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My Journey As A Creative Designer - Woodworking and Beyond

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7M views 13K replies 477 participants last post by  teaklight12 
#1 ·
Beginning this Blog

I recently was referred to this site by Steve Good, who has a wonderful, comprehensive scroll saw forum and blog page. Although I have been doing woodworking for almost fifteen years, I have finally reached a point in my life where I am able to make it the main focus of my activities. Since my life revolves around my woodworking and business, I believe that this blog will reflect that very clearly, although it will also be somewhat personal. But I think that woodworking is very personal anyway.

It has been a long journey to get to this point. There have been many good times and some not-so-good ones, but I appreciate every single step because I think that if even one thing was different, I would not be where I am today or who I am inside. It isn't only the positive events in our lives that make us what we are. Many times it is the negative things that mold and shape us and teach us to look at things in a certain way. I try to remember that when things are tough and move ahead.

I have learned that there is only one thing we can be certain of in life: change. Whether things are good or bad, we need to hold on and appreciate the moment, as we can be certain that things will be different before long. This helps us to not only appreciate the good days and things we have now, but also hang on when things are not so good, as we know that they will be different soon. I like this philosophy.

I liked reading about the new contest offered by this site in the newsletter. Fluidity. It is a perfect theme for projects because our existence itself is fluid. I am anxious to see what interpretations are going to be, as I am sure everyone else is. It will be an adventure for all of us for sure.

So why am I starting this blog? The other day I received a call from a customer who had a question for me. He kept saying how surprised he was that I answered my own phone. I have worked as a Contributing Editor for Creative Woodworks and Crafts Magazine for the past 13+ years and I guess in the scroll saw community, many people have heard of me. It seemed so odd to me that he would think I would have a secretary or staff. We kind of laughed about it, but it really got me thinking about his interpretation of my life. We all tend to form opinions of others from very limited information. We see the outside of a person as they are presented to us and many times are very quick to categorize that person in our minds. I do it myself.

But in my years of talking with and dealing with many people from many different places, I have come to realize that people are like icebergs. We only see the tip of them and below the surface is a vast, complex side of them that is the basis of their actions and thinking.

Everyone has a story. Everyone has traveled a journey. No two people have traveled identical paths. Thus, we are all unique in our thoughts, actions and creative processes. I enjoy hearing others stories. I think that listening to others and hearing their experiences helps us to understand each other. With that understanding, we learn.

I have used the phrase "Knowledge Is Power" in my signature since I have been on the web. Once someone told me that they thought it was quite arrogant of me to say that. He thought that I was implying that I knew more than anyone else and he found that offensive. I told him he couldn't be more wrong. My interpretation of the phrase is that our QUEST for knowledge EMPOWERS us to make better decisions about things in our lives. We are never finished learning. I learn every single day from my friends, colleagues, fellow woodworkers and students. We never know when we will learn something new. Sometimes you can learn from even a seemingly insignificant event. I feel the key is that we need to be open to learning.

Everyone has a story.

So I will close today with those thoughts. I don't know how often I will post here, but I hope to make it a habit. I don't know if anyone will even read this, but somehow it doesn't matter. Writing is a key in self-awareness. By writing things down we categorize our actions and it helps (me anyway) to keep my life organized. Organization leads to peace as far as I am concerned.

I am quite overwhelmed with the scope of the site here. I am still getting my footings and lurking around. I think for the first several days or maybe even weeks I will be more of a passive observer while I find my comfortable position among the others here. I want to upload the new things I am working on here. Like everyone else, I am anxious to see the response they get. I love seeing others projects and could spend my days just looking.

Although it is quite intimidating, the forum looks like it is full of friendly, knowledgeable and wonderfully creative people.

I think I am going to like it here.
 
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#1,487 ·
Getting "Unstuck" by Changing Gears

I really like when I get so involved in doing a project that I can't wait to get up in the morning to get at it. Today was one of those days. After feeling kind of stuck for a while on what to do for someone special on my list, I finally got the idea on Saturday and since then it has grown like a well cared for seed and looks like it is going to be turning out to be a pretty cool project.

I decided to paint a wooden sewing box for a friend of mine who loves to do counted cross stitch. Although I knew what I wanted, I couldn't quite picture the project in its completion and I was rather stuck. I think that sometimes that just happens to us. We know we want something, but we aren't quite sure what exactly the outcome will be.

I once read that it was impossible to reach your goals if you don't know what they are. This little project that I am doing is a fine example of how true that can be. I knew I wanted something special that had to do with sewing, but I wasn't quite sure what. Until I really thought about it and got a good picture in my mind of what the finished item would be, I felt paralyzed and couldn't move forward or even begint to make it. After all, would you get into your car and start driving if you didn't know where you were going? I think not. Without a definitive destination you would be senselessly driving around and wasting your time. It wouldn't make any sense.

But once you decided on where you wanted to go and what your final outcome would be, it would be much easier to get there and reach your goals. That's not to say you wouldn't make a wrong turn now and then, but at least you would have a clear idea of where you wanted to wind up. I think this applies to many aspects of our lives. Once we clearly define what we want to accomplish, it is far easier to work towards it. It just makes sense to me.

Back to the box . . .

I began by base coating the box with three coats of acrylic paint. I sanded very lightly in between the first and second coat so the surface would be smooth and easy to paint on. While the paint was drying in between coats, I drew up my main figures of what I wanted on the box.

A vintage teddy bear . . .


An old fashioned sewing machine . . .


Another teddy bear to keep the first one company . . .


And a little sleeping kitty just because I love cats (so does Diana!) . . .


I shaded the lid and added a nice red accent stripe on the routing. This took a while because the red also required a couple of coats and I wanted it to stay neatly in the routing bead. I will probably add more later on, but for now this is a good start.


I matched the bottom of the container to the lid. I then started base coating the sewing machine. The base coat is the middle value of color, allowing room for both shading and highlighting . . .


You can see on the handle of the sewing machine to the right that I began to do some shading and highlighting. The handle itself is a really cool old gold metallic paint. There will be more gold accents on the sewing machine as well by the time I am through. This is as far as I got yesterday . . .


Now comes the fun part. After the base coating is done, I really enjoy the shading and highlighting part, as well as the detailing. This is the time when I get to let loose and just paint. My grandmother used to have a sewing machine like this (didn't everyone's grandmother have one?) and I remember the gold metallic designs swirled on the black painted machine. This certainly brings back memories of that sewing machine.

I hope you all don't mind me showing all of this. It's getting to be 'crunch time' and I will probably spend the next two weeks working on stuff like this. It is kind of fun to show it as I go along and I suppose that technically it is a woodworking project. It just highlights the finishing and painting aspect more. :)

It is funny that while I am doing this project, there are many wonderful new ideas that I have for the scrollsaw hatching in my head. I can't wait to get to them either. It just goes to show that sometimes changing gears is really a great way to be inspired.

I hope you all have an incredible Monday!
 
#1,496 ·
Project Progress and Thinking Back

So much for a winter wonderland. Yesterday it rained and rained and RAINED! Needless to say, all the snow is long gone and what is left is a wet and muddy mess. Last night it was quite windy, but it seems that the wind has died down quite a bit and it is much calmer today. But looking in the forecast (which I don't really hang my hat on) it is supposed to be above freezing at least for the next several days. So it will be quite messy.

YUCK!

I know there are many people who don't enjoy snow. Some downright hate it. I have always been one of those odd people who actually like the stuff. Some of my fondest memories involved snow. When I was in grammar school and lived in the city of Chicago, they used to flood the asphalt baseball field at our school ground every winter for ice skating. There was a small field house right there by the ball fields and one side was for girl's activities and the other side for boys activities. It was a great place to hang out after school.

We would run the two city blocks home and quickly change our clothes (girls weren't allowed to wear pants to school when I was young) and grab our ice skates and be back at the school yard within minutes of leaving. We spent the short fall and winter afternoons hanging with our friends and ice skating to music that played from a large (2 ft) old speaker sitting on the ground with a wire going to the inside of the field house. Every once in a while, the music was interrupted by the monitor scolding someone through the PA system which was somehow connected to the music, as she watched carefully through the main window to make sure that everyone was behaving. It was the ultimate humiliation to be called out by name (as she knew the names of all the naughty kids) or worse yet, be side lined for ten or more minutes in front of your peers. Although, there were the 'regulars' who were always in trouble and wore the punishments like a badge, most of the kids complied. Those were back in the days before everyone threatened lawsuits and we had a great deal of respect for authority.

I must admit, I found myself penalized more than once, although it didn't become a common practice. I would usually receive a time out for things like reckless skating, as we loved to play 'tag' and on the crowded days, the tolerance for skating too fast or weaving too much among the younger children was not well-tolerated. It seemed I was one of the ones who occasionally got 'caught' goofing off a bit too much. I suppose I wasn't slick enough.

I remember sitting on the sidelines for those 5-10 minute stretches in the 'penalty box' as both humbling and humiliating. After all, I was a girl. But the group I hung out with were all quite tom-boyish and no one really held it against you. We all had our turn and among our own group there was really little shame in it. Especially if it resulted from successfully tagging one of the boys. (The teams were always boys vs. girls) In that case, the offender would become somewhat of a hero.

We go every day we could and stay there until about 5 or 5:30pm when it seemed everyone left for dinner.

If we were lucky and had little homework, we were able to come back after supper and stay until 8pm when the park closed. There was something wonderful about being there at night. There were mostly "older" kids like myself and some times you would even see a few high school kids. If we got cold, we could always go warm up in the field house where they had cocoa and a couple of bumper pool tables if you wanted to wait in line. You could also go there and thaw your frozen hands and feet, and chatter about what the boys were up to, as the rules of segregation were strictly enforced by the monitors - boys were only allowed on the boys side and girls were only allowed on the girls side.

I even enjoyed walking home in the snow. Especially at Christmas time. The neighborhood I lived looked very much like the city streets in the move "The Christmas Story" with block after block of bungalow styled homes. The houses were so close, you could almost stretch your arms and touch two adjacent buildings. We had little front lawns and small landings that were porches and everyone knew everyone in the neighborhood. When walking at night during this time, almost everyone had some sort of decoration such as wreaths or lights and just about everyone had a sparkling lit Christmas tree in the front window. It was truly a magical time of year for me and somehow it didn't matter how cold it was outside.

Well, I don't quite know what sparked that tangent I went on down memory lane. Perhaps it is just the season. In any case, I do hope that it gets colder in the next week or so and winter returns. It looks as if it is going to hover just around freezing the next couple of days so it could go either way.

I had a lot of varied stuff to do yesterday and I didn't get as much time as I wanted to paint on my sewing box. I did spend the evening doing so though and I finished the sewing machine. At least to the point that I want it to be at. I did most of the shading and details, but I still need to decide what color thread to use in it. I think that will come when everything else if finished and I am adding the details in. Here is a picture of where I am at:


The box is about 8" in diameter and about 6" tall before the finale on the lid. Today I will have most of the day to work on it and should make some good progress. I am going to be painting the two bears, which is a really fun part and should make it really look like something nice. I will take some pictures as I progress and some for tomorrows blog.

On the business side of things, it seems that it is more waiting on stuff. I haven't heard back on my own skating pond set and it seems that everyone is gearing up for the holiday lull. That is normal this time of year though and it is a good time to get ahead and get revved up for the new year and season. I have some more things that I am organizing in my head that I want to work on immediately after the holidays and get a jump start on for the magazine and also my site. And I can't forget the show in March. That will come much quicker than I think and I am preparing for it now.

I enjoyed thinking back to my childhood and those days in the snow. It has been many years since I have thought of those times. I think that it is good to take time and reflect on our past and relive some of the memories that have made us what we are today. Thank you all for allowing me to share them with you. I hope you all have a wonderful day.

"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."
 
#1,497 ·
Hey! I was looking at your box and had an idea. You mentioned a finale on the lid. Well, sometimes when I'm building something like this, I can't help but put that little scroller's touch on it. Since the sewing machine seems to be the main item on the box, how about a tiny scolled sewing machine for the handle on the lid? Or the bear or cat would work well too. I just thought that with you being a scroller that something besides a simple finale could be used for a handle.
As for me, I love snow. What I hate is what we get in Mississippi.
Let me explain. I have, as I do every year, had this snow discussion several times with various local people. The conversation always starts with them asking if I think we'll see snow this year. We don't get anything white every year like you northerners do. Well my response always revolves around the fact that I have never seen snow in Mississippi. You see, I love snow. I'm talking about light fluffy snow that your kids can play in without getting pneumonia. What we get around here is SLUSH. It has enough snow in it to make it look white. That is where the similarities with real snow ends. It is a wet, slippery, messy, nasty, cold, SLUSH!
To make matters worse, people around here cannot drive in it. That slush they call snow hit's the ground. If it's cold enough it immediately turns to almost a solid sheet of ice. Then a lot of these idiots drive like it's a dry hot day in July. If they notice it's slippery, they just ride their brake, which makes it more slippery for them. It's crazy.
Then there's the panic factor. Most people around here panic. First thing they do if snow is predicted is go to the store to empty the shelves of all the milk and bread, because you know that if snow hits and they can't get to the store for two days that all the cows will dry up and they'll quit making bread. We could start a whole internet comedy site about what happens if the lights go out.
Yes, the best thing around here about snow days is I get to sit back and laugh at people here. If the lights go out, my family and myself throw a few more pieces of wood on the fire. I break out the dutch ovens so I can cook dinner in the fireplace. We light up the lanterns, pull out the board games and put on hot chocolate for the kids. Every now and then we'll hear a crash. We'll bundle up, go outside, and see who has wrecked their car trying to drive up the very steep hill on the road that leads past our house. It's also funny to see how many idiots that'll pass the wrecked car to try to come up the same hill for the fourth or fifth time. "More marshmellows for your drink son?" "Sure Dad, why not?"
If you get some more real snow Sheila, see if you can send some this way. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
#1,501 ·
Following Up

I am afraid that today's post won't be very exciting. Yesterday was a full day, but it was filled with much of what I would call everyday mundane tasks. I needed to catch up on some paperwork. And also I needed to write some letters to people to prod them for various answers to stuff that needed to be tended to. I am not particularly fond of that type of letter writing, as I feel as if I am pestering others to do the jobs they are supposed to do in the first place. I tend to be very patient when it comes to most things and usually wait until the last minute to follow up on the various information that I requested. I do this type of office work all at once, not only to get it over with, but because by the time I am at the point of having to prod them, I am not usually very happy and find it is good to get things over with and move on to other tasks.

One such letter was (again) to the editor of the magazine that published my skating pond without my contact information on it. As I stated in an early post, when I first called him and it was initially brought to his attention, he seemed genuinely upset about the mistake and I was promised that he would get to the bottom of it and get back to me with some sort of decision as to how to make it up to me. That was over a month ago. Since then, I have written him two emails and left two phone messages with no response. I feel that I am a patient woman, but I think in this situation my patience has just about run out.

The previous requests were quite mild, as I know that editors are very busy. I do believe, however that more than a month is a very long time and I am beginning to feel as if it doesn't really matter and he has moved on to other more important things. As of today, I have had no response from him, nor have I received payment for the article (which was published the first week in November) or the return of the figures to me. It is customary to receive the project back sometimes even before the article is in print, as the photography is done long before that, and add to that the fact that I shipped the set to them in February, I feel that I have been patient enough.

I find that in situations such as this, I initially try to put myself in the person's shoes. They are busy I am sure with far more important things to do and immediate problems that need their attention. However, I am learning that in business, it is sometimes not the best strategy to sit and wait for someone's conscience to take over and for them to do the right thing. I usually try to follow the "do unto others" philosophy in my life and my business, but I have been burned so many times in the recent past that I am understanding that just isn't the way to deal with people for the most part. I am not saying that i should not be honest and compassionate, but what I am saying is that in business, the goals of others above all is to make money. Now more than ever in these difficult times I find that to be the case. People may be 'nice' but business is business and there is definitely a direct correlation between how friendly people are and how much you can do for them at the moment. (And I thought that they just LIKED me!) It is obvious to me that (with a few exceptions) for the most part my business colleagues run on a "what have you done for me lately" mentality. I am not saying this in every situation, but certainly for the most part.

So the realization has come to mind that since I am no longer of use to this editor, I am quite a low priority on his agenda. I think this is supported by the fact that I haven't heard back from him even once in the several attempts that I have made to contact him. So what to do now?

The letter I wrote was what I felt very professional and to the point. I stuck to the facts and tried to keep as much emotion out of it as possible. I didn't attack him, but stated reasonable requests based on the conversation we had initially following the error. I was firm in stating that I wanted to know what was to be done about it and I was also firm in requesting my materials back. I believe that it will be my final effort to resolve the issue with him.

So what do I do if there is no response?

I try not to think in a negative direction (we follow where we focus) but given the lack of response up until now, the possibility does exist that I won't hear back from him. In that case, I will go a step further to his 'boss' who is the publisher and owner of the company. I have had a long (15 year) history with the company and know the publisher personally and hopefully if I go that next step I will see some results. I hope it doesn't come to that, as I would really like to see this resolved between the editor and myself, but I feel that I would have no choice. Someone needs to be accountable and I really don't feel that I should just let it go. We will have to see . . .

On a positive note, I did hear from the Artist's Club, which is the large distributor of painting patterns and surfaces that I had submitted my skating pond set to and it was a very encouraging email. They are very interested in running my skating pond series in their catalogs beginning next May or July when they introduce their Christmas stuff. This is the company that is geared for decorative painters and they send out 500,000 catalogs a year. They also offer the finished surfaces and although I haven't spoken about the details with them, they want to run the set with next year's projects. They need me to make them into subsets that are smaller would cost less initially to get others involved, but that is fine with me as we discussed here earlier. This will be a great opportunity to develop a relationship with them, as they also said that they would be interested in seeing any other painting work and projects that I would like to submit to them.

It is a great opportunity to get a new company under my belt and further diversify my company. Perhaps my patience will pay off after all. In the mean time, I will still do as many woodworking projects as I can and also work on the painting and finishing aspect of my business as time permits. I am certain it will keep me busy.

After my letter writing, I was able to work on my sewing box a bit. I nearly finished one of the teddy bears. Here is a picture of the initial base coating:


And here is the bear almost completed:


I still have some shading and glazing to do to give him some more depth and shaping, but the initial fur is pretty much done. I haven't done many light colored bears before and it is kind of tricky for me to get the coloring correct. I have to think back to front (shadows, fur, highlights) and I have to imagine it in my head before doing it correctly. Add to that the fact that I haven't painted a bear (or much at all) in quite a while and there is some warm up time involved. I am however getting a feel for it and it is starting to fall into place. I feel like the next bear will be a bit easier than this one was.

Today I need to run around a bit. The final changeover of my bank occurred this weekend and of course it had some hiccups that I have to straighten out. It is difficult to do my banking from another country and resolve problems that come up - especially when the entire system was being transferred to another institution. They are swamped and without being able to go in to see them in person, it is a much more difficult task to get matters resolved. I have a meeting with my own banker here to see what I can do to make things run smoothly.

All in a day's work.

On a final note, I watched "It's a Wonderful Life" last night for the first time in years. I know, I know . . . it is quite a corny movie and has been overplayed to death, but I have successfully avoided it for the past ten years or so. I first saw it 26 years ago when my son was only a year old and before it became so popular. I remember the year because he was scurrying around in his little walker while we watched it. I felt I was due to see it again.

Anyway, it was fun to see and after my trip down memory lane yesterday morning I thought it would be appropriate to end the day with some more nostalgia. It worked because I went to bed with that warm fuzzy feeling that you get after movies like that. It's the ultimate "pink cloud" living.

Remember . . . "No man is a failure who has friends"

Have a great day!
 
#1,512 ·
Did Anyone See Wednesday???

I am looking for Wednesday. Does anyone know where it went? I think I blinked and it was gone!

Oh my goodness! I can't believe that the day went so quickly. (Drink your coffee fast, Cozmo! I think it is going to be a short one!)

I got out of the house by 9am and I didn't get home until probably 5pm. Meetings and errands all day. Not even time to see Bernie and Ellen! I had to food shop too so I had to put all the food away when I got home. I will be making a nice lasagna for Saturday when I am making dinner for a birthday party and I wanted to get all the shopping done for it.

I had to do about an hour of paperwork and then ate and by that time it was 7pm. Believe it or not, I actually went out then and took my walk. It was dark then, but in the two hours since arriving home, there was about half an inch of show on the ground. Enough to look pretty anyway. I would have taken pictures, but it was dark so just turn off your computer screen and you can pretend I did. :)

I got home, wrapped some stuff and I was finished for the day. No painting. No drawing. No woodworking. :( It really caught up with me and I was TIRED!

I did read some mail and skimmed through Ms. Debbie's LJ monthly newsletter. I saw the contest on joinery for January. She had listed about 15 types of joinery. But I thought "ah ha!" I thought of something that she didn't list. I'm not telling though. I am going to really, really try to get something done in time to enter the contest. My mind is thinking now and I think that I can add something unique into the mix.

I wrote it down on my idea list. So when all this craziness passes and I am looking for a direction it will be there to jump out at me and kick me in the butt to do something creative. I will be glad to have it in my arsenal of ideas.

Such is the season!

Today I am hitting the ground running. I have lots to do and no where to go. Hopefully, I will make more progress today on things and have something interesting to talk about tomorrow. I have to be careful what I wish for though! ;)

I hope you all have productive days too! Are you all done with your holiday gifts and such? Or are you scrambling around like I am? Let me know. :)

Have a great day no matter what!
 
#1,513 ·
I am officially done with Christmas. Well, pretty much. I have everything built.I have all the presents wrapped and under the tree. I have the nuts for the stockings. I have Christmas dinner bought. The ony small thing I have left is to get the fruit for the stockings. I don't like getting that until a day or two before Christmas. Fruit doesn't last long this time of year and I dont' want to be putting rotten fruit in stockings.
I wish my Wednesday haad flown by. I was working on patterns for my latest project. I mentioned it was the worst patterns I've ever bought. Well, spending all day with the printer, two trips to town for printer cartridges, lots of coffee and cursing, and for some reason a hurting back that is keeping me in the house today, I am finally ready to start cutting, I think.
So I think I'm going to find "The Christmas Story" today and watch it. I got that idea from reading your blog (from yesterday I think). I am trying so hard to get into the holiday spirit. It just doesn't feel like Christmas. I'm sort of just going through the motions. I'm telling everyone Merry Christmas while in the back of my mind all I can think is bah humbug.
Maybe if you'd mail me some of that snow Sheila, I could get all Christmasy feeling inside and hang out on your pink cloud for a while. You have a good day, a merry Christmas, a happy New Year, and maybe a productive Thursday.
 
#1,516 ·
Teaching Through Videos

Sometimes all it takes is just one person to ask a question for me to be inspired. I believe that is why networking and interaction with others who have similar interests is very important.

There are many small bits of information that we have learned from our daily woodworking and other related crafts and after years of doing things, we take them for granted. I believe this is true for all of us. In the process of creating, we have performed these steps so many times that they become second nature and we don't even have to think about them. We just know it is part of the process.

Those of us who have had children may have at times had the experience of having one of their kids come into the shop and watch us work. When this occurred, we may have been surprised (and some people annoyed) by the barrage of questions pertaining to even the simplest part of the process. I personally never found it annoying. To me, it indicated both an interest on the child's part and also it made me acutely aware of just how much I had learned and could offer someone else. Perhaps it was the beginning of me wanting to teach. It gave me a sense of purpose and accomplishment to help others develop their own skills and creativity. I wanted to share the good feelings that I experienced and found that one of the most satisfying ways I could accomplish that was to contribute to helping someone else.

We are all teachers to some extent. Whether it is by helping a new co-worker learn the ropes at your job, giving advice on which tool to buy, or even sharing a recipe, teaching is part of our everyday lives.

People typically learn in three different ways: The auditory learner learns from listening to instructions. The visual learner learns from seeing something done. And the kinesthetic learner benefits most from getting involved and actually doing whatever the task may be. Most people are a combination of all three types. I believe that is why some people do fine with written instructions, such as books or patterns only while others do better in a classroom setting using lectures and videos and still others like hand-on experiences.

We are fortunate enough to live in a time when we have a wealth of information right on our desktop in the form of our computers. Never before have we had so much learning power and information right at our fingertips. Not only can we find written information, but we can also write our own curriculum and tailor our own personal 'classes' to suit our needs and purposes. Much of the information is free and available for anyone with an interest. It truly is an incredible thing when we think about it.

As many of you know, I have began making some short videos in order to teach others and share what I have learned in regards to scroll sawing. I also paint a bit and I have found that many, many woodworkers have the desire to paint and finish their projects also. This may not entail fully painting them, but as with many things, even small parts of the process can be pertinent and applied to many different aspects of their work. Since it is difficult to make videos based on each individual question, I feel that by showing the process of creating a painted piece from start to finish will encompass many different steps that are useful to all types of woodworking and painting projects.

Yesterday Kelly (rivergirl) asked me a question regarding transfer paper and transferring a design. When I read this, it was one of those times when I realized that it was something that I took for granted everyone knew. Although I am in "elf mode" making my Christmas gifts, I was caught up enough to switch gears and continue on with my videos. I felt that it would be more effective to show her (and everyone else) rather than just explain the process. Since I was going to do these anyway, it gave me a shove in that direction. I am still rather nervous doing videos and it is difficult for me to get up the nerve to do them, let alone post them. But after I get rolling, I was not unhappy with the results and I felt they got the point across OK. I know there is lots of room for improvement, but at least this is a start and I hope you like them.

I began with a video on how to transfer designs to wood. Even though this was done on a small scale, you can do this with any size piece or project. Following is the first video:



I went on to the basecoating process. The base coat is the first step in any decorative painting (and also the last for many people who don't like to paint!) I found that many times people get impatient and try to do things all at once and as a result make a mess and get quite discouraged. As woodworkers we know that most times when we make a project, it takes several small steps to complete a project properly. The same is true with finishing and painting. By laying a good foundation and doing the basic steps properly, it is easy to obtain great professional looking results.

In the following videos, I show the basic process of basecoating. These videos came out a bit longer than the prior ones because during the process I discuss several important and basic things you can do to make the process go smoothly for you and be succcessful in your painting. I initially was going to cut away and come back, as I will probably do in subsequent projects, but I do feel that by watching me paint in real-time you will be able to see all the small issues that may come up and also how to correct them.

The second video was part one of Basecoating The Snowman:



And here is the second part:



Once I got rolling, I forgot the camera was there and I just continued on. The last one was a bit long, I realize, but you can always skip over it if you wish. It is funny, but they didn't seem that long when I was making them. Probably because I was busy and in my element.

I realize that I don't have what is categorized as 'strong voice' and I know I need to work on that. I usually sit here and have conversations with my cats and they don't listen anyway so it is normal for me to just talk on and on. Sometimes they answer, but I secretly think they are probably telling me to shut up so they could get back to sleep. I don't understand "cat" as much as I pretend that I do and I like to think that they are telling me that I am really rather interesting. Who's to argue anyway?

As always, I do appreciate your comments. I had some nice Mozart piano concertos playing in the background, but I kept the volume very low knowing that my voice is not loud and I didn't want it to interfere and be annoying. I do think I could have raised the volume up just a tad though to fill the dead space a bit, but perhaps I will next time. I think I may just be getting picky.

Editing the videos and getting them posted took the latter part of the day. I am getting to know the software a bit better, but it is still slow and uploading them took a bit. Needless to say I didn't get any painting done on the sewing box. That will come today. :) I am still "on schedule" if you will and all is well.

Thank you Kelly for asking a great question and inspiring me to do this. Every video that I get under my belt gets easier. By March when I have to speak in front of real people, I should be a pro! (YAH! Right!!)

I hope you enjoy them and maybe even learn something from them. Have a GREAT day everyone! :D
 
#1,524 ·
Making Some Headway

One of the best things about this time of the year is that everyone is kicking it into high gear and I am seeing so many wonderfully creative projects that people are making to give as gifts. It is so much fun to read the posts and see the pictures of these things. They range from absolutely stunning to absurd. (One of the most clever items I saw here on LJ's was the 'Toilet Seat Guitar'. If that doesn't make someone smile in Christmas morning, nothing will!)

I am also enjoying my facebook friends more than ever this year. I have had a facebook account for a couple of years now, but in the past year I have really reconnected with so many people and I have also met new friends and gotten to know fellow woodworkers a bit better just by watching their activities and seeing photos of their day up there.

I must admit that I haven't posted as much lately as I have in the past, but that is more because of time constraints on my side rather than lack of interest. Whether or not I post though, I do read through things a couple of times a day and see what everyone is up to. I enjoy seeing pictures of children, pets, families and projects as well as seeing great information on woodworking and also painting stuff. It is a nice way to feel a bit closer to people that are far away and feel that you are part of their lives and they yours.

One of the groups that I have reconnected with on Facebook is what I will call my original woodworking group. When I was first introduced to the internet somewhere around 1997, I was amazed at the scope of information that I was able to access and also the ability to have 'real time' chats with others from all over the country. One of the popular woodworking magazines hosted a Tuesday and Thursday night chat in an AOL chatroom and through some friends, I was invited to participate. That was where I first obtained my nickname "scrollgirl" and it has stuck with me ever since.

It was a wonderful group that showed up every Tuesday and Thursday and we usually spent a couple of hours in lively conversation talking about woodworking and projects and soon it led to jokes and some friendly bantering. Some people may think it was lame, but through that room, I developed many friendships that I keep to this day.

Back then, there was a resurgence in scroll sawing and there began to pop up several scroll saw 'picnics'. These were shows that were dedicated mainly to scroll sawing and over the next few years grew to be quite popular events. There were probably 3-4 major shows per year and people came from all over the country to attend them. They were located in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan and later on as they grew, there were even shows in Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin. They were great opportunities to actually meet the people face to face that met in that room, as well as other designers and representatives from the major tool companies. One year I was able to attend four shows, and each one was a three day event and like a family reunion. They are some of my fondest memories.

With the tough times that the economy is going through however, and the decline of scroll sawing and woodworking in general, these shows are quickly becoming a thing of the past. People are having a much harder time being able to attend due to the economy, job insecurity and fuel prices. More and more shows are being discontinued, as it is costly to host one and more difficult to entice people to attend. It seems that the future for events such as that is quite grim.

I am thinking ahead however at the show I will be attending in March. It has been years since I have been able to go to something of this nature, let alone teach and participate in it. It is by far going to be the largest show of this type that I have seen and I am getting very excited about it. One of the best parts about it is that there are several of my friends from that original woodworking group that are going to be there. It will be like 'old home week' and I will be able to see these friends fro the first time in years.

Things like this make me appreciate sites like this so much. When we are all here talking to each other on a daily basis through our comments and blogs and project posts, it is easy to forget that we are scattered not only all over the country, but all over the world. I think it is possible to have wonderful and meaningful friendships through the computer and I have seen evidence of it here so many times in the way we help each other and share our lives with each other. It is really a great thing and I just want to take a minute to say how much I appreciate all of you. I don't know why, but I thought about it as I was scanning the projects this morning before I came here to write. When you think about it all, it is truly incredible.

As for my own project, I am progressing nicely on the sewing box. I spent some time working on it yesterday, although I had some other stuff that I had to accomplish that dealt with the business and life in general. I wish I could be moving a little quicker, but sometimes things just get in the way. I still have time though so I am not in a panic yet and I should be able to get it mostly finished by the weekend as I have most of today and all of tomorrow to work on it.

Yesterday, I did some additional work on the first bear. I needed to adjust the highlights and shading and did so by glazing and re-highlighting some of the areas so that the light source was more defined. I also reinforced the shading in the shadows and gave it a bit more depth. Here is a picture of the result:


I think it is 'almost there' and I found that perhaps I was picking at it too much as I often do when painting so I forced myself to move on. I wanted the second bear to be darker, and I did the basecoating on it with a dark wash of color.


I liked how it looked so much, I almost left him bald and stopped right there. However, I thought a little fur may be in order so I did put some on him using several colors of darker brown. I did want him to be somewhat fuzzy like the first bear, although I wanted his coat to be much more worn looking and somewhat shorter.


I am sure I will pick on him some more before the day is done, but for now I feel that it is time to move on. It has been so long since I have painted fur like this that it takes me a while to get back into the swing of things. I need to find the time to practice a bit more and get a definitive game plan if I am going to be able to teach a piece like this. Eventually I would like to make some painting packets of some of these bears, but I need to be more organized in creating them so that people can follow along. I think that is why certain things I can make to teach and other things I just can't.

I am going to spend the day working on this and also getting ready for a birthday dinner I am attending tonight. I am making a lasagna to bring, and it should be a great time. It will be nice to take a break from things for a while and get out for a bit, although I have been really good with keeping up my walks. Lately I have liked the night walking almost as much as the morning walks. It is an entire new adventure in the dark and also a nice way to refresh after a busy day. I am reading so much about people feeling burned out and I want to take the proper precautions so that I can keep a balance with my work and not feel that way.

I hope you all remember too that even though you are busy to take some "me time" an do something you like to do - just for fun. It will pay off tremendously in the long run and help keep you focused and interested and make your work much more enjoyable.

Have a wonderful Saturday!
 
#1,525 ·
Hi Sheila

I've been using email since 1986 (over a quarter of a century!) and started with the computer company I worked for, Tandem. When I left them in 1996 I was amazed how few of my friends in the wider world had yet to catch up. Nowadays I find myself wondering how we got by ( but we did) before the internet became the tool it now is? Still there are some old stones out there I'd rather be left un-turned. They know who they are, no-one here gladly.

The sewing box is coming along nicely.
 
#1,534 ·
Exchanges and Things

What a great day yesterday was. It wasn't as if I won the lottery or anything like that, but I just went through the day feeling like I liked the place where I was at in my life and enjoyed every moment of it. I got some things accomplished around the house, cooked a good meal while listing to some Pink Floyd and Charlie Brown Christmas music, wrapped a couple of things and then went to a nice birthday dinner with wonderful people and had a great evening. I even got to answer a couple of email questions for customers. I like hearing from them and liked even more that I could help them. One customer in particular made a suggestion for some ornaments for me to design next year and I think he had a great idea. It was all around one of those 'life is good' days and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I went to pick up my mail, I found that I had received some beautiful ornaments from the ornament exchange that I did from Steve Good's site, Scrollsaw Workshop. For those of you who like scroll sawing (or those who are kind of interested in it and still deciding) it is a great site full of information and great people. In fact, Steve was the one who brought initially pointed me here to Lumberjocks and I owe him a great deal for doing that. It is probably the only other forum that I find time to regularly post on.

In any case, they had organized an ornament exchange there and I jumped right in. I love exchanges of all kinds. I used to do a cookie exchange every year near Christmas Time. My one friend's mom would host it and there would be probably anywhere from 25 to 30 participants. We each made one type of cookies using a pound of butter (so if the recipe called for half a pound, we would double it, etc.) and we would count up our cookies and then when we arrived we would divide our number by the number of participants and that would be how many of each cookie we would get. The odd numbers of cookies in each batch were left for immediate eating. It was an afternoon filled with friendship and snacks and great conversation and stories of everyone's busy holiday adventures. What a great way to spend the afternoon. (And, we would come home with loads of wonderful home-made cookies!)

I feel the same way about the ornaments I received. They are really lovely! I think it is always nice to receive something like this that is hand-made. My exchange partner Dan Eklund enclosed a nice card and said he was nervous because he got my name in the exchange. I don't know why he would say that because the ornaments that he sent are really awesome! He made two dimensional ornaments and also a beautiful word art one. I have pictures of them to show you.

The first one is a dimensional Christmas tree:


Next, there is one of a dimensional cactus. Dan is from Arizona:


And finally there is a beautiful word art ornament of "Peace"


I love these so much! I don't receive many hand-made gifts it seems. I think people think that I can make them myself if I want them, but I usually don't find the time to do so. I wind up giving most of what I do away or selling it. My friend Bernie has made me some things and I treasure them all the more because they are from him. I feel the same about these ornaments. When I look at them, they will always remind me of this time in my life when I am so happy and how much value my fellow woodworkers and friends are to me. They will certainly be treasured.

As we were driving to the birthday celebration yesterday, the sun was just beginning to set. It wasn't as if you needed to look for it, as the entire sky took on an orange and pinkish glow. There was no way not to notice it. We stopped the car on a little hill and I was happy that I had brought my camera with to capture the moment. I know it may seem silly to talk so much about the place where I live and how beautiful I think it is, but it is something that I will always appreciate and don't ever think I will get over.


I hope I never do.

Have a great Sunday!
 
#1,537 ·
Diversifying and Exploring All Options

Well, we are all getting into the final countdown. It seems like I haven't been at the scroll saw in years! I think it is good to get away though for a couple of weeks and shift gears to something else. I have a list of things I want to do soon after the holidays and I am very anxious to get at it. And of course there is preparation for the show.

I think there is much to be said for diversification. It is good for us on so many levels. Perhaps that is why woodworking is such a great hobby. There is so much to do and so many overlapping aspects of woodworking that it seems that we will never have all the tools we need or try all the technique we want to try. There always seems to be something fresh and exciting to try.

I watch everyone else from my own little corner of the woodworking world in awe. There are times I long for a full shop to be able to attempt some of the techniques and processes that I see done here. I am sure that we are all like that to some extent. it seems that no matter how many tools one has or how large the shop is there is always room for expansion and new techniques to explore. Places like Lumberjocks here exposes us to so many different types of styles and aspects of woodworking that it is like a candy store to a child.

I am sure that diversifying will also help my business too. I am starting to get excited because I know when I go to the show in March, that I will be exposed to so many other wonderful types of woodworking and I will learn so much. I also think that it will inspire me to incorporate new techniques into my designing patterns that can be accomplished mainly on the scroll saw. Hopefully I will add some more dimension to my designing.

Yesterday we worked on a couple of ads for the Skating Pond Vignette pattern that are due to my editor today. After initially being told that it would appear in several of the magazine publications, I am now down to one ad in my own magazine. For those of you who followed the story, you may remember the roller coaster that I have been on with it. When I sum it up it looks pretty depressing.

It went from being spread over several issues, to being put on the shelf for months, to being in one issue without any contact information printed with it. Then as compensation for the error, it was to be in 4 craft and painting magazines to now only in a scroll sawing magazine half page ad. As nice as it is to get a half page ad at no charge, I can't help but feeling very disappointed because the targeted audience for that magazine is very unlikely to attempt that pattern. Scroll sawyers in general don't like to or want to paint. It is just a plain and simple observation that i have made over the years. In fact, woodworkers don't like painting very much either. I can't help but feel as if selling this ad would be like selling ice cream to Eskimos. However at this point I suppose it is better than nothing and I need to take what bone is thrown to me.

Even the ad is a bit controversial. At first, I could have sworn that I was told that I could put anything in the ad I wanted. Anything. I was thinking that I would have the focus of the ad for the skating set but also put a couple of little pictures of other things (scroll saw patterns) that were offered on my site to generate some interest among the people that wouldn't do the set. After all, isn't that what an 'ad' is?

But in talking to my editor the other day, he made it pretty clear that by 'anything' he meant "anything to do with the skating set."

OK.

So we actually came up with two versions to present him with today. One being totally about the pond and the other having a small side bar highlighting some general patterns that I offer. I am going to pitch both versions to him today and see what will happen. I will certainly let you know.

If I hadn't taken the matter into my own hands a week or so ago and approached the painting pattern company with this project I would probably be a little depressed right now about it (or a lot!) Situations like this one in business are what I separate the girls from the women if you will. I have said many times before that I believe in this project and I think that being exposed to the proper audience it will be a very successful one. That is not a 'never say die' attitude which could very well cripple a business by spending too much time on something that just wasn't meant to be. I feel it is more of a 'I am not going to let it go until all my options are exhausted' attitude. Most others would have given up by now. There is something inside me that just isn't ready. When the time is right, I will let it go but I put too much work into it to not give it a fair shake with the audience it needs to be shown to.

Besides, the majority of the work is done and this part of the process - the knocking on doors - requires little time and more waiting than anything. In the mean time I am working in several other directions and it is on the back shelf of my mind. I forget if I mentioned here that I did hear back from the painting pattern company and they do want to run it in their catalogs next summer when they will be starting to present their new holiday stuff. So my patience and tenacity may pay off yet. We just need to see. In the mean time, it is selling well on my site (with its limited audience) and I do believe the ad will come out sometime in February or March. All I can do is wait and see.

On a final note regarding the mishap of no contact information, it has been almost another two weeks since my last attempt to contact the editor of the magazine that made the mistake and I have not heard back from him yet. My initial (and only) conversation with him was in early November and I was told he would get to the bottom of things and get back to me "in a day or so". Since then, I have written several times and left a voice message with no response. My final recourse is to go to the publisher directly and mention it and see what can be done. I have been with that company for over 14 years and have contributed over 100 projects to their publications and have never been treated like this before or had this problem. I don't know if it is the thing to do but I want to do something to make someone accountable. I suppose at this point in the game, I am not expecting anything and that is one cause I am about ready to abandon. I do feel though that this final effort is warranted and then I will put it to rest. If only for my own peace of mind. I suppose it will be a kind of test to see what the company is made of.

So on to better and more positive things:

The latest pictures of the sewing box. I painted the quilt yesterday:


And then added the sleeping cat:


I was amazed at how quickly painting the kitty went. I think I am finally getting into the groove of things. I used a larger brush than I used with the bears for the fur, and I believe that gave it an overall softer effect.


There is part of me that wants to go back and re-do the bears, but seeing that I have much more on my plate right now than I can handle, I don't dare. For this project they look fine and I need to leave them alone.

I now only need to fill in the bare areas with sewing paraphernalia and it will be finished. I think that it will be a nice gift for my friend and I do think that she will like it. We were over at her house the other day and she had other things that I had made her on display and it felt good to see.

Well, this post got quite lengthy. Sorry about that. It always seems that the days when I am not sure what to talk about turn out to be the longest posts. I guess I get on a roll. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful Monday! Have a fun day!
 
#1,538 ·
goodmorning Sheila :)
sorry for all your truoble with that skating pond after all the work you have put into it
and glad to hear you ain´t stop thinking of how can it be saved so it wasn´t vasted work time
I don´t know if you are going to have a stand at the show mbut if so thats an other oppetunety to
show it , I know its a spring show but still consider it if you have a working stand
beside you are going to make the teaching classes and will use a lot of time going around
to be inspired :)

have a great day
Dennis
 
#1,546 ·
Procrastination Can Be Rewarding

How many of us have made plans to do more than we accomplish over the holiday season? I know I do! It seems that no matter how much I plan ahead, the last week before Christmas is one of me wishing I had done more. I am SO happy that I spent much of the summer and autumn painting the skating pond set for Bernie and Ellen. That is one big relief to have it done (although I still need to build another bridge for their set. Oh well - I have a couple of days yet!)

I needed to go to the post office and get some last minute cards out that have to go to the States. I think they will make it in time because they all were mailed to the New England states which are just across the Bay. I hope that Canada Post hired extra beavers to transport the extra amount of mail during this busy season (I always say that their mail is so slow because they strap it to the backs of beavers and send then on their way!) So yes, I am a little tardy with sending those cards out, but what's even funnier is that I have some more mail to go out today and I actually think that it may reach its destination by Friday. How's that for "pink cloud thinking?"

What remains though are for what I will call 'local' people - my friends in Bear River and such - which is located only about 45 minutes from where I live. Certainly if I mailed cards to them they would receive them in time! I could probably walk there with them between now and Friday. So today's task will be to get all those written and to the post office by pick up time which is about 3pm.

I found out yesterday though that procrastination does have its merits though. After the post office I had a couple of errands and some grocery shopping to do. I found that several of our local stores are putting stuff at half price already. It used to be that the day after Christmas everything would be half price. I remember heading out early with my friend Cari on a couple occasions the morning after Christmas and stocking up on wrap, ornaments and decoration for the next year. It was a sight to be seen and I always felt that it was the final blow the season and the epitome of commercialization. But heck, it was rather fun and we always went out and had a great breakfast and sometimes a good lunch to boot! It was to us, the official end to the Holidays and after all the rushing and wrapping and busyness, a well-deserved girl's day out.

But seeing all the half price sales and stuff right now, the week of Christmas was quite surprising. I don't really shop much for the holidays, as most of the gifts I give are hand-made. I have already talked about my box obsession and I how the majority of my meager spending goes toward the packaging. I just now needed "a few things" to add on as stocking stuffer type items and last minute gifts that were not really considered. Long story short, I made out like the proverbial bandit. I got some gift sets and cute, useful note pads and ribbon and such and little thingies to tie on the packages and all kinds of stuff for a fraction of the regular price. It was so much FUN and I had that rush you get when you get a great price on your favorite tool or make a great wood score. You all know what I mean. That warm and fuzzy "man - I am COOL!" feeling.

So I am wondering if we are being conditioned to procrastinate. It is amazing how easily my mind can be swayed by a little positive reinforcement. I am already planning for next year. While everyone else is rushing around all December in a tizzy getting their gifts and wrapping and (worse yet) others are bragging how they were finished with their shopping and wrapping before Thanksgiving (don't you want to slap those people??), I will be sitting here smugly and quietly, knowing that good things come to those who wait and if I can hold out long enough, I will be able to find an array of bargains we never dreamed of prior to December 25th.

I also got a couple of inspirational ideas for scroll saw projects. Perhaps that was the biggest 'find' of all. Many of my outings are in reality scouting expeditions to see what people are liking these days and many times they are a source of a wealth of ideas that I can apply to woodworking.

My partner and I were in the toy aisle and he was rummaging through the Lego sets and reminiscing about his Lego building days and he had a great idea to make some cool accessories on the scroll saw that would hook into traditional Lego sets. We then needed to stop at his parents and he crawled up into the attic there and retrieved several dust covered boxes of his Lego sets from his youth (because we needed them here to fit the piece in!) and brought them here. We all know how when inspiration hits we like to jump at it right then and there and while I was unpacking things and putting things away, he was drawing and at the scroll saw. Before dinner was ready, he presented me with "Cowboy Pete and Rocky - his trusty moose" complete with carved cowboy had that he carved on the Dremel.

Toy Hat Wood Hardwood Lego


He is not quite sure where he will go with this idea, but it sure is going to be a fun trip, no matter where it winds up. To me Cowboy Pete is a great example of finding inspiration in the most unlikely places and situations.

So today will be packing up those last things for the post office. I have my Christmas music playing and I am really feeling that I am getting into the spirit of the season. This is the FUN part! I still have my baking and wrapping to do, but that is OK.

I still have lots of time! :D

Have a fun day everyone! I know I will!
 

Attachments

#1,547 ·
Procrastination Can Be Rewarding

How many of us have made plans to do more than we accomplish over the holiday season? I know I do! It seems that no matter how much I plan ahead, the last week before Christmas is one of me wishing I had done more. I am SO happy that I spent much of the summer and autumn painting the skating pond set for Bernie and Ellen. That is one big relief to have it done (although I still need to build another bridge for their set. Oh well - I have a couple of days yet!)

I needed to go to the post office and get some last minute cards out that have to go to the States. I think they will make it in time because they all were mailed to the New England states which are just across the Bay. I hope that Canada Post hired extra beavers to transport the extra amount of mail during this busy season (I always say that their mail is so slow because they strap it to the backs of beavers and send then on their way!) So yes, I am a little tardy with sending those cards out, but what's even funnier is that I have some more mail to go out today and I actually think that it may reach its destination by Friday. How's that for "pink cloud thinking?"

What remains though are for what I will call 'local' people - my friends in Bear River and such - which is located only about 45 minutes from where I live. Certainly if I mailed cards to them they would receive them in time! I could probably walk there with them between now and Friday. So today's task will be to get all those written and to the post office by pick up time which is about 3pm.

I found out yesterday though that procrastination does have its merits though. After the post office I had a couple of errands and some grocery shopping to do. I found that several of our local stores are putting stuff at half price already. It used to be that the day after Christmas everything would be half price. I remember heading out early with my friend Cari on a couple occasions the morning after Christmas and stocking up on wrap, ornaments and decoration for the next year. It was a sight to be seen and I always felt that it was the final blow the season and the epitome of commercialization. But heck, it was rather fun and we always went out and had a great breakfast and sometimes a good lunch to boot! It was to us, the official end to the Holidays and after all the rushing and wrapping and busyness, a well-deserved girl's day out.

But seeing all the half price sales and stuff right now, the week of Christmas was quite surprising. I don't really shop much for the holidays, as most of the gifts I give are hand-made. I have already talked about my box obsession and I how the majority of my meager spending goes toward the packaging. I just now needed "a few things" to add on as stocking stuffer type items and last minute gifts that were not really considered. Long story short, I made out like the proverbial bandit. I got some gift sets and cute, useful note pads and ribbon and such and little thingies to tie on the packages and all kinds of stuff for a fraction of the regular price. It was so much FUN and I had that rush you get when you get a great price on your favorite tool or make a great wood score. You all know what I mean. That warm and fuzzy "man - I am COOL!" feeling.

So I am wondering if we are being conditioned to procrastinate. It is amazing how easily my mind can be swayed by a little positive reinforcement. I am already planning for next year. While everyone else is rushing around all December in a tizzy getting their gifts and wrapping and (worse yet) others are bragging how they were finished with their shopping and wrapping before Thanksgiving (don't you want to slap those people??), I will be sitting here smugly and quietly, knowing that good things come to those who wait and if I can hold out long enough, I will be able to find an array of bargains we never dreamed of prior to December 25th.

I also got a couple of inspirational ideas for scroll saw projects. Perhaps that was the biggest 'find' of all. Many of my outings are in reality scouting expeditions to see what people are liking these days and many times they are a source of a wealth of ideas that I can apply to woodworking.

My partner and I were in the toy aisle and he was rummaging through the Lego sets and reminiscing about his Lego building days and he had a great idea to make some cool accessories on the scroll saw that would hook into traditional Lego sets. We then needed to stop at his parents and he crawled up into the attic there and retrieved several dust covered boxes of his Lego sets from his youth (because we needed them here to fit the piece in!) and brought them here. We all know how when inspiration hits we like to jump at it right then and there and while I was unpacking things and putting things away, he was drawing and at the scroll saw. Before dinner was ready, he presented me with "Cowboy Pete and Rocky - his trusty moose" complete with carved cowboy had that he carved on the Dremel.

Toy Hat Wood Hardwood Lego


He is not quite sure where he will go with this idea, but it sure is going to be a fun trip, no matter where it winds up. To me Cowboy Pete is a great example of finding inspiration in the most unlikely places and situations.

So today will be packing up those last things for the post office. I have my Christmas music playing and I am really feeling that I am getting into the spirit of the season. This is the FUN part! I still have my baking and wrapping to do, but that is OK.

I still have lots of time! :D

Have a fun day everyone! I know I will!
LOL nice little cowboy :)
its funny how a box of lego´s can bring the play to live
I know several people who love´stoplay with Lego´s and some of them use them
in there work as well :)
I know a women at Lego´s factory on the team that is coming upwith new modells
and build new houses and landscapes to Legoland
yes I like Lego´s too as the big child I am :)

have a great Day
Dennis
 

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#1,552 ·
Reality Check

I am sitting here this morning and having a difficult time getting started writing. Not because I have little to say, but quite the opposite. The problem being that what is going through my mind aren't all pleasant or positive thoughts, but actually a rather harsh and realistic look at things and my business in general.

I have posted in this series for over 200 consecutive days now, and when I began this blog, I decided that this journal of my business and how it affects my daily life would not only document the accomplishments and achievements that I reach, but also the stumbling blocks that I meet along the way to what hopefully will be a successful venture. I realize that I bring a lot of personal feelings and thoughts into the discussion, but there is no way that I can segregate my business side from my personal side. Perhaps that is some of the problem.

Since May when I began writing here, I have experienced a good deal of growth. I look back to where I was then and the place that I am now and I definitely see improvement. I am happy about that. I am not quite comfortable yet and not quite convinced that doing this will be able to sustain me, but there are still avenues that I haven't explored yet so I am not ready to give up. There are days though, that I get somewhat tired of fighting the battles and wonder what the heck I am doing this to myself for. Fortunately, with the assistance of support from others and a little time, those moments don't seem to linger and I am able to get back on a positive path and reset my focus back to positive thoughts and actions.

I have said before how valuable I feel the feedback that I receive here has been to me. Although I barely know most of you, I consider many of you my friends. Your daily support and suggestions have not only helped me personally, but have also forced me to look at things from many different perspectives - something that I am unable to accomplish on my own. Although I haven't always agreed with every time someone has given me advice or suggestions, I can honestly say that whether I did so or not they still helped me see things from many perspectives and I have definitely benefited from your input.

I also try to give back to the forum here and help others where I can. I often feel it is an uneven exchange because when I give a nugget of advice or answer a question, I don't always realize the value of the information to the recipient. Many times are am reminded of its worth after a suggestion of mine is implemented and it makes me realize that I do have things to contribute here. Many times if it isn't said on the public forum it arrives in a personal message. Either way it is appreciated and does help to make me feel that I am of value here too.

With that said, I do want you all to be aware how much I value your daily input and thoughts that you offer. Your collective experience and wisdom has helped me make better decisions and approach my business in a way that I haven't been able to previously. I do have a partner for the first time in my business and I find it is very helpful also to have someone to share the daily burdens and decision making with, but like myself, he is so close to things that sometimes it is difficult to emotionally separate from things and look them with complete objectivity.

I see the approaching end of the year as a time for evaluation. For me, it is an opportunity to sit back and take a firm and objective look at my business and crunch numbers and decide which direction to head in the future. I like bringing in a new year. To some it is just another day, month, year rolling along, but to me it symbolized fresh beginnings and (because I am an optimist) new hope.

Each year I spend the week after Christmas getting organized and making goals for my business. In the past when my life was quite a mess, I only did this half-halfheartedly. But this year I am in a good place in my life and I am definitely up for the task of doing what I need to do to make things succeed. I see many opportunities on my horizon and it will be my choice whether or not I will choose to pursue them. In doing so, it may mean that I will have to act and react differently than I have in the past, and I realize that some people will not understand or like that. But if I honestly look back at my past business performance common sense tells me that in order to better things, some things needs to change.

I have a history among not only my business colleagues but also many others in my life of being a 'soft touch'. My patience is long and even when I am pushed to the limit, I tend to quietly go away. I don't like confrontation, even if I know I am being wronged or short-changed. There are people and companies that try to take advantage of this and I am finally beginning to see how detrimental this is both professionally and personally. It is starting to dawn on me that operating in this manner will not only cripple my business, but surely be the death of it.

If I am to survive in this profession, I need to take a definitive stance. I am not saying that I will be heartless or unfair, but only that I will begin to approach situations and make decisions with my own interests first and foremost. After all, that is what any successful company does. Am I so foolish to think that they actually have my interests in mind? I am ashamed to say that for many years I have thought in that direction. But finally the fog is lifting and I am realizing that their own interests come first, not mine. I am no longer selling my wares at a friendly neighborhood craft fair for an extra couple of dollars. This is my livelihood and if it is going to support me I need to treat it as such. Otherwise I don't stand a chance.

So what brought on this reality check you may ask? As usual, it isn't one specific event, but an accumulation of things one by one added to the pile. Eventually, the elephant was staring me right in the eyes and I feel he can no longer be avoided. I can't (and will not) sit here in good consciousness and wonder why things aren't going along as I want them to when I am still doing things that are not in my best interest. If I do continue on the path I have been traveling, you can be pretty sure that my company wouldn't make it to the year 2012.

I am going to wind up on a positive note though. Change - although uncomfortable - can be a good thing. Most of us don't like change I believe, yet we wonder why we are stuck in the same place year after year. My business is "OK" right now, but I want it better. How can I logically expect it to change for the better if I don't make some changes myself? After all, I AM my business.

I realize that there will be some waves and rifts in this process, and I am prepared for that. I am sure I will ruffle some feathers when the same people that were able to walk all over me and take advantage will no longer be able to do so. I have seen evidence of this in this past year as I was in the process of rebuilding. It seems they were used to the softer, sappier me and when I began making (perfectly reasonable) demands they were some times out of sorts because they couldn't get away with what they were used to with me.

I expect they will get over it. If not then we all have other options. If I can't make a living at this, I have no business doing it. It really is that plain and simple.

On a final note, to those of you who were wanted to be updated regarding what has been done about the skating pond scene issue, of the two ads that I sent the magazine, they are going to run the one that only shows the skating pond scene and no other products that I offer.

"And that's all I am going to say about that."

I wish you all a truly wonderful day!
 
#1,563 ·
Good Advice

I received many responses from several of you yesterday regarding my post. I do very much appreciate all the useful advice and support, and I thought I would respond in general to many of the suggestions here in today's blog. I spent most of the day away from the computer, as I wanted to take a break from it for just a while and refocus on some other things that I am working on. I think that proved to be a good decision, as I accomplished a great deal and once again I have a good and positive feeling about my work.

I found the "Cheese Book" that Dan recommended online and I did read it last night. I feel it was a simple, common-sense way to show what many of you have pointed out not only yesterday, but in the past. Yes, it is a simple story, but sometimes simple is good and although it certainly doesn't encompass every situation, in general I think it is good portrayal of how things like fear of change can paralyze us.

It is odd how some people have such a deep fear of change while others simply thrive on it. I suppose that is the difference between people. While some people are uncomfortable with even the smallest variation in their regular routines, there are others who without constant diversity quickly become bored with their lives and seek out new adventures. I think that most of us lie somewhere in the middle of those two schools of thought.

I remember sitting at O'Hare airport in Chicago waiting for my flight to come here to Canada for the first time. I knew that my life was going to change that day, and I was terrified. There was part of me that was wondering if I was crazy for even considering moving to such a different place than I was used to, but there was also a much larger part of me that needed to do it - just to see what would happen.

It was at a time in my life when my son was just about grown and busy with his own life. My daughter would be coming with me (which didn't work out exactly how I planned, but that is another story) and the opportunity was there for me. Of all the things that were going through my head that morning, there was one thought that stood out among all the others - if I didn't go and see, I would always wonder what would have happened.

As you could imagine, many of my family and friends thought I was crazy. Most of those people were those that have lived in quiet routine for most of their lives and couldn't imagine doing anything that would so drastically change their lives. I never held it against them, as they were used to what they were used to and I did understand even at that time that everyone is different.

My true friends and family (the ones who really know me) have always been supportive of my decision and have looked past their own feelings and have been there for me through the good times and the bad. Those close to me can attest that it hasn't always been smooth sailing for me since coming here. There have been some battles that I would have never anticipated that would have defeated even the most stoic adventurer. But with the help and support of not only my family and friends from the states, but also my new friends here in Canada and my friends that I have met through my woodworking and job, I have not only survived these last years, but I believe I have come out stronger and a better person because of them. I am often asked if I would do it over again knowing how things would be and I can easily and without hesitation answer with a resounding "yes".

Changes are good and necessary if we are to keep on growing. I believe that I wrote in one of my first blogs that I realized that everything in our lives is constantly changing. Perhaps when we run into most of our problems is when we forget that and try to continue on in the same way we have always have while the world around us is changing. I saw that in the Cheese story and I do believe it applies to our lives.

Have you ever noticed that the most resilient people are the most successful? Those willing to adapt and bend seem far happier in their lives and much less stressed out than those who are rigid in their thinking. Although many people believe that change itself is stressful, I am starting to realize that it is far more stressful to remain rigid in a world that is constantly shifting. Perhaps that is the root of much of the anxiety we feel.

Fear of the unknown has crippled countless people. Venturing into the unknown is something that most people hesitate to do. We all like our comfort zones and our safe places that we have worked so hard to forge for ourselves. But then how do we grow? How can we thrive if we keep ourselves tucked neatly in our own safe little place? I don't think it is possible.

So I will look at these recent events in my business life as 'growing pains'. Without discomfort we don't always see the need to change. Perhaps this is a sign that it is time again to spread my wings and make some changes that will be good for me and my business. I believe I said last week that if things hadn't gotten fouled up with the Skating Pond Vignette scene, I wouldn't have contacted the new company and gained another distributor for my patterns. I was uncomfortable and unhappy with how things were going and those feelings forced me to take an action I wouldn't have otherwise taken (and wasn't altogether comfortable doing) and contact this large company and introduce myself and my work. And the results are very promising.

I spent yesterday working on gifts and painting. I didn't want to dwell on things that weren't going well and I wanted to focus on the positive aspects of my life. The sewing box is almost complete and I should have pictures of it for you tomorrow. I read the suggestions and advice from you throughout the day and I really thought about what each of you said. This site is full of insightful and intelligent people and I thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences with me and for your advice. I value the interactions and friendships here very much.

I find my thoughts shifting to those of planning and new patterns and teaching, and I am eagerly awaiting the show in March that will, I am sure, offer an array of new opportunities for me and my business. It is a good place to focus and perhaps one of the most exciting things about it is I don't even have a clue what it will be like.

And I am not afraid. :)
 
#1,566 ·
Finished Sewing Box

Well, it is getting down to the final stretch for me as far as getting all of my gifts done. I am happy to say I finished the sewing box last night and all I have to do is wrap today and finish up some little things. I even got some of my cooking done yesterday so I am feeling good about that.

I had one minor mishap yesterday when half the lights on my little tree died. I don't have a big tree, but it is rather tall and slender. I actually keep it up year round in the corner of my living room because there are so many times throughout the year that I am photographing ornaments that I like to keep it around. It is only about 18" in diameter and very unobtrusive, and I just kind of like it.

When my daughter was small, we used to do crafts together and we decorated that tree for each season. On Valentine's Day we had it filled with hearts. During Easter, we made Easter Eggs and decorated them with glitter and paint and stuff. Summer we did little bird houses and we even decorated it for Halloween. In the off seasons, I usually kept white lights on it so it would be neutral but at Christmas time I would change the lights to colored ones. In the past couple of years though, I have left the white lights though the Christmas season. Perhaps I was just being lazy.

In any case, half of the strand died yesterday afternoon and warranted a trip out - something that I had not anticipated. I did go back to the pharmacy which had all the Christmas things on sale for half price and there was exactly one set of white lights left on the shelf. It was as if they were waiting for me. I also decided since the cost was right that I would purchase a set of colored lights and use them for now. It would be something different and again make the little tree extra special.

One more incredible find that I came across was a beautiful box large enough to hold the sewing box that I am making. Those of you who read regularly already heard about my obsession with nice boxes and I was thinking that I would have to wrap this present 'as is'. But as luck would have it, there was ONE incredibly nice box in which the sewing box would fit perfectly. (And who says that things don't happen for a reason?)

So I arrived home and got to work finishing the sewing box. Aside from the final glaze, it is complete. I have several pictures here to show you.

I decided to paint a tape measure on the top of the lid:


Here is the lid with the finale in place:


And the final pictures with the thread and accessories in place. The machine:


The light bear:


Sewing box and more thread:


Kitty:


Pincushion, scissors and more thread:


Bear 2:


And the final box:


I am very pleased with how it came out. I can't wait to see how she likes it. The best part doing a project like this is giving it to someone who appreciates it. I like doing this 'folksy' style of painting. It is a fun and easy process and I do find it quite relaxing. I just received some new paints from DecoArt to design with and I am rather anxious to do some new things for painting packets.

I have so many things that I want to do. I saw a great video on chip carving yesterday and I think it is something that I would like to try. I also want to do some carving with the Dremel and make some smaller jewelry pieces of animals and such. I would also like to try my hand at working some inlace into my scroll sawing designs. I have a long list of new techniques and things I want to try. The list goes on and on!

I do want to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. I have enjoyed seeing everyone's projects and gifts that they are making for others, even if I hadn't had time to comment on everything. I wish you all wonderful day filled with love, family and peace. And above all happiness!

Merry Christmas to you all!
 
#1,575 ·
Wrapping it Up

I have only three small presents to wrap before noon. My cooking and baking is done. The house is a mess and I don't really care. It didn't quite snow, but it is spitting a few flurries so there is some hope.

I listened to Beethoven's ninth symphony yesterday while wrapping and finishing up gifts and I can still hear it in my head as I am writing now. It is quiet here now because I don't want to disturb the memory of it. I hadn't heard it in years and had forgotten how magnificent it is. It never ceases to amaze me the power that music has over me. I also listened to "The Wall" - an album that was popular during my university days and felt the same exhilaration. It has also been one of my all time favorites and never fails to make me feel good.

I want to take this opportunity to wish my Christian friends a Merry Christmas, those of other beliefs Happy Holidays, and to everyone else I hope you have an incredible day too!

Thank you all once again for your friendships and sharing. And thank you for allowing me to express myself here daily and share my thoughts and ideas with you. You have inspired me so very much and have enriched my life greatly.

I hope everyone has a wonderful day filled with love, happiness, friendship, family and peace. Remember to take time to enjoy the simple things in your life.

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. ~Dr Seuss
 
#1,576 ·
All in all it's just another… brick in the wall…............... STOP! AND SMELL THE COFFEE! You have done enough my friend. :) Enjoy the day… sit a spell… ignore the sawdust.. :) Have a WONDERFUL HOLIDAY SHEILA!
 
#1,583 ·
The Holiday Continues

It was a very nice day yesterday. Although there was no snow on the ground, my practical side got the best of me and I rationalized that it was far better to drive on dry pavement than in the snow and ice. The Mustang has been parked and won't see the road until the spring thaw, but even with a more practical vehicle, it was still better to be safe this way than have the romanticism of a white Christmas. When I awoke this morning, there seems to be a hint of a dusting of snow on the grassy areas, but it is hard to tell.

We had a lovely turkey dinner at Bernie and Ellen's place in Digby. It was a relaxing day with good food and good company. Ellen's main fret was that the turkey she had made only came with one wing. She was a bit upset about it and mentioned it several times, but I thought it was hardly enough to ruin an otherwise pleasant dinner. She worries though, as she likes everything to be just perfect. As far as I was concerned, the dinner was perfect. I think had we not been told, no one would have been the wiser, as the turkey was laid out already carved on a large platter when it was served.

After dinner we all exchanged gifts and I am very happy to report that Ellen was thrilled with receiving the Skating Pond Vignette. It was wonderful to see the look on her face as she realized what it was, as she had only seen the original set sometime back in March or April. She immediately cleared a place under the tree and had me set it up right then and there so she could examine each piece, all the while saying how she couldn't believe I took the time to make it for her. It felt incredible to have made something that was so appreciated. I was so very happy that I had spent those many, many evenings working on for her. As with the set that I made for my son, I wanted to give something really special that they would not be able to get anywhere else and would appreciate.

It is good to give back to those who have given to you over the years. As many of you may have experienced, there have been times when you have given something you have made to someone who is not quite appreciative of the time and effort it took for you to do so. I think as craftspeople we have all had that happen from time to time. Some people just don't see the worth in an object that isn't manufactured or store bought.

But giving something such as this set to both Ellen and my son, I knew that they would both enjoy it for years to come. My son has many of the holiday decorations that I have made over the years, and I enjoy seeing him decorate his own house with them from season to season. I hope that one day he will pass them down to his own children and they will become part of his own family traditions. And it will remind them of me in the same way that the original set I made reminds me of that painted set my own grandparents had under their tree. I suppose that is what traditions are.

Today is going to be a continuation of the holiday. We are going to visit and dinner and I will be able to present Diane with her sewing box. I hope that she is as happy with it as Ellen was with her gift. I am quite excited to see her reaction.

I am happy that the holiday spans over a couple of days. With all the weeks of preparation, it would be a shame if it were over in one short day. I find I like it better when spread over several days, giving time to really enjoy the company and food and festivities.

I hope you all had a wonderful day yesterday, and continue to have a great weekend too.
 
#1,585 ·
Aftermath

I feel like I have been on vacation for a month! I am not sure why, because I was doing things all the time. Lots of them had to do with the business too. But I suppose the main focus was getting my personal stuff done and really enjoying the holiday. And that I did.

I have been wishing for snow for the last several days now. Having a beautiful white blanket during the holidays just sets the mood right for me. We have received nothing but a couple of light flurries which dusted the landscape only to be gone in a few short hours. Last night however, we finally did have a decent amount of snow. In the middle of the night the lights flickered a couple of times and I needed to get up and unplug all the electronics - just in case. The last thing I need is a computer blow out.

I awoke this morning to resetting things and getting the network back on line. I must admit that I am getting pretty good at it, as things need to be done in a certain sequence in order to connect properly. It only took one try and here I am, back and ready to go.

I did, however hear some unsettling noises from one of my hard drives as I rebooted. Although I have everything backed up through the network on a different computer altogether, I really don't want to have to go through the motions of reformatting and all so I am going to check it out further when my partner is here to help me. He knows far more than I do about computers and stuff. It wouldn't hurt to throw another hard drive in there for some extra security and peace of mind. You never can have too many back ups as far as I am concerned. Right now too they are so cheap they are practically giving them away too, so it may be a good time to expand. Just something I need to think about.

I also need to do some general organization in my folders. My computer desktop probably has 50 things on it and like a real desktop, is annoyingly cluttered. I look here and think that it is just as easy to have a 'virtual mess' as it is a 'real mess' and that it can be easy to not file things properly and let things get out of hand. Usually I am pretty good about it, but in the last minute flurry of activity, it got away from me. Time to clean up and back up again.

On the woodworking side of things, I watched a couple of carving videos over the last couple of days and I think I want to try my hand at chip carving. It really looked cool and I liked the fact that it needs only a couple of tools to accomplish good results and that it really isn't very messy. I can see combining some chip carving with some scroll saw patterns and also even doing some power carving with the Dremel to make some interesting designs. Lee Valley has a nice set of knives that aren't very expensive and some free shipping offers and I am debating whether I will use my Christmas money to invest in them. If any of you have had any chip carving experience, I would love to hear what you think. After seeing all the beautiful carvings here I would love to learn at least the basics.

Why aren't there 48 hours in a day?

I have a long list of new woodworking projects I want to get to, so hopefully I will have some new woodworking projects to show you here before long. I thank you for indulging me over the past few weeks when I sort of drifted off in other directions. I know that painting isn't really what you all want to see, but it took up much of my time and I did want to share it with you all. (By the way, Diane really liked the sewing box. I was very happy to see her reaction.)

Most of my companies that I deal with are closed this week. Even here in Canada, the banks and post offices are all closed too. They have what is called "boxing day" here which is a holiday that I don't quite understand, but since Christmas fell on a Saturday, somehow the holiday is extended to today and I think the banks are closed tomorrow also. And then on to the New Years holidays a couple of days after that. So it will be happening all over again.

It is a good time to stay home and eat leftovers and get everything organized and ready for the new year. I will enjoy talking a nice long walk today, as I much prefer the snow to the cold rain that we have been having. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend and get some time this week to take a breath and enjoy the remaining days of 2010.

Happy Monday to you all!
 
#1,597 ·
Clenaing Up and Backing Up

Sometimes I can be somewhat dorky. By that I mean that the silliest things make me happy - things that are so small and insignificant that most normal people wouldn't notice.

I spent the entire day yesterday cleaning up and organizing my computer, and boy am I happy! As usual at this time of year, it really was a mess. I think that when I am pressed for time, I tend to not put things where they should go immediately and as with anything, they tend to build up. Even my desk top was atrocious. There had to be fifty files and icons on it and whenever I tried to find anything it took me much too long to sift through everything and locate it.

I thought it was funny how a virtual desktop could get just as cluttered and messy as a real one. You wouldn't think. I use my desktop to put stuff on temporarily when I know I am going to email it or upload it and then it is supposed to go into a file that is its permanent home. Usually things only stay up there for a day or two and then get filed into the system. I also have probably about 20 or so shortcuts up there to my most used files and programs. Twenty may seem a lot, but I have tried for many years to pare down the number and I have come to the conclusion that every one of them is necessary to me. The less clicks the better as far as I am concerned. I am all for efficiency.

I also enjoy my set of custom icons that I use throughout my system. I found this program called "Icon Packager" and it allows you to change the icons of your entire system quickly and easily. It was only about $15 and I felt it was well worth it, as I look at my computer all day and being a graphics person in general I love having my computer unique and cool looking. That along with some beautiful desktop backgrounds makes my computer a very pleasant place to work. When I am not working, I enjoy the beautiful artwork displayed on the screen.

My partner is what I call a minimalist, and teases me incessantly because of these things. He also thrives on organization and he prides himself on his own computer desktop which has only four icons on it and a black desktop background. Neat. Clean. Simple. I must say it is very appealing to see things so streamlined on his computer, but I still prefer my cool eye candy. I suppose that is why they call them "Personal Computers." To each his own.

As far as the guts though, everything is neat as a pin. And more importantly, everything is backed up. I don't believe that I have ever housed so much information on a computer before and had it so efficiently stored and organized. From drawings to movies to music to web stuff everything has its own place and everything is now in it. And everything is backed up on totally separate disks and computers. The chances of everything going at once are very small. If they do though, my patterns themselves are backed up on a DVD so they are completely safe. I have even gone so far as to store the said DVD at my friend's house so that if there is a fire or something like that, I still will have my pattern files. There are over 400 of them and losing them would not be good as you can imagine.

Even the hundreds and hundreds of reference photos and pictures I have are all tagged for easy indexing and locating. I love that Windows 7 has a great search feature in its file explorer. I believe that feature came out in Vista and although I was a die-hard XP fan, that feature alone won me over. When I first realized that it was able to do this, I spent more than a month tagging the thousands of photos and pictures that I have. I would sit at night and spend an hour or two just renaming and tagging things so I could search by keyword and find all the relevant pictures I wanted. What a job! But once set up, it is a marvelous efficient way to find things and quite easy to keep up. When I find new reference photos or pictures, I put them in a separate folder I call "new pictures" and it is kind of a temporary holding tank until I can properly name them and tag them. Once that is done, I file them into their respective folders (bears in the bear folder, etc.) My temporary new folder had over 300 pictures in it to be named and filed and that was a large part of my work yesterday. But now the folder is empty and I can start fresh.

In looking at all of those files, I was reminded of so many projects that I want to get busy on. There is so much cool stuff to do I can't wait to get started. I just have to decide on a direction.

I have had many requests for some more non-seasonal candle trays so I think I will begin there. I want to do many more geometric Frank Lloyd Wright type candle holders as well as geometric swirls and such and I think it will be a fun way to get drawing again. The trays are still selling quite well and I believe there are many who want to have them all so I need to strike while the iron is hot and get going on them.

My partner spent the day yesterday rewriting and coding several articles for the site. I have had the articles as downloads on the site, but they are in PDF format and it would be more beneficial for us to have the actual articles up there as it would not only add relevant key words to the site which will help our ranking with the search engines, but will also give people reason to keep going back to the site to read them. The template that our site is on doesn't really support the format that we want, so he is hand-coding everything to make it look attractive and easy to read and include the pictures. They aren't there yet, but when they are done and up there, they will be a great addition and look very professional.

We were looking at some sites of web-designers yesterday and couldn't believe how crummy some of them looked. We wondered how one could proclaim themselves a web designer and offer such 'blah' stuff. Many of them looked like a third grader put them together. As I said, we are all for streamlining things, but there is a difference between 'simple' and 'plain'. Many of them were not easy to navigate either, and were missing several important features. It just made us think.

The sun is coming up now and I just can barely see out the window and much to my amazement there appears to be a blizzard outside. The snow is blowing and swirling and coming down really hard. I don't have regular cable or TV (I watch everything from my computers) and with being as busy as I was I didn't really get to read the news yesterday, but this morning a few people were talking about a big storm that occurred across the bay from us on the eastern coast of the US that was heading our way. I think it is here.

Tire Snow Sky Wheel Vehicle


I have been wishing for snow for the past week now and I think that my wish is coming true. but I am prepared. I have food, water, cat food, etc. and even if I do lose power, I can paint and draw. It is good to be prepared. I don't know if I will be going for my walk today though. If I do, I will bring my camera. It looks like we already have about six inches of snow and it doesn't look like it will be stopping anytime soon.

If you don't hear from me for a day or two, you will know why. Keep warm and be happy! And have a wonderful and creative day! :D
 

Attachments

#1,598 ·
Clenaing Up and Backing Up

Sometimes I can be somewhat dorky. By that I mean that the silliest things make me happy - things that are so small and insignificant that most normal people wouldn't notice.

I spent the entire day yesterday cleaning up and organizing my computer, and boy am I happy! As usual at this time of year, it really was a mess. I think that when I am pressed for time, I tend to not put things where they should go immediately and as with anything, they tend to build up. Even my desk top was atrocious. There had to be fifty files and icons on it and whenever I tried to find anything it took me much too long to sift through everything and locate it.

I thought it was funny how a virtual desktop could get just as cluttered and messy as a real one. You wouldn't think. I use my desktop to put stuff on temporarily when I know I am going to email it or upload it and then it is supposed to go into a file that is its permanent home. Usually things only stay up there for a day or two and then get filed into the system. I also have probably about 20 or so shortcuts up there to my most used files and programs. Twenty may seem a lot, but I have tried for many years to pare down the number and I have come to the conclusion that every one of them is necessary to me. The less clicks the better as far as I am concerned. I am all for efficiency.

I also enjoy my set of custom icons that I use throughout my system. I found this program called "Icon Packager" and it allows you to change the icons of your entire system quickly and easily. It was only about $15 and I felt it was well worth it, as I look at my computer all day and being a graphics person in general I love having my computer unique and cool looking. That along with some beautiful desktop backgrounds makes my computer a very pleasant place to work. When I am not working, I enjoy the beautiful artwork displayed on the screen.

My partner is what I call a minimalist, and teases me incessantly because of these things. He also thrives on organization and he prides himself on his own computer desktop which has only four icons on it and a black desktop background. Neat. Clean. Simple. I must say it is very appealing to see things so streamlined on his computer, but I still prefer my cool eye candy. I suppose that is why they call them "Personal Computers." To each his own.

As far as the guts though, everything is neat as a pin. And more importantly, everything is backed up. I don't believe that I have ever housed so much information on a computer before and had it so efficiently stored and organized. From drawings to movies to music to web stuff everything has its own place and everything is now in it. And everything is backed up on totally separate disks and computers. The chances of everything going at once are very small. If they do though, my patterns themselves are backed up on a DVD so they are completely safe. I have even gone so far as to store the said DVD at my friend's house so that if there is a fire or something like that, I still will have my pattern files. There are over 400 of them and losing them would not be good as you can imagine.

Even the hundreds and hundreds of reference photos and pictures I have are all tagged for easy indexing and locating. I love that Windows 7 has a great search feature in its file explorer. I believe that feature came out in Vista and although I was a die-hard XP fan, that feature alone won me over. When I first realized that it was able to do this, I spent more than a month tagging the thousands of photos and pictures that I have. I would sit at night and spend an hour or two just renaming and tagging things so I could search by keyword and find all the relevant pictures I wanted. What a job! But once set up, it is a marvelous efficient way to find things and quite easy to keep up. When I find new reference photos or pictures, I put them in a separate folder I call "new pictures" and it is kind of a temporary holding tank until I can properly name them and tag them. Once that is done, I file them into their respective folders (bears in the bear folder, etc.) My temporary new folder had over 300 pictures in it to be named and filed and that was a large part of my work yesterday. But now the folder is empty and I can start fresh.

In looking at all of those files, I was reminded of so many projects that I want to get busy on. There is so much cool stuff to do I can't wait to get started. I just have to decide on a direction.

I have had many requests for some more non-seasonal candle trays so I think I will begin there. I want to do many more geometric Frank Lloyd Wright type candle holders as well as geometric swirls and such and I think it will be a fun way to get drawing again. The trays are still selling quite well and I believe there are many who want to have them all so I need to strike while the iron is hot and get going on them.

My partner spent the day yesterday rewriting and coding several articles for the site. I have had the articles as downloads on the site, but they are in PDF format and it would be more beneficial for us to have the actual articles up there as it would not only add relevant key words to the site which will help our ranking with the search engines, but will also give people reason to keep going back to the site to read them. The template that our site is on doesn't really support the format that we want, so he is hand-coding everything to make it look attractive and easy to read and include the pictures. They aren't there yet, but when they are done and up there, they will be a great addition and look very professional.

We were looking at some sites of web-designers yesterday and couldn't believe how crummy some of them looked. We wondered how one could proclaim themselves a web designer and offer such 'blah' stuff. Many of them looked like a third grader put them together. As I said, we are all for streamlining things, but there is a difference between 'simple' and 'plain'. Many of them were not easy to navigate either, and were missing several important features. It just made us think.

The sun is coming up now and I just can barely see out the window and much to my amazement there appears to be a blizzard outside. The snow is blowing and swirling and coming down really hard. I don't have regular cable or TV (I watch everything from my computers) and with being as busy as I was I didn't really get to read the news yesterday, but this morning a few people were talking about a big storm that occurred across the bay from us on the eastern coast of the US that was heading our way. I think it is here.

Tire Snow Sky Wheel Vehicle


I have been wishing for snow for the past week now and I think that my wish is coming true. but I am prepared. I have food, water, cat food, etc. and even if I do lose power, I can paint and draw. It is good to be prepared. I don't know if I will be going for my walk today though. If I do, I will bring my camera. It looks like we already have about six inches of snow and it doesn't look like it will be stopping anytime soon.

If you don't hear from me for a day or two, you will know why. Keep warm and be happy! And have a wonderful and creative day! :D
i have to hand it to you sheila
if you can make heads or tail of this computer clean-up

i wander around in mine sometimes
i find a file somewhere
and open it
empty
then somewhere else
'oh wow there is that pipe wrench
i've been looking for'
then there is the 20 year old
laying around asking for money

i can never seem to find them when i look
and can't seem to erase pictures
no mater how hard i try

kind of like a pyramid
from some unknown pharaoh
that was a pack rat

some i move when the window gives me a choice
but can't find it again either

when i do a check
it tells me everything is just fine
so i leave things in place
in the molasses they are trapped in

when they start leaking out of the ports
i will sweep them in the trash
 

Attachments

#1,609 ·
Taking a Break Now and Then

I think that sometimes getting away from things and taking a break can be extremely beneficial. Especially to someone like me who works from home and never really gets away from their business. Over the past several months, I have taken a couple of what I call 'day trips' but other than that, I hadn't really had a break from things. I realize that this is part of owning your own business, but I also feel that sometimes it can get to you and you need to spend some time on other things to keep you fresh and excited about things.

I like working on what I call personal stuff during the month of December. One may argue that I am not really getting away from my job at all because I am still doing woodworking and painting and such and after all that is what my job is all about, but the psychological difference of doing something for a mass of people and to make a profit on your business and doing something as a gift for a loved one is huge.

That's not to say that I don't enjoy what I do on a daily basis, but during the past few weeks I was able to work mostly on gifts for others and refocus a large portion of my attention on having fun creating and not think in the least of how much profit it may bring. For someone looking in from the outside, it may be difficult to distinguish the difference, but I can assure you that it is tremendous.

Anyone who really knows me knows that I truly enjoy creating designs for others. I feel that I am not alone in saying that it is probably the main reason that I started doing this in the first place. However, when it is thrust upon you day in and day out, sometimes we are more aware of the pressure we have put on ourselves than the pleasure we gain from our work. We forget the reason why we do this type of job in the first place. I don't believe that any job is immune to that. However, by being aware of that and allowing ourselves some time to refresh and change gears for a bit, it helps us stay interested and creative and work at our best. It's the old "I can't miss you if you don't go away" philosophy and it does have some merit.

With that said, I am very happy with how the day went yesterday. It seemed like forever since I have been actually drawing on the computer and even longer since I have been at the scroll saw. I had almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it. I spent the most productive part of the day drawing up a new candle tray that is just about ready to cut today and I am very happy with the design.

The candle trays have been extremely successful and I have had many requests for more designs for them. Many people who made them for Christmas gifts have already come to me and told me how well-received they were and how people loved them. I have requests for not only other holiday designs, but also non-holiday ones that can be left out all year. I have so many ideas for them in my head that it is hard to settle down and realize that I need to just draw one at a time. As I sat down to draw yesterday, I found myself getting lost and overwhelmed by the number of versions I was thinking about at once. I finally realized that I had to just start with ONE and go from there.

I chose another Celtic design. I wanted to get my feet wet with some simple geometry and the Celtic designs are just that. Clean lines and repetition. They aren't so complex as the Art Deco designs that I am thinking about doing, but they are simple enough to get me back in the swing of things. The first Celtic candle tray I did was well-received and I understand that there are lots of people who enjoy this type of design so I feel that it is a good place to start.

Within a couple of hours, I had the design nearly completed. It is quite different than the first Celtic design that I did and I don't think it will take that long to cut. I plan on doing so today.

I didn't get to my walk until after 8pm last night. It snowed off and on all day, at times with it blowing sideways. After writing yesterday morning, I read the NY Times on my computer and realized the scope of the storm that had hit the city. What we are receiving was part of that storm system, but nowhere near as severe. We did get several inches, however, and there were a couple of times I nearly slipped and fell on the icy road. We stayed on the road however and chose not to venture into the woods, as on the path as the drifts were quite high and it wouldn't have been prudent to try to navigate in the dark. It was beautiful out though, although it was a bit windy and definitely cold. I wore several layers of clothes and didn't feel it much except on my cheeks.

Taking breaks such as that are so beneficial. In the past couple of weeks, I have read about and talked to several others who have found themselves stuck in creative ruts. I, myself was feeling rather flat at times and I did notice that things were getting to me a bit more than usual. iI suppose we could blame it on the busy holiday season and the pressure that it brings with it, but for myself at least I feel that part of it was because I had been doing too much for too long and just needed to step back and change gears for a while. Fortunately I was able to do so.

Today will be exciting for me as I get to actually make some saw dust. My landlord is on holiday, so I can get an early start without having to worry about bothering her (although she says she can't hear it anyway). I am looking forward to feeling productive again and making some new and fun designs.

I hope it is a good day for you all too! :)
 
#1,610 ·
If it makes you feel any better, I know exactly what you mean. You CAN get away while still doing woodwork. If you truly enjoy what you do, then sometimes "getting away" can just mean working on something you WANT to work on instead of something you HAVE to work on.
As for scrolling, I often have a tendancy to work the scroll saw into whatever I'm building. Every now and then, I'll get to feeling kind of tired of scrolling. So I'll do a project (or two) that doesn't require the use of the scroll saw. By the time I finish that, I'm missing my scroll saw like and old friend.
 
#1,613 ·
Celtic Candle Tray

Yesterday turned out to be a fine day. It felt great to be able to get back to the scroll saw and make something again. I know it was only a couple of weeks, but it seemed like ages since I had cut and getting back to it was very rewarding and relaxing.

I cut out the next candle tray in the series. I still need to cut the charms out today and then I will be able to photograph it properly, but I at least took a couple of snapshots of it so I could show it here. I choose a Celtic design again, but this time I did a couple of things differently. I decided to cut all the way up to the center piece which drops down and see how that would work. In the previous candle trays, I simply framed around the drop down piece and then the design started outside of the initial 1/4" frame. Although this approach worked well for the previous trays, I found that it made the design area of the tray a total of 1/2" smaller and somewhat restricted what I could put inside of that area. As it is, to make a 8" diameter tray I was limited to an approximately 1.5" area, as I had previously allowed about 1/4" for a border on both the inside and outside of the piece. I don't know if I explained that properly, but I hope you understand.

In any case, the design goes right up to the drop down without any negative consequences whatsoever. The try is actually quite sturdy and I like the way the design sits.

I also decided not to route either the inner or the outside edge, as I feel the angular edges accent the design and make it look crisp and clean. Below is a picture of the tray piece(s):


And a close up of the details:


As you can see, it still needs to be sanded and oil finished at this point. I used 1/2" birch and I plan to use my favorite process of mineral oil followed by spray shellac to finish it.

I really like the look of this design. It is quite simple, but strong and for lack of better words "on purpose". It was a really easy piece to cut, with only 60 internal cuts. I think it would be a great piece for someone who is in the early stages of learning to scroll saw because there is little maneuvering necessary and no areas that are what I would consider 'delicate'. Today I will finish it up and post some pictures in my gallery later on.

I have been sorely behind in my gallery entries. It seems that I have just been moving along doing other things and haven't given it the time it deserves to stay current. I suppose I can add that to my list of resolutions that I have for the next year.

I have a new small business venture that I want to get started on later today. Another painting designer and I kind of hooked up through Facebook. I have been and admirer of her work for several years, as she designs many darling whimsical painting patterns. She noticed that I did woodworking and approached me with the opportunity to cut some pieces for her to design with and perhaps be published. I would then become the listed supplier in both the publications and also her pattern packets.

I need to be very careful with this, as I don't want to get myself into a trap of spending too much time on something and not making any money. The good thing about this is that since she is a painter, the focus is going to be on the painting, not the piece and the pieces that I will be providing for her will be much simpler than what I am used to. I am going to approach this very responsibly and I will be certain to ask a fair price for my time and work. If it is not feasible for me to do this than I will not partake in it. If it does work out, it may be a nice fill in or side thing that I can do when things are slow. It certainly merits investigation.

We also worked on putting the videos on the site, as well as reworking the articles so that they are right there on the website and look more professional. Previously, my customers needed to download them onto their computer to read them. Now they are right there online so that they will be able to read them on the site. We also are adding in more articles that are relevant to scrollsawing and woodworking in general. We want to give people reasons to keep coming back on the site and spending time there and are looking to be a more relevant source of information.

So it will be another busy day today, I expect. It feels good to be focused and have some clear goals in front of me again. It also feels good to see some tangible projects come from the work that I am doing. Although I know that things like public relations and book work are necessary, it is certainly more fun to have something that I can hold in my hand to show for the work I did in a day.

So it's Thursday already? Another holiday weekend is upon us. I hope you all have a great one today! Be creative and most of all have FUN! :D
 
#1,623 ·
Looking Back

And here we are at the end of another year. I find this to be a time of reflection for most people. A time to both look back and look ahead. It is a time of evaluation, when people set new goals and look to the future with hope. There is something about a fresh start that seems to empower people.

Here on the pink cloud of optimism we are no different. We look at the new year as a time to start fresh, with a clean ledger and use all the experience and knowledge we have gained so far in our lives to make this year the best year ever. It is a fun and comfortable place to be. After all, what has really changed but the numbers on the calendar. Is tomorrow really going to be different from today?

Perhaps the only thing that really changes this time of year is our attitude. Many of us are still 'warm and fuzzy' from the holiday season and cheer that has been around us these past few weeks and it has bled over into our way of thinking. Some people live with this attitude all the time. Others only seem to get caught up in it at certain times of the year. I found that people are more cheerful during holiday times in general. What was usually an attitude of distracted indifference from others at the post office or in line at the market or in our daily routines has been for the past several weeks replaced with a cheerful "Merry Christmas" or the politically correct "Happy Holidays". It isn't as if these same people weren't nice before, but it just seems to me that it gives others an excuse to be a little bit extra nice and friendly. And I think it does have an effect on others. At least it does for me.

It reinforces my way of thinking that "we follow where we focus." If we choose to focus on all the negative things that are happening around us (and they are always lurking) it can't help but bring us down and deflate us. However, if we choose to look at the brighter side of things and focus on all the positive and good things in our lives, the chances are that we will go through the day with a much better attitude and feeling better about ourselves and our lives in general. It isn't to say that we should ignore the hardships and negative things that happen in our lives, but I truly believe that they are much easier to deal with if we also look at the good things that have been bestowed upon us and focus most of our attention on them. That alone will do wonders in helping us deal with the negative things that are happening around us.

Sometimes it is easier said than done. But with some practice and conscious effort, it becomes a habit - and I believe a good habit - and not only assists us in dealing with the everyday troubles of the world, but also bleeds over to the others around us.

So with that said, I am very much looking forward to the new year of 2011. Looking back, I think that 2010 was incredible for me. Sure, I had some hardships, as many of you have read about in these blogs, but overall I have made great strides in both my business and my personal happiness. There is still work to be done in both areas, but when comparing my life to where it was 365 days ago I see a good improvement. That in itself is a gift, I feel. I look around me and see many people struggling and I know that I am very fortunate that things are on the upswing. I know in my heart though that it didn't 'just happen'. It took a conscious effort and dedication to making things better - even if I didn't feel like it all the time - and a commitment to myself. As with most things of this nature, you have a better chance of achieving your goals if you stick with them, even through the tough times. I don't really believe that there is such a thing as "luck". At least I don't count on it. Although I am sure that somewhere and some time someone has fallen into good fortune, I certainly realize that it is the exception and not the rule.

I look back on the year 2010 and I am very happy to have met you all here. Your beautiful projects have inspired me. Your friendships have encouraged me. And your kindness and compassion has consoled me on my days when it was difficult to see all the positive things around me. You have made an incredible impact and difference in my life. That, my friends, is what friendship is all about.

I sincerely wish you all the best for the upcoming new year. I hope for all of you it is filled with health, creativity and above all happiness. Thank you for your continued support and friendship.

Happy New Year!

Cloud Sky Plant Snow Branch


The final sunrise of the year - pink clouds! :)
 

Attachments

#1,624 ·
Looking Back

And here we are at the end of another year. I find this to be a time of reflection for most people. A time to both look back and look ahead. It is a time of evaluation, when people set new goals and look to the future with hope. There is something about a fresh start that seems to empower people.

Here on the pink cloud of optimism we are no different. We look at the new year as a time to start fresh, with a clean ledger and use all the experience and knowledge we have gained so far in our lives to make this year the best year ever. It is a fun and comfortable place to be. After all, what has really changed but the numbers on the calendar. Is tomorrow really going to be different from today?

Perhaps the only thing that really changes this time of year is our attitude. Many of us are still 'warm and fuzzy' from the holiday season and cheer that has been around us these past few weeks and it has bled over into our way of thinking. Some people live with this attitude all the time. Others only seem to get caught up in it at certain times of the year. I found that people are more cheerful during holiday times in general. What was usually an attitude of distracted indifference from others at the post office or in line at the market or in our daily routines has been for the past several weeks replaced with a cheerful "Merry Christmas" or the politically correct "Happy Holidays". It isn't as if these same people weren't nice before, but it just seems to me that it gives others an excuse to be a little bit extra nice and friendly. And I think it does have an effect on others. At least it does for me.

It reinforces my way of thinking that "we follow where we focus." If we choose to focus on all the negative things that are happening around us (and they are always lurking) it can't help but bring us down and deflate us. However, if we choose to look at the brighter side of things and focus on all the positive and good things in our lives, the chances are that we will go through the day with a much better attitude and feeling better about ourselves and our lives in general. It isn't to say that we should ignore the hardships and negative things that happen in our lives, but I truly believe that they are much easier to deal with if we also look at the good things that have been bestowed upon us and focus most of our attention on them. That alone will do wonders in helping us deal with the negative things that are happening around us.

Sometimes it is easier said than done. But with some practice and conscious effort, it becomes a habit - and I believe a good habit - and not only assists us in dealing with the everyday troubles of the world, but also bleeds over to the others around us.

So with that said, I am very much looking forward to the new year of 2011. Looking back, I think that 2010 was incredible for me. Sure, I had some hardships, as many of you have read about in these blogs, but overall I have made great strides in both my business and my personal happiness. There is still work to be done in both areas, but when comparing my life to where it was 365 days ago I see a good improvement. That in itself is a gift, I feel. I look around me and see many people struggling and I know that I am very fortunate that things are on the upswing. I know in my heart though that it didn't 'just happen'. It took a conscious effort and dedication to making things better - even if I didn't feel like it all the time - and a commitment to myself. As with most things of this nature, you have a better chance of achieving your goals if you stick with them, even through the tough times. I don't really believe that there is such a thing as "luck". At least I don't count on it. Although I am sure that somewhere and some time someone has fallen into good fortune, I certainly realize that it is the exception and not the rule.

I look back on the year 2010 and I am very happy to have met you all here. Your beautiful projects have inspired me. Your friendships have encouraged me. And your kindness and compassion has consoled me on my days when it was difficult to see all the positive things around me. You have made an incredible impact and difference in my life. That, my friends, is what friendship is all about.

I sincerely wish you all the best for the upcoming new year. I hope for all of you it is filled with health, creativity and above all happiness. Thank you for your continued support and friendship.

Happy New Year!

Cloud Sky Plant Snow Branch


The final sunrise of the year - pink clouds! :)
Thank you Sheila for all you have done for the scroll sawing world this year It has been a pleasure working with you and I hope for more and better things in 2011. May God continue to bless you and all you do in the future. I am really thankful for you friendship. Happy New Year, tom
 

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#1,634 ·
Looking Ahead

I am really looking forward to the new year. It isn't that 2010 was bad or anything. I feel like it was a great year for me and I accomplished a lot. I also set the ground work for my business and I am looking forward to seeing how all the new plans will play out. There are so many new directions and opportunities that are awaiting for me that I sometimes begin to feel a bit overwhelmed. I need to remind myself to stay grounded and focused and organized and that not let it get the best of me. Deal with one thing at a time. Take a breath once in a while. Enjoy the process.

I had a really fun day yesterday. My partner and I had worked all day Thursday getting the site ready for the update. I still have to send out the notices to the mailing list recipients, but for the most part the new stuff is ready to be put up there and I will have it done by the end of the day today. So yesterday we decided to take the day off and took a trip to Yarmouth to spend all the gift cards we received. We actually didn't wind up buying much, but it was fun to look through and look for the remains of what was on sale. Although I am really not a big fan of shopping, it was a fun day and was a great and needed change of pace with no pressure of having to find anything.

I actually made it to midnight last night, which was something that I hadn't done in several years. I spent the later part of the evening reading. I had also purchased a two video set about cats for $5 that my cat Pancakes took great interest in. I put it on my computer to watch and he sat in front of the screen watching when cats were on the screen (which was a lot!) If they showed the narrator too much, he quickly got bored and looked away or put his head on his paws as if he were going to take a nap. But as soon as a cat reappeared he perked right up and was again quite interested. It was comical to see and I don't know what entertained me more - the content of the video or the reaction of Pancakes.

Today I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the world. I want to finish up the site stuff and get the notices out and make sure all of the new patterns are ready to go. I also went to the office supply store and got some organizational stuff so I can work on getting stuff buttoned up for 2010 and set up new files and such for 2011. It is a great feeling to feel so on top of things, as the past couple years that wasn't really the case.

I am also really going to be focusing on the trip to New York and all that entails. I have told myself that I would work on organizing what I need to do for it "after the holidays" and baby, this is IT! I am fully ready start planning all the preparations for the classes and the demos and I am thoroughly excited about all the prospects that it will bring. I think it will be a wonderful experience and a great milestone in my business. The next three months will pass quickly, I expect and the only way I will be able to go into things without being terrified is to be as prepared as I possibly can. I look at it as a wonderful adventure and it will be so much fun to see my old friends and meet new ones. There is a new woodworking center in the area where my friend Jean lives and I am sure I will be able to get a full tour of it and I promise to report back on it. From what I have seen and heard of it so far, it is an extraordinary facility.

Not only will the trip be a great way to get back into teaching, but I will also learn so much with being a judge for the woodworking entries and also through the exposure that I will have to all the different aspects of woodworking that will be highlighted. One of my goals is to learn at least the basics of wood turning. With so many qualified people there I hope to be given the guidance to get me started on a branch of woodworking that is entirely new to me. My friend Jean is a wonderful wood turner and she and her husband Bill teach turning so I am hoping that by hanging out with them for a bit that they can show me the ropes and get me on the right track. Jean has some ideas about combining scroll sawing with turning and wants to work on some patterns with me which will include both. That alone could open up many new opportunities.

So you see there is so much to be excited about. I feel as if I am in a great place in my life and look forward to each and every day. Later on today, I am going to visit some friends and bring in the new year Nova Scotia style - with a lobster dinner. It will be the final celebration of the holiday season for me and bring to a close one of the best holidays ever. I am truly fortunate to have the wonderful friends and family that are around me and I am also grateful that I have a job that I love so much. It is worth every second of work and effort and the rewards come from so many different sources that I wouldn't ever want to do anything else. I hope I never have to.

Tomorrow is what we make it. Although we can't control all that happens in our lives, we can influence a great majority of it by a positive and productive attitude. I look at the new year as a new beginning and a fresh start to build on what I have already accomplished. I am sure that I will encounter some obstacles along the way to my goals, but with the help of good planning and good friends, I should be able to overcome them and continue to see my business grow and achieve success.

I think 2011 is going to be a great year! ;)
 
#1,635 ·
I don't know how you stay SO motivated? Your partner must be some kind of sexy handsome man or something? ;) I can think of nothing else that would be so motivating in the doldrums of winter….... HAHA
 
#1,642 ·
Website Updates

It seems that there is always something new to learn. I am happy that I like learning new things though and I hope I always feel this way.

I spent the working portion of my day yesterday learning how to do more stuff on the site as we are preparing it for the latest update. Although it took a little time and effort to learn the processes on the new software, I am really happy with the results and how things are beginning to look. It has only been a couple of months since we changed over to the new software and I am beginning to feel reasonably comfortable in changing things around on it. As many of you may remember, I was apprehensive about changing over and it looked as if it would be far more complicated than what I was used to. As I see the many new features that this software offers and how nicely things are presented, I am very happy that we decided to forge ahead and learn the new stuff. Things are coming easier now and overall management of the site takes far less effort than it used to.

The challenge I faced yesterday was setting up a discount that my customers could receive by typing in an designated code. I want to offer this discount to my mailing list customers as a perk for them being on the mailing list. I believe that there needs to be some incentive for them to join the list and this was the easiest way to reward them. Prior to reworking the site about a year ago, I had about half the number of customers on my mailing list than I do now. Of those people, there were many that had joined the list several years ago and a large portion of them had changed email addresses, as many of the addresses were no longer good. I wouldn't exactly call them qualified buyers.

In the past year however, I have really put an effort into cleaning the customer list up and removing the 'dead' addresses and making sure that everyone on the list wants to be there. I also make sure to send out a mailing at least once a month to let them know what is up with the site and to keep them interested. As a result, not only has the customer list grown, but it also consists of more qualified buyers who are really interested in what I have to offer. As a result of this the site is becoming a stronger building block of my business every day.

As with doing anything for the first time, it was rather tricky to code in the steps to make the discount function as I wanted it to. I wanted the customers to be able to type in the code in a designated place on the order form and automatically receive the discount off of their order. Sounds easy, right? Not necessarily for someone like me who is 'numerically challenged'. It was a two step process which included coding on both the form and also setting up an ordering rule and making the two processes recognize each other and match. I played around with it for a bit and after a few unsuccessful tries, I got it to work around midnight last night. I was so proud because I didn't even have to contact customer service to do so! YAY for me!

It may sound silly, but I LIKE being able to do these things for myself. I don't want to have to depend on anyone else to get them done and if I want to change something, I want to be able to do it when and where I want without having to ask and wait. My partner has done much of the work on the new site and I am very grateful for that, but I am slowly catching up and actually understanding what he has done and how he has done it. I think in a good small business like mine, it is important for each person involved to know how to do just about everything. That way if one person is away or ill or anything like that the business can still function. I have always felt that way but this is the first time that it has been possible in my business.

So all the new things are up and running on the site. Not only did this update include the new patterns that I have to offer, but it also includes the videos and we changed the format of the articles and tutorials so that people don't have to download them to read them. We realized that for people with slower connections, downloading articles just to look at them could be cumbersome and many would not want to bother. Everything is reformatted to be read right online and it is a much easier way to get our information to our customers.

These small things really make me happy. Piece by piece, it seems that everything is falling into place. I still have a way to go, as I have to work on the customer's gallery page which showcases projects that my customers have sent me, but for the most part, the site is really looking good. I need to write my update letter and send it out to them later on today, but even that is a pleasure with the new software, as I am now able to add pictures and the overall look of the notice matches my site and looks quite professional. The new software is a great asset to the overall business.

After that is accomplished, I am going to be working on some new designs for the painting pattern designer that I spoke of the other day. I want to at least get a drawing to her as a starting point and go from there. I am also organizing the information that I will be using for the March show and beginning to set up the classes that I am teaching. Each class will be about 50 minutes in length and I want to provide as much information as possible in that time frame that will be pertinent to all levels of scrollers. I will also be providing written material to go along with the class so that they will be able to come out of it with some clear notes and a good understanding of what I am going to teach. This will help me feel better organized and able to face the crowd.

So it is a busy start to the new year for me. I had to look on the calendar today to check and see that it is Sunday. With the crazy holiday schedules, it is sometimes difficult to remember what day of the week it is. I feel as if I have had a lot of time off though recently and I am anxious to dive into things and move forward. Most places won't be open until tomorrow, so that will give me a chance to have an extra day today to get ahead a bit. It is a great start to 2011.

I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing and creative day!
 
#1,643 ·
The Growing Business

It feels really good to be working again. Even though that I have been piddling around sort of, kind of working, it seems that everyone is getting back into full swing again. These past couple of weeks were understandably slow, with several days of no orders or customer contact. Everyone was busy with family and friends and I am sure that the week prior to Christmas that few people would be buying more patterns an that what wasn't already made would need to wait for next year. That made it very quiet around here.

It is funny how much things have changed over the past year or so. I have had my website for several years now and up until last year, it was somewhat of an appendix of my business, with maybe two to three orders trickling in each month. It barely paid for its own operating costs. It was hardly what I would call a substantial part of my business. But then why would it be? I had not focused much effort at all into it and the dismal return should be somewhat expected.

But since taking a serious look at the scope of what it has to offer and making a conscious effort to develop that side of my business, it has shown a great deal of promise. It is fun to look at the figures and see that sales have more than quadrupled in the past year. Before you are all so impressed though, you should realize that it is fairly easy to show quadruple growth from practically nothing. Even with the incredibly positive rate that it is growing, it is still just in its infancy. Now the trick will be to make it quadruple again in the year 2011. That will be a great accomplishment - especially with the still lagging economy.

We watched a movie last week called "Social Network" which was the story about the inventor of Facebook and how it came to be what it is today. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, it was a rags-to-riches story about how one person started and developed what came to be a multi-billion dollar business. For those of us who are entrepreneurs, it is what many of us only dream about - taking an idea and watching it grow and turn into a successful business. Although I realize that much of the plot must have been exaggerated for Hollywood, I couldn't help but feel good about the Cinderella-type outcome of the little guy achieving success. I found myself cheering for him and hoping that things would work out well, seeing the work and dedication and drive that he was portrayed in having. Wouldn't it be nice if that was always the case?

It's fun to dream, isn't it?

Yesterday was filled with customer correspondence and phone calls. I had mailed out my newsletter to the first half of my customers and I am sure that spurred much of the activity, but I also noticed that I acquired probably ten new mailing list customers. That meant that they were NOT the ones who received the notice of the site update through the newsletter and had either heard about it through my Facebook business page or just happen upon it through Google searching or otherwise. Part of me wants to add a "where did you hear from us" question box on the email sign up form just to see where they came from. I don't like asking too many questions there however, as I realize that people do like their privacy and I don't want new prospective customers to feel as if they are required to give too much information. It would be quite helpful though in helping me understand which way to market myself. I need to consider it.

I enjoy the daily communication with customers. Last week, I had a call from a customer who had a lot of experience in doing intarsia. He was a regular on one of the woodworking sites and his projects stood out above the others. They are all beautifully done and each one is a work of art.

He called because a neighbor of his saw our latest project in the magazine and was going to attempt to make it. However, he found the instructions somewhat confusing. When he brought it to my customers, it turned out they were both confused. My customer called me to clarify things with me and find out what was up. I still haven't even received my issue of the magazine, so I couldn't even see how things were presented. All I had to go on was the text files that were sent to me for final proofreading prior to publication.

Long story short, we went over the instructions point by point and I did find several things that were changed from our original instructions that would be somewhat confusing to someone - especially if they were new to the process. Naturally, I felt badly about this. Both my partner and I had reread the instructions to proof them prior to publication, but without the pictures there and after reading them over and over again, we missed some points and additions that were thrown in by the editors at the magazine - some of which could be very confusing to someone.

I took the blame myself. After all, it is my name on the pattern. Although the customer wasn't angry, he stated that he just wanted to point these things out and I was very grateful he did. When my partner got home, we went over the original written instructions as well as what was published and we did indeed find some things that could have been worded better.

After our patterns are published, we always need to rewrite the instructions somewhat and put them into pattern packet format. We did this prior to updating the site, as the pattern was to be added there. I sent the new copy of the instructions to the customer for he and his friend to use and received a very nice letter back from him stating his appreciation. So all is well.

However, it just shows me how easily things can get away from me if I am not on top of them. You can be sure that when we receive the proofs from the magazine in the future, we will be going over them with a fine tooth comb to make sure they are how we need them to be. After almost fifteen years of being published, I will admit to you that I have become somewhat complacent in this regard. After all, they should know what they are doing, right? Perhaps their way of explaining is better than mine?

But I am seeing that that isn't always the case. I wonder how many of the editors there have actually cut and assembled some of the projects that are printed in the magazine. This was a good example of why they probably have that check and balance system in place. I am truly going to be more dedicated in this area of my work in the future to make sure that things are right. I feel it is my responsibility and "the buck stops here".

I always have so much to learn!

So today will be working on some custom things that I need to do. I still haven't put my rates up on the site, which I need to do, but I have some small drawing jobs that I need to finish for customers that I want to get off of the books. I am also sending out my second mailing today, so things will probably (hopefully) be busy in that department.

I truly appreciate the feedback that I receive from my customers. It is so hard to see things from every perspective and they do help me see things in different ways. When comments and suggestions are given in the right tone, it is very easy to work with people and makes things better for everyone.

Happy Monday to you all!
 
#1,644 ·
happy productive monday to you Sheila :)
it so easy to miss something when running a busyness and so hard to be on top of everything
you can´t do it all the time something will always be a ½ step behind and sometimes even two steps
but all in all I think you do it well Sheila

take care
Dennis
 
#1,653 ·
Taking Care of Business

Yesterday was really, really busy. I say that in a good way because I do thoroughly enjoy all the communication that I have with my customers. It seems like there are just days like that when customer correspondence is a large part of the business. It is nice though, because I get a chance to catch up with everyone and hear how things are.

I have one customer who was battling cancer. She had last ordered via the phone in December and was going for some tests to see how she was doing after treatment. She called again yesterday with an order and not only filled me in on her holiday, but she also told me she got her test results back and she is now considered cancer-free. That was a great call and very uplifting. Both she and her sister have recently found my site and have been buying patterns from me. They are the type of people that when you first talk to them, it is as if you have known them for years. They are friendly and outgoing and personable and talking to them always makes my day.

It is nice to get reports on how much people like my designs too. So many people call and start the conversation with "I can't draw a stick figure, but so and so really loved the design that I cut out that you designed!" I hear lots of stories like that around this time of the year. It is the aftermath of the holidays and it really boosts me and encourages me to do more.

I think that one of the reasons that I like what I do so much is the great deal of variety of people and situations that I run across on a daily basis. I deal with personal customers, wholesale distributors, the magazine people, manufacturers and supply companies and fellow woodworkers on a daily basis. There are few jobs that I have seen which would offer someone so much variety. I truly love each and every aspect of it.

The other day I was thinking about the Ice Pond situation and I was beginning to get a bit down about it. I wasn't dwelling on it, but rather deciding how to go about handling it. As if by magic, while I was sitting there discussion my options with my partner, not one but two emails popped into my inbox. Both of them were from different customers and were very positive regarding my patterns, designs and customer service. One customer had pictures of how many ways he made one of my ornaments and said that he gave them out for Christmas and how much everyone loved them. The other was complimentary on how nice the site was and how great my service was and what a pleasure it was to do business with me. My partner pointed out that THAT was what I should be focusing on and he was right. Those stories and happy customers are really what it is all about.

I did decide to give one final try to resolve the situation with the skating set yesterday. The last time I had written the editor (after several previous tries to communicate) was December 10. I felt that I had given him ample time to respond - holidays and all - and I had still not heard back from him regarding what he intended to do about the problem I had with them. He had mentioned putting up a correction on the website which still two months later has not been done and also perhaps an ad in the magazine. Neither had been done. I also still had not received the set back, which should have been sent right after it was photographed sometime in October.

I wrote an email to the CEO of the company. He is the owner's son and has over the years pretty much taken over many of the day to day tasks of running the magazines. I had met him almost 15 years ago when I began working for the magazine and several time since at various trade shows and functions. It has been years since I have spoken to him, but I always had a good relationship with him and thought he would be the one to go to in order to get some resolution to all of this.

I wasn't disappointed. I heard back from the assistant editor of the magazine within an hour of writing him and she told me she wanted to make things right. She asked for some shipping information to return my project to me and also some information that she could post on the website. I wrote her back with said information, but also mentioned the semi-promise of a written correction or ad. She did write back that she would need to talk further about it with the editor, but would at least get the ball rolling on the other things.

Later on in the day, I received a follow up letter from the CEO stating that he sent it to who can help fix things and if things aren't taken care of to my satisfaction, he will make sure they will be. I was happy that at least that something is being done and it appears that someone is going to try to make it right.

I don't like going over anyone's head - especially in difficult times like these, but I do think that I was patient enough in this instance and it was about time that someone be accountable and do something to correct things. I seriously don't know how much business this will bring me or how many qualified people will see it, and I also realize that since it is past the holiday season, the time frame is no longer ideal either. However, at least something is being done now and I feel as if we can put this issue to rest once and for all and move on to better things.

It takes a lot for me to do something like this. I find that I still don't quite have the self-confidence that I need all the time to get things done. Usually I try to find other means to solve problems and I hem and haw about things and try to work things out by sometimes going back and banging my head against the same wall over and over again. When I get tired of that and frustrated, there are times like this when it does give me the courage to stand up for myself and make certain demands that I am entitled to. More so than not when this happens the results have been very positive for me. After all, it isn't as if my demands are unreasonable. It is simply a matter of having enough confidence in myself to ask for what I deserve and finding the right person to ask it of.

It is at times like this when I sit here and wonder why I didn't do this in the first place. It would have saved me a lot of grief and anxiety. But each step such as this that I take helps build that confidence and it will be easier the next time a situation such as this arises. I think it is all a learning process.

Today will again be busy drawing and getting some orders sent out. In looking at the figures from my site for December, I see that the candle trays are by far my best sellers, so I need to get to drawing more. My partner is going to be drawing up complimentary designs which will accommodate smaller tea light and votive candles and match the larger holders. He started that project a couple of days ago and cut the first design which matches the Sweetheart Candle Tray. It really came out beautiful and as with the original trays, can be used as a picture frame or in many other ways. I will post pictures of them as soon as I have them.

It is a good start to the year. I would have thought that this time would be rather quiet with everyone getting over the holiday. However, it appears that people are going to be looking for something to do over the winter months and it could be a nice surprise. I will just have to wait and see . . .

Happy Tuesday!
 
#1,654 ·
I have a boss directly over me…It is a constant battle to get him to follow Thur with many
important issues. If I didn't by pass info to the other Department heads regularly, things
would not get done. It doesn't make the boss guys bad, he's just sloppy and not effective
in some areas of his work. It can be frustrating, but I always know if I don't follow up in
a timely fashion, it wont get done.
 
#1,661 ·
Self-Confidence and Reaching Your Potential

In reading some of the responses to yesterday's blog, it started me thinking. (Uh, oh! you say!) The final comment by TS really hit the nail on the head. He spoke of self-confidence and realizing one's potential value and how important it is - especially for someone who is in business for herself.

I realize that I have had trouble with self-confidence issues. I attribute that to many circumstances in my life. Although I write here every day and open my life and experiences up to all of you, I have chosen to keep certain personal information out of these conversations. This is a woodworking forum and I want the main focus of my blog here to be on the daily ups and downs of my woodworking business. As I said many, many entries ago, because I am so personally involved in my work and my business, there are going to be times when I get too emotional or speak of personal things that affect my daily life. I am not going to apologize for that because it is a part of me that isn't going to change. I don't think that I would be very honest or interesting if I filtered out all my personal aspects of my life. After all, my business is very personal to me, as it should be. I look at it with a passion that drives me every single day and I believe that is why it has achieved the success it has (so far!)

I don't mind speaking about these issues and sharing them with you because not only does it help me sort through them, but it also makes me feel good to know that I have helped others deal with similar issues, as many of you have told me. It is all part of a learning process to me, and I have always thought that teaching and learning go hand in hand.

With that said, I will speak of self-confidence for a minute. I find that there sometimes is a fine line between what one will perceive as self-confidence and what one perceives as arrogance. Both behaviors seem to focus on achievement, however the self-confident person seems to work hard for a more global cause whereas the arrogant person's main purpose is to spotlight themselves. My own personal belief on the matter is that ironically, the arrogant person has very low self-esteem, and therefore needs to overcompensate for that low self-worth by continually pointing out his/her successes.

So how does one come across as being self-confident without being thought of as arrogant?

When I first met my partner, I was trying to explain to him what exactly I did. Like many people, at first he didn't understand. There is quite a difference in making a project and designing a project. At first he thought that I made wood items to sell at sales and such. I needed to explain to him that not only did I physically construct them, but I also drew up the plans and designed the packets so others could make them etc., etc. When I showed him the magazine with one of my projects and also my picture and name on the mast head page he said to me "Well - La-De Da!" (He likes to use that phrase to tease me when I talk about or do something 'big city') At one time early on he asked me why someone came to me with a question about something or other and my quick answer to him was 'because I am good and I know what I am talking about.'

"Well, la-de-da Miss 'I'm better than everyone else', he teased. and I realized that I perhaps came off as being pretty arrogant. This was, by the way, when I was just pulling my business out of the basement and sales were dismal and my designing had come to pretty much a standstill due to some personal circumstances in my life. I was still in the magazine, but that was just about it. The wholesale sales were largely due to patterns that were several years old and only came trickling in. Perhaps I was feeling guilty about letting my business digress to such a state and that I was overcompensating for my own guilt. My answer to him was probably more defensive than anything.

His teasing was good-natured and not mean spirited, but it made me realize something. If I were so 'good' then why was my business such a mess? Sure, I could draw and yes, I knew woodworking and scroll sawing. But if I didn't use my abilities to the fullest, then what good were they? Talking about past achievements, and resting on them DID make me arrogant. It was a real wake-up call for me to get my butt in gear and do something or things would not improve. Actions DO speak louder than words after all.

This was at a point in my life where my entire life was changing. I was coming out of one of the most difficult times I have lived through and I was starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had two choices: to abandon the business and do something else or to fight for it to the bitter end. You all know what I chose.

Since that day, I have rededicated myself to make my business the best it can be. I try my best to do that with honesty and integrity and a genuine concern for others. I have also focused on teaching others and helping them through their own tough times, as my partner has done with me. I want to reciprocate the support and help that others have given to me.

Little by little over the past two years I see the tables turning. It is a slow process and I am patient. I know there is no such thing as overnight success. I have watched my partner go from not knowing what a scroll saw is to making some incredible designs and learning every single aspect of the business. I truly attribute much of my success to his dedication and support. On the days I want to quit, he tells me to keep fighting. On the days I am discouraged, he points out the positive things that we have accomplished. He did this just the other day when I was upset about how things were going with the magazine. While we were talking about it (and I was rather sulky) he pointed to my screen on my computer where I had received a couple of emails just that day from people who I had helped in one way or another. "That", he said "is what you should focus on" as he pointed to the emails. And I know he is right.

TS is correct in his comments. And all I can say in regard to my own self-confidence is that "I am working on it." Little by little, with each successful design, article or letter from my customers I am beginning to see that I do have a place in this business. I like the feeling that I have something valuable to bring to the table. It has nothing to do with money either. There are no words I can use to describe how I feel when I help someone meet their own potential. It is the same feeling we get from supporting each other here. And it is one of the main reasons we all keep coming back. We are all teachers helping each other reach their potential.

What a nice place to be. :)
 
#1,662 ·
Sheila, you are a great designer and an accomplished woodworker. Your are an eloquent writer with an excellent ability to communicate through the written word. You are a very honest and open person with an obvious desire to help others to improve their own abilities. None of us are perfect, and we all have our shortcomings. To me you have every reason to be self-confident. Self confidence comes from realizing your abilities, talents and value. Arrogance often comes from not tempering that self-confidence with the realization of our imperfections or limitations. I have not seen arrogance in anything you have put out in work, product or your blog. Keep it up! You are an inspiration to those of us who toil away at our own woodwork, but may not aspire to make a living at it.
 
#1,669 ·
Do I EVER Learn?

I spent much of yesterday working on some custom type design work that I had promised a couple of people. I always say that I don't want to get involved in production work, but somehow there is always a project or two that straggles into my life. The only way I accept these type of projects is on a "I will do it when I can" basis, but those of you who have been following me through this blog probably figured out that there is seldom a day when I sit here and scratch my head wondering what to do.

In any case, I once again have found myself committed to doing two totally separate projects and I wanted to get these odd jobs off the books, so to speak and I decided that now was a good time.

The first job is pretty straight forward and I don't really mind doing it at all. It is a crest for a customer who does scroll sawing. I have done work for him in the past and he asked me if I would make a couple more designs up for him. He first approached me at a time when I was really struggling and I needed every penny I could and I was very grateful for the work. He treated me well, paid me promptly and the job involved drawing up plans in Illustrator, something that I love to do anyway. The pictures of what he requested were clear and easy to understand and it made the job easy and fun.

When he approached me just before Christmas with another request, I agreed to do it. Although I realize that I had set somewhat of a precedence for charging little for my time, I had appreciated his support in the past and decided that I will keep my rate the same. It would be very difficult for me to all of a sudden request a large jump in pay, and since his requests are few and far between, it wouldn't hurt, I felt. I suppose that is one of the perks of being the boss - you get to set the rates you charge others.

I worked on the pattern for him and it only took me a couple of hours to complete. I only have to do the final layout on it today and it will be ready to go. Below is a picture of one of the other crests that he made from a previous pattern that I did for him. He does beautiful work. :)

Dishware Serveware Font Tableware Circle


The other job, I am sorry to say, isn't going as smoothly.

I had another painting designer contact me regarding drawing up and cutting some surfaces for her to use in her design work. I have loved her work for several years, as she frequently has her designs published in one of the sister magazines from the company I work for. She loved my snowflake candle tray and asked me if I could modify it to make the inner diameter 8" wide and simplify the snowflake border so she could use it for one of her painting projects that she would be submitting for publication. I would not get paid for this work and provide her with one or two surfaces, but I would be mentioned in her published article and pattern to be the source for the wood.

Since I had admired her work for years, I was somewhat star struck and flattered that she even asked me to do it, and I agreed.

What the heck was I thinking???

Don't I listen to myself? Don't I read my own blogs? Haven't I said over and over (and over) again that I don't want to get into production work?

It is as if the 'old Sheila' (the one that is destine to be poor and work for nothing) took over me. I already have so much on my plate (including my OWN painting projects that I want to work on) and here I am doing something for someone else and I know in my heart I will never make a dime off of this venture. But commitment was commitment and I had agreed and she has a deadline so onward we must forge. (Maybe I"M the one that should be committed!)

The drawing and revisions went fine. They only took an hour or so and after a couple of back and forth emails, the design is what she wants. Good. Now comes the part of making a couple of them up to send to her.

It needs to be done on 1/4" MDF or plywood - neither which I stock. I live in a small town, remember and my pickin's are slim. There is one place here, but it is traditionally overpriced. However, she needs this in her hands by next week so I have no choice.

I went over there yesterday and they had no MDF that I could use. It needed to be that thin because it is a puzzle and has both a base and over layer and they need to be glued together. Anything thicker would be too bulky. Also, it is about 15" in diameter so it will be quite large and heavy if I go to thick.

Long story short, the only choice they had was plywood with knotty pine on one side and birch on the other. Anything else they had was a cheap quality and you could see voids in the sides, which would be very unacceptable for this type of scroll work. I picked a sheet and had it cut into thirds so I could transport it home and store it (I had to buy the entire sheet). As my partner was loading it up in the car, I went in to pay.

The clerk ran up the order and my bill came to a whopping $60! OUCH! Now you all KNOW that I don't mind spending $40 and more for a nice little piece of ebony or rosewood or something equally beautiful, but sixty bucks for a crummy piece of plywood seemed INSANE to me! But what could I do?? The sheet was already cut and I now owned it.

So today I will be cutting out these two snowflakes (which - by the way - I have to pay to ship to her too!) and licking my wounds. I am going to keep the remaining wood in storage so that if ever someone were to order one of her pieces, I will have it, but after figuring the cost of the wood and the time it takes to cut and assemble the piece, I am going to price it accordingly and I seriously doubt that there will be any 'takers'. At least I hope not.

It is funny that I see this as such a bad decision on my part. In the past, I wouldn't even have recognized it is such. So I am hoping that there is hope for me after all. Now the trick for me next time someone asks me is to remember this BEFORE I make the commitment. Then I will know that I am on my way!

I will button this up today and get it off the books. I will also look at it as a lesson learned. Hopefully, I will get a few orders from my site to balance the books out for me today. I am not going to beat myself up over this poor decision because I know better now and it won't happen again. I'll put some good music on while I am cutting and enjoy myself while doing it, knowing that I am learning a valuable lesson. I have read many stories from others here at LJ's that have found themselves in similar situations, so I don't feel that badly. At least I am in good company!

And it will be a great day! :D
 

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#1,670 ·
Do I EVER Learn?

I spent much of yesterday working on some custom type design work that I had promised a couple of people. I always say that I don't want to get involved in production work, but somehow there is always a project or two that straggles into my life. The only way I accept these type of projects is on a "I will do it when I can" basis, but those of you who have been following me through this blog probably figured out that there is seldom a day when I sit here and scratch my head wondering what to do.

In any case, I once again have found myself committed to doing two totally separate projects and I wanted to get these odd jobs off the books, so to speak and I decided that now was a good time.

The first job is pretty straight forward and I don't really mind doing it at all. It is a crest for a customer who does scroll sawing. I have done work for him in the past and he asked me if I would make a couple more designs up for him. He first approached me at a time when I was really struggling and I needed every penny I could and I was very grateful for the work. He treated me well, paid me promptly and the job involved drawing up plans in Illustrator, something that I love to do anyway. The pictures of what he requested were clear and easy to understand and it made the job easy and fun.

When he approached me just before Christmas with another request, I agreed to do it. Although I realize that I had set somewhat of a precedence for charging little for my time, I had appreciated his support in the past and decided that I will keep my rate the same. It would be very difficult for me to all of a sudden request a large jump in pay, and since his requests are few and far between, it wouldn't hurt, I felt. I suppose that is one of the perks of being the boss - you get to set the rates you charge others.

I worked on the pattern for him and it only took me a couple of hours to complete. I only have to do the final layout on it today and it will be ready to go. Below is a picture of one of the other crests that he made from a previous pattern that I did for him. He does beautiful work. :)

Dishware Serveware Font Tableware Circle


The other job, I am sorry to say, isn't going as smoothly.

I had another painting designer contact me regarding drawing up and cutting some surfaces for her to use in her design work. I have loved her work for several years, as she frequently has her designs published in one of the sister magazines from the company I work for. She loved my snowflake candle tray and asked me if I could modify it to make the inner diameter 8" wide and simplify the snowflake border so she could use it for one of her painting projects that she would be submitting for publication. I would not get paid for this work and provide her with one or two surfaces, but I would be mentioned in her published article and pattern to be the source for the wood.

Since I had admired her work for years, I was somewhat star struck and flattered that she even asked me to do it, and I agreed.

What the heck was I thinking???

Don't I listen to myself? Don't I read my own blogs? Haven't I said over and over (and over) again that I don't want to get into production work?

It is as if the 'old Sheila' (the one that is destine to be poor and work for nothing) took over me. I already have so much on my plate (including my OWN painting projects that I want to work on) and here I am doing something for someone else and I know in my heart I will never make a dime off of this venture. But commitment was commitment and I had agreed and she has a deadline so onward we must forge. (Maybe I"M the one that should be committed!)

The drawing and revisions went fine. They only took an hour or so and after a couple of back and forth emails, the design is what she wants. Good. Now comes the part of making a couple of them up to send to her.

It needs to be done on 1/4" MDF or plywood - neither which I stock. I live in a small town, remember and my pickin's are slim. There is one place here, but it is traditionally overpriced. However, she needs this in her hands by next week so I have no choice.

I went over there yesterday and they had no MDF that I could use. It needed to be that thin because it is a puzzle and has both a base and over layer and they need to be glued together. Anything thicker would be too bulky. Also, it is about 15" in diameter so it will be quite large and heavy if I go to thick.

Long story short, the only choice they had was plywood with knotty pine on one side and birch on the other. Anything else they had was a cheap quality and you could see voids in the sides, which would be very unacceptable for this type of scroll work. I picked a sheet and had it cut into thirds so I could transport it home and store it (I had to buy the entire sheet). As my partner was loading it up in the car, I went in to pay.

The clerk ran up the order and my bill came to a whopping $60! OUCH! Now you all KNOW that I don't mind spending $40 and more for a nice little piece of ebony or rosewood or something equally beautiful, but sixty bucks for a crummy piece of plywood seemed INSANE to me! But what could I do?? The sheet was already cut and I now owned it.

So today I will be cutting out these two snowflakes (which - by the way - I have to pay to ship to her too!) and licking my wounds. I am going to keep the remaining wood in storage so that if ever someone were to order one of her pieces, I will have it, but after figuring the cost of the wood and the time it takes to cut and assemble the piece, I am going to price it accordingly and I seriously doubt that there will be any 'takers'. At least I hope not.

It is funny that I see this as such a bad decision on my part. In the past, I wouldn't even have recognized it is such. So I am hoping that there is hope for me after all. Now the trick for me next time someone asks me is to remember this BEFORE I make the commitment. Then I will know that I am on my way!

I will button this up today and get it off the books. I will also look at it as a lesson learned. Hopefully, I will get a few orders from my site to balance the books out for me today. I am not going to beat myself up over this poor decision because I know better now and it won't happen again. I'll put some good music on while I am cutting and enjoy myself while doing it, knowing that I am learning a valuable lesson. I have read many stories from others here at LJ's that have found themselves in similar situations, so I don't feel that badly. At least I am in good company!

And it will be a great day! :D
That's a beautiful crest. Regarding the pain in A** job wouldn't it be reasonable to say to this lady " The project is completed, & although I have designed & provided labour in exchange for goodwill , I assume you realise there will be a charge to cover the cost of materials as the supplier wouldn't enter into the same contract? Charge her $30-40 if she baulks at that show her your receipt (at least it may lessen your blow)
Trevor
 

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