Autumnal giveaway at Tree Wings Studio

Autumn is beautiful. Today the sun is shining down on the colourful aronia bushes and trees from a blue sky -- and yesterday I found these sweet little critters in my blog feed. And, lucky for us, Rebekah of Tree Wings Studio is giving them away! I mostly share giveaways/challenges/contests via Pinterest, but these are something special worth mentioning here too in case someone reads this blog but not follows me on Pinterest.

If you love her polymer clay work you might also be interested in knowing that she's having an autumn sale too at the moment.15 % off through monday, 14/10 (which is also the last day of the giveaway).

Read all about the sale and giveaway in her blog.

The old newbie box

I recently picked down this box from the top of the cabinet and dusted it off. It's been a long time since I was even near it. The last time I handled it, it was only to put it away.

So what is it then? You might guess from what you can see in it (and even more from the name of this post). It's a box of some of my first jewellery, much of the stuff I made during the first couple of years. Some of it I'm still proud of, some is very average, some is nice and some of it is just plain awful or embarrassing now that I can see weaknesses and lack of skills that I couldn't when I made the pieces (and were proud of them). Just like it should be in many ways: the box illustrate my learning curve, the different materials and techniques I explored and some of my creative ideas and playful challenge entries.

But I didn't just pull this box out for the nostalgia. Facing this mess of jewellery of various quality, the question I ask myself is: should I keep all this or should I take some of the weaker and/or less important pieces apart?

Now, I'm one of those people that tell new beaders to keep all their finished pieces so they can use them to see their progress, which is hard to do without concrete examples from different stages in the journey. If not possible to keep a piece, then at least document it by taking photos and saving in a folder for the same reason.

But how much is useful to save and how long is it useful to save it? I mean, some pieces are very important to me as the are the result of something important I learned. The first bead-woven piece, the first advanced wirework piece, that piece that made it feel like I'd found my style, the first piece to win a prize in a contest or challenge, the first piece with an advanced design made 100 % by me and so on. And to that can be added pieces that have special memories attached, the result of a fun bead forum challenge or a piece I made for a special occasion (like the Charred tears necklace I made after one of our cats died).

I should perhaps also add that this box do not include my favourite pieces that I wear now and then, it's just the "leftovers" so to speak. And the forgotten pieces -- I did for example find a pair of earrings I'd totally forgotten about even though I was so pleased with them back when I made them! Which tells me I really need to go through this box and sort out more favourites that deserve a better place.

But the question remains what to do with the rest. Keep it in the box as memories? Take them apart and reuse or destash the beads (still have photos of most)? Back in the box of out of the dusty, partially forgotten box for good? Of cause, it's matter of looking at each piece and decide: a keeper or a source of beads for a new project?

I have no idea how many pieces I can bare to take apart. It's normally not something I enjoy, but I do also realise that I can't keep everything, especially if it's just to sit there in a box totally forgotten and only seen by the occasional invading spider. These are often pieces that aren't good enough to give away to whomever wants it despite any flaws or weak designs -- and definitely not good enough to put up for sale should I finally take the step to sell my work. So there are just two options, to keep or to take a deep breath and tell myself it's ok because now the beads can be used for better pieces.

Maybe I end up finding reasons to save each and every pieces seen in these pics, but even when first opening the box I saw a few pieces that made me cringe and think they were a waste of good (or at least ok) beads. There should be a reason for saving something, just as there should be a reason for not doing it. It's a bit daunting and I have very mixed feelings just sitting here writing about it, but I think in the end this is a good thing to do.  Even if I end up putting everything back or if I fight my feelings of guilt about taking a couple of the pieces apart for something new (or for giving away/selling). *sigh*

It's funny how I, upon taking the box down, was so set on culling the "collection" and how the thought now makes me so hesitant. The thought of taking apart some pieces that I don't like and barely even remembered that I had, pieces that I, in some cases, didn't even like when they were made. Harder to let go than I thought...

Aronia in the autumn

Well, I've got 176 autumn photos, mainly of leaves, but didn't have time today to got through them and pick out which ones to post so I ended up just picking one -- of aronia with its beautiful, beautiful leaf colours -- to play with in the photo editing software. I call it höstmys which might have been the name of the post too if I knew how to translate that into english.

And on that same theme, I'm spending time adding some photos to my Candlelight and light ideas pinterest board. Mainly candles, including some creative hand-dipped branch candles. So check it out if you too need some candlelight now that the sun sets so early (yeah, I know, don't remind me that it's still late as the sun sets after 6 o'clock unlike in midwinter...).

Meowy Monday: Cat photos of the week

I was planning to skip the Meowy Monday post today as it's such a dull day you just want to stay in bed, or rather -- considering I managed to get up earlier today -- get back into bed as fast as possible. Yesterday I got photos of brilliant autumn leaves bathing in sun, today it's just wet and grey. Autumn sure changes quickly -- luckily, it changes back to those beautiful sunny days too. It's not november yet. And grey doesn't have to be too bad: I got a few more photos today and captured colours just as pretty as yesterday.

Yesterday, how ever, I also caught Mimi on camera as she started follow me around while I was taking photos. Had a bunch of other cats with me first when I was in the garden, but when going down to the greenhouse it was instead Mimi that that tagged along.

Being in a very playful mood she ran around, hit me in the face with her paw, stretched against trees -- and, finally, zoomed up the greenhouse room. Have no idea how a cat can scale a greenhouse that quickly! She was as fast as lightning, getting up there.

Of cause, roof ridges are the places for washing yourself if you're a cat. Even if the space isn't much wider than you and washing means having to move from one slightly unstable position to another. (Now you might say "well, they're cats, they're good at this sort of things", but I think all cat owners have seen their cats trying to lick themselves sitting somewhere stupid, resulting in hilarious falls. Hilarious for the humans, that is -- especially if it's being filmed.)

You know you're a beader when...

... you have the nightmare I just had last night. Now, I don't normally chat about my dreams, but this one was sort of fun in retrospect. Or weird depending on if you are (or understand) a beader or not.

It was a simple, short dream/nightmare. It all started with me coming home only to realise that someone had broken into the house. The thieves had gotten in through the door to the "bead room" and had taken all my beads and the cabinet with all my paints. Probably also my tools and fabric and yarn stash, but I don't know as I was so upset by the loss of the beads. It was horrible, like the worst thing imaginable. And here's the thing: they'd only entered the bead room and taken my whole bead stash. Nothing else. The other rooms where fine and not one other thing was taken. But they'd taken my beads! My stash that I've been gathering for years and which mainly is made up of modern seed beads and czech beads, but also include some unique vintage beads, antique 30/0 seeds, unusual pendants and hard-to-find components. It was such a nightmare. I'd been less upset if they'd taken the telly, computer and credit card! I was really grieving the loss of the beads. Completely forlorn.

And then I woke up, happily realising it was just a dream and that I still have my precious collection of beads in the room below. So relieved!


Now, in retrospect I have to wonder what kind of thieves steal acrylic paints and glass beads but not flat-screen tellies, jewellery and money/credit cards. Not that we have much fancy stuff or expensive jewellery, but even a stupid thief would surely nick a gold-plated necklace thinking it was precious metal rather than stack up on craft supplies, right? In fact, I've even thought for myself that I'm not afraid of burglars because they would never understand the value of my bead stash (which is the most valuable thing I own pretty much) and thus leave it alone. But maybe there are burglars who bead or just have learned to spot an expensive finish on Delicas and identify fancy vintage swarovski crystals? I hope not!

Copper and lime/chartreuse

I don't know... am I weird for loving this colour combo? I know I have a couple of colour combos that no one seems to like as much as I do. This might be one of them -- or is there others out there that likes this too?

It's especially the mix of coppery autumn leaves and yellow-green foliage as you can see in these pics of wild strawberry plants and fallen horse-chestnut leaves. There's just something about the brilliance of the colours that I fall for even if such bright lime/chartreuse colours, almost neon at times, isn't usually my cup of tea (OT: I don't like tea so tea isn't my cup of tea either). Perhaps it's the environment in which I find these colours that does it. The garden when summer turns into autumn with leaves often bright and crisp as they've been washed by a rain shower or covered by dew after a cold night. Add to that the warm light from a sun that sets early -- now more to the west than during summer and thus in a straight angle to the garden.

This isn't a new thing either, not a sudden love of an eye-catching colour that'll fade as fast as it came (as my current interest in neon pink -- have suddered at the mere mentioning of neon, but loved them as a kid and kind of fell in love with that crazy colour again when neon came into fashion again). This is something I've been thinking of and enjoyed taking photos of for several years now -- see e.g. this post and others tagged autumn. But still I've probably never used the colour combo in my works. Probably because I worry about not finding the right beads, that the colours won't have the crisp vibrance they have in the leaves around the farm.

Alas, I just have to mention that there's a sad thing about these photos. Had I taken them these few last weeks it'd would've been nothing but lovely autumn photos, but they're taken on july 25th. In the middle of the summer our beautiful, big horse chestnut tree looked like this:

Half the tree never even got leaves this spring and the half that did started shedding them way too early. I so hope it isn't really diseased and have to come down. There's been something afflicting horse chestnut trees around the country for some years now and I hope this isn't it. I'd cry seeing this tree being cut down. It's always been there in the middle of the garden for as long as I can remember. Not an ideal climbing tree, we still tried to climb up it several times. We've played around it and gathered conkers and leaves every autumn when we were kids. It's not the farm's vårdträd ("warden tree"), I'd say the ash by the road is that, but it's still one of two remaining big trees in the garden (the other being the much older ash, the third used to be the century-old pear tree that snapped in a storm years ago and which is now but a stump though still alive). I just wish it has many more years left to live. It'd leave a big empty space behind if it died, not just literally in the garden but in my heart. I love our big, old trees.

The bead budget rant

Ok, so now that I'm well again I can afford to complain about my illness or rather what it did to my wallet. Now, first of all consider yourself warned after my use of the words 'rant' and complain': this is a somewhat whiny post. Short but whiny and full of self pity.

The frustrating part for me right now is that I have to completely redo my personal budget and plans on shopping this autumn as the cost of both Ubbi's and my illness (doctor/vet visits + meds) came out of my bead budget (which some of you at least knows only is refuelled when I have my seasonal job during spring and summer). Now, one could say I've got a lot of stuff already and it might just be good to dive into the stash and work with what you have, but you do need a little injection of new stuff every now and then -- and sometimes you need something specific for some projects, something you can't substitute. And add to that that there are things I've planned on buying for a long time, which makes me a bit disappointed now that I'm not sure I can afford it anymore. And I wanted to buy the new swarovski pearls because, you know, purple.

Just to taunt me, I got a sale catalogue from Panduro while ill. Gah, interesting bits and bobs for really reduced prices. (Though I rarely order because of the shipping costs anyway so my dented bead budget has little to do with my "torment" over whether to shop or not in this particular case).

So while I'm happy that both Ubbi and I have recovered and you can't put a price on that (it wasn't super expensive anyway, just felt like it because my budget is so very tight), I do feel somewhat down about what it did to my bead budget (not just beads despite the name, obviously, it also includes tools, embroidery supplies, paints etc). I'm an addict, I always want more and find it hard to resist a lot of things. It can be frustrating to have an idea, but having to stop halfway because there's something missing you can't buy. Saving up to buy something later is a real treat and so now it feel a bit like I've been cheated on a promised treat.

Of cause there's still a bit of the budget left (I think), but right now I'm feeling sorry for myself and see more of what I've lost and less of what I still have left. It'll change and I know how to live on a small budget even when it unexpectedly gets smaller, but I've had some big expenditures these last couple of months and it'll just take a little time to get passed the feeling of money just pouring out of the wallet. Just need to rant a little, vent it so I can get it out of the system and move on.