Pictures from the Glass School

its a slideshow - press play

Aquila Glass School

1628 N Columbia Blvd, Unit A - Portland, OR 97217

This is where I teach torchworking classes - look how much fun people are having! I love this place.

Moss Ball Planters

Spring has sprung. I saw these plants in moss pots in a store recently (at Artemisia in SE Portland) and I was inspired!

Anything round and ball shaped seems to excite me, combined with moss and cute plants - I swooned upon sight.

These two moss ball planters I made myself. It was a fun DIY project. Tim's birthday is coming up soon - so far I have managed to hide these from him. Hope he likes em'!

Ingredients:

• a plant (or a clipping as seen in the first picture)
• some sheet moss (live moss, you can buy it this way, if you get it out of your yard it will have bugs. So just buy it and it'll be bug free. I happened to notice some animal pried up moss in my yard and ate all the bugs out of it, so I grabbed it the next day for this crafty project! How convenient eh?! If you'd like to buy some, they sell the moss at Artemisia and if you want to buy it online Im pretty sure you can on Ebay)
• potting soil
• twine
• nursery wire (smallest gauge possible), the green flexible wire for guiding plants

How to:

1. wet soil and compress into a ball
2. wrap the ball of dirt in twine to hold it together
3. wrap the ball of dirt in the sheet moss
4. use the wire to hold the moss onto the dirt, keep wrapping until the moss is secure
5. make a hole where you want to insert the plant (I used my fingers to do this)
6. put plant in the hole
7. sit the ball on some sort of plate as the moisture can seep thru the moss

Portland DIY Resources Adventure

I can't believe how many stores there are in this town offering great finds and deals to the small businessperson like myself. Tools, supplies, materials, displays, packaging, furniture, munchies, you name it! There is a store in town that sells it - and they do so with such character :)

I took my friend Amy on an adventure last week... Amy rents studio space with me at Aquila and is relatively new to town, I wanted to enjoy the afternoon with her and show her some of these great stores in Portland that are so useful to her crafty business.

Here was our itinerary:

1. Winks Hardware
2. City Liquidators
3. Bunk (sandwiches)
4. Portland Store Fixtures
5. Pitman Restaurant Supply Store
6. Harbor Freight

View Useful Stores in PDX in a larger map

As you can see the tour centered around one particular area of Portland, the SE waterfront area, cuz its awesome and packed with businesses that let their customers wander warehouses full of stuff.

I took Amy to Wink's first. I love me some W.C. Winks Hardware. Its a manly place, a quality hardware store, and its been in Portland since 1909. I love that you take a deli number to get your purchases. They seem to specialize in stocking wire of all types. This is very useful to me as a glass artist.

Then we continued on down the street to City Liquidators. We wandered every floor of both buildings. Its been a while since I've done this - this picture is from one of the warehouses, there is an entire floor of office chairs, we couldn't find the light so it was sorta dark...

photos courtesy of Amy - she was posting pictures of our silliness via her funphone on Facebook while we wandered warehouses!

After 6 floors of seating options, kitchen supplies, tools, office gear, warrior helmets, lighting and file cabinets, we decided it was time to eat. In need of fuel we headed over to Bunk for their famous sandwiches - delicious.

this is a picture of Amy at City Liquidator. Seriously you never know what you might find in this place!

Next was Portland Store Fixtures. This place is fabulous - and - they were having their first ever complete warehouse sale! It was pretty crazy, everything was on sale. Both Amy and I found some things we had to purchase. Everything in the warehouses was price-tagged in prep for the sale, and the labels were cracking me up. I bought this one display mostly because I loved its label, and I can use it to dispay a little mobile :) "Tall Shiney Thing".

We got a tour of all 3 buildings. They have renovated a new space down there right around SE 3rd and Main to rent to artists. Spaces are starting at a flat rate of $100 a month and there are larger spaces as well. Its a wonderful funky space - go ask them about it if this sounds interesting!

Continuing down the street we visited Pitman's Restaurant Supply - very useful place for the glass artist looking to buy inexpensive stainless steel things. They have both used and new kitchen supplies.

Our last stop was Harbor Freight on the way back up to the shop. This place is just amazing. Its like the dollar store for men. Cheap tools. You buy what you pay for, so yes, some of it is total crap, but its all cheap! And they have really useful stuff in there. Both Amy and I found a handful of things that we had to buy. I always seem to be drawn to silly things there... I found this kit from my little friend Micah:

Summit of Awesome Pictures

I have spent the last day or so celebrating crafty entrepreneurs like myself at the Kennedy School - its called the Summit of Awesome - and indeed it has been truly awesome. Above is a picture of my felt nametag. I made it Thursday night at the Welcome Party.

There was a table in the gym simply called "Make Something Awesome" that was all set up with stuff to make felty flowers and nametags (I combined the projects into one, sewing the felted flowers onto my nametag).

Here's a picture of me geeking out at the crafty table getting supplies for my nametag, and sewing the letters on (I had to take out all the stitches of the L and do it again when I realized I was using up way too much thread way to fast... and I was sewing on my name while the white elephant game was getting explained... so it was all done quite hectically - is that a word?)

Naomi came with me to the party and we had so much fun! She made some felted flowers for her nametag as well

The welcome party involved a "white elephant" game, basically all us crafty people showed up with a handcrafted gift and exchanged said gifts. I brought a little computer mobile and was happy to see my friend Rebbecca end up with it - she was very happy too! Naomi got this sweet little plushi owl (although she almost had this awesome notebook, but thats a whole nuther story!) Naomi brought some bike nutz and man oh man they were well received! At first I was nervous, the nutz exchanged hands a few times (oh no! people don't like them?!)... but in the end Jenna was the happy new owner of the platinum balls. People were talking about those shiney ballz the next day - I love that!! We gotta get some up in the Etsy store pronto!

http://BikeNutz.etsy.com/

Okay, so the welcome party was such fun! It was the end of a long day. I didn't get to attend classes at the conference yesterday because I was at the glass studio teaching class (which was also wonderful) so this party was a fun way to top things off. I stopped by the glass studio after the conference tonight and it was Pendant Night - good to see a studio full of people all enjoying making glass pendants! But I digress once again... back to the Summit of Awesome... the party ended with a screen printing session, we all got to print our own awesome t-shirt.

Today the crafting continued!!I went back at 8am for breakfast and socializing and then a day full of talks. Business discussions, crafty business histories, vending tips, legal matters, and oh yeah - I was a speaker as well! I participated in a talk with the Berkeley couple, Lucy and Ryan. It was great discussion on Collaborations and Commissioned Work. Really it was a big discussion about how we make things happen in our businesses.

I had a great discussion at the end of the day with Sara (of Hello Craft) where we broke it down and really got to the gist of things that it is all about collaboration. Basically collaboration makes our DIY style businesses happen, and in turn made this whole conference possible. Collaborations of one sort or another are what makes my little business possible and makes Portland Or such a funky cool crafty place to exist. The pivotal businesses in the scene are all working together in some way, when events like this happen it makes things so transparent that we all benefit from each other's strengths and weaknesses. Seriously. Perhaps I will do a separate blog sometime about collaborations, its a very interesting topic in terms of the DIY movement, and its something that I benefit from in my own business.

Okay. That's my thoughts on awesomeness for the evening. I've got to get off the computer. My brain is overwhelmed and I must start getting ready to prep everything for Seattle, tomorrow I pack the car and head North for 2 days of the Fremont Fair.

Its a Party!

I'll be there! You should come out to this Meet n' Greet party!

this Friday - the 26th - 6:30pm at PNCA
free drinks and snacks
click the hand for more info

New thing I learned about Photography!

I've been having too much fun with my camera, thanks Dad! He sent me a 50mm 1.8 lens. When I read my friend Laini's blog post in which she calls this puppy the "Plastic Fantastic" I was amazed that I owned the exact lens she spoke of. Thanks Laini for showing me how it works without making me have to read the manual!! Especially with cute pictures of her baby daughter to woo me into photography excitement.

Personally the most fantastic aspect to using the "Plastic Fantastic" is the fact it gets me to turn the camera off the AUTO setting. Yep, I am guilty of using AUTO on my D80 far too often. *gasp* But with this 50mm 1.8 lens I set it to Aperture priority and crank the F-Stop down to 1.8... then the magic starts... check out these shots I took at the beach, the top shot is the 50mm 1.8lens, the bottom shot it the 18-135mm lens that I normally use. My goodness - the difference!!!


The 50mm 1.8lens is great for portraits and those ever-so desirable product shots where everything in the background is sorta fuzzy and sparkles with light. Let me not lead you to believe I am bashing my 18-135mm lens... because its awesome. For one thing, the above shots, the top one (with the 50mm lens) is just that, no cropping - the bottom shot has been cropped considerably, the lens took so much more picture than just me and Tim (it just didn't happen to take a very good shot of me and Tim!) with so much more focus on the background. It was such an incredible day, the weather was gorgeous and this picture captured the beautiful sky. Check it out in original form:
Okay - so product photography with the 50mm 1.8lens will follow in another blog post when I have better pictures to prove its worth... but seriously - the portraits, its just amazing. Check out this one I took of Oleo the cat - this lens is notorious for taking good portraits indoors with crappy lighting and no flash = better portraits ?!? with the 50mm 1.8 this is possible, check it out:
heres a link to my friend Laini's blog post that inspired me and taught me whats up!
http://growwings.blogspot.com/2010/02/one-thing-ive-learned-about-photography.html

Exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Craft

I have some work in a small exhibit at the MoCC. Check it out! I took pictures in case you can't make it to the Museum in person.
Its a great exhibit of DIY things you can find and buy on Etsy that are all made by artists here in Portland Oregon. Its part of a new relationship between the Museum, Etsy and PNCA. My little mobile making kit is included amongst good company...
A cheese making kit! This one really caught my eye... Tim and I have been talking about making cheese for Valentines Day... wouldn't that be fun!? Maybe?
A bag from Bossa Nova Baby - I love how they displayed it stuffed with yarn :)
And this awesome table (I didn't know that it came in pieces and you assemble it like a puzzle and paint the individual pieces how-ever you would like!)

There are many more goodies in the exhibit... it'll be at the MoCC for the next few months up in the Labs.

Make Your Own Vanilla Extract

Tempting? Expensive vanilla extract can be made DIY style for less $$ and more fun!

Here's what I did:

1. I bought some vanilla beans off Ebay - for $10.99 (and free shipping!) I purchased 20 Grade A Tahitian Vanilla beans and I received 22 of these beans and 10 Grade B beans extra for free!! What a steal - I paid about 35cents a bean!

2. Find some bottles. I used the beautiful brown bottle in the picture. I bought them from my friend Rachel - she uses these bottles for her wonderful Aromatherapy

3. Buy some booze - vodka to be precise - 3/4 cup for every bean is the ratio I used approximately (I actually used 4 ounces for each bean)

4. There are many many recipes online, they vary slightly... this is what I did with my friends... we heated the vodka (don't boil it! just heat it up a bit) and split the beans, scraped out the bean goodness and put the scrapings and the bean shells into the jars. Then pour the hot vodka into the jar to fill and put the lid on.

5. Shake the jar, shake it once a day for a week and then voila - vanilla extract!

I even read that you can refill the bottle as you use it up, just top it off with more vodka. It lasts for a couple of years. Oh yeah. This is much less expensive than the stuff you find in stores!

Then since I had way more beans then I needed for the extract, I also purchased a bottle of decent vodka (the extract was made with cheap stuff) and put some split beans in the bottle - DIY vanilla vodka. hm.... I think it will smell good :)

Upside-down Tomato Time

Its that time again! This will be the third year for me planting tomatoes upside-down. I love it! Its due time I got started (its been a late spring here) so I picked up a starter at the nursery...
Here are all the materials and supplies I used... both cats came out to help me :) (not pictured is a bucket) I use a hanging plastic planter that I've drilled a large hole in the bottom and a piece of flat foam that I've cut a slit and a small hole in the center.
I put the foam around the base of the tomato plant, cut so it was bigger than the hole in the planter. This is not necessary, but it prevents any dirt loss and just makes life easier for the tomato plant.

I prefer to use Sungold Orange cherry tomatoes. They are the bestest ever yummiest tomato ever... I swear. :)I stood the tomato plant up on the bucket (the bucket was turned over) and brought the planter down over the starter... slowly started getting the delicate plant thru the hole. This year I only lost one little leaf. In past years I've surrounded the plant in a tube of paper and/or put a bag over the plant to protect it from going thru the hole... but honestly its easiest to just be careful and slowly get the plant thru the hole with no special tricks
Once the whole plant was thru I was able to just rest the pot on the foam circle...
Then I flipped the bucket over and stood the planter up in the bucket with the plant resting unharmed inside the bucket
my starter was not so tall which made this was possible, in past years I've needed a helper to hold the planter while I fill it with dirt before I hang it...
You can see the plant sits happily upside-down on the piece of foam
I filled the pot with some organic potting soil...
And then re-arranged the hanging chains so I could pull the plant out of the bucket and hang her!
Day 1 2009 Upside-Down Tomato

Sweet Necklace Made of Some Bits

My friend Aimee came over today wearing this wonderful necklace she created from my scrap mobile pieces. How great is that! I think the pendant looks like little buddies, and I love it, the little curlie of twist around the black cord... its precious. I am inspired by her creative use of these pieces.

And yes, Aimee came over wearing this necklace and I took it off her neck and put it in my photo setup so I could capture a few shots and share about it in the Garden of Leah. :) Isn't it beautiful!

Give-Away: FREE Mobile Frame

This frame could be yours!

I am not sure who might want this, but here it is! You could make your own mobile using this wire frame. Its completely assembled, all you would have to do is make things to hang off the ends of the wire (the frame holds 9 things and is approx. 24inches in length).

You could hang photographs or felted things, or pieces of paper or glass things, or bottle caps, wine corks, beads, buttons... who knows! Your imagination is the limit!

If you are curious about the explanation of this wire frame:

Making empty frames for other artists to create mobiles out of is not something I normally do (only a few persuasive individuals have coaxed them out of me) but I have a couple of lonely confused wire frames in my studio for some reason... they once held creations of mine and I must have removed all the little glass pieces and made something else out of the glass and then the empty frame went lonely and ignored.

Post a comment here on the blog and it could be yours. It certainly wants to make friends with someone, and I'll be intrigued to know what it becomes! Spread the word too - this give-away will run thru April 1st 2009 - anyone can win! Its totally free and simply fun.

Great Product Photography

stitch markers made by MissPurl.etsy

Product photography... what can I say... its humbling.

I just thought it would be fun to pull out an example of good product photography - there is always an element of what kind of camera is used - but there are things we can do with our skillz as amateur photographers trying to sell our work online.

• the background must make the colors of the item pop
• the flow of the eye over the picture leads the viewer to the product
• the message of the image should be crisp and clear, so it can be noticed on a busy page filled with other things
  

The picture above is really stunning. Danielle you really rocked out with this shot! I like the use of the flower (a good prop makes the picture pop) and the colors (the pink and green drew me to this product on an Etsy page) and the white background... its bright and eye catching and even though the flower pulls my eye to the picture, its the stitch markers that I end up focusing on. That's good flow.

I work on my own product photography quite a bit. Its very time consuming. However I find it completely interesting, the psychological and aesthetically aspects and all.

.

the Afternoon at the Portland Saturday Market

It was a cold cold cold rainy day at the PSM today. Whew. My heater ran out of fuel and my toe warmers only lasted 5 hours or so (thanks Maggie for the toe warmers!). It rained rained and rained some more.

But honestly it was a fun day. There were so many friendly faces and wonderful appreciative customers - Thank you!

Mid-afternoon the market became crowded with drunk people running around in themed costumes with decorated shopping carts filled with beer. They were on an urban race called the Idiot-a-rod. This is a play on the Alaskan Iditarod long distance dogsled race. Except Instead of dogs, it's people, instead of sleds, it's shopping carts, and instead of Alaska it's Portland Oregon.

As they ran past my booth I grabbed my handy-dandy camera and took some shots. It was pretty hilarious. I made the video above with my footage. I think it turned out really great!
Regardless, the race is always fun to watch and certainly a bright spot of my rainy cold day.

May I add - a lot of those people had to be cold as shizzy! Most of the outfits were tiny and revealing (what fun!) but they must have froze their butts off in the rain today!

• link for last years Idiotarod post
  

DIY Displays for the Portland Saturday Market

What do you think of my hand-made earring tree? After some serious detective work (thanks Judi and Danielle for the help!), I could not find one of those photo-umbrella-tree things that I was envisioning using to display my cute new earring line... honestly Ikea, Target and Pier1 all no longer carry those wire things... so I made my own. Its a work in progress, but hey, its a display.

I also made a few hanging displays for my little Oreccini Collection, I'll take some pictures tomorrow in my booth. I used round canvases that I've had for years, and T pins, and a mirror from the craft store... pictures would explain better than words.

The Pellegrini house has been all a whirl this week, preping for the beginning of the 36th PSM season, it will be my 8th season! Cleaning all my display stuff, everything that I had in storage and all the tubs of stuff here at the house. I have officially re-packed everything and I have a few tubs and bags of inventory ready to load in the car in the morning. Whew.

Jurying Handmade Art Submissions

Is "jurying" a word? My spell check doesn't seem to think so!

Last week I spent a few hours downtown at the official meeting of the Product Review Committee for the Portland Saturday Market. I am a juror.

For anyone reading this who is not a member of the PSM:

Portland Saturday Market is the largest arts and crafts market in continuous operation in the United States. The Market has over 350 vendors who generate about $8 million in gross sales annually and attract over 1 million visitors to the historic Old Town district of Portland each year. All items sold at the Saturday Market are required to be handmade by the person selling it, and a product review committee of members juries each new item against a high standard of quality.

I have been on this product review committee for the past 2 years, this will be my third season of being an official volunteer juror.

If I could share my observations on being a juror, it would go something like this:

• it is incredible opportunity to sell my artwork at a venue that is juried by the artists themselves (as opposed to the management and organizers, let alone as compared to a venue that has no jurying whatsoever)
• taste is relative - it makes me uncomfortable to pass judgment on other artists'/craftipersons' creations. However, the market has clear cut rules that serve as our guidelines for jurying. this makes the whole process much more comfortably objective.
  
• the PSM guidelines have been mindfully crafted and evolving over the past 30 years and printed into a comprehensive booklet (which is subdivided by materials and types of work) so that any artist interested in applying can pick up this book (they can view it online as well) and see what the membership requires of them.
  
• not only do the guidelines uphold a high quality of work that can be found at the PSM, they also serves to maintain peace between all the different opinions of the 300+ members of the market. this is so key- conflict resolution is actually a huge function of the guidelines.
  
• the PSM book of guidelines is really intimidating. for however helpful they are to the jurors like myself, the book of rules is very lengthy and specific. I fear many potential PSM vendors are turned off by the book of rules and never bother to submit their work for jury. I think this is sad because the market is such an incredible opportunity for sales.

So, while I didn't take a picture at my meeting so you could actually see what a jury committee meeting is like... I thought I'd share a few words none-the-less.

If you are local and thinking about becoming an artist at the PSM - I say read the guidelines and jury in! Honestly this market is such an incredible opportunity for your small business!

And if you are considering submitting your work to any juried venue and looking for advice from a juror... heres my 2cents:
1. if there are guidelines - read them! honestly most failed submissions are due to applicants negligence to submit something that the guidelines clearly detailed
2. don't take failure too personally - many times the jury will have a suggestion or two for how to reapply with success. Not only can this offer you the opportunity to take your craft to the next level but it also can be very constructive and helpful for your business. That is if you don't take the criticism personally.

.

Holiday Season Breathing Exercises

The holiday season is on top of us. I am a bit in disbelief that Thanksgiving is this week...

this time of year means 3 things to a small businessperson like myself:
1. assembly (I have been prepping like mad for weeks, so now I can bury myself in the finer details of package assembly)
2. shipping (the website orders are picking up, the boxes are going out, and of course my favorite stuffer is out of stock, but not to worry - there are plenty of orange LeahGlass.com pencils to go around to all my happy customers!)
3. vending (holiday shows - madness people, madness)

This year you can find me at:
Portland Saturday Market
every weekend until Christmas Eve
Super Crafty Wonderland Holiday Show
Sunday, December 14th from 11am-7pm
Handmade NW at the World Trade Center
Tuesday, December 2nd from 10-6pm


my online shop has been picking up the pace - many wonderful new customers and many of my glass mobiles and other little glass creations going out in the mail. Now that I have no car all of a sudden, I am utilizing my nice post man a little more these days. Its nice that they pick up at the door, and thankfully

Already bought a turkey, pre-brined organic birds at Trader Joes - gotta love TJs. Now I have to get a bunch of root veggies and butter. I am out of butter at the house, whats Thanksgiving dinner without butter! madness I say, madness.

Hope everyone else is having fun this week prepping for the holidays. Usually this weekend is pretty crazy at the Portland Saturday Market. I'm crossing my fingers. This girl has got to buy a car. I am not holding my breath though, I just gotta keep breathing.

Discussion at the Museum of Contemporary Craft

Kaffeeklatsch: an informal social gathering for coffee and conversation

Tuesday I had major plans to sit around at home consumed in production isolation(ah the holidays approach) and drowning myself in Election news and media coverage in every form possible. As I was checkin' out my blog feed I saw that Cathy and Diane were both going to be downtown at the Museum of Contemporary Craft for this round-table discussion about DIY in Portland. I looked at the clock and saw that I had time to be there, so I thought, why not.

Heres the official description of the event:
From craft fairs, etsy.com sellers and zinesters to the independent music scene, bike activists and “foodies,” Portland has a reputation as an epicenter for Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture. Join guests Susan Beal and Cathy Pitters (PDX Super Crafty) and Justin Hocking (executive director, Independent Publishing Resource Center) for a discussion on DIY, its connection to craft and the contemporary resurgence of all things independent.

Afterwards I left feeling very positive about Portland (which is great considering it is cold and rainy and gray and I am feeling seasonally effected by the sh*t weather).

This event made me remember that I love living in PDX. I love that we have a Museum of Contemporary Craft, and the Independant Publishing Resource Center, and all the glass resources in town, and the Crafty Wonderland, and the Portland Saturday Market and Mercy Corps NW, and Portland Store Fixtures and the ReBuilding Center and so forth and so on... its such a cool city to live in as a craft person, and in a way that sums up the whole discussion!

.