New Ornaments are Up!

Thats 14 listings you are looking at here.

14.

Thats a lot of pictures.


But now that I have some new inventory I am going to go back through and clean out some of the stale stuff.  A friend of mine asked if I would offer some items for silent auction to benefit the McKinney animal shelter.  Which is great! I get to dump my old inventory and make room for new while getting some publicity in town and help out a good cause.  Cause I love fur babies!

Only one problem with that though, I need new business cards.  I haven't printed any with the new Emporium naming and updated informational links.  So I was up till 1am last night working on business cards. And since I actually have a color printer now I am working all kinds of professional looking things.  I have the cards, I just need some new ink and a little time. 

I have a busy week ahead with family, not sure what I am going to accomplish. Especially since now I have come down with a bad cold. 

Don't forget all sales from the shop are going to Elizabeth Comer to help her cover the costs of fighting thyroid cancer.  Click the name to donate directly!

Ornament Update

So as of right now:

49 ornaments in inventory that need re-shooting.
16 that need original photos.
5 of the ornaments in the picture I finsihed last night, the top three and the middle two from the left.

So with proper math, I have 65 ornaments to shoot, not including the ones that still need wrapping.

I still need to make more christmas version ones, right now I am pinning the opposite of the holiday one at the top right with alternating colors so they go as a set.  Then I want to do a set in silver, and in white.  But that probably won't be done till December, when I get this big Kanzashi project out of the way.

Not only that, but my husband has decided to change jobs, which may mean relocating. Not what I wanted to hear right before the holiday season starts but what the hell.

its me

Well, yes. It's me.

I don't normally come out in public like this.  I have adored my anonymity on the internet, but it is slowly fading away if I am to succeed as an artisan.

This is probably the best picture I have ever taken. LOL.

I'm done with kanzashi for the moment, I have a big kanzashi related project coming up in November I have to work on but can't really go into detail yet.

Ornaments are the main focus at the moment, trying to get some of the Christmas stock finished before I get in over my head for this project.  I also need to set up a photo shoot once again and redo all my ornaments. Lots of work. And I still have many that need trimming and many that just need photos so I can list them.  I also need a ton more ribbon and bells.  So it may be a while before I finish all of them, and probably not before the shoot.  I need a TON of ribbon.

My custom order backed out on me, so I need to reshoot that piece too.  Plus another that I missed in the previous shoot.  The red kanoko dots double sakrua still has kanzashi temple stamping....

Plus my son's birthday is this week.  It never ends.....

New Set, New Sale!

Sister Kanzashi is back.

Going to finish an ornament and set up a photoshoot hopefully sometime tomorrow or Monday.

Also sold one of the thyroid cancer awareness kanzsahi! Another donation to Elizabeth's Medical fund at www.gofundme.com/Ecomer!

Please remember all sales are donated to Elizabeth until the end of 2015!

Custom Order Complete and Other Projects!

WELL, it's going to be a crazy month.

So the custom order is finished, and I haven't even had time to post since photos on last Monday.  It has been a whirlwind of appointments, schedule changes, errands, etc. I am barely holding on to reality.  Things keep slipping through the cracks, here and there. But I have managed to stay out of the shrink hospital so far.....

Ok so projects for October are......

Sister Kanzashi remake is about half finished.  I got most of it finished last night while my husband was stuck at work.  5 blossoms down with 1 flower, 1 leaf, and 1 rotational bira bira to go before I can work on mounting. 

Photos are coming soon.  I am bringing back the teapot and have another drop cloth to take away some of the yellow in the background, but I am starting to wonder if it's the light.  So sometime this weekend during the day (which is a tall order in this household) I am going to set up for the new product to be rephotographed.

I am getting photographed as well.  That's for an upcoming project I am not sure if i can give details on yet or not.  But I am headed to the arboretum weekend after next to have my picture taken in formal kimono and kanzashi.  By a professional. And considering I am down 35 lbs since the last time I wore a formal kimono, it might actually fit properly this time!

Then I am starting a white with china red backing rose kanzashi.  I might keep this one, not sure yet. 

Maybe after christmas I can get into my repair box and fix my other rose kanzashi. But with my sister moving back from Australia this christmas and this major project I just signed up for, I am going to be so booked the rest of the year that I think I might close the custom orders down for a while.  I dont want to though.

Custom order details.

So this is what I have so far....
It's obviously a double sakura, with china red outer layer and gold flecked black on the inner layer. What I DIDN'T realize when I ordered the gold flecked black is that it came as two tones, black and grey.  Woot. :( 

Honestly the gold hardly shows up at all and the grey adds some dimention but its really the wrong color.  I tried to hide it as much as possible, but I could only do so much with the larger petals.

The red stamens were a great addition, and really keeps to the darker tones of the piece. I only have pearl as my other option, and didn't want to add another color to the piece. 

Next up is shidare and mounting on a 3 inch hair fork, as requested.  I'm going with a red wrapping, it shows less glue than the black thread. I still also have a leaf piece to add, which the base is prepped and ready for petals.

THEN i still have another major project in the back ground.  It;s huge for me, and I am going to be investing a lot of time into it. I will probably shut down custom orders for a while until my part is completed. 

And in my free time, HA! The sister kanzashi remake still awaits......

Plus I am remaking the mermaid's jewel ornament.

I swear I do this all to myself. LOL!

Updates Again

Well.....last night was quite the productive evening, and morning, since I did not get to sleep until 4am.

I trimmed 3 balls and have enough ribbons to finish only one, maybe two more.  When I finish the batch I will be blasting my pictures everywhere. 

Speaking of pictures, the other half of my night was spent editing original photos with new watermarks to erase the old Kanzashi Temple name and move to LilyAshes Emporium.  It should have been more of a priority, but at least it's done.  I am only missing two picture sets, which I am just going to reshoot on Tuesday night when my photographer comes. 

I am also bringing the teapot back as an integral part of referencing how big the kanzashi is.  I also looked over some older ones I had made, and need to remake.  They had come out quite well. 

One last bit of news, I have a major project coming up.  I've been invited to join several other artisans from around the world to contribute to a new kanzashi techniques tutorial book. I was beyond flattered and am really excited about the prospect.  Especially since I have that rose kanzashi tutorial almost completed.   It will be a lot of work, and a lot of photos and editing, but it will be well worth it to be ranked among some of the top kanzashi artisans like Arleen from Wisteria Gardens and Hana-Sakuri and EruwaedhielElleth and many others.  Plus something this big I could never finish on my own.  I don't know if any of the artisans could.  We are too busy creating!

So the sequence goes, get paid on wednesday, get ribbons on wednesday, finish ornaments.  By then my custom order fabric comes in and I have THAT piece to make.  Then I am probably going full into this book thing and not surfacing until november when Christmas season begins.  

I think that is all for now.  I also have some news, my sister is moving back from australia to America, and only 4.5 hours away.  We are talking about starting a business, selecting fabrics, making stuff like fake obi belts and such (she is much better at machine sewing than I am for certain), and opening a different shop on Etsy, depending on what we make.  Then I could sell the scraps, or use them for ornaments or somehting like that. I have always wanted to do more with the shop, but the past few years have been difficult.  With my kids and my health and everything going on, it's just hard to keep up most days.  But next year my son will go to school full time and we will probably quit several of the things he does now.  It will definitely open up my availibility to work and expand my product.