been awhile

It has been quite awhile since I was posting on here.
I have made some discoveries about my creativity in the last several months.
Oddly I find my need to create and write and reach out to others is driven by stress and frustrations.
Much of my stress has been relieved and much of my creativity is getting poured into my job, which I love. But as I am finding my brain stimulated by this I find less need to put it in other things. I do not know if this is a good thing or not.

I do admit though that I have put some time into writing. jotting quick essays on thoughts political or educational. and towards that end I may start a new blog as a place to post my writing with no expectations that it will be read, but its better than shoving it in a drawer or using it as kindling.

here is a photo of my efforts for the small quilt auction this year.

My Process

My inspiration can come from any direction. Seldom and I mean seldom do my inspirations come from places like Pintrest.
Instead I find patterns in a coaster or bathroom tiles or an advertising in a magazine. Then I ask myself which elements drew my attention? How can I capture and use those elements in something I create? Was it a color thing, pattern, texture?
Then what method do I want to use? Painting? Quilting? Metal? Drawing?
Next I sketch a design that has those elements. certain lines, shapes, colors, textures...
I play with color combinations unless the color combinations are the elements I want to keep.
A recent example would be a series of golden diamonds on a teal, turquoise background.
Deciding if I wanted to use squares on point or create diamonds, how many shades of yellow/orange/gold and teal/green/aqua/ turquoise. and then it is a hunt to find the colors. In my stash or not.
Scale is yet another component.
And so I found some fabric, and then the next week I found more fabric that was even better in matching my vision. Finally when I sat down and designed and cut and sewed the pieces together I found that they did not satisfy what I had in mind. I have decided scale is the problem. I ended up with a piece about 20" x 20". What I think would be more to my liking would be a piece about 8" X 8".but that will entail sewing tiny pieces of fabric together. Not my favorite thing. And so it sits waiting for me to get back to it in the stack of other pieces languishing in similar limbo.
But wait,
 Look a cool picture. Not the dog, but the way the light reflects on the water around him. I wonder how I can capture that cool ripple effect in mixed blues and purples. Paint, fabric?  I'm still figuring it out.

Starting with Nothing

As I was tinkering with some copper wire tonight I was thinking about how one person's trash can become a treasure you can then sell and buy stuff to create even more treasures.
But how do you start with nothing. 

First opportunity:

 Rocks! Everybody loves rocks. 

You can paint rocks. This may entail finding scrap paint. even house paint that you have that half can of. or ask on Facebook if anyone is getting rid of their craft paint or old house paint. If you get spray paint leftovers you can do marbling on anything, including rocks.

You can wrap rocks in wire. Where do you find wire? Just about any piece of dead electric or motorized equipment has wire, you just have to tear it apart to find it.  And who would say no if you asked for their dead gear.

Second opportunity:

Wire! Now you know where to find it.

Make jewelry. there are lot of tutorials on making pendants, bracelets, rings... with wire.

Make ornaments, simple or complex there are tons of cool designs.

Make beads that you can use on your jewelry or ornaments

Third opportunity:

Paper! Its everywhere.  

Fold it, cut it, paste it, make it into mache´. 
Sculpt it, decoupage it,  make envelopes, boxes, origami, beads...

Old newspapers, old magazines, egg cartons, cardboard boxes... You can even use your junk mail.

Fourth opportunity:

Sticks! Unless you are in the desert or prairie or arctic tundra you can find at least one, or two.

Big sticks can be carved or made into walking sticks

Little sticks can also be carved.

So there are a few ideas to get you started from nothing.  I just made 10 items that I will sell at $5 each from a few feet of scrap copper wire I pulled out of a dead motor someone was throwing away. I have enough wire to literally make 100 more items. $500+ from nothing is not a bad return.

creating something from nothing

I tend to have a very small crafting budget. Read $0. The few exceptions are for notions like thread that I use for none craft mending and sewing. Or glue Or water.
The rest of my crafting is often created form things I find at the recycle pad, or as gifts, or salvaged from something else.
Much of my fabric comes from give aways and salvage from old clothing.  scraps of wood, spray paint that was being thrown out. beads as gifts from those who were no longer beading...

So when I create something with the intent to sell it I struggle with how to value it. A few scraps of fabric a bit of thread and some empty plastic bottles costs me basically nothing. So I have go with time and how much is it worth?

Making bracelets that are colorful and funky and easy to make for almost nothing, but if I charge $1 I am only making $10 and hour. so if I charge $3 then I can offer a discount if someone buys 2. like $2/5
That ends up making them at about $25 an hour, which may seem a bit much but I do have to invest in marketing and such as well. So there I have justified the price.

The next question is how many to make. There will always be a percentage of them that do not sell and if the customer is making the choice I need to have lots of options. So for every 2 I sell I need 10 available maybe. I realize this is a problem because if I make 10 and only sell 2 I have only made $5 an hour for my work.  Or it just means I need to have 8 bracelets whose only job is to market the others so that becomes a whole hour of time. So with 2 hours of work in I will have 12 bracelets that might sell so that is $30 divided by 2 is $15 an hour for my work.

ok I will drive myself nuts.
I will have a booth with pieces worth $300 and pieces worth $3 and everything in between. I have to trust it is all worth every penny and every minute spent creating and selling. Even on a $0 budget.

blah blah bleh

Just not feeling it lately. Usually I am chomping at the bit to throw some effort into whatever creative idea is churning in my mind. But lately not so much. When I think about the effort of setting things up, sorting them out and just doing the "work" I find my butt is still sitting in the chair just thinking about it, sort of.
Maybe its the fact that I have lost a couple of friends to illness and accidents that is feeding my ennui. Last month I had a ton of ideas I wanted to jump on, but today they just seem like too much work.
Maybe its the fact that we have real work in a cabin renovation that discourages me from from sideline stuff. 
I do hope this blah time ends soon and I can get back to the fun stuff.

😕🐹🌀

energy and passion

I suppose when I think of passion I think of energy. The dedication of one's mind and body to pursue something takes more than time and determination.
Unfortunately somethings derail this energy flow.
Right now I am fighting a bug and my brain is focused on little things like grabbing tissues, or making it to the bathroom on time or when do I need to take the next pill. My body is dedicated to doing very little that takes more energy than the above mentioned activities.
I feel guilty as hell because I am missing work, I feel useless as hell because my brain is a pile of mush.
Still in the optimistic thought that I ever get a good idea I try to keep a notebook handy to jot down idea to pursue later. I am sure they will all seem like fevered ramblings of an insane woman.
Well that is something to look forward to reading.

don't hold me back

I have been stuck at home with a painful medical condition. the problem is this is quilt slushy week. The only time I have had since the end of January's retreat to sit down and sew.
I have a plan for a wall quilt. I have a technique I want to try. I have new fabric to play with. All of these factors may push me to go sew even if I am not 100% recovered.
I am not sure if the motivation to push beyond is a good thing or not. Is resting more important than creating?

On the other hand I will be teaching ethnic art to 5th graders once a week. we will explore things like tribal cloth and fabric patterns. ancient pictographs interpreted in personal art. We will explore African  fabrics, Mayan ruins, Alaska native symbolism styles, possibly some Mexican designs  and aboriginal Australian art.
And I am doing ceramics with 3rd graders. Which should be a challenge as I have never done much with ceramics. I plan to use a single bisque firing and then paints and inks for adding color rather than glazes.
So much coming up to keep me busy and excited. so I refuse to let this episode hold me back.

just a side note: all those plans never happened. end of the year picnics, bowling, bike rides, movies to priority.