Life on the Island

I found this blog a while back through Deb Batten, Life on the Island is the blog of lampwork artist Paula who makes wonderful glass beads. Some are exquisite pretty colours and others are the most amazing little critters. Her dogs are wonderful and they always make me smile. She held a giveaway a few weeks ago and I was lucky enough to win, my prize is an amazing pair of one of a kind earrings and they arrived in wintery Auckland last week.

The green pair are mine, I was so excited when I opened them up and found the most amazing shimmery green glass. It is lovely and has patterns that go right through, you can follow them to the centre and back out again, amazing. I am off to a show on Friday with a girlfriend so I may just premiere them then.

Not so yummy sewing

Yesterday started so well, by 10 o'clock I had made four bookmarks, tidied the house, done some laundry and made a train track for the kids. Then I got out my camera and light box and prceeded to take photographs of the new jewellery I have made. Alas my breeze of a day was not to continue.

A couple of weeks ago on a trip to Spotlight Neil saw some ripstop fabric and decided (on the spot) to buy some to make bibs for Evie's football team, which he coaches. I did a bit of a double take, I may even have made a slight mocking scoff and asked him if he was sure and did he know how to do it. He did than typical man thing, shrugged his shoulders and said 'how hard can it be?'. Famous last words me thinks! Yesterday he decided he was going to make them which is where the not so yummy sewing comes in. It turns out he had not a clue, not even an inkling. Didn't know you had to make a simple pattern let alone how to make one, didn't know how to cut the fabric, how to pin or tack and he certainly had no idea how to use a sewing machine.

So I spent a good part of yesterday cutting, pinning and sewing. Now I have a number of sewing projects planned that I would rather have been doing but once again they got put to one side so I could do something I had no interest in. Be a mom anyone? It's a job full of tasks you don't want to do for people who think you can do anything! Which of course you can but really they do take advantage of that don't they?

Well six bibs are now almost finished, just need to do the tabs at the side and then maybe I can get back to my own projects. What are the chances aye?

Craft markets and chocolate shops

A friend and I had a stall at our first craft market this weekend. We possibly chose the wrong weekend to test how it would be as it was Labour Day weekend so a lot of people had gone away for the weekend, on top of this it was raining heavily so I suspect people also decided to stay in the dry.

It wasn't a complete disaster, we both sold items just not quite as much as we had hoped, having said that we had both voiced the opinion that we might sell nothing so at least it was better than that! I think we are both prepared to try again, after all you cannot expect miracles and I have been told by other stallholders that it can take time to build up a clientele. All our prep is done now though and we are all ready to try again and see what happens.

On the plus side my partner bought the kids down to see me and stopped at the local chocolate shop so we got yummy freshly made hokey pokey (that's honeycomb to all those in the UK) covered in chocolate and the most delicious honey, strawberry nougat, yum. The market we attended also had a lady making super fair trade coffee, creamy and fresh and not too strong, overall I would say we had a good morning!

I also finished my Bead Swap item. I am a member of a team of New Zealand beaders/jewellery makers who hold regular beadswaps. We send each other a little pack of beads on a theme and then see what each comes up with. To see what we made this time go to https://www.photoshop.com/user/beadhivedivas and have a browse.