25 June 2008

Dawanda blog feature! Markt van Morgen! FREE NECKLACE! new collections! mild panic! Endicott Studio! Dr Horrible!

Well, the title says it all...I've got nothing else to add. :-p

The awesome news is that the Markt van Morgen got featured on the Dawanda blog! It also got mentioned on the German and the French part (I'll include links when they become available) of the site, reaching a big bunch of people. This is so great! Many thanks to William & Elizabeth of the English side of Dawanda. (for the connoisseurs there's die Deutsche Seite & le site francophone...)

They were so kind to mention my shop only now of all times it's totally empty...what a sorry sight! Because of the jewelry box of course. Yes. You can imagine I've got a lot of preparation still to do, building up a whole new collection in such short time is...well, a challenge. Hence the mild panic...

Here's a sneak preview of what I've made so far: chunky stones, sparkly orange & goldfish and bubbly silver!



But having to start from scratch also pushed my creativity, in the meantime I've worked out not one but two new collections, one you can see in the picture: I planned out to create a lighter (also more affordable) version of the duizendbloem necklaces: a silver chain, two silver rings, two glass beads. But before I knew it had developed a mind of its own, forcing me to use these exciting, for my style daring colors & color combinations and bead shapes! So you see, creativity is a lot like a cat. It will just barely endure you and just act as it pleases... ;-)
Quite possibly I'll just call it Bubbles. (wait-now I'm suspecting I had a My Little Pony called that once. In a sense that's actually fitting...LOL)

The idea for other collection came to me on the day the Endicott Studio Blog closed down... it was only my most favourite blog! It is a gem. I'll give it more attention in my inspiration blog, droomtijd, when I find time.
I didn't know it at the time, so after I had that Aha!-moment of my collection I paid a visit to their blog and found out about it. Somehow it seemed to be connected: this site taught me about integrating myths and fairy and folk tales in art/literature from all over the world, and there I was with a collection I wanted to call fairy tale fragments!
It's funny how things want names. And names only come when they are needed. I had been making jewelry for it for some time, I knew what it wanted to be, but I couldn't find a name for it until then!
Silver is definitely the protagonist in it, mostly forged pieces and soon precious metal clay too, with glass and gorgeous precious stones as guest stars. The pieces don't tell the whole tale, they're just elements, but they'll weave into your own.

And then I smack myself for not having thought of this name sooner. It's so obvious. LOL.

And now... for some FUN!!! :-D To celebrate Spring! Oh wait, I mean Summer! The end of the school year! The Upcoming Art Market! Wednesdays! Dissapearing Jewelry Boxes! Just Because! ;-)

Here's your chance to win one of my necklaces! :-D

It's this one (click to see it almost life size) ::::::::>

It's all OOAK, completely handmade, annealed, tested, signed, blahblah. I made it from a collection of poor orphaned glass beads, some are the very first I ever made (wooo! keep it safe, someday it might be worth a lot!) (or not :-p ). I was a bit sorry for them, eclectic bunch not getting any love, not bad enough to throw out (I don't do that, btw, I keep them all!), not fitting in with the others either. So I strung them up with some quartz and suddenly they became this cheery necklace! Gone were imperfection and being the odd ones out!

So these beads are so much fun to wear and awaiting their new owner!

What you have to do to in order to have a chance is comment to this blog entry. There's time until next week, wednesday June 2, 20.00h CET (Central European Time). Please make sure I can contact you! (If you feel uncomfortable sharing your email address then mail me at kristien [at] aarghh [dot] com after you commented here) All individual commenters will have one chance!

An innocent hand (or better: an internet application) will select the winner. Good luck to you all!

And with these happy words I leave you to delve into my studio (again)... not emerging before the art market I suspect! (only 17 days left omg help!)

P.S. one last little thing: a teaser trailer for Dr Horrible ("Soon coming to a computer near you" LOL) ( if you love Joss whedon, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day and Neil Patrick Harris) is up. Enjoy! :-D

12 June 2008

creative juice



via

:-p

(edit - fixed the video)

08 June 2008

I got featured in the Dawanda Shop Directory blog!

Thank you Sara! :-D

-She works with textures, both in fabric and paper, has a shop on etsy, dawanda and her own site AND manages (among others) to maintain the Dawanda Shop Directory blog all by herself and writes for DIY City Mag!

Actually, I got featured last Monday but with the loss of my jewelry I didn't really feel like announcing this lovely news...

But now almost a week has passed and I had my final exam for library school yesterday (it went fine, thanks for asking!). I have also been creating some new necklaces and earrings last week for the"light" collection of duizendbloem...really needed to do that!

And no, the box and the jewelry is still missing and I shouldn't hope on ever finding it or getting it back. But at least I have pictures of most, and some of them were used in Patrick's photoshoot last sunday so at least I have something beautiful to remember them by. Luckily I'm not a materialist, although the whole thing has made me a cranky idealist. I miss them!

That said, I have an art market in a bit more of a month and I'm planning to make the best of it!

Oh, P.S. de schele Rosse is now called Jack, or even Jack the Sixth! He's doing better, although it will take a long time before his cut will heal.

03 June 2008

nope, nothing.

Of course it wasn't at the lost & found both at the station and the police. And no, my name or address isn't on it, apart from my stamp on the silver (which just holds my initials). It wasn't meant to be anywhere but in my backpack.

In a way it's a compliment...LOL. Not to be brought to the lost & found right away. If I'd find a box full of mysterious jewelry I'd probably want to play with it for a bit first, before reporting it. And I'd be so decent to report it... not sure if I can expect the same from others. Well, the police have my phone number -I did what was needed.

And with that storm we had with heavy rainfall it might have been flushed away just as well. Seems also fitting somehow, being reclaimed by the earth...(sewers)(shh!)

I haven't made an inventory yet, because that would be really depressing. I'll have to shut down my Dawanda shop temporarily. Although I'm surprised it hasn't made me as mad & hysterical as I would have feared. It is only jewelry after all...
Maybe it can't beat my small victory in helping an old, toothless, defenseless ginger cat (who's now happily eating & napping here). Which sounds sappy but it does put it all in perspective.
Also, it's harsh, but I have a clean slate now. Working towards the art market in July I can develop my 4 collections equally and make a great whole.

Oh yes, I developed a fourth collection. I meant to tell you that under happier circumstances, which I will do in full tomorrow together with some other news when I'm less cranky.

And thanks for your thoughts...I appreciate it.

still nothing...

I turned my house upside down, mom her car & her house and she also drove past our route to the station to find any clues, but nothing.

So what I've been dreading is probably true: I left it on top of the car, we took off and it must have fallen off somewhere. Somebody might have picked it up, maybe the torrential rain from yesterday afternoon carried it away...

Can you believe it? One moment of absent-mindedness & you lose something very valuable (to yourself).

I understand how it happened, a number of unlucky coincidences. I could hit on myself for letting it happen but I won't. Having had a couple of very busy days: library school with tests on saturday, then the train to Ronse and the photoshoot on sunday, I had left my backpack in the car and didn't get it out after the shoot because I was too tired, monday monring we had a new front door installed and during that we went to the train station. So I had to carry all my stuff in my hands, which was a lot, the backpack still in the car, my mom had to go back to fetch her new front door keys while I waited outside with the car still locked...and I placed the bloody box on the car to relieve myself from the weight of all my things. And didn't think about it anymore until this morning.

Well, nothing a white bordeaux from 2005 won't solve. And this afternoon I'm starting to create new jewelry.

At least I saved a cat's life & it all could have been much worse.

oh. shit.

Please tell me this isn't happening...

It looks like I've lost my jewelry box yesterday, the one I brought to Patrick's photoshoot. The one with all the jewelry I had made thus far. Yup, quite a lot.

I refuse to believe it, but I can't find it back.

I know I had it before we left for the station, I know I put it on the car when my mom went to get her keys and I'm almost certain I put it in the car as well. I know I stuffed things in my backpack (which I had left in the car) and meant to put the box in it as well, but I'm drawing a complete blank as to what happened since...

Good news is though that when I got home I managed to catch de schele Rosse and my vet was able to operate on him right away. So I was busy with that all day. And de schele Rosse is fine and feels quite at home...

It was only this morning that I suddenly couldn't remember where I had put my box...

Let's hope I spectacularly misled it.

The strange thing is I didn't feel anything was wrong, I even was quite relaxed which doesn't happen that often...I usually check and double-check and still go through disaster scenarios in my head, but not so yesterday.

Crap.

Can you help looking for a medium translucent light blue box please? Crammed with jewelry in seperate bags? Or pray I find it back? Thanks so much!!!