27 March 2011

Hunting down a Domain Name

For the past couple of days I've been on a search to find a domain name for me to put up a website and add my little crafts.  Am I having any luck?  No.  Not so far.  I've tried:

  • LovelyLittleCreations.com
  • Anything that has to do with the word "Clay"
  • I've even tried some with "Raven" in it because I like Ravens... and then added "Clay"
  • Anything "Clay" with the words "Cottage, Studio"
  • "Doodle Bug", "Doodle Bug Studio" was taken
It's been frustrating to say the least.  Then I went to Etsy to see what other lovely clay artists have done... and it's been mostly their name and clay beads, or some cute concoction of their names/beads/studios/etc.

I'm frustrated... can you tell?

Maybe I'm over thinking it a bit, but I would like something short-ish in a name, no dashes in the domain name and something cute I can put on my cards when I'm selling my bits and bobs.  I really do feel like I'm overthinking.... and I think my mind went to the birds when Lovely Little Creations was taken.  GAH!  So it's like starting all over again and then I'm in a bit of a panic... do I now start another blog.... keep this blog for the stuff I'm doing... am I going to lose it all and close shop before I even try opening one.  SIGH!!!!

Well, I'm not going to give up... I'm just going to have to put my thinking cap back on and come up with something that I like.

20 March 2011

Little Birds

I have been spending a bit of time this weekend drawing up some ideas for projects I'd like to try.  I was also talking with my hunny about starting to sell some beads and things I make online, he's all for it!  I think so far it's been pretty productive... and surprisingly relaxing this weekend.  I've just decided to be mellow... and let creativity happen when it happens.  Also I've been staying away from playing on my iPhone which I have a tendancy to do when I'm bored and watching TV.  Strange how I seem to multi-task those two together.  Instead I've spend the weekend picking up a pencil and drawning in my book.

One of my little creations I had thought about making was 3 Little Birds.


Three Little Birdies in Shadow Boxes
 I thought I'd make little birds and place them in shadow boxes and give them unique backgrounds and see how it went.  Trees with flowers, a sunny sky and some paper cut out clouds.  As I was working on my little birds I've decided rather than placing them in 3 separate shadow boxes, that I'd just put them in one.  I think it just was due to the size that I'd made them... thought they'd look better all together.

The Basics of the Birdies I started to create
 I started out with three bird shapes.  One in a blue, one pink and one brown.  I had wanted a more red looking bird, but the mixing took it to a pretty in pink and I had some leftover pink that I was able to encorporate in the design of the pink bird which made me pretty darn happy.  That clay I had was from one of my earlier canes that I had tried to make when I first started.... back in November!




First Birdie... I wanted to wire wrap it's
legs to give it a bit of pizazz.

Having never wire wrapped anything before I thought I'd give it a try with my first little birdie.  I took some thicker bronze wire and wrapped some silver around it to make it stand out and then placed some beads on it to make it look a little more interesting, while keeping the bird itself very straight forward and minimal in design.






Little Pink Birdie... the beginning of
something beautiful!
 Starting this one's little head design... not quite sure where I wanted to take it, I was thinking of placing a little flower on a wire stem and putting it on it's head, but it just didn't look quite right so I decided to encorporate several wires and let it kind of look more like a mohawk.

My little pink birdie with it's
 unusual mohawk :)






Here is where I got to encorporate the older cane that I had made back in November for the chest piece on this little pink birdie.

As I was showing my hunny ... he thought it might look good in a flower pot as well as the shadow box I was planning on putting it in. 

See.. so many ideas!  I can't help but get excited to think that there is so much I can get my hands into....that sometimes it's hard to focus on just one thing!

A decorative little pink birdie


Encorporating the old cane, kind of made my day because I have it in my box of clays... wondering if I'd ever had any use for the stuff, and there you go.  Making it a bit more pretty and decorative.





My very decorative brown birdie

It was a bit funny with the last birdie.  I was sitting thinking what I could do with this one that I hadn't done with the other two.  I figured I didn't really do any tail feathers on the other ones...so I ended up improvising a bit and make some green decorations with some wired feathers. 

I was thinking if I had actually made it long enough, but I like how they've turned out.

The Shadowbox... before the magic.  LOL.

The potential shadow box that I'll be putting my little birdies in once they've been cooked up and I've found a proper background.  I'm thinking of placing some scrapbooking paper in the back... maybe a nice light blue with polka dots if there is one, and then I'll add a polymer clay tree with some clay flowers/leaves.  From there depending on room I might add a sun, and some paper clouds that I'll glue in there.... all depending on room.  I was thinking of maybe rather than doing a polymer clay tree branch I might try putting a real one in there and then glue/wire in the flowers..... I'm not sure yet.

But I think so far I'm liking the little birdies I've made.  I'll cook them up later this afternoon and then when I get a chance I'll start building up the landscape.  Maybe a bit of dirt, grass, rocks... all in clay to give it dimention and depth.

From there I think it will come together.   I'll glue in the birds to the clay...since I'm not sure how well something like this would bake in an oven and I don't really want to risk it.

So there you go.  My afternoon delight... and I think I'm going to call it a day as my back is starting to ache from being bent over those birds!  But it was fun to get creative as I've not been drawing anything for yonks.  I need to get back into the happy... and today puts me off to a good start.

16 March 2011

Of Mice and Men

Loads of mice... but not a man in sight
I spent some time back in February making some little clay mice... it was mostly to create one that my daughter could give to her friend at school... out of the three little mice she took the middle one.  The big mouse as a decidedly sparklie nose which I thought added that special charm to him... and now the mice are sitting at my computer desk looking up at me.

Cruising by way of The Mini Food Blog I found the website I found the link to TinyHands (her site is quite awesome). Who in turn has some really fabulous work and a new website... and because I have a love/hate relationship with my past job experience as a graphic designer I almost had a heart attack when I clicked on the link to a WordPress theme designed for selling jewelery and well... anything charm-wise...basically what we do here at Lovely and can use it on this theme.  Oh My God... seriously I'm getting giddy just thinking about the possibility of having my own little shop on the web. Check out the really awesome looking WordPress theme for a Jewelery Shop... here.

I have to say I've been rather lazy with my clay work, jewelery work, or basically anything crafty for the past couple of weeks.  I'm not sure if it's a case of "I have too much on my plate at the moment... excuse me..." or if I'm just generally procrastinating, realizing that my workspace that is the kitchen table just isn't really cutting it.  It got me thinking today to go hunt down a cheap second hand table (or just cheap table) for me to setup my clay stuff and well all my craft stuff I've got wedged in my kitchen cupboard and feel like I have a place of my own to create.

See... start a website, sell my stuff, get a table... it's swirling around and I feel almost paralized to do anything.  Ask me why... I really don't know... maybe it's the roadblocks I place in front of myself that I never get anything accomplished.  Maybe it's time to change that and get excited about making a change, making cute charms, beads, jewelery, stuff.... just get something going that I love to do.

Good times :)

06 March 2011

Missing in Action

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure where all the time went but before I knew it February was over and I'm rolling through March already.  What just happened???  LOL.

As you can tell my 28 days of charms didn't get very far... 12 days... hmmm.  I realized that I just am not working that well under that kind of pressure... haha.  Well, it's self imposed but you know I did manage to do a few things while away from this blog.

My first little adventure was to make some homemade lasagna and I have to say that I really enjoyed making it.  Its from a recipe my Mum gave me and it reminds me every time I have it of her and Christmas time... it just seemed that it was that time of year that she would make it and it was so yummy ... and it never seemed to be enough.

Well, I can get 8 big slices out of it and I have to say that it does a great job in a pinch when I have to make supper during a week night when we're super busy.

This night that I made this Lasagna I also made a caesar salad and made some garlic bread - all on the super easy pre-made/pre-packaged kind, as I know me and I'm not going to want to make all the extras after putting in the time with the lasagna - I just want to get it done and eat it - and enjoy the time I have with my family over some good food!

Well, I don't know if it was something in the air or in the water, but I didn't stop there.  My hunny really wanted some Maritime Brown Bread as he can't get it out here on the west coast.  So we looked online to see if there were any stores...anywhere nearby that had it - nope.  Dempsters makes it, but nothing available... so being that we were out of luck to buy it pre-made, he found a recipe online to try.

The House of Simon had the recipe - THANK YOU!! and we put it together and baked it up and it turned out absolutely yummy!  I cut myself some big door step slices, but some butter on it... and as that melted into the warm bread I put some jam on it.... and wow!  That is all I have to say about that.  It is a great little recipe and if you have been to the Maritimes, or have someone in your life who just misses that sort of bread... try the recipe... you won't be disappointed.  I mean if I can do it, anyone can!

So between working, baking and cooking up a storm I've not had a heck of a lot of time for my crafts.  My polymer clay is in the cupboard and my paints are on a shelf... my jewelery making bits and pieces are also away in a closet. 

Its not that I don't want to get back into my creative mode it is just feeling really hectic... and I"ve been tired and a bit unwell over the past week.  That lovely cold/flu is going around work and school so we all got slammed with it.  Oh the good times!

I think fluffy kitteh knows were all not feeling so well because she's been very clingy.  Which I love... because I'm a softy and I love to smoosh my cat :).

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