Archive for July 13, 2008

Things I’ve been thinking about…

July 13, 2008 / Molly / 4 comments

Lately I have been sitting in my swivelly office chair for long periods of time due to sore back etc that comes with this stage of pregnancy. This has allowed me a bit too much internet browsing time and thinking time! Here’s a few things that have been running through my head:

1. I’ve been reading Alan Alda‘s book ‘Never Have Your Dog Stuffed‘ which has gotten me to think about the series of MASH a lot more than usual. I’ve found myself looking up the ‘where are they now’ links on imdb.com and even discovered that the actor Larry Linville who played Maj. Frank Burns not only died but was married 5 times. I don’t know why this is interesting but it is.

2. I found a great idea for a display on my online fellow polymer clayer’s flickr page. Tamara from Block Party Press covered her display in brown paper. This has gotten me thinking about using this as a basis for our next SIM display. This is good news because it means that my brain is finally starting to think more about SIM again. Its been switched to other things for a few months. I was thinking along the lines of it implying God’s gift to us, or the words, parcel, present, favourite things….more thinking needed on that one.

3. This is the big week. Wednesday is the day. I had so much time on my hands that I was able to work out that I go into the hospital at 4.30pm Tuesday CANADIAN TIME.

4. I have decided that I really enjoy getting to meet new people. This is news to myself. This is not something I used to enjoy. Might have something to do with being housebound (or swivel chair bound) a fair bit lately.

5. I want to sit and have a look at the connection in the Bible between creativity and God. I’m guessing the words ‘In the beginning God CREATED the heaven’s and the earth’ would be a good place to start seeing as this is Genesis 1:1 (first verse in the Bible).

6. I miss painting.

That’s enough thinking for a while I think. After Wednesday I may find that I have more middle of the night thinking time but instead of sitting here with two free hands to type away, I’ll only have one.

Category: All Sorts of Things, Art, Family /

Made On The Left Excitement

July 12, 2008 / Molly / 6 comments

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Today was the inaugural Made on the Left Market at the Hyde Park Hotel. If I wasn’t 9 months pregnant I probably would have had a stall myself. Instead I went down there with Mum and Michael and had a great time walking around meeting quite a few of the Etsy girls I’ve been chatting to online for a while. The amazing thing is that the fabulous five (Dara, Jacquie, Ali, Rosanna and Sarah) who organised the market have had only 8 weeks to do it. The turnout was great, it was packed when we arrived after lunch and they said that the crowd was thinner than before lunchtime!

Those I got to meet included:

The Tiny Little Girl
Aussie Patches (we’ve met previously)
Planet Lime
Letters For Lilly
Get Silvered (also met before although like myself, she was visiting today)
Ramsden Designs
Dara Art (also met Dara previously)
Rosanna Elizabeth
Odd Girl Out (we share the medium of Polymer Clay)
Tiny Monster (I didn’t get to meet you because you were dealing with customers but I did see your stall)
J2aney (another fellow polymer clay artist)
Desert Bloom (who I had a great conversation with about having babies!!)
Scrapindipity (again, you had customers so I didn’t get to meet you)
The Broken Magpie
Holly Courtney (we met last year also)
In Mono Designs (Feli – we also met previously)

It was nice to meet you guys and put names and faces together. My Mum was smiling at me because I was introducing myself by saying ‘Hi, I’m Polyclarific’ instead of ‘I’m Amanda’ but that’s how we all recognise each other, via our online shop names.

Finally, the most exciting thing was that the market got advertised on both the TV and radio as well as in papers around Perth. I’ll be in line to have a stall at the one that’s held next year and hopefully it will be doubly as successful as this one. Good on you Ladies!

Category: All Sorts of Things, Art, Etsy, Polyclarific, Polymer Clay /

Finally, a little bit of polyclaying

July 9, 2008 / Molly / 2 comments

Despite feeling completely fatigued I made myself sit down and play with clay the other night. I really miss being clay creative on a regular basis and just haven’t been able to do it since moving house. After next week (the big day is July 16th) I’m not sure how often I’ll get to do it either. Anyway, here’s the result of mucking around with the clay. I actually did some more claying last night for a PCAGOE charity entry and if I get a photo of it I’ll put it up as I quite like the result. That might be it for a while though!

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Result of the ‘mucky’ end of the cane, I actually like this imperfect end much better:

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I also managed to create this little brooch of roses, not baked yet though:

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Art, Polyclarific, Polymer Clay /

Old Fashioned Embroidery

July 9, 2008 / Molly / No comments

Digging around in amongst the things that made it to our new house I found this sheet of embroidery. I’m not sure exactly what you call it but most of us would have seen the finished product in our grandmothers houses as doilies or tablecloths. I quite like it, I like the quality of the fabric and intend on completing this one. I want to try to get the stitching very fine, high quality just like my Nanna used to do. I found a second piece which was half done (not shown) so I’ll try to do that too. Anyway, I love finds like this and the fact that it belonged to her makes it even more special!

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Art, Sewing /

SIM Project for July and August

July 8, 2008 / Molly / 4 comments

As promised in the previous post, here is the project that the sales from July and August will go towards. After asking from direction from above and searching through many projects I’ve settled on this one.

Malawi Church Leaders HIV & AIDS Training (96352)

The link above will give you a lot more information about this project but a quote from the page says:

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The church is reaching out to many of the poorest people in Malawi. Church members struggle to put food on the table and only have small offerings to pay the pastors. Despite small economic resources, the churches are pouring themselves out in response to the AIDS crisis which is devastating families and entire villages. These pastors continue to minister in these tough conditions because they love God and their fellow Malawians….

About US $3600 can bring 90 pastors and their wives from all over Malawi to stay at the Bible College in Blantyre for four days. This is only US $10 per person per day for this important time of training, equipping and encouraging. Would you consider giving US $40 to train one pastor? This gift will have an eternal impact and bring a smile to even more faces! Thank you for your partnership to strengthen the church in Malawi!

You can watch a video on the work of HOPE for AIDS in Malawi here.

The links to my online shops are:

Polyclarific on Etsy
Polyclarific on MadeIt
Polyclarific on Wahmania

Category: Africa, All Sorts of Things, Etsy, Madeit, Mintd, Polyclarific, Polymer Clay, SIM, Wahmania /

Bikes for Ghana Project Total

July 8, 2008 / Molly / No comments

As promised, here is the tally for the months of May and June in total sales…………..$US341. I blogged about the project that the profits will go to back at the start of May but the project page on the SIM website can be found here.

$US60 will buy one Pastor in Ghana a bike to make it much easier for him to do his work. Instead of having to walk for 4-5 hours (each way) to visit someone, they will be able to cycle.

Thank you to those who purchased from me during the last two months, the Pastors will appreciate their bikes! In total I have enough to buy them NEARLY 6 bikes. I’m $US19 short of the sixth bike.

The project for the months of July and August will be announced shortly in a separate post. In the meantime, here are some of the items that have been translated into bikes (as in, these items have sold for this project).

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Etsy, SIM /

Competitions!

July 6, 2008 / Molly / 7 comments

It seems that I have had a little run of winning competitions lately. Recently I voted for which creation I liked the best in the Etsy BeadWeavers Street Team competition. As part of this I was entered into a draw to win a cuff bracelet handmade by the very clever Carol Dean Sharpe who runs SandFibers, a shop on Etsy. She creates beautiful jewellery using peyote stitched beads. I won this gorgeous bracelet in the competition and she sent me the beads magazine that it is featured in also. Thank you Carol!!

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A few weeks ago I won a little competition run by the lovely Ilysa and Kira over at Polymer Clay Productions. Ilysa sent me these twinkly sparkly foils called Jones Tones (click on there to buy them in their shop) which can be used in many ways but the focus for her and for me is using them with polymer clay. I’m yet to try them but I can’t wait!

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Ilysa kindly included an extra surprise for me in the parcel, a set of two bibs and some baby washers. Thank you Ilysa!

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I have been told that I won the MadeIt T-shirt competition also, thank you to those who voted!! I’ll post more about that when the prize pack arrives and I can show it to you.

I will try and do a post this week too about the end result of the last two month’s sales and where the money will go. I am yet to decide where the money from July and August will go but I’ll keep you posted!

Category: All Sorts of Things, Etsy, Madeit, Polymer Clay, Sales and Competitions /

Spoonflowering

July 4, 2008 / Molly / 3 comments

Ok, who said ‘weird title’ when they read that? Spoonflower is a great new way to have your own fabric printed. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. As far as options go I don’t think its very cheap but it all depends what you do with the fabric. I intend on using small amounts of it to make little bags to sell. I’ll be getting more printed in the future for sure!!

Here’s my two fat quarters with my designs. I have also shown the original moleskine drawings for both. Its exciting to have my very own designs on fabric!

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Category: All Sorts of Things, Art, Sewing /

Arte y pico Blog Award

July 4, 2008 / Molly / 4 comments

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Sarah from Sedshed has given me a little award. I think this is the first time I’ve been given a blog award so thanks Sarah.

The rules for passing this honour on:

1 – Pick 5 blogs that you would like to award this honour to.
2 – Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3 – Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.
4 – Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

Go to the Arte y Pico blog if you’d like to know more about this award.

The five blogs I have decided to give this award to myself are:
1. Ali J from Aussiepatches for her kindness and generosity when it comes to helping out her fellow Western Aussie Etsy seller in the area of business practice.

2. Michelle from Between Diapers and Dishes who lives in Mexico for always writing interesting posts and for encouraging me.

3. Ingrid from Lottielulu who is always inspirational and whose style I love!

4. Kate from Never Enough Hours who is amazingly talented and somehow manages to juggle a newborn, twin toddlers and create beautiful original designs!

5. Suki from Tamptation who made me some wonderful stamps using my designs last year. I love her fabric and original designs!

Category: All Sorts of Things, Art /
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