The holidays are coming! Part 2

Birdbath Mosaic
Originally uploaded by mornindew2822

My poor, dear Maggie has been holding this blog together for us all month. As I struggle with eBay and website and got 2 of my 3 boys into school (jr high and preschool, a first for both!) I often found myself superbly overwhelmed this September. And so, on the final day of the month, I impress myself with the fact that I have actually gotten some of my holiday goals well underway.

I am about 65% finished with my first birdbath; not the 3 I had planned to be working on, but one successful birdbath is a good start to a 100% new project. I've also learned throughout this process some good and some not so good ways of working with stained glass, concrete and mosaics in general:

- mix concrete for small projects in small batches.
- Press hard with your glass cutting tool, it won't shatter your glass, but a weak score line will cause your glass to not break away cleanly.
- set your design on fiberglass mesh (either self stick or use a glue like Weldbond). Not doing this means you essentially have to lay your pattern twice. (Learned that one the hard way!)
- Start your project with plenty of time before your "due date". Unless you do this for a living and can easily carve out time in your day to work on it, be ready for life to get in the way!
- Don't be afraid to try! At the start of this project, I had never mixed so much as one cup of conrete before muchless used a mold to create a birdbath. I had never touched a sheet of stained glass nor used a glass cutter or tile nippers, both of which have proven to be very cool tools to play around with!
- Aim for fun and cool, not perfection and professional and you'll likely find that your project turns out to be much better than you ever thought you could do on your first attempt!

I'll post some photos of my other holiday crafts soon!

Forcing myself to be productive

Sometimes motivation eludes me and my friend Maggie tells me that sometimes I get cranky by the use of the word "motivated"- it's just so hard to find inspiration sometimes. But I am working at it. As my business model changes from mainly eBay to one of free standing online website and brick and mortar stores, I thought it wise to start holding myself accountable, even when I don't feel like it.


I make sea glass jewelry and dabble in other crafty stuff- I make hand painted wine glasses, wreaths and recently bought a giant bird bath mold and 40 sq. feet of stain glass to start making mosaic bird baths. Can you say "scattered"? Anyway, I'll use this blog to chronicle my journey from stay at home mom who sometimes sells some handmade stuff to successful artist and jewelry designer who works for herself (or lands herself a really fab job at some design studio!)

-Tara