April Miscellany

 

It's been a very busy month though I now have to look at my calendar to remember what kept me so busy.  I'm also a week away from my Paris vacation and have piles of clothes and things around my bedroom that I might take.  Final decisions will be made later this week.

My parents' house is now on the market.  Hubby and I went there 2 or 3 times to do some landscaping, vacuuming, and fix the back door.  It now has a sign in front and everything.  Our agent had an open house yesterday so I'm anxious to hear if she got any bites.  The house at the end of the street seems to have sold for about $16,000.00 less than they were originally asking. I think that's a good sign.  If our sells for the same amount, it will be good.

The Artisans of Western Mass. finally found a venue for a craft fair we've been trying to have for about 2 years.  We've signed a contract with the Pushkin Gallery in Greenfield.  We did have a smaller show a couple years back in Northampton, but this, we hope, will be the beginning of a yearly event.  Local ARTery will take place on Saturday,  May 19, from 10-5.  Check the website for a list of artisans who will be there.

In the meantime, my gardening skills have tanked.  I haven't grown any vegetables for 2 years because of soil issues.  This year I find that my tulips are only producing leaves.  Doing a little research online I find that there are a number of reasons why this is.  Mostly it's that the bulbs have been damaged by soil, temperature or some other conditions.  I pulled a couple of them out and found that they looked like someone took a bite out of them.  Could it be those nasty squirrels?




Anyway, I've decided to just pull them all out and plant some new ones in the fall.

Jansjems next craft event will be on April 21 on the Amherst town common. The Sustainability Festival is a yearly event that promotes clean energy and sustainable products.  We'll be there with our steampunk jewelry along with a few other AWM members.  We have lots of new designs to pick from so stop by our tent and look around.

As for the rest of the week,  I'll continue working on regaining some of my high school French for the trip.  

Au revoir jusqu'à ce que mon prochain poste lorsque je vous apporteraides photos de ma vacance Parisienne.  A bientot.

Jewelry Artist Storage -- The Satisfaction of Being Organized.

I'm not making jewelry at the moment, actually not for a couple of weeks now.  Even if I needed to I just haven't had time.  But last week I did spend some time organizing my work area.  Oh, those hoarder shows are soooo inspirational!

I'm usually pretty organized -- a place for everything and everything in its place so I can find it again.  Yes, that library mentality.  But when I'm working, my space is chaos.  And somehow I'm not bothered by it as I'm so "in the moment".  During this last round of creations, though, I bought a few new toys (there's always something new that you just need to try) and there was just no place to put them. And, as I didn't have time to clean up, the room was a mess.

Wandering into Pier One last month I came across a cabinet that was on sale as the right side door wouldn't stay closed all the way.  It looked spacious and the doors folded back against the sides exposing the whole interior.  It was almost 1/2 price and I had a vision.

Hubby is pretty handy. So I ordered some of those wooden roll out trays and we customized the cabinet.  It not only holds most of my tools and equipment, I can pull out the trays and have lots of stuff visible and within arm's reach.

Unfortunately I didn't take any "before" pictures.  But these pictures are what it looks like once I get everything hidden away.  Of course it won't stay that way once I start working again. But in between creative periods I can actually let our new cat into the room.

♫ I'm So Tired...♫

About 5 or 6 years ago I told my husband that if we didn't remodel our house then, we'd be too old to do it ourselves later.  So we gutted 2 bathrooms and the kitchen, opened up a wall, laid hardwood floors and tiled.  Mostly by ourselves.  We worked on 1 room at a time and it took us almost 2 years to finish it all.

Well, I was right that I'd never have the energy to do all that now.  We've spent 3 days at my parents' home, mostly painting.  Five hours on a ladder and I'm totally wiped.  Not to mention covered in paint.  And we didn't even paint all the rooms; just the 4 that looked particularly bad.



Once upon a time I thought that when I inherited the house I'd do all kinds of remodeling.  It's a big house, solidly built, and has lots of potential.  It's decor is just stuck in the 50s.  But the market in my hometown just keeps dropping.  No one is moving there.  The house lost $12000 in value in just the last year.  I fear we'll have to practically give it away.  It's really sad.

But I'm tired.  Tired of calling and scheduling various contractors to fix pieces of this 60 year old house.  We had the back porch rebuilt, wet wall in one of the showers replaced, the basement waterproofed, plumbing updated, the carpets removed, and hardwood floors refinished, and asbestos removed from the furnace.  And tired of painting.  One last trip in the next week or so for a thorough cleaning and I'll hand it off to a real estate agent.

Anyone looking for a house in the suburbs of Worcester with genuine 1950s decor?  On a quiet dead end street, town sewer,town water.  Replacement windows, new roof, newly rewired, full basement waterproofed & guaranteed not to get water, hardwood floors, 4+ bedrooms, 2 full baths, 1 car garage, small yard so little maintenance.  Contact me.

First Craft Show of the Season

Valentine's Day is tomorrow and my first show of the year, Handmade with Love, was successful though I only sold one piece with hearts all day.

Karen & Aviva had organized a craft show twice last year in the same space at Eastworks.  Both times I sold a lot of steampunk and a few fine silver pieces.  This time, with the exception of a pair of steampunk earrings, I sold all silver pieces.  I created a lot of new designs in January and felt pretty good about them.  It was so nice to see customers seemed to like them too.  But does that mean that steampunk has lost its steam?

The same craft show can be so different from year to year.  You get different customers, or the same customers whose tastes have changed.  One year half your customers pay with American Express and the next they use primarily cash.

In the pages on the left of this blog I write craft show reviews.  In trying to be helpful I try to cover traffic, type of traffic, and what people are buying.  But I'm never sure if that helps artisans find a good show for next year.  So much seems to change even in a stable economy.

My next event is the Sustainability Festival in Amherst in April.  In the past it's been a great venue for steampunk jewelry.   Maybe this year I should bring a few silver pieces as well.

Jansjems' table is just after the "girl with the curl, right in the middle of her forehead."

Handmade with Love--February Edition

If you enjoy shopping for handmade crafts and maybe even sometimes buying handmade, you'll love this small craft show that takes place at Eastworks in Easthampton, MA, on Feb.11.   In a small room on the right hand side of the building you'll find a group of 20-25 local artisans exhibiting their work which runs from the traditional to the unique.


 It's only a few days to Valentine's Day so Jansjems will be there with every heart in our jewelry collection--hearts with pearls, fine silver hearts, hearts with gemstones, steampunk hearts, and even a few red & pink ones.

Easthampton has an Artwalk the 2nd Saturday of each month.  It doesn't start until 5pm so Eastworks would be a great place to stop earlier to take a stroll through Handmade with Love and maybe have an early supper at Riff's Joint.

What kinds of things will you find at Handmade with Love?  Well, jewelry for sure.  And not just mine.  Heather Black and Amy Love have lovely gemstone jewelry.  Glimmerstone is a bead weaver and her work is truly unique. And there will be others.



The Little Birch Shop had body products.  You'll find sculptured paperworks, Lou's bags and wallets made from recycled plastics,quilted items, and purses from handwoven fabrics.



It's supposed to be sunny, so come on out to see us. There's no admission fee.

And the first 50 people through the door get free goodie bags.

New Steampunk Continued

Well the box finally arrived from Virginia.  The box with all the new steampunk style jewelry my younger daughter has been working on for a month or two.  Unlike my designs, hers have some color.  She used heat treated copper in a few to give them a warm glow.



She sent a few that include industrial hardware and watch parts on very feminine filligree findings.






She's experimented with something she calls ice resin.  She captures small watch parts and hardware or even a stamp in this clear resin that's set into a bezel cup or old watch frame.










She also sent some bracelets and several pair of earrings.
These watch faces I particularly like.

So Jansjems is now pretty well set for 2012, at least until summer.  We have a lot of new pieces in both silver and steampunk.  Our  first craft fair is this Saturday, Feb 11, at Eastworks in Easthampton.   Hope to see some of you there.

Photographers in Western Mass.

love jewelry and I can create jewelry from many different types of material.  And while I sew a little, knit a little, and crochet a little, photography is beyond me.  Good photography, that is.  You can probably tell that just by looking at the pictures of my jewelry in my Jansjems Shop that I'm still learning.

As a member of both the Artisans of Western Mass. and the Made in Western Mass. team on Etsy, I've come across a few talented local people who understand light and perspective and take phenomenal photographs.  So I thought I'd introduce you to them:

I've never met Moti Zemelman who lives in Northampton, but I love his work.  The photo above is from his travels in Central America. I love that it's calming yet colorful.   And I also found this one "inspired by the Steampunk esthetic", a genre I've come to appreciate these last few years.


Cate Woolner takes stunning photos in places as diverse as Antactica and Martha's Vineyard.  While I've been to the Vineyard and love how she's captured its beauty, I'm just in awe of the scenery from the frozen continent. 

Susan Elkin is from Greenfield.  Her photographs are of rural and urban landscapes.  For me many of them say "home."

Jenn Burdick lives in Deerfield and I've never met her either.  But I've looked at her photographs on Etsy a few times.  I'm drawn to photos that focus in on simple, rather ordinary things.  So I guess that's why I like this one.

                                                   
But my favorite local photographer is Patrick Zephyr.  I see him occasionally at local shows and always have to stop and admire his nature photography.  While many of his pictures are digitally altered, they are all mesmerizing.

I think this whirl pool is pretty well known.











But his amphibians are traffic stoppers.