New pieces for Powell Street Festival!

The 35th annual Powell Street Festival in Vancouver, BC, this coming week-end, July 30 and 31. Can't wait!

It will be my fifth year selling there and it's definitely my favourite event to participate in. It's so well-organized, well-attended, and I have return customers and friends that I get to see every year. Plus, I get to spend time with two of my brothers and their families as an added bonus; I also have the best sales assistant, my niece Mariko, for the entire week-end, so I cannot go wrong! Oh, and did I mention the amazing entertainment and the more-than-amazing food? Schedule here and programme here Really looking forward to it!

Here are some new earrings I've been working on for the occasion:

I've been having a bit of a hard time getting back on a creative track since my contract ended in May, and just recently (like the last few weeks recently!) started all-out busying myself in my studio. Feels good, and yet I'm also pretty motivated to find me-self a job too, and have been applying here and there. My mornings are for job-hunting and applications, afternoons & eves for making beads and jewellery.

Here's a cane I'm pretty pleased with, my summery goldfish! I saw some initial instructions for a lovely one at Parole de Pate, but being a lazy cane-maker, I could not see myself being patient enough to go through all those steps - so here is my quickie version:

Starting the squishing process, it just looks like a ball of flames at this point...

After reduction, here's my little goldfishie! His body is a little flat, but I like the movement of his tail which I can play with when I'm applying a slice of cane to a surface. My only regret is filling the cane with white instead of translucent clay, since I will now have many white goldfish beads (I think they look great though!). I'll make another with translucent one day!

I've been making lovely earrings and pendants out of this little guy (or gal!). I'll try to post photos soon.

It's a little challenging in my last week of prep for Powell Street Fest, to have a bit of a sore spot on my dominant hand. For the second time in two weeks, I smacked my index finger while playing taiko at a performance a couple days ago and this time the blood spatter was a little more substantial than the first time (that's the scab in the middle of the flap of skin), splattering onto the four drums I was using. It's absolutely true when we say that our blood, sweat and tears are in every one of our group's drums!

It's healing nicely (flap stays closed now), but is a little sore, and I have to stop, and stretch and rest my hands regularly. For the last several years, as a jewellery and cardmaker, my hands have been my livelihood, so I do have to be extra-careful keeping my hands and arms in good working condition. Taiko definitely doesn't help, but it's not like I'll be stopping any time soon! It keeps me sane and grounded and healthy. It's all about balance, I guess.

Ok, time to change my bandage, make a fresh coffee and get back to work...

Earrings to make you feel summery...

New earrings in shop! Got some lovely new chiyogami (paper) - same simple but beautiful pattern in 5 colours. I'll be wearing these all summer!

Not sure about the background in these new photos. Was very excited when I found this placemat at Ikea, since I love the colour and thought the texture would be interesting, but it just looks...well... rubbery. What do you think?

Working on other designs for my upcoming summer shows in Vancouver and here in Montreal, so more to come!

Went for a bike ride this morning and even ventured out into the street in a residential area; I surprise myself with my boldness sometimes (partly tongue in cheek - if you're wondering why I have to muster up courage to ride my bike in the street, please read this post for clarity). Wanted to bring my camera but had to recharge the batteries. I'll go out again tomorrow if the weather holds up so I'll have photos then!

New in the shop!

Mission accomplished! I finally listed a couple of new pieces in my Etsy shop yesterday. Sure took me long enough.

These new necklaces are a little dressier than my regular chiyogami pendants; the added dangle and sterling chain add a little movement and sparkle, dontcha think?

I'll be making more of those this week!

Having a little bit of hard time with scattered energy this fall... I so enjoyed that glass lampworking class a couple week-ends ago that I had a hard time getting back to my production for the coming months (I'm easily side-tracked, and as many of you know, the QUEEN of Procrastination). Oy.

My lampworking intensive scheduled for this coming week-end has been postponed, so I'll probably do it in the new year since they're supposed to have two choices of dates. I was so disappointed when I got news of the cancellation yesterday, but I got to the bright side right away, in that I would not be distracted yet again from my work at hand, which is definitely more important.

Here's my finished ring that I worked on in the intro to jewellery making class. Most people opted for a highly polished look with the heavy duty polishing weel, but I used steel wool to finish mine, which gives it a kind of dull, matte finish. Pretty clunky, but I like it.

Off to heat up some soup and I'll then get back to work.

A bit of everything...

Just received some flyers in the mail for an upcoming show - you can see one of my necklaces on the cover, second from the bottom, yay! This show is at a private high school here in Montreal; I did it for the first time last year and it was a really good one for me, so I'm really looking forward to it again this year. I had a few great trades with other sellers too, which is always fun!


Lots of new pieces being created in my wee little studio... This one is up in my shop:

It's October 29th, and we woke up to a dusting of snow this morning. Aaack!
I remember many times as a kid, having to wear my ski jacket under my Halloween costume... it's supposed to be much warmer this Friday though, for the trick or treaters :)

To warm ourselves up, a fall favourite: butternut squash soup, well, more of a potage. Turned out yummy, although I went a little heavy on the pepper.

3 column blog made easy-peasey... and a new piece

After giving my blog three columns last week-end, and feeling very capable and a little proud of myself, I then proceeded to change High Desert Diva's as well (thanks for featuring me yesterday, Diva!). So we are both pretty happy with the three columns since, as you may well know, it gets rather cramped jamming all the bloggy extras into one column...

And here is how I did it: I followed Ishan De Silva's step by step instructions on his blog, The Blogger Guide. He has various articles on the subject, including if you want 2 right sidebars instead of a right and left sidebar. This link http://bguide.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-columns-minima-left-and-right.html is for the right and left sidebars in the "minima" style layout, which many bloggers choose.

Html boggles my wee little brain, but the whole thing was straightforward and surprisingly easy to follow. This after trying two other sets of instructions that had me wanting to throw myself down the stairs.

Try it and let me know how it goes - and the 3-column blogs will take over the world, mwahahahahaaaaaaaa...
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The stamped image in my blog banner above is of a jizo, a figure that is said to bring comfort to those mourning and strength to those needing it.
We took this photo in Kyoto last October. You can read more about jizo here.

I carved that jizo stamp at a time when I needed some comfort myself, and so I thought it would be nice to have it in a wearable form. Here is the "Positivity or Happy Thoughts" pendant.

I've kind of been hanging onto this for a bit, so it may take me a few days to post it in my Etsy shop. I'm weird that way.

I was also featured in The Shadow Cats blog yesterday too - many thanks for all the l♥ve!

A brief synopsis of the past few days and YAY! Friday Cat Blogging

My computer crashed on Monday, which is why I haven't blogged in the past few days. My photos, my documents, all my business stuff, potentially gone in one poof.

Well, my husband worked diligently for the past three days and managed to recover and transfer everything (oh, my precious photos!) onto a new hard drive and external back up. Yay for super husbands who save computers! JF truly is the best.

Tuesday
Quickie update on my front tooth: Went to the dentist and it's not cracked (I hit hard it a couple of weeks ago with a big wooden stick - don't ask). No cavities, must floss more, happy with my free orange toothbrush and floss. I love freebies.

Wednesday
Gave a jewellery making demo and talk on starting a home-based business for a women's group on Montreal's south shore. Lots of fun and I even made some sales. I'll write about this more in another post, when I get some photos (someone was taking pics there).

Thursday
Took some photos of new pieces in my favourite light - sun masked by clouds so the light was warm but not glaring. I know I should make a lightbox so that I can take photos anytime, but I love the natural daylight.

Here are some examples of that lovely light :) These will be up in my Etsy shop shortly.

Friday Cat Blogging
This is an idea I got from another blogger, Joanna at http://mywordjewelry.blogspot.com/ As a cat lover, I tend to want to talk about my cats all the time - ALL THE TIME - so instead of babbling too much, I will try to restrain my thoughts and musings on my cats to one day, and jam it all in on Fridays.

Ebi and Chibi, as you may know, have been adjusting to each other since October, when Ebi came to join our household. They still avoid each other and occasionally slap each other, but it's getting better all the time.

With last week-end's snowfall, the winds had pushed a huge snowdrift onto our back balcony, right up agains the window. You can see it a couple of blog posts back. The temperature dropped the days after the storm, so the snow solidified. It was blocking the sun from the kitchen so Ebi had no sunny spot on the floor, and Chibi had no sun coming in on her ledge. There was no way to open the door with all the snow, so we opened the window on the door and JF shovelled some of the snow off; the snow had gotten so hard, he had cuts on his knuckles. Dug a litle burrow in the snow and wanted to see what the cats thought...

This last shot cracks me up. These are my kids.

New designs, finally - and a childhood favourite!

I'll let the pictures do the talking on this sunny day :)

Finally posted some of my new designs - sort of hoarding them, but mostly just worried how they would be received... Polymer clay and chiyogami pendant with sterling silver bail on Greek leather necklace. I think I'm pretty satisfied. I think.

Here's another with my little bunny and a garnet in the bail .

... and my new earrings - polymer clay and sterling silver oblong hoops.

Can you tell I'm primed for Spring? (^_^)

A treat from my childhood
Is there something you remember eating when you were a kid that was a thrill? Well, this was one of those things for me.

Kraft Pizza in a box! 34 seconds to go...

The box used to be green and the pizza on it wasn't so detailed and yummy looking, but the contents were the same. The smell of that tangy tomato sauce and those spices; the cheese that you have to be careful to sprinkle just right so that there's enough to cover it all; and the smell and feel of that dough -ooh, I love it. Amazing how powerful the sense of smell is in conjuring up memories so vividly. Here's JF and Ebi waiting for it to be ready - cook faster, man!

That skinny little pizza which we would always make on a rectangular cookie sheet, would be cut into six pieces since we were six kids - five-year old me got the same size piece as my brothers who were older teens. They finished theirs in a couple of bites while mine was a meal. Here's our family at my Auntie Betty's in 1972. I'm the smallest one who looks like a boy in a dress.

Yay, pizza's ready!!! and it was yummy! Maybe not as good as I remembered, but yummy nonetheless.

There's one piece left in the fridge which I am going to eat now with my coffee.

New banner

Did you notice my new banner?

I originally started blogging with the idea to talk about new creations, and to throw in the occasional bit about life and my other passions (taiko, cats, food etc.), but it's ended up being kind of half and half - on my creative work and on everyday life.

The old subheading for tatsuko: paper, polymer & ponderings was "jewellery, paper goods and enjoying the process," but since life often takes over and I just write what I want to write about, it's now been revised to "appreciating creative bursts and enjoying the process." A little more general.

Ok, so not a huge change, but it took me a few modifications before deciding on this one. And I added some photos of my work to the banner as well; three very significant pieces for me: my sushi jewellery, which first got me into making and selling jewellery; a photo pendant of my late mom (circa 1946) who still inspires me and keeps me going from the great beyond; and my "Happy Thoughts" greeting card - you can read more about that card here .

Since you can't see the pendant of my mom in the banner too well, here it is. She looks like a movie star.

So I'm pretty happy with the new look.

Some new pendants...

I got some new paper from Japan last month and finally got around to making some new pendants with it! I was sooo excited - I mean jumping-up-and-down-excited - with my new batch of paper and I think the pendants turned out quite nicely. Some will go on simple ball chains and others will be combined with stones and beads into chokers. I think I'll have to keep one for myself :) Gotta get back to work now; making some new cards for this week-end too!