Musings

Probably won't keep up with this blog at all.  It's already been over two months since my last post... oops!!! :)

The drawings thing is probably a flop.  I did end up selling one of them though!  Woot woot!

I'll always prefer making candles and they take a lot more work (with each order, that is... b/c with the drawings, they only have to be printed after I've drawn them the initial time).  Drawing isn't really a passion of mine, although I do find it enjoyable.  I loooooooooove making candles!  I had my fingers crossed for the drawings to be successful simply b/c they're cheaper to make and faster/easier to pack up and ship out if they sell.  Candles are a much bigger hassle, but they're a hassle I love!

So right now my shop is kind of in limbo between drawings and candles.  I may keep a mixture for a while before I make a decision one way or the other.

I just started adding my team shot glass candles back to the shop since football season is JUST OVER A MONTH AWAY!  I can't believe it and I'm so excited! :)

Eh...

Not a lot happening lately.  I'm a bit discouraged with the drawings...  I was so excited when I first started making them because I thought they were so awesome looking that people MUST want them, lol!  Obviously I was alone in my opinion of just how awesome they are.  I still enjoy drawing and will continue to do it, but I either need to make a change when it comes to listing them on Etsy or stop listing them altogether.

I'll always loved candle making, as it's my original "craft" that I started over seven years ago in our little apartment in the metro Washington, D.C. area.  Now I mostly only make candles for us (we burn them every single evening), but I occasionally throw some up on Etsy to see what sticks.  I sold a few candles on Etsy during the Christmas shopping season last year and it's looking like that's the only time of year I have any hope of selling anything.  So I'll just keep making candles for us and keep my fingers crossed that somebody will wander into my little section of Etsy and have their interest piqued by SOMETHING in my shop.

I'm now looking back into the "real" work force for some part time work.  The dream was for this to be my part time work, but no... not happening.

Looking for more craft ideas!

So I made one more letter (slow, I know)... an E!

I've been messing around with colors and toying with the idea of listing color versions of my letters.  Then I think... they're not selling in black and white, which I think is a beautiful contrast and therefore the best version, so why pay for additional listings in color that probably won't sell either?

At this point, I'm thinking I'll just play around making whatever I want and enjoy making, instead of focusing on sales (which are nonexistent, lol).

I'm super interested in trying my hand at embroidery hoop art or mixed media hoop art (which involves little to no embroidery, if I end up sucking at embroidery).  Hoop art is just so darn pretty on the wall, especially in little groupings of multiple pieces of art.  May or may not actually try it, I'm just thinking as I type here.

I really do LOVE making the zentangle letters, but it's disheartening when nobody shows any interest in them.  I, personally, think they're gorgeous, but my opinion doesn't mean much, being the creator of them and all. :)

Here are a couple of my trials with color:

More New Letters

Tried out some different patterns on these letters... the curly pattern in particular intimidated me a bit.  Plus I waited until I'd almost completed the letter to try it for the first time on the M, so if I jacked it up, I would've wasted a TON of time on that letter.  Luckily I liked how it turned out.  Then I had more fun doing the same pattern on the J. :)

I want to do a LOT more letters, but they take so freakin' long and I want to continue to enjoy drawing, not feel like it's a chore, so I might mix it up with non-letter drawings from time to time instead of cranking through all the letters all at once.  Whew!  That was one helluva sentence right there.  Total run-on.  Do I care?  Nope.  It's MY blog and I'll do what I want to!

New Letters, No Sales :(

Soooo... I still haven't sold a single drawing!  Business is BOOMING.  Obviously not.  I have sold a couple of sets of bottle cap magnets in the past month, but that's not all that exciting.  How hard is it to glue a magnet to a bottle cap?  Okay, I do a little more than that... I fill the cap with sealant and let it dry for a day or two and THEN glue the magnet to the hardened sealant so that the magnet's not lost down inside the cap, but seriously... anybody can do this.  Yet it's the one and only thing in my shop lately that anybody wants to purchase.  I want to sell the things that take me time and that I LOVE making.

I added a couple of new letters today: L and S.  I thought I was randomly picking letters, but it appears I've now made my four initials (first, middle, maiden, and last) without consciously meaning to.  Does that mean I'm self obsessed?  I didn't think so, but gravitating towards your own initials might possibly perhaps indicate that.  Oops.  Oh well.  Hey!  If you can't love yourself, why would anybody else want to??  Eh?  Eh?  Didn't think you had an answer to that one.  Yeah.
I'm thinking next I'll do O, H, E, I, R (in no particular order).  I would ask for requests, but nobody reads this blog!

For my ghost readers - here are my two newest letters:

Zentangle Letters!

I've now discovered that I love a form of drawing called "zentangle"... or would that be zentangling?  I'm new to it, so I don't know anything about it except that it looks cool, you must have a steady hand and extreme focus, and it takes FOREVER.  Normally I'm not a fan of things that take forever, but the awesomeness of this just completely overrides any thought of time.  I'll draw for an hour and think it was 15 minutes.  And really, this shit is beautiful.  Or maybe I'm just really full of myself.  Either way, I'm happy with it!! :)

As you can see, these are clearly letters.  I'm thinking they'll look cool as a unique and funky way to spell out a baby's name over a crib in place of those overused letter blocks hanging from ribbon.  Examples:

I don't know about the rest of the world, but I'm tired of seeing letter blocks hanging over cribs from cutesy ribbons.  I want something different!  (If I ever have a need for announcing a baby's name over a crib, that is.)  

The zentangle letters I'm drawing will be printed on 65 lb linen stock, which has a really cool texture to it.  They're 8 x 10, so perfect for framing in standard frames (no expensive frame jobs), and they're the perfect size for lining up in that empty wall space in a kid's room! 

Another way I'm thinking they'd be cool is to spell out the family name over the fireplace or other location OR a cool dorm room decoration... just initials or a full name on the dorm room wall.  Spiffy! :)  

Yeah, I'm trying to sell my art here, but I truly do believe these are awesome ideas and that the letters themselves are awesome... I definitely plan to use them in my home.

Can't go wrong with Dr. Seuss

Decided on a quote/saying to go with the weather-looking design from a couple of weeks ago!  Dr. Seuss.  Always a winner.  I wish I could have done a cool freehand calligraphy-type writing of it, but I can't quite figure that out yet (who knows if I ever will)... but the happy text with balls on the end works for me! :)

Who doesn't love birds?

Maybe not real, live birds... I understand people having phobias towards them.  They're cute from a distance I suppose, but they're really just needy little hunter/scavengers.  Although I do get excited about seeing them on my bird feeders.  It's like, "My bird feeders WORK, they really work!!"  Then I get to feel all awesome, thinking I've fed a bird family and saved them from certain starvation.

DRAWINGS of birds, however... who DOESN'T love those?  They're SO cute! (Enough all-caps words yet?)  Seriously though... those sweet little nursery prints of happy sparrows or bug-eyed owls are freakin' adorable.  I decided I must figure out how to draw some sort of bird myself.  

This would be my newest item in my Etsy shop, ThreeChickadeeLane (click on the ad on the right side of this page to go there).  Right now I only do 8x10 prints, but could possibly in the future be looking into 5x7 or little cards for sending friendly notes.  They have to be friendly notes though - no unfriendly notes shall be written on my cards!  My cards that don't exist yet.  And possibly never will.  We'll see.

Also, my 8x10 prints are printed on super heavyweight linen paper, which has a really cool looking texture to it, even from a distance.  Fabulous for framing!  Advertisement over.

What to do?

I sat down to draw a good base for a quote (which I hadn't decided on yet) and this drawing happened.  Now I have no idea what quote/saying to put in it b/c I'm a bit confused as to what the doodle is.  Is it weather?  Perhaps.  It certainly appears that way.  The "snow" at the bottom was supposed to be a happy little grouping of flowers.  What to do???

Let it Be

I'm trying my hand at drawing/sketching/doodling, whatever your preferred term is.  I find it to be easy-going and relaxing.  The huge plus to it is that I can stop at any point and not worry about paint drying, wax hardening (I also make candles, just to make that sound less weird), or anything else happening that prevents picking right back up again where I left off.

About a week ago I did my first extensive quote-drawing with "Let it Be."  It's definitely an amateur drawing, IMHO, but I have to start somewhere and hope to only improve.  I'd LOVE to figure out calligraphy, or at least some sloppy form of it.  I'm not trying to be a professional calligrapher (is that a term?) here, but it'd be cool to be able to mix up the text in my quote-drawings (apparently I'm establishing "quote-drawing" as an official term in my blog).

Here's my very FIRST quote-drawing... * drum roll*:

I've learned since doing this one that I should use black ink if I plan to scan them onto my computer to change up or add colors.  The blue just doesn't mesh well with just about anything I try to do color-change-wise.  Of course, I know a minimal amount about the software I'm using, so I'm probably just ignorant as to how to make what I want happen.  I'm not really stressing about it though... LET IT BE! :)

Typical start to a day

This morning I was on my way to the laundry room to take the dogs out (they kennel up in the laundry room overnight) and noticed wine glasses from last night that needed to be taken to the kitchen.  So, I grab the wine glasses and head to the laundry room.  Then I notice that there are a couple of towels in the dryer that could use a re-fluff before folding, so I turn on the dryer.  The always overly-enthusiastic dogs are eager to head outside, so we go on out there.  After they finally get their business completed, I head back inside with them, make some tea, and do the dishes.  Yay!  One task accomplished!

Then I decide to heat up some leftovers for a small breakfast/lunch for myself.  I get the food in the microwave, rinse out the Tupperware in the sink and am going to place it in the dishwasher when I hear what is quite clearly a shattering sound somewhere in the house.  Immediately I take a headcount of the dogs.  All in the room with me.  Then, I check for the two male cats (the troublemaker cats).  Both in the room with me.  The only animal missing is our one female cat, who usually spends her day sleeping on our bed, moving only for the necessities.  Knowing these things, I am at a complete loss for who or what caused a shattering noise.  After a brief and confusing search, I realize that I caused it.  Yeah... those wine glasses that I started the morning out with never made it back out of the laundry room.  In my genius efforts to multitask, I had placed them on top of the dryer while futzing with the laundry and... left them there.  Of course, no dryer (however fabulous it may be), is immune to tiny amounts of shaking, and one of my lovely wine glasses had worked its way over the edge in about 15 minutes and the tile floor beneath had rejected its offer of friendship.

Cleaning that mess up was... slow.  I finally got to return to my (now cold) food in the microwave.  I set it to reheat and then realize I never finished putting the Tupperware into the dishwasher.  I get it nestled in there and turn back to the sink for the lid and suddenly my foot is slimy and warm.  Ew.  Dog vomit.  Luckily they haven't been fed yet, so it's clear, slimy vomit, void of chunks of food, but... ew.  The culprit is now over by the door, depositing more clear, slimy vomit in what she obviously thinks to be a more acceptable location.  I do give her credit for heading towards the outdoors.  I open the door for her and she darts outdoors to deposit a third puddle of wonderfulness onto the grass.  I hurry to get my shoes on, grab the leash, and get out there b/c she's a notorious dasher for the nearby creek.  To my luck, she was more interested in lapping up her clear, slimy puddle than she was in running away.  So.  We get back inside and I get the joy of cleaning the first two puddles.  I was hoping the other dogs may have cleaned them up for me, but no such luck.

Once that nastiness is gone, I'm able to reheat my food for a THIRD time, grab my ridiculously cold tea, and head back to the laundry room to feed the dogs and shut their trouble-making butts in there.  I grab their bowls, scurry to the garage, return with filled bowls, and place them in front of crazy happy pups who immediately forget anything in the world exists other than the food in front of them.  At this point I notice that the second wine glass is about to take a journey similar to its friend.  How... seriously... HOW do I suffer through the annoyance of my wine glass mistake only to just leave the other one there for it to happen again??!  Oh, I know, it was b/c I was distracted by a bunny I saw through the window.  (You know that ADD joke... "oh, look a bunny!"  If you don't, then just ignore this bunny comment and please don't think I'm insane.)