Jan and I had our last printing session for 2009 today. It was celebratory considering this has been our first year of collaborative printing and experimenting. Every weekend our printed plates and mobiles are getting found and bought by happy customers and in the last week we have suddenly had our first online sales.

So we printed a few plates and circles today, drank iced tea and took note of our first year of selling collaborative work. It takes a while to both fuse and slump the printed glass (there is a queue for the kiln space) and its somewhat of a scheduling challenge to co-ordinate printing sessions... so that is why this is our last big print for the year. We'll see if we run out of printed glass to sell before the holiday season is over!!

I have a few more new plates to list online now too... I'll post here when its done

Cutting Circles

this is me trying to be organized with these 350+ circles soon to be more holiday inventory... my fingertips are covered in little bitty cuts from so many sharp edges! Fortunately these little tiny cuts don't hurt and they didn't bleed. Except my left index finger hurts when I type. dammit.

Fly Fishing Mobile

I had to take a screen shot of this listing on Etsy - it simply turned out really nice. I love it. Suiting to fit a beautiful mobile. I am glad I finally listed it online! :)

I want to make your studio a mobile!

A few weeks ago I was reading an article on the Etsy blog about photography - it was called "Seller Tip: Present Yourself to the Press" Great article - to sum it up: all artists and small business people should be prepared with a good head shot and/or a good shot of their studio. These pictures should be quality, ready on demand and high resolution. This way when a magazine or blog contacts you for an interview you are ready! I couldn't agree more.
So here's the story I am trying to share: while reading this article I noticed this picture (the one above) and I fixated on this beautiful little Italian studio space, something about it made me swoon and I instantly wanted to make a mobile for this space (maybe I just want to sit in that hammock and gaze at a mobile - wouldn't that be a nice way to take a nap?!) I'm not sure if its the fact that the studio is in Italy, or the bright colors and maps and embroidery hoops on the wall... something about it caught my attention.

So I emailed the artist and told her so! This is very unlike me - I have never done anything like this... and when she got back to me enthusiastically I realized that I had to follow thru with the offer!
This is the mobile I made... after digging around in my drawer of random circles (I always seem to have some extra laying around, so I try and herd them into a particular drawer and occasionally they come in very handy - like now!) I made this beautiful mobile for that wonderful little Italian studio.

Then I imposed the picture of the mobile into the picture of the studio - I wanted to see what it may look like!
And now I am thinking that this was really fun! I figure its my good karma for the year... and now I am thinking that it'd be fun to do a contest called "I want to make a mobile for your studio" and take submissions of studio shots and the one that most inspires me to make a mobile for their space would win one! What fun. I wonder how I could effectively advertise this... more thoughts to come. For now I just wanted to share the story

New Printed Glass in the LeJa Shop

The LeJa shop finally has more printed glass available online! Slowly but surely I am trying to get a wide selection of Jan's hand-carved images represented online... there are so many more its exciting! Here are 5 I listed today:

"Water Faucet" available in 4 different colors $14ea

"Ducks in a Row" $14ea. available in 4 colors

"Rubber Duck" available in 2 colors $9ea

"Salt and Pepper Shakers" $9ea

"Oak Leaf" $19

the view this morning...

Its cold and raining outside. I am not vending at the Portland Saturday Market this weekend. Instead I have been hiding out at home and in the studio getting stuff done. For real, this extra time is great for banging out the to-do list.

The kitty outside is looking very fat and fluffy lately. He's happy this morning, getting lots of neck scratches and a big breakfast.

I've been cooking - I bought a big white pumpkin to make pie with, I had heard "ghost pumpkins" make great pie... the one I bought at the farmers market was 10lbs so I have to make lots of pumpkin stuff now. First I made 2 pies (they were delicious!) one normal pumpkin pie and one chocolate pumpkin number - I highly recommend the chocolate pumpkin pie. And then yesturday I made a pumpkin beef beer stew. This was great as well, very flavorful with the hoppy beer Tim likes. Today I am going to make another pie and I thought I'd try putting pumpkin in spaghetti sauce - why not! The white pumpkin is really good, its very buttery and flavorful. I just have too much of it.

These are some circles and whatnot hanging from my back covered porch.

This is the view out my bedroom window... the birdfeeder is empty now, the outdoor kitty likes to kill the cute little birds, so I feel guilty stocking the feeder and luring them in for the kill.

Hope you are enjoying this rainy weekend.

Cardboard Wire Cutting Jig

I cut a lot of steel wire... I have stencils for the lengths that I need for different designs... but I needed a jig to really make the job easy. I pay my friend Aimee to cut the little bitty steel wires for my mini mobiles, so I thought she deserved a jig as well! Too many wires, its maddening, a jig was sooo very necessary!
This is what I did: I took a sturdy cardboard tube and cut slots 1/3 of the way thru the tube (with a hand held wood cutter) and then I cut a scrap of sheet metal (okay so I happened to have scrap sheet metal laying around and the cool wacky scissors that are used to cut the stuff) I traced the tube onto the scrap of sheet metal so I could get the right curve and then folded over the other end so I could handle it safely. Basically the idea was to create a metal "stop" so wire could be shoved in the tube and always stop at the same length.

I like this so much! Its very efficient to cut a lot of wires at once. There's a bit of variance with the longer wires (the wire catches on the cardboard) but I love it none-the-less!

Pictured is the smaller jig I made for the mini mobiles... then I also took a video of the larger jig

the video is a little odd and it doesn't show how excited I am about this... honestly, ask Aimee - I was showing it off last week when she was at the studio. Its very exciting stuff in my world!