I may sound as if all I talk about is my Etsy shop but the truth is, that would be number five on the list of true passions, it just so happens that I find it easier to blog about it!