Oh I am in love.

Fabric covered buttons! They are so cool!

I've made some rings and bookmarks with little flowers and scraps of fabric.

SOOOOOoooo much fun.

The process creative

I've hired an assistant.

She hasn't been named, but she is a half body foam rubber mannequin.

I like her. She listens well.

And, she doesn't mind posing for photos without pay.

My new design assistant came into emply upon being found in a friends basement. If I hadn't taken her in, who knows what would have become of her. She is grateful.

So. with life aflutter all around me the rest of the day, I find myself looking forward to our time together in the evenings. We lay out projects, discuss color and design, and contemplate the meaning of all things creative.......like the current WIP that she is currently holding. It's a bib style necklace (well, it will be.) with various rosettes and flowers. It's also a great look at my creative process and how I go about creating.

Very rarely, if ever, do I pre-design something. The best pieces (in my opinion for whatever it matters) come from the flow of the process, and just happen. I'm like that in most areas of life. Planning ahead at anything is soooo painful for me. Seat of the pants is the way I'd rather do most things, however much frustration this may bring. And surprisingly, my day job is to schedule and facilitate a team of about 15 people. Their schedules are rarely out earlier than absolutely necessary, but we get on ok.

This necklace design, started with the red rosette on the left, and will continue to the right untill it makes me happy. Until then, I leave you with Dr. Vonthreadmore's promises of a return to the dye pots. She caught wind of my need for size 10 thread in solid colors and has declared her intention to provide the nesessary services.

Beginnings of the baby line

Really, these are the best pictures of my busy girl that I could get. She wouldn't hold still, but hopefully you can see how the hairband turned out. Admittedly, I had wanted the flowers closer together.....the elastic stretched more than I had anticipated. The next few I think will be sewn onto a pad of some sort so the flowers remain stationary while the band stretches.
My supply small sampling of headband supples did come,

But my daughter has already product tested the hat, and within two minutes of wearing it had it unraveling....

Apparently these are not suited for toddler fingers. Until next time!

Krystle

P.S. Thank you all again for the awesome encouragement. Really.

So many ideas, so little time.

The eternal struggle of my existence continues.....somewhere last week I deciced I wanted to be superwoman, and that I can do everything I want to do and then some. Andy then of course reality strikes again, and I have to muddle through and prioritize. Bah.

Anyway, somewhere in that delightful place of inspiration I came up with more bright ideas that then of course resulted in more supply orders. God bless the supply sellers on etsy! I am going back there more and more expecially for smaller orders of findings and things. You can get an item cheaper at the larger online outlets, but they want like $6 shipping no matter what. Most etsy sellers employ the use of the USPS at first class mail prices, so you can get just a few of something that you need and they ship it for $2. So, if you are in the market for some supply ideas, make sure you browse ETSY.

No pictures today, just some rambling. I can't say enough how I appreciate your comments here friends! Your encouragement is priceless.

Baby withdrawls.

It's official. My little baby is not really a baby any more.

Her first birthday was on the 12th, and we hosted her party this past weekend.

There is of course much to celebrate on such occasions. She is walking, she knows four words in sign language and can say mama and dada. All of this growing up of course leaves me a little sad that her baby days are near gone, and we are undecided as to whether we want another one or not. Now, I'm still in the post-nursing hormonal shift, so I won't trust the baby withdrawl emotions with any decision making right now, instead, I'm using all of that baby-wanting energy to create some pretty baby tatted things :

This headband is taking me three days to complete......but it will eventually have three rosettes on the stretchy headband. I'm contemplating adding a baby line to the shop (s) (you can now find me on artfire....) but this one is for my precious not-so-much-a-baby-anymore girl.

Twitterpated.

Must say I'm feeling very unconnected now that I'm not blogging as frequently. That sad and alone feeling drove me to the unthinkable....


I signed up for twitter.


So, you can see short updates in the right column of the blog. I have a program called Tweetdeck that puts all my social networking in one place, so I can update them simultaneously, as well as keep an eye on what is going on in the universe. I vow to myself and my family that social networking will not take over my life.........Really. I promise.

I know I could get sucked in very easily, but darn it, I am superwoman and I can do it all!


Mwahahahahahaaaaaa!


Hmmm. That sounded a little Dr. Vonthreadmore-ish didn't it.

Where have I been?

I just love how life goes. Totally unexpectedly.

Anyway, after the last few posts, you all probably figured that I was too busy doing other things to post.......

But truth be told, I have been too busy TATTING!

Long story short, I have a friend who offered to team up with me and do a craft show (she has a scrapbooking business called JustYesterday. you can find her on etsy under that name) Anyway, there was a small show coming up, and after not much thought (!) I agreed to go for it even though it was only a week away. How hard could it be? (Mwahahahahaaa)

So, I spent the entire next week (to the neglect of almost all housework) preparing. I got in a mad frenzy and made all new packaging and earring cards, built some display, ordered some display, and went to five stores to find all the stuff I needed, and I pretty much doubled my inventory of Jewelry!

I can't beleive that I got it all done, and it would not have been so had my hubby not stepped up to the plate majorly with the kids and the house. He let me sit in my chair and tat like crazy! I made a gazillion pairs of earrings, 6 pairs of hairclips, four haircombs, two bracelets, and at least one necklace.

Here is one of the new things that came from all this productivity.....a darling little haircomb with some swarovski sparkle thrown in for good measure. It didn't actually make it to the show, my step-mom saw it and had to have it :-)

Anyway, here you can see my display at the show. The earring rack is from a seller on etsy, Wulds workshop. My Grandma (the one who went to shuttlebirds with me) got it for me as a gift. The wire thing in the middle holding the hairclips is a little silver stand that I found at a garage sale across the street just a few days before the craft sale, such luck because usually I don't make time to go to garage sales! The stand on the right that is on the blue riser is what hubby and I put together with stuff from the wood section from joann.

The show was fun, albiet not as profitable as I would have liked. (I little more than broke even) It turned out to be more than half direct sales (partylite, arbonne, avon,....you name it, they were there) Now I have nothing against direct sales, but it's hard for handicrafts to compete with all the "special deals" and whatnot that they offer. That's a whole other topic..... Anyway, the friend I mentioned who shared the table with me, is someone I hadn't seen in a long time. So we got to catch up and make plans for future craft shows, and we also made friends with another etsy seller who was there. So I would not call the effort a loss. I'm all prepped for upcoming craft shows, and I'm motivated to try and see if I can contribute a little income by putting some more effort into the etsy shop. In fact, a new display piece should be here today, so I should be able to get some lovely new photos.


Thank you all for your kind comments, I so love to hear from you.

So long overdue....

How selfish of me to keep such a treasure all to myself!

Fox was kind enough to agree to anexchange earlier this year. We had agreed to make bookmarks for eachother and I've been holding on to this beauty since I received it in February.

She did a lovely job of tatting it, the design is Mary Konior, I recognize the thread as Marilee's, and the lovely addition of the beads was all Foxy. She sent a lovely package filled with beads and treasures and I am so happy to have made a wonderful friend through this exchange. Thank you again Fox, you should be so proud of the work you do....it is thouroughly enjoyed :-)

And I think I have found a good solution to my time delimma/crisis etc. I think I'll aim to do one post a week. That way, I don't lose touch with everyone, and I can still enjoy other pursuits as well as some sanity lol!

I am so blessed by all of your comments and encouragements. You really brighten my day, so feel free to leave me a little message any time! Thank you my friends.... See you 'round the blog!

My day Job

Lately I have been somewhat frustrated. There seems to be so much to do, and so little time to do it with. I can't seem to be able to cram it all in! I'd love to dedicate more time to my ETSY business and make some more dough, I'd love to focus on designing jewelry patterns and release a book. Some things you may not know about me--I'm an aspiring songwriter, so I'd love to spend more time focusing and getting my work together for a recording project, I'd love to perform outside of my ministry and branch into different areas of music, I'd love to go back to studying the guitar and piano.

The good news for me, is that most of the things I have to do, are things I like. Take this photo for instace-

This picture was taken last night at my church band rehearsal (that's technically my day job....it's the one I'm paid for). In it you can see myself, with my daughter Meirah strapped to my back, and that's her Grandfather (he plays guitar on my team) holding the sunglasses on her face. So as you can see I do have a good time. The ministry we do is significant and I would never trade that. In fact, I'd still be doing it if I wasn't paid, I often forget that I do in fact have a real job.

The tough part for me is that I am not a naturally organized person in any facet of my life. I have difficulty planning ahead. In fact, I work best last minute, under the gun, and by the seat of my pants. That unusual skillset lends itself well to handling an ever chaning onstage environment, so it is not without use. The frustration is, that if I was better at implementing routine in my life, I might have time for my other aspirations. Right now I'm lucky if dinner is planned and the kids are clean. Don't ask me about laundry. Laundry is my nemesis.

So what does all of this mean to you? Well, it means that I dearly desire to be more involved in the tatting community, and contribute more. Alas I am not able to invest here at the blog in the way I'd like. So, I have to cut my strings of obligation to this blog. No, I'm not going away, I just need to have an internal discussion with myself about priorities, and let myself not feel guilty about spending less time here. Silly how I do that to myself :-)

Anyway, I do have a posting that is long overdue. I need to get other things started around here today, but I will fulfil the obligation of posting a tatted item I received in an exchange later on today. She has graciously posted about the item I sent her, and it's incredibly rude that I have not done the same. I offer my apologies and regrets, and will do the piece justice in my next post.

-Krystle

Goodie Goodie Goodness!

Much in the way of weather has been wacky around here. In fact, today my neighbor came to the door with the mail I had put in the mailbox to be sent....he found it soaking wet in his front yard! Seems that the wind had blown the mailbox open and sent it across my yard, about 200 feet or so. Good thing he found them too- one was my mortgage payment! Also in the mailbox, soaking wet, was my latest sold ETSY item (The Lady of the garden set sold the day I listed it!). It didn't get blown away but it needed to be repackaged. Needless to say, I will be aquiring a new mailbox soon. We can't have precious packages getting blown about can we? Especially when wonderful things like these are finding their way to my house...

That's right! "I'm in the garage" has been very busy creating some special shuttles for me. The significance of the train is that Reverend Awdry is the one who wrote the Thomas the Tank engine stories. Well, my three year old daughter is in love with Thomas so when I got wind of Sally's posession of the wood mentioned in the above picture, I quickly contacted her to obtain these special shuttles.

Here you can see a few of the things that came in this wonderful package. Three post shuttles, the two with woodburning on them are similar, both have a train on one side and my daughter's name on the other. I plan on ....ehem "breaking them in" for her and then teaching her to tat with them when she reaches a suitable age. The butterfly shuttle is mine all mine all mine MwAHAHAHAHAhahaaaa.......... Sorry, got carried away there. Sally also sent some birthday decorations for Ivria's next birthday, a nice green pouch, and a BEAUTIFUL tatted butterfly bookmark. Just the nicest package to brighten one's day! Sally and 'm in the garage were kind enough to send me these shuttles in exchange for a box of wood that I thought might be suitable for making shuttles. I must say, I have aquired some of the most unique (and long distance!) friendships through this thing called tatting. Thank you Sally and the ever intrepid "I'm in the garage"!!!!

More about the shuttles once I've given them a good test drive :-)