The Annual Blooming of the Tree Peony and Stress Testing

Time for the annual blooming of the Tree Peony report. I blogged this when I first bought it, in 2007, and again, last year, when it bloomed, which was May 25, so if you are feeling like stuff is advanced in your garden, you'd be right - as this year, it unfurled it's opulent bud of paper-thin petals on May 15 - a full 10 days earlier than last year.

And, you can see that Soggy, the Loch Scarborough Sea Monster, has already put in an appearance in the pool. The good news is, it cuts down on the amount of dog hair in the house. The bad news is that I won't be able to find a dry towel until September. Vacuuming or laundry - which level of hell do you prefer?

Barely visible in the background behind said sea monster in the line that holds the pool thermometer, suspended from the filter cover - which means tied through a hole in the cover and dangling over the concrete block, and suspended about 3 feet down in the pool. The thermometer stays there, all summer, in full blazing sunlight.

What I have been using for the past 2 years to hang the thermometer is our Satin Rattail cord. It's handsome, functional, and most important, I had some and could find it easily. And what a stress test, eh? If it can survive those conditions . . . it will survive anything.

And survive it does. Last year, I used a dark blue piece, and the year before, I used black. It even keeps it's colour, not fading until my significant other does the annual over-chlorination of the pool - whereby it spends about 3 days with the chlorine level too high, and at that point, the color, where the cord is in the water, will disappear. But despite the constant soaking and intense heat and uv, and wearing on the side of the pool, the cord has lasted admirably well.

This year, it's a change. I'm subjecting the Softflex cable to the same stress conditions (for the same fundamental reason - I had a spool of it handy). I'll let you know next year how it did - if it did well. If it fails prematurely, I'll let you know earlier! ;-)

For the record, I'm using White, and medium strength. I have the strand quadrupled, but that's because I cut way too much. I knotted it to the filter cover (not crimped). We shall see.

Let's Talk Metal Clay

Hi, it’s Heather (Bell Denison) a.k.a. Fine Silver Girl here. I will be guest bloggin’ on Sundays. I am one of the metal clay Instructors at BeadFX. I fell in love with metal clay several years ago when I took my first metal clay class at BeadFX with Jennifer Tough.

Since then have spent many hours playing with all types of metal clays and I have become a Senior Certifying Art Clay Instructor. This all means that I have a lot of metal clay experience and tons of information to teach and share. Guess what? I will be sharing that information on this Sunday edition of the Beadful Life. I have a long list of topics to share but feel free to suggest some and I will try to oblige.

Today – Let’s talk Metal Clay:

What is Metal Clay?

Metal clay is made up of fine particles of metal mixed with a binder and water to form a mailable substance. You can roll, texture, build and sculpt with metal clay. Once you have your clay in the shape you want it you dry it and fire it at high temperatures. The firing process causes the binder to burn off and the metal to sinter resulting in solid metal. Sintering is a process that heats the powdered metal to some point below the melting point and causes the metal particles to bond and become solid. Yes the result is Solid METAL.

VOILA!

One of my first pieces made from Art Clay Silver from years ago

There is silver, gold, bronze, copper, steel and even platinum metal clay (platinum is only available in Japan as far as I know). Metal clay was invented in the early '90 Japan. Silver metal clay was the first form of metal clay. There are two main companies that produce silver metal clay Mitsubishi - PMC and Aida Chemicals - Art Clay. Gold clay came about in the early 2000's. Copper, bronze and steel have come about in the past two years from a variety of new metal clay sources. All these clays have different personalities and particularities in handling and firing. The most commonly used and best understood metal clay is silver metal clay so for the rest of this posting I will be referring to silver metal clay

What is it the makes metal clay loved by many?

1. Metal clay can be textured easily!
2. Time to create something with metal clay is surprisingly short
3. You can fire silver metal clay with a handy torch (even most crème brulee torches work!)
4. Most of the tools you need to work with metal clay you probably already have (for example roller, deck of cards, paint brush, cutting board, cookies cutters......)
5. Once you know the basic principles of working with metal clay the options for creation are endless.
   

There are some tricks with metal clay and I find the two main things people struggle with are:

1. Fear of fire and melting your metal clay (I will cover this one too)
   
2. Some types of metal clays will dry quickly especially silver (I will cover this on a later post)

This was a simple introduction to metal clay. I will be posting information for all levels of metal clay enthusiasts from the beginner “I’m afraid to open my pack of clay” to the more advanced “What next ”.

Enjoy your metal clay!!!!!

Heather

Setting up an ecommerce website

Here's another ecommerce enabler for those of you who would like to set up a site and sell a few pieces, without getting lost in the overall marketplace that is ebay and even etsy these days. It's main focus is artists, but unlike sites like etsy - it is not a portal to a multitude of sellers, so you have less risk of your customers wandering away from your site and off to shop elsewhere.

Big Cartel is a hosted website - so no need for a server or such. They have a free account, which allows you to sell 5 different items - not bad for testing the waters. Their premium account is $20 flat fee per month, and you can have up to 100 items for sale. Think about it - do you actually have more than 100 different handmade items? OK, maybe you do, but lots of us don't! You can use Canadian currency, which keeps your Canadian customers happy, and it uses Paypal to accept payments. Easy peasy, and the people I have talked to who are using it are very happy with it.

Sneaky Peeky

Sorry folks, for the lateness of this - every time I have sat down today to write this, I have been foiled by life.

Anyhoo, coming at ya, next week, some stone beads. These rather fabulous 5 piece sets, in Red Creek Jasper, and Wonderstone. I'm not being facetious. Google it. Wonder stone or Wonder Rock. Rather wonderful, actually.

Please Excuse the Dust!

...in the store, that is. We moved our offices to the new section last week, the new classroom has been set up (except for the lighting), so now we have started the expansion of the new store space.

The old wall at the back of the store has been removed.





New slat wall and cabinets are being installed, some miscellaneous repairs are being made, new lighting will be added throughout the store, and pretty soon we'll be able to move product into the new section!

But in the meantime, things are a bit chaotic around here. We've had to move a lot of the beads and tools onto temporary racks, so finding stuff is a bit of an adventure, even for the staff.

Not beads

I know I promised pics today - Life got in the way yesterday, and I don't have them ready. Instead I have a Friday linky love post.

The first is the blog of Dawn Schiller - Odd Fae and Autumn things - Dawn makes art dolls out of felt and polymer clay. Very cool stuff!

Second up (and this one does have beads) is the blog of Zuleykha - Zuleykha is a polymer clay artist as well, and you should check out the teeny tiny cupcakes she made!

If you want to know more about polymer clay in general - Polymer Clay Central is where it's at!

New link just added! My goodness, how could I have forgot Helen!  Helen Breil is a TBS member, and is very active in both the beading, and polymer clay communities. Check out her beads, eye candy, and fabulous tutorials!  Thank you Heather for reminding me :-)

More playing around

I don't have any pics today, but they will come tomorrow. I've been playing around a bit more with resin, and polymer clay! I've always been extremely challenged when it comes to polymer clay. Everything I've ever made looks like it was made by a child ;-) What was always most frustrating about this, is that I have seen some fabulous work combining polymer clay with metal clays. My problems usually occurred during baking. It would bubble up, and/or burn, among other problems.

I recently came across a tutorial from an artist whose patinas I've long admired. Shannon Levart of Miss Fickle Media. She takes bare copper, and solutions of chemicals to create absolutely fabulous colours on copper. She of course also had a tutorial on how to manipulate polymer clay. It was so worth the money, as I realized I was being too hasty in my handling of the clay. Her tips were worth the price of admission 10 times over.

(edited note:)
I just poked through Shannon's etsy site again, and I discovered she also has a tutorial on how to emboss on the polymer clay bases (which was the tut I was talking about it). Check it out!

 I have to say, resin on top of polymer clay looks incredible! The colours just pop, and it's just oh so shiny... :-)  If you're a poly clay newbie, you may want to check this out.  Shannon used rub on transfers for her demonstration pieces. That was one thing I didn't have, Instead I used some rubber stamps, and embossing powder.

Once I finish playing around with the polymer, I've got a few ideas swimming around in my head to combine the resin, polymer, and metal clay.

I've also got a wee update on my metal clay/resin hearts. I decided to give up on the transparancy idea. I couldn't get them cut out properly, and it just didn't have the look I was going for. I stuck with using the regular paper...coated in ice resin of course. I was going to post them on my etsy site, but of course I ran out of sterling lobster clasps....sigh.  And of course, when I come in to buy the clasps, I'll find at least another $50 (hah...) worth of stuff I need/want. Who wants to take a bet I manage to leave the store having only spent $50? ;-)

A GREAT BIG THANK YOU!!!

I recently received a lovely thank you letter from the organizers of the Corsage Project and would like to pass on their thank yous. Over 250 girls benefited from this years program.

I would just like to thank all of you who dropped off or mailed in donations, it is much appreciated. Also a big thanks to Dwyn for her huge donation of pieces and to Malliga for tirelessly helping me organize everything and match the pieces together, and of course for her many many donated pieces.



Below are a couple more photos of some of the donations we received. Thanks again to all. Sorry for the quality of the photos--camera phones are not always the best but do help out in a pinch!

This Weekend at BeadFX

The long weekend is coming, but is not here yet. This is a great weekend to come by and take a class or two. We have two fabulous instructors here this weekend--Amy Waldman-Smith and Marilyn Gardiner!

Amy has a Learn to Make Glass Bead Weekend coming up on May 15th and 16th. This is a beginner level class which provides you with lots of torch time!


Marilyn will be here on Saturday May 15th for two classes. The Boss Pearl Necklace from 10 to 1pm.



From 2 to 5pm she will be teaching the Parallel Flowers Bracelet. These are both beginner level chain mail classes. Why not take both and make a day of it?


Update: Marcia DeCoster's classes are filling quickly, early registration is highly recommended.

Information is Beautiful

What drew me to this site - information is beautiful.net - first was a map of the meaning of colours in different cultures. I was so fascinated that I printed out a copy for further study. Red - lots of red. Red is highly significant to humans, I think we can concur.

But then I got cruising around the rest of the site. Wonderful stuff. Like a visualization of the efficacy of popular supplements and vitamins. Or time travel in popular culture. The hierarchy of digital distractions (mobile phone trumps land line. Text message trumps email.) Way cool stuff!

We've moved the office!

It looks like the staff were quite busy yesterday! The old office has been completely cleaned out, and a new coat of paint is already on the floor. As some of you know, we took over yet another unit in the building we are in. We now have three full units. The old office will become our new classroom, and our current classroom will be used to expand the store.  And you know what that means...more beads!

We'll post some pics soonish!

Moving Day

We are moving our online ordering area to a new part of the building today.

Consequently, There may be some disruptions in the phone service to the order desk today. Thank you for your patience!

Pricing your jewellery

Thank you Margot, Laura, and Jody for your comments yesterday. I thought it would be timely to post some links to some basic pricing formulas to help those of you who are just starting. There are also a number of excellent books on the market that cover this in much more depth.

We normally stock Catherine Winters - How to start a microbusiness book. Catherine is a friend of mine, but I would recommend it regardless. Maybe call/email the shop to find out when they will have it back in stock.  There are also a number of other books out there, that are equally as good. I haven't had enough coffee yet, and I seem to be google challenged this morning. I'll post in the comments later today with the links to the other books I'm thinking of.

Before I post the links - here is a very basic formula for pricing. The end result should be considered a variable. Is it enough? Is it way too high for your market?  You can adjust from there, but you will now know your exact costs. I'll bet many of you are not keeping accurate or consistent track of what you're spending. And yes, I've been guilty of that too.

However, I'm now being very careful to keep track of all purchases, and I put a note in with the beads/findings on the price per bead/component. There is software out there that can help you - but honestly, for me it's faster to just add it up with a calculator. I have thousands, and thousands of beads collected over the years. I suppose if I was just starting out, it would be manageable.  I'm also really trying to spend less time on the computer, not more!   That said, if you are operating as a business, you do need to keep track of accurate inventory levels, and expenses - but that's going further than the scope of this post.

Basic Formula
(cost of materials) + (hourly rate) + (overhead) = (true cost)

Yes, you need to pay yourself an hourly rate, and yes, you do have overhead. I don't care if you're working in your basement, or on your kitchen table. You have overhead (office supplies - you do print out stuff, and you don't work in the dark - to name but a couple)

(true cost) x (2 - 2.5) = wholesale
(wholesale) x (2) = retail

Do not sell your jewelry at wholesale to anyone except your mother. You might be tempted, and you may think that you'll never want to sell wholesale. However, that day may come. A gallery will see your fabulous earrings that cost you $9 (just cost of materials), you've got them posted on etsy for $20. The gallery wants them wholesale (that's 50% off!) You agree to sell ten of them. You forgot that they take about 40 minutes each to make.

So now, you've sold 10 pairs of earrings for $100. Take off your cost of $90, and it took you well over 6 hours to make......whohoo, all for a whopping 10 bucks. Which in just about any part of the world is far less than minimum wage.

I know I may sound slightly harsh with all of this but really, even the best of need the occasional slap upside the head ;-)

Here are some links to get you started.

Pricing your jewelry - by Tammy Powley

Tips for pricing your jewelry - by Rena Klingenberg

There are also a ton of tips on the Modish Biz blog!

Rant on pricing

I was browsing the jewelry section on etsy a few days ago. I guess I never really paid attention to what people are charging for their jewellery, but wow - a lot of sellers (are you?) are selling themselves short. To the point of - why bother? I'm seeing necklaces with a pendant on a sterling silver chain for under $20, sterling based earrings with a fair amount of detail (work/time) for under $15, and this goes on and on. 

And I'm not talking about really cheap quality materials either. The ones I'm ranting about, have a fair amount of time consuming details, are using gemstones/and or Swarovski crystals, hand embellished brass, handmade sterling findings - stuff that 1) either costs a fair amount, and/or 2) takes a fairly long time to make.

These sellers for one, are not calculating the time it takes to make a piece of jewellery, and 2, are forgetting about the time it takes to post something for sale on etsy, or artfire, or wherever it is you're selling.

If it's a one of a kind piece, keep in mind that it can take well over an hour to take pictures, edit said pictures, write a description, and post it on etsy. If you are making multiples of an item, that cost goes down considerably. There is also the time to make the item. A lot of these items that I'm seeing are not even doubling their  costs over volume wholesale prices for the components. Then take off the etsy, and paypal fee's. They can't possibly be making a profit - at all!

Some of the sellers that I most admire, are selling their jewelry for much higher prices, and they're selling. Many of these people have thousands of sales under their belts.  If you value your work, others will as well. 

/end rant

A few things you should look at before you start selling:

 Make sure you can make a profit - you need to be able to take some home, you need to be able to restock, and you need to be able to pay your fee's at the end of the month. I'll bet many of these sellers are only taking care of the last two items. 

Patina tips

I've recently read about a couple different methods for patinas - I have have not yet tried these, but I'm hoping to do some tests with them in the next few days.

1) The elusive  (for me anyway) verdigris finish on copper. This is a new one - 1) Spray your piece with vinegar. 2) sprinkle salt on your piece. 3) Suspend your piece in a container with about a 1" of ammonia in the bottom. Your piece should not touch the ammonia. This method supposedly creates the blue/green finish in about 24 hours.   I will post results as soon as I get a chance to try it out.

The next tip helps colours pop in liver of  sulphur.

When preparing your LOS solution, add in 1 tablespoon of ammonia.

A word of caution if you have never used straight ammonia before. DO NOT BREATHE IN THE FUMES.  Use in a very well ventilated area ONLY.

Beau Anderson--Registration Deadline this Friday!

The registration deadline for Beau Anderson's Freedom Through Flamework is this Friday, May 7th. This is a great opportunity to take a fabulous class with an extremely talented flamework instructor! If you are planning on taking both part 1 and 2 you better hurry, there are only 2 spaces left!




Here are some more photos of his work.




Check out the site for the full description on each of these classes; they are intensive and detailed!

http://www.beadfx.com/classes/schedule-05-2010.jsp

Hope to see you there.

Rhinestone Lizard

Like a rhinestone lizard
I'll cover anything ya got with enough bling to make it glow
Like a rhinestone lizard
if its not moving fast enough, it's gonna get stoned, ya know
next Imma gonna bling up yer phone

with apols to Glen Campbell. Big apologies.

This is another sight we saw at Swarovski. A Rhinestone iguana. Kewel, eh?

I think it could have used a custom-made lampwork eye, though, don't you agree?

Eye Candy: Lampwork: Trey Cornette

Some serious eye candy here - Lampwork beads by Trey Cornette. Could also be called - awesome use of twisties and stringer!

For the non-lampworkers out there, stringer is really skinny rods of glass that you make yourself from thicker rods for doing fine detail work. They are tricky to use, because by the time you get them hot enough to melt, they are then almost immediately too hot to control, and just melt into blobs. Fine scrolling lines are hard.

Twisties are patterned glass rods that you make yourself with various colours twisted together. The tricky part of these is getting them consistent as you twist.

Sneek Peek at Next Week

Some more new Swarovski elements.

Like this new Lotus pendant - which is part of the new designer series. This shape, along with the dragonfly wing, orchid, and ginko shape were designed by Andree Putman.

Happy Friday

It's absolutely gorgeous here today. I've got so much work to do, and the outdoors is calling me. Sigh - it will have to wait. This weekend, it's gardening, and of course you won't want to miss the bead fair!

Yesterday, was one of my few days in the shop. I usually come in about once a week to help out, and of course I end up spending way too much money :-) This weeks haul was 2 books, and the fabulous new dapping set Marg just brought in:

s24384 Tools - Dapping Set - Basic (1) $47.95
The essential starter set - 8 dapping tools, with matching block - covers most needs. Cavity sizes are 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 20, 28, 28 mm, with corresponding punches. Block is smooth on the reverse - so use it as a bench block. Nice wood stand that you will actually use. Polished steel.





I was also planning next weeks inspiration.  I haven't got it made yet, but It's going to be a no holds barred, glittery Swarovski, and sterling concoction. Rosemary and I had fun picking out the components :-)  I usually try to keep the projects within a reasonable price frame, but sometimes it's fun to go all out. Although, any of you familiar with some of Dwyn's creations, it's not quite that bad. I did not empty the store of Swarovski's :-) In fact, I kept it to one pack of 4mm bicones. You'll see :-)

Craft Show Displays Do's and Don'ts

Jen Wallace of Indiefixx, and Buzz Blog, has written a great post on how to set up your display (and what not to do), while preparing for craft show season. Yes, it's upon us again. Are you prepared?

Craft Show Display Do's

Are you going to the bead show?

We'll be there - with our sparkly bells on (well, we'll have sparkly beads anyway) :-)

I'm referring to the Toronto Bead Societies Spring Fair.  If you have a chance, come on down. It's always a huge amount of fun. Lot's of vendors, reasonable parking and entrance fees.

For more details on the show - please visit the Toronto Bead Society website. We hope to see you there!

Heather Bell-Denison

Heather is our resident metal clay instructor. Heather loves the flexibility of Art Clay Silver and passionately shares her love of creating and building with this medium. In her previous role as an occupational therapist, Heather loved teaching others ways of doing things differently and helping them achieve their goals. Now as an Art Clay instructor, she uses these teaching skills to help her students create their pieces and to problem solve any design challenges. She creates and teaches in Toronto where she lives with her enthusiastic boys and supportive husband.

Heather is a Senior Certified Art Clay Instructor.

finesilvergirl.com

Heather has a number of classes coming up over the next couple of months.

Saturday May 1st, Charmed I'm Sure from 10 to 5pm

Sunday May 9th, Let's Do it Together--Parent and Child Metal Clay Class! Please note that children must 10 years or older.

Sunday May 23rd Textured Rings Copper Bracelet, 10 to 5pm

Friday June 4th, An Introduction to Art Clay Copper, 10:30 to 5:30pm

Heather is currently working on some brand new classes as well, keep checking the site for details!

More Swarovski Musings, cool products, and etc.

I'm going to take you for a little wander through some of my Swarovski trip photos. Wrap yourself around a mug of coffee and let's go!

We all arrive at the Swarovski headquarters in Rhode Island. Even though this is primarily an admin building, they have still taken pains to ensure that it reflects (no pun intended - but fully appreciated) the essence of the business. The entrance has a crystal-like shape.





Near the entrance - there are tributes to the founder ...


and samples of the raw material.


Pictures of celebs adorned with Crystallized by Swarovski fashions and fashion accessories are on the walls everywhere.



Everywhere inside, you know you are somewhere special. On the way to the washroom - there is a niche with this crystal pyramid in it.


There is art hanging on the walls everywhere. Like these hot-fix on fabric pieces, which are framed under glass and hanging on the wall.


This blue one - the background is velvet - is my personal favorite. I'm really tickled by something that evokes traditional heraldic themes, much like a embroidery sampler, but in modern materials. Very cool. Here's a few more below.


This one above, with the red matt, is also cool for it's naive or folk art style. Another cool blending of disparate style and material.

And this one too is reminiscent of traditional folk embroidery. I don't know anything about the history of these pieces - whether they are in-house samplers, or winners in a competition. But they are way cool.

Also, everywhere you go, there are crystal chandeliers. This one graces the presentation room, where they do workshops, display mock-ups, etc. Those are the large, industrial ceiling tiles around it - to give you a sense of scale.



Interestingly, while we were looking at this particular lighting fixture in person - none of us could figure out what the light source was, how many bulbs, (how you would change them!). But in this next photo, the answer to that is obvious. The camera is less dazzled than the eye.

Aha - this gives you a better sense of the scale. Now, don't you think you could make a chandelier too? Just string some crystals - loop them around a light? How hard can it be? ;-)



Speaking of hot-fix rhinestones. Here are some of the samplers - colour squares.

And this shows a product that comes on a roll like a decal, but in a tape - for making long designs, like trim.

More colour squares, showing shades and finishes.


Some of the more high-end decals. These are not applied stone by stone, but come as a preassembled decal, that you apply in one go. You could use as it, but I'm thinking that using one of these as a starting place, and then expanding from there. Say, the tiger on the back of a denim jacket, and then doing flowers and leaves and vines free-hand around him.

These are some of the smaller decals, that you can use as accents, or combine into various patterns by using more than one. Or by cutting apart to change them up a bit, if you feel adventurous.



Well - that's probably all you can take of that for one day. I have to admit - I'm getting pretty intrigued by the hot-fix possibilities.

Eye Candy: Crystal Evolution Jewelry

Crystal Evolution Jewelry - heavy on the Swarovski, and modern, edgy designs. Check it out - you'll see the crystals in a new way. Although, the choice of the word "Acne" for a design collection seems a bit odd to me ... maybe it's a translation thing?

(Someone just pointed out in a comment that ACNE seems to be short for AC necklace, as the bracelet is ACBR. Ok - that makes sense - but in the school of accidentally bad names ... ya gots to look for these things. You know, like the sisters, Ima and Sheesa, in the Hogg family. I mean - we spent years with Buttlet Pear beads on the website. Folks - that name wasn't an accident! ;-) )