And Speaking of Something New

Last week I posted about working in a new medium. This week I tested some new waters myself.

When the husband quit his job he made the decision to apply for school and pursue Stomp Box making as a means of income. Since then we've been brainstorming about how to set him up to do just that. Part of that is setting up a blog for him to write and share YouTube videos of the boxes he makes. While we're getting that organized we've been pondering ways to decorate the boxes he makes. To add a little flair to them.

Getting the Peanut to put her super art skills to work has come up as had combining that idea with etching into the boxes. Both Ideas that I'm itching to get on. In the meantime I've transferred an already well used technique onto the boxes as well. On a test box I used one of my hand carved stamps to impress an image and a ghost print onto the sides of one of the enclosures the husband is working on. I quite like the effect and am pretty excited to keep on with the idea to see where we can go with it.

And Speaking of the husband's new endeavor he's written his very first blog post, Why not hop over and take a quick look?

Work in Progress

I splurged a little bit on my shopping trip last weekend and picked up a few new colours of glass paint. The plan today is to pull them out and give them a test drive.

With the holidays closing in and holiday shopping winding down I'm looking at changing my marketing strategy for our ornaments. I'll be spending some time researching for photo shoots and and working on a change in item descriptions.

Some where in there I'll be putting the Peanut on gingerbread man duty. Since I'm not really supposed to be eating all those yummy cookies that I usually like to bake this time of year I've narrowed my baking list down to one type of cookie ant gingerbread men it is. Also on the list is filling out our holiday/ new year cards.

And of course there will also be laundry (because I have to do at least one load) What do you have on your list today?

I woke up

at about the same time as normal today except the Peanut stayed sleeping. So I took advantage and lounged in bed letting my mind wander and paying attention to the kicks and punches that the Bean was laying on me. She's got a lot of muscle going on, there were a few that nudged me a millimeter here and there as she tried to stretch out.

We're fast heading into the weekly Doctors appointments and it's getting harder and harder to keep the blood sugars under control. Gone are the mornings of eating my breakfast and sitting over a 1/4 cup of coffee, now I have to get up and walk for 15 minutes. I am so looking forward to just plain old eating without having to calculate how many carbs and how much fiber and protein is in any given serving that I am planning on consuming. I've gotten to the point where I have a rotation of foods to eat that I know are at or below recommended serving sizes so I don't have to think about it too much. The difficulty with that is an attack of food ennui, where I'm getting bored with food. Oh but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's small but getting bigger...

So as I was saying above, I was enjoying one of the rare mornings when I'm not woken up by the Peanut calling out from her own warm bed (since it's started to be colder at night the Peanut has stopped dinosaur stomping into our room to wake us up) to tell me she's hungry. I was letting my mind wander and it started to wander towards next year's craft fair season. Particularly what I'm going to need to gather together so that I can have a professional looking display. I'm hoping to do at least two shows next year which means that the husband and I will continue to build on our inventory over the course of the year.

In addition to the ornaments we're kicking around another collaboration idea and I have plans for a further use of the stamps I've been carving for the ornaments... now to just keep up the creative momentum as the time approaches for the Bean to make her appearance and after...

By the way, have you had a chance to see the new customization service I've added to PeanutButterPie?

I mentioned a little while ago that I was testing out ways to add a little something extra to our ornaments. I got it all figured out and the first customized piece was sent out to my Etsy Baby Shower recipient last week. She sent me a note letting me know it had arrived and gave the ornament a glowing review!

Special Deal for Facebook Fans and other stuff

This week I'm ramping up the marketing for the sale that I'll be having in PeanutButterPie this coming weekend as part of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday events that are happening over on Etsy. Other than offering free shipping over the last few years this is my first real sale on Etsy and I'm pretty excited about being able to offer some special deals over the weekend.

So far this morning I've sent an update to my facebook fans letting them know all the details of the sale this weekend as well as a special coupon code for them to use before the sale even starts. Are you a member of my fanpage? You can get in on the special deals available to fan members by adding my page to your favourites.

Yesterday I mentioned that I have been making some gift boxes for our ornaments. I also promised that I'd share some pictures of those boxes today. I'll be sharing some of those images today. While I was taking the photographs of the finished boxes I also thought it might be a good idea to share how I made my templates and boxes and where to find ready made templates. So I'll be creating a new tutorial over the course of this coming week. I know, nothing like loading myself down with a little extra work right? I think a tutorial will be a lot of help though and I love being able to share information like that.

So here are what my boxes look like now both in prefabrication stage and in all their finished glory. Of course I've already got plans to make the process even easier for me, it just requires a little leg work and finding a place to do the printing for me. It also means that I may have to go with white or white boxes instead of the lovely purple and blue that I've been making on my own but I'm using up stock from my paper stash that's been hiding in my cupboard over the last ten years so the limited number of coloured boxes was going to be a reality anyway.

Boxes

I'm making boxes and boxes and boxes. I created my own template based on one that I found on Mirkwood Designs. Because I want to package our ornaments into special boxes I used the template for the playing card box as a reference and then created my own template in InDesign. Last night I cut out a few and other than not realizing that my printer cut off a small section of one of the ends making the three boxes I made last night a little useless (until I attach prosthetic lids that is) they look fantastic.

I'll be wrapping our ornaments into tissue and sliding them into their boxes for mailing when they find homes. And the best part? The boxes are small enough that they'll fit into cushioned envelopes which means that I'll be able to keep shipping costs down. The other best part? I get to personalize the boxes with one of my hand carved stamps making them easily give-able as they are; instant gift wrapping! I have a few things to do to finish them off, stickers for sealing the one end for one and care inserts for the ornaments for inside. It's been a pretty good weekend so far.

I'll share pictures of the boxes tomorrow along with news of the Black Friday Pre-sale offer that I'm offering to my facebook fanpage followers click the link to favourite my page and get in on some early bird action; or you can wait until Black Friday when I put our ornament sets on sale, or Cyber Monday when the rest of the shop follows suit.

Just so I'm not posting without a pretty picture, here's one from my early morning walk yesterday. It would have made a great accompaniment with the word picture I posted yesterday but since a word picture is just that I'll share it here instead.

Personalized and Customized

This morning I'm finishing a little product testing to see if we can personalize and customize our ornaments for the holiday season. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of offering a new service to our products.

We're also gearing up for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I'll be focusing on packaging this weekend I have a template for a small box that will fit our ornaments perfectly and still stay within the limits set by Canada Post's Slot of Doom. I'm going to build a few and see how well they'll work. I'll be making a special Facebook Fanpage member announcement on Monday. To get in on the secret surprise you can add my fanpage onto your favourites here.

Of course all of this is going to be happening while the snow starts to fall, I head to my latest Mat appointment and we start to decorate for the holiday season. What's going on for your weekend?

List Sheets and Leftovers

On my list of things to do today on top of doing and folding laundry is getting a list sheet finished for sending out to this gift shop we know and love. I started one a few weeks ago but I'm just not too keen on what I've put together and think I'll have to start over.

In the meantime I'm getting ready to start listing ornaments from the last soldering session. We're planning on having a Black Friday to Cyber Monday sale this year with the ornaments. I'll post a little more here in the next week with a link for a pre-sale event for my Facebook Fanpage followers. If you want to get in on the fun you can join the page here

I'm in a Treasury

that made the front page of Etsy today. That's the good news. The bad news is that I missed it; I was out getting my hair cut this morning and wasn't able to get online. Well that and the fact that our ornaments are on the bottom row of the collection and weren't included on the front page. What we got from this is a lot of extra views today from those people who clicked to see the full collection. As you can see from the screen shot above the Treasury itself is simply stunning and full of items that I am currently lusting after. To be included in this grouping is a big stroke to the ego.

We've been included in a number of treasuries over the last few weeks which is exciting all by itself. I always get a little thrill in seeing one of my items included in a collection curated by someone else. What's even better, is that I get to share this thrill with the husband who has as much invested in our ornaments as I do. Really it's equivalent to having a work of art selected by a jury for hanging in a show which is something that the Husband has only witnessed through me when I've had that honour in the past.

Feel free to click on the screen grab above and comment on the treasury and click on the items that grab your attention. You might just find that one of a kind gift for someone on your list and be that much closer to a relaxed December.

Keep on keeping on

And just like that I feel like I'm lagging behind. Time to pull up the bootstraps; or given my inability to bend over to put socks on with out contorting my legs and torso into extreme positions maybe I'll slip on those mules I keep by the door to go and check the mail instead, and get back at it.

It's been a tough week around here emotionally and the ornament project has born the brunt of that. As much as I'd sometimes like to dump all our personal crap here and unburden myself I have to respect the desire for privacy that's floating around here. If I were the lead in the play that is our life I'd be sharing sharing sharing, but since I'm only a secondary character to the plot line at the moment it's really not my place to share. Suffice it to say that we are healing and moving towards a place for all of us that will be more stable and secure.

My job right now is to get back to the ornaments and that's on my to do list today. I'll be all up in the excel sheets creating a line sheet of the finished ornaments so that when we start contacting Brick and Mortar shops to carry them we have a proper package to market with. Anyone out there ever done a line sheet before? My plan is to cut and past from my Etsy inventory list since all the details are there already.

Once I've done with that; it's tweaking the Peanut's costume and gutting our second pumpkin so that we can give it a good carving.

Dancing the Spiral and getting lots done

is what I have on my weekend to do list.

Last night the husband and I had a productive evening at the table with copper foil tape and solder. When we were finished we had a nice tidy stack of ornaments ready for a final polish and some documentation. After the shoot last week I'm going to have to rethink how I'll be doing that this time around. One of my options is to move the studio set up to the kitchen table, I've been using the Peanut's table next to the living room window and the low height isn't working for me. If that doesn't work it's back to the drawing table.

In any case the ornaments look amazing and I can't wait to share them with you. So, in the next few days I'll be wielding the camera again.

On the list today is some paper mache with the Peanut. We've narrowed down our Halloween costume choice to a mighty pterosaur. Fortunately I have wings ready for the job, all I need to make is a beak and crest mask/hat and we'll be all set. Once that's on the go we'll also be carving the first of our two pumpkins to light tonight at the dinner table.

Tomorrow is the Annual Samhain Spiral Dance. I'll be going to honour those who have passed through the veil, to welcome the new ones who have come along and to celebrate the Pagan New Year. This celebration is one that I look forward to all year long.

I also want to mention a few giveaways that I've come across. First up is Mother Moon's All Hallows Eve Giveaway. Not even including the super secret items that will be a surprise to the winner; this giveaway has so many amazing things included that those secret items are just too tantalizing to resist. My favourite items (other than the candies which are on my no eating until the Bean gets here and then only in small amounts) are the bell charms and the fairy star.

And I can't mention giveaways without including Mrs. B's giveaways. Up for grabs today is Giveaway from Somnamblant!: "This giveaway is from Somnambulant!The winner will receive Somnambulant Skulls! This mixed media piece is so cute and creepy that you'll have to click on the link to see it for yourself. Also being given away on Mrs B's blog is The Way of the Horned God: The Way of the Horned God by Dancing Rabbit; a book geared towards young men who are seeking a Pagan path.

I'm off to get started on my to do list! What do you have lined up?

no pain no gain

Yesterday I sweated in the heat of our living room window while bending and squatting and kneeling in all sorts of non-pregnant friendly poses in order to photograph the next batch of ornaments for PeanutButterPie. I'll be honest. I was not comfortable in the very least. In fact I'm sure that the Peanut was starting to get a little worried about her Mama with all the moaning and gasping and grunting I was doing. It seems I'm going to have to find a new set up for my product shots or I'll be making a whine filled post each time I set up the tree and lights.

On the plus side I'm fairly pleased with the shots I got and I've started listing the new ornaments already.



In other news I was up bright and early at 4:30 this morning after sleeping fairly soundly most of the night with a seriously full bladder and a dancing bean. I'll be headed for a mid morning nap soon to head off the grumpies and make sure I'm rested and refreshed for the foiling and soldering marathon the Husband has planned for tonight; which means there's another photo shoot in my future

Work in Progress

While I'm waiting for the next batch of soldering and cleaned ornaments I'm also keeping busy making more to add to the queue. Today's batch are Solsticey in theme but will also look beautiful on any tree.

I used deep amethyst and sapphire colours today with the addition of interference gold and macro pearl pigments. I like the gold because of the richness it and the pearl has a feel of snowfall.

in the line up waiting for their turn for taping and soldering are now some Frosty Snowflake, Oak Leaf and Acorns, Hearts and now the Yule Suns. Over the weekend I did a little playing with some other ideas but I'm not sure that they worked the way I wanted them to. I'm setting them aside to revisit when I have a fresh eye.

What are you working on today?

Back to Business

Thankfully it's the kind of business that I love to do. I spent part of yesterday cleaning off the latest ornaments to come of the husband's soldering bench. The good news is that they look fantastic. The not so good news is that the cleaning solution we are using to clean off the rosin flux isn't as strong as we'd like, and cleaning takes a long long long long time. Since our other option is a little too toxic for me to handle with the Bean in her major brain growing stage, this part of the cleaning process will fall to the Husband. I'll be dong the polishing and getting ready for documenting and listing.

We've had a huge wave of views to the shop with the introduction of the line, and even had one of the ornaments included in a snowflake themed treasury! For my part, I've been tweeting about the ornaments and spreading the word about them through some Project Wonderful advertising and facebook. The next step is to get them out into the world; because as beautiful as they look in the listing photographs, they really knock your socks off in person.

It's the iridescent and interference pigments that do it, showing off those effects in a photograph is tricky in the best circumstances and almost impossible in others; especially for some of the lighter coloured ornaments. I'm summoning up the courage to approach a few brick and mortar stores with some of our treasures to see if they would like to carry some of them for the holiday season.

I feel like I've had a week away

The Staycabamoon was a roaring success, except for the really really really missing the Peanut by the time late yesterday afternoon rolled around. Saturday was spent indulging in restaurant food, and window shopping. With the house free of an early waking four year old you'd think that we would have stayed up late in to the night but we were both in bed and sleeping before 10 (only to be woken up at 12:30 by the noisy neighbors or their noisy guests as they left from visiting). As I mentioned in yesterday's post I was up bright and early but indulged in a little bit of sitting up in bed reading blogs and dozing.

Then the husband got up and we ran errands sans Peanut which in itself is a bit of a vacation. We hit Ikea for some shelves, went for groceries (which done by ourselves, seemed to take half the time) and we also stopped to pick up a dragon costume for the Peanut.

I'm going to co-opt the wings and use them to dress her up as a Pterodactyl. If you read my guest post over at Mrs B's last week you're probably wondering what happened to the butterfly costume. Well, Daddy taking her to see Walking With Dinosaurs, combined with the Dinosaur Train and Dino Dan on TV conspired against the butterfly costume. She's been asking to be a T-rex for the last few weeks. Unfortunately I'm not feeling up to the challenge of sewing a dino tail, Creating a Pterodactyl headpiece out of papermache seems a little bit more my speed right now, plus the wings are perfect.

The Peanut arrived home after a day of shopping with my sister. She had a new pair of boots, a bag full of chocolate, and stories about hanging with Charlie, her Auntie's Chow and watching a dinosaur movie and a big hug for her Mama and Daddy. Today I feel as though I had a week away from all the hustle and bustle. My patience levels are topped up and I feel like I could get a hundred things accomplished.

First up is working on cleaning some of the more recently soldered ornaments for PeanutButterPie and then another photo shoot, after we've hit the library. There's laundry and dishes on the to do list and maybe getting the bathtub cleaned (if I can bend over long enough) Of course I won't be putting any sort of pressure on myself to get all of that done. That would just negate the whole staycabamoon experience.

And We're Off!

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians! I hope your day is full of the scent of roasting turkey, and the flavours that go along with it.

This weekend was busy for us. We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving at my nieces place with my sister, her partner, her Mom (the Pa's first wife) and my nephew. The meal was lovely, beautifully cooked bird, moist stuffing, creamy smashed potatoes, crunchy salad and some yummy yummy desserts. The company was fantastic and we brought home a portable dishwasher that my niece had sitting in her storage space. No more standing back from the sink so that I can stay comfortable while washing dishes!

Now down to business.
It's official, our new line has been launched; the listings are up! I've Tweeted, I've facebooked, I've started an ad campaign and I'm writing this post.

I have high hopes for this line, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things go. This is my first ad campaign with Project Wonderful. I added an ad box here a while back, firstly to see how the whole process worked and secondly to create some revenue that I could put into my own ad campaigns. We're working on a small budget around here what with the Peanut needing to eat and the Bean putting in her requisition forms for the next 18+ years, so I thought it would be prudent to do things this way. So far my bids are all winning, I'm pleased with the process so far but I'll be honest I'm feeling my way along here.


Click on any of the images here to check out the new listings!

Things come together in stages

So, some back story to our project seems to be in order.

The original idea was to incorporate the hand sewn embellished art that I was using for greeting cards. The plan was to create 1" x 3" hand sewn water colours sandwiched between glass microscope slides and soldered.

As with most ideas, this one expanded in the brainstorming process into something that could be personalized, something that was more elaborate and on and on and on. Of course the brainstorming ideas became more and more fantastic so there was some reigning in. Then came the part where I started to put some of my ideas to work. Well, I tried to put them to work but with one thing or another the ideas didn't quite mesh with the physical objects. What we had originally planned was put on the back burner while I put my old noggin towards figuring out a solution.

One day while I was re-organizing my supplies (something I do a few times a year to get my workspace cleaned off and to help jump start my desire to make things) I came across the stash of glass paints that I'd used to decorate wine glasses for gifts one year. I had glass slides and I had glass paint, I could do something with them both (once again making the whole having to clean my workspace up worth while).

tIn the early stages of a new project I like to play around with materials to see what works, what works best and what isn't really working at all. In this case I started painting directly onto the glass slides that make up the ornaments. I used an applicator bottle and drew trees, and snowflakes onto the slides and squished them together creating some interesting bubbles and shrinkage. I waited for the paint to dry and then sandwiched them giving me a more predictable finish. Then I smeared paint onto the slides and drew into the tacky finish before sandwiching; interesting but not a graphic as I wanted.

Then I got the idea to try stamping into the glass paint. Being a closet print maker; the idea to carve my own relief blocks for use in this project (as well as for greeting cards and possibly for gift wrapping our holiday gifts or making gift tags) was naturally the next step. Also having a stash of safety-cut print making blocks was a great incentive.

I decided to use stamps that I had carved myself to keep my designs as unique as possible. I do have a few bought stamps that I have used on some of the pieces along with my own designs but the bulk of the designs are mine. I've added some photos of the stamps I've carved and used for you to look at.

The launch date for the new line is right round the corner. I've been busy getting listing descriptions, materials and shipping info ready to upload on Monday. I'll be starting with a about 5 ornaments and then listing a few more every other day or so. In addition, we'll be looking for brick and mortar selling opportunities as well.

This stage of the process is daunting, it's like taking that giant leap into the unknown, the only thing to do is to take a deep breath and dive.

As promised

I'm offering you a sneak peek of the new line of holiday ornaments going into PeanutButterPie this coming Monday.

The husband touched on his part in the operation a few posts ago. The starting point for an ornament is the design and cutting of a rubber stamp made from a soft rubber print making block. Before photography I was a printmaking major. Using relief printmaking as a part of the process has been an awesome way to reintroduce that old love back into my creative process. The image I carve into the block is pressed into glass paint. I love how the image looks in the initial impression and I adore the second and third impressions that I get from the blocks, each ornament has it's own look and feel.



I have to say that I am just tickled by how well the photo shoot went on Monday. The reason I'm so pleased is how well the props worked with the ornaments. The combination of the lights and the wire tree that I used for display was so much fun putting up.

Come back tomorrow for this week's installment of a Thousand Words.

on my To Do List

This week is going to be heavy, on the getting things ready for the big launch side of things. The plan is to get some stylish photography, I have some props that I'll be pulling out for that. Also on the list is packaging so that I can include those in the photo shoot.

I'll also be working on product descriptions and shipping details. Our goal is to start listing our new line next week; Canadian Thanksgiving which is when we'll be picking names for our holiday gifting. That means holiday gift shopping will be on my mind.

Also up this week is more production. The husband has a stack of soldering to do and I'll be adding the copper foil so he can do his part.

In the midst of all this we've started our Halloween decorating and I'm hoping to show you a little of what we've done around here; including the latest addition; our disco glitter skeleton. The goal is to post every day up until Saturday when we'll be visiting the Doctor to check in on the Bean and heading out to my niece's place to enjoy some thanksgiving yumminess; well as much as I can with the limited amounts of stuffing, potatoes and dessert that I'm allowed to eat with the GD. What's on your list for the week?

A thousand Words

Work in progress edition

And now I'll let the Husband speak

So, I was painting and playing and putting ideas together and there was this big stack of 1" x 3" wafers of glass coated in some intense jewel tones, glittering and sparkling with duo-tone colours. And the husband was sitting across the table from me; soldering iron in hand with wires and circuit boards, resistors and all sorts of electronic gew gaws spread around, building stomp boxes for his bass.

And this is where the idea to work together started. The rest of this post is about the Husband's role in the process and because it's all about the work he's putting in I figured it should be in his words; Reader's meet the Husband:

I guess it started as my sweetie said above....an idea about glass pieces bound together with soldered-copper. When she asked me if I could solder them, I said (of course)...sure. Of course, I had no idea how difficult or different copper foil soldering would be from electronics soldering.

Soldering itself is a bit of an art form. I got into basic electronics a few years ago, and I'm probably still not as good as I should be (even after 50 or so projects). That's why I push myself to do as many as possible; to get myself better. Soldering electronics or art pieces isn't something that can be necessarily taught. It just takes lots of practice to get the perfect bead.

The main difference between electronics and the sun catchers that we are working on is the type of solder used. When I'm working on my electronics I use a 63/37 mix of tin and lead. For the sun catchers, I use a tin/copper or tin/silver copper solder, otherwise known as "lead free". Lead is not necessarily good for the environment, or me for that matter (maybe that's what's wrong with me), but lead-free solder is a royal PITA to work with. Actually solder in general is a royal PITA to work with.

The trick with soldering is adhesion, and that depends on two factors: the getting the right temperature and keeping your surface clean, clean, clean.... If you do not have either, then the solder does not flow and becomes an ugly blob called a "cold solder joint"; more of an electronics term, I know, but seems to apply to doing art pieces as well. The metal (or copper) and the solder have to be at the right temperature to flow properly. Either way, blobs are not good and look ugly. What you want is the solder to melt onto your copper foil in a smooth liquid finish called a bead.

My biggest challenge with doing our project was getting the solder (PITA) to stick to the copper. At first we experimented with different sizes of lead free solder. When we started, the glass supply store where we got our stuff sold us this plumber-sized stuff which was essentially useless. It was quite thick and I could never get it hot enough. After doing a little digging, I switched to a 1.0mm lead free solder (bought at my local electronics store), and that was easier to work with. I have more control of the bead I'm producing and it gets to the right temperature quickly.

The other part is the "clean, clean, clean" part. Metal, specifically copper becomes oxidized with exposure to air. "Flux" (a chemical cleaning agent that facilitates soldering) is used to clean the joint before soldering to remove the oxidation. At first we used liquid "acid" flux which we bought at the previously mentioned glass arts store. In Electronics, the solder is typically impregnated with flux, and it is usually "rosin" based as opposed to acid. Over time, I found the acid liquid flux hard to work with, it was messy and because I had to apply it as I was soldering it lengthened the process. Through trial and error I ended up switching to the impregnated flux, and I found it made a better (cleaner) solder joint which was much quicker.

The copper banding that we use for our project tends to oxidize very quickly, so we started to rough up the copper using scotch-pad it as well. Another PITA, but necessary for everything to look good. I'm reminded of a post on a electronics forum with respect to why a member's pedal wasn't working. The obviously-experienced response was; "well, it could be one of three things"

1. Bad or cold solder joint
2. Bad or cold solder joint
3. Bad or cold solder joint

Meaning your solder wasn't the right temperature to connect or there was no connection made with the solder. I guess my biggest challenge (once the equipment and supplies were sorted) was just getting a nice bead without "lumps". In electronics, you just need a nice little "volcano" where the component meets the circuit board. With a sun catcher, I am actually working on a much bigger surface and I want it to look nice as well!

All in all, it's lots of fun (like I need an excuse to solder) and it's great to be doing something together with the love of my life (and no, I'm not talking about my bass).