The Hope For 2019

Things are coming along for 2019.  The fuchsias are doing well and if proceeds from selling lavender keep up, I will be able to keep working on getting the  nursery back on-line this spring.  And maybe, by this fall, I will get the opportunity and have the means to start throwing clay again.  Just used this big bowl I made in 2016 and wondered if and when I am going to get to make another one, or two, or one hundred!  The lavender wand inside is nine inches long.  This is one of the biggest bowls I was able to make while I was learning to throw.  An on-going learning process I hope to continue for the rest of my life.

Winter Flowers on the West Coast

Just thought I'd share one of my favorite native flowers with you.  I try to spread these guys out everywhere I can here.  Tucking some of them into the potted plants.  These Labrador Violets, Viola labradorica, are blooming in our Mandarin Orange tree pot.  I'll keep you posted on all the other places they are tucked into.  I hope to be able to offer them in the nursery by this summer.  Did you know the flowers are edible?  #lovepurple #loveviolet

My Color Palatte So Far

Can you tell I've been collecting embroidery floss for awhile?  Ever since I was a little girl and my grandmother taught me to embroider.  Some of these go back to then.  Sometimes I snap up batches at a flea market or garage sale.  My collection now stands at almost 1,000.  Would I turn down new colors?  Never!  I still need to arrange the colors better, but at least now they are in 4 cases instead of 10.  If you too, love embroidery floss, I have a secret for you.  Visit the fly fishing department of a big box store... they have better containers for less than the crafts department!!  

What does this have to do with fuchsias?  Well, maybe someday I can embroider a few of them.  Meanwhile, I promised to create a special piece for a friends Christmas present and the next thing I knew, I was looking for the right colors of floss...  I'll be working on live fuchsias later today.

Happy New Year from Fuchsia peniculata

This is one of our species fuchsias here.  Paniculata grows up to the roof of the house and I walk under it to fill the bird feeders every morning.  These flowers are from this morning and they enjoy full on sun all afternoon until sunset.  And they keep the resident hummingbirds happy all winter, as does the Fuchsia splendens down the hill.

This is the walkway under the Fuchsia peniculata in the summer.

Winter Cleaning and Reorganization!

The inside of the metal shed is really coming along.  I should have taken "before" photos.  Over the last couple of years, as I periodically cleaned up piles of debri from rat parties shredding everything, all of the counters had become stuffed with clutter.  I am not done, but I have clean work surfaces.  And last night I found a great plan for constructing a wedging table for ceramic clay!  So easy I can build it myself.  Now... where to put it...

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

  One of the reasons a new shed was so necessary to adjoin to the old metal shed before I could use it to work in, is the wild rats!!  They destroy everything.  They chew the plastic off of wiring to electrical items.  So the kiln has never been taken out of it's box.  Not that they haven't been trying to chew into it!  They pulverize styro foam for bedding.  They shred everything for nests and make nests in every nook and cranny.  Like my collection of woven baskets.  And they destroyed the dried armadillo basket my mother gave me long ago.  It is a real armadillo and I used the skin to make surface texture molds for my ceramic boxes. 
  The last step towards keeping them out, was packing the gaps between the walls and the roof with fiberglass.
  There is still a lot of cleaning and re-organizing to be done.  And that is what I'll be doing for Christmas.  
  Not everything you see in the mess outside is garbage!  A lot of it is paper intended for my future endeavor of making handmade lavender infused paper.
  See you next year!

Inventing New Ways To Use My Lavender

As many of you know, the sale of my lavender crop is intended to fund the rebuilding of my heirloom upright fuchsia nursery.  But most people have never heard of a lavender wand and everyone on the planet with a lavender bush sells lavender sachets.  I literally give away most of my lavender sachets, I put one in with every order no matter what the order is for. 

Since so few people know that lavender wands exist, they are not searching for them.
So how do I get people who are searching for items, to land in my Etsy shop?
First, as I was trying to figure out how to add a label to my wands so people would know where to get them, I discovered the end caps and realizes that I could turn my wands into pendants.  Yeah!
I have been having a blast making those and it is going well so far.  I am still lost in a pile of other pendants called lavender because lavender is also a color...
Even so, people are liking them and I am hopeful.

And some of you may know that I write a blog called Artisans Of America where I look for and then promote other artists in 16 categories from botanical to wood.  When I am searching for someone new to promote, I come across so many fascinating things! 

Which has lead me to start making two new items with my lavender.  One of them is a bookmark/landyard accessory which if you don't want to use as a bookmark, can be clipped around your rear view mirror like I do with the pendant that I made for myself.  And the other one is a key fob or zipper pull.  It took a while to figure out how to make something that could endure the use that a zipper pull or key fob does.  Most lavender sachets are sold in "organza" bags which are so thin that pulverized lavender comes through the fabric.  So I went with silk!  Then I had to figure out how to attach them.  I can't use the lavender wands for these because I don't think ( I could be wrong ) that the little woven baskets would hold up long with a lot of use.

So here are two examples of my new items:  Lavender Bookmarks and Lavender Key Fobs!

You can find versions of both of these in my Etsy shop Pedricks