The jourey into SoopSee

During my downtime I've been trying to understand and learn about marketing online. There are so many sites and opportunities out there, where to start.

One of the neet sites that Etsy suggested was Soopsee, for a free account you get this cool little website to show off your work: http://www.soopsee.com/profile/afiberjourney
I really like the interface and it create a really slick, quick look at all I have for sale in my Etsy shop. Now I'm going to try and figure out how to get a widget on my blog. You will either see one, in which case you will know that I succeeded or you won't...LOL Stay tuned.......

Still broke down on the journey

Well, the end of week on without a kiln and I contact the maker. He say, and I quote, "oh I'm such a ditz, I put the part out and didn't mail it" Seriously!!! This is my livelihood, he is trying to make a joke of it and here I sit. Now what???

It's so hard to depend on someone else to do something, especially when it's important to you. I have a hard time with people who say they are going to do something and then don't. I usually give them a couple of chances and then I'm done with them. Unfortunately in this case I have no choice. I am stuck, sitting here waiting for someone else, very far away, to do what they said they were going to do a week ago. So frustrating.

I have promised people things and even if I am sorry after that fact I still follow through. I just think it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately there are people out there that procrastinate to the bitter end, put things off that would take maybe five minutes and they spend more time thinking about the fact that they haven't done it than it would take to do it.

Ok, I think I have it out of my system for the moment, I'm still stuck sitting here waiting but I have no choice. Do I offer to pay to have it quick shipped??? Luckily he offered to ship it overnight. I was so happy that I offered to pay half of the shipping so with any luck at all I will be back at the torch by Wednesday...stay tuned to see if it happens.

Break-down along the Journey

Geeze, there I am happily torching away on Saturday, singing along with the iPod, Hubby was working down stairs too so we were both using all the power plugs available in the basement. I go to put bead number 10 in the kiln and I notice that the temp is down to 830 and dropping. The kiln is suppose to hold at 960 while I work so I immediately started yelling at poor hubby thinking he had tripped something. Needless to say I wasn't thinking if that had been the case I wouldn't be able to see the temp display on the kiln.
So, I turned the kiln off and back on again, I could hear it clicking which meant that the relays were working fine. I was panicked at that point. The beads made in the last hour were most likely a loss as they wouldn't be properly annealed. I was beside myself, here I finally get retired, finally get good weather and the kiln decides to stop me in my tracks. What next??? Dare I even ask that question.
I went upstairs and called my kiln guy...Mike at The Glass Hive his kilns are wonderful and he didn't even hesitate, said he would send me another element so that we could replace the one that quit. Unfortunately he's on the west coast so it will be a week before I torch again. The thought scared me. What would I do with my time. I have two days worth of beads to photograph, measure and log but after that what???

I might just have to go back to the polymer clay or fiber arts for the rest of the week while I wait patiently at the mailbox for my part. We shall see. It's been two days since it happened and I'm just getting around to the beads that needed to be photographed. It's been cold and rainy for the last two days so I probably wouldn't have torched anyway but still...whaaaaaaa.

By the way, I lost the last four beads I made on Saturday, they broke in half as I tried to take them off the mandrels. No surprise there. It's just as well, I sure wouldn't want someone to get them and then have them break. I have a friend in the UK who can use them in her mosaics so they will be used for something.

Well, four or five days to go, lets see what I can find to get into trouble with.
tootles,
Jan

The Journey into Spring 2010 - my first "retired" Spring

Hi everyone, been absent haven't I. Spring is finally here, when I retired
it was cold and dark and I spent a lot of time just trolling the Internet.
It was too cold to torch, my set up is in the unfinished basement and it's
like a tomb in the winter. Not to mention that I have to open the windows
for ventilation. Anyway, the first month I was retired I bet I torched four
days. I was getting consistent sales but no torch time. It was really
frustrating and I felt like I was just on vacation and eventually had to go
back to work. It's been almost two months now and I'm really starting to
feel retired. The feeling is wonderful, by the way. The weather is getting
warmer and I've been torching everyday. This brings me to today discussion,
working out a schedule or routine. I can't torch every day, there have to
be some days where I do the grunt work of photographing, logging and
measuring the work. I figure every three days I need to do this. So far I
ve been using the weather to determine what days I take off from torching.
If it's going to rain or storm those are my days off.

Hubby isn't too happy with this schedule because he doesn't want to take his
precious cars out in the rain...good grief. Like he has so much to do.
There was one warm day late in February when he got out and washed the cars
and then didn't want to take them out on a rainy day and get them dirty
again. I tried to tell him that it would be warmer every day now and he
could wash them again but he's not having that, yet. Life's decisions
should be so tough...LOL But I digress, as usual.

Yesterday I decided to use five colors that I had not used either ever or in
a long time. I wanted to start testing colors to see which ones fumed when
I put thin wraps of silver glass on them. Needless to say I picked the
wrong ones, they all look like crap and I was so disappointed with the
results. Now I have five very long tube beads that probably won't sell
because they are fumed to an ugly yellow color. How sad is that. Lessons
leaned. I guess I need to learn to make wind chimes so I can use up all the
fuglies...LOL

Well, better get to the torch. It's going to storm tomorrow so I will be
photographing. I'll try to remember to post a few of the fuglies so you can
see or yourself what I'm talking about. Until then. Be sure to enjoy the
journey and remember to stop along the way and enjoy the day.

Total Art Soul a new stop on the journey

It's been awhile, yet again. I found a new play to play, "Total Art Soul",
it's a wonderful forum of artists of all kinds that share ideas and life as
it comes. Check it out, you might just find a new stop in your journey.

As for me, I finally retired! No more hour commutes through the worst
traffic in the nation. I still feel like I'm on vacation, I wonder how long
that will last. My furry kids are kind of confused but happy that I'm home.
It's been so darn cold I haven't been able to torch for days. We even had
snow here in the south! Four inches of snow, it was beautiful but I'm ready
or spring. I know that summer will be here soon enough and I will be
complaining about the heat. Until then I wish for signs of spring.

In the meantime I'm cleaning out the upstairs studio, getting rid of a lot
of my hand dyed fabric on eBay. I can be found under the the seller name
jquiltie". I will be putting about five pieces up a week, can't handle any
more than that at a time. If your interested in some really pretty hand
dyed fabric go to ebay and check it out.