Getting it all together

My how time flies!

Well it's been ages since we last posted on our blog, sorry for the wait guys. But the reason for that has been due to us working our little buts off trying to not only get our products ready for our first market, but also we have been doing a small business course down in Coffs, try to build our home/studio and raising the kids! While doing all of that we realised how close we are to Christmas and it's time to get the ball rolling with getting Red Haven Studios 'out there'. Being nervous, apprehensive and excited all rolled into one is an understatement, for we have no idea what the locals will think of our work. Actually we realised that we didn't even know how our stall would appear unless we set it up in the yard as a trial run, so we got our work together, finished and UNFINISHED, just to get the feel of things.

This is the brilliant pop up stall that we bought a few weeks ago from BCF camping shop. It's not only easy to set up but it also has 4 lights connected to the ceiling for those dark gloomy market days. At this stage we were best deciding how the layout of the tables should be. I know as a market goer I don't really like feeling trapped having to walk in deep to a stall, but at the same time I do like to have a bit of cover away from the sun or rain to be able to 'peruse' what the stall has to offer.

Unfortunately the photo is not that clear but here we have hessian table cloths that I specially sewed up in such a way that it sits nicely on the table but we also flaps at the back to hide our stash of goodies. Most of Steve's more solid pieces will be on the left of the table and all our jewelry will be on the right, plus some will be hanging from the frame with a hessian backdrop for contrast.

My more expensive sterling silver jewelry will be in the glass cabinet and the bronze pieces will be on those black neck cones. Steve's earrings are hanging off wrought iron hooks that he beat into the stump, which is sitting to the back right of the picture and the rest of his jewelry will be spread out on the table and on rocks, or will be hanging in front of the material hanging off 'Wombat Forge' hooks from the stall frame.

On the left are 3 unfinished candle stands which he will be hammering into wood stumps, he also has made candle snuffers and tea light holders from solid chunks of steal (yet to be polished). He also has and array of 'S' bend hooks to finish. To the back right he also has examples of unfinished knives which I'm sure a lot of the local fishermen would be interested in.

This is a close up of just some of my jewelry pieces, and inside the cabinet right at the front will be all of my original pieces that are not for sale but customers can order from them in case the others get sold out....wouldn't that be great if I end up selling out of some of them! On the lower right of the picture Steve has made these brilliant funky high carbon steel bangles made out of recycled sawmill blades. Plus we have business card holders and funky little love hearts set into wood blocks.

On the rock on the lower right is Steve's stainless steal necklace, and behind that are different sizes of the bangles plus a thumb ring made out of the same material. Here we have an array of priced jewelry from $25 up to $80, so hopefully there should be something in any ones price range.

  We have yet to make labels for prices and explanations cards of what things are made of, so we still have plenty of work to do for our first market in Bellingen this Saturday, but all in all we are feeling more relieved that we are heading in the right direction with our work and that we at least have enough variety and stock to make our Red Haven Studio stall appealing.

So there you have it, a lot of work done but still plenty more to still do by Saturday.

OMG How time flies!!!

Our Image!

     My how time flies when you're bogged down with work, work, work! But this type of work is quite enjoyable so it's very easy to get lost in creating and forget to come up for air ever now and again.

     So what's been happening in the past week or so? Well we have decided to 'come out' at the 100^th year Dorrigo Show in late November, with a very individual looking stall. The look we are after is one that is quite rustic, organic and having a bygone era feel to it. The 2 trestle tables will be covered with a natural coloured hessian on top and a chocolate brown hessian wrapped around the base, with black thread stitching joining the 2 different coloured materials. I spent all Sunday creating the first one from scratch, not really knowing what I was doing but going through a lot of pinning and un pinning of the the 2 materials. We thought that it would be easy to stitch 2 bits of material together but the amount of material that we had, the fall of it over the table and the rounded edges of the table made the work a lot more time consuming than expected. After a full day of it I ended up being covered in scratchy hessian all over, but once the first one was finished the effort was well worth it. ( Photo of full table decked out coming in later posts ). The earrings will be displayed hanging from wrought iron hooks that are nailed all around into a cut off tree stump. Our business cards will be leaning on wrought iron swirls that are also nailed into branch off cuts, therefore giving everything that rustic organic feel.

Business Card Holders

     As for the marquee we are torn between getting a lovely cream and black marquee with wrought iron work on the frame, or getting your run of the mill brand and then adding our own stamp on it later on. You see the problem is that the first one is from Bunnings and not really made to pop up and down on a regular basis, it's more for making it once and drilling it into the ground. But the problem with the second one is that it's BORING!!! Therefore if we buy a standard marquee we would have to add a lot of our own character onto it to get it up to scratch and give it the rustic feel. But at least with the second one we wouldn't have to change or add to the structure so that it becomes a pop up and down marquee. So either way we would have to work on what ever marquee we get. That one is still on the drawing board!

     The next thing was our image.....this was so much fun because I got to do a bunch of 'girly' shopping, and trying on a lot of funky layered clothing. Steve was the perfect partner and instead of getting bored and complaining he just kept on bringing more and more outfits for me to try on. I'll post the final looks later, but to give you an idea of the outfits they were 8 items that could be intermingled due to the layered effect that we want. The colours used are black (of course! Ha-ha) maroon, cream and forest green. Think of a mixture of 'Little House on the Prairie' (layering) mixed with 'Hippy Punk' (colours) topped off/below with black boots! So I'm now decked out with my look but Steve's is going to be a bit harder because I'm going to have to actually make it from scratch! When he went to Finland this year he popped over to Sweden and bought all these patterns to make traditional viking outfits, eventually I'll make my own more traditional ones too but we need something for Steve to wear or else he'll get arrested at the show! Well we've bought calico material and dyes for the outfits but later down the track I will try to tackle making his loose flowing shirt and strange ballooning pants.........god help me!

We have also created our business cards............

Front

Back

Front

Back

and also some tags that will be attached to the cheaper items sold in plastic sleeves...........

These tags are designed to be bent and folded from the middle so the logo is at the front and the info on the back.

     

---------Fold line--------

We know that plastic sleeves are not traditional at all, but we also don't want sticky and oily fingers tarnishing the jewellery! So there have been a lot of compromises in the final look of 'natural, rustic and traditional', but hopefully when we do have our stall up and running the final look would be so appealing that market goers will just be automatically drawn to us.

Well our next project is in creating more items and jewellery designs!!!

So cheers for now xo

Pleasure and Pain

Creating a new product for our range is an exciting venture. One filled with creativity and exuberance, but also filled with a lot of hit and misses to reaching the end goal of a sellable item. Now last week a friend of ours called Conan bumped into Steve at the shops and they got to talking, (to read the actual account go to http://wombatforge.blogspot.com ). Conan asked Steve if he was making, or planned to make, ear cuffs......now Steve's train of thought went a bit awry (naughty) for a few seconds until Conan explained what they were. With the fear gone of what Steve thought Conan wanted him to make, the excitement of starting a new project was created and the ball started rolling the next day with trying to make these ear cuffs out of stainless steel sheets.

Now because Steve didn't actually have any ear cuffs on hand to sample how big, narrow or wide they should be, there was a long process of trying to get it to the right shape and size. The first couple of cuffs were looking great but unfortunately did not sit quite right on the upper or side of the ear, they would slip off all the time. We looked at each other and decided that our ears were small and narrow compared to the average Jo Blow. So we were thrilled when Conan dropped in for a visit because here were a third pair of ears to sample the ear cuffs........until we saw how narrow and dainty his ears were! Sorry Conan but they are!

Anyway during Conan's visit the men got side tracked (as blokes tend to do) and ended up tinkering in the forge.........an hour or so later Conan walks out with a swirly hook that he had just made with Steve's guidance. Chuffed with himself, he had to quickly leave as he was already late in picking up the kids, but promised to return for another blacksmithing lesson. It was great having him here, the instigator of the ear cuff seeing the early stages of getting this new line created.

Once Conan left, Steve got back to tweaking and narrowing the opening of the ear cuff until he finally decided that he got it right and it was ready to try on. So I slid the cuff onto my ear and I must admit that it did feel better and more snug. The chances of it falling off was slim to none now.......but thanks to Steve's 'help' he decided that it should sit deeper onto the ear rim.......the chances of it coming off even if I wanted it to was now NONE! At first I thought it looked great, but I tried to slide it down a bit more and realised that it would not budge! I wasn't panicky about it because I thought if I couldn't get it off at least it looked good.........but then the throbbing started. I tried several times to slide it off with no success at all, so I decided to let some time pass before trying again or else it would just swell up too much. I went for a drive with the boys to the local shops and got back 20 minutes later to try again.

I was feeling cocky about it this time and just went to the mirror to slide the cuff off...........holly #%^*# that hurt like hell and it still did not budge!!! I now noticed a little red dot appearing inside my ear......my breathing started to quicken and my heart beat started to pace. Every time I tried to slide the cuff off a sharp pain would blind me.....the feeling of suffocation would enter my mind.

Yes I know I wasn't going to suffocate, but you can't tell me that trying to get your hands out of a very tight pair of washing gloves doesn't have you swirling around the kitchen floor like a dog with worms! Well that was the state that I was in now.......I was loosing it big time and the image of a huge pair of bolt cutters slicing my ear off wasn't helping! What also wasn't helping was my youngest son telling me how to tug, the dog getting up on hind legs to see what the commotion was all about and Steve trying to 'help' again by pushing the cuff even further onto my ear!!! By this point I'd banned him to go anywhere near my ear or else I was going to cause him some serious bodily throbbing of his own down the lower region! Every time I'd try to slide the cuff off the stinging pain would paralyse me. Then once again Steve would come with the suggestion of pulling the ear longways from top to bottom so as to narrow the width of my ear. I on the other hand was thinking of how to dispose of his body!.......But unfortunately I did see some reason to his unwanted suggestion. So I thought to myself that I'd delivered two big headed babies without drugs years ago, therefore this WILL BE a walk in the park in comparison. I told Steve to tug the top of my ear up as I'd pull the lobe of my ear down, and I decided that I would not care how much it was going to hurt, this damn cuff was coming off NOW!!!

Tug up....Pull down....Pull the cuff off as hard as I could sideways....OUCH OUCH #%^# OUCH......and finally it scraped off!!! Oh thank god I can breath again. I turned the cuff over to look at the width of the opening and thought how the hell did I get that on in the first place?

Well I'm happy to say that Steve went back into the forge with his modern day band of torture and cut a larger opening, and it now goes on and slides off without any pain. 

The picture below shows the non painful cuffs in varying patterns.

When I decided to become a jeweller along side Steve I never thought that the jewelry making process could become such a painful and tear jerking task. I'm sure it won't be the last time either that I become the guinea pig of one of his creations, as we do plan to make bangles as well........best to get the butter ready for that one! 

So when you do finally see a 'WOMBAT FORGE' cuff on sale at www.etsy.com/shop/RedHavenStudios please remember that pets and children were not harmed in the making of it......just a 41 year old mother was!

For the Thou Art Mum 'Tribute' Exhibition

      There is a wonderful artist group that I'm a part of back in Melbourne called Thou Art Mum. They are a creative and talented group of mothers from all artistic backgrounds that come together as 'TAM' for either a yearly or biannual exhibition based on a theme. The theme that we shall be having at Montsalvat, from the 3rd of November till the 27th of November in the Long Gallery, is called Tribute. We each have to create pieces of work that pays tribute to anything or anyone that we are inspired by. Now I love Gustav Klimt, Waterhouse, Vali Myers, Thou Art Mum, The Church ( aussie band ) and so on........hopefully I'll be able to make a piece of jewelry for each of these inspirational people or groups.

Now my first semi finished piece comes from the Gustav Klimt painting called 'The Tree of Life'.

In this painting there is a black bird on the branch kind of minding his own business.....but I always saw it as either a messanger or spy. In the close up of the painting below I was trying to wrack my brains as how to capture the swirls around the bird for a pendant.

I really wanted as many swirls as possible but unfortunately to keep the cost of silver down I decided on using one main swirl for the birdy. The picture below is of the wax carving that I finally created for the close up of 'Tree of Life'. I carved this piece from one solid block of jewelers wax......thank god I have a Dremel machine to help out with the carving, even with the aid of the Dremel my hand feels very tight and old by the end of it all.

Once I was happy with the final wax piece I then sent it out to Chemgold in Sydney, they make the mold and pour it out in silver for me. This is the incredibly stressful side of it all, because once I post the fragile wax piece out anything like very hot weather can melt it out of shape or the mold making side of it might not work and the piece is lost forever! Fortunately that has not happened yet. So when I get the silver back it looks very dull and tinny, unfortunately I did't get a picture of it at that stage (next one I will). So I'm happy to say that the picture below is of the semi polished piece that will be going into the 'Tribute' exhibition. One down...and several more to go!

As soon as I get another silver and bronze one of this piece poured I will be listing it on our etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/RedHavenStudios to see what peoples reaction to it is.
Yesterday I started on my next piece that is actually a tribute to Thou Art Mum and all those inspirational girls I exhibit with, unfortunately I won't be able to post the picture of the finished piece for a week or two because of the casting time of Chemgold.....but stay tuned for a preview!

Well it's past midnight, as usual!
So good night to you all, till next time. xo

Does My Bum Look Big in This?

Well if you're reading this only to find out the answer, I'm sorry to disappoint you. It's not actually the size of my bottom, or there lack of, that we'll be discussing here. When a woman asks 'does my bottom look big in this', does she really want the honest truth to that question or does she want to hear that she is beautiful just the way she is? It's actually the concept of asking that question, and fearing the answer, that we went through this week with etsy members.

You see on etsy there are 100's of forums and groups that you can join, and one of those forums are all about 'shop critique'. The idea is that you can join a discussion group were you can critique others shops and they intern can critique your shop.....but only if you ask for it. We thought it was a great idea, so we chose to join the 'Sassy Critique' team and then asked the dreaded question...'does my bum look big in this'.....well actually we wrote, please come view Red Haven Studios and let us know what improvements we can make. As soon as we sent out the request we thought (well actually I thought ) ...oh no what if 'our bum does look big in this? It doesn't make sense I know but mind works in quirky ways.

So as usual we sent out the request at 2am then went to bed wondering what kind of responses we were going to get from the other side of the world.........The next morning we went straight to the critique forum with baited breath. We were hoping for at least 5-10 responses but we were disappointed that only 2 people bothered to make the effort......but 2 is better than none at all. Now before reading their comments we thought they were going to mention our prices or shipping costs etc. but to our surprise they were not mentioned all. What was mentioned was what we were most proud of....our pictures! Here we thought we had great professional looking pictures and different from everyone else’s. But both of the ladies said that the black background was too harsh and that the pieces should be photographed on a lighter back ground. WHAT THE! We spent ages photographing them all and now we were faced with either ignoring the critique or be mature and business like about it and take on board what 2 total strangers had suggested.

We decided to check out everyone else's jewellery pictures and realised that not one person had shot it with a black background. We were still not convinced but we decided to give it a go and reshoot each piece once just for the cover shot.....and leave the other pictures with the black background. Well Steve went into the forge to create lovely new hooks to add onto the etsy site, I spent the day shooting close ups of the jewelry on a lovely earthy river rock that I found in Thora, it was balancing on a branch 1 metre high up that was placed there after our local flooding. As I was shooting the new pictures I started warming to the fact that the photos did have more life to them, so I was very chuffed with my efforts. But my heart just sank when I showed my days work of reshooting the pieces to Steve and the first thing he said was.....'it looks as though an old woman with a cracked and crusty chest is wearing the jewelry'. Aaaaarrrrrrrgggghh! My bum does look big in this!!! The shocking thing was not his comment but the fact that as soon as he said it I too could see what he meant. Bugger bugger bugger!

Well too bad! We decided to upload them anyway, at least just to see if the shop page looks nicer and less harsh by adding the new 'crusty chest look'. Bit by bit as we started to upload all the pictures we realised that our shop front did have a warmer look about it, even though our earrings still need to be updated with the new look. It you want to check out the new look and give us your opinion, please go to www.etsy.com/shop/RedHavenStudios . We would love to know if we are heading in the right direction.

So back to the question of...'does my bum look big in this' concept. We learnt that there comes a point in time with what ever we create, in which if we want an honest opinion about our work we should realise that it is not a personal attack. We might not like what we hear or read, but a true friend or critique will tell you the truth only because they want what's best for you. It's up to the individual to hear the critique and view the comments with fresh eyes and an open heart, and in that way hopefully we will grow bigger and better.

And to answer the first question...........I wish I did have more luggage in the back of my truck! xo