Alien Sea Huntress

Or it might end up just being called Sea Huntress, or The Huntress. In my mind it's just 'why have I got this crazy necklace idea in my head? I've got enough half finished projects already without starting another one!'

This nearly did stall, and I know that I could still be tweaking it, but I'm trying to get back to one of the earliest lessons' I learnt with glass - stop, move on; that's as good as you can do for now, learn by it and take those lessons to the next thing you make. Easier said than done, I even posted some earlier pictures on Frit Happens to get some feedback to see what needed tweaking. I almost ended up with too many ideas of changes, so after a dozen more times threading and unthreading it, moving elements around, adding and taking them away, it ended up going very nearly back to how it started. I did find adding a few small Tibetan spacer beads helped some of the claws sit more neatly, which ended up being the main tweak. I wasn't going to put the spike in the centre, and just have the two claws facing each other, but when I did it was just crying out for something major between them. I even had to make beads for it - yes beads! I hardly ever make beads, and I hated the first ones, but then remembered some 'bumpy' style ones I'd seen somewhere, so made some like that which I really liked, and as a bonus kept more of the metallic lusters.

It's been an interesting project, and bizarrely came from working on the Alien monsters, where I'd developed some interesting ways of adding colour and texture. With this one the colour has a really, really, high silver and metal content, so in real life has some wonderful metallic lusters. Oddly though parts of it show up as yellow when light shines through them, but green-blue when the light hits it straight on!

I am still deciding if I should list this on Etsy, or take it along to the May Expo. When I make things like this, I tend to think 'would this look like something someone of 'Farscape' would have worn?' If the answer is yes, or at least possiably, then I think it's right.

Talking of which, I have some news about the Aliens, but it's not confirmed yet, so you are going to have to wait until the next post, but I will post on my Facebook page as soon as I know it's going to happen.

In the meantime, here's lots of pictures of the necklace.

Stepping off the Ledge

I have some rather momentous news. As you may or may not know until now I've been having to divide my attention between glass and a 'dayjob.' I often have other full time crafters asking how on earth I manage to do both, and it is tricky at times, normally it's making glass which suffers though when my job becomes too busy and stressful - although going off to spend a few hours melting is a great antidote to stress, which was one of the reasons I got so into it in the first place! (Plus it's addictive!)

However for sometime now I've been really struggling with the day-to-day 'difficulties' of work, and last week things came to a head with some rather grim meetings and I decided enough was enough. So I quit!!!!!!

I won't bore you with the details, after all that's now part of my old life and very negative, I am more interested in moving forward to a more positive future. I don't have a job to walk into, but it feels like the right thing to do if only for my sanity and health! Added to this there have been so many strange coincidences and bits of synchronicity lately, it just feels like the right time. My other half always used to say 'let the universe provide' and would have faith in herself and just go for it. Years ago she moved to London to live with me, with no job, and by noon the next day had a job a short walk from my flat! So many times lately I read the quote 'leap, and the net will appear,' to which I always remember the part in 'Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade' where he steps off the ledge of the cliff, to find there was a bridge there all along hidden in plain sight by an optical illusion. You just can't see it until you are on the bridge. I think it's about having faith in yourself, something the cooperate world seems unable to inspire anymore.

I am still weighing up my options, but it's between going and getting another job and carrying on like I was, or going for it and striking out on my own. After a particularly nasty meeting last week, which left me feeling a bit battered, I called a number I'd had got of a market manager in a very large venue to test the waters. After 20 seconds of telling him what I made the reaction was amazing - and so opposite what I'd just endured - and was offered priority of a stall any day I wanted, whenever I wanted and was hugely positive and upbeat.

Now I wasn't planning on doing lots of fairs or a regular stall originally, and I'd want to check out some more venues first, but the idea is very tempting. Faced with a return to cooperate life where saying 'no' to added stress earns you a black mark what would you choose? Live in fear, or make the leap?

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Note; The picture is one of my own that I did a few years ago, if you look very, very closely, you might just see a little man on a treadmill who's driving the big rusty machine ;)

Wake up, it’s Friday! Oh no! It’s Monday!

I’ve always struggled with sleeping, mostly I’m quite a light sleeper, but there are times I have some insomnia. A few months ago I started taking some ‘safe’ herbal pills, which really seemed to help. However in the past few weeks they have started building up in my system, leaving me lethargic and dull headed, but it’s been so gradual I’d not really noticed, or just wasn’t bothered!

Then last week I was working on a glass sculpture when an hour and half of work shattered on the final assembly thanks to my tongs slipping. Now I’ve learnt to be quite ‘Zen’ about glass, going with the flow, try to accept when things don’t work and start again, and viewing mistakes as steps to learn what I need to make the next and future ones better. However I wasn’t bothered – which I realised was wrong in itself. Reading up on the ‘safe’ valerian I realised my rather stupid mistake, that it should be for occasional use and I’d slipped into the bad habit of taking it every night!

Well a few days for it to clear out of my system and I realise how little I’ve managed to achieve in the past month, which is quite frustrating, but on the good side various odd things including my mysterious limp vanished. A close call! I’ve been taking good use of the extra energy and tore down to the local propane man for a new canister and was back in record time. I spend one day on experimental stuff, not all successful, and then the next day dived into some of the new glass to make some floral pendants; I’m loving one of the new colours, some great green-blues that remind me of Monet’s water-lily lake paintings with metallic hints!

Now however the insomnia has returned! I’ve tried cutting down on coffee and tea to help, but Mondays are the worse, especially after such a great day before at the torch!
Maybe I’ll have a ‘coffee Monday’ where I allow myself the injection of scary strong coffee! I stumbled across this on the net, which is a wonderful mad scientist way of making coffee. Not tried it yet, I am sure I saw a tabletop version that uses the same principle once, and I am lacking some of the flasks to make this.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/flashback_the_florence_siphon_arabi.html

Thanks also to the Graphics Fairy for the vintage image, well worth a look at this site for some great project source material for crafting! http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/

And as for valerian; just say no!