Babies and Mobiles

I had to share this beautiful picture - I met this baby and her mom at Urban Craft Uprising this past weekend and when I got home from Seattle an email greeted me with this picture - baby is already enjoying her new mobile. How cute is that!

Thanks Beth for letting me share!

Blue and Green Glass Mobile

One of my favorite color combinations - blue and green.

It came to my attention I did not have this mobile listed in my online catalog... surprising to me because I have been making it for years and I absolutely love this display of blue and green circles. In fact, I was shocked to find out that I had never done a photo-shoot with this color combo - no pictures at all?! None, the only documentation I have of this blue and green yumminess is from customers of mine. This is one of my most popular mobiles that I sell at the Portland Saturday Market, many happy customers have taken them home for colorful kitchens, beautiful gardens, a happy office, a baby nursery, etc... the colors are bright and calm at the same time.

So yesturday I got some pictures (the sun even came out for a few quick moments to help add light) and put this mobile up online.

Now you can purchase this glass mobile in blue and green directly from my Etsy store - its ready and available for you. Click any of the pictures to check it out. The mobile is about 2ft in diameter for $120 (shipping costs $15) - it comes fully assembled and wrapped up in a foam lined box.

Make Your Own Mobile Kit

I have a new crafty kit available for the holidays!
A mobile making kit! Comes in a clear plastic tube complete with instructions and everything you'll need to make your own little mobile.

This is a great holiday gift for that crafty special someone...
I've been stocking up for holiday shows and I thought it'd be great to have a new packaging for a special little kit - I feel like a product like this is all about packaging. Something that looks fun to buy and complete in its own little box. So I looked around a bit and found these great little clear plastic tubes. They are just big enough to hold a few golf balls - OR - a bunch of goodies that you could use to make your own mobile! :)

As someone that enjoys mobiles, I think one of these kits would be the best holiday present ever!!!

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

Customer Appreciation

I love getting pictures from my customers - its wonderful to see my work at home!

A big Thank You to Yolanda for the appreciation and the photos!

Ode to Garden Mobile

I feel like summer is rounding out... kids are going back to school... my tomatoes are all ripening getting eaten, my beans are almost done for the season. Its been so hot that a lot of my flowers are sorta tortured by now... soon I'll have to start planting more bulbs for next spring (I forgot to do that last year- so I've got a big box of bulbs I've got to plant this year - when is the right time?)

Jan and I have created a flower mobile that I had to share here on my blog.

The colors are reflective and shiny, the mobile is a garden of many different flowers that Jan has carved over the years. We've done a garden mobile before (which is exquisite!) but this is the first time we've printed the flowers in colors (the other garden mobile is monochromatic)

I like how the red pops, and I colored the stems of the flowers green. I was inspired by the Orchid plate that we made recently.

In these last two pictures I tried to capture how the color is vibrant and metallic.

Heat Wave #2

Sometimes I feel like I am playing catch-up (and not necessarily winning!).

It just seems insane sometimes... making... selling... shipping... making some more... realizing I'm out of certain things that I can't make more in time for the weekend... shipping some more... realizing I am shipping the last of my inventory of certain things... realizing I won't be able to make more till next week... making some more... selling some more...

I am going thru one of those weeks where I would like to complete AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. And then it got hot again. wtf

The Portland Saturday Market is having a big to-do this weekend. All the construction is finally finished and we will once again have a stage with music and a functioning water fountain and so forth... our advertising co-ordinator Reid has out-done himself with full page color ads in all the local papers, spots on TV and the radio, I feel like everywhere I turn there is an ad to tell people to come down to the PSM for our "grand opening" to celebrate the new site.
I am doing artist demonstrations on Saturday and I've recruited my assistant friend Aimee to come work the booth with me. I am hoping for huge crowds and (crossing my fingers) good sales! So this week has been all about production. Trying to make and package as much work as possible... the thought being if I am swamped with a zillion customers at least I will have work to sell them and hopefully I can make the best of this opportunity!

Unfortunately it got hot again this week. Fortunately it seems short lived and the temps are already headed back down. But the thermometer registered over 100 at my house yesturday and damn that is hot for Portland (didn't we already have a sufficient heat wave for one summer!!). This heat makes me a little loopy and less productive. I went to see Julie and Julia yesturday afternoon to break up the heat. It was great. Then I got back to working :)

Pictures of Glass Mobiles

I want to share pictures of some of the projects I've finished for this week...
This first mobile (its three pictures of the same mobile in the picture above) is a fun unique creation I made using a few pieces that I made a while back. The "circles within circles" look was something that I thought about doing so I experimented a little, it was a PITA so I simply put the experiments in a drawer and figured they'd come in handy. Sure enough, a friend from the Aquila Glass studio asked if I could make a unique wedding present for friends of hers and these discs came to mind. I paired them with some other bright colored circles and voila - I really like how it turned out. I knew they would be part of sweet mobile one day.

The next 3 pictures are of a different mobile. I thought it would be fun to show some of the photography I do for custom mobiles. This first picture simply shows what the wall looked like before I took the prints off the wall for the "white wall" photo-shoot. I took the picture because I liked how it looked :) The top print is a wonderful hand-illustrated panoramic, very quirky and extremely detailed, the middle print is a Portland bridge photo by Verone Flood and the bottom print is a piece done by my brother featuring our friend Alex DJing at a party from back when I was in college.

then the "white wall" photo (prints taken down)

and then this last shot is the discs used in the mobile

Spring Flowers Mobile

I want to share pictures of the various mobiles I have around my house - this particular one hangs right above my head as I sleep.

With all the trees blooming as spring warms up, I have been taking lots of pictures of flowering branches... so I thought it was too perfect to share a picture of this mobile I made years ago.

I was inspired to make some sort of cherry blossom type of mobile, so I made lots of different five petaled flower beads, all about the size of a nickle. Then I took some thin wire and fixed the beads to the ends and went about trying to make a mobile... it ended up different than I had intended (at first I was thinking some sort of chaotic chandelier of blossoms...) but that proved to make my head hurt trying to manifest. I wanted to use thin wire that was not too stiff to add some character, so the wire was pretty soft. In order to make the "branches" stiffer I wound the wires together making mini-clusters and then free-form branches out of a few clusters. Wound together like this the wire was stronger, but quickly the mobile grew and before long it was quite large and very simple. Not chaotic like I had intended, but very calm and beautiful none the less.

I was then left with a lot of extra flower beads, so one thing I made out them was this fun tree.

In the end I was happy with my creations, but sorta disappointed as well. Its not really something that I could ship or package, the wire is too pliable... but if I used a stiffer steel I wouldn't get the organic branch look that is possible with the thin stuff... I could do a really amazing installation in a gallery, but its not something I could really sell online and just put in a box and ship. Once hung it takes a bit of tweaking and standing back and staring at it, then playing with the branches a bit more, and then its just simple and perfect. And the tree was fun to make, I have always like the wire trees that are made from twisted up fine wires...

So long story short, its a one-of-a-kind sorta creation. And so it hangs in my bedroom, treasured by me. :)

Mobile Earrings

Here are a some new mobile earrings that hit my Etsy shop today.
I've been making more and more mobile earrings - I love them!
My own little earlobes have been adoring them, and I get comments everywhere I go. People seem to really like them. I notice they are smile-makers, and that is a good sign!

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.

Finding Balance

As an artist that makes mobiles for a living, balance is a constant theme in my head. I am amused by the illusive nature of balance, and frequently stumped by the humbling nature of the beast.

I think about balance all the time. Its something of a theme in my life. Anyone who knows me knows that I make a LOT of mobiles.

Lets get this straight though - my life is far from perfect - but its pretty darned awesome. I make unconventional choices, seeking out what is good for me, not necessarily what works for someone else or what is expected of me. I embrace the idea of balance and live my life accordingly.

Leah's Top 10 Ways to Find Balance:
1. make art
2. do yoga
3. hang a mobile above my bed
4. work hard
5. take a day off each week
6. share with others
7. wear bright colors on gray days
8. keep a journal
9. laugh as much as possible
10. hang more mobiles

The mobile above my bed reminds me in the morning that balance can be beautiful. The mobiles in my living room accompany me and dance while I do yoga. The yoga is probably one of the best tools of balance in my life - the body needs exercise to be happy. And the mobiles in my garden keep my spirits bright and colorful, even in the fall and winter when natures color palette has become gray and wet. Glass is beautiful and captivating, and I like to be reminded of the pleasant side of life as frequently as possible. Seems to me like the real world can get incredibly depressing, the financial, political, socioeconomic global woes - there is a lot of pain out there in the world... but there is a lot of beauty as well. They go hand in hand. And that is the balance.

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