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Tucson Gem show is coming to town!

I’ve been driving past the city area of Tucson quite a bit going back and forth to physical therapy at Davis Monthan AFB. (The knee surgery was a breeze compared to physical therapy… PT stands for Pain & Torture…Really the tech told me it did!)  Each time I make the trip across town I see another tent popping up! Yep, when the gem show comes to Tucson the entire city becomes a circus… and I do love the circus, especially the fictitious ones, like one in the Madagascar 3 movie. That’s what the gem show is like for me so is it any wonder that the theme song Afro Circus keeps playing in my head! If you are planning on attending this year’s extravaganza you’ll want to check out my 10 best tips and tricks for navigating the Tucson Gem show from last year’s post. Don’t worry the information is still relevant for the 2013 show!

This year I will be teaching at JOGS! <—-click for a class schedule 😀

Copyright © Mary M. Ehlers, Good Muse Designs 2013- All rights reserved.

Thing One, Amorous Earrings

We are only 2 and a half weeks into 2013 and I’m already behind on my New Years challenge…. What challenge you might ask? Well, I decided that this year I am going to make, and post (the posting is the real challenge for me) one thing a week. The worst part is I actually said this out loud, in front of witnesses; don’t ask me what on earth I was thinking! The making part I think I can handle… the picture taking and posting part, well so far, not so good. I had (still have) great intentions! I purchased a new DVD on getting the best jewelry photos with your smart phone. I haven’t had time to watch it yet, which might explain the less than stellar photo quality. I should also add that my 20 year old son, Darius pointed out, and I quote, “The smart phones are all smarter than you are, Mom!” I have absolutely no idea where he gets that attitude….it surely couldn’t have come from me, it must have been his dad…Ya that’s it, he got the attitude from his dad!  Anyway, I have high hopes of at least an 85% completion rate for this challenge. I also have high hopes that my photography skills will improve a wee bit and that I can post the pieces on my web site.

Now that I have committed (notice I didn’t say I should be committed…at least not yet) to getting more pieces made and posted, I am challenging you to hold me accountable! You don’t have to nag me…. just let me know once in a while that you noticed that I actually posted a piece now and then! I appreciate the encouragement up front.

Thing 2, the  mermaid sculpture below isn’t really quite finished yet but you get a sneak preview of her. Her body is Titanium, her head, hair and tail are silver and she is sitting on a piece of drift wood for the moment! When I finish her, I’ll post a picture in the gallery section on my web site.

Thing 2 Mermaid sculpture

 

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

I’ve been very bad to myself lately. I haven’t given myself enough time to do all the things I wanted to do when I left the “real work world” to follow my dream of being a self-employed jewelry (and other fun creations) artist. When you work for yourself there are lots of important “things” that need to be done…. most of them requiring a left brain and I don’t think I even have a left brain! As a micro business owner there isn’t anyone to delegate to…so TAG, I’m it!

December is a whirlwind of a month when you work in grocery/retail as I did. It doesn’t stop with the December holidays because they ‘re followed by Valentine’s day, Mother’s day, Fourth of July…. well you get the picture. So I decided to go it on my own instead of working every single holiday, or right up to it like a crazy person. It didn’t stop with the holidays either because corporate insisted employees rush back in to work the day after to make the store look like the big day had never happened. Bull Crap  Boloney! I thought to myself… I don’t need this, I’ll follow my heart and my dream of making jewelry….. But, somewhere along the line I got caught up in the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the Day after Big Tuesday, Second to the last chance Wednesday, Ok it’s not too late to get shopping deals Thursday, Extended to next week Black Friday, Saturday, Sunday weekend mess. This really bummed me out because I didn’t have the time, energy, or want-to to keep up with the marketing of all that. I was disappointed in myself because I thought I had missed out on jewelry selling opportunities. However, the real disappointment came when I realized that my dream was never really about selling jewelry. I was trying to follow someone elses business plan….. My plan is about making jewelry that inspires me (and hopefully others) to live a better life and to remember that life in spite of all the ups and downs is wonderful! I wanted a life where I had time to smell the flowers, enjoy my friends and family and inspire others to do the same. Yes, this is a business and making money is a priority…. even artist have to make a living….but I don’t have to make myself miserable in the process…. So I put myself in time out! Yesterday evening I took the time to look at the magnificent Tucson sunset…. The picture taken with my phone doesn’t do it justice. And this morning I spent time in my yard tending the flowers. The poinsettia is a hold over from last year and the mums are thriving as well….It’s hard to beat Arizona in the winter!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

 

Just an updated picture of the bat cave cake and my adorable grandson!

It looks like this and I haven't even started the cake part yet!

Do ever notice how when we wish for things we don’t really ever picture them quite the way they turn out? When I was a child all I ever wanted to be was a grandma…. I thought my grandma’s were the most wonderful people on earth. Happy all the time, there to provide all kinds of fun and special projects to do, yes even as a child I loved craft projects and baking. I learned at age five how to bake pies with my great-grandmother, the best pie maker in Clay County, Indiana! I wanted to learn when I was four years old, she told me I wasn’t old enough and that I had to wait until the following year…. she probably figured HOPED I would forget, but there I was a year later, ready to go! My other grandma’s were wonderful too, putting on tea parties for me and my sister and letting us watch TV in bed…. What does all this have to do with being careful what you wish for? Well now I’m a grandma…. and when I pictured being a grandma, one of the things I dreamed of was baking cakes for all the birthday parties. What I didn’t picture was that the birthday’s would land at my busiest time of the year. I didn’t picture finishing up a big show and booking myself to teach extra Living Social classes, throwing in a couple of appointments, and having a tension head-ache that lasted the entire week. I didn’t picture dumping the display stuff in the living room and leaving it there all week-long. And I didn’t picture the big, fat mess that’s about to get even worse in the kitchen…. Nope, I thought it was going to be like going to grandma’s house…all fun and happy times…. But you know what? It is still a dream come true…. my grandson won’t know that making his cake wasn’t the only thing on my to-do list, he will remember that I loved making him a Batman cake for his birthday because he is turning 5 years old and he’s a great kid! Perhaps some day he will look back and understand that it wasn’t all fun and games for this grandma, and perhaps like me, he will appreciate it all the more! I guess the key to wishing and dreaming for me is to just go for it…. reality might try to steal a dream but only if I let it…..

The bat cave in progress.... backdrop painted with food coloring!

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

I come from a dysfunctional family. I was reminded of this the other day when I taught a class at Kaitlin’s Creative Cottage . The students made these adorable polymer clay, Day of the Dead pins and pendants…. Of course we all lined up for the obligatory class picture and someone dubbed it “The dysfunctional family photo!” The truth of it is, none of us are really related. We are however a close knit group of kindred spirits (even though Sandy was a first time visitor she fit right in, or at least she didn’t call us out for being goofy freaks that laugh too much and use technical terminology like “just smoof it a little” and “spin the wire thingy until it looks like this.”) As I’m certain you can tell, the judges on Craft Wars would have canned us the first episode because we didn’t use the official tools to spend loads of money at Michael’s, the shows official sponsor…Trust me on this, we do way more than our fair share to help the Tucson, Michael’s meet their sales quota on a regular basis! We are really just more the re-use and recycle kind of crafters… If there is a shiny thing on the side of the road, we will stop to pick it up. “I call dibbs on that!” and “You’re not going to throw that away are you?” is something frequently heard in my crowd. My son is appalled, “Mom, you are such a grub!” he tells me on a regular basis….I have tried to teach him that new is not necessarily better but he is from a different planet  generation. A man-child that has been conditioned to need the newest upgrade and I can’t get through his hard-wired, borg brain to reach the human that once lived inside…. Yes it’s true, I come from a dysfunctional family. I can’t function living in a house with an extremely messy Android and he can’t understand the mind of his loving, creative, hopeful, inspired, crazy, fun loving mom… yeah, I know I just laid that on really thick…you never know some day he might even read this 😉

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

“Things are going downhill fast!” That doesn’t sound very good does it? Then of course, “it’s all uphill” doesn’t sound very good either…. It’s all a matter of perspective. If you are a mountain climber then all uphill might sound pretty darn good. If you are at Disney Land on the Matterhorn then going downhill fast is the only way to go!

I have had a rollercoaster of a week…. There were way too many things on my to-do list but all of them good. The week started with a Living Social promotion, then classes, getting my pieces ready to go to the caster, meetings, a lunch date with a friend that I don’t see often. Then an opportunity came up to teach at JOGS during the gem show so of course I needed to rush and put together a proposal, I took a fabulous class with Fred Zweig and I’m working on an exciting new venture with my friend Kaitlin from Kaitlin’s Creative Cottage…….(no I can’t tell you what it is but as soon as we have details you will be the first to know!) Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is that this week has been a wild ride full of ups and downs, twist and turns. It has been a hang on to your hat kind of week but oh boy what a ride! I could have been completely overwhelmed. If I had experienced a week like this a year ago I would have been annoyed and cursed my way through the entire thing. I would have been looking at my watch during lunch. I wouldn’t have enjoyed the class I took with Fred because I would have been thinking of all the things still undone on my to-do list. I would have only been marginally grateful for the opportunity to teach at the gem show because the timing of the offer wasn’t perfect. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to take on a new business venture; well you get the picture…. Somewhere along my path in life my perspective has a shifted…… I no longer see the glass as half empty. I don’t see it as half full either…there is still something just a bit contrary in me that wants to know, “What is in the Glass?”

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

"Breathe and other postcards in the works!"

The closer we get to the election here in the U.S., the louder and more frequent the noise…. Today I turned off the phone, the TV, the radio, the internet; well except for going to Marnie is my Muse to write this post and a very quick email check early this morning… I don’t want to hear anyone to tell me what to think! The mind monkeys are good enough at doing that. So today I got out my watercolors and went to work on a new postcard…..”Breathe”……. The other three were done in a class at Kaitlin’s Creative Cottage a couple of weeks ago but I had the wrong pen for the pen and ink part so I will have to re-do them before I can add color or I might try pastels in them or something….eventually they will become jewelry, I can see a link bracelet with enamel in my mind.

I am interested what other people do to escape when life gets to hectic, noisy, and so frantic that you feel like a little hamster on a plastic treadmill….. Some people actually get on a real treadmill and exercise the stresses away…. I tried that once, it didn’t work for me (just kidding.) I suggest doing something new and fun like taking a new class in painting, pottery, even a jewelry class! I would love to hear what you do to increase creativity and “Melt Stress like Butta!”

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

 

 

I started yesterday with big, juicy plans to get into the studio and “MAKE SOMETHING FUN!” I told myself to just go in there and play with the new Goldie-Bronze™ clay I had purchased to try out. No expectations, no worries, just give it a try to see how you like it, I said. Everything was going great! The directions said to make sure all the particles were well mixed so I put on a Ricky Martin CD and danced around the studio to “She Bangs” with a container of the bronze clay in each hand…what did I care, no one could see me…and I was having FUN.

Four phone calls from telemarketers and political surveyors later I stopped turning down the radio to listen to caller ID! Frustration started to build and things weren’t going as well. When hubby arrived home about 1 PM with big news, my day felt like it was shot!

Imagine the mind monkeys swinging around in my head, stirring up trouble with constant thoughts of “what ifs” and “worries.” They taunted me with their high-pitched, monkey voices….all of them chattering away at once, a cacophony of noise that drowns out my calm, centered self; okay, I admit it, my “self” is never really calm and centered, the monkeys are always there. The term “clear your mind” is a concept I usually can’t quite grasp…(what if I miss an important idea while my mind is clear….hey it could happen!) The bottom line is I can get caught up in my own thoughts… Sometimes this is a great thing. Ideas are born when my mind is on auto pilot. Other times the monkeys take over and I’m dazed into immobility. They jabber on and on until I begin to imagine Marlin Perkins in a primate episode of Wild kingdom….”Something has set off the entire troop of the rare Mind Monkeys we are observing here today. It could be that ‘For Sale’ sign in the neighboring tree.” (Yes, that is what really set off my mind monkeys, my DH had announced that our neighbor’s house went up for sale… there goes the neighborhood the monkeys started screeching!)

I knew I had to act fast before the monkeys could actually take over my entire day…. I had to get out them of my mind. I needed a way to shut them down! That’s when it hit me! Wouldn’t it be great to have a gizmo that would act as a re-set button? A little reminder to stop, breathe and actually think instead of letting “the monkeys” confiscate my thoughts?  So when you see me wearing this new pendant (pictured) you will know…. The mind monkeys have been evicted!

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.

I love my new image!Let me rephrase that… I look pretty good as a cartoon! Sometimes you just have to do something a bit different from the rest of the planet! I wouldn’t say I was stuck in a rut exactly but I wanted to shake up my creativity a bit so I started a “creative goddess” e-course with Leonie Dawson.  http://tinyurl.com/9k5t58d  It’s all about letting the creative goddess inside become all that she is meant to be. I have to be straight with you about all of this “goddess” talk…. it’s a little too “woo-woo” for me. I respect and even admire women that embrace the idea that they are goddesses. I would love to be a goddess, but I’ve been too deeply rooted since childhood in my Christian based beliefs to let it be me.

But the creativity aspect of it…I’m all in!

One of my weekly assignments was to visit the goddess of destruction, Kali, and make a transformation arrow…. When I saw this I was thinking, yeah right, just what I need a “destruction goddess.” What I found out is the lesson was meant to help us let go of negative things that are holding us back and boy oh boy, do I ever have a list and a half of the negatives but, I just couldn’t do the assignment the way it was assigned… One of the great things about all of Leonie’s courses is the “do whatever works for you” philosophy she embraces. So to make a long story short I met the goddess Kali and instead of a transformation arrow I did the sketch above…. There is a little part of me that had always thought I could never be a super hero because I might be tempted to use my powers for evil in a moment of emotion and then I’d feel guilty for it for the rest of my life. It was fun and cathartic to do this cartoon of myself. I was able to see all of the negative self-talk and thoughts that have been holding me back and take some steps to change them…. I’ve been practicing so if you have any self doubts you would like me to come over and blast away with my new laser beam affirmation eyes just let me know.  😉

Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.