What's in a name

After careful consideration, I've decided to change my business name. As important as using Jibby and Juna (the names of my childhood, imaginary friends) was to me when I opened my Etsy shop in 2008, using my full name for business purposes is, as one wise friend said, better for the long haul.

Willow carved necklace

Maybe I was short sighted,  maybe I needed to dream bigger. And I think now is the time to make the shift. I'm a little scared though.

I'll start the process sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Shapes in the Shop

Happy New Year - Here's to new beginnings! 

I'm really excited to start off the New Year working on a new line of designs.

The earrings that are coming out of my shape exploration are making it into the shop now. 

Level earrings in Mint

Mountain earrings in Black

Polygon in Warm White

Merry Christmas

Wishing you grace and peace! 

Heaviness

I had a series of blog posts that I was working on for this week, attempting to follow a more regular schedule of posting, but the events in Connecticut last Friday have cast a shadow over everything and  I just haven't felt like posting. Although I homeschool our children, my husband is a public school teacher so we are grieving for the families in Newton and feeling the situation a little personally as well. 

So I pray for the families in Connecticut 

and for my husband's safety as he heads out to work in the morning. 

Small is good too

I learned last year that a lot of folks purchase my tiny earrings as stocking stuffers so I've tried to stuff the shop with them this year. Some are even one of a kind - specialness in a tiny package.

Someone asked me not long ago why I don't stop making the tiny earrings and focus on larger pieces. Good question - I don't mind being questioned. Its me think about what I am doing. But my answer was simple - I have short hair and like to wear tiny earrings.

Sprout in aqua

So...tiny earrings will continue but many designs that I've had for a while will be gone after the New Year. Out with the old and in with the new.

Focused on shapes

I seem really focused on shape lately. Maybe this always happens in the winter landscape, less color, more shape. Trunks and branches silhouetted against the sky.

Greenhouse Winter by Kyle Williamson

  The work of Paul Krix (of Neat Object) reminds me so much of this. VERY neat, aren't they?!

Scrap of paper

The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. - Pablo Picasso

So the truth is that I often don't have much of a plan at first.  I LOOK for a plan (or idea, or design or whatever you want to call it) and I figure, I'll know it when I see it. 

Thus my shape experiment. 

The shapes I liked the best are now patterns to cut thin sheets of polymer.  I put shapes together, some layered, as earrings. Larger shapes might become necklaces, parts of necklaces, they might expand to 3D bead.