It's been so long since I made a new octopus stash jar, but YAY snuck one in before the craft fair next week :)

A post shared by brandee blank (@brandeeblank) on May 4, 2018 at 4:48pm PDT

It's been 6 months??

Holy shoot I had no idea so much time had passed since my last post!  I haven't been doing much in the way of making (had surgery so that took a big chunk of my life ) and I came out of that on more of an embroidery kick than working in polymer.  Guess it is image dump time!  I'll start with my latest first.

Embroidery:

Embroidered stuffed cicada inspired bug pin

9 inch long embroidered and stuff beetle wall hanging

X-mas gifties for my nieces:

Mermaid tail necklaces

Ocean waves jewelry set

Group gift special order:

Ocean textures rings

Buncha jars:

Journals:

Succulent necklace: 

Well seeing it all laid out like this I made more stuff then I thought since I last posted.

The Seattle Aquarium

Hidee Ho!

I was contacted by the Seattle Aquarium to donate an octopus piece for their annual fund raiser, Splash. Such a nice compliment!  Of course I said I would.  And then they came back to me and asked to purchase a second one as a gift for someone.  How neat is that!

The patchy purple cuff from my last post is on it's way to the auction while this one:

will be the gift.

While I was working on it, I kind of made three, so my Etsy shop now carries a couple more cuffs:

I'm still working on figuring out how to do a fairy figure.  I have made huge progress on faces and heads.  I tackled DIY eyes that are polymer but look like glass thanks to the tutorials over at Misty Moon Creations. Soon as I get a finished project to show, I'll also post the many missteps it took to get me there. That should be embarrassing fun.

Coming out of a slump... I hope

I hit a real slump in January - not feeling creative and quite unproductive.  I may have burnt myself out with the craft fair again.  It happens every year.  I don't know why I am surprised by that.

The other thing was having two fairly crappy things happen.  First, I had someone return an octopus they purchased from me.  Seriously?  Returning art?  I have on my Etsy site that I do not take returns, but I'll be damned if I am going to allow someone to keep a piece of my heart and soul when they didn't want it!  Still, I'm quite taken aback by the ignorance.

Second, the foray into having my things at a brick and mortar store didn't work out.  I had my things in there for two months. I thought nothing sold and I got bummed out and informed the store owner I would pick my items up. When I got there, it turns out that several pieces and a lot of earrings sold.  I almost broke even so it wasn't as bad as I thought it was.  I am not sure why the owner didn't tell me she sold anything (when I left stuff there she said she would tell me when anything sold) but I took it all anyway.

It's all good - the leftover stuff is up at Etsy.  I still have 6 necklaces to add up there that I haven't gotten around to yet.

My enthusiasm was a bit rekindled though when I got two neat custom orders back to back just last week.  First, a steampunk octopus.  I have not done anything steam punk yet (just being stubborn.  Long story) but I think it came out adorbs:

Of course, the whole time I was making it, this song was going through my head:

Hmm maybe the story wasn't that long after all.

The other interesting piece was a octopus cuff bracelet that is to be a V-day gift from a husband to his wife.  They just got back from a trip to Shark Island in VA where they saw an octopus on a scuba dive.  He wanted something to commemorate the trip.  I ended up doing an image transfer of the island and making it look like a framed photo on the cuff, thusly:

And now, I have 2 more commissions to work on 1) a set of tokens for an MTG deck that has lots of creatures.  and 2) a fairy.  Yep, I have to see if I can make an art doll.  I'm skert!  Luckily, the person who has ordered it is an old friend and we have an agreement that if I can't pull it off, it's ok :)