Amanda’s Musings

Well, what a weekend this has been. I have had very little sleep although last night was a lot better than the previous two nights. This was related more to Keziah than Lucinda. She has had bronchitis for the last week and then on Friday night around 1.30am she started throwing up! We think that she has a virus on top of the bronchitis and the health line people think that her system would be down a bit due to antibiotics hence making her more vulnerable to viruses. Poor little girl.

Usually I do all the night feeds and shifts and Michael will get up with Kezi (and now Luci) around 6-6.30am and let me sleep for a bit longer but on Friday night/Sat morn he had to take care of Lucinda and her feeds while I took care of a chucking up Kezi!! We were both wrecked by Saturday morning. It was all looking on the up until just after bedtime for Kezi last night when she was sick again so we did what we had done the night before and set her up in the lounge room so I could sleep next to her. Michael would have done that shift except that he was preaching this morning so really did need sleep! It all turned out ok because Keziah slept most of the night, wasn’t sick again and I actually got sleep between feeds.

I feel fully initiated into double parenthood now. Looks like I survived. : )

In between all of this I have managed a tiny bit of time snatching and creativity. I think it keeps me sane. Here’s the results from the last three or four days:

Some bitty booties for Lucinda, she only just fits them though!

Various pendants, beads etc… that I’ve made this week and varnished

Varnished a large group of pendants and beads (ready for an upcoming show - stay tuned!)

I have realised that I have a lot on my plate for the rest of the year. Between my SIM responsibilities (newsletter coming out soon, emails, admin and working on our display for upcoming events), Creativity and my shops (I have 2-3 actual physical market stalls before Christmas), Home life (the usual cleaning, kids stuff, feeding Luci etc etc…, buying presents, arranging Kezi’s birthday party for next month etc…) and church life (I’m yet to get as involved as I’d like, I was either away or pregnant for most of our first year at our new church!), I need to be organised. I’m happy though to be no longer pregnant and able to have a reasonably clear brain again, its good to be busy!

A few posts back I mentioned completing a custom order of cupcakes and pies. The order was for Liza of Lillybuds and she’s listed her special bouquets using my creations on her website. Take a moment to look around her site but here’s what she’s been creating:

Liza’s bouquets are also in the current edition of Notebook magazine so look out for them if you have a chance to. Congrats Liza! You can also visit her Etsy store to see more of her amazing work.

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.

I’ve just listed some new items in my Etsy store and put two of them in my Wahmania store also. Here’s a sneek peek:

I worked hard this week and got this custom order finished. I really enjoyed creating these little pastel cupcakes and lemon meringue pies on pastel plates. I quite like the glossy finish too and am almost inspired to create some little tiny chocolate sundae’s and other desserts.

While I was busy claying I had another go at creating a few other things. I quite like the red and black group which will be a necklace and earrings:

I did create a few other things but I won’t clog up this post with more photos. Sometimes I wonder why I put up pictures of my latest creations. After considering this for a bit, I think its simply because I appreciate feedback on what I create. In my non-online world I don’t have discussions about creativity, design or art with many people as it never comes up. I don’t really show many people my creations outside of the internet (in the sense that I am braver on here than in real life) and so this is a good place to connect with those who are like-minded. I don’t think its so much for ‘praise’ but more for genuine feedback. Gradually I’ve gained confidence in what I do but I have a long way to go in understanding the polymer clay medium. At the same time, I’m really looking forward to getting back into painting again. I have my painting cupboard all ready, full of oil, acrylic and pastel paints and have kept all my spare canvases from uni…..ah one day! I’d appreciate any feedback on the things I’ve posted here. Without refining my skills I cannot improve. Thanks for those who do give feedback, its very much appreciated.

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!

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!

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

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

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: