Kale is the new beef

Is it the same where you live?  Do you nowadays see kale everywhere?  It used to be that we only saw kale as a decoration in the meat or fish counter, but now it's being eaten instead of the meat!

I am a kale eater and no longer eat beef, and today, kale was my inspiration for a necklace. How often can you say a vegetable inspired a jewelry creation (although I did once make a "vegetarian bracelet" using the textures of different vegetables!)?

A little reminder necklace to eat your greens! 

And, in case you didn't know, kale is one of the healthiest vegetables you can eat:

One cup of kale contains 36 calories, 5 g fiber, calcium, Vitamin B6, magnesium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, copper, potassium, iron, manganese and phosphorus. 

It's health benefits are primarily linked to the high concentration of antioxidant vitamins A, C and K and sulphur-containing phytonutrients. 

So is kale your new beef?

Fresh as a daisy

Are you feeling fresh as a daisy today? I do hope so!

And if you are not, then maybe my new aluminum bangle will cheer up your day!  

And why are daisies considered to be fresh, you may wonder? The English name daisy comes from the old English "daeges-eaye" or "day's eye", referring to the way that many daisies open up their petals during the day, but then close their petals at night.  So I guess, the idea is that closing it's petals suggests it goes to "sleep" at night and so wakens up in the morning all fresh and alert and well rested - and thus "fresh as a daisy".

What a nice thought.  I love the fresh green on this bangle that shows off those fresh daisies too.

Have a good night's sleep tonight!

I am strong

I first made this necklace design for a wonderful friend of mine who was going through a really tricky time. It's a great reminder that we do all have strength within us, when we need it.  Yes, it's not always easy to find but it's there in all of us.

Since then, I've made it for another couple of customers who have cancer, and I recently had a few enquiries to make some more...so I started another.

Half way through, I got an email from a local friend saying she had seen a necklace on my website that she really wanted to get for her friend and could I make one for her.  It was "I am strong" - so as I was half way through, I finished it, thinking of my friend.  I hope it brings strength to her friend.

Pyschoneuroimmunology studies have proven that the use of positive affirmations is an easy and effective way to overcome mental hurdles, boost the immune system and improve health and happiness.  

Beautiful birds

A friend of mine just emailed me these lovely photos of beautiful birds.  So I thought I'd share them with you.  Thanks Janet.  They definitely add some cheer to a wet Saturday. This first one looks like he has real attitude!

Hmmm. Maybe I need to expand my silver bird creations and create some cool chickens or flame crests with copper top feathers!

Back at it!

As you may well have noticed, my silver making has been on hiatus, but today, I got back at it!

Since the beginning of the year, my focus has been elsewhere, but now I'm hoping I am at a stage where I can find a balance with other areas of my life and make time for jewelry again.

The change started at the beginning of the year when I went back to my studies.  A few years ago, I completed my masters in health psychology and then trained as health coach, but at the beginning of this year, decided that I wanted to specialize in helping those with cancer, so since January I've been studying to become a cancer coach.  I'd previously trained as a cancer guide, but this new training was much more thorough.  I'm progressing with it - not quite finished yet - but that is what my mind has been focussing on.  And I'm loving it.

My goal is to do some health coaching and also some jewelry. But my ideal is that my jewelry business can support my health coaching business enabling me to coach cancer patients free of charge. One business, supporting the other.

The cancer topic is making it's way into my jewelry too and so you'll see some jewelry coming up - both new and old designs, that is based on affirmations to help us on our way with chronic diseases or difficult times in our lives. For example, like this "bird in the hand" necklace.  A great reminder for us to be grateful for what we have, instead of always wanting things just out of our grasp.

I have a blog for my health coaching business - Tickety-boo Health Coaching and I should finish developing my website in the next month or so.  That will really tell you what it is all about. I plan to run programs locally but also develop an e-program for cancer patients.  I'll let you know here, in case you are interested.

So I thank you for your patience as I've been developing another aspect of myself.  It's a great journey and who knows where it'll all lead.  But I can tell you, it felt good to get my hands in metal clay again today :-D

Weekly bird in the hand

Here's this week's things that I am grateful for, my "bird in the hand":

Photo by USFWS Headquarters

• blogs.  I love reading blogs and am right now finding some great vegan recipes that I'm trying.  Today I'm making a raw lemon tart.  There is so much variety out there but it's tricky to not just get 'consumed' by them all  - hee hee!
• catching up with friends
• watching rabbit ears twitching below the window, when I couldn't see the rabbit!
• getting our raised beds ready for veggie growing
• choosing a new pomegranate tree for the garden
• hearing good news about my nephews
• hearing that both grandchildren - and their parents(!) will come and visit - one lot in May and one lot in June
• being inspired with new business and jewelry ideas
• finally getting over the hurt from a nasty customer. I'm hoping I'll get back into jewelry making this week or next. My mind's been buzzing so I'll plan on writing a blog post to tell you what's been going on and what's coming up.
• watching the great blue heron at the pond
• learning lots of new things

Hope your week has been full of new things too. Here's to a great week coming up - and don't forget to change your clocks this evening.  One hour forward.

New Window Bangles

My jewelry is selling well at Grace Cathedral and so I made a few new bangles this week.

They were made from the St Matthew Window in the Chapel of Grace.The window was created by Charles Connick and is the first window as you enter the chapel.

Connick's chapel of Grace window designs, like the chapel architecture, were inspired by the famed and still-surviving Sainte-Chapelle - a private chapel attached to the royal palace in Paris. This chapel is considered one of the highest achievements of Gothic architecture - and   is somewhere I would love to visit one day........

The new bangles feature both the full length St Matthew window and also just small vignettes. I like the one shown above on the left as it has bunches of grapes on it...merlot?

 I need to make some more necklaces too, so I'll show you those when I'm done.

Review of my "bird a week" challenge

Yesterday I finished my 52nd bird of 2011!  They were all part of my "bird a week challenge".  If truth be told, I made more than 52 birds in the year, but for the challenge, we only counted those that were a new design, and some of my extras were repeats of designs that I'd done before.

Looking back at them, I used 17 different materials to make the 52 birds.  Here are the main media:

• 18 were made from silver
• 12 were made from aluminum
• 5 were made from steel
• 3 were made from food items

11 of the 17 media I used, I had never tried before, so it was a big learning year.  The new media included encaustics, printing from zinc plates, plaster wrap, wax, and plasticine illustrations.

Most of the birds were "generic" but there were 9 specific species that I made, as follows:

• 1 eagle
• 2 bluebirds
• 2 herons
• 2 quail
• 1 robin
• 3 penguins
• 1 owl
• 1 parrot and
• 1 kingfisher

If I were to choose two techniques that I now wish I'd explored a bit more and tried more birds with, they would both be illustrations - one was a pencil drawing and one was a illustration with plasticine.   

Screaming Eagle - week 1

Great Blue Heron

I would really like to be able to illustrate and as I was lucky enough to get Adobe Illustrator for Christmas, I'm hoping that this is a skill that I can develop in 2012.

Here is a slideshow of all the 52 different birds.  Tomorrow I'll let you know about the others who joined me in the challenge.

Merry Go Round - Selling at Fairs

It's the last Friday of the month, so join us on our merry go round for a quick spin.  The merry go round is where a group of 11 artists/craftwomen link together around the world and tell you a little about their art and craft, through blogging on the same topic.

This month's question for us all to write about is "Do you do fairs/shows?  If so, share some hints and your experience. If not - why not."

When I first started making jewelry, I did a few fairs locally. Mostly, they were at wineries. People came along, drank a bit of wine, bought a bit of jewelry.....They were pretty successful.  However, as my jewelry progressed and my prices went up, I felt it really wasn't the right sort of market for my pieces.  The audience really wanted less expensive items.

Instead of looking for alternative fairs at that time, I chose to focus selling solely online.  I really enjoy the steadiness of it all.  With fairs, you seem to work frantically in the few weeks beforehand, churning out a lot of stock and then have an exhausting couple of days at the fair. Selling online, I make a few pieces each week and sell a few pieces each week and things just keep turning over nicely. It really suits how I like to work.

This summer however, I did set up a stall at the local farmers' market. The village I live in started a new farmers' market so I decided to join in. My color anodized aluminum work was pretty new and the whole process is not familiar in the US, so I wanted to use it as a means to get some feedback on those pieces. It was fun and I did enjoy it....and it was reasonably successful but I still prefer the online selling.

I always go back to how much I find I get to know my customers better online than face to face or selling in a gallery.  My customers email me and tell me their stories and send photos and keep in touch....and I find it so satisfying.

I think the choice is so personal in relation to how you work best....if you don't like the online scene, then fairs are great....but I happen to enjoy online, so have no plans to change that!  What do you think and do?

To find out what the other members of the merry go round think,  click on the links below:

Samantha at Vintage is for lovers - http://www.vintageisforlovers.com/
Jen at Painted Fish Studio - http://paintedfishstudio.com/
Bethany at Dirksen Dabbles - http://www.dirksendabbles.com/
Laura at Blue Terracotta -  http://blueterracotta.com/
Monika at Red2White - http://red2white.wordpress.com/
Mitsy at ArtMind - http://artmind-etcetera.blogspot.com
Kim at Vilt a la Kim - http://viltalakim.com/blog/
Sara at Crafts of Texture - http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Mariana at Florcita - http://florcita.eu/wordpress/
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent - http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com
Ruth at Birdland Creations - http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com

Or else you can click on the blog hop below.  If you are a merry go round participant, please add your link if it's not already included. You can then copy the code and put it on your blog post too.

Father and Daughter collaboration - Stained glass windows

Today's bracelets are a collaboration between my father and myself.  Any of you who remember him as my guest blogger for a few years, writing "Sunday's spotlight" may well recall that he loves photographing churches/cathedrals and flowers.  Yes, a few other buildings get thrown in occasionally, but it's very rare to find people in his photos.

I was checking his Flickr site the other day as he had added some new photos and saw a lovely photograph of a stained glass window from Peterborough cathedral.  It was a beautiful bright window, with such rich colors. 

Photo by Pete2010

Immediately, I thought it would make a wonderful color anodized aluminum bangle.

And indeed it, I think it does! The richness of the reds, blues and greens contrast so nicely with the silver of the aluminum and the black.  It is just rich!  You can see the saint with a bird here in this bangle (- maybe my dad knows the background to the window and who this is?):

I'm loving wearing one. And yes, it's shiny!  Quite a contrast for me who normally wears matt!

I think I'll be taking some down to Grace cathedral when we start singing there again next week and see what reaction I get.  What do you think?

Thanks Dad. It was great to take something you created and use it in one of my creations.  There may well be more of these in the future!

Reviewed on The Army Wife

My jewelry has been reviewed on The Army Wife website today. I hope you'll go and take a look at the review and the website.


Gosh - I'm even a little embarrassed to be telling you about it as Kia wrote such a wonderful review. I tell you - she was just so nice. Thank you so much Kia.


The Army Wife website has lots of different articles, reviews, giveaways etc in one of five categories: beauty, entertainment, health and fitness, home & garden, Mom & baby. It's like a collaborative blog with lots of different writers.

Anyhow - it definitely cheered me up today to read all those nice things :=D

Merry go Round - Failure sucks, but instructs

It's time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of 9 artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month's topic for discussion is: Failure sucks: but instructs.

"Failure sucks, but instructs" is a key phrase from Robert Sutton, Professor of Management Sciences and Engineering , Stanford University. He says that the only way to avoid failure is to do nothing - but doing nothing is a form of failure too.

The word "failure" to me seems such a strong word... I try not to think of anything that I do as being a "failure" but rather that it just didn't go as I had hoped.....Maybe that comes from my years as a scientist and numerous experiments didn't go as we had planned. But we did always learn something from them and never progressed to another experiment until we figured out what was going on. The next experiment was then ever better. And in fact, other people's research has shown that people think more deeply and learn more after a failure than a success.....

Or to put it another way:


So in the life of Birdland Creations there are many examples of things not going as I had hoped. I think one of them that I have had to go through a couple of times before I've learned from it however, is that I spend time trying to develop my own little niche in the market through my individual designs, my own branding, but then expect to sell everywhere.....instead of looking to sell in my niche.

I've tried selling on a few different artisan online marketplaces and in some galleries and sometimes it just doesn't work. The audience is just not right...... For example, I tried a couple of artisan websites and got zero or very few sales. Both sites were more what I would call "serious" art. Here I am developing my whimsy niche and I try and sell on a non-whimsy site! It just doesn't work. Same with galleries where there is also the added issue of someone else presenting your work and not you....Often the owner wants to display my creations on "black velvet" as all the other jewelry is set up that way.....but my jewelry is definitely not black velvet style and never aspires to be.....

So I have learned that people go to galleries - online or bricks and mortar, because of the general style of the majority of products. Yes, there may be the occasional casual visitor looking around, but.. My jewelry it not the traditional style, so I need to keep thinking in a non-traditional, and whimsy way to sell it too. I don't need to adapt my jewelry to suit the selling place, as some people advise, I just need to find a new selling place.

And right now, I'm not looking. I am busy with what I have, it's working well and I am enjoying it immensely....But if I ever want to branch out into pastures new, I'll make sure they are pastures where Cher the sheep, Trotter the pig and Quentin Quail will be happy to hang out too!


Hope you'll take time to read what other "merry-ers" have learned from their tricky times by following these links. We are from all over the world so excuse us if some haven't posted due to time differences.

Fabienne at Easterya http://easterya.blogspot.com
Wendren at Wren http://thewrendesign.com/
Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Marian at Florcita http://www.florcita.eu
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com
Charlotte at FancyPicnic http://fancypicnic.blogspot.com
Lily Pang at Lily Pang Art http://lilypangart.blogspot.com
Jenny at Jenny Karlsson design http://designjennykarlsson.blogspot.com

There's no place like home

I have been making some house pieces for a Realtor - some earrings, a pin and necklace and so while I was at it, I thought I'd make some cuff links to add to my new ladies cufflinks line.


They are the simple house design you may have seen in my other pieces and I think they work well for cufflinks..... They could also be worn my men ....and I definitely don't want to exclude men from the cufflink scene!


I bought myself a couple of french cuff shirts last week from the outlets. There were quite a few to choose from but I got mine from Brooks Brothers. I've never shopped there before but in addition to their usual discounted prices, they had an extra 50% off! They had such a good selection - different styles, different colors, plain, striped.....

I was surprised to see Chico's selling two shirts for cufflinks too...... I tell you, if these kinds of stores are selling the shirts...then ladies cufflinks will be "hot" for Christmas presents! So put them on your list.

I'll be making more next week.... a few ideas in my head......

Anyone can be feminine.....

One of my customers asked if my "anyone" figure could be more feminine for a necklace she wanted. I said that "anyone" was designed to be either male or female but I would give it a try. So I made a skirt for anyone - but then "she" looked like a doll so decided against it......

On a couple of other occasions when someone has wanted a girl and a boy together with some distinction between them, I've just changed the hat and made it a little wider brimmed.


So this time, I did my usual hat adaptation but rather than just widening the brim, I also added a couple of flowers.


Hope you think she looks like a girl now! "Anyone can be feminine......."

Merry Go Round - Spring

It's time for another ride on the merry-go-round! Jump on and join a group of 11 artists/crafts-women as they link around the world and tell you a little about their lives in art and craft.

This month's question that myself and 10 other women will answer is "Spring". Now - I know that's not a question - but the idea is that we each post about spring in our own way and what it means to us - so there could be a wide variety of interpretations - which we thought (hoped!) would be interesting.


Spring to me nowadays always seems to bring my attention to our vineyard. Since November, the vineyard has just been this area of land with, what looks like, dead sticks! But in spring - all that changes. We get bud break and the whole property around our home changes.


As I wrote on one of our wine labels "the first frog chorus of the year heralds bud break in the vineyard" - and true enough, when those frogs start a-singing, the vines at the top of vineyard start showing signs of life!


Part of the vineyard is on a slope and so the vines at the very top are always quite a bit a head of the vines on the flat. It's lovely to see those perfect tiny leaves unfurl all around us. That dark color of the vine trunks now gets broken up with such a vibrant green.


And if you know me - you know that my favourite color is lime green - so Spring is a wonderful season for me - as I'm surrounded by all things lime green! Those buds, the leaves, .......



Coinciding with the bud break is also the flowering of the first California poppies. They are such a wonderful orange ....and orange is the color of happiness and laughter - so add that to my green buds and I am one happy person!!!


Hope you like the vineyard photos. These new delicate leaves are also what I use to make my leaf pendants as shown below. I love adding a tiny bit of resin to give them that green to make me and others happy!! This one I actually ended up making into a key ring for my dad as he commented on how much he loved it.....


Please take time to look at what "spring" means to the other wonderful artists on our merry go round. Here are our links. We are from all around the world so there are big time differences so if someone's post isn't up yet - come back later!

Happy spring to you all.

Fabienne at Easterya http://easterya.blogspot.com
Jenny at Jenny Karlsson design http://designjennykarlsson.blogspot.com/
Nikki at Beaded Zen http://beadedzen.blogspot.com
Wendren at Wren http://thewrendesign.com/
Sara at Sara's Texture Crafts http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Charlotte at Fancy Picnic http://fancypicnic.blogspot.com
Lily at Lily Pang Art http://lilypangart.blogspot.com
Marian at Florcita http://florcitasart.blogspot.com
Agathe at Le Bar du Vent http://lebarduvent.blogspot.com
Andreanna at Glamasaurus http://blog.glamasaurus.com
Ruth at Birdland Creations http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com

Comfort

You know those days when you just feel down; sad for no real reason; not depressed, but need a little love...or someone to comfort you....

I had a couple of those days last week. And maybe this was why this necklace came about. I had originally thought it was going to be a shaking hands necklace, but then as I did it, it became two nestling hands, as though they were there for comfort. And as it came about, it seemed like it was my own hands, comforting myself....

The necklace is reversible, so the hands can be palm out or in. Palm out, it looks to me like they are just waiting to do their comforting - offering up their loving care. Palm in, they are already working - soothing and comforting as needed.

So if you are feeling in need of comfort - know that I am sending you comforting thoughts.....