The assignment today is to start a regular feature. I was having trouble thinking of something that I could feature once a week or fortnight, and then realised I could do a feature on what I make with Polymer Clay (maybe a piece of jewellery or a little creature).
Maybe I could even do a short video, or set of photographs, that shoew the process. Will keep pondering, but what do you think?
Think I might call it “Lirfy Leanings” (if you don’t know what Lirf means, check it out here.
The assignment was to extend our brand – personally I’m not into branding, all that scorching flesh and red hot iron, but each to their own. 🙂
So, not having a mobile that can take decent photos, and not being a Twit, I decided to create a brand (ooh, an unintended pun) new facebook page an send all my posts to that instead of my personal page (wish I could send them to both, but alas I cannot).
So, if anyone wants to stalk me on facebook, click the aforementioned link.
Oh boy, knew there would be a catch with this blogging thing. Now they want me to pick a few of the great moments/blogs/posts that I have read for our assignment for Day 24. ARE THEY SERIOUS? (Yes, this is a shouting matter.) I can’t pick and choose from all the fantastic blogs/people behind the blogs, that I like, the great posts, the writing, the stories, the photos, the laughs – oh, the laughs. Why would I even want to try, because I know that I will certainly forget someone and that will lead to unhappiness, and this blog is about being happy, so that is my rationale behind NOT doing a roundup.
ALSO, “Roundup” is actually a weedkiller here, so basically you, dear Melissa W, are asking me to kill what I love!
Roundup also has connotations of bringing in the flock so that they can be
A: sent off to market,
b: branded, tagged, dipped, de-testiculated (if they are male – ouch), hoof trimmed, inoculated, and any other not-so-nice thing we might wish to do once we have got them where we want them,
c: parents separated from off-spring (so either said parent or off=spring can have the aforesaid A: thing done to them).
So, in general, “roundup” is not a thing I’m wishing to inflict upon my blogger friends.
These are my excuses, and I proffer them in good faith, take them as you will.
Okay, okay, I will limit myself to just a few, but I’m not “rounding them up” you understand! OK! – roundup bad – liking good.
(Gosh this is hard)
Um, she put me LAST on her list, so I’m putting her FIRST (seems fair to me). If you to know who makes me laugh, have a look here for Nikky who hooked me from the first blog post that I read. Why?, because she was funny and her last paragraph grabbed me round my marshmallow emotions and tried to strangle me. After that, of course, I discovered she was completely wacko, but I LOVE IT. Now I’m pretty sure that she is my “second head”, the one all Taswegians are supposed to have. How she ever got over to Gibraltar I do not know, but someday I may have to go and find her and bring her home to my green valley.
Kaz, for being a fellow Aussie and for her amazing photography. Also she gave me the recipe for this fabulous cocktail. But most recently, for going the extra mile and finding the lyrics to a video post she put up, when I commented that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. What more could you ask?
Christin, whose blog title and tagline says it all. How could I not follow, after I read the first post I found of hers?
Hacker, Ninja, Hooker, Spy. If you haven’t found it yet, go there! I read in morbid fascination, and laugh with insane disbelief, about all the things that happen to this girl.
The Chocolate Teapot, for he humour and her great drawings, especially Steve the Unicorn.
Kat at Dandelion Fuzz, for being brave enough to share her journey, and her incredible love for her family.
Hugh for his admission that dyslexia is his monster (my Husband was slightly dyslexic), and this video post.
All my fellow 101bloggers …
(see this is why I didn’t want to do this, I’m following 43 blogs at the moment, and really it should be more but I just don’t have the time)
… that are determined to “give it a go”, all the people who have liked, and commented on my posts, or even just looked and went away and maybe thought, or didn’t, about what they had seen.
Consider this NOT a round up, just the tip of the iceberg, there is more, sooooo much more, waiting under the surface.
Blogging101, Day 16, assignment is to write something using the WordPress Daily Prompt: Ring of Fire
Immediately Johnny Cash springs to mind. My Dad used to sing, it’s one of my earliest and lest likely to disappear memories. If i just close my eyes I can hear him now,
I fell into a burning ring of fire
I fell down, down, down
and the flames burned higher
My Dad could play any musical instrument, the piano, the guitar, the piano accordion, he played them by ear and he sang. A lovely, deep, full of timbre voice. He sang all the time, and for me as a child, to just listen was pure bliss. Johnny Cash, Slim Dusty, Charlie Pride, Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, John Denver and a whole heap of others that now escape my memory.
So “Ring of Fire” is forever my Dad singing.
Today in Bloggin101 we are supposed to create a post based on one of the comments we left yesterday.
I’m going to talk about something that interests me, Handmade. Yesterday I left a comment on the blog Handmade Australia Blog, the post I commented on was handmade blogging hints and tips.
I make handmade jewellery, and sometimes housewares. I sell through a local shop that specialises in local handmade items. Well, sometimes I sell, more often I don’t. My hometown is a tourist town, so in the off season (which we are approaching now) there isn’t much going on. I have also have a shop on etsy since 2012, but I have never sold anything through that. Etsy is just too big for a little handmade fish like me, unless you really get into all the networking side of things, you are lucky if you ever get anyone to see your shop at all.
I do have a facebook page and my website, but again, you really have to do the whole networking thing, and I never really have, mainly because I just don’t have the time. Handmade for me is a hobby, I love making things. I love the tactile pleasure of smooshing (very technical term) polymer clay. I love sanding and polishing the clay to get a soft and silky feel on the finish. I love, love, love hammering metal. I love melting glass (although I have to be careful with the glass, because I always want to grab it with my hands, which is a big NO NO when it is like molten lava).
So, making handmade is what I love. Selling and marketing handmade, not so much.
So when I get the time I will be going back to that blog and reading some more of his posts, who knows, I just might find some hints and tips to make things easier.
The assignment from Blogging101 for Day 11 is to get to know our neighbours. So, off to peruse comments, posts and blogs for something to pique my interest, and here is what I found.
A post on the blog Antigua A la Carte, the post was by-the-light-of-the-blood-red-moon
A post on the blog Everchanging, the post was 18/365
A post on the blog Handmade Australia Blog, the post was handmade blogging hints and tips
A post on the blog Broken Light Collective, the post was Freedom from mental illness
The assignment today from Bloggin101 is to post something inspired by the “About Me” page I wrote yesterday. Weirdly enough, as you’d think someone who takes the time to blog would want to say something about themselves, I don’t want to talk more about me. I felt I said enough yesterday, so what more do I choose to tell you.
I have toe rings, I sometimes sing
my eyes are blue, my hair is grey
I love to play with polymer clay.
I took a class to play with glass
but my beads aren’t round, so I melt them down
I use my kiln to fuse and slump it, and also for glass that is dichroic.
Some clay, glass, metal or wire
entwined in a fashion
to make simple jewellery – my hobby “passion”
I was a carer for my husband for 3 years before he died, raising our girls through this time with the constant help of my Mum (mother of advanced age- MOAA), who cared for them whilst I spent large amounts of time at the hospital with my husband. I sadly admit now that I can’t remember a lot of things from those years, my girls often say “do you remember when ……..Mum?” and I can’t. It breaks my heart that I cannot remember those precious years when they were so young.
So funny, weird, silly is my way of coping with what has been lost. Sometimes it is just easier for me to write it in rhyme.
I’m trying to focus on happy, positive (without going to the perky positivity of extremes), joyful things in life. Which, I guess, is what my blog is about. So there, in a way I have been inspired by writing this post.
Whatdayaknow!
Day 8 is all about making your About page interesting so that it attracts further investigation of your blog. I have made another About Me page, though I can’t do a sidebar widget on my chosen theme as I only have footers and I don’t think the widget thing works too well that way.
So, being me, the following spiel happened About Me
The assignment for Day 6 is to write to our Dream Reader and include a new element in our post that we haven’t used before.
i have been thinking about this all day, and come to the conclusion that this blog is really all about things that I would love to tell my husband if he were still alive. He is my Dream Reader. So, even though I do not really believe it, a tiny part of my heart hopes that he is out there somewhere, his electrical soul floating around waiting for a way to connect with me, and maybe this is it.
So pay attention Andrew, this is all for you, 5 is the number, any 5, anywhere, I’ll know it’s you.
I wanted to embed a small video I had, but it has been too hard to try and convert it from an old DVD I had made, and find the small couple of seconds I wanted to pull out of it. So, the thought was there, but the ability to do it tonight was not. Perhaps when I have more time to crawl through all of the information on how to do that I will.
I think I can add our wedding song here though, so I’ll give that a shot
I have also chosen to share the poem I wrote for my husbands funeral service. I know that I have used verse before (but I’ve put it in quotes today), but it deems to fit with my mood, and is certainly appropriate for my Dream Reader.
It is done
you are gone
I set your free, softly on the breeze
Your body to the fire
Your spirit to the sky, the earth, the seaOur circle may be finished
In this life, this here and now
But there will be a new beginning
Sometime, somewhere, somehowThe laughter, love and memories
The children that we made
Will live in our soul forever
For these there cannot be a graveSo light the path for me
Through this time we are apart
My soul is bound to yours
We will never lose our heartI will love you many times again
In other worlds to come
Where our love and life together
Once more we will begin
Day 5 is all about your theme, do you Love your Theme?
I guess this makes me fickle (at first anyway) because when I first started this blog in March, I spent hours hopping from one theme to another – theme promiscuity ran rampant in me. Now I am in a lovely relationship with “Ever After”, (and only very minimally tempted by all the theme-candy on offer) and in fact I am thinking of committing to Custom Design!
Some of the themes I remember from my early days are “Widely”, “Yoko”, “McKinley”, “Hatch”, “Misty Lake”, “Writr”, the list goes on and on. I love the visual look of some of the photo-portfolio blogs, but since mine is a mix of writing and pictures, it doesn’t have the same impact. I get sucked in by the demo pages as displayed, and then get let down when my page doesn’t look like them.
Even as recently as a week ago, I briefly flirted with “Spun” – but I did not like the fact that the “comments” box was only indicated by a circle with a + in the middle of it way down at the bottom of the page. (My Mother couldn’t find it, so that put me off).
Last night I changed my other blog theme from “Spectrum” to “Motif”, and I really am liking that. Today I tired “Elegant Grunge” because we had to try one that we weren’t attracted to – YEP, not attracted!
So, for now, “Ever After” has me, it has lovely large, well shaped text, a clean layout, and footers (not sidebars, as they distract me). We’re working well together.
