Amanda’s Musings

I’ve been very busy continuing to build up my stock for the upcoming Melville Baptist Fete and Made On The Left market. I have been trying to turn my focus to less jewellery items to give me a lot more range. I’ve added more tea light candle holders, bookmarks, brooches, hair accessories and magnets.

Before you take a peek at the new items can I ask if you would click on this link and do a little survey for me. It’s in regards to my pricing. Pricing is something I’m not particularly confident in so all feedback would be greatly appreciated. The link is:

Survey for Polyclarific

So, here are the new items, thanks for any feedback:

The last week was quite busy and yet I have no idea what I actually did. I suppose the easiest way to figure it out is to look back over some of the photos I took. Of course I’m pretty sure that there was a lot more that I did besides what is shown below including shopping for a dress for my cousin’s wedding, watching Project Runway in the middle of the night (while feeding Lucinda) and losing my wallet sometime between yesterday and today!

Firstly we had a fair bit of ‘playing with the new (birthday) toys’ time:

I did a custom order:

Lots of Luci cuddling and playing:

A massive pile of washing:

We had some friends over:

Kezi did some painting:

and I created some tea light candle holders:

and finally, some mucking around:

I do wonder what this week will show when I look at my photos. I have a busy week including going out to tea, having friends over for lunch, enjoying the company of another Etsy seller and going to the Royal show!! Sounds very busy.

The other night I sat and made up 14 pairs of earrings, 7 button cards (as in buttons sewn to card to sell, not a greeting card) and one phone charm in one sitting. It sounds as if I really threw them together doesn’t it? I did in a way but mainly because I had made the beads with intention instead of experimentally like usual. Lately I’ve been considering my craft a lot more as I do it and while allowing myself to ‘play’ I’m still creating with the deliberate-ness that it takes to make a sellable item.

At the moment I am preparing for the next two markets I’m doing so I’ve been stocking up and stocking up, so far I think I have around 50 pairs of earrings made up that are not listed in my stores as well as many many necklaces, bookmarks, bracelets, beads and other items. At some point in the next week I think I’d better take an inventory so I know where I’m up to!

So, here’s some of the results of the other night’s creativity (you can see the rest over on my flickr page if you want to). As you can see these are from the same ‘canes’ or blocks of clay so have a similarity about them.

I have also been trying to play around with new cane designs and master the skill of caning. Here’s some of those results:

Buttons

Telephones

Cars

Sheep

And finally, a little experiment in the mokume gane technique:

Before I show you what I’ve been doing in between general every day life and bouts of sickness I want to mention again the SIM project for these two months. Perhaps you’ve noticed a bit of Christmassy stuff in our stores already, well its never too early to start gift buying!

A reminder that the money from my sales for September and October go to the work of Deborah House Shelter for Street Girls (92704) in Addis Abbaba in Ethiopia. I’ve already had three sales but the more I can sent to help these girls the better so feel frr to browse my shops here;

Polyclarific on Etsy
Polyclarific on Made It
Polyclarific on Wahmania

Now to some of the newest items, I had fun making the polymer clay beads over the last year, its great to see them finally made into jewellery;

Necklace

Bracelet

Necklace

There’s a lot more but this is a picture heavy post already!

Thank you to everyone who gave such generous comments about my last post, what you have said makes a lot of sense. There were a few stand out comments that have helped me to sort out a bit more of my thinking. Firstly, what Miss Dot said was a great summary:

“You have to decide if you are doing your work……force yourself to make enough of the “selling” stuff and when that is complete you allow yourself to have some fun things.”

What Pam said was good:

“Maybe if you continue experimenting with all the different styles, then abandon the ones you don’t enjoy so much to spend more time on the ones that you do enjoy, you may find that your “style” finds you!”

but I think Sarah managed to summarise it the best:

“I reckon 50-50. Obviously you want to enjoy what you make and if bright colours are your trademark then I say go for it. But on the other hand, I do see your dilemma as well…you don’t want to end up with stacks of stuff that hasn’t sold especially as you putting money towards such good causes. I say make a few things that appeal to you personally and even if they don’t sell, you’re still left with something you like. If the big sellers aren’t your fave, I reckon still make a few anyway cos if people buy them then at least the money is helping SIM projects.”

One of the reasons I give my profits to SIM projects is that I have a ‘heavenly’ focus (I am in no way commenting on any one else’s focus, everyone can focus on whatever they choose). I find it very difficult to be creative if what I’m making or designing does not contribute to the physical or spiritual assistance of someone else. I don’t know why this is but I find that my creative process is completely inhibited when I am designing something just to put it in a drawer or keep for myself.

I like the idea of making things that I can always keep if they don’t sell (or use as gifts). So, what am I concluding that I should do? I think I will decide on what are the best sellers and then, once I’ve made enough of those as stock I’ll focus on creativity. If things go well then I should find that the ‘cash-cow’ items will also be the ones I enjoy creating! In many ways this is no different to those artists who paint lovely aesthetic images for their bread and butter and then have another line of work for exhibiting.

Thanks for all your input everyone, and I’m glad you all liked my experimental pendant, it needs a lot more experimenting and work but it will give me something to play with! For those who wanted to see the whole thing, here it is:

I’m very impatient and easily bored when it comes to designing. Instead of coming up with a ‘line’ of jewellery or the like I find myself trying every style I can think of and ending up with quite a range of items that are not really related. I’m torn as to whether I should sit down and come up with a set style and try to figure of what makes my work look like me or if I should just keep on playing. Here’s a few examples…

This is an experimental pendant that I did last week. I cut a cane along the edges to see what it would look like and it turned out very organic. Should I do a few of these in different colours or not?

This is a cuff bracelet that I did a few weeks ago using a symmetrical cane that I made with scrap clay. Very different to my other work. I won’t be selling this one however.

What about this one? I could easily make a series of these using different colours and shapes but should I?

Or these thumbtacks. Very kitch and funky but should I go down the miniature food line just because its popular?

Should I put my hand painting skills to work and do more like this one? I did this a while ago now and it hasn’t sold.

Or maybe more wire wrapping, these seem to be popular.

Perhaps I should do more brightly coloured beads? Not everyone’s forte so they don’t always sell well but I love doing them and I’d love to be known for my brightly coloured work.

These sold very fast and I could pump out these and sell them fast but are they my style?

I could go on because I’ve done so many different styles but I won’t because I’m sure you get the idea. Perhaps I should choose a seasonal palette and go with that for a few months or something like that or maybe I should just keep doing what I’m doing. What do you think?