New arrivals in my shop!

How was your weekend? Mine was a full working one. Mike has also spent three days to move the greenhouse to a new site; he took Friday off for that. We have been busy as tender for our extension, which will be my studio, is close. He has been preparing lots of things for that, and I have been working hard in anticipation of disruption, especially firings.

I have listed lots of new works this month, and some of them have already gone. Please do check often, as I am adding almost daily.

Tapir greeting cards

The right one has gone. 

Mother and her cub -  Polar bear

All Pockets Friends -  The kitten has gone. 

The left one is just listed, and others will join soon! 

Owls! The right one has gone.

A pair of bunnies - Pocket Friends

And the last but not the least, A giant anteater! :D Have a great week!

Anteater

They are avaibale from my Etsy shop!
http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/midoritakaki

What? It's my own Etsy ad!

Here is my own Etsy ad. Don't blink at the end. : )

Anyone can get it made. But, this made me feel good! Have a lovely day, everyone!

Safe delivery and Pumpkin, the robin's little piggy

Just after posting the guinomi last week

Hello everyone. Let me share this lovely news with you today. The porcelain Guinomi I sent last week has arrived at a nice lady's house in Scandinavia on Tuesday. Thank you so much! This is the happiest moment for online shop owner. I usually mark the dates of posting and of expected delivery on my calendar. I always wonder if it has arrived safely. So when there are nice messages like this, I feel so happy!

Guinomi has been safely delivered.

Last couple afternoons I glazed my rabbits and whippets. Glazing is one of  the messiest things in ceramics. Today I had to sieve a glaze in the garage. Sieving glazes by hand is a long job which requires patience. Even though it was mild outside, I caught cold. Too late to think I should have worn a jacket. Perhaps, I had better improve our working conditions.

Although I had planned to do finishing 'Wind' for glaze-firing tonight, I will give it a miss, and will go to bed early. Cold is the last thing I want right now.

Misty morning

One funny thing we have noticed recently is that a robin follows Pumpkin, our chicken, around the garden. As soon as we let Pumpkin out of the greenhouse in the morning, the robin appears from nowhere and stalks her. Mike says the robin was thinking 'My little piggy came out. Do dig the soil more to give me yummy worms.'  I think he is right. She often harasses poor sparrows who have bread in their beaks, but ignores the robin who perches on a lower branch or the rim of a flower pot just above where Pumpkin digs. It's hilarious!

Robin's little piggy

Last night Mike finally fixed the problem with comments, which I mentioned in the previous entry. He found 'a magic code', very technical term in IT world, to put right the corrupted blogger template. Now we are back to normal.

If you have a similar problem, you can find the magic code here.

Energy flows from lovely customers

Hello everyone. I have stayed home due to the second bout of cold. Mike felt also bad; he has worked from home this afternoon. We were warm and cosy in different rooms. 

I have had lovely feedback from several customers recently. The sweetest email came from an American lady, whose husband bought a couple of my ceramics as a gift for their anniversary. She said;

I have a little schnorkie (schnauzer x yorkshire terrier mix) and your rabbit completely reminds me of her, she has her spirit >^.^< I also wanted to tell you what a lovely experience it has been peeking into your world via your blog ^p^ Thank-you for infusing such spirit into your creations, keep up the absolutely stellar work!

Then her lovely husband left me a wonderful feedback:

 My wife loved this (part of our 4 year anniversary gift). It reminds her of our dog. She carries it around with her! lol Thank you so much.

I really appreciate their comments. I know that he is well loved and taken care of! They also show how nice the couple really are. Mike said before that someone who buys my ceramics are so friendly and wonderful. It's true. I am always grateful of the energy they give me back by emails, comments and feedback.

Little Schnorkie : )

Thank you so much!

Chameleon, rabbit and faces; New items I have listed today.

Hello everyone! It has been a glorious day again here in Canterbury. I saw a young mother in a sundress with straps with flip flops during a dog walk. We still have three days left in March. We are having a great time in this very unusual warm weather.

I have listed new things on eBay and Etsy today after work. He is on eBay now. I was not going to sell him online initially, because I thought that his long ears and feet would be damaged in transit. But I got confidence in packing, this morning.

I am the second biggest rabbit Midori ever made, Uhm, and the cutest.

 
 Reason? It's this. This morning, I packed a delicate rabbit girl to be posted. I found a box which came with its own foam fitted in. On top of this, another black foam sits. So, I thought I could make a padded box like this by myself for this rabbit.

I took our loyal Topaz to the post office again, to post this packet.

I also listed a brooch and a pendant.

Lovers who came in from the cold

Charlene

  On Etsy, my chameleon is back! It is a little one this time. He will sit in the palm of your hand. Small and Perfect!

Small and perfect!

I was not taken to a post office, again.

My new Faces - No, I didn't go to plastic surgery

Hello everyone! Did you have a good week? I have had a busy week again. My day work has been a bit busy recently. I have also looked after our beloved two dogs and three parrots during daytime, as usual. At coffee breaks, I needed to work on pricing on shipping costs on my Etsy shop because I changed my currency from USD to UKP to decrease exchange risks. Each day just passed without much thoughts!

Spooky? But they are actually cute in natural light.

Today, I spent decorating these girls. Concentration is required to decorate them, but very satisfying. I enjoy making faces so much. I am going to hang them in picture frames, once they are fired. if they are really good, I might put them for sale.

It became sunny this afternoon. Pearl is preoccupied to find a cat.

Last weekends, we listed our ceramic works as well as Mike's memory chips on ebay. Incredibly listing took me about 10 hours. Yes, 10 hours. I had worked solid preparing listings at my PC a whole Sunday. Taking photos, editing them, listing each item, and calculating shipping costs, converting measurements to UK units (I am 'gram-metre-litre' person) and reviewing them was a long job, indeed. Some auctions will end tonight, and others tomorrow night. So far, three items have bids, and I hope they go well. Fingers and toes crossed! See you tomorrow!

Where is a cat?

The moon and silver birches

We went to the University to borrow books. This is one of sculptures on campus. Nicknamed 'E.T.'.

 

A bad day at office and happiness at the end of the day.

I couldn't sleep well last night again. Three nights without good sleep. So I intended to cut my working hours short today as there would be only a few company updates. But typical of such a day, I found the share price of one of the companies I have wanted to add, started going down. I opened up trade, quote and trading account page to check the movement of the price.

Indoor aviary for sale

I transferred money from a couple of saving accounts into a current account, and paid the fund into my trading account. Then telephone rang. It was from an elderly lady who wanted to know how much the delivery cost would be for the indoor aviary we were selling, to Brighton. I had no idea, because we expected somebody local come to collect it. I told her this, but I also said that it is large, so it could cost a lot. Understandably she didn't want it then.

I went back to my account. I saw a confirmation email of paying was in my inbox. So I went to my trading account to buy the stock. AH-OH. There was no fund available. Usually the fund will be available immediately. I tried several times, and found nothing. I went down to make tea, to give the system time to work through, and tried again. Nothing. I started writing email to enquire about my missing fund. When I finished writing, the fund suddenly appeared.

Quickly, I checked the streaming, and it was getting lower still. After some wait, it reached the price I was happy with. I accepted the offer. Happiness lasted for a very short time. I saw the execution notice. I did a fat finger!!! Instead of 161 shares, I bought only 15 shares. AGHHHHHHH.

While I was AGHHHH, I tweaked my neck, and it clicked. Something was trapped somewhere in my neck. Insult to injury. How appropriate an expression this is! AND that was the lowest price of the day, well actually the lowest since last August. It went up afterwards.

Tears? No. I can't even have tears... mine were dried up.

This is the second fat finger I have done in whole 6 years of my investing. The first one was in Lehman Brothers aftermath, and I was under stress with other things. At that time, I had skipped some nights' sleep. Luckily there were not serious financial damages done in neither occasions. Just very SILLY...

I draw a conclusion. I shouldn't trade at all when I was deprived of sleep.

================================================================

Just when I was going to sleep, I had checked my email right now. I found a notice from Etsy, my online shop. I had the first customer. I am very delighted indeed. Good night!       

Finally my new listings are up and late afternoon walk

Westgate court Avenue

What's that? (looking at a dog on the other side)

I finally could manage to upload a couple of new listings into my Etsy shop despite that Royal mail site is still broken. What happened to them? But they put a pdf price list, so I was able to figure out postage for shipping. Phew! Two chameleons went up today. It took me so long for these two chaps this evening, I was too tired to do the rest. So other ones will be up on my shop tomorrow evening.

I took Topaz for a walk to Westgate court Avenue late afternoon. I like walking there. Trees have lost leaves, and Topaz was busy finding something (probably not good things!) under the leaves on the ground.

I found peculiar looking mushrooms. Lavender coloured ones.

But Topaz was more interested in an invisible squirrel!

Sunset

A la Vogue, new face pendant listing and still broken Royal mail website

Hello! yesterday evening, I did some photo shoot a la Vogue!

Face series

Aren't they pretty? I finally started having a feeling for shooting photographs and setting up a shop. I did enjoy this photo shoots. Yes! it is so important to enjoy the process.

Charlene

I bought this silk purse a long time ago, so long that I don't even remember when it was. These three silk roses were made for my wedding dress by my mother.

Blondie

My mother is good at sewing even though she has never formally learnt. She understands how to make things when she looks at finished products. Mike is also similary talented, not in sewing though, but engineering. He can make things from scratch.

Royal mail website is still down, believe or not! after 48 hours. So I still can't list my new items into my Etsy shop, except for one face pendant, which is same postage as other face pendants.

New listing

She is so cute!

 I love this girl's face. She looks so cute! I made lots of funny faces, but she is one of my beauties.

New lisitings to Etsy shop is failed by Royal mail!

Yesterday evening, I prepared a couple of listings for my Etsy shop. I am slowly getting used to how it really works.

I took some photographs of them, wrote descriptions of them, measured them up, and then went to Royal mail website to find out postage. Doh! The site was broken (and it is still broken after 24 hours.) They insist they can't find postage for my specific weight!!!

What I wanted to list were these cuties.

Chameleon-paper weight

This is about 13cm from mouth to tail. I used him as a paper weight at my Open House. His cheeky smile attracted several visitors. He is also Mike's favourite.

This is how he looked before bisque firing. The little one facing to him on the left is a brooch for sale on Etsy.

Chameleons in making

Short legged, long legged and horned chameleons

I made four little ones. None is same. The difficult part was attachment of legs. Funnily enough I make the tail part first. Secondly, face, third, body, and finally legs. Then I assembled them.

This is a little horned chap. As you can see his tail and body were supported until the clay became harder. And don't miss his adorable face!

My tail is heavy

Am I adorable?

I wanted to make a larger one, and made this one (below). As everything I make, inside is hollow. Unlike some clay artists, I make everything hollow from the start.

Well, as soon as Royal mail website comes up, I will figure out postage, and list him as well as other chaps on my Etsy shop. 

Chameleon medium size with drippy tail!

He is about 15cm long, and has a cute quizzical face. Any doubt? have look at this photo!

Quizzical? Moi?

Face series accesorries were born by chance.

My face series was not planned, but born by a chance. I made a tiny face to run a test for the underglaze. Clair in our ceramics course, saw it and liked it. She suggested I could make a brooch from them. Actually, when I made it, I told Mike the same thing. But his reply was, Ahem, 'It looks too spooky'. I couldn't wholly deny the spookiness of the face then. But having found the similar mind, I ventured into a new sphere. Ta-da! Accessory making.

At first, I made four male faces as a test. I liked them, and I enjoyed making them. They are small, about size of 50 pence coin, but it took a long time for me to make, and even a longer time to decorate in detail.

'Lovers'

Then, I began to expand to female faces. Some have hair, some have big cheeks, and some have big eyelashes. It was very absorbing. In the end, I made about 30.

Then, the problem arose. I had no experience in making any accessories. I had never touched beads even. To be honest, I had never interested in beads and handmade accessories because I felt they were too girlish! LOL But, I remember Sally, the manager of Kent adult education, once told me that one lady sells findings etc in town. So I found her shop, and asked questions, and bought some parts.

They are my first 'products' on my Etsy shop. They are small and lightweight, so it should be easy to pack and ship. That was my rationalisation.

'My best friend'

Although I have never modelled anyone while I was making, one of them resembles one of high school friend! I only discovered the resemblance recently. There was a big Reunion for our grade in Japan, and he was organising the event, and I have exchanged emails with him, and saw photographs of his speech there. 'Oh Gosh, I made him without knowing', that's what I mumbled in front of my PC, looking at the photos!

'I am a real dog, not ocotopus'

 

In an email, he said 'I was told at reunion that my friend and I were nicknamed 'Squid and Octopus duo' behind us. Why was I octopus?' It is a difficult question to answer in any means, specially after about 3o years. (Don't calculate my age...)  You know, teenage girls are renowned for their cruelty especially when it comes to boys in the same class. So I quote one of my best friends, 'Well, I think he looked like one!' 

My Etsy shop and Clare's visit.

Yesterday I had a fun day. I worked hard in the morning so that I could enjoy Clare's visit in the afternoon without any niggling feeling. Clare is friendly, upbeat and very fun to be with. Her husband, Tim, and she also participated in Artists' Open Houses last month, through which we met. She creates something unusual. Difficult to explain, so have a look at her works. Here is her website.

I gave her some of our Fifi's, the Patagonian conure, wing and tail feathers, I kept them because they are so beautiful and because I thought one day I can make something from them, but when I saw her works which have lots of stitches and sewing, I thought she could use them for her art works. They are iridescent turquoise blue and green. Fifi used to look like in the photo, but now she plucked herself, more like grey tennis ball with wings and tails (Mike's words)

 

Fifi, the Patagonian conure

There were two main objects in the meeting. First, to get to know each other better. Second, to discuss how we could approach Artists' Open Houses in an improved way in future. As I mentioned in earlier posts, they and I were only open house participants on the north side of Canterbury. We both wished to have a greater footfall. So, I was thinking to network the artists in this side of Canterbury, to attract more visitors to our area and to achieve better results.In fact, Clare was thinking very much same. I will create a space on Internet for artists could discuss and exchange their opinions and knowledge. I will be a bit busy with my day job for next couple of weeks, and probably spend evening to build my Etsy shop. But after that, I should have some spare time.  

She appeared with a bouquet of freesias. Thanks, Clare, they have nice perfume, and filled up our lounge. Mike said that he could even smell the scent with his blocked nose! He had baked an apple and lemon cake for us the evening before, and, of course, we did a tasting. We never wait! It was delicious! Light and airy. But the next day it became moist and heavier. I prefer light and airy. But I know that I am lucky to marry a man who likes baking (and eating!).

One of my quirky pendants.

'Charlene' the Monaco princess

In the evening, after Mike went to ceramic course, I continued building my Etsy shop. I started opening process last Saturday. Opening a shop takes a long time. Especially I had never done this before, although I have sold old things in ebay before. But finally my shop is open!

My shop is here.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/midoritakaki


There are still issues to be attended. There are many listing in pendant category on Etsy, so I doubt my pendants will get lots of hits in search, as they are. I had one hit from search, so far. Also, I found taking crisp sharp pictures of little things is more difficult than I had imagined. Mike used to do photography as hobby, so he helped me, but I have lots to learn before I could use his user-unfriendly Olympus camera on my own. Another thing with photographs is that pendants etc. need some kind of props to hold them up. I used my hand made mountings for sculptures as well as pebbles. But I might be able to find or make something better.

I will see what I could do to improve these matters, and will post here if I find the solutions.