Turquoise, Tomato, Coral, Violet, Beige, Canary Yellow, “Amparo” Blue, Pink Champagne, Dried Herb, and Eucalyptus… Pantone has a diverse palette of colors for Spring 2o10 from which to work! I finally settled on three new Circle designs, and am planning a few new Rectangle designs. Drumroll please….
FOXY Circle #5 -- Swirls in pink and turquoise!
FOXY Circle #16-- Eucalyptus, Amparo Blue, and a Subtle Aurora! FOXY Circle #21-- Dried Herb and a Rich Amparo Blue!
If you’ve purchased a FOXY Fusions bracelet for a gift, you won’t know if it’s the right size until your giftee tries it on. If the bracelet is not long enough, you can always contact us to exchange the bracelet for one that is longer.
If the bracelet is too long, however, you have a much simpler solution: you can remove a link to make the bracelet shorter. To do this, all you need is a round nose jewelry supply tool that you can get from any craft store (like Hobby Lobby or Michaels).
What you are going to do is remove the link on the side OPPOSITE the clasp. To do so, turn the bracelet over, insert the tool into the looped metal attaching the square link to the bracelet, squeeze and lift. Once the looped metal is lifted, you can remove the link from the bracelet.
You can close the looped metal back down on the individual square link and use it as a necklace.
The pictures below illustrate this process.
Use the tool to squeeze the looped metal
Lift the looped metal with the tool
Remove the link from the bracelet
Remove the link
Close the metal loop on the extra link
Now you have a bracelet and pendant!
Sometimes I wonder the impact my crafting lifestyle will have on my young sons, who are now 7 and 10. During the fall and spring, I am gone 3 out of 4 weekends at shows, off solo selling my wares while my kiddos are in school. My husband takes them to all their soccer games on the weekends, and I miss these special moments….although I usually get lots of photos of them playing sent to my Blackberry—Love modern technology!
During the week, I feel like I’m cramming time with my boys…trying to see them as much as possible. But there’s only so much time between after school, homework, soccer practice, and bedtime; and often I have lots of work to do to get ready for the next weekend show as well so I’ll be in the studio late at night.
My older son Garrett told his Nene (my mom) that when he grows up, he’s going to get a job that makes lots of money so he doesn’t have to work as hard as his father and me. Then my mother shot me that look that said: “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” (and really, she totally disapproves of me being gone so much!)
But two weekends ago my son Garrett got to come with me to a show because it was close to home in Georgetown. He loved it! He wandered around, found some arts and crafts he liked and even made a “trade” with an artist (with a little help from mom). He was so proud of his purchase…and liked the idea that he got to own something made by another artist by trading something his mommy made. And he got to hear folks say how much they loved the glass that his mommy made…I think it made him feel special.
Another benefit of my kids witnessing my crafts lifestyle is that it is teaching them that there are all kinds of ways to make a living in this world besides the standard corporate style job. It’s teaching them that you can conceive of something in your own mind, create it, and actually convince other people to buy it from you! How cool is that? Last year I knew Garrett had figured this out when he filled balloons with flour and sold them at school as “stress balls” for $5 each. He made a BUNDLE! I am teaching him to be an entrepreneur.
I’m also teaching my kids that doing what you love is important. I am not happy with corporate work. Sure…it pays the bills. But if I don’t have a way to be creative as a living, I am miserable. Even though I’m gone so much from home, when I *am* home, I’m happy. I think that makes a difference. An energetic happy mommy who’s around half the time is much better than a depressed sad mommy who’s around all the time.
And, lastly, I’m teaching my kids the power of determination. You win some, you lose some, but you never stop trying to live your dreams. Ever. I am trying to set an example for them that I hope will help them create a full, happy life.
It will be fascinating to see how my kids turn out…what lessons they learn…and what they say about me as a mom when they grow up!
Pursuing art as a career can seem luxurious to lots of people, like it’s not really a job at all…it’s fun. And in some ways this is true. I’m blessed that I can earn a living being creative and I enjoy calling myself an “artist” or my new favorite—”artisan”. Before he worked some shows with me, my husband would remark that all I did all weekend was have fun drinking wine and hanging out with my artist friends.
But spend any amount of time behind the scenes with artists and you’ll discover an absolute truth: pursuing art as a career is extremely challenging emotionally, financially, and physically. Sometimes people ask me questions about booth fees or displays, and it’s clear they’re contemplating pursuing a creative career involving arts and crafts. So on the wake of a somewhat frustrating show experience, I’ll offer my most accurate portrayal of what you can experience doing arts and crafts fairs.
First, you can expect absolute unpredictability. All of us artists share news of various show experiences in the hopes of discovering the very best chance of doing well in sales. I say “chance” because finding good sales opportunities hinges on so many factors including:
Second, in response to the unpredictability, you can expect to need coping mechanisms. If you’re having great sales at a show, you don’t need to do anything except soak up the glory. But you definitely will experience shows where you do not make sales–these shows shake your foundation and make even the most confident artists wonder whether they should be pursuing this line of work.
Third, you can expect to get sweaty, dirty, and wet setting up and breaking down your booth. It takes time to develop the perfect booth display for your merchandise, and to get everything you need to keep it looking nice, dry in wet weather, and stable in windy conditions. That learning curve can be frustrating, but once you’ve got it worked out, you’ll get great exercise lifting, bending, stretching, and hustling to arrange your booth before a show.
Lastly, you can expect to make life-long friends. Doing arts and crafts shows can be traumatic, and like any traumatic experience, the art show circuit produces strong bonds and friendships between artists. Artists are living on the edge, not knowing one minute to the next whether things are going to be great or awful. It’s the true test to whether you see the glass half empty or half full. Whether you can turn lemons into lemonade.
I’ve learned so much from participating in arts and crafts shows over the years. I’ve learned about myself mostly. I’m a lemonade-maker. I can make lemonade from even the most tart lemons. 
Every year at the Austin City Limits festival I find new music to groove to in the studio! Music is an essential part of my creativity and design inspiration. I need music like I need air.
2009 ACL favorites included:
AND….we also got to catch The Gourds at an after show at Threadgills. These guys JAM it HARD…and rewarded us with a rare rendition of ‘Gin and Juice’ which they adapted from…you guessed it…Snoop Dogg.
I can’t believe I have to wait another whole year for the next ACL Festival! Drats!
Sitting in GrapeVine Texas at the annual GrapeFest festival, I thought I would write a little something about them FOXY Charms….since this festival is all about the wine! But don’t stop reading if you don’t like wine…you can use FOXY Charms on any stemware: margaritas, martinis, champagne, you name it. (Can you tell I’m well versed in the drink menu?)
My daughter Shana cringes when I tell her “We’re making FOXY Charms in the studio today!” These little gems are tough and tedious to make. First I cut each base piece which is roughly 0.5″ x 0.75″, making sure the edges are rectangular, and cold-working any weird edge that occurs when snapping along cut lines. Then I cut the second layer which needs to be placed like a little picture frame along the bottom edge of the base piece. Then we use some fiber paper cut into very thin strips to make the “channel” for the wine glass hoop. And the piece de resistance: an ultra thin piece of glass (the “strap”) along the top of all layers. Shana hates this last piece because it always wants to lean one way or another, and not lie flat like a good little piece of glass.
Then we load the kiln with all these little gems in the making.
This picture shows a half-loaded kiln that, working alone, took me about 4 hours to fill. If I were to package these FOXY Charms into sets, I would get 28 sets.
After these little charms come out of the kiln, they need to have the fiber paper removed, be cleaned up, and be added to boxed sets of FOXY Charms for selling.
FOXY Charms are truly a labor of love. And wine.
And now…for a glass of wine.
Warning: I am stepping on my soap box~!
An interesting aspect of this past weekend’s show in Arkansas was that it was held at an outdoor mall. Partially this was a great thing because of the mall security already built-in to the environment…artisans did not need to worry about their booths being vandalized overnight. And initially I thought it would be good for business as well since people who did not know about the festival might discover it when they arrived at the mall…already in the “shopping” mindset.
However, in Rogers Arkansas an interesting phenomenon occurred. People shopped at Dillards, Eddie Bauer and other established retailers….and did not purchase from the crafters and artisans lining the streets in front of these shops. It was such a mystery to my booth neighbor why she was not selling her handcrafted jewelry when there seemed to be a steady stream of shoppers walking past that she went inside Dillards to see if anyone was buying in there. And lo and behold…gathered around the jewelry counter were gaggles of women buying Fossil and other national brands.
Back out on the street, crafters were uniting and chanting “No lemmings allowed!” (It wasn’t like chanting actually…more like muttering under our breath!) Which leads me to the point of this blog….
Why should consumers favor products from crafters in an art fair rather than products from established retailers? Here’s a quick list I can think of without trying too hard at all:
What are you waiting for? I challenge each of you reading today’s blog to make your next purchase from an artisan…check out www.etsy.com if you need a place to start!
This morning I ventured out to Pea Ridge National Military Park in Garfield Arkansas for my 7 mile jog, one of the first long runs for this season’s marathon training. The one-way Telegraph Road loop winds through historic grounds where Cherokee indians migrated to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears during the winter of 1838-39, and Confederate and Union soldiers clashed during the Pea Ridge Campaign in March of 1862.
For a land that witnessed so much human misery, it was quite peaceful and beautiful on this overcast and cool morning. Graceful tree limbs arced overhead as I jogged the gradual uphill climb to the East Overlook where exhibits explained the fighting that took place in the battlefield below over a hundred years ago.
As I read the exhibit at the first stop and saw that the Trail of Tears passed through this land, I wondered if my ancestors could sense the presence of kindred blood. My maternal grandfather was born to a full blooded Cherokee woman and the European man who fell in love with her. She died shortly after his birth, and family history was rewritten with a new caucasian mother who enabled a smoother integration with polite society. As a genealogist, my mother has searched and searched for the identity of my great grandmother to no avail…she has all but disappeared into history.
I jogged along this road where my ancestors walked over a hundred years ago, and thought they would be comforted to know that they are remembered, and that their progeny walk the earth freely and happily.
Every season I decide that I’m really not loving a couple designs anymore, and I get traitorous and replace them! The good news is that I replace them with young upstarts that have lots of FOXY style! Check out the two new FOXY Circle designs for this fall…I am LOVING them.
These new FOXY Circles will be up on my website soon.
Notice how these two photographs look different from the photos on my website? I’ve been working on getting new, crisper photographs of FOXY designs so they’re easier to see online. Hope you like these pics better!
Yes…I’ve finally managed to make HOOP earrings out of fused glass! This was the most challenging project I’ve given myself yet, and I had the most wasted glass yet of any project as well with all the breakages! Take a look and let me know what you think!
I made these earrings by making blocks of glass following the patterns in my FOXY Circles line, fusing these blocks a really long time, then drilling the blocks with my coring bits.
Coring glass with a drill press is very dangerous and difficult. In fact, the local art center (Art Glass Fusing Center in Austin) does not even have a drill press anymore because of insurance risks…a student sliced her hand open coring glass during a class!
The bigger the drill bit, the longer it takes to core glass and the wackier the glass block behaves as it’s being cored. It can split entirely in a second and catapult its sharp broken edges into your hand…this is likely how that student sliced open her hand. The glass makes all kinds of weird noises as it’s being cored, all of which makes a person skittish during the actual coring process, so this is not for the faint-at-heart!
Using a drill press to core glass necessitates violating several key rules of shop class:
So…now that you know what I’ve been through this week, and you see how BEAUTIFUL these FOXY HOOPS are, you’ll totally agree that these puppies are well worth the $50 price tag I’m giving them. 8-) Happy Thursday!
