Merry-go-round - What did you expect ?

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... Lily and Charlotte are giving it a miss this month but that should not stop you from looking up their blog and lovely craft...

This month's theme:

Did you think you'd be doing what you're doing now (craft/selling), say 5 years ago? What has surprised you the most?

Hello everyone.
I'll be brief this month because life, personal and professional, has been a bit rocky.
So, my answers to these questions, in a nutshell:
No.
How fast your life can change and how surprising it is.

To elaborate a little.
Seven years ago I left Paris and those of my friends who were not already away from me (in the provinces or abroad), and moved to a smaller and sunnier place, closer to the ocean, and also to a better job...
While I was already packing, I fell in love with cross-stitching. For about two or three years, I stitched away, always trying to personalize the patterns or kits I used, and prefering organic materials, making cushions rather than framed pictures.
Since childhood, I had liked dabbling with stuff and pottering around the house, but it had never taken up so much of my time. I often used it to make unique presents for my loved ones and as birth gifts. It was so time-consuming of course there was no way I ever considered selling my work.

Then one day, I bought a kit that included seed beads and it led me to a craft shop which also sold PEARLS.
The rest is history: more possibilities, more gifts... orders. And now here I am, working with silver, learning how to solder metal and exploring the possibilities of silver clay...
I am now an official "entrepreneur", with very little time these days for my craft, because my day-job has been particularly demanding and time-consuming this year, when my online shops have not...

Still, pleasant and heart-warming surprises there have been: over the past few months, this bloggers' merry-go-round, and more recently, the Thursday Sweet Treat, also a very warm, inspiring band of friendly, artistic souls. Check it out!

And now, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I have to go back to the drudgery...

Merry-Go-Round - Sprrrrringtime!!!

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:

Spring.

Photo exhibition today!

Cherry tree, rosemary, daredevil lily-of-the-valley, lilac, "le Désespoir du Poète" (in the foreground), and chives & parsley.


Because to me, spring means blooming (I could spend hours day-dreaming, lying on the grass, flat on my back, under a cherry-tree in bloom), budding (the buds are all as different as the leaves and flowers shall be)... and messy (so many things to see and do - so little time to blog about it!).


I love the surge of energy, the infinite scale of green hues, the tender blades, the dark buds, the dandelion galore... and (last phot but one) what I only know by its nickname: "the painter's despair", because it moves with the lightest breeze.

I get all this when I go to the country, but I also keep up a little sample of spring on my miniature balconies (in the last photo).


And so I am bubbling over with projects and plans and schemes.


Right now, I am working on my newly established business (not that I am selling any more of course) and on new techniques.


Today, I spent hours browsing along the alleys of our huge Spring Fair (flea market cum antique / flower / regional food market).

I must have been there for about three hours there
and only managed to cover about a third of it...


Crawled back home carrying old books (a French translation of Mrs Minniver, a German one of Ivanhoe, an early 20th cent. map of the North of Scotland etc.); about ten yards of vintage, unused tea towel fabric (to make sturdy tote bags); antique, handcut crystal (not for any chandelier of mine, but to make unique jewellery with, of course!).

Merry-Go-Round - We can even cook!

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), with three new merry members to meet this week: Jenny, Nikki and Wendren.

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

This month's question:

Share your favourite (easy) recipe.

When I 'm cooking too, I tend to follow the "less is more" rule.

First, let me apologize to anyone who might have been expecting one of those wonderful French Cuisine dishes, to be washed down with some equally delicious Bordeaux wine. You won't be getting this from me, sorry...

My favourite recipe goes back to my early childhood. It is (adapted from) a Polynesian "raw fish" recipe. I've eaten this all my life. Long before sushi became all the craze.

AND it could hardly be any simpler!

Shopping list:

fish

lime juice (or lemon, if you really cannot get your hand on lime)

salt

coriander

carrots

milk/cream of the coconut

pepper

...

Please, don't run away yet - this is not actually raw fish— it's really cooked— in nature's own acid— lime juice.

 

What you need is fish. Very fresh fish... or frozen fish.

I usually use cod, cut into half-inch (or so) dices. But my mother says is can be done with many different kinds of fish, provided you adapt the marinating time.  Cod takes overnight; tuna, which she says is delicious in this recipe, takes a whole day; a finer, more fragile flesh species will take barely an hour. In Tahiti, it is done with clown fish and the marinating has to be really short.

This time, I experimented with small mullet filets and left them to marinate in the fridge for a whole day.

Very important: to the lime juice, you must absolutely add salt in generous quantity. Salt is absolutely necessary for the chemical process of "acid cooking" to take place.

If the taste is too salty for you at the end of the day, you can always rinse the marinated fish.

I have been known to use bottle juice. Yes— I know...

The pieces of fish should be all but completely covered in the juice (see photo 1). It's a good idea to stir things up once or twice during the process. 

At the end of the marinating process, the flesh has gone from transluscent to opaque. As it was supposed to be visible in photo 2...

The original, Polynesian recipe must have involved papaya / paw-paw: you have to used is while it is stil hard and not ripe yet, so you can scrape the pale orange flesh, the way you do with carrots. You should try that if you can.

I can never find the quality of fruit I need, so I use carrots instead. I guess it is also more environmental friendly to use local produce...

In Polynesia, the Chinese community used tomatoes instead. It makes for an interestingly different taste as tomatoes are acid and carrots are sweet...

Coriander is the one thing I am adamant about— I like it so much it is probably the reason why I like this recipe so much...

I tend to use the leaves whole, just snapping them off the stems, but you can obviously prefer to chop them up.

Whether you use this as a first or main course, it is a salad, so it needs dressing. Again, it could hardly be simpler.

It is made with the remaining lime juice (after draining the fish), coconut milk or cream (I used "cream" this time and I quite liked the consistency) and pepper. Proportions depending on your own taste. You must taste!

On photo 3, you can see the dish containing fish, carrot and coriander, the dressing as well as what I added this time (to make it into a more complete main course salad): coeurs de palmier ("heart of palm"???), which I sliced.

You can also make it more of a salad mix and use green salad. I also tried watercress with the mullet and it tasted great.

Of course, the right drink with this is Tahitian lager (photo 4), but you may (I'm so generous! :) choose dry white wine instead— you should never drink wine on vinegar, but it is fine to do so on lemon or lime! Coconut water can be quite nice too.

Merry-go-round - How do you do it ?

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 question:

Explain how you do your craft

Hmmm. Good question that.

Very much in keeping with last month's question to me, right now. I am actually spending a lot more time working on acquiring new skills - and exploring the internet for tools and supplies - than getting anything really "showable" done. I've ordered my tumbler. Yay! And just gotten a myriad new design stamps etc. Also bracing myself to start on soldering stuff - not to worry, I do have the goggles.

So.

Normally, what I do is start from a piece (some chain, a charm, a stone, a pearl, a cab...) and work around it. Like recently, I wanted to make a special something for my best friend's special birthday (can't say which, obviously). Months ago, i had come across this amethist focal piece and bought it right away because she likes amethist and amethist likes her. As I did not want to spoil it. I spent the next few months with this focal on a back-burner. I knew it would be a necklace, but that still left quite a few possibilities.

Eventually, of course, even though I had gotten the focal well in advance, I was late with my present. But once I had the amethist on my (drawing-room/loft/study/workshop) table with a mess of silver findings, the necklace came together as of its own volition. I used what I had that fit best... and three days later she was wearing it to work.
Phew.

Right now, I'm working on a bracelet for a special niece with a special birthday coming up.

And the (very bad - sorry about that!) photos shows the mess that is pretending to be leading towards a beautiful piece. Only, I still have a few month. So, I cannot make up my mind yet... So I'm sort of working on making her bracelet and another one that I'll put up for sale.

Lucky there's no dinner party coming up any time soon...

Especially as I have also taken out some materials to create a couple of Muscha glass pendants...

Oh and I forget - the last photo shows my bits and bobs (formerly and elegant 'thirties bottle bar table) side table, with a piece of bead-weaving waiting for new supplies, and exotic finds that I have high hopes about (like my small stash of vintage "mascaron" fèves/cabs)...

It HAS taken over my life.

Merry-go-round - What Next?

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 question:

If you had the time/money etc, what new craft or art would you like to try this new year?

"If you had the time/money" - Love that part!

These days, I have so very much no time at all that money is not even an issue anymore. Well. Nearly not.

What I really want to look into, and am beginning to, in a teeny-tiny way- see above- is metal work. I have begun getting supplies and tools and information. I have also tried my hand a little at metal stamping. I really look forward (as in waaaayyyy ahead) to trying my hand on soldering.


I like words and symbols, they are really how I function, if you see what I mean. However frivolous and superfluous, my pieces (beading and all) jsut have to "mean" something to me. Colours and shapes are crucial too, but I need to be able to find a word to stick on it, if I'm going to want to really make a piece. That is probably why I'm so touched when someone likes/buys one that I particularly like. That is also why I find it "easier" to make a piece with someone in mind. That's "easier" with inverted commas around, because I find it more exciting, but it tends to take longer...
So stamping is the thing right now. Still need more time to work on all the finishing... and finding perky phrases.

Further ahead still: art clay. I've seen this and what some can achieve with it (Ruth - hat up!) and I'm so frustrated that it still hasn't come to France!
So, at some point, I will have to get a tumbler and art clay shipped all the way to France from North America... Bracing up is what I am doing right now.

I also mean to take up off-loom bead weaving again. I love the prospect of all the possibilities this will give, when I have had time to practice...

Merry-Go-Round... where has Christmas gone - again!

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 question:

How do you celebrate Christmas/holidays? What traditions do you have?












How do I celebrate the holiday season? Obviously, doing nothing much...


Sorry I'm so late this month, but you'll see in the photos to your right that I am spending the holiday season in the kind of place where you - or at least I - can very easily lose track of time.


The photos show you the views from my bedroom, the kitchen hearth (the centre of all activity) and... my main role-model these days.


Other bad influences on me when it comes to keeping commitments : family meetings and meals. It's all rather dreadful. Luckily it only happens once a year and very soon now I'll have to go back to rushing around...


As for traditions:
Christmas is mostly about gathering whatever family is around - no children this year, so it's rather more relaxed but also less fun...
And then the game is eating and drinking fine, enjoyable stuff - more and better than usual but not so much that it spoils January...

Oh and, also, in the last two photos, our one persistent, Christian tradition, even though we're not a church-going family : the "Crèche", lovingly re-created by my mother every year, even when the children are not here to Oooh and Aaah about it - and also the Three Wise Men, wisely waiting (on the nearby mantelpiece) for Twelfth Night and Epiphany...

I wish you all the best possible New Year (especially all of you, lucky people with a brand new, hopeful and audacious president coming up...).

Blogging Merry-Go-Round - Brrrrrrr...

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 question:

How do the different seasons and weather affect you in your art and craft?

Well...
I was born in late July and first grew up in very, but very, sunny places, only visiting Metropolitan France in the summer.

Part of me has never quite accepted, even after more than 30 years, the fact that there is such a thing as Winter.

Actually, if it weren't that it's so cold sometimes, Winter is sort of OK. Especially here in Bordeaux were you can still enjoy the café terrasses on most days. But Autumn feels like such a let down! So unfair. Every year it's the same— I had forgotten! Boo woo hoo... And I turn into this bristly bear-like creature that can barely deal with the daily drudgery of my day job and all. I know it's called seasonal depression, but it feels more like a rebellion. I want out, you understand, I want nothing to do with this sorry business of leaves falling. And buckets of rain along with it. Not to mention the temperatures. I sort of pooh pooh it for a while, but then I just want to protest and go on strike (what with my being French, you know...).

So, you will have gathered that this is not my most creative period. Understatement of... the year! Autumn is a time of quiet activities, like researching new techniques, reading, doing repetitive work that can be done cuddled up under a thick blanket, with a few candles on and possibly some classical or easy listening music too. It's a time when I want to tidy up but don't get around to doing it, so I just get rid of the useless, damaged stuff and vow never to clutter up so much...

Come Christmas, I can just make out Springtime, over there, in the distance, and I want to get new projects going. Something to do with the light: I want light so badly, and I now that it just cannot get worse than Christmas. Until then, it's a drag. Come New Year, I'm much more bubbly, and it's not just the champagne!

Spring is probably my most active, hectic, hopeful, crazy time of year. In Summer, I tend to just want to enjoy the heat (keep it coming!) and be lazy in the afternoon (and the morning, and...). But it's also my most "ongoingly" (?) creative time of year. Just don't expect me to run around!

Oh, to be in Summer...

Going back to my blanket and candles just now...

Blogging Merry-Go-Round - Scary ??!

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 question:

What is the scariest part of your art/craft?

Well— the craft itself is not the scary part, that's one thing!
I think what really scares me is the risk of "losing" it (the pleasure of thinking with my fingers, instead of my head, for once)— because of trying to "share" it (as in promoting and trying to sell). I have a "day job", a fairly exacting one, so crafting all began as (a lot of different) leisure activities that were important for my personal balance, But I've come to realize that thinking too much about promotion and what sells has done three very bad things: it has taken up a lot of of my "leisure time" when I didn't have that much of it to begin with, it has influenced my craft activities in not very creative ways and, as a result, it has taken away a lot my joy.
I'm working on it!
This is actually, why I haven't been bloging at all for the past month—trying to catch up with myself.
But I should add that this merry-go-round, with all the friendliness and great reading, remains one of my few enjoyable promotion activities. So thank you all again for this!

Blog Merry-Go-Round - What was your journey to your craft?

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 question:

What was your journey to your craft?

Short answer: the journey through life.

And doesn't that sound grand! .^.^.

The LP * answer is that, one of my earliest memories, and I think my very earliest happy memory, is of crafting. Many of my happy memories are.

When I was six or seven, I had come up with that that "technique" that would probably be called altered art or scrapbooking — or altered scrapbooking??? — nowadays. It all began with recycling (I'm a child of the seventies, I am!) trimming peels from my colour pencils, as well as the mine, whenever that broke off, and glueing them into flowers on drawing paper. Of course, I ended up destroying all of my pencils in order to get the materials for my art...

I have always remained convinced that this was a great idea. But sadly, no one else was... Still, I can remember the pride and relish in having created something without anyone telling me how to... and without anyone doing the same.

After that, I concentrated on school...

But later on, I had my mother show me how to knit, I also created the most peculiar attires for my Barbie doll (yes, you only needed one in those days, and you changed its clothes, not the whole doll, when you wanted a new style...), sewing them as best I could with more attention to texture than to style...

There were many more crafty adventures, including clay pot-making classes when I was about twelve (hopeless!), and I was eager to pick up all I could from craft and drawing classes (though I had no luck when it came to actual drawing, I'm afraid— hopeless too). A lot of pottering about and DIY, generally.

Then, about eight years ago, I got my dream Christmas present: a sewing machine! I took a series of classes at a neighbourhood Singer shop. Very well spent money, that. I then made myself several darling dresses. I never wear dresses, but these— well, a couple of them— I did wear, with pride.

And then— and then—

Until, one day, in Paris (I was living up there at the time), I was window-shopping with a cross-stitcher friend and we entered that shop. It was (still is, as far as I know) called Le Bonheur des Dames (from the name of a nineteenth-century departement store in the eponymous Zola novel, it means something like "Ladies' Joy"...). All about cross-stitching. Wonderful patterns, colours, textures (silk, linen... Ahhh!...). I bought half-a-dozen tiny Scottish heritage patterns... and I was a lost woman.

For a couple of years, I stitched away like crazy.

     Then, about three years ago, without noticing at first, I bought this cute beach-chair pattern, that included seed beads. I loved the combining of materials. I looked into beads. Then I discovered that you could actually buy pearls and... I never looked back!

I am still discovering, exploring, associating, imagining... everyday, and even sometimes creating!

*(for Long-Playing. Yes, I'm a dinosaur— I used to buy vinyl records though I'm no DJ)

Watch for the blog Merry-Go-Round

A few enterprising crafters cum bloggers, are going to join in a blogging merry-go-round. That's with the stress on merry, as opposed to boring hard-selly... So watch for this little clipart, later on this week:



And here are the other crafty blogs on the merry-go-round:

Sara from
http://sarastexturecrafts.blogspot.com
Ruth from
http://insidetheartisan.blogspot.com
Charlotte from
http://fancypicnic.blogspot.com
Lily from
http://lilypangart.blogspot.com
Marian from
http://florcitasart.blogspot.com
Fabs from
http://easterya.blogspot.com
Anna from
http://halfanacreblog.blogspot.com
Andreanna from
http://blog.glamasaurus.com