Celebrities one most resembles trap

Ok, there are about a hundred things I *SHOULD* be doing, such as finishing the financials on my business plan for my small business class tomorrow, writing a marketing plan for my new client, making some of the 250 pieces of jewellery I am trying to finish for the Unwrapped Market on March 16....but instead I'm fooling around on the internet. I found a link to a site called My Heritage, which offers a couple of little tricks, one being facial recognition software that tells you which celebrity you most resemble. In my vanity, hoping to get a result such as 'Cate Blanchett - 98%' or 'Megan Gale - 107%', I uploaded a photo from last Christmas. Drum roll please......

I HAVE A 84% RESEMBLENCE TO CHRISTOPHER WALKEN!!!

Try it yourself at My Heritage .

P.S. It is some kind of consolation that my lovely partner Moz looks 55% like Denise Richards...but not really.

Commission time

I was lucky enough to be commissioned Sandra to make a necklace and matching earrings for her friend's birthday. Sandra is a former teaching colleague of my mum's (both of them retired at the end of last year) and first saw my jewellery when I visited my parents in Melbourne for Christmas. She purchased an orange butterfly necklace for her son's girlfriend for Christmas and apparently it was a hit - so she called up to request this special present, to be given by her and another friend.

I rushed home from an intensive marketing workshop that I conducted with a new client on Thursday morning (both businesses booming at once!) and spent the next five hours rolling, cutting, stamping, brushing, piercing and baking the individual beads to make up the necklaces. The first image shows some of the finished beads arranged on my table ready for stringing.


Unfortunately, in my dedication to the task at hand I neglected to do something very simple - drink enough water - and ended up feeling very ill by the time the beads were ready to be strung. It can be very hot here in Perth and it's pretty important to do something as basic as keep your fluids up, but I tend to become extremely focussed when I am making jewellery and forget basic things like eating and drinking. Believe me - it's about the only time I do forget to eat!! So, the upshot of all this is on Thursday night I went to bed feeling rather ill, necklace unstrung, and my partner ended up eating leftovers instead of the nice Valentine's meal I was going to cook him. I finished my commission the next day after recovering- and here it is, ready to be gift wrapped and packed off to Melbourne. I hope Sandra's friend likes it!

Getting to grips with technology

As part of my "conquering the accessories world marketing masterplan", I decided it was time to get jiggy with all the technology out there to expose my blog to the world. Trouble is, I like the technology, but the technology don't like me much. uhuh. I've had allllll kinds of problems from some wierd website 'kidnapping' my technorati link, to my squidoo lens locking me out. Could it possibly be something to do with being a member of generation X rather than Y?

Anyhoo, back onto stuff I do know how to do, I rushed home and made some of these these bright jade - coloured earrings the other day after a long day at business school and made a little dragonfly from the left overs.



I've been experimenting with a new kind of translucent polymer clay and I'm really happy with the glass-like finish I can get. I've also been experimenting with making rings from this material, as the new clay is much stronger than the old kinds I used to work with, which would just break when used on items like rings that get a fair bit of handling. I'll update you on the experiment when I've reached my conclusions!

Feeling blue?

Today was a veritable FRENZY of blue polymer clay making and baking, as I started the countdown to prepare for my first craft fair/designer show in mid-March. Apparently blue is a 'key colour' for the upcoming season, wouldn't you know!

I'm pretty pleased with the pieces I created today, which are quite different from my usual style. I'm going to be asking for some feedback on them and if they get the general thumbs up, I'll be going into superproduction mode to produce them in a few colours. I loaded the bluebird into my etsy shop oddgirlout.etsy.com this evening and will see if it gets many views.

I think my favourite from today is the bow necklace, although I have to do some work on making the design a little sturdier, as the first one I made broke when I tried to buff it. I made this necklace in blue and black, but haven't photographed the blue version yet.

All the kneading, rolling and buffing has plain tuckerd me out, and I'm off to bed soon - as soon as the fireworks stop (must be for Chinese New Year - Gung hei fat choi! Happy to be a rat).

Is this thing on?

Hello world! tap, tap...[is this thing on?] SHREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK



Ahem, well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls - I'd like to warmly welcome you to the opening of my new blog. I'm sorry it's a bit cold and echoey in here at the moment, we're still in the process of fitting it all out, but once we do I promise you it will be really cozy in here. There will be Odd Girl Out jewellery news (or even jewelry for our North American spelling friends), rants about the weather, random postings on the latest dishes I've been cooking - yes, a little something for everyone.



Now, I do hope you'll bear with with me, I haven't worked one of these things before and it will take me a while to figure out the gears, but I'm sure we'll get there soon.



In the meantime, please help yourself to the fairy bread and cordial in the corner, and do check back soon.

xxx

Odd Girl Out