Introducing: Artisans Of America!

I am creating a new website to offer as a resource for those of us who find ourselves buried under a mountain of competing items from all over the world.  Although a worldwide marketplace is a wonderful thing to have, if it includes everything from everywhere, there is little hope of being noticed or found.

http://www.artisansofamerica.info/

So this new website will be a list, sorted into categories on various pages, of links to websites which offer handmade, handcrafted, hand created works from artists and artisans.  Fine art and functional art.

There will be no vintage items, no mass produced items, no supply sources, no services, etc.  you know what I mean.  And a limited amount of jewelry to honor those who have been such a great source of mutual support for my internet stores.

I will be looking for quality craftsmenship from all sources.  From art to hang on the wall to art to hold in your hand.  From fine art to functional art in all medias.

If you know of someones website I should include, please let me know.

This will be a work in progress, as I do need to work myself.  And this will require me to relearn my website building skills even though I will be using Blogger for the basics.  One of my primary goals will be to totally rebuild my own website, PedricksCorner.com

Unfortunately, these last five years have not been easy and the ability to spend the time and resources to restart my fuchsia nursery continue to allude me.  Over and over again, I am able to get started and then have to put in down in the face of needing an immediate income.  There are still several hundred stock plants and I am going to keep trying.  But I have no time frame in clear view.

The massive changes at Etsy.com have so undermined the ability of small craftspeople like myself to sell our wares, that at a time of the year when I should be running out of my inventory of lavender, I have almost all of it still available.  Etsy has told us that it is up to us to bring traffic to them.  Well, if that is the case, then maybe we should just bring the traffic to ourselves and leave them out of the loop!!

Getting Ready To Inventory Stock

I am finally going to be able to take an inventory of the surviving fuchsia stock plants soon.  This time of year, the lavender has to take priority because the lavender wands selling on Etsy.com are what have kept me going since the big freeze wiped out all of my fuchias five years ago.  Have been thrilled to see some of my favorites in bloom again!  At this monent, I am figuring out how to post to this blog from the field so I can share photos of each survivor blooming as I find them while I am watering them.  Buy some lavender wands!  I would LOVE to be able to afford the time to make fuchsia cuttings!

A New Year and The Beat Goes On!

 My newest effort to continue to raise funds so I can restart the fuchsia nursery is sock dolls stuffed with lavender!  Each one is a bit different.  I am surprised by how different each ones face turns out to be every time I finish one.  Please visit my Etsy.com store named Pedricks to see them all!

I have been blessed with the means to continue working on my ceramic skills and now have a nice selection of pieces for sale in my second Etsy.com store name CatDancingArtStudio.  This winter has been very productive and I will be adding new pieces every day, so check back to see what is new!

If all goes well, once I get the lavender field expanded before they come out of their winter slumber, I will finally be able to not only begin making fuchsia cuttings again, but more important, I will be able to give them the attention and monitoring they require to get started.  Several times in the last couple of years, I have been able to get cuttings made, but then had to work elsewhere and could not take good care of them.

This is a new year and I am very hopeful!

Yes, There Is Still A Pedricks Corner

First of all, I went back to college in 2013 and am now in my fourth semester of studies with a 4.0 gpa which I hope to keep up!
It has been a labor of love to keep the stock fuchsias and other plants going while I both work and go to school.  But they are all alive and if all goes well then this March I will finally, after four years, have the time, the means, and the plant material to make all the cuttings necessary to get the nursery running again.
Meanwhile, I made over 2,000 lavender wands last summer (2014) and only have a couple hundred left.  So once again, I will be sold out long before I can make more.  And this year, the field of lavender is twice the size as it was last year.  Who knows how many I will be able to make this coming summer!  Income from these wands is vital to restarting the nursery.
And I confess that I have also been learning how to do something I have been wanting to learn since I was a little girl and made figurines out of mud to dry in the sun and paint.  I have been learning ceramics.  I am a long way from being "good" at it, but I have begun to list some of the results in a new Etsy.com store called "CatDancingArtStudio."
There is a new link listed to the right now.  I hope you will check it out!
And trust me, as soon as I have fuchsias to sell again, I will be shouting it from the rooftops and posting photos here in my blog!

Severe Damage From Deer and Freezing

It made me terribly sad today to have to delete all of the PayPal buttons from my website for Pedricks Corner.  Two winters of freezing weather and a year and a half of trying to keep the deer from eating everything has cost me almost every stock plant.  What little inventory is left must be kept in order to replace the lost stock plants and attempt to create a new inventory.
If most of them make it, I will have almost 300 varieties.
But right now, I am waiting to see what will come back up from being frozen to ground level or eaten to ground level by the deer.
A new enclosure has been built.  So although I will not be able to demonstrate how huge upright fuchsias can get for at least another year or so, I hope to at least keep the collection alive and add to it.
And hopefully sales from my lavender wands will enable me to have the time available to spend on planting a new inventory of fuchsias for late this summer or spring of 2014.

My New Childrens Book About Ducks

Abel and Mabel

It is an ebook published via Smashwords and available in about 8 different formats.
Best of all, I chose to price it a just 99 cents each!!
Please check it out.  It is a true story about real ducks I raised last summer.
The link to Smashwords is the title above the photo "Abel and Mabel."

My True Goal and Hope

The whole point of creating a fuchsia nursery, growing lavender and making lavender wands, is to be able to afford to take the time to indulge myself in creating art.  My dream is to be able to make art in the winter, grow fuchsias in the spring, and make lavender wands in the summer.
I am finally posting a few "doodles" on Etsy.com
Here is one I finished last night.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/113798527/fisherman-ooak-blue-ballpoint-ink-pen