Le Garage Sale this weekend

I will be participating in one of Austin's most coveted sale events this weekend. All the information is on the flyer below. I will have sale merchandise as well as my regular goodies there...



Hope to see you there!

cheers!
xo diane

this is what i'm dealing with today...

okay, anyone who has a cat knows that they have this incredible sense of where they shouldn't be and my cat, gunner, is no exception to this rule. as a matter of fact he actually epitomizes this rule perfectly!

here's the back story. i'm trying to take some photographs of these new earrings to send to someone for a silent auction and for my website too. my workspace isn't all that big and when i set up my light box and lights there is absolutely NO space whatsoever. so i'm getting up close and trying different shots when i hear this sound from my right side. here he comes, under my chin (as i'm actually taking a photograph!) and in he goes.





oh, he sure is cute, but right on top of my work! and then he starts clawing at the walls:


he got the squirt bottle for sure...now here he is just a few minutes later:



trouble sleeps....


oh, and if you are interested in the actual photo i was trying to take here it is:




hope you have a great day!

cheers!
xo diane

reworking a class

i'm not sure if i mentioned it yet, but i am teaching a jewelry making class at the griffin school this quarter. i was asked to participate again in their art workshop and gladly accepted. so i decided to teach the students how to make these awesome beaded rings. last year i did the basic jewelry making class which was alright, but i think they really wanted something more.

so i obliged. i have been busy working on making the patterns so they are simple to follow with color coding and the whole nine yards. well, after the first class last week, i realized that i had bitten off a bit more than i could chew.

before i had "kits" prepared for each student with the correct amount of beads counted out with a color assigned to each one. what was i thinking? i was trying to organize the class so much i feel like i squeezed the creativity right out of it. so this week i'm reworking the patterns to simplify them a bit so that the students can make more than one ring per class and so that they can choose their own colors too.

i suppose i got caught up in the whole project that i lost sight of the bigger picture. so i took a breather for a few days and now am super excited about the new ideas and patterns that we are going to be doing. simplifying the class will take a load off of the students' mind allowing them to open up and really become creative.

so today & tomorrow i will be taking apart the "kits" i had so carefully prepared and i will take this as a huge lesson learned.

inspiration

i subscribe to about 30 different blogs and am inspired by what i see almost daily. one of my absolute favorites is called the dieline and its dedicated to package design.

now if you know anything about me you know that i absolutely LOVE packaging. i strive to be as creative as i can when it comes to packaging my own goodies too. there's just something about presenting your product in a super cool and unique fashion that speaks to me.

so they featured some packaging from green genes which made me think of my line of tasty jewelry. see if you agree:


the dots and colors are so similar to my logo and website design that it made me want to blab about it.

so, if you are wondering what green genes is here's a quote from the blog; "Green Genes an eco-friendly boutique specializing in green goodies for whippersnapper’s and their grown-ups too in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood". now i used to live in chicago in the lincoln square neighborhood and that's not too far away from andersonville. its a really cool swedish neighborhood which is the home of the original ann sather's restaurant, sommarfest and some other really great bars & restaurants.

so if you are in chicago, check out the shop. i wish i was still there to stop by and grab myself some "green" goodies!

cheers!
xo diane

start of the new year

i've had several ideas of what i could do to make myself be more consistent with the posts, i.e. daily thoughts, creative influences, "themed days", i just can't seem to get it off the ground. so i start the new year with an attempt at more frequent posting...

so here's one for today. i'm currently working on taking tons of old jewelry that i have and getting it organized for a sale going on here in austin in a few weeks called "le garage" sale. its just that, but with a twist. tons of fantastic local boutiques have booths and they put all of their clearance merchandise out for ridiculous prices. meaning they are practically giving their stuff away.

my friend annemarie beard did the show last fall and invited me to share a booth space with her so i said yes. now i'm getting all of this stuff together that i just want to get out of my way...a perfect chance to make room for all new goodies for 2009!

here is a shot of my workspace:



i will post more about this sale later. i need to have something to post later this week...

cheers!
xo diane