Surprises in the Mail and Plans in the Making

It's been an interesting month since I returned from my trip to Maine.

I hit the ground running in my shop with a backlog of custom orders and what turned out to be a record breaking amount of components going out of my shop.

I was in full production mode as I knew I was going to be shutting down for all of October and partway into November. I did happen to let a few of my regular customers know it so that may have accounted for some of the rush.

I've had some interesting mail days with surprises from some very nice people.

This beautiful postcard made by Marcia Dunne from

thealternativefoundry

showed up with this lovely snack pack of goodies. What's even more amazing is that it went to our address in Arizona first and got forwarded to me here in Alaska!

here's an example of Marcia's work 

(with some nice scorchedearthonetsy pieces used to quite an advantage))

and then I got these in a trade that I didn't know was a trade when I sent some headpins to Deborah of Tribalis to try out. This design knocks me out in its grace and rustic simplicity. She has more to sell too in her shop.

Check out her blog too.

And then Priscilla Moore of ReadBetweenTheLines was decommissioning some consignment pieces that she had recently gotten back and was GIVING these away! I spoke up quickly.

http://betweenreader.blogspot.com/

I literally only had a handful of beads left to sell at my next two shows, one of which is an actual bead show so I had to get busy and devote some time to some pieces I would not list in my shop.

Fortunately my next show is one that I can resell beads at too so there will be some other things to fill out the table. Oh, and I do hope some will be tempted to buy some of my jewelry too.

I had some little copper tube beads that I enameled. They are a little sharp edged for stringing and I'm not sure if I could command the price I need to make for these little numbers.  A buck a bead? what do you think?

I'm finding that the salmon leather and copper enamel are a winning combination especially for Alaskans apparently.

I thought I would show you one of my focal beads that I  have saved out as it is one of my favorites. I'm thinking of branching back out into making more of these. Focals used to be my primary focus in beadmaking. I kind of miss it.

And now I'm about to embark on my epic travel starting with a 300 mile trip to sell at a bead show in Anchorage and flying through the night to the east coast to meet up with my sister who I talked into attending Art Is You art retreat in CT. I'll be taking five days of classes with some of the biggies in mixed media like Michael DeMeng, Seth Apter, Cat Kerr and Richard Salley hoping to play a bit with the mixed media which I just haven't seemed to have much time for  in trying to keep my shop stocked.

I hope to pick up a few skills in soldering and metalwork too.

I also talked my sister into manning my table that will be set up for a day in hopes of introducing my work to some new folks.

After that I'm flying to Ohio to meet up with my husband who is driving up from Arizona and get to meet Ms. LoveRoot herself - Nikki Zehler on her birthday, no less!

Then it's off to check out my husband's old family cottage which he managed to re-acquire recently in Michigan and have a little reunion with his two sisters. 

Off to drive to Maine from there and have another visit with my family again and then simply drive back to Arizona with the intent of visiting and meeting a few more folks along the way like polymer clay guru Ginger Davis Allman of The Blue Bottle Tree and the illustrious Janet of AnvilArtifacts

We should be back in Arizona by the second week of November or thereabouts where I will be getting back in the mode in my Bisbee studio.  I do hope to be filling you in along the way with some tidbits from my road trip.

I did a post today over at LoveMyArtJewelry today too  discussing frit and some of its uses. Stop on by.

Until later, CIAO!

Kim