Jan
08
Leah at Creative Every Day is such an inspiration and encouragement. This will be my third year of participating in her Creative Every Day Challenge. As the name implies, each day I aim to do SOMETHING creative. In all honesty, some days the most creative thing that I do is brush my hair a little differently than usual, but that is life.
Right before Christmas I found the greatest tool at Bearden’s Stained Glass, the Beetle Bits Mini Glass Cutting System. 
How exciting to be able to cut my own glass! I am no longer limited to the shapes available by retailers. This particular cutting system only does straight lines, so no curves or circles yet, but it just opens up creative possibilities.
My first use of the tool was cutting glass for a project I had already begun, my Christmas presents to the beautiful women at VERONICA’s Voice. I cut the standart 1X3 microscope slide size to make these pendants: 
Then I cut smaller and smaller. My neice received a petite pendant for Christmas, one with musical notes cut from a 1934 Etude Magazine. My bad, no picture.
But here’s another petite pendant of the same size made for sale both on Etsy and Artfire:
Do you remember ever writing the True Love Always symbol in Elementary or Jr. High School? I guess it does date me a bit. Now with the texting and all, new symbols have taken the place of the old school TLA.
I just love these little things, my new favorite size pendant. Now to make a custom Amanda petite pendant. Smile. Oh yeah, 
amanda ∞
Posted in Art, Art Every Day, Challenge, Inspiring, VERONICA's Voice artfire beetle bits CED2010 etsy glass cutter pendant petite soldered true love always
Oct
29
I am so glad to have wandered through our neighborhood yesterday. Not only did I soak up some glorious sun before the rain clouds arrived, but I also found a treasure pile of acorns, big beautiful acorns. Have you examined an acorn recently? They are truly beautiful in shape, texture, color. I filled my pockets and ran home to my studio with an immediate hankering to solder. And here’s what came of it!
Love it? It’s listed in my Etsy shop, and also my Artfire shop.
Artfire is experimental for me. The format is very similar to Etsy. It is a handmade, online marketplace, but by accepting fewer marketing options, a seller can list and sell unlimited for free. I signed up for the free option, then later upgraded so that I can have a marketplace kiosk on my Facebook page. Now I pay a monthly flat rate no matter how much I list or sell. At this point, I have sold only 1 item on Artfire. Etsy, on the other hand, is just cooking along. Also, when I list a new item in both shops, the Etsy shop always has more than triple the views than Artfire. I’ll keep this experiment going for a bit longer, but unless Artfire heats up, I’ll be closing that shop down.
And, although I’m not a power tweeter, I invite you to join me on Facebook: amanda.jolley and Espressivo, or Twitter: hiddenart
amanda ∞
Posted in Altered Art, Art, Creation, Inspiring acorn artfire etsy nature soldered
How exciting to be able to cut my own glass! I am no longer limited to the shapes available by retailers. This particular cutting system only does straight lines, so no curves or circles yet, but it just opens up creative possibilities.
Do you remember ever writing the True Love Always symbol in Elementary or Jr. High School? I guess it does date me a bit. Now with the texting and all, new symbols have taken the place of the old school TLA.
