Man plans.....and God laughs...

What can I say of this W/E miniature show and sale except that the highlight was the hotel room and the restaurant my son and I went to Saturday night after the Preview??

The preview on Saturday evening was attended by approximately 15 people (by my son's count of ladies with a white "goody" tote bag). Everyone else wandering around (and also NOT buying, I might add) were members of the sponsoring club. It was a very long 3 hours. The public show on Sunday had more attendees but it was definitely not crowded. I had a lot of traffic because I was next to a lady who sold ribbons, trims, fabric and such. But my sales were nearly non-existent.....oh, there was lots of "ooohing and aaahing" and compliments galore but few open pocketbooks. In the end, I had 3 small sales and, were it not that I won a monetary prize for a judged exhibit (more about that in another post), would not have even covered my table fee. Even the seller with all the trims said it was by far the worst show she has been at and she did not cover her expenses. Apparently that was the case with many, if not all, the vendors.

On top of that, just as the show ended and we were packing up to leave, the skies opened up and it absolutely deluged... What a mess!!

So what's to do? My son says not to throw in the towel (but he's 17...teenagers never know when to quit) just yet but I have to say I am very discouraged. The next opportunity of any worth is not until January. Maybe the economy will pick up by then. In the meanwhile, I got lots of advice and encouragement from other vendors and made a few new friends...so it wasn't a total loss.

And then there was that Grand Prize award.....so I probably shouldn't complain.

Tabitha

Sculpey Sale!

To all of you who have JoAnn's Etc. in their neighborhood...starting tomorrow they have a 50% sale on Sculpey. Sorry to my friends in the UK... While it is not my fave brand (really do prefer Fimo), I will try to get to town and pick up some translucent and some of the other light colors.

Lord knows I have plenty of blue.....

Tabitha

Skull Candelabra

Sorry to have been so scarce lately. I 've been working fast and furiously on getting things in order for the upcoming show in 10 days. I just finished these two skull candelabras and thought I'd share since I was so pleased with how they turned out.

I saw a picture of a full-sized 5 arm one on a Goth Accessory website and thought I'd like to see if I could do it mini.I had to antique the bright brass base (which was more a pain than it should have been) but I had the beads left over from a Halloween party and, of course, I have lots of fimo around... ;-)

Tabitha

help!!! Candy corn fiasco....

I need someone to tell me how to bake fimo canes for slicing. Obviously baking them the usual time is too long though I saw no indication of reduced baking time or temp in the tutorial I read...course I could have missed that part.

I made 6 canes to cut up for candy corn and they just crack and break apart when I try to cut them. I tried putting some back in the oven to heat them up a bit cause they seemed to cut easier when warm but overall that didn't work too well either.

Oh what have I done wrong??!!

Joy of Reading Award

Just the other day, I received this lovely award from Mary over at Miz Mary. She passed it along to me after she received it from Dora. This award is about the joys of reading and asks that the recipient pick up a book at hand, go to page 161 and post the 5th full sentence. Then the award is to be passed on to 5 others.

I usually have several books in progress lying around my house since reading a good book is my next favorite thing to minis. At the moment, there is only one where I am past page 161. The book is "The September Society" by Charles Finch. The second Sherlock Holmes-type book by a new, young author. I like to read new authors....sometimes you discover real gems. This fellow is good. At least I think so. I enjoy his style. Here we go; a murder has occurred and "the game's afoot!", as Holmes would say:

"Lenox's suggestion had been well reasoned, Goodson said when the two men met, not adding that it had failed nonetheless".


Later, I'll pass this on to a few other bloggers, as requested.

Tabitha

Happy Birthday Kat!!

Happy Anniversary of your 21st Birthday to my friend

Kat the Hat Lady!

Update....on my Fimo "situation"...

Still haven't had any takers on the Fimo but in researching ways to condition old clay (because we must all be frugal in these times, yes?) I stumbled upon this website. All you old hands at polymer clay use have most likely visited this site many times but for those few (like me) who are somewhat new to this endeavor, I thought I'd pass it along.

Garie's Place (just click on the name)

They test all these products in various ways and post all the results. It's quite extensive and I found it very helpful. Their tips were interesting and I liked how they compared different brands and tested post-baking strengths, giving ways to strengthen the clay during conditioning.

I think I'm becoming partial to the "rubber mallet" approach....

Tabitha