Work Coming Along And Vacation Announcement!!!!

ANNOUNCEMENT!!!

I have decided to close the shop temporarily after the shipping deadline for Christmas mail out (middle of December) and stay in vacation mode until late January. Lots of reasons why, but good reasons this time.

Firstly, I have a lot of personal stuff that goes on during December besides just the holidays (my extended family has a lot of birthdays, too) and in January I have girl scout cookie business.

Secondly, I have plans.  The store and product desperately need a revamp.  I am still deciding if I am going to take the store off Etsy entirely, and start my own website.  Etsy has been stale lately, but I do enjoy different aspects of it, like vacation mode and not having to deal with credit card payments.

Third, I need to re-do a lot, A LOT of my product.  It's not the flowers themselves, it's the mounting job.  Most of my early work is pretty terrible when it comes to attachments.  I have learned so much in the past year with regards to mounting and thread wrapping, it makes my old product look terrible. Not to mention I have product I haven't listed much less photographed. I also have several projects that are half finished, like washi jewelry, kumihimo, and ornaments.

So its going to be time for a big update.  Not planning on changing graphics though.


Now its time for work updates :)

Almost finished!! YAY!!!

So as you can see, this piece is really coming along.  I have finished mounting the frame for the bira bira and the shidare (you can kinda see the four spokes of gold wire for the shidare) and 2 of it's falls.  They are going to be an identical, repeating pattern of white on red, white on purple and white on white.

None of this part of the work is easy.  Mounting takes a strong grip that wears out the muscles in your hands, often leaving to cramping since I haven't done this in a while.  Also, its a lot of wrapping.  It took like 2 hours to wrap just the left side.  I also have to finish the wrapping on the right side which needs to come down another couple of inches.
The shidare part is the part that, I find, to be the most difficult.  Getting the petals to come together over a thin piece of nylon twine, without getting glue EVERYWHERE, and still managing to cover the high contrast colors underneath the white so they don't show down the middle....it's a lot to handle.  But these two I have managed pretty well.  I find the double layers are bigger and easier to deal with than the singles, so I went ahead and did that since it would give me a chance to lightly add some color, while keeping the white prominent.  (Her kimono is mostly white)

When it't done, though, it is going to be FANTASTIC!!!!  I know she will love it, although it is very delayed.  Like a month overdue.

Also, if there is anyone reading this who likes Facebook, I strongly suggest you check out the Immortal Geisha group, the Immortal Geisha Marketplace, and the DIY kimono group.  The Immortal Geisha people are AMAZING, I have grabbed some INCREDIBLE finds off the marketplace, and the DIY kimono group has some really great ideas for alterations and work arounds for wearing kimono!!!!  They are wonderful, caring people, and I don't say that often about people in groups.

Lastly, I am still collecting donations for Dimitri Conde to help his parents afford the burden of his Leukemia ALL diagnosis.  The local community helped her restore her house after it flooded with sewage, 3k in damages total.  But because of Demitri's condition, they have been back and forth to the hospital on many occasions, the last one requiring a two to three week stay in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Both parents are working minimal hours to provide around the clock care for Dimitri.  Please, please help in any way you can. :)

New Commission

This update has been dreadfully overdue....

My health held me back from work once again and nothing has been updated in months.  I am behind on all my projects, and I still haven't taken photos of my last pieces, I could go on and on.  Right now I have been very busy getting my house back in order.

So, once again, I am starting anew with the Emporium.

I have been doing some important things.  Such as, updating the business name and mailing address for the company.  I also toyed around with a new website interface.  I have been able to add a few new pieces to my kitsuke collection, a new bright red kimono and enough pieces to do a double set of kimono.  (Mainly for the photo shoot I hope to do in the future with actual models, but I don't expect that to happen since I haven't been able to find anyone to model for me, much less someone to photograph me as the model)

But the good news is that I have landed a really nice commission!! A standard flower set, three medium sized kiku with rounded petals with purple white and red coloring, and a deluxe shidare and bira.  But the main thing I am really excited about is that it is made to be fitted to a headband, which I have never done before.  Normally this would hold me back but I think I am experienced enough by now that it shoudn't be a real adventure outside my comfort zone.  It would involve a great deal of thread wrapping, but its really nothing I couldn't handle.  

At this point I have so many projects and a very extensive "want to try" list, that if I worked every day for the rest of my life, I would still never get it all finished.  I have learned a great deal along the way, and each new silk craft I try brings me closer and closer to being able to repair and resell good kimono.  But it is becoming apparent that with my health needs, I will probably never really get to that point.  I just don't have as much time as I would hope to get everything done with my sanity intact.

The gofundme for my friend Shanna Conde and her son Demitri, has gone completely dead.  I haven't sold a decent piece in forever, and no help has come to Demitri, in situation, health, or circumstance.  His chemo shots are incredibly expensive, and their insurance has a very high deductible.  Not to mention the sewage system in their house backed up and they had raw sewage flood the house.  This is not only an expensive cleanup, but forced them out of their new home once more.  

http://www.gofundme.com/dconde 

#condestrong

In the back log of projects I have completed are:

6-7 ornaments

2 kanzashi peices

3 chirimen necklaces with kits to make more

I have also been racking in supplies, like sheets of yuzen dyed chiyrogami washi paper.  I am going to get around to my fan making project as well, eventually.  I have a good 8-9 sheets now.  

Anyway, I hope sometime after Christmas I can go back to my Silk Embroidery teacher in Oklahoma and get some real work done on my piece.  I know it needs some work with re-framing, but I can live with that.  I hope to get back on it as soon as this commission is done.  I did manage to get a membership to the JEC (Japanese Embroidery Center), and have started receiving my first quarterly Nuido Journal.  It is very exciting to see the full listing of pieces available.  I really am in love with a few of the realy high end teacher level master pieces, but they are so involved, it turns into another one of those "I don't know if I will ever get there" things.

So there, I said it.  I am coming back soon, and working a lot more than I was.  Just not quite back to 100% yet.

Half off Mega Moving Sale!!! (And Fundraiser)

 So,

I have decided to have a clearance sale, and it's working.  I have raised almost $300 this sales quarter for Dimitri!! SO excited!

Donate Directly to Dimitri Conde's Leukemia ALL Medical Fund HERE!!!

Also, I have sold off or will send off the rest of the home decor ornaments.  This has greatly cleared up space in my inventory! I am sending the last 5 to Ariel Loh of TZARTISAN for the shop to raise funds for our tutorial book project!

Meanwhile I am packing up my house to be repaired and sold, live in temporary housing for a while, and then move into a new home.  Obviously I will be closing up shop for several months, and focusing strictly on family and other crafts, such as Japanese Silk Embroidery!

My class is coming up June 9th/10th.  I will be traveling to Oklahoma to learn under a certified Japanese Silk Embroidery instructor, Kathy Johnson.  This is actually just a short drive away from me, and I am extremely excited for this opportunity. 

That's all the notes for now.  No new pieces, no new projects.  Just a new job, cleaning house constantly, and trying to not spend money.  Yeah, I know, ha ha.

New GoFundMe Campaign and Store Notes

New Set

So first to business.

Donate Directly Here

All new sales are going to Dimitri Conde's Leukemia ALL Medical Fund.
Dimitri is a child who is also on spectrum, and shared a class with my own son.  His mom and I are good friends, and I immediately jumped on the opportunity to run their donation campaign.


Now for store notes:

I haven't had as much time as I'd like to work, but I have been working.  With the new fundraising campaign, and the new job, and trying to sell my house, my work has gone to the back burner.
But I did manage to list all those pumpkin/goldenrod pieces, and I have made those two new kikus, of which i decided to scrap the one of them because I just didn't really like it.
I have continued the color scheme, with this two piece set, one of which will have a bira bira and one will have a shidare, kind of like the sister kanzashi set, though slightly bigger.

New Kiku

I have enjoyed doing sets like this, though I will probably be doing an orange promo set, since orange is the color of Leukemia.

I have also got my new silk embroidery set in the mail!!!  It's larger than I visualized, but that is not a complaint.  I now have all the supplies for my piece, and tools- everything!!!!  I am probably going to push classes back till June because I already have to work memorial day weekend on 6 hr shift.  At a retail store, that is 6 hrs of intense work.
Not only that but I am currently working on selling my house, which will be a 3-4 month process.
And now I'm doing this fundraiser as well.

But as you can see in the top picture I am stocking up on certain supplies.  I am expecting a mini-vacation soon where I hope to be able to work intensely on this set and a few other pieces, as to be completed by the end of May.   Then I can focus on the personal end until the Japanese Silk Embroidery lesson in mid to late June.