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