Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Not The Year For Blogging

I really haven't kept this blog updated very well have I??

Truth is, I don't really think about it so much these days.
My girls both had their birthdays in May. The eldest now 7 and the youngest now 2!
I don't have a whole lot of time on my hands for 'me' anymore. And blogging has taken the last spot on the list for now.

Not a whole lot has happened since my last post in March.
Though I have been back at my bench a lot more. I feel that dabbling in Pottery somewhat helped me back to it. I definitely feel at home with jewellery making. Pottery is great fun and I do intend to keep up with it, but right now I just don't have the time.

With jewellery making you can begin something and then leave it for a while to see to the children, or dinner, or answer the phone etc. But with throwing clay, you have to be there for the duration and you have to see the project through and you can't leave the wheel - you must be really focused and almost fixated on the clay or it just doesn't work out. And I rarely get that kind of time, at least not until 10/11 at night and by then, I'm spent and ready for bed.

Here are some pictures of what I've made on my wheel at home:
























So they are just a small part of what I have thrown on my wheel at home. My pottery teacher says I am ready to move onto glazing now, or I can continue to learn how to throw - I haven't tried to join two pots together or to make a teapot and so on. Right now I feel to move onto glazing would be the ideal thing. So that will be happening in the near future I hope.

I've noticed being at my bench certainly feels very comfortable for me and so I have been trying to spend a lot more time there - which means being there when my little one is running around. I have set up a blackboard/whiteboard in the garage where I work so she can draw whilst I try and get little things done. It never really works for long, but I try :)

Lately I have decided to try and push my designs further and I am constantly on the quest to be learning/teaching myself new things with jewellery techniques.

Pictures below are of things I have made in the past month or so:





























The Turquoise piece above was for a giveaway I recently had on Instagram, which I will be sending off today if I get the time. Again I am playing with backgrounds for my jewellery. It seems to be something I can never settle on and am constantly changing, but I can't help it. I am probably going to change it again soon..........

I think we are looking to move again very soon. I would love to move to a single level home to make life simpler. There are definite postitives to having a double storey home, but there are many negatives too - especially for me. The one problem is getting a good home within our budget that has all the things we require and being able to be in a good area too. I love change, but I'm not a fan with all the work that comes with moving.

So that's what's been happening in my neck of the woods.
Sorry that I am not really here much anymore. It can't be helped right now.
Off to have a nice hot cup of tea - yes! it's actually a little cold here now!!  :)

Em ♥

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Hello there!!! (long post ahead!)

I am still around folks!
Not as much as I'd like to be, but time slips away from me these days faster than ever. Leaving little time for blogging.

My little girl will be 2 soon. She is gorgeous, but gets into absolutely everything!! And so I am kept on my toes day in and day out raising her. I haven't been at my bench much at all this year. For some reason after teaching myself a new technique, things just sort of dissipated and I stopped making anything. At all.

There are a few pieces waiting for me to finish - but I just don't want to. Don't get me wrong, I still think about making something daily, but whenever there is a little bit of free time, I don't gravitate toward jewellery making. So for now, I am just finding other ways to express creativity.

Below are the last pieces I made using the new technique I spoke about in my last post:


















I love what I achieved here. It was challenging and great to add a new technique to my small group of skills.

It is still SO HOT here and we're almost a month into Autumn! Over it! I want the cold weather! Please!!

Okay so since I haven't been at my bench much, I have to put my creative side into something new. Sometimes this helps me get back to metal smithing. (though so far it hasn't!) I had a kit for candle making stored away, that I'd bought just before falling pregnant in 2012. And a little while ago I decided I would get it out and get making - one thing lead to another and I somehow ended up wanting to make bath bombs and then soap! Soap! Of all things! I don't even use bars of soap for goodness sake. (I'm a liquid/shower gel type of gal)

Anyway I researched my butt off and got making it. Below is a picture of the second batch (small 3 bar batch) of cold process soap I ever made using my own recipe and it was sadly the last.




















To cut an extremely long story short - to set up the legal side of things (in order to sell said soap at markets/etsy/anywhere really) for insurance and registration for using a chemical, it was going to cost me a lot of money. Well over $1000 aussie dollars. And that was before you pay for the actual ingredients and tools you need to make the soap.

So unfortunately I had to put that idea to bed. Which really sucked. I really, really, was excited about it and I felt I could still pair it with jewellery making.

Well this got hubby and I thinking about what I could do instead of soap making that wouldn't cost me anything to pursue (outside of the obvious costs of supplies etc) and he came up with Pottery.

And this folks is where I have been resting my creative head for the past month.


Before I go, here is a picture of my little boy Tookie.

 
I lost him a week ago to an open cage door. Unfortunately the little door inside the main sliding door got stuck and he got out. I stupidly tried to grab him and he flew to 3 other places in our garden and each time I tried to grab him. Didn't have my thinking cap on - I had my panic cap on and he got away. Didn't hear him until that afternoon, he was up a very very tall Gumtree he could see me, I could see him. But he wasn't going to come down.

I put out his cage on our front lawn with food and packets of human snacks and he still refused to even try. Personally I don't think he wanted too. At least not enough. He was enjoying his freedom with his full flight feathers and he wanted to explore, but was too scared to at the same time. We tried to hose him out of the tree (I should have tried this before he escaped our back yard!!!! It would have worked 100% - of that I am sure!) but it just made him fly further up to the top of the gum tree. And if you know those trees, you will know just how tall they are!

Night fall came and we didn't hear anymore noises. The morning came and we couldn't see or hear him anymore. That was over a week ago......

I got him on our honey moon over 14 years ago. He was a little bit loco. But I loved him and I miss him. The main thing that hurts is not knowing if he is okay and alive and hoping with all hope that if he has passed on, that it was swift and with no suffering. And mainly that it's my stupid fault. I knew it was going to happen one day, because of that bloody door getting stuck sometimes. I can't change it now. I have to just get over it. I love him and hope he had a little adventure out there in the big bird world.

Where ever you are little Tookie boy, you'll always be part of me and my memories x x