Monday, June 25, 2012

Today is a Work Day ...

Today is a work day! I've got some pieces I didn't get finished for Bazaart! so I'm going to work on those and hopefully be able to clean off my table!

I found all my pics and scanned them for the slideshow for the reunion. I have to do some photo editing on a few but most are ok. I will be working on the actual slideshow when I get out there (1000 miles away) as I need to get more photos from people out there, first. I'm going out a week early so I guess I will be working on it then.

Well off to my silver! Will post pics later!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

For My Fellow Pottery Lovers!

I came across this today and will be tucking it away for future reference. My DD (Darling Daughter) also does pottery (OK, these days it is called "Ceramics"). She has studied it in university whereas I have only studied it in high school, many moons ago (I won't say HOW many).

She's learned about all these different types of firings and we've been keeping this as an option for the future, so now I have some great picture instructions (I'm much better with those, these days)!

So here's my great find for today:
Gas Kiln Trials and Tribulations

Enjoy!

Yay! My Summer Heat Earrings are featured in a Treasury on Etsy!

JoAnne Drew has featured my Summer Heat Earrings in her Treasury on Etsy. Check it out:




I got a few new ideas for earrings last night. If I could just get a bit caught up and then get to the bench. We'll see how things go today. 

Yesterday was a bust, sort of. I did get my banking all caught up, though. And I made Sushi. All was not lost I guess... ;o)

Monday, June 18, 2012

Bazaart is over, now on to the next project...

My next project is organizing a reunion 1000 miles away! I've got about 4 weeks left. Only half the people have registered and the deadline was last week and I'm also working on a slideshow for it so I've got some phoning to do!


Our next JewelleryWon show has been sitting dormant, too without a venue so I need to put some time into that.


On my few forays into blog world and Etsyville I've come across a few things that got me excited.


One is  Art Jewelry Elements: Lark Call for Entries  . That would be so awesome to get your jewellery into a Lark book! My metal teacher has. I think that would be such an honour to be juried into that. I've been looking at some of my pieces to see what I could submit. I need to take some better pictures, though. Incidentally I emailed the link to all of our JewelleryWon artists as well!


Next is my good friend Roxanne Brown. She has been adding to her Etsy shop and I think it looks AWESOME! I love her jewellery! Check out her etsy shop: Roxanne Brown Jewellery.


Just this morning I found something else that piqued my interest at Art Jewelry Elements: Inspired by...Shells on the beach. I've never heard of a blog hop. I think that sounds great and I like the idea of creating something inspired by someone's photo!




Well off to clean up all my stuff after Bazaart! I'm not showing a picture of the mess here. Just imagine panick mode and everything going everywhere, while trying to finish pieces! That about sums up 3 areas of our house!


Have a great day!!



Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Soo Busy!

Between grouping my lampwork beads, to photo books, to soldering, buffing, yada, yada, yada!

I have grouped all my beads into jewellery pieces, now we'll see how many I get done! Of course I need to prepare all the metal counterparts, then assemble. Bazaart is coming up close!

I got my first photo books yesterday. I think they look pretty good. They are the Mixbook ones. They show samplings of the different types of jewellery I make. I will have them at Bazaart for viewing.

I finally got some pictures taken of the earrings I made a couple of weeks ago (last week was a total bust!).

Now I have to get back to soldering. Hopefully I will be able to get all my assembling done tomorrow! :oS

Here's the start of my new earrings for Bazaart!



 














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Thursday, June 7, 2012

Photo Book Marathon

I've been on a marathon the last few days! No, not running! (yeah, right!)

I purchased a couple of those coupons back in November and like I've had time to do anything with them? You know the kind. You pay a smaller amount and then you get a coupon for a bigger amount. They expired yesterday. I had thought 6 months was plenty of time to get these done. NOT!

So I've been working on these all day long for the last 3 days. The first coupon was $15 and you get $50 from Mixbook. Well, the program was easy to use, easy to turn your photos and lots of backgrounds to choose from. I still didn't find exactly what I wanted but they DID have a large selection. The books start at about $20 for softcover and $30 for hardcover, so my $50 coupon plus a bit for shipping, did enable me to get 2 copies.

The other coupon was $36 and you get $115 from Photobook. I would NEVER recommend this to anyone. Their book prices start at $65. Their software has to be loaded onto your own computer, very limited selection of backgrounds (I went with plain Burgundy) and you can not freely turn your photos, which means if your photos are taken vertically you need to do about 3 steps just to get them vertically on your page and looking right. What a pain. It also took me a while to figure out how to do this.

Ordering the final product was another challenge! Keep in mind here, I'm on this marathon, remember? It's nearing the end of the day on my last day of my coupon! :o)

I went to the website and could find NOWHERE to order books! NOWHERE to create an account for logging in. I did finally find somewhere to log in if you already had an account. I finally found that the order button is in the program on your computer. Then you can create your account.

So I get this all created. It checks my project file. I place my order. I click to pay and the "Visa" option is really just, "you can pay with your Visa through Paypal". I don't mind using Paypal, but don't give me the choice of paying with Visa if your only option is Paypal.

Then I think it is all done. Nope! I've still got this screen telling me that my order is not complete and to go back to the program to send my file. What a joke! So I go back and get this started. This takes about 20 minutes. I'm not liking this too much. I've already paid for the thing and it's a shutdown waiting to happen (before my file is loaded!).

So this finally is done and then a screen pops up and tells me now my file now needs to be uploaded! Estimated time is 1 HOUR 22 MINUTES! I had to go out so I had to get someone to keep checking my computer for me to make sure the whole thing uploaded ok. Like I said, a shutdown waiting to happen, before my file is loaded!

So in the end, no shutdown and my book cost $36 (coupon) + $12 (shipping) = $48. If I had been given the option of ordering a book for that price I would have saved my money (and all the work of creating it!).

Conclusion: Power hog, very limited functionality, website is not user-friendly (just keeps taking you in circles), and very expensive. Definitely not my money's worth for what they charge. The way the whole system works is not efficient at all. The non-Visa option also gives the impression of "amateur".

But, yay! It's finished! Now I'm back to getting ready for Bazaart!

http://www.mackenzieartgallery-bazaart.ca/