Success!

Yay! So I was finally able to get some nice cuts in my glass. And thank goodness for the glass grinder, that thing saved me about three days worth of sanding glass by hand.



I'm pretty much just cutting the glass as close to size as I can get while leaving room for error, and then grinding them the rest of the way down.




And I really need to either get a temp control for my soldering iron, or a new one all together, cause I'm melting through my bits at an alarming rate. But at least I managed to get one piece done. It's pretty rough, and I'm probably gonna go back and touch up the solder, but it's nice to have at least one 'done'.



And it turned out really cute. A little eastern stink bug with some watch gears and paper. Small and cute and shiny.

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Butchering Glass

Eek. So it seems my glass cutting is going to take a lot of practice. I've looked at an array of online glass cutting how to sites. I've got my supper nifty glass cutting oil. My ever handing glass snapping pliers. My apparently bottom of the rung glass cutter. And lots of lovely curved shards of glass. Not a straight line to be found amongst them. Not even one. Oh this is disappointing.



I've always had a problem of giving up on things if I'm not good at them right away. There's plenty of things I know how to do and know how to do well, so I've never had the patience to stick with something if I can't do it great right off the bat. And that's a pretty lousy way to be. Okay, gotta go get back on that horse.

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Filling my etsy shop

Spent the morning trudging through the process of stocking my etsy shop. It wouldn't be so bad, but out here in the sticks no one provides good internet access. So what should take about a minute or two to upload images to the store is taking about twenty five to thirty for each ornament. Egad that's dreadful. Oh well, it's all worth it.
I've had a few people stop by that saw my things at the auction, which is nice. It's good to know that people who have seen them in real life liked them enough to come check out my at the moment meager stock.
I'll be picking up a stamp pad today. I'd like to be able to deck out my shipping boxes a bit. It's nice to get something in the mail that is more interesting than a plain brown box. And I have managed to amass a nice array of stamps, yet no stamp pads. I've never actually had the need to ink them up, I just press them into clay. It will be strange to actually use them for their intended purpose.
My glass grinder is still sitting in it's box. I'm being a good girl and focusing on getting my ornaments on etsy before I delve back into glass, but oh the temptation is horrible.
I have been taking breaks though to search the internet for interesting fonts. $2000 for a new computer, and it didn't come with an Olde English font. Go figure. I've found some dandies though. And I've rummaged around for some old poems, and sent them through an online english to german translator. Print those out with my lovely new fonts, and I should have some very delectable papers to cover my boxes in.
I would love to find an old book of sheet music. Have to keep my eye out for that.

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Pleeeeeeease stop moving...

Oh the joy of photographing dangling objects.

I really wanted to shoot my ornaments outside, hanging from a nice mossy tree branch, but it's either been too rainy or too windy as of late. So I was relegated to the inside.

I first tried to make a little back drop and stage out of a card board box. I crumpled up some old book pages, and gave them an antiquing wash of paint and mica powders, and covered the sides of the boxes in them.



The result, way too busy. I think I may be able to salvage it for something else. Give it a few aging washes to tone it down and make it more subtle. But for now, not an option. In the end, I resorted to hanging a piece of ribbon from one of my tall floor lamps.

Then came the fun of trying to get ribbon suspended objects to stop moving. All they wanted to do was twist, and spin, and wobble. Every little draft sent them dancing. Each time the cat would walk by, it would send shivers through the little glass orbs.



It was quite the exercise in patience. And when they finally came to a stop, it would always be with the same side towards the camera. No matter how I would turn them, or rig the ribbon at a different orientation to the camera, whenever they came to rest from my touching them, the same side would be to the camera.



After much struggling, grumbling, and shutting of cats into the bedroom, I was able to get four sides of almost all of them. Some refused to exhibit but two of their lovely angles, and in frustration I was forced to put them aside for a later photo shoot. Some models can never be reasoned with.



So, I've come away with decent shots for most of them, I think I've got a little over half of them photographed. They should be going up on etsy today.


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Cutting Corners, Are We?

So I've got this thing coming up. A fundraiser that I'm going to have some pieces up for auction. Problem is, I have neither the time nor money for new business cards. I have this huge box of cards from about fifteen years ago, with completely outdated info. So what do we do? We get creative.

Print out some new info tags, a little x-acto work, edge with water color, glue down, and presto, new workable business cards. Ugh. I feel dirty. I hate doing something so substandard, but I don't really know what else to do for it at the moment. It'll have to do.

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