Friday 14 October 2011

Treasure!

I have been included in three treasuries today - this is a record for me and has made me super happy.

The first was called 'Come and open up your folding chair next to me' by LeenGreenBean and included my blue Floating Vivid Pattern Collage print.


The second was titled 'Feeling blue...' by ChiccaBijouxCreations and was decidedly more cheerful than you would imagine! It included my original Vintage Winter Woodland collage.


The third was called 'Creative a Collage' by bbrunophotography and included my Crimson Atlas original collage piece.

Happy Friday everyone - hope you are all looking forward to a great weekend.

Vick.

Thursday 13 October 2011

All Change Part #1

I just turned twenty-five. That’s a lot of time.

I’m running out of creativity on Etsy at the moment – a lot of what I have been doing lately has started to seem a little stagnant to me. Now, if I am feeling that what I am doing is getting tired then I’m not going to be selling so well or doing my best work. I’m taking a bit of a break from putting new things on Etsy. I’m working on my photographs – both the ones that I am using to display my products online and also the photographs that I take purely for artistic purposes. I’ve been playing with the idea of using some of my ‘art’ photographs as Etsy cards to match the collage cards and the print cards. This is not me just dragging my feet on original ideas but I’ve had several people (no, really!) ask me if I would consider it as they like both the cards and the photographs I have on this blog. 

There is a lot of change happening at the moment and I usually keep the personal away from blogging and the business but over the past few months I realised that I wanted to be able to put more of my writing, my opinion, things about food and books online without it impinging on my Etsy and crafting work.

So I am splitting the blog into two. This will remain as an Etsy, art, crafts, collage, jewellery blog and I have a NEW BLOG (can you tell I'm excited?) over on WordPress. If you'd like to take a look that would be fantastic. So far there is nothing new over there but there will be a lot going up in the next couple of weeks.

There will also be a neater way of looking through the writing I have done in the past – plays as well as poems. The 3RW poems will also be over there from now on - so if you're looking for those the archive will be both here and on WordPress but the new ones will only show up over there. There will be a new one up in the next two days... I’m not quite sure what the final product over there will end up looking like but there will be more of me and the things that I enjoy and slightly less business.

I am going to have a section on the new blog for images so that I can put my favourites online. I am in no way stopping what I am selling on Etsy just not adding lots of new things until I am re-inspired. Once that happens I will probably keep putting things up on here but this blog will be business while the other will be more personal.

I would really like it if you want to follow me over to the new site - if not, there will still be updates over here but a lot less frequently. Also, my apologies for the complete radio silence while I worked on this - my head was so full of trying to get both the sites working that I didn't have the energy to blog.

Thanks everyone!
Vick.

p.s. for future reference, part #2 of the blog is here.

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Preserved

I've been busy turning a tree load of bramleys into apple butter this week. If you're in the US then this probably makes a lot of sense. If you're in the UK: apple butter is a sharper, less viscous type of apple jam. There is a lot less sugar involved and it is pureed halfway through the proceedings.


Many people use a slow cooker. I don't. I'm not being snooty about it, I just don't own a slow cooker. I had to do a jar-count to see how many batches of the stuff I could make. I also decided to do a general round up of preserves while I was about it. It's coming up to Christmas and I generally give people preserves (they make nice gifts...yes I am also very poor while trying to figure out what my job is going to be!).


The final tally.
Elderflower cordial - 4
Elderberry cordial - 7
Sloe Sherry - 2
Sloe Gin - 3
Rosemary Oil - 2
Chilli Oil - 2
Damson Jelly - 2
Pickled Beans - 3
Winter Chutney - 1
Apple Chutney - 2
Green Tomato Jam - 3
Gooseberry Chutney - 6
Damson Jam - 6
Victoria Plum Chutney - 3
Apple Jelly - 15
Damson Chutney - 7
Mincemeat - 2
Chilli Pepper Jam - 3

And not nearly enough empty jars. I wouldn't come around to dinner any time soon - you might be forced to eat jam so I get another jar free for this year's goodies.

And there are currently 6 jars of apple butter with another double batch on the hob as I type.

Vick.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

More Random Words

It's been a little while now since I started collecting three random words from friends and strangers to turn into poetry. The posts are all tagged 3RW and are more-or-less in the order in which I received the ideas.

I am over halfway through my 100 word collection of poems. I have posted more than half of them on here and I have got almost a full set of words to work from.


So really I am in the final push to get some really amazing, weird, quirky, awkward, contentious words to work with for the last few. I've been getting loads from over on Etsy which has been fantastic. If I do happen to get a few over 100 I will keep going  - the idea was always to enjoy writing the poems (which I am) and to try and make me a better poet in the process (someone else can be the judge of that one).

Have you spotted the hint? I am hoping for some incredible words. At the moment I am only taking one set of ideas from each person and then when I get to the end I might go over some of the duplicates I have been given and have a go at them. If there's someone reading this who hasn't given me words - please do. Also if you know people who you think would be good at this could you please pass it along. Especially if they have slightly weird or warped imagination (yes, my fantasy/sci-fi reading friends I am looking at all of you).

I am accepting ideas here, on Twitter, Facebook, Etsy  - actually any which way that you would like to get in touch.

Thanks everyone - clearly I couldn't be doing this alone!

Vick.

5-7-5-ish

Even more haiku-ish poems. Once again I stress the 'ish' part. I do know that they are not real haiku poems but they are working for me. Here we go.

RedGreenQueen gave me "coconut, horizon, ocean" from the Etsy forums

"Melt Ice"
Coconut snow falls
over a wide horizon
into the ocean.

Alex Phillips from creatingtrouble gave me "star, harmony, warmth"

"DayLight"
His star was hidden
under the warmth of sunshine
and night’s harmony.

Joanne Waring of JoArtyJo gave me "fresh, petal, lustre" to work from:

"Wallpaper"
A fresh dance of oil
no petal untouched by the
framed show of lustre.
Emily April Scard of AprilSparkles gave me "honey, toes, cherry" to write with:

"Pure Imagination"
Rooms of honey rain
land on the toes of cherry
coloured cakes and me.

Louise Oneill from jaggedrockjewels kindly donated "spices, Japanese, flower"

"Decorations"
A spiral pattern
in a Japanese hallway
scented with spices.

All done for now. Must get back to it soon - I've been trying to preserve lots of the apples that we have in our garden so I've been busy cooking instead of writing poetry!

Vick.