Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Orinda Clearance Sale this Saturday

     I am having a clearance sale at the Orinda Holiday Bazaar this coming Saturday, Nov. 21 at the Orinda Community Center -  248 Orinda Way, 94563. It is right next to the library.
This is a one day show, and the hours are rather short. 10a-4p.

     The show itself has gone on for many years  now, and it helps the Community Center there fund some of their programs, like the Orinda Music in the Parks series. So it is a good cause. It is a small show, and it is not exclusively "handmade" items. There are some interesting imports, Narsai David food items, and lots of locally made things.

     All of my necklaces will be 40% off, 50% for two or more. I will have a small selection of bracelets and earrings. The bulk of the sale will be necklaces, since the majority of my work is necklaces!

     I will have a few glass pendants available as well, but only a few. They will be 40% off as well, 50% for two or more.

   I am hoping to get some items on sale from my studio that just never made it to a show for one reason or another. I will be in the studio the next few days searching for these items, so I can't really list them yet. There may be earrings too!

 The Orinda Communty Center is next to the Library on Orinda Way. It is the first Orinda exit as you come from San Franciso on 24 east through the Caldicott tunnel. It is on the north side of the freeway.

Just in case these directions are less than accurate:

Here is the link to the Orinda Community Center's location.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Orinda+Community+Center/@37.8829462,-122.1878097,15z/data=!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x0:0x8f7f493a3edc67a3!2sOrinda+Community+Center!3m1!1s0x0:0x8f7f493a3edc67a3

New Word- Scatoma

I love it when I learn a new word.
At the Sacramento Arts Festival last weekend I had a FUN husband come along with his wife. He helped me out with a new word that I find  intriguing. Not only is it a new word, it is a concept that I was totally aware of, but had never actually thought about. I am sure you all will think the same thing.

The word is scatoma, and the best definition I could quickly come up with was "visual items in your world that you've seen so often that you no longer see them". I am sure if I went to the dictionary I could find a much more elegant definition, but this is my blog so I like my own description.

So in my world this helps me out a lot. I am not really a house keeper. The difference between everyone who says they hate housework, and me, is that I hate it, and so don't do it. Maybe I hate it more than most. Maybe it's because I never had children, and the thought of poisonous germs emigrating into small mouths was never a concern. Maybe it's because I never, ever wanted to be housewife, since growing up in th 60's, that is pretty much what was expected of me. Whatever, I just don't do it. I would like to tell you that I don't do it because I am self employed, and just too busy. While this is true, it isn't totally true, since I didn't do a lot of cleaning when I worked for someone else.

So "scatoma" really helps me out here. As my floors get dirtier, I really don't see it. As the refrigerator turns into a mess, I don't see that either. It is really a marvelous thing. How about a really new word : 

"scatomassy"- the messy actions of a person who is messy and doesn't see it. Used in a sentance - "She is very scatomassy and doesn't know it". 
Or, scatomatic, or scatomatossis,....I could go on and on. Now I'm going to have to go to the dictionary to see if these do exist!



Wednesday, October 7, 2015

San Carlos this Weekend

     The big San Carlos Art and Wine show is this weekend, downtown San Carlos. People LOVE this show. I hear about it all year. There is a diversity of work, from candles to sculpture.
     I had a busy week last week, with the Menlo Trunk show, and the three day show downtown Menlo Park. It was a crazy good week, so I need to get out to the studio and MAKE stuff for San Carlos. I hope I surprise myself!

   Here is a picture of Lin from the trunk show in her new Fun Girls Acid yellow crusty bead necklace. So fun on her!!

OH...my booth in San Carlos is #680 on Laurel St., near Cherry.

PLEASE post below if you think a Clearance Sale in Orinda this year would be FUN....

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Global Warming Makes Artist Move Away From Coveted Location

     Sorry about the headline. I am feeling a little dramatic right now.
     This has not been a FUN year for weather. Doing business outside is a precarious thing anyhow, but this year has been difficult. While not as hot as other years, the wind has finally wore me down. Seriously. I give. And I have given.... many damaged pieces to the Wind Goddess this year, and I am done donating to her.
  This coming weekend in Montclair Village I have asked to be moved from a premium corner booth location  to avoid the wind. Pretty drastic, really, if you have any idea of how hard it is to relinquish that spot. But that is the way it is, and I will happily be located on Mountain Blvd. just a stone's throw away from that nasty corner. No more relentless sunshine, no more Chicken Roti truck rumbling in my ear during the Farmer's Market, and hopefully no more donations to the Goddess.


Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Manhattan Sea Shells

     I don't think I blogged about my trip to NYC last May. It was mostly a fun trip, but of course there were some jewelry related tasks that I wanted to accomplish while I was there.
    One of those tasks was to seek and find a mythical jewelry supply house somewhere in the canyons of Manhattan. I took two trains to find it, and of course with my mighty Iphone maps, it wasn't too difficult to locate. The "warehouse" was 6 rooms on the second floor of a many floored building. The elevator emptied right into one of those rooms. Stepping out, it was necessary to avoid tramping all over items spilled from one of the hundreds of boxes lined up against every wall, 3 to 4 layers deep. Some rooms were messier than others but it was so amazing to see something so much messier than my own chaotic studio! It was over whelming from the first step out of the elevator.
     I searched every room, but of course I didn't see a fraction of the merchandise. There was  pearl section, but it was easy to assess that not one real pearl lived there. That was easy to pass by. There was a chain "corner" of one room, and the walkway was carpeted with pieces of chains layered a few inches thick. Of course, there wasn't a piece of sterling chain in the place.
    After hunting for hours, looking for a treasure, it came to me that I was wasting my vacation time. But I had already invested travel time, searching time, and I was empty handed. How disappointing. I kept at it for a while, but it finally became obvious that this was where all the cheap, crappy costume jewelry parts in the world came to die.
     But then  the gift of absolute clarity came, that I used QUALITY components in my work- beautiful real pearls, authentic, unusual stones, my own one of a kind glass beads. Not this crap.
      I was free now to resume my vacation.
     But I did howeve find a few treasures from this frustrating search. I found seashells in a box  overflowing with really bad beads. I had to buy something, but I have never worked with seashells before. Capitola came to mind, and I thought it would be fun to make something beachy for Capitola. So the seashells came home with me, and I am so glad  now. The two pieces I made from these shells are so beautiful, and I find them quite different from other touristy shell pieces I have noticed. I hope you think so too!





Tuesday, August 25, 2015

She Looked for Me for 13 Years

   I was "waitlisted" for the Palo Alto show last weekend, and my name didn't get drawn from the waitlist hat, so I didn't get a booth.
      My husband does that show with his watercolors, so I was there with him anyhow, but it would be great to actually do that show. Maybe next year.

   It amazes me how relaxed the shows are from the other side of the "booth".  Of course, since I wasn't working, I was totally relaxed. I did meet a few friends and sell a few pieces, but the story I want to tell you about here really amazed me.

   I was sitting outside my husband's booth, people watching. Of course I like to look at everyone's jewelry, shoes and clothes. This isn't something I can do easily when I am working. The crowd was thin at the time, so I clearly saw a woman walking towards me from a good distance away, and something about her simple long necklace drew my eye. As she walked closer, I couldn't keep from staring at the unidentifiable object hanging from her long chain. I jumped up and approached her, and I could then see it was one of my glass hearts! I can't believe my eye knew what this was before my brain. Like a crazy person, I pointed to the heart and said " I made that!" I could tell from the size and color that it was a very early heart, made when I first started  the hearts.
         She said, "I am here looking for you!"
        What an amazing coincidence. 
         She bought the heart about 13 years ago at a San Mateo Italian festival my husband and I did only once. She said over the years she has received so many compliments on the glass that she wanted to buy one for her best friend. So she came to Palo Alto looking for me. She didn't even know my business name!
       So now I have a list for my next glass session, and these little hearts are at the top of the list. I love it when the Universe sends me an indisputable message of WHAT to MAKE! I also really admired the way she wore the heart on a very long simple chain. I think I will work on making those available too.



Tuesday, August 4, 2015

      I have had some of this unique pearl for a few years now.  It is so unusual, and I love to tell the story of how I found it at Tucson. If you have been in my booth in the last two years, you have heard the whole story.
      Last weekend at the Menlo Park show,  I was talking about this unique pearl and I said that it was a very good quality, very weird pearl, and that it took a long time for the mussel to make such a quality pearl. Out of my mouth came the statement that this pearl will either  be copied by other pearl manufacturers, or will never be seen again, once the original crop has been sold out.
      But I finally GOT  that this pearl may never be available again, I got home and  immediately called my supplier.
      I hate it when I am right sometimes.  They are gone. Perhaps we will see it again in the future, or  maybe not. I wish I had bought more now! I have a few left, and I will judiciously plant them in fabulous necklaces!

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Bespoke

     August 1. This happens every year, and every year I am amazed it is here so fast.

     My last show in Menlo Park was really fun. I had a GREAT sales assistant, and it was good for me to know that I wouldn't miss seeing or greeting anyone. Some of the shows are too busy for me alone and I know there are times when I don't give the personalized attention to everyone in the booth that they deserve.
      Which brings me to the subject of this blog post. I was unfamiliar with this word, bespoke, and I have always thought I had a pretty good vocabulary. I can't say I have worked to develop my vocabulary. I think it is linked to my disability with numbers, like if you are magically good at one, you suck at the other. So when I heard this word..bespoke.. I was surprised that I really didn't know what it meant. Thank the Goddess for Google.
/be'spok/
British
Bespoke is an adjective for anything commissioned to a particular specification.

     So imagine my surprise that this new word is exactly what I do. Coincidence? My new word made me realize that a major part of what I do is customized my designs for each customer, if desired. Of course a lot of jewelry is purchased as is, luckily, being a great fit right from the get go. But a lot of what I "do" is see where the piece looks best on each individual, and then custom size/adjust the piece. I can change certain elements if one isn't that great on a specific person. I can change the clasp to suit personal taste. So, basically I have a bespoke business. What a great word!
     I have found out the hard way, however, that I don't work as well on commissions that do not include my personal material choices. Sometimes I am asked to work with items the customer already has. This is not my favorite thing to do, and I hate to say I will usually say no, reluctantly to this request. My work is most heavily invested in the choices of my eye, and if that is not engaged, I struggle to design the piece. Not Fun. And if it's not fun, what's the point?







Tuesday, April 7, 2015

West Portal Ave: San Francisco Sidewalk Art Show This Friday, Saturday and Sunday

 I'll be a the corner of Vicente and West Portal Ave. in San Francisco this weekend for the Spring Sidewalk ARt Show. I am so thankful it is raining like crazy  right now, so this weekend will probably be cold, but dry. San Francisco is miserable when it is cold and rainy. Don't believe anyone who tells you differently!

Here is a new earring I am making this season. It is an Industrial diamond...herkimer diamonds that is! Nestled inside an industrial link. A totally unusual marriage, a little bling, and a little hard edge.
$49.

About Me

My photo
Calaveras County, California, United States
I love the stones and pearls, and the magic that happens when I combine them, and then again combined with the glass I make. You can find me at an Art show somewhere in Northern California most weekends during the spring and summer. Email me at FUNGIRLSJEWELRY@Gmail.com if you like.