Monday 21st May 2007

Well another Monday morning is here. It's been a rather profitable few days off, profitable in the sense of time used well. Over the past what, three, no four days, I've made about five bagcharms, three necklaces, a bracelet, and about ten bookmarks. Those have pretty much all gone in the box for Xmas stock, particularly the bookmarks. One I'm particularly happy with, it's a gold tone one, and I've used a vintage brassy coloured leaf, and some left over flower beads, these are cup shaped beads, and with the addition of some small beads, beadcaps and so on, you can make really interesting insides to the flowers. I'm definitely going to buy plenty more, and make up a lot of flowery bookmarks. I think that they will do really well at Xmas.

I was up reasonably early this morning, as a chap has arrived to paint and decorate the upstairs flat. I have a good relationship with my landlord, a nice chap, and part of that is that I let people in and out of the house - initially I thought we were going to have problems as I had it fixed in my head that I was supposed to be at work today. But then when I re-checked my diary, of course, I'm off today and back to work tomorrow - another week or so of day shifts, and then I have time off. I'd booked it off almost last year now, thinking we were going to be off to Glasgow for a reunion with my university mates. However, frankly, this has simply never happened. You know how it is. You start of full of enthusiasm, and everyone saying yeah, what a great idea. Then the sheer hard reality of dates, commitments, family etc kicks in. Oh I can do this week, you can't do that week, I'm available on these weekends but X can't make then.. it simply never came off. It's really sad in a way. But it also shows how people are growing - changing, etc. I was a mature student at uni, ha, very mature in fact, so old I barely made it to three cheesy disco's in the entire four or so years I was there! (Don't know why that was, it was a damn good cheesy disco!) The people I met there, were, for the most part, young free and single, out for a good time along with their honours degrees. Personally I reckon for me, it was a bit like a second childhood. I don't think I've ever been so free of demands in all my life - all I had to do was turn in an essay every now and again, and turn up to a few lectures! I freely admit, I went to pretty nearly every single one, I mean for heaven's sake, there were what, three, four a day? Who wouldn't? You've spent the last twenty years doing the nine to five thing, and suddenly you have four whole years of three to four lectures a day, half a dozen essays every three months or so? Yep I'll say it. Students simply don't know they're born for the most part!!! But then it's they're few years of freedom before they end up where they are now - doing the 9 - 5 thing, with mortgages, baby's, partners and all of the stuff that goes with it. I'm looking forward to the first one that turns round and says oh I'm off back to uni, or gap trekking etc when they're the age I was then. Got about another seven to eight years I reckon, but what the heck. It was fun for me, and it'll be fun for them.

So anyway having got up to let in the painter chap, I've spent my time doing some Fimo work. I've never had hands quite as green - yep, two shades of green fimo. I've made some pendants. I'm waiting for the oven to heat up to bake them as I type, I've done some rather nice stripey one's. Chopped off the bendy bits in a few paper clips to make the hooks to hang them from, might put a few of them onto Etsy if they turn out nice. For sure, there'll be photo's on Flickr by the end of the day I expect, if you want to check them out. I'm still on my Fimo Learning Curve with these, they're my first pendants, and to be honest, I expect them to turn out better than the beads. I'm not so hot with beads. I mean the one's I made - hang on, I'll post a photo -

well, as you can see, they turned out very well. But the honest truth is I don't know how to use them. Sure I could put them on a bag charm, but would they look right on a bagcharm is what I ask? I've put headpins on them, they're all ready to be hung, but I dunno. I just don't see it myself.

Now to my mind, pendants are where it's at. I want to make pendants. I can see those, on a nice suedey type thong, and these that I've made this morning are a really good step in that direction. I'm not saying that these will turn out to be good, or even worth hanging, but they're the first step in the direction that I think I really want to go in. Also I've seen from the Flickr groups that I belong to that there's some kind of transfer method that you can do, to transfer actual photograph type things onto fimo, and yep, that's what I'm going to try and master. Why? Text. Text is next for me. For years, ages ago, I used to make collage style pieces using different texts, words and so on, and I think the time has come to revive my interest in text and words, and start making text pendants. I shouldn't really be saying this I suppose, there'll be some horror out there who will nick my idea, but since I haven't said what that idea is, in it's totality, and no one has exactly the same brain as I do, then I don't really care. Besides which, ideas are free. We all make our own unique contribution even if we're using the techniques etc of other's.

Anyhow when I woke up this morning the very first thing I heard was about the fire on the Cutty Sark. What an apalling thing to happen. And the police seem to think it's suspicious - who would set fire to the Cutty Sark? If anyone did, then frankly I hope they throw the book at them. Lock 'em up and throw away the key. Better still, have 'em out there, every single weekend for the rest of their lives putting right what they've done - they can go fundraise for it's restoration. We could put them in stocks and throw tomato's at them, I'm sure people would be most generous in contributing for an opportunity to throw a tomato at them. Now there's creative sentancing for you.