Even those of us for whom the Internet constitutes an additional limb need to be unplugged now and then. Maybe I should say we especially need to be unplugged now and then. It’s nice to fill up the battery with some good old-fashioned face time.

So the last time we spoke, I was waxing poetic over ball point pens. Since then, I’ve decided to let some of them go. They’re up for grabs in the shop for a limited time. You might want to hurry, since I am prone to change my mind at any time and go back to hording them all for myself…

I’ve also put some crochet hooks back up for sale, both ready-to-ship and made-to-order. If you hesitated before, you might want to take a look now. I picked out a brand new set of nine patterns to choose from, and I also added another hook size, for those of you secretly lamenting the lack of #7s.

Aside from updating the shop, I’ve been slowly (oh, so very slowly, in itty bitty dribs and drabs) cleaning up the dining room, getting my work space back in order, and transforming the room from dumping ground back into potential eating area. My goal is to get it cleaned up to the point that it looks like a dining room once again, albeit one that has some clay supplies out on the table. Slowly but surely.

I’m also working on a new sweater for me. Have I mentioned that? I wanted a cardigan hoodie, but I wanted something that would work up relatively quickly, since I’ve pretty much had my fill of long term projects at this point. Mom and Dad gave me a WEBS gift card for Christmas, and I used it to get myself some Northampton Bulky in Old Barn Red. I’m making a Common Ground with it, and I have to say, it was working up very quickly. Until I got to the diamond lace pattern.

I’ll save the knitty gritty for its own post, but suffice it to say, there was a lot of un-knitting, re-knitting, counting, un-knitting, and re-knitting again. Being my first experience with lace, it was to be expected, but it was still a little frustrating.  I finally finished the lace pattern last night, although I really should have been done with it a few days ago. With that behind me, I have hopes of getting the sweater done by the weekend. Bulky yarn and big needles mean that it really does go very quickly when I’m not making mistakes!

So, I think we’re caught up now. I’ll try not to be such a stranger this week.  And thanks in advance for taking a peek into the shop!

Before Christmas I showed you how I went down a crazy path, and made a whole set of coordinating crochet hook handles for myself.  What I never told you was that I tried to use one of the hooks a few hours later, and it was terrible.

I’ve heard people say that they are fiercely loyal to the brand of hook they use, and that some brands just don’t work as well as others for them.  I accepted this, but thought it was kind of silly.  I mean, a hook is a hook, right?  Well, I just could not get that Boye size E to work for me.  I moved up a few sizes, and then down a few sizes, and none of them would obey my command.  I felt like a complete spaz using them – I was so surprised that I couldn’t make them work!

So there I was with a lovingly-made set of hooks that were useless to me. Useless!

Since then, I’ve worked little-by-little, in between holiday preparations and festivities, to make a whole new set for myself.  This time I covered Susan Bates hooks, which I have no problem using whatsoever.  Like the last set, I covered all of the handles in some variation of my Triangle cane pattern, making each of them coordinate with its own metal hook color.  Each hook was given Triangles in a different color scheme, and all of them are different from the ones I used on the original Boye hooks.

What can I say? It helps to have a sizable stash of canes to dip into when I need them!

My honest opinion is that the Boye hooks (on the right) are more attractive than the Bates hooks, when viewed all together like this.  But beauty doesn’t particularly matter when I can’t do so much as make a chain with them, I suppose.

So there it is – sixteen hooks.  And even after all that, I’m still in a hook-making mood.

Shocking, I know.

This coming weekend is the annual Clayathon, and I thought I’d make some more hooks – for you! 

I’ve re-opened the shop for a very short time, and you can place an order for a custom-made hook, just like you did at Christmas time.  I have a selection of nine different patterns to choose from so none of us gets bored with the same-old same-old (and by “none of us” I mean “me”).

Just like before, you can also order pens or shawl pins if you wish.

And if there’s anything else that I’ve ever made that you are dying to have, leave a comment!  My Clayathon time is largely unplanned and I might be able to arrange it.

Ok, so go order a hook if you like! And don’t wait too long… I have to stop taking orders noonish on Wednesday so that I have time to order the hooks I need before I leave for my trip!

Thanks

Last week nearly kicked my butt.

I was minding my own business, working on your custom claythings (crochet hooks, pens, and shawl pins, if you remember), when we had a bit of a medical mystery unfold with my older son.

I’ll spare you most of the details.  Suffice it to say, there was a call from the school nurse, doctor appointments, a blood test and an eeg before it was determined that Aidan has a pediatric seizure disorder.  We’re lucky in that it’s fairly common, effectively harmless, and will go away by the time he’s in his mid-to-late teens.  He may never have another seizure, but if he does, at least we’ll know what it is and we won’t worry (too much – I can’t really help but worry a little bit!).

I’m thankful that, as disorders go, it’s not likely to be all that disruptive to his life. And I’m grateful that it only took two days to pinpoint the problem, and we were spared a long string of diagnostic testing.  Those two days were fairly intense, and it’s been somewhat difficult to come down from it, if that makes any sense.  It’s been strange trying to go back to my relaxed business-as-usual state.  But I’m getting there.

So now that things are settling down, I’m ready to finish the orders on my plate.  I’m almost done, in fact.  I just have a couple of shawl pins to do, and then I’ll be ready to pack everything up and send it on its way.  Yay! You can start looking for those shipping notices Tuesday or Wednesday (maybe Thursday), I’d say.

While I was filling the custom orders last week, I was also making a few extra hooks here and there.  They, along with most of my samples, are now available for your gift-giving pleasure.  In other words, the Gift Shop is back open (until Friday the 16th only!) and you may grab a hook or two, if you missed your chance to order a custom one.

And, just for fun, I’ve re-opened the old shop as well.  You can make some selections there, too , if you like.  The old and new shops share a shopping cart, so you can mix and match.  I am fairly sure my inventory figures over there are (mostly) accurate, but just in case, be prepared for something that appears to be in stock to actually be sold… you never know!  I’ll refund your money, if that ends up being the case.

Thanks, everyone  We now return you to your own hall-decking and merry-making!

By the afternoon, I had made enough hook handles to determine my best practice for future orders.  By evening, I had sanded and buffed the daylights out of all of the handles I made.  By bedtime, I’d gotten the order form up on the website.

A very very hooky day, if I do say so myself.

And so, without further ado, I am so happy to present: the new Polka Dot Cottage Gift Shop, featuring Made-to-Order Polymer-Handled Crochet Hooks!  I’ll be collecting orders for the next week (or until I have as many as I can realistically handle), and then it will be all hooks all the time over here at the Polka Dot Cottage World Headquarters!

I greatly appreciated all of your valuable feedback about these, and am truly looking forward to filling your orders.  You can choose your hook size, hook brand, handle pattern, and whether or not you’d like an indented thumb rest.  I will have them completed and shipped by mid-December, hopefully well in time for gift-giving.

Oh, and for those of you who don’t particularly care about crochet hooks, I’ve decided to add a little something: you can order custom-made shawl pins and stick pens, too.  Stick pens make great teacher gifts, especially in red ink (hint, hint).  Enjoy!

Have you been to the Polka Dot Cottage shop lately?  No?  Well, neither has anybody else, myself included.  I’m not feeling it anymore.  The why’s of it are complicated, but I think it boils down to one fact more than others: I don’t make enough time to work with polymer anymore.

THE BACK STORY

The Polka Dot Cottage shop was literally built for my work in polymer clay.  I wrote the code myself many years ago, and I organized it around color schemes and pattern types, and it was really, really perfect.

That is to say, it was perfect when all I did was polymer.  It was perfect when I did polymer often, and kept it updated with new work every few months.  With my growing interest in other forms of creative expression, I have tried to adapt the shop.  I’ve added patchwork scarves from my sewing machine, and brightly-colored knit hats, but in doing so I feel I’ve lost my focus.  And, let’s be honest, my interest.

THE DECISION

It’s not working for me anymore.  I feel like this entire website has started to get rather complicated, and I crave simplicity.

And so I’ve come to the decision to close the shop in its current form.

That’s not to say that I won’t be selling my work ever again.  But I need a new strategy – one that fits how I work right now, is adaptable to change in the future, and is relatively simple in format.

The download shop will remain open.

The little amazon-powered book shop I curate will remain open.

Polka Dot Creations will remain open (although if you are an artsy person with strong desires to serve the polymer community, to house a significant collection of clay books and videos in your basement, and grow a niche business, email me and we’ll chat. I am open to entertaining any serious offers for the entire business, or just the contents of the store.  Seriously. I told you I am craving simplicity…)

THE SALE

The Polka Dot Cottage Shop closes this Friday, and while we wait, I really want to have a big blowout sale to thank you for your support in the past, and celebrate this new shift for me.  How does 50% off everything in the shop sound to you?  Plus every order gets a free gift (I’ll choose something nice for you from the shop or from the pile of creations that I never got around to listing).

Please tell a friend.  I’m not going to get all dramatic and claim “everything must go” but it would be nice to pass along as many pieces as possible to good homes before they disappear from the web and get shut away in my attic forever! (ok, maybe I will get a little bit dramatic.)

Thanks, everybody

Over the last few years my work has been evolving.  No longer do I just make and sell polymer clay trinkets.  I also have patchwork scarves, knitted hats, and hi-res photos for sale, among other things.  I’ve been trying to force these products to fit in the shop I built for polymer clay, and where that hasn’t worked, I’ve taken them to Etsy, or built a download area on this blog.  But really, what I really want is for everything to be in one easy-to-use shop, where the categories make sense, and the products are organized intuitively.

I’m finally ready to tackle that monster.

See, the main problem is that my Polka Dot Cottage shop is currently set up by “color scheme” and by “pattern type.”  This was perfect when everything I sold involved a millefiori cane (each cane was made in one of the color schemes and one of the pattern types).  And for the last few years, I’ve slapped a clay button on my fabric and yarn creations not only because I like the way they look, but also because that is what allows me to stick those products in my shop and still allow them to be classified by the millefiori color/pattern combination.

I’ve actually avoided making some things that I think would sell nicely, simply because they would be hard to categorize within the confines of my shop.

Talk about technology crippling one’s creativity.  I’m a slave to my own system!

So now I’m in the brainstorming stage, thinking hard about how I want to categorize my products in a way that is easy for shoppers,  and adaptable for me – you never know when I am going to get into ceramics, embroidery, or watercolors, right?  I stopped being a one-medium girl four years ago, and my shop needs to reflect that.

I hope you don’t mind if I think aloud here for a while, and if you want to chime in with your own ideas, that would be very very cool.

I don’t plan to change the layout of the website all that much.  I just want to re-do the inner workings of it, improve the menu options, make everything easier to find.  Maybe re-photograph everything, too.  Maybe.  Today, my mind is on the main menu specifically.

The menu at the top of the page needs to be simpler.  I’m thinking something like this:

POLYMER    FABRIC   YARN    PAPER    PIXELS

or

JEWELRY    ACCESSORIES    APPAREL    PHOTOGRAPHS    TUTORIALS

The first example seems more whimsical and cute, but I lean towards the second example, because I suspect more people shop by type of item than by medium.  Do you agree?

I’m excited to play around with ideas here.  I want to categorize each item by the type of item it is (i.e. Jewelry), what it’s made out of (i.e. Polymer Clay), what the main colors are in it (i.e. Blue and Green), and what specifically it is (i.e. Earrings).  And then those can be the four searches available – get rid of all of the other complicated stuff I currently have going on.

What do you think?  Am I missing an important category?  If you knew that I made a particular item and you wanted to buy one, what would be your most intuitive way to search for it?

Thanks for helping me brainstorm.  I really want to spend some quality programming time this weekend, so the more good ideas I have to work with before then, the better!

P.S. What are some online shops that really grab you?  I could use a few examples of easily-navigable, aesthetically-pleasing websites for handcrafted goods.

Beach pendant parts.  I think I have shown you various beach pendant parts all summer long… it might be nice to have some actual finished pieces one of these days. *sigh*  At the moment I am waiting for various mail-order components, as well as an opportunity to snap a few more seaside pictures.  Next week.  I’ll have something fun to show next week (right?  oh I hope!).

Here’s a sheet that is about to be cut up and turned into a skirt (or two or three).  I just need to shove all of the clay supplies out of the way so I can set up the sewing machine. Ah, the joys of being multi-crafty in a small space…

And this is not technically in progress, unless you count the time it spends wandering around my brain, being considered, and morphing into an eventual project.  I’ll be reviewing this book sometime in the next week or two (first impression? delicious, of course), as soon as I’ve had a chance to find the embroidery hoops I bought recently.  Oh, and I’ll need to learn to embroider, too.  That will be helpful.

That’s it for my creative endeavors at the moment.  Before I sign off, though, I want to thank you for taking the time to answer my poll!  It’s been fun watching the different topics duke it out for first place.  Some of what I am seeing is a little surprising, actually, but I won’t get into all of that now.  The poll closes on Friday morning, and after that I’ll be sure to yammer on about what I’ve learned and all of that good stuff.  If you haven’t voted yet, be a dear and go let me know what you think.  Thanks.  You’re a peach!

You’d think with all of the clay rolling, image transferring, baking, re-baking, baking again, sanding, buffing, cutting, twisting, and assembling there has been around here, that I’d have something to show for it.  You’d think.  I’m not sure what made me think that image transfers could be my “thing.”  They have never been my thing.  We have never gotten along, image transfers and I.

The Mr. and I had a getaway last night, thanks to my lovely sister-in-law who passed along to us a gift certificate she won.  We had a lovely time at a local B&B.  It was a nice, cool night, so we opened all of the windows in the room, turned on the gas fireplace, put on the fluffy robes we found in the closet, and talked, and talked, and talked.  One of the many things we discussed was my current clay project, and how it would be so much easier to abandon the transfer idea and bring the pendants to life another way.

I’ve begun to give serious thought to that, going so far as to buy some of the supplies today on the way home from the inn.  Abandoning my clay? Oy.

And yet… even with part of the image sanded-off, I do really like the way the clay pendants look.  And feel.  So smooth and touchable.  I can’t help but think a little more experimenting will yield fabulous results.

But will all of the work required to make the perfect pendant price this jewelry right out of my usual market??  I’m conflicted.

More thinking and learning to do this week, it seems!

In the meantime, I just could not wait to open that new Etsy shop!  And so I did.  No jewelry in there yet, but I am selling prints of my favorite beach photos.  And for those who like to take their poison digitally, I’ve got desktop backgrounds available for download.  I hope you’ll check it out.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement!  If you have any feedback or ideas for the new shop, suggestions for what other photos you’d like to see in there, thoughts on image transfers, etc.  I’m always interested in hearing such things.

So, yes, I’m working on this new line of photographic pendants, and it’s going well.  Photo transfers are not second-nature to me, so this process has involved more trial and error than I am accustomed to.  I do think it will be worth it in the end, but for now I’m working out the answers to such questions as:

Border or no? I’m thinking yes.

Pattern on the back or no? Again, I’m thinking yes.  I like relying on my vast library of canes for this task.

How best to protect the image so that I may sand it smooth after baking? I’ve been using thin layers of liquid clay.  I vary the number of layers and the thickness of them, but nothing has seemed right just yet.  My next step is to try an ultra thin layer of translucent clay.  If I can get that thin enough, it should work.

Big pendant or small? I’m thinking both.  Big can stand alone, small can include extra doohickeys and danglies for added interest.

Danglies or no? See above.  Might do it both ways, might just do it with the smaller ones.

How does a pendant that’s been buffed shiny with a Dremel lose it’s shine? I started the day with a glossy pendant, and ended it with a satin one – what happened? My perfume? Oils from  my skin?

What brand bench buffer should I buy? Is there a difference? I’m considering this one.

Should I also sell prints or notecards featuring the photos I’m using? I’m seriously considering it, but would anyone buy them? (I don’t mean the ones of my kids, obviously – I’m thinking more of the scenic beach shots.)

Feel free to chime in, if you’ve got any opinions.  I’ll probably just do whatever I want anyway (just ask my husband. heh.) but it’s always nice to have other opinions to weigh.

I’ve got my new Etsy shop all ready to go, it just needs the products to be made and photographed.

Oh, is that all?

I’ve got some research and refining to do, but once I’m ready, I’ll be hanging my sign on a new little Etsy shop and offering some goodies that I hope you will enjoy!  Stay tuned for more information on that…