Trying to self motivate

I want to be a morning person. I want to be able to wake up naturally at 6am instead of 11am, and have numerous tasks completed before others even start their day. I haven't done that very many times in my life, but when I manage to, I feel pretty awesome. When it starts getting warm again I want to get up early and run every morning, but right now it's way too cold. I also want to move from task to task without getting so distracted and having to force myself to get started on something. It's so hard for me to just get started, it's like pushing through a brick wall. If I could make it a habit to do these things I would feel a whole lot better about myself and my future. Some people hate routine, but I really wish I had one. I solid productive one. :p
Next month, as an experiment, I'm going to attempt to go all of February without eating sugar. Natural sugars, like fruit, won't count. But things like candy, sweet junk foods, a zillion sugars in my tea, stuff like that will have to go. I want to see how it influences how I feel physically, if my pants get a little looser (and fit right again), if my skin starts to look better, and I guess mostly just to see if I can. Wish me luck on that!
I took some pics for a hat I need to post to my Etsy and my camera ate the pics. It's the first time that's happened to me. I was told that after a while, memory cards just get kind of worn out, so I guess that's the problem. I have another one that only hold like 12 photos, but I guess that's all I need for now. I want to take the hat pics over again outside anyways, because the ones I had were kind of crappy. I need a better backdrop and such.
I'm going to get to bed now even though I'm not that tired. I want to get up at 7am tomorrow and try to be this productive person I want to become instead of constantly disappointing myself. And because I don't like posting entries without at least one pic, here's a photo of a dead cicada I took in the driveway last summer.


Crunchy!

Well, I meant to post on the 1st

..but technically it's the 2nd now. Meh. And one of my goals for 2009 is to stop procrastinating, go figure.
Also I had a couple of pictures to post but can't find my camera cord, so I guess there's my motivation to finish unpacking my stuff tomorrow. :9
But anyways! I finally graduated college with a BFA in ceramics. Yay! Now the plan is to save up money so that I can afford to move to wherever grad school may be. I still have to narrow down where I want to apply, and i won't be applying until Fall 2010. Right now my biggest goal is to get my Etsy going enough to be able to sell my items full time. And if I can just get a small kiln, that would help sooo much. But until then I have to make do with what I have. So I guess now this will sort of be a journal of that goal. Scary! haha. But thanks to having an awesome boyfriend that can allow me to try this Etsy thing head on for a while, I'll have all the time in the world to work on my Etsy and this journal and some other things. :) So wish me luck! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a more substantial post to type up, haha.

What's Tab Making??

It's about time I showed some of what I have been working on in my final ceramics class before I graduate this December. Before I do that though, I want to show a couple of finished things from my metals class. Earlier in the semester we learned granulation (a process used by goldsmiths or silversmiths to decorate precious metals with small spheres fused to a base piece.) We also learned to make a chain with fine silver (fine silver is what we were also using to granulate). We had to do a practice piece first, which I ended up using as the focal point to this bracelet. It also uses the chain I made (which is kind of a pain in the ass since you have to fuse every jumpring by hand before linking together)







I'm really happy with it, and wear it most days. :) It's not supposed to have a face, it just ended up looking that way. But I like it.

Once I got the hang of granulation with my practice piece, I made the main project. These are a pair of 8 gauge earrings. The granulated part is of course *fine silver, and the hook and rivet is sterling silver. These were not meant to look like purses, but they just ended up that way. *shrug* That's ok with me though, I am really happy with them. I wear them almost daily.






*As far as I understand from my class, you must granulate with pure metals, not alloys. Only pure metals will fuse together when heated. This is why you can not granulate with sterling silver. Sterling is 7.5% copper, which is added for strength (silver is pretty soft). Fine silver is something like 99.999% silver, nothing added whatsoever.



Ok, back to ceramics. These pieces are all unfinished, either still being sculpted, or still in need of being glazed, etc... They are for my BFA senior exhibition that will be December 7th. So close! So stressful! Haha.

This is a sort of terrarium, so to speak. Tiny plant life (muchly made up from my brain) in what could be a split nut shell, or maybe some driftwood, who knows. :) It is dry, but still needs to be bisque fired. It will be really tricky to glaze!









A work in progress which is now finished, waiting to be bisque fired.



Bottom of this still waiting to be carved, and the top waiting to be put on.






Here it is with the top finished. The bottom still needed to be carved, but it has since been finished and is also waiting to be bisque fired.





Here are some bisque fired pieces on my shelf, ready to be glazed. :)







One of several small 'studies' of mine. They'll make good glaze testers. :)





This is my work space in the advanced studio. I have since cleaned and organized it so it looks much better now. :9





And that's all for now! I can't wait to have the finished pieces to show. :D

Hello

For the record, I hate the word 'blog'. For some reason it sounds a little pretentious to me, I'm not sure why. And gross, haha. I'll just refer to this as a journal. I am hoping this helps keep me motivated to make things. I get really antsy if I go very long without making something regardless of what media I use, but it gets hard to peel myself off of the computer sometimes, and the next thing I know it's time to go to bed and I didn't do a damn thing that day. It's pretty sad, haha. But I think posting here about current projects and whatever other randomness comes up will give me a reason to actually have things to post. As if selling work currently being my only means of making any money wasn't reason enough.
Since this is my first real entry I will start by posting a project from my jewelry and metals class that I finished in the winter. It is one of my favorite things I have ever made and I probably worked longer and harder on it than anything I have ever made also (so far, anyways). It is a functional copper corset. It took several weeks to finish and I can really wear it, but it takes a couple of people to get me in it. :9