last day

.. to enter your right guess on my guessing game :)

It's almost ready to go to the winner (I hope, I don't
make any mistakes like the last time ;)). I just finished
making the last pieces and tonight I'll assembly them
to the final work together.



Normally I forget to take photos while I'm working, but
today while rolling the polymer clay I saw some lovely
images coming and disappearing, that I made a break
and took the photo. I'm glad I did. I'm liking the baking
paper on the baking pan as background for photos ^_^

holiday

I never thought, that my nervousness last week would
take a lot of energy out of me. I'm still recovering - so
tired these days. Good, that holiday has started. Even
if it's only for my boy, things can now go a bit slower.

A quick review of the last week in mixed order..

I wanted to show you the progress of the piece I'm
making for my guessing game, but I didn't have much
time to work on it. And as I wanted to work on it last
Sunday - eek! I broke the oval piece :(
Luckily I have some more rings and ovals around. This
time I decided to take the round one. On Wednesday I
finally had a bit time to attach the glass pieces onto it.
The idea has changed a bit. It's getting more romantic
and my son told me it reminds him of a dream catcher.
Indeed, it is kind of a dream catcher :)


As it's still not finish yet, I'm going to prolong the deadline
for entering the game to Monday, 3rd August. I'll announce
the winner on Tuesday. Please forgive my delay!

I finally hung some of my treasures. First I wanted to
hang everything on one wall, but it just didn't look right.
I tried some variants and finally I decided to go for a
vintage wall plaque and Gocco print combination. Ha!
They are all about animals and the color shades fit each
other too. I really love it :)


Soholm (a flea market find), Annarubyking (one of my
fave artists on Etsy and hey, she is Etsy's featured seller
at the moment!), Sugarloop (one of my very first purchases
on Etsy) and Burkart (another flea market find).

I hung them not without a reason. It's the room, where
my visitors are sleeping - our living room. Yes, my sister
and her family were here for two nights (so good to see
them again!) - so I took the chance to rearrange the room
to make it looks nicer ;)

I also had some fun cooking time. To welcome my guests
I've made some Pempek Palembang together with some
friends the day before (it was lots of fun - chatting, laughing,
cooking and eating). And for the dinner before my guests
went back home I've cooked stuffed peppers for my niece
as requested (and filled also a big zucchini from the garden
with the stuffing - yumm!).



The last days we harvested our potatoes. The waxy ones
had already yellow leaves for quite a while. First I thought,
it still was too early, as we only got a hand full potatoes.
A few days later I was curious. We dug deeper and found
some more of them - bigger ones! My son had a lot of fun.
So today he pulled out and dug out the floury ones for
mashed potatoes - mmmhh...


On the left photo you can see a bind weed, which I've
pulled out of the potato field easily. I'm amazed by the
long root, so it's now growing in a glass full of water in
the kitchen :)

The choir performance went well. We had a full house,
a great atmosphere and a lot of fun, even if it was hot
like in the oven. My sister and her family were very
supportive - they smile every time I look at them :)
My son and some friends were coming too. A wonderful
evening it was! We got so many lovely feedbacks.

After this hard work, we deserve a holiday :) I know,
I'm going to miss the choir girls and singing, but I'm
glad, it's holiday now.

wednesday and progress

So, it's Wednesday already. The choir performance
is getting closer - tonight is the rehearsal. Hope, it
won't take too long.


My shop is getting crowded (on the fact, that I never
had more than 12 pieces in the shop till last year *lol*).
I had to cancel an unpaid sale unluckily, so there are
now two Moon Over Paris necklaces. This one is my
last listing. I've made it as an alternate for a custom
order and she has picked the other one. It's a 'revival'
of my first focal flower style, but with some leafs added
and made on the curved mandrel (that's why it's a lot
bigger than my old one).

Oh, and look at this.

Curators: OneClayBead, Lori411, iragranteco, aysetugrul,
karuski, brownbunnybyiris, ixela, emcisaac and Sumikoshop
I don't think, I've ever been featured in so many Ts
at one time. Thank you so much, girls! As I'm rarely
hanging around much on Etsy, I'm very grateful, that
you still think of me *hugs*

Also thanks to Craftopolis for making it easier to keep
an overview of Ts and TWs! It's one of the tools I visit on
daily basis to track my shop activity. The other two are
craftcult and Google Analytics (although I find the stats
about the referring sites are not always logically traceable,
but maybe I'm the one who is a dork ^_^). So, thanks to
both of them as well!

Now to my experiment aka guessing game ;) Have you
seen my last hint (there's another hint in the next
paragraph too ;))? It's not too late to enter a comment
(or two or three.. ;)) on this post.

Yesterday I've made three more glass pieces.

Can you see the flaw of the piece on the front left? That's
my old third piece, which I haven't shown you. I've
tried to etch it - didn't think, that Pyrex won't etch. But
it seems, that I've worked sloppy, as at this piece some
spots got etched. Those spots are where the glass was
fumed by the titan rod I used to make the hole (it's only
my theory ;)). If I had heated the glass thoroughly after
making the hole, those fumed spots would have been
gone. I will try to rework this one today - hope it'll work.

I've also made the next piece to ensemble to the end
result. It's made of polymer clay, ink and silk thread.
Actually the oval ring has been sitting since the begin of
this year, but my idea was not ripe enough, so I've put
it aside. I think, now it's the right time to use it :) The
part with the drawing is coated with a matte varnish.

And which glass piece will be the one for the winner of
this game? Well, I still haven't decided yet. I haven't
even decide, either it'll be a necklace, a brooch or even
something totally different. I'll let my creativity flow ;)
Just watch this space and see the next progress.

So, now off to my workspace :) CU!

let's play again :)

Some of you might remember, I once made a game.
Only two persons dare to take part. I didn't realize,
I made it too difficult. Anyway.. I've decided to reward
both of them for their bravery ^_^ And here's the
answer - my yellow is shown as white spaces in the
small box:


Well, I think, I should make another game now :)
Remember I told you I want to make an experiment
a few days ago? I did. On the left is my material and
on the right you can see two of my experiment results
(I'll let you know what happened with my third one in
another post ;)). I'm going to work further on them to
get the final result - they are work in progress.


**
Now to the game..

My question:
do you know, what was the original function of my
material before it became my lampwork glass material?
My tip:
click on the photo to see it bigger and watch
each form of the pieces carefully to find a hint ;)
edit: here's my next hint :)
What you should do:
left a comment and let me know your answer. The
deadline is July 31st, 2009.
edit: deadline prolonged till August 3rd and winner
will be picked on August 4th!
What I'll do afterwards:
on August 1st I will announce the right answer and the
winner. If there are more than one person with the right
answer, I will pick a winner randomly.
What to win:
the final item with one piece of my experiment results.
I'll post the progress of it here in my blog and in my
Flickr gallery :)
edit: watch the progress here and here
So, let's play and tell me your guess! :)
**

Btw.. no need to guess, dish washing is tiring :P


and I've tried to multitask while writing this post -
I just listed Flamenco Night.


And now I'm saying good night to you, my friend! Have
a lovely weekend!

t.t.t.

Two Things (I've done) Today ^_^



A work in progress and ... yummy lemon curd!

Up till now I've been buying lemon curd in the shop
where I work. But ever since I saw Bee's post in her
blog (her citrus painting is as yummy!), I knew I'll
have to try it myself one day. This weekend we'll be
having our choir weekend, so I thought, it's a good
opportunity to try it. Mmmhh.. I'm looking forward
to Friday :)