Valentine's Day on the way and more rain - splash!

Another week flying by. We had around 4 inches of rain over the last week, although most of it fell in one day! The wet, almost misty and warm conditions mean that the feed in the paddocks is bulking up nicely and should see us through the first part of winter. Of course the hay hasn't faired too well. Hubby was actually baling when the rain started, and it didn't just start with a light misty type of rain, it RAINED. So the hay is still on the ground although he's gone to rake it this morning and see if it is worth saving.

I've been working on my site the last couple of days - I recently had an upgrade and things went very strange! So while the crinkles are being ironed out I put up a new pic on the front page. As we're still in high summer here, I think its very suitable, even though my readers from across the pond will be thinking 'that woman is FREEZING'!.

I recently mentioned how we all end up at weird and wonderful blogs by clicking on link after link. Do you ever check where your bloggy visitors have come from or where you are being mentioned? Someone advised me eons ago to register with Google Alerts and so its amazing to see where you get mentioned. Last night I received an alert that told me I was mentioned on the Business Mums Network. Thanks for the mention Melissa!

I've been browsing around Etsy again (that place is just addictive!) and found these cute little owl pins by Spinal Fusion in Chicago. And I bought hubby's Valentine's card from JBART in Washington State and some gorgeous little mini Valentine's from Twig Studio in North Carolina! Wonder what I'll find next week (yeah I know, sometimes I need to close my eyes LOL).

In honour of St. Valentine, today's pic is a BIG sponge coral heart on a strand of stunning pearls. I'm at the Dunedoo Show next week - pop in and say hello if you're there!

Till next :)
Annette

Click, click, click, where will you end up?

Don't you just love how surfing the internet can lead you to the most extraordinary places? Places you never PLANNED to go to and in some cases didn't even know existed?

I will often click on a link, then another link and another and another. By doing this I have come across the weird, the ho-hum and the beautiful! And have you noticed that some sites (blogs particulary) can have the oddest sort of names that you wouldn't normally dream of reading further, yet when you visit them you see that they're doing a brilliant job :)

Some inspirational pictorial sites I have found in the last couple of weeks are Bush Belles (she found me actually and left a comment. I always like to return the favour and found a lovely blog that I now follow). Through Bush Belles I found a link to The Bottom of the Laundry Basket that I now follow as well... and then through there I clicked a link to Bright Bold & Beautiful and now I follow there too! Bloggers aren pretty amazing at spreading the word, aren't we!?

Today was another case of ending up in an unplanned but inspirational place. I was looking at the very pretty key fobs at Bags by Melanie. I ended up doing a little cruising around while I was there (well, that ALWAYS happens when you're on Etsy - it's never a stay of just a few minutes) I saw some things I liked, read that shop's profile and visited their blog. Then I clicked on a link of an Australian store doing upcycled tote bags. They were donating a bag to Hearts for Haiti which I clicked on to find out more. We are all aware of the terrible earthquakes that struck Haiti less than 2 weeks ago. I have already donated funds in the Hope For Haiti Now fundraiser but I wanted to see what this Etsy store was doing.

In this case the wonderful Etsians have banded together and in a few short days have already donated over 2000 items to this Etsy store with all proceeds (less Etsy and Paypal fees) being forwarded to DoctorsWithoutBorders (MédeçinsSansFrontières) specifically for Haitian relief. When I looked this morning the shop had already raised over $16000USD! I can't donate an item as I no longer have an Etsy shop, but I did buy a couple of things :)

I would love to insert an etsy- mini here to show off some of their items, but I have no idea how to! (Yes, I AM technologically challenged.) So click here and visit their store and check out the wonderful things you can purchase and by doing so, send some money help the relief effort in Haiti.

Needless to say, I haven't achieved an awful lot today (surfing the net does that to you!). The children do return to school later this week and although the end of my week is going to be frantic, I have high hopes for the following week when hopefully the dust has settled!

Luckily I was productive on the weekend so the week is not a total loss. At top is a photo of a necklace made with the most gorgeous 'v' or branched freshwater pearls. I assume that they started as two 'stick' pearls and having been moved around by the mussel, they sat next to each other and the nacre built up, joining them together at one end. I think they are fun, a little funky and definitely different.

Till next :)
Annette

Creativity and Inspiration

After an extended holiday my creativity has returned in force and I have so many new pieces from the last week. It had been hard to try and sit at the bench and create when I just wasn't ready and so I didn't push it too hard - and success is the result!

Many of the new pieces were sitting in my 're-do' pile. I hadn't been happy with how they turned out the first time round, or had grown bored with them before I'd even finished. The pile was getting a bit wobbly it was so high, so I am pleased I have decimated it now!

It can be difficult to stop yourself from repeating your first error when you are re-making a piece, so I found I had to deconstruct each one completely before looking at it with a fresh viewpoint. Some are so entirely different and I love the new looks I have come up with.

Of course as these are pieces from quite a time span the colours aren't necessarily seasonal, as I should be working on my winter collection. And there is an awful lot of green. But as I love green it was really no hardship to work with them ;) But I shall have to pull out the muted tones and rich colours soon otherwise my winter collection may look decidely spring-like!

One of my new creations is pictured above - a mixture of lime green chalk turquoise, black lava, freshwater pearls, peridot and sterling silver. All combining to make one eye-popping statement necklace!

Long term readers may know I had a 'fling' with Etsy. Sure enough, I found I didn't have enough time to do all I had to do as it was, so I haven't had any items listed there for ages. However I still SHOP there :)

A very talented maker of vintage inspired stationery, Kelly of Retrocrafted Paper Goods posted about a great giveaway she is participating in for a group on Etsy. Head over to her Macaroni & Glue blog to find out all about it - it sounds easy to enter and wow, what prizes!

Inspiration is such an intangible thing. I actually have no idea why I became so inspired over the last week (but I'm awfully glad I did!) Some people get inspiration from nature, from art, from music. I often get inspiration just looking into stones. Jenny from Assential Scrapbooking has been inspired by some new products she can use in her business and sounds as excited as me! I'd love to hear what inspires you?



P.S. I am pleased to report the bushfires in Victoria have calmed down with no further outbreaks. The cool change has definitely helped. An outpouring of generosity has been received from the Red Cross reporting over AUD$100million in donations received - now the hard work of rebuilding lives begins.

Sites to sell and network in

It's been a bit of a whirlwind couple of weeks down here on the farm :) My daughter broke her arm a few weeks ago and after numerous trips to the Base Hospital (140km away) the cast is now off. Yay! My inlaws have been away so husband has been doing lots of extra running around looking after their property and it seems the children have had extra curricular activities all the time!

But not one to rest on my laurels, I finally did what I have been meaning to do for almost two years and that is open an Etsy store. Yes, you heard me - TWO years. Three days off it in fact. That's pretty awful isn't it. I was spurred into doing it by a great little networking group that has now officially become an Etsy street team called eSMArts. Cool, eh. Check out my *new* Etsy store here.

AND I joined an Australian Etsy-like site called Made It and have a few items listed there too. And of course I've been on the Canadian version - icraft - for a couple of months now.

I'm sure you remember me mentioning Posh Mama, that great social networking site for mums and Everything Skwiggle for the creator in all of us. Well, I've found a couple of more - Divapreneur and Indie Inspire Co.! I'm also a dedicated member of a couple Aussie networking sites too - the WAHM network at the BlogWhammy group. I have met the loveliest people through these sites, found the most interesting blogs and made quite a few customers too! One blog that I was checking out today was EP Designs. I'm not really into shabby chic but Elena does it with style!

Golly. It's a wonder I have any time to create at all!

But I do :)

Above is a pair of simple yet stunning earrings. Beautiful flat nuggets of aquamarine hang from sterling silver earhooks. Simplicity at its best.

Have a great day!

Autumn, the Great Art Grid and a quiz for every day

The cooler weather is here and I can see my loungeroom being re-arranged very soon so that we can access the fireplace! (We have a 'summer' set up where the lounges face outwards to look at the view and a 'winter' set up where we turn away from the cold and face the fire. Does anybody else do this?)

I have been busy making things for Ironfest which is rapidly creeping up on me. I have received some new stones lately too which are proving to reveal themselves as very one of a kind pieces of jewellery :). I have included one of them above - it is grossular garnet and is a beautiful deep green with sections of the cut stone falling away into crevices where the skin of the crystal shows through. A very 'honest' piece in its rather natural state, it looks like it has just been found on the bottom of the ocean where some goddess or nymph happened to drop it. Matched with some beautiful, glowing, olive green freshwater pearls, it is truly a bold, statement necklace.

Lots of things have happened in the last few days - I have taken on a new 'bonus partner' Dream Candles. The idea behind this is to provide little gifts and items for each other's customers, so I am looking forward to receiving Michelle's little packages soon. I have also joined the iCraft community and set up a little shop there to make me a little more accessible to those on the other side of the world! It is a similar idea to Etsy with lots of very talented artisans already populating its pages.

I must tell you about a great idea that Corinne from Day Dream Art Studios has going. She is currently creating a "Great Art Grid" of small pics of fellow artists/artisans work and her aim is to get to 100 - she is well on her way to her goal. The grid is very beautiful to look at and should you be an artist or artisan, why not participate!?

Of course, even though I have been pretty busy, I always manage to find some time to 'surf' around my favourite blogs. I noticed a post on the Tall Poppy blog that asked what sort of goddess you were with a link to a site to find out for yourself. Well, what a treasure trove that link turned out to be... it looks like there are hundreds of quizzes there on all sorts of topics. One of my favourites was Are you right or left brained? (I'm 40% left (organised) and 60% right (creative) which explains a lot about my workspace!!!) There are so many fun ones to do, I bet you can spend quite a bit of time there trying them out. Have fun!

Aerobatics, a bracelet and Etsy considerations

How was your Easter break? As planned we spent ours at Parkes, with our faces pointed to the sky watching aerobatics. My face is sunburnt with "airshow" face as we call it in our house LOL.

Here is a pic of hubby in his plane as he is getting ready to take off. Nice plane, heh!? Its a Giles 200, the prototype in fact and it goes FAST. A high performance aeroplane that hubby is still getting used to!



Not much achieved in the jewellery stakes, although I DID take some bracelets to make whilst I was sitting around and waiting. I set them all up before I left so I didn't have to think - just do! I have included a picture of one of them at the top of the page. Following on from my last blog post, I tried to let a child's creativity out - throwing some colours together that I wouldn't normally try and I think it works in a slightly eclectic way! The main structure of the bracelet is dark navy dumorterite balls, which have been linked together with argentinium (tarnish resistant) sterling silver into a handmade chain. Then 'charms' of lilac coloured freshwater pearls, dark amethyst, dusky pink rhodonite and pale green aventurine. Finished with a little sterling silver toggle clasp. The combination took a while to get 'right' - I didn't want the green or pink overwhelming the rest of the bracelet, but on the other hand it was too plain with the blue/purple combination. The actual 'making' took about two solid hours, so these style of bracelets are pretty time consuming to do. I was completely out of this "charm" style, so I managed to get a total of three done over Easter. I will post pics of the others over my next couple of posts.

I have been seriously considering opening an Etsy store. I reserved my store name waaaay back when Etsy first opened, but I just haven't had the push to do it since I already have my own webstore. I always get busy and then it goes back to the bottom of the pile! I know of lots of people who have stores there, and they report varying degrees of success. There is so much talent there, I guess it may be easy to get lost unless you regularly put up new stock. Cigarboxbeads, an Etsy seller herself (she creates incredibly detailed beadwork), is currently featuring some of her Etsy finds on her blog - it is a great place to get an idea about the huge range that etsy offers without getting overwhelmed!

Have a great day!