Jun 15, 2013

Housework + Craft Time?

Ever since I indicated to my dad that I would like to help him out on his home improvement projects, it seems every weekend he has something to do now. Something that entails me staying outside all day, getting sunburned, then coming in and crashing and not being able to work on my crafts. Which is sad. However, I won't go back on my word... It makes things go by faster, and it's easier for him to have a gopher while he is up on a ladder instead of having to climb all the way back down and grabbing something. I don't mind helping him, I mind that I don't get my own stuff done at the same time.

That said, I'm still working on stuff. I really wish I could take my sewing machine and all my clay things to my BF's mothers, but there is no where to work there. Plus the dogs would eat everything. Including my sewing machine if they were desperate enough for attention. Which they're not going to get if they misbehave.

I promised a tutorial on clay snakes this weekend, then my camera broke, but we sent it to the repair center today, I should have it back in a year. Or maybe a month. Or maybe 2 weeks at the soonest. You know how those things go. They told me to send it in without the battery or any accessories, but to send the new memory card that I was sort of planning to return instead. If that thing doesn't come back I'll be pissed. It was only $10, but it was a nicer one than the other one I have. (8gb over 2 gb... What would you choose?)

When the camera gets back, I should have a whole new stock of things to show you, as well as to put up on Etsy, because I'm sure my skills with clay are just as good as plenty of other people who sell their clay stuff. I also plan on making clay pendents... I like the idea, I haven't tried it yet because my jewelry stuff is at the BF's mothers to make repairs on her jewelry. She has a lot. I'm jealous.

On another note, someone made me a banner for my Etsy shop! It's better than mine, I haven't put it up yet because I'm not sure if they are done yet, but they took pictures that I had of my jewelry and used those! It's awesome. So, that'll be up soon.

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Jun 13, 2013

A very important life lesson!

I got on a tall ship yesterday! It was called the Hawaiian Chieften. She accompanies the Lady Washington on her trips around the U.S. that goes on all year long. I keep hearing people say that these two ships were used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, but they are much too small. Unless they were ships that you saw from far away, because the main deck of both of these ships are just tiny. The 2 hour sail was crowded with about 40 people on the ship.

I was going to take pictures, but alas, my brand. New. $400. Camera. Is broken.

Yeah.

Camera's hate me, apparently. They don't want me to have an Etsy shop.

I was lamenting over the fact that we've had the camera for longer than the 30 day warranty, but this is not the case... The warranty is 90 days! So, we just have to send the thing back and they'll look at it. Then either fix it or provide us with a new one. A new one would be really nice if this camera was a few years old, but really... We've had it for like a month...

What happened was, I was uploading the pictures by taking the memory card out of the camera and putting it into my laptop, because the first time I uploaded pictures I had forgotten the USB cord. Now the camera refuses to read the memory cards. I hardly think that taking the memory card out about 4 times should BREAK the camera, as I know there are plenty of people who upload their pictures this way, as well as other people who have multiple memory cards because of how many pictures they take. I have 2 memory cards that I used and had files on from the camera and it was working fine, then it broke, then I went out and bought a brand new memory card that was the same brand as the camera and it also won't read that one.

I was reading up online how Sony evidently refuses to look at cameras with this error and says that there's nothing one can do to fix it. Other people just had to clean their memory cards with a pencil eraser, which I did several times. My boyfriend then made me call up Sony and told me if they wouldn't look at it, ask them what the warranty DID cover and then we would do that to the camera then call them back... Well I called them, and guess what? She not only tried helping me fix it myself, she told me to send the thing back in and that they would fix it. 

This just means that I should really stop believing anyone on the internet. These people complaining about Sony not helping them probably finally convinced Sony to start helping out with this problem, or they never called Sony in the first freaking place... Which goes to show, if you cannot find a way to fix something off the internet, CALL THE PEOPLE YOU GOT IT FROM! It is worth a try no matter what the circumstances are! Even if you have had your item for longer than the warranty, they can and will try to help you fix it. It is their JOB! Just be polite. Unless the agent you are talking to pisses you off. If you go into the call blaming the agent for their companies product, they are not going to be happy with you, and you want them happy!

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Jun 11, 2013

Finally! Clay critters!

I've been working on making these adorable clay dragons and cthulhus, along with some other animals because of this chick on DeviantArt. Her dragons. Are freaking cute. So, I was inspired!

At first, I modeled them after her dragons without any kind of idea of what I was doing:





Then I watched her video tutorial. Basically, she uses tin foil armatures in her figures. That opened a whole world of possibilities. I improved immediately. 

I want to sell these eventually, so I knew I needed to branch off on my own style. I also NEEDED to make a  cthulhu. Since I couldn't find any good clay cthulhus, I ended making my own without any kind of inspiration picture, and I think I figured out how I'm going to make my figures. Their body will be one ball, then their head will be another ball. Observe: 



Sadly, that sleepy cthulhu was the only one I have a picture of, as my brand new expensive camera has decided it doesn't want to acknowledge the fact that there is, in fact, a memory card in it. I have 2 different memory cards, they both are supposed to work with the camera, but it doesn't pay any attention to them... It's very sad. We'll mess around with it some more, but I reset it to it's factory settings and it's still doing it, so I think it's just screwed and we have to send it back. This is greatly upsetting, as I was waiting for the camera to finally set up my Etsy shop and now that it is set up, this camera has stopped working... 

I've made two more dragons and one more cthulhu with the 2 ball body and they're all getting better all the time. 

I've also made an awesome snake, which I will have a tutorial for hopefully next weekend. It turned out really cool looking, and I thought it would look like crap, so I'm really excited about this snake. 

I've also made some other, inconsequential things...: 



That dragon took HOURS and I'm not very happy with how he looks. It'll be nice to see these pictures in the future, when I will hopefully be better at manipulating clay. 

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Jun 2, 2013

Etsy Shop is Up and Running!

That's right! I set up my Etsy Shop today. I named it DIYDaily, as I couldn't have periods or spaces in the name of the shop, but that's just fine, I think you guys will recognize it well enough! I'm super excited for this to be happening, and it couldn't have even begun if my wonderful boyfriend didn't take the initiative and split the price of my brand new wonderful camera with me!

For those of you who want to know, it's a SONY Cybershot DSC-HX200V. It has all kinds of wonderful features, such as GPS tracking AND the ability to take pictures in 3D! Which you then cannot look at without a 3D TV, but still... It has the capability! That's all that matters when I'm boasting about the awesome camera I now have.

This weekend and probably next weekend I will be busy helping my dad out with some housework, so I haven't been able to work on crafts, but if I start getting sales right away I can use that money to buy more chainmaille. I also think that I will start knitting hats for sale. Not any kind of fancy hat, but just really nice quality ones, with nice yarn.

Here are some examples of the housework we are doing:

Trim, Windows
Windows to my room.

Trim, Windows
Other window to my room. 

We are adding trim around the windows and the sliding glass door. We are actually cutting away the siding around the windows so that the trim will be sunk down into the wall of the house instead of on top of the siding. Don't worry, we aren't finished with these windows... We will be adding caulking in all the nooks and crannies. After we finish the trim, we will finally be PAINTING the WHOLE HOUSE EXTERIOR! You can't really tell in pictures, but when you look at the house, you can see the caulk over every single nail in the siding and it looks TERRIBLE. You can literally see these spots all over the house!

Also, yes, I have 3 windows in my room. It's the only room in the house that has more than one window, even though the master bedroom is on the other side of the house and could just have easily had 3 windows. The people who made our house were lazy and took every short cut that they possibly could have and still leave the house standing. I wish I had pictures of how it looked when we first moved in, as the second owners of the then 2 year old house. The house is about 9-10 years old now. All the work we've done on it was mostly done on weekends! 

I wanted to show you the new stuff I've been doing, but the camera won't upload the pictures that are on its internal memory. I've been working on making clay things, mostly dragons, owls, and cthulhus, and I think I'm going to settle on making owls (birds at least) and little cthulhus to sell. They've turned out the best AND are of my OWN design. Plus both of those are rather popular! This past week I got more clay, better paint brushes, and some glaze that's made for use on polymer clay. I hope to work on these more next weekend, if I'm not busy both days helping my dad. In fact, once I publish this post I think I'm going to work on at least one critter in a few minutes! It'll be nice to get something of my own done, instead of just housework!

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