March in Review (Weeks 11, 12 and 13): Car & Craft Show, About Matting, New Jewelry on Etsy, New Photos on DeviantArt
Week Eleven: March 9th through 15th, 2014
Week Twelve: March 16th through 22nd, 2014
Week Thirteen: March 23rd through 29th, 2014
I attended the 2nd Annual Car & Craft Show on March 22nd at the Air Base in New Iberia, Louisiana. The air base is no longer used as such and, I believe, is now used by the Iberia Parish Career Center. The event was small, but the weather was good. There were around two dozen arts and crafts vendors and half a dozen food vendors. A couple dozen classic cars occupied one parking lot, while vendors took another. Among cars from what seemed to be all decades up to the 70's, there was also a replica of the Ghostbusters' car. Most of the vendors were artists, but there were some that weren't. One artist sold dolls, another sold soaps. There were a few jewelry vendors like me, as well as woodworkers, wreath makers, stone carvers, barbecue grill makers and clothing makers. There were also wholesale jewelry and purse sellers. One vendor sold breast-cancer-themed items, while an agent manned another booth for Aflac. It was one of the first truly hot days of the year, so we had plenty of sunshine. It wasn't a big crowd, since there were apparently other events happening in New Iberia that day.
If you're in the area, be sure to stop by the Southern Garden Festival on April 5th and 6th. Or, if you don't want to pay $15 for admission and want to go to something for free, come to the steps of the First United Methodist Church in Lafayette during Artwalk on April 12th. Dawn Darbonne and I will be selling our work at both events.
After the Car & Craft Show, I spent the next day recovering, just as I'd passed a day recovering from the Shadows on the Teche event I'd attended two weeks previously. Day-long events always wear me out, but I have fun doing them.
I ordered more photo prints from clarkcolor.com and cut mat boards. If you are considering buying a cheap mat cutter (the kind that cuts at 45 degree angles), just don't do it. Buy one of the expensive ones. You'll have more control and precision. The cheaper ones don't cut well, and it's easy to lose control and cut either too far or cut in wobbly lines. You'll end up wasting a lot of mat board to a cheap mat cutter, which can get expensive and beats the whole purpose of getting the cheap cutter in the first place.
Now, one other way to save money on mat board is, of course, to find an inexpensive supplier. The best option for me has been Hobby Lobby, since there's one in town where I live in the United States. Unlike Michael's, another arts & crafts supplier in this country, which sells mat board at $13 a piece, Hobby Lobby sells their mat board for $8 a piece (and, on alternating weeks, it goes on sale for 30% off and 50% off).
I've also found a good supplier of cellophane bags to protect my matted photos from liquid/dirt damage. Littlepaperthings is a shop on Etsy that sells cello bags in many different sizes. I ordered a few, and they arrived a week later in good condition. The last time I ordered cello bags from the internet, I made the mistake of buying from an eBay seller who thought it was a good idea to *fold* the cello bags in order to squeeze them into a small envelope. Littlepaperthings did not do this, thankfully.
New listings can be found on Clockwork Bits and Bobbins, my Etsy shop. I've removed the one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry; those will be available only at art fairs and other events. On Etsy, I am now offering a few necklaces that are available in the colors shown or in custom beadstring colors.
Half Past the Hour uses two clock hands and an actual steel washer. While the larger clock hand is fixed in place, the smaller clock hand can be manually readjusted. Though the earrings shown use green beadstring, the earrings are also available in sixteen other beadstring colors.
Seven cogs form a curved pendant design in Cog Line. Custom orders of the necklace are available in up to three colors, and the purple, lilac and green pendant show in the photos is also up for sale.
Interlocking cogs form the centerpiece of Like Clockwork. The gears turn when adjusted manually.
An Arrangement of Cogs features a whole lot of cogs. The photos show what the pendant looks like with aqua beadstring, but sixteen other beadstring colors are available, too. The metal pieces are thin, so the necklace is actually pretty light.
I also posted pictures of Cog Line, Like Clockwork and An Arrangement of Cogs over on DeviantArt, as well as a version of the latter using different beadstring colors. The only other jewelry post I made on DeviantArt during this time was a collection of views of Fire and Water, a small bobbin pendant that used glass beads and blue/red fire agate beads.
All other listings on DeviantArt were for photos. I added another view of a frozen camellia from Mardi Gras Day, Floral Freeze - 8. Petals - 5, Petals - 10 and Petals - 11 show camellias on warmer or wetter days, while Petals - 9 and Petals - 12 feature azaleas. Petals - 7 and Petals -8 show different views of the same rose, Petals - 6 show a lily, while a bee pollenates a flower in The First Bee, named because it was my first flower/bee photo from five years ago.
While taking a few breaks from posting floral photos, I also posted a handful of pictures of places in the US and in Switzerland. In Out on the Lake, taken from atop the dam, a boat cuts through the miles-wide Canyon Lake, TX, while a few people watch from the bank. I like buildings with ornamentation like the Rutland Building in St. Petersburg, FL, shown here in The Prince's Tower. Rococo buildings, I've found, look stunning in person but don't necessarily photograph well, but Painted Plaster is one of my better photos of the interior of Jesuitenkirche in Lucerne, CH. Meanwhile, in Engelberg, modern facilities and the everyday seem out-of-place before a background view of snow-striped slopes in Esso 2,01.
Lastly, I've been working on changes to the artwork section of my web site. I started with the Artwork main index, which now has a new look and a message from me. Soon, I'll be added more photograph galleries with thumbnails to all photos posted on DeviantArt.
Week Twelve: March 16th through 22nd, 2014
Week Thirteen: March 23rd through 29th, 2014
If you're in the area, be sure to stop by the Southern Garden Festival on April 5th and 6th. Or, if you don't want to pay $15 for admission and want to go to something for free, come to the steps of the First United Methodist Church in Lafayette during Artwalk on April 12th. Dawn Darbonne and I will be selling our work at both events.
After the Car & Craft Show, I spent the next day recovering, just as I'd passed a day recovering from the Shadows on the Teche event I'd attended two weeks previously. Day-long events always wear me out, but I have fun doing them.
I ordered more photo prints from clarkcolor.com and cut mat boards. If you are considering buying a cheap mat cutter (the kind that cuts at 45 degree angles), just don't do it. Buy one of the expensive ones. You'll have more control and precision. The cheaper ones don't cut well, and it's easy to lose control and cut either too far or cut in wobbly lines. You'll end up wasting a lot of mat board to a cheap mat cutter, which can get expensive and beats the whole purpose of getting the cheap cutter in the first place.
Now, one other way to save money on mat board is, of course, to find an inexpensive supplier. The best option for me has been Hobby Lobby, since there's one in town where I live in the United States. Unlike Michael's, another arts & crafts supplier in this country, which sells mat board at $13 a piece, Hobby Lobby sells their mat board for $8 a piece (and, on alternating weeks, it goes on sale for 30% off and 50% off).
I've also found a good supplier of cellophane bags to protect my matted photos from liquid/dirt damage. Littlepaperthings is a shop on Etsy that sells cello bags in many different sizes. I ordered a few, and they arrived a week later in good condition. The last time I ordered cello bags from the internet, I made the mistake of buying from an eBay seller who thought it was a good idea to *fold* the cello bags in order to squeeze them into a small envelope. Littlepaperthings did not do this, thankfully.
New listings can be found on Clockwork Bits and Bobbins, my Etsy shop. I've removed the one-of-a-kind pieces of jewelry; those will be available only at art fairs and other events. On Etsy, I am now offering a few necklaces that are available in the colors shown or in custom beadstring colors.
Seven cogs form a curved pendant design in Cog Line. Custom orders of the necklace are available in up to three colors, and the purple, lilac and green pendant show in the photos is also up for sale.
Interlocking cogs form the centerpiece of Like Clockwork. The gears turn when adjusted manually.
An Arrangement of Cogs features a whole lot of cogs. The photos show what the pendant looks like with aqua beadstring, but sixteen other beadstring colors are available, too. The metal pieces are thin, so the necklace is actually pretty light.
I also posted pictures of Cog Line, Like Clockwork and An Arrangement of Cogs over on DeviantArt, as well as a version of the latter using different beadstring colors. The only other jewelry post I made on DeviantArt during this time was a collection of views of Fire and Water, a small bobbin pendant that used glass beads and blue/red fire agate beads.
All other listings on DeviantArt were for photos. I added another view of a frozen camellia from Mardi Gras Day, Floral Freeze - 8. Petals - 5, Petals - 10 and Petals - 11 show camellias on warmer or wetter days, while Petals - 9 and Petals - 12 feature azaleas. Petals - 7 and Petals -8 show different views of the same rose, Petals - 6 show a lily, while a bee pollenates a flower in The First Bee, named because it was my first flower/bee photo from five years ago.
Lastly, I've been working on changes to the artwork section of my web site. I started with the Artwork main index, which now has a new look and a message from me. Soon, I'll be added more photograph galleries with thumbnails to all photos posted on DeviantArt.
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