New Website

It's finished, It's live!!! I'm soooo excited! Tonight I did some finishing touches, although I'm sure they aren't the last touches, to my website. www.crymsonflower.com. Mom and I have been working on it for months now, and I'm so excited that it's ready to be used regularly.

The new site has a blog built into it, so that means this will be my last blogger blog. Everyone who has me linked or bookmarked please change your links. I'm not deleting this blog b/c I did not upload the last two years of posts to the new site. So if ever you feel the need to read my old babblings this is the place to look.

other than that I'll see you on the new site!

my mermaid

She's something a bit different from my usual wire and bead combos, but I was having the hardest time getting inspired to work today. I've been making leaves for the last two days that left me in a funk. The copper and sterling silver wire used in the mermaid was from the big order I mentioned a couple weeks ago. I've been playing with it in small doses slowly working it into flowers. Today I started curling some wire and it turned into her. I love her! She's pretty big, maybe about 7inches tall. She used up a lot of the sterling I had, but she's well worth it. Her tail is mostly turquoise with some coral, lapis chips mixed in. And her fin at the bottom are pieces of shell. I wanted her hair to be very funky and to really stand out from her more earthy toned tail. It's bright red, one cut seed beads, with some copper thrown in for sparkle. I also gave her a bit of a perm. The face was a little bit of a struggle to decide to use it or not. The wild hair almost doesn't quite fit with the peaceful face, but I imagine even the most wild of mermaids need to relax at some point. I have yet to name her, but will let you know when I find something acceptable.

a value???

I've made the decision to submit Jamaican Sun to the Peoria Art Guild's Member's Exhibit. It was a hard decision to make, b/c Strawberry Plant is also very important to me. The best advice I was given on how to choose was by the curator of the event and she told me to pick my favorite....and she shrugged when I said they're both my favorites! Not that I feel the need to explain myself, but I feel that right now Jamaican Sun represents my more current work. So I now have two dilemmas... the first is although the piece is not for sale I have to mark a value on it. To me that's easy...it's priceless. I wouldn't sell it for any amount of money.
So then I started to try and think how much I would charge someone else if they wanted me to make them a bouquet... still not very easy. I found a number I wouldn't want to go under, that seemed fair. It's lower than what I'd put on mine but bouquets are very personal and would require a lot of one on one to make sure it's just right for the person....but this has digressed b/c the Exhibit doesn't want the value of a bouquet I'd make for someone else, it wants the value of Jamaican Sun.
Next I try another route to come up with a value...how much is a fresh flower wedding bouquet, and how much for the freeze drying/preservation so that the bouquet will last forever. I talked to a girl I know that was married a year and a half ago. Got a number $120 (2dozen roses), and she even was nice enough to describe my bouquet to her florist, and without seeing it got another number, $75. I did a good search and found that fresh flower bouquets can range from $60-500, with the average being between $80-150. Another google search found that freeze drying a bouquet would cost roughly $150. The high end of the average bouquet plus preservation is too low a number for Jamaican Sun, to me at least.
My final attempt to rationalize this decision was to look at what other people are pricing their flowers at. I found this girl's website www.naturesbeadedreflection.com I'd never seen this site until just this week. It's a really good site, her flowers are amazing, and priced for amazing work. Her prices make my prices seem cheap. Is my work equivalent to hers...I'm not really thinking so, but I don't think I'm far behind.
I guess I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around finding value. It's depends on how you think of this...is it art? that alone hikes the price up. Or is it craft and if so then maybe it shouldn't be in the gallery. Do you think business wise...what would someone or even I pay for this service? Or is it just some number that sounds good when it rolls off the tongue? Who makes these rules up and where do I fit in?

greens are out and about

Last night for dinner Miranda and I went out for breakfast! I love breakfast food, and Chris is not such a huge fan. So we never have breakfast food other than sugar coated cereal in the house. It was soooo good, eggs, bacon, and hotcakes. =0) probably not too healthy but well worth a few calories.
Also after the encouragement to finish a few flowers completely, I dug out my green beads. Miranda helped string them onto wire, and I completed three large leaves, and have enough beads strung for another two leaves. I have two small bouquets that need lacing, and need a few smaller leaves. After that I'll have a couple more things to add to my completely finished pile! While playing with greens I found some colors that I hadn't seen in a while. And they clicked with an idea that I've been toying with for months. So I snuck in a couple small sparkly green leaves for the new project. I'm liking they way they look! This will be a large project, and I think I'm ready for another big one. I have lots of ideas for it, I just need to weed through them to see what is feasible.

Success!

I just now flipped through the 500 plus photos I took of only like 6 pieces and I think I actually got some good ones. I'm not much of a photographer, in fact my philosophy on taking pictures is take as many as possible b/c that will increase the chances of getting at least one good one. So as soon as I get some computer time I should be able to go through the pics more thoroughly and put them in templates and upload. That will be a long day, and I'm hoping it'll happen some time this week.

Here's some pics of my latest and greatest. Well at least a flower that I'm very excited about. I started it last week, and finished it up over the weekend. It doesn't have leaves yet b/c I'm trying to decide whether it should stand alone or if I should come up with some smaller flowers and make it a bouquet.


I have a hard time photographing yellows. They tend to blow out the pic. I really love this flower though. I used the green dichroic glass rectangles I got from the B+B show, and the light green bugles were also purchased there. I finished lacing this puppy up so really it's just down to leaves or bouquet.... I'll have to sleep on it.

patience

Although I have no pics to share I was very busy with my beads this weekend. I finished up the flower part of a flower I started last weekend. I finished up the flower of a brand new flower. And I made petals for 3 more flowers. I also worked on attempting to photograph my older finished pieces for the new site. With the Peoria Art Guild Member's Show fast approaching I'm wanting the new site to go live soon. So I had planned on taking pics Saturday morning and then putting them in templates Sunday and uploading. Well...mother nature had other plans. It rained all day and night Friday, and Saturday was so cloudy and muggy that everything stayed wet all day long. It rained again a bit early Sunday morning, so it didn't start to dry off enough to take photos until early afternoon Sunday. I took a bunch of pics, but I haven't sorted through them yet. We also bought a wireless router so that I can do my pics for the website upstairs so Chris won't have to stop recording, but we're going to probably have to patiently wait until Jed can come set everything up for us.

I do have lots to share, so I'm hoping tonight I'll take some more photos and be able to soon. I'm going to have to dig out my greens and crank out some leaves. I have several bouquets (small ones) lined up and I'm anxious to call them done. I'm really hoping that I'll enjoy working with the greens, b/c I have some really fun ideas and now I have the time to start on them. They all involve LOTS of leaves!

First Night of Summer

Last night was the official first night of summer, although I think summer started a couple weeks ago when temps starting hitting the 90s. Last night was also our first really BIG storm in our house. It took a while for it to roll in, we'd been hearing distant thunder for a couple hours before the real storm actually hit. Around 10 at night it was full blast, so before we went to bed we stood on the deck and watched the lightning show. The sky was tinted red and the trees were all blowing in different directions. The lightning would strike and each rain drop would reflect the light of the lightning so that it looked as if it were raining thousands of diamonds. It was really amazing. I love storms. I remember as a kid staying up late every time there was a storm. My head was glued to my window that was under the bed and I would watch the lighting come closer and closer and then go farther and farther away. I loved when it would just barely rain in the window, and the sound of wet tires on the road when cars drove by. Last night I fell sound asleep to the sound of thunder and rain hitting the windows. I woke up once in the night around 4 to more thunder.
It's supposed to rain all weekend. Hopefully we'll get some more good storms.

ramble

I got my orders when we returned from camping this weekend. The short story of camping was that it was in a really beautiful area of Illinois. We were in Savanna right on the Mississippi River. And it was HOT! Summer is definitely here. But we had a good time, we didn't do much, just hung around the campsite. Played frisbee and catch, I beaded a few flowers, and he worked on his music. Saturday afternoon it started to pour and thunder, and by early evening we decided to call it quits early. So when we got home I found my orders waiting for me.

I haven't taken any photos of my orders yet, but I was thrilled and nervous to get them. I immediately started playing with the wire. I bought an assortment of sizes of both sterling silver and copper wires. I think I need to place one more order just to get all the sizes I really do need, I just didn't realize I'd need them until I started to play. I also got my sheet metal and saw. The saw blades are tiny! I'm a little more nervous to start playing around with this. I think I need a little more of a game plan than what I have right now.

I did lots of beading over the weekend and so I hope to get to taking pics soon. As of now there aren't any huge plans for the weekend, so I think I'm going to spend some time retaking photos of my work for the new blog/website. I also want to work on some ideas I had with the wire.

which one?

I received the application to the Member's Exhibit at the Peoria Art Guild. It's not really an application, because I submit one piece and it will be displayed. The Leo in me was a little disappointed that there won't be a jury at the exhibit, but at least this will be some exposure. The exhibit runs July 13th through Aug 25. I also can choose whether I want the piece to be up for sale or not. But that is a whole nother problem of pricing!
So now I have the hard choice of picking one piece. I've narrowed it down to three, all of which I've shown on here before.


Jamaican Sun, this was my wedding bouquet and is featured in the Your Work Gallery in this year's June issue of Bead and Button. This of course would not be up for sale.







Strawberry Pot, this is another one of my favorite pieces. I love this piece and could never sell it. It won third place in a bead contest at a local bead shop near Chicago.

Two Palms, is the newest piece of the two. It's different than my normal work, but I think it is a lot of fun. This piece I would sell, although I haven't a clue for how much. It took forever to make all that water.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!