Eye candy for the new year

Technically, I am still on my Christmas vacation until Monday, but I had promised to take a day out of my holiday-having to ship Bettina Welker’s new book when it arrived.  I’d been checking the tracking information online every couple of days, but there’d been no change in status since December 15th.  Ack.  So you can imagine my surprise when Neil wandered into the family room at 11:30 this morning, lugging a big box of books from Germany.

Oh, they’re here?!  Great!

It was uncharacteristically forward-thinking of me to get customer payments ahead of time, and to print out the shipping paperwork before I started my vacation, but I did do those things, and as a result, I was able to jump right into packing these books up and printing the postage.  It was admittedly a long shot, but I actually managed to drop them all on the doorstep and put the flag up on the mailbox before the postal pickup today.

So, yay! The first wave of books is on its way to those who had preordered and paid before my vacation began.  New orders will go out next week.  And I still have a (very) small handful available if you’re feeling tempted now.

You know, after looking at the cover for so many months, I’ve been increasingly eager to get a look inside this book.  It’s written entirely in German, but there is a small pamphlet that comes with the book, which includes Kathi Briefer-Gose’s English translation of all fourteen projects.  I can imagine it might get a little awkward to have to flip back and forth between book and translation, but these projects are so fabulous-looking, it just might be worth it.

For now, though, I’m all about gawking at the eye candy.  My clay is packed up, and may very well remain that way until my annual trip to Atlantic City for the Clayathon in two weeks.  This book (along with Kathi’s translation)  is for sure going to be in my travel bag that weekend.  I’d like to use these earrings as a starting point for somethingorother. Probably – fittingly – a pair of earrings.

Oh, and speaking of books that arrived here while I was technically on vacation, Christi Friesen‘s got a nifty new book called Steampunkery that marries her signature style with gears, watch parts, and all things steampunky.  While it’s not really my style, I have to admit I couldn’t put the book down – I read it cover to cover.  And I just may find myself applying some of those ideas to my own work.  Hey, I’ve got a whole Clayathon during which to play, right?

Speaking of gears, I need to change mine now.  A certain six-year-old is attending a friend’s birthday party tomorrow, and I’ve got a sock puppet to finish making.

Happy Weekending, everyone!