GRANDE BRADERIE sur / GREAT SALE on DAWANDA...

Faites Vite ce serait dommage de rater ça : c'est ici que ça se passe.

Do rush in— it would be foolish to miss that: this is where it's at.

Merry-go-round - Failure sucks but instructs.

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

Failure sucks but instructs.

Looks like I didn't want to answer this one.

Fancy that...

I finally got down to writing up (and thinking up, at the same time) my answer— one day late.

And then the Big Bad Blog ate it all up.

OOOps.

This time round, I'm hitting the save button every other sentence.

'Nough said, right?

Now. Kidding apart, let me try to remember what it was I came up with the first time round.

As I remember, I started splitting things. Not hair, but the two sides of this my venture: the crafty side (that's me!) and the business side (not so much, no Sir!).

So I guess that my first, and most interesting—to me, at least— remark was that I completely agree with that sentence when it comes to crafting.

Failure is actually part and parcel of the crafting process. I don't believe you can really learn without trying and failing and undoing and doing all over again etc.

More important still. Well to me anyway. Well obviously... So I'll stop giving you that mock-humble gimmick.

Now, where? Oh yes: what I realized, thinking all this over for the merry-go-round, was that the trying-and-failing-etc. is not just useful in that it instructs— it actually gives me pleasure and a sense of freedom. Child-like freedom, if you see what I mean. Like messing around with anything from play-dough to Mum's make up (now there's an idea— I'm sure there's something in that...). You know...

Not so with the business side.

Of course, I like it when something sells, and I don't like it when all the rest doesn't. And it is a little bit about the money, of course.

But it is not really about success as such. It is about love.

What really makes my day is someone loving what I made— and telling me. Because what I hear when they do is— and of course, you crafters know what's coming: "I love you."

And I love hearing that.

If I work too hard at "what sells", it will be more like me saying "I love money", or "I love it that so many people like to have exactly the same kind of stuff as their neighbours and I'm going to cater to that wish of theirs." And that is not me.

As every fairly well adjusted grown-up knows, we all have to rub off a lot of who and what we are; to adjust to society. I do a lot of that in my day job. Do it well too, and for good reasons.

But not in my craft-life. Because that has to be about me, first and foremost. However much I love the sharing. I guess that would have to change if my craft took over from my day-job.

But not now. What I want and need to focus on and be instructed in is the craft part. Forget the rest. At least when actually crafting.

Have fun, explore, enjoy. Live and Learn.

So there!

I guess you see I'm still thinking very much along the same lines as last month. Just with a little bit more conviction.

At the end of the day, writing up this blog post (twice!) has made me realize that I don't give a damn about being instructed in business— and so I've learnt something about myself. What matters to me is being instructed in my craft, or even crafts, if I like.

Let's see where that takes me...

Actually I think my vision of things is even clearer now than the first time I tried to write about this. But let's not make a habit of this.

To be continued.

New Business cards just in - J'ai reçu mes nouvelles cartes !

Except the colours are nothing like this... Sauf que les couleurs n'ont rien à voir...

A saisir— an opportunity not to be missed.

Jusqu'au 25, 15 % dans les boutiques DaWanda où vous n'avez pas encore fait d'achats !

Until the 25th, you'll get a 15 % discount in shops you have never bought in.

PRO-ACTIVE

Une révolution pacifique se prépare sur DaWanda...

Guettez ces logos, ils devraient apparaître début novembre.

Ne manquez pas de visiter la section "BIENVENUE" du forum.

Vous avez tout à y gagner...

Bonnes courses de fin d'année à tous !

We few, we happy few; a band of sister designers is planning a peaceful coup on DaWanda...

Watch out for these logos in early November.

Do visit the "BIENVENUE" section of the French forum.

You won't regret it.

Happy holiday shopping, Everyone!

A tiny step for me...

Well, at least, there is this one customer that values my work— myself!

I made these yesterday.

Yes, they look very simple, but yes, I was rummaging among my baskets of goods for quite some time before I could find just the right gems (2 different kinds of facetted garnets) and the right wire (thin, 18 k gold— courtesy that potential customer than never even wrote to say "Thanks but no thanks...").

And then they had to be shaped just right.

I wore them all day today— sorry no photo so far— and they felt perfect.

They're cute as studs, simple as can be— I just want to make more of them!

Merry-go-round - What's my next Chapter?

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

What's your next chapter?

Well, precisely... I don't know.


I guess that I'm in a sort of rut.

It's easy for me to find excuses for not creating anything at the moment, what with all the work I have to do at the moment for my day-job.

And I'm happy to have all the excuses, because I'm still struggling with the "business" aspect of my creative activities.

Part of it is fun—getting a new look and the business cards that go with it. But as I have already "paid my dues" in another (interesting, by the way) job, I don't take too well to the "compromising" part of it.
Yet, it is sometimes tempting to "make what sells".
So, at the moment, my favourite technique, in order to resist this temptation, is not to make myself make anything unless I'm excited about it.

All the while, I'm never very far from that notebook in which I doodle ideas that need experimenting with. Probably why one of the things I've been working on is learning about handbinding techniques. Very much like crosstitching— while completely engrossing, it allows the mind to ramble on.

I also look around a lot, and keep collecting materials, as original and beautiful as possible.

I also fantasize that something I have made attracts fiery enthusiasm... In someone who is not my mother or my best friend, I mean.

I already know about drudgery, and I am no wannabe artist. I want to be, and stay, passionate about what I make.
So, even though everything seems a bit blurred right now, it feels more like a sort of holiday than an actual rut, after all. I need the time— I take it.