Wishes Granted Everywhere….

Ok, just the material wishes….

I have always adored the wishlist feature on Amazon.com… It makes shopping/giving so much easier and I am convinced it is a clutter buster as we don’t always wind up with things we will never use (or can’t use…I’m not an XS. I haven’t been an XS since I was a fetus.)…

On the other hand, all of you know I love handmade. Most of my amazon.com list is comprised of books on metal technique, SID, SPD, ADHD, etc… There are a couple of tools, and occasionally a big ticket item… I often use my wishlist as a holding place for things I will buy myself…Of course, if anyone wants to get them for me before I save up enough ducats, than hey. I’m not complaining! I like them because they give direction to family members that are far away when buying for boyo… It’s all good…

What I really love is handmade stuff (and not just because I am a maker of handmade goods)….

I have a million things I adore on Etsy.com and SmashingDarling.com that I would love to put in a wishlist… Etsy has a favorites list but I tend to favorite things either I want to give to someone else or that I want… Last year I wound up with a really cool nitroglycerin holding keychain from hubby. Um, I’m not on nitroglycerin…I can’t remember who I earmarked that for, but it wasn’t me…. So until that allows for greater organization and clarification I am so excited that Amazon now has a Universal Wish List button that you can add to your browser.

You can add anything from anywhere. It adds a title, image, and link…You can put a description and the price if you would like… When someone views your wishlist they just click and bam! they are on the item page… The only potential issue I can see on this is that checkout will of course be with the linked site, not with Amazon…Might confuse those who are not yet familiar with venues like Etsy… For now though I am hoping it brings more exposure for the fabulous Etsy (and all of us who peddle our handmade goods there…Me included, of course…) and a great way to organize and add to wishlists….

Here’s a link to the button!

Now head to Etsy.com and have fun! Enjoy!

FLA

FLA

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Ahhh sunny Florida and vintage souvenirs….

Sometimes, though, there is a little too much detail on pieces… This particular intaglio pictures some palms, the beach, a flamingo, and what I’m guessing is a lady sunning her legs while the rest of her is under the cover of an umbrella…

But, due to the monochromatic and general tiny-ness of the piece is looks like a giant clam eating a person.

Now that would have been a classic drive-in bit…

With Love,
From Sunny Florida

No mess and low stress….Kid-made card idea…

Oh no!

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Here’s a recipe for frustration:

ADD/ADHD kid + ADD/ADHD mama + craft supplies + desperate need for child-made greeting card

Ok, so he drew a perfect tulip at age 16 months. Before he could walk.

He couldn’t walk until 22 months so most of the really shockingly advanced stuff happened before that momentous occasion.

Still, I like to give the various grandparent’s handmade cards….

But my kiddo who has some language, neuro, and sensory stuff going on along with ADHD has a hard time sitting still and following even very general (or specific, trust me, I have tried everything) directions usually will just wind up with a giant table full of glue (see glue tip below!) and no cards will be made… I found that the easiest way to make anything with him is to do it in 5-10 minute increments… I do realize this is not teaching him to sit still and focus for very long, but at this stage of the game we are working with smaller goals (and we don’t always reach those smaller goals, so they aren’t “too small” ….they are just right…). He also tends to only see everything as a finite whole. So this is teaching him steps and details…

Anyway, I sat him down with a marker and a stack of blank cards (by the way, if you think you are going to make a slew of kid cards, why not buy a giant box from http://www.doubleupaper.com ? They are fast and the prices are great…For the price of 6 envelope and card packs from a chain craft supply you can have over 200 sets…I keep a case in my famed plastic containers- so they stay fresh and don’t absorb any smells (my husband makes tacos once a week. I love tacos but I still want to hermetically seal everything in our home first.))

See what I mean about ADD? I need mapquest for all of my tangents…Not that it would be *that* much help… :-)

Anyway, I sat him down and had him make smiles or a “c” or “u” on each card.

He did about 10 of these before he went to town making dots and destroying the magic marker tip….

He got up and ran around for a bit and then was willing to sit down for a few to do some more… I busted out the self-adhesive googly eyes and had him put eyes on the “faces”…. He did 15 of those (good for fine motor skills and dexterity, I believe)…

The next time he sat down he drew the mouths/smiles on the extra 5….

15 cards in no time flat (if you tally all of the time together and subtract the breaks)…
and nobody became frustrated, and both of us has a huge sense of accomplishment at the end of the project…

(and the grownups loved the cards… it must have been a nice change of pace for them to be able to say “wow a smiley face” rather than wracking their brains having to figure out what kiddo had drawn as he is king of the abstract these days…)

Puff’s cave?

Puff’s cave…

Originally uploaded by caruso_jeff

Sent baldguy off to Kauai with a treasure hunt list- some were actual things, some were photos to take.

This is Puff,The Magic Dragon’s cave. I asked him to take this for little guy. For the record, I think this may be Puff’s tunnel, but what do I know… I’m just going by the storybook on this one… (lots of lava caves around Kauai from what I understand…this is not a lava cave…)…. Boy and I read Puff, the Magic Dragon over and over… It’s the only story he wanted to hear while baldguy was away… Mostly because “Puff” takes place in Kauai, kind of by accident according to the last page of the book… So we looked at the map of Honalee and boy tried to spot daddy. He fell asleep with the book most nights.

Anyway, baldguy is back. I wound up losing my marbles in the middle of last week. Being sick and being a tired mama to a little guy with special needs who does not handle change at all, and having a spouse away on an extravagant all-expense-paid vacation (that we all could have gone on…grrrr. picture the peanuts comic squiggly line above my head.) all came crashing down on me in the middle of the week in a bad way. I was going to try to be graceful about the whole thing, and if it was just one thing I would have smiled and waved, smiled and waved… But it was everything. All at once. And I cracked.

I think I cried for 24 hours straight and an additional 12 hours divided throughout 2 additional business days. I understand how I feel and why I feel like this. I’m doing better now. But I’m still tired and wiped out (and I’ve got extra sick sinuses on top of the usual stuff) and buried under trying to get boyo in order. Still taking time off from working on new and custom pieces. Trying to get all of our ducks in a row….

Anyway- check out Puff, the Magic Dragon… Beautifully illustrated and a lovely story (and song)… This edition includes a CD with the song and a few others.. Definitely at the top of our favorite story lists…

And while the animated version of my youth (now easily located on youtube.com) will always have a place in my heart, this storybook version is a bit more soothing and lilting….

Enjoy….

(of course when baldguy went to work this morning and was gone by the time boyo was fully awake, boyo declared that Daddy was back in Kauai… )

Scottie…

Scottie…

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

Finally finished this piece….

This spirited little guy took awhile- I made the setting (which was a bit more challenging than simple round settings, I admit) and then let him run about my computer for a bit (he has been resting against the screen)… Finally, eureka!

Vintage bakelite/catalin in a sterling silver setting (bezel and solid backing)….

Two types of chain (one for the collar, one for the leash/chain for your neck)….

Every few pieces I wind up with one that I don’t finish and share right away…. Usually, to someone else’s eye, the piece appears done and usually just needs some sort of length of chain to finish it….But not for me. When pieces are truly complete I get this amazing feeling inside- this sparkle… I feel like I’m sitting on one of those carnival attractions- where the person (or teacher-sometimes they are rented to schools) is sitting above a vat of water and the participants throw baseballs at a target-when they hit it just right the person plunges into the water….But in my version the water is a slightly cool temperature, and it’s seltzer water.

That’s how I feel when I piece is reaching completion and then ready to really share with the world.

There’s a little nervous anticipation, a little bit of a panic, and I feel so joyful- like I’m surrounded by millions of tiny little bubbles and laughter.

Ok. Now I sound a little more nuts than usual.

But that really is the only way I can describe it….

Hugs all around,

B

Spring box….

Spring box….

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

A lovely CleverGirl parcel for a dear friend and customer….

I always wrap the treasures I send out in this style… Typically, I do ship using padded envelopes… This box arrive the morning that I was wrapping these treats up, and I have quite the volume of easter basket grass that I am trying to use up…. So voila….

I make the sushi grass stickers myself (occasionally they are made by one of the boys…VERY occasionally)

The lovely paperclip flowers come from the brilliant Naomi at Art by Naomi . I have been buying these posie clips for awhile now, and I love working with Naomi. She has lots of cheerful treats in her shop, please be sure to check them out! (lots of good stuff for giftwrapping, scrapbooking, etc…)

This is how we do it….

Spring printing…Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBekThis is how I dry my cards after I print them with my Gocco printer…And I thought plantation shutters were just an aesthetic thing…Realized quickly that I don’t, with my other creative endeavors, have enough surface area to dry the amount of cards I print for one batch….Judy over at Northwood (http://northwoodstudios.tripod.com/) suggested taking cookie sheets (the kind that have 4 shallow sides) and stacking them up… Great idea, but not for me (I don’t bake. Too many rules to follow!)I tightened up the shutters so they wouldn’t tilt and spill under the weight of the cards and voila….I noticed the print pad on my gocco wasn’t sticky enough so I grabbed some xyron adhesive that had run through the xyron without anything on it (it’s one of the 510 xyrons- where you have to peel the plastic away from the backing and the sticker is sandwiched between the two…. Took the sticky plastic, put it sticky side down on the gocco pad… pressed down the gocco top/lid a few times…Carefully peeled the plastic film off and yippee! The pad is nice and fresh and sticky again….BUT now it’s too sticky!So next time I’ll try the repositioning adhesive from xyron…. But until then, I’ve put down some painters tape on all but one little square of the pad- just enough to hold the cardstock without holding it hostage and risking me ripping it up or warping the paper….Of course, your mileage may vary….I’m just happy that my gocco is sticky again AND I got to use that wasted xyron material….Woohoo…By the way, if you are wondering about the cards- these are my gift with purchase cards…. I realized awhile back that I love giving gifts to folks and I love ordering handmade goodness online to use for those gifts… BUT most things ordered had a way of hanging out around here until one of us remembered to pick up a greeting card (or get around to making one or remembering to order a bunch of multi-purpose handmade cards)…I figured that maybe some of the folks purchasing my creations might be in the same boat… So, with gocco in hand I set to work…. Now every item ordered from me comes with a multi-purpose card, and every piece is gift wrapped… Hopefully this makes giving a gift of CleverGirl jewelry an even happier event…

Umbrellas

Umbrellas

Originally uploaded by CleverGirlBek

I made a couple of pairs of umbrellas yesterday… I love these and it’s hard not to hoard them… I have made a few sizes, but this size is, by far, my favorite and the most wearable (size and weight wise…) I found a bunch of teensy aquamarine bits to accent the earwire and replace the Swarovski bits I had been using but I’m kind of digging the industrial and whimsical sentiment….This size just doesn’t need anything else…

I love making these…Forming metal is one of the most relaxing activities in the world… Making little cups from sterling silver feels so good- even better I like the way the curves fit right on my fingers perfectly- like little “finger print” protecters… It’s soothing to just dance them around on the table….

I know, I’m weird like that…
:-)