The Craft Space

It's done!! It's not perfect, but I now have a craft space and I even have a project to start on.

This is how my space looked before yesterday's rain. It looks a little similar now, but everything is organised and the rubbish has been discarded. Mmmmm, such a nice feeling.

Today I went to the Sunday markets to do... Wait for it... Market research. Mum and I are hoping to start selling jewellery soon and I think a good starting point is the markets. Armidale markets are usually reasonably busy and the quality of items in stalls is pretty good. Today was a little quiet because of the miserable weather and perhaps it being the first weekend of the school holidays. However I did take note if a few displays.

The bottom left photo shows an effective, but simple way of showing off earrings or even brooches would work this way I think.

The bottom right photo is me in my newly organised craft room ready to start my first project in this space... Which is shown in the top left photo. Well, the pieces for it are. I long ago promised a friend I would make her some pot nits for her new house. I kept putting it off, claiming either lack of space or lack of correct materials. I now have both of those excuses written off.

I will attempt a blog again soon when I can show off a completed project... Hopefully mighty soon :)

My craft area

I have been hoping to take an exciting photos of my newly available craft area/room/studio. Unfortunately, it isn't quite there yet. I have the room vacated and ready to go, but all my craft things are still jammed in the corner in a pile. I will post a photo of this soon - hopefully accompanied by an "after photo" of a neat, tidy and inviting space to work in.

Most crafters, I expect, will understand the need for a space of your own where you don't have to pack up your project (or projects) to eat a meal or do your book work. I have been using this as an excuse to not do more craft. Why would I need an excuse you say? That is an unanswerable question. I think at this moment in time I have a little trouble justifying my time spent crafting as it isn't yet contributing to our overall household income. This will hopefully change soon :)

Enough rambling for now. I will leave you hanging in supence for a photo or two of my craft space...

Strike while the iron is hot

I am the iron. I learnt a lot about a lot of useful tools today and I would like to put them in to action. I read some great inspiring articles that mostly all say that if you want to be a successful creative person, making a living out of your creativeness, you need to work hard for it, not in a bad way, just in a purposeful way.

I had always assumed that well known artists, musicians, designers or actors probably just flitted around doing what they enjoyed and somebody saw them and made them famous. That justified me not even trying to get anywhere with my hopeful creativeness. I find this is pretty much wholly untrue, which means I need to get my butt into gear and work to get my stuff out there.

There. That is the beginning of this time's attempt at getting it out there.

I said previously I would say more about Mum. The above photo is of a necklace which I made using Mum's lace. This is what all my work does. Mum, Vicki Taylor, is a hugely talented bobbin lace maker and all round textile artist. Her work inspires me to want to make stuff.. Any stuff. 

This is Mum hard at work learning to manipulate Perspex in a class we did together at ContextArt 2012. The above necklace used some of the techniques we learnt together.

This is Mum (right) with her good friend Francis Keevil. Francis owns a gallery in Double Bay, Sydney and has been very inspirational and encouraging for Mum in her art endeavours.

Right now I must snap to it and do some work on our Facebook site (The Studio) and figure out how to use Instagram.

The first day...

Today I am a farmer crafter wannabe. I spent the day in an office with cold toes, creating invoices for bike parts and using my limited computer know-how to update our website. I help my Dad in his Ural motorcycle business for some extra pocket money and because I like to.

That's my Mum (more about Mum soon) and my Dad in/on a Ural sidecar.

I was happy to be in out of the New England chill, but by this evening I had started to think about tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be a farmer again, but still only a crafter wannabe.

I will go and inspect our new dam and dream about what it will look like with water in it... Well, a proper amount of water in it. I will feed the sheep and dream about the grass growing. I will take my doggies for a run and dream about a time when I live where they do and I can let them run all the time.

That's Teddy and Jim. They love being farmers.

All the while, I will dream about crafting too.