(Hopefully) Earning A Living as a Maker

Posted on 23rd November 2015 by perfectly4med

As you know by now from previous posts, I have my first craft fair – the Whetstone Baptist Church Christmas Fayre – next Saturday. Here are some more makes: etched copper candlestick, beaded candles on individually etched glass plates, a resin encased watch-parts pendant and faux-enamelled jewellery pieces.

It’s been a tricky thing to price up all these items. I can easily work out the material costs. I know how much time each has taken to make. It’s a little harder to work out the time taken in research, and even more tricky to know exactly how much time and energy has gone into the development, trials and failures that are inevitable in making items. Throw into the mix what you think people are likely to be prepared to pay, what they might be able to afford, and what else might be on sale around you… Suffice to say that the marked prices for all the items on the stand will not reflect my time and skill set.

Trouble is, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the making process, designing the packaging, and setting up the stand. But will it pay off? Or the bills? I’ll let you know.

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Altered Art: After Magritte

Posted on 16th November 2015 by perfectly4med

On a recent trip to Norfolk, I was lucky enough to get to a very reputable cigar and pipe shop and bought my first Meerschaum pipe. For those not in the know, these are carved from a white mineral, and naturally colour as they bake with successive smokes. They’re not cheap, and to keep them safe, they come in bespoke cases. They’re particularly handy for smoking outdoors as they don’t burn through like wooden ones can when wind keeps the embers constantly alight. Imagine then my horror when on first smoke there was a sudden crack noise, and the bowl left the stem.

It seems that every now and then, there are flaws in the mineral that aren’t obvious, and being quite thin walled, the pipe just gave out. The dealer replaced it with absolutely no fuss and I’m pleased to say the replacement pipe is giving me a great deal of pleasure as I have my downtime.

Long story cut short – I now had a pipe case with no pipe. It was too nice to throw away, but not easy to find another use for. I remember seeing Magritte’s ‘Treachery of Images’ and loving the surrealist observation decided to make my homage. Thanks to a friend who is considerably more knowledgeable about French than I am, I was able to add my own tagline: ‘This is not a pipe either’. I plan to send the canvas to the great guys who dealt with me so helpfully, and hope they (and their customers) enjoy the joke.

[Acrylic on canvas, Liquid Pearls Onyx, found object. 20cm x 20cm]

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Rusting An MDF Chalkboard

Posted on 15th November 2015 by perfectly4med

I’m still beavering away in the studio making items to sell at the church Christmas Fayre. Yesterday I used what I had learnt at Andy Skinner’s workshop I attended last weekend to create a faux rusted enamel frame and stand for this MDF chalkboard. As it happens, I actually prefer the back – some of the paint had seeped under and the ‘chips’ appear much more organic against the gesso undercoat:

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Perfect Packaging IV: it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Posted on 6th November 2015 by perfectly4med

So I’ve spent the last two days making more snowmen, with another trip to Aldi and/or Asda to get more socks and lots more rice! It was a bit of a struggle to work out how to package them in their foursomes. Whatever it was needed to keep them clean and dry. It also needed to give them their space and not get crushed. I considered getting bottle crates – the cardboard ones you find at supermarkets, but was concerned at a) buying that many bottles, and b) the ickle snowmen getting lost in the box and bouncing around too much. As I looked round the studio for inspiration, I saw some paper cups I got to mix polyurethane in – and they were the perfect size for the smaller snowmen. Then I spied a large cardboard tube left over from carpet underlay I think – sawn with a bread knife and finished off with a scalpel, the 2 inch rings cup the larger snowmen well. With some cardboard bracing and taping them together, a perfect package was born. Wrapped in a plastic bag (with suitable warning label attached), a quick curling ribbon bow and dangles, 40 snowmen are ready for their forever homes.

Now all I need is a forklift to move the total of 15kg of rice up to the house, and then to the church Christmas Fayre 😉

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Half A Pound of Tuppenny Rice… and a few socks

Posted on 1st November 2015 by perfectly4med

I’m still in making mode for the church Christmas Fayre… and inspired by yet another Facebook shared video, I have three snowmen families gracing my studio table, one of which has chosen this as their official Christmas card. Nobody mentioned that sports socks are now rarely just white, seemingly requiring colour splashes to be able to match them up when mixed in the gym bag. Good old George at Asda came up trumps though 🙂

And prices have gone up since rice was tuppenny… with each family weighing in at 1333g of Basics rice, that’s more like 3lbs of rice for £1. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

And the pompoms, despite a wonderful gizmo to help, still took an hour to make and sew on. I think it was worth it though for the finishing sparkling touch.

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Perfect Packaging III: Time & Technology Key Fobs

Posted on 31st October 2015 by perfectly4med

I’ve made a few key fobs over the last couple of days (yet more to fit on my table for the church Christmas Fayre), using a ‘steampunk’ antique brass pendant with quite a deep bezel. I’ve added a layer of Pebeo Prisme Fantasy Paint first, and allowed that to dry before starting to layer pieces of old computers and watch mechanisms. I used Lisa Pavelka’s Magic Glos UV hardening resin, which is crystal clear and sets within minutes in my Imagepac UV box, allowing layering of the encapsulated items. After a final brim-full top up with resin and a long harden under the lamps, I added an antique brass split ring to complete the key fob.

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Folded Book: Faith Can Move Mountains

Posted on 26th October 2015 by perfectly4med

It’s taken two practice runs, but I think I now have book folding sussed. This is my own design, and I wanted to create the banner space below the main word to complete the sentiment. I’m also going to do a word cloud image using the chapters and verses that are applicable to the saying, which will go on the inside covers. Yet another item to price up and pop on my stall at the Church Fayre at the end of November!

UPDATE: I’ve added the word cloud image, based on a photo of K2. Here’s the finished piece – I think the darker background makes the rest zing and pulls it all together:

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It’s all the presentation: perfect packaging 2

Posted on 25th October 2015 by perfectly4med

I’m still in making mode ready for my church’s Christmas Fayre at the end of November. I’ve decorated these pre-made metal blanks and made them into brooches by using an epoxy glue to stick on the brooch clasp – details on the decoration are here.

I wanted create a bespoke presentation box to show them off at their best – it just so happened I could use the same size for the peacock and the dragonfly. Designing started with a 3×2″ base. I added ½” sides and tabs. For the lid, I enlarged it slightly, adding the thumb divots in the centre to aid taking the lid off. To raise the base (and create a hidey-hole for my business card), I designed a stage slightly smaller than the base, with ⅛” supports at the side to hold the item off the bottom and the holes with a slit between allows me to press the brooch back through and fix the item in place. Two boxes come from an A4 sheet of card, cut on my Silhouette Cameo. For placement of the holes/slit, I pressed the item down onto a piece of card, and was able to see a dent where the clasp and hinge of the brooch back were. A bit of triangulation later, and the hole placement was perfected. This was ideal as the brooch clasps were in roughly the same position on each item – it would have been much less practical for several different placements.

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It’s all in the presentation

Posted on 10th October 2015 by perfectly4med

Today ended up being a ‘let’s overcomplicate an envelope’ day. At first I’d planned for my metal tree decorations to just slip into an envelope and be done with it. But then I thought – I’m expecting customers to feel that they are buying a premium handcrafted item… and a white envelope just didn’t hack it. So I’ve spent the morning designing the perfect packaging, and this afternoon cutting them out and putting them together in readiness for the Christmas Fayre.

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The Art of Liquefaction

Posted on 8th October 2015 by perfectly4med

There’s always that moment when you see something on Facebook or Pinterest that you think – I could do that. This project was one of those – a link to a YouTube video that popped up on my timeline (sorry – haven’t found it since). It was in German, and seemed to be 20 minutes of the two presenters describing – but not actually doing – the process to make these cast concrete votives.

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