Amanda’s Musings

In between everything I’ve been snatching little pockets of time to still be creative. I quite like how these sets have turned out and hope that they will sell when I list them. Today that probably won’t happen (unless I get an energy spurt) as Kezi has bronchitis and I spent a good chunk of last night out of bed so I’m pretty tired. More on that later. Anyway, here’s this weeks results of time snatching:

Pink Set using a set of millefiori cane beads I made.

Red, Black and White Set using more Millefiori Beads and Czech crystals.

Mokume Gane based bead Set also using crystal beads.

These will be available soon in one of the following stores:
Polyclarific @ Etsy
Polyclarific @ MadeIt
Polyclarific @ Wahmania

Don’t forget that this month the profits from all sales go to helping educate church leaders in Malawi, Africa in AIDS and HIV knowledge (through SIM). I have had enough sales to send two leaders to the seminars so far.

This week I received the prize pack for the MadeIt t-shirt competition. In it were some dainty notepaper, cards and gift tags from Truth be Told, a felt lady badge from Anna Laura and a tiny bottle of rocky road scent from Bottled Up Emotions. Lovely items!

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:

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

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!!

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!

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

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!

The money from all my sales is still going to the work of SIM each month. As I’ve mentioned before, the money for the months of May and June goes towards Bikes for Pastors in Ghana, Africa.. With just a couple of weeks left in June I thought I would mention this again.

I fully believe that God is in control of my sales and interestingly I had more sales in May than I have ever had before followed by a total of zero sales in June. The timing of this is amazing as June has been crazily busy with moving house and trying to prepare for our new baby.

The last sale I had was May 30th, we moved June 2nd. Interesting.

The total of sales so far for these two months is $US331.50. If I do sell anything over the next week and a half I have managed to find places for my creations and also the packaging I would need to post them so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Custom orders however won’t be accepted for quite a while.

So, what does $331.50 buy for the Pastors in Ghana? It buys 5 and a half bikes for them!! Wouldn’t it be great to make it to a total of 6 bikes? If you are intending to purchase anything from one of my online shops, now is the time! Just $30US more in sales will complete the aim.

As a tempter, here’s a couple of the items found in my Etsy shop:

At the end of last month I entered an online competition at the site ‘MadeIt’. The theme was anything to do with the letter ‘M’. My entry is entitled ‘My Mischief’ after Keziah. Voting has opened on the MadeIt blog, just click here to go and vote. Here’s my entry in full:

My final act of creativity before we shift house this weekend is this t-shirt. I’ve designed and created it for a competition on one of the sites I sell my polymer clay and felt items on called MadeIt. The theme of the t-shirt was to be around the letter ‘M’ so this one is named after Keziah and entitled ‘My Mischief’. The design came from one of my moleskine sketches as you can see in the picture below:

The stitching was done by hand and changed slightly from the original design but overall I’m quite happy with the outcome. I wanted to have a go at putting one of my designs on a t-shirt anyway so this was a good chance to have a go.

Ok, so here’s the finished product along with some little modelled shots by Kezi. She was a bit sleepy in this shot so she doesn’t look like the mischievous self that the t-shirt is named after!

I have started to stitch a couple of new things now that I’m on my way with the brooches and have completed the booties. A few weeks ago I did a survey to which over 50 people responded. I asked what people think I should do with my felt ‘patches’ and I had quite a few suggestions. One of the most common suggestions was to create denim jeans patches (those in the US called them blue jeans patches) and so that’s what I’m trying to do.

I’ve had to put this aside for a week until I complete my t-shirt for the madeit t-shirt competition but so far so good. Here’s a sneek peek:

I quite like them without any stitching on but I can’t help myself. I don’t feel like they are finished without the stitching. The back of these has the glue for ironing onto jeans.

I am continuing to send the profits from all sales to the work of SIM around the world (bikes for Pastor’s still this month). Sales have not moved a lot in the last week so feel free to spread the word!!

I have recently had another custom order which is almost completed, this time I was asked to make little beads with sheep in them. What fun! Having a lot of the little sheep cane left over, I decided to make some sheep buttons which will go for sale in my shop as soon as I photograph them properly. For now however, here’s a sneek peek.

Oh, and PS. I have already had enough sales in May to buy 5, yes 5 bikes for the Pastors in Ghana! Isn’t that amazing. God is the only one directing the sales as I have never had this many in such a short time. I have not been promoting myself any differently to usual so I know its not me! Thank you Lord.

I have also been busily hand stitching more embroidered brooches to sell, in fact I sold the one I featured in my earlier post already! Here’s the one I have already listed in my shop:

After having a look around the SIM Projects website I have found the project that the Polyclarific profits will be going to for the next two months.

Are you a cyclist? Do you own a bike? Do your kids own a bike, maybe everyone in the family has one? In parts of Africa a bike is something that is out of reach for most. These people get around on foot and are used to travelling long distances along dusty paths. In the country of Ghana SIM has a project (#94020) where around $60US will buy a bike for a Pastor, allowing them to visit those who are needy much faster. The details from the SIM information page are as follows:

In Northern Ghana, dedicated pastors and evangelists bring new meaning to the scripture verse, “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” Because villages are spread out, they must walk considerable distances in order to minister or meet together with other church leaders. Pastor Jacob Wesong walked 4 to 5 hours each way in order to attend meetings with other church leaders.

This vital project is enabling outlying areas to be reached. Evangelists are bringing Christ’s love to those who have never heard, and pastors are visiting and encouraging small, isolated fellowships that they would not have been able to reach on foot.

I hope to make enough sales over the next two months to buy at least four bicycles for four needy Pastors in Ghana. A reminder that Mother’s Day is coming up, maybe you will find something in one of my stores that would be lovely for your Mum. Here are the links once again:

Etsy
Wahmanaia
MadeIt
Mintd