I dont know about yall but I cannot handle the heat and the drought! It makes me lazy and sweaty, two combinations that I cannot abide. Only good thing is we havent had skeeters down in Houston this summer. Yea!
I m sure other parts of our glorious state are green and lush ( or arid and dry) depending on if You are east or west Texan. Our State has so many different geographic locales! We are all gearing up for our fall shows in our local areas, you may get a chance to visit our booths in a nearby town. We would love to meet ya and have a big iced tea!
I know that I m doing Shows in Humble at the Civic Center Sept 15th weekend and New Caney 11/12th this fall. I d love it if our other members would post where they will be in the comment section for our readers to find us this fall. We would love to meet you and show you our hand crafted items. ( I bought a pen from Scott last year at one of the shows we did together, earrings from Heather and I still love them!!) Workmanship is even better in person.
Come on yall post your shows!!
Monday, August 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
What good is a blog If we dont Update it???
I would like to say we are simply showing yall how not to do things in a funny offhand way, but honestly as a Texan, I cant lie to yall.
I been under the weather. Sick as a dog, my hand went kaput and I had to have surgery to repair nerves in the wrist and hand. and Dr Doofus left the stitches in on to of the nerves he pulled back so it took extra long to heal. A month of waiting to get worked on, a month of healing and two months of checking back of oopsy... I aint a happy camper. So here I sit, voiceless, saleless, frustrated and unable to list, take pictures and motivate my guild into action. What a spring! I had to talk my Mr Man into vacumming or emptying the dishwasher LOL.
For those of you who sell online, you can imagine what not using your dominant hand for four months is like. No keyboard, no listing, emails, replies, packaging, creating, photographs, editing and so on.
For those of you who buy online, you might think we just whip this stuff together and have it sitting in boxes around our houses or studios. Ready to go. We have to carefully count, process, print, package your beautiful item and tote it off to the post office.
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(small part of studio) I have a studio of supplies ( 3000 jars and trays) all are very tightly sealed and storage of my 300 pieces of made jewely In zippered bags no less, plus all my work benches and tools. ( ah the joy to create has come back even if I cant hold a hammer yet!!)
Thus endeth my blogger of the day... boring or not...
I been under the weather. Sick as a dog, my hand went kaput and I had to have surgery to repair nerves in the wrist and hand. and Dr Doofus left the stitches in on to of the nerves he pulled back so it took extra long to heal. A month of waiting to get worked on, a month of healing and two months of checking back of oopsy... I aint a happy camper. So here I sit, voiceless, saleless, frustrated and unable to list, take pictures and motivate my guild into action. What a spring! I had to talk my Mr Man into vacumming or emptying the dishwasher LOL.
For those of you who sell online, you can imagine what not using your dominant hand for four months is like. No keyboard, no listing, emails, replies, packaging, creating, photographs, editing and so on.
For those of you who buy online, you might think we just whip this stuff together and have it sitting in boxes around our houses or studios. Ready to go. We have to carefully count, process, print, package your beautiful item and tote it off to the post office.
(small part of studio)Thus endeth my blogger of the day... boring or not...
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Cow Girl Up... Rodeo Time Who has a chili recipe??
It is Rodeo time down here in Houston.... in between freak outs because it got cold for a couple of days, we have chili cook offs for the Livestock show and rodeos in Humble and Houston.
I Never Ever make my chili the same way twice so I couldnt say what mine is.. prolly boring. But I d like to hear yalls ..even yall northern folks and especially the folks to the west of us. I heard NM and AZ has some special kind of heat in their chilis.
I Never Ever make my chili the same way twice so I couldnt say what mine is.. prolly boring. But I d like to hear yalls ..even yall northern folks and especially the folks to the west of us. I heard NM and AZ has some special kind of heat in their chilis.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
We have a winner!!
Our guild Contest has come to an end..
we had five entrants who answered the question of which six flags flew over the Great State of Texas over a Five hundred year period... and which shops were flying these flags. It took some detective work...
Lisa P is our winner!
We want to thank the other entrants: AndreaTJewelry was the qucikest entrant, Glasstastic Treasures, ValDawn, Jitme, and of course Lisa. Thank you all who took time to learn about our heritage and our arts in our studios! Yall come back, now ya here?
we had five entrants who answered the question of which six flags flew over the Great State of Texas over a Five hundred year period... and which shops were flying these flags. It took some detective work...
Lisa P is our winner!
We want to thank the other entrants: AndreaTJewelry was the qucikest entrant, Glasstastic Treasures, ValDawn, Jitme, and of course Lisa. Thank you all who took time to learn about our heritage and our arts in our studios! Yall come back, now ya here?
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tutorial: Personalize Your ArtFire Collection Widget
The ArtFire Collection Widget is a great tool for embedding a collection on your web-site.
Have you ever noticed the link in the center of the Collection widget footer? If you click on the link, it returns a search of ArtFire items with that tag. Wouldn't it be great if you could relate that search to your Collection theme? Well, you can.
This example reads "Handmade Gifts" and clicking the link will take you to an ArtFire search for "Gifts".
But this collection happened to be a Texas ArtFire Guild collection and I prefer to have the link bring up a search of Texas ArtFire Guild Members items.
Instead of pasting the code directly to my blog post I paste it first to a NotePad document. Don't try to use a Word document because it will really mess things up.
This is what the last line of the original code for my collection widget looks like:
This is another example of what the last line of your widget code could look like:
All I need to do is replace the original search information: modules.php?name=gift_hub
with the search term I want to use which is:
texasartfire.
I also want to change the link title to display "More Selections from Texas ArtFire Guild". So I need to replace the words:
Handmade Gifts
with
More Selections from Texas ArtFire Guild .
This is what the code looks like after I made my corrections:
And this is what the footer of the collection looks like.
If you want to see the link in action, check out my blog post "God Blessed Texas Collection".
I have several tutorials on my blog. Click here for the Tutorial list page.
I also take suggestions for Tutorial topics. You can leave your suggestion in the comments.
Have you ever noticed the link in the center of the Collection widget footer? If you click on the link, it returns a search of ArtFire items with that tag. Wouldn't it be great if you could relate that search to your Collection theme? Well, you can.
This example reads "Handmade Gifts" and clicking the link will take you to an ArtFire search for "Gifts".
But this collection happened to be a Texas ArtFire Guild collection and I prefer to have the link bring up a search of Texas ArtFire Guild Members items.
Instead of pasting the code directly to my blog post I paste it first to a NotePad document. Don't try to use a Word document because it will really mess things up.
This is what the last line of the original code for my collection widget looks like:
This is another example of what the last line of your widget code could look like:
All I need to do is replace the original search information: modules.php?name=gift_hub
with the search term I want to use which is:
texasartfire.
I also want to change the link title to display "More Selections from Texas ArtFire Guild". So I need to replace the words:
Handmade Gifts
with
More Selections from Texas ArtFire Guild .
This is what the code looks like after I made my corrections:
And this is what the footer of the collection looks like.
If you want to see the link in action, check out my blog post "God Blessed Texas Collection".
I have several tutorials on my blog. Click here for the Tutorial list page.
I also take suggestions for Tutorial topics. You can leave your suggestion in the comments.
Time is ...
Time is Running Out....to enter our contest.
You don't have to be an artfire member to participate in the contest.
You don't have to be an artfire member to participate in the contest.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Yee Haw Happy New Year Yall!! Its our Contest time!!!!
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| Rose Pen Hand Turned and carved From JmMCoy |
 |
| Earrings from TheGemmedGiraffe |
 |
Individualized carved key chain from CNewcomb |
Contest
As yall know, our guild is becoming more vibrant and active, so we thought we would do a little contest to set things off for the New Year.
Our Guild Roster
Our Guild Roster
Our members are participating in a scavenger hunt of sorts and we have fabulous prizes for the winner! It's a collection of products from some our talented and generous Texans.
The way this works is YOU have to find the six flags that flew over Texas in our rebellious past. They are flying as a widget/flag in the front page of 6 shops out of all of our guild members. See roster here. You have to submit your answers to us by January 31st.
BUT they have to be in order and which shop is flying that particular flag (ie cctexan3 _____flag) IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER. So I reckon yall are going to learn a little Texas history while you are at it.
Submissions should go to the Guildmaster in Artfire
We will keep them and if there are more than one correct answer, we will randomize the submissions and let the computer draw the winner.
Please feel free to blog about this in your own blogs and twitters and facebook, we love attention! let us know who you are and we will try to follow yall in kind.
We wish you a Happy and Prosperous New Year! God Bless Texas!!
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| lampwork and black beaded cha cha bracelet from cctexan3 |
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| Hemp Dog Collar from SonoraKays |
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Update on our Texas Contest for January
Final touches are being made for the contest!!
we need a widget maker badly! I cannot do widgets for the studios. please email me via my artfire studio
http://www.cctexan2.artfire.com/ if you can be our superhero! thanks
we need a widget maker badly! I cannot do widgets for the studios. please email me via my artfire studio
http://www.cctexan2.artfire.com/ if you can be our superhero! thanks
Friday, December 24, 2010
Just a quick tease
er, that came out wrong. However yall know me, foot in mouth.
Our first guild wide contest will begin Jan 1. Members: go to the yahoo group for details.
Readers, we will run it month long. We figured yall would like to combine a scavenger hunt with a bit of Texas knowledge and why we love Texas!
In early January, certain shops will be flying something and you have to go look for it. when you spot all 6, you have to put them in the chronological order of both the item and the Shop flying it. Check back on this blog for the items.
We will have prizes for the first and second place responders. We will randomize all the correct responders and draw from there.
Pictures to follow soon, but they are all handmade by some of our talented Texas artisans. We thank them for being so gracious!
Our first guild wide contest will begin Jan 1. Members: go to the yahoo group for details.
Readers, we will run it month long. We figured yall would like to combine a scavenger hunt with a bit of Texas knowledge and why we love Texas!
In early January, certain shops will be flying something and you have to go look for it. when you spot all 6, you have to put them in the chronological order of both the item and the Shop flying it. Check back on this blog for the items.
We will have prizes for the first and second place responders. We will randomize all the correct responders and draw from there.
Pictures to follow soon, but they are all handmade by some of our talented Texas artisans. We thank them for being so gracious!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Hey Yall, need some followers to the Texas artisan blog
Hey Yall, need some followers to the Texas artisan blog
Yep its a pity posting. We have only 14 followers of our ginormous blog about the art scene, selling online, helping others and contests where you can cool prizes of hand crafted items like burled oak pens, gem stone jewelry, leather cuffs ( dont ask) and other snazzy things.
We would love to have more followers, retweets and shares and I am not shameless when it comes to promoting other artists.
it is here , where ya standing reading this right now...hehe
I will personally giveaway a piece of my jewelry to one of the supporters of that blog. You wont know what number, but we will put it in a randomizer and draw a name. Goal is to get to 300 who are serious about life online selling, networking and who can read. LOL
Help us get there! Purdy Please.
there is a separate contest for who comments the most in a two month period. Guild members are not eligible.
thanks yall!!
it is here , where ya standing reading this right now...hehe
I will personally giveaway a piece of my jewelry to one of the supporters of that blog. You wont know what number, but we will put it in a randomizer and draw a name. Goal is to get to 300 who are serious about life online selling, networking and who can read. LOL
Help us get there! Purdy Please.
there is a separate contest for who comments the most in a two month period. Guild members are not eligible.
thanks yall!!
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Stress over the Holidays
As a self emlpoyed artist, the stressors of daily living seem to pile up real quick: family, work, doctors visits, children ( they seem to always need to eat dont they?) car repairs, cleaning, creating, managing, promoting your craft, craft shows, learning new techniques ad infinitum.
So whats a gal to do? I prefer to continue to work until I am so exhausted I bite everyone's head off or fall into exhaustion. I realised last year this was not the way to handle it ( for me) It may work for you though heheh.
I have learned to break projects into manageable bits and write them on a day planner so I can see progress. If it is all swirly in my head, I get confuddled and make mistakes. I also have a stressor on a subconcious level. Therefore, writing it down takes the stress away.
Meditation is another way that I relieve stress. Even if you do it for five minute increments throughout the day, it helps you focus on your breathing, lowering your heart rate and becoming in tune to the world around you. I have visualized a dark crevice and go there, feeling and being one with the world even if for a bit. Amazingly refreshing.
I try to avoid toxic people or snarky threads cus I get sucked into those always. I am a wet paint toucher. I find that not letting my expectations exceed my limitations helps as well. "an unexamined life is not worth living" is a truth I believe in. I know that today is going to be my past tomorrow and I will not get it back. How do I want to spend those precious 24 hours?
Sales are important, but not to the point that I cannot create. I have spent more time lately promoting and working with others than I have in solitude with my gems and metals. I am planning on spending more time with that and listing ( I go in spurts) Unpacking my studio after the move, I was so excited touching the stones .... that is sad that I have neglected my friends. They give me purpose and comfort in creating. So that is what I focus on in these times.
So how do you deal with it?
So whats a gal to do? I prefer to continue to work until I am so exhausted I bite everyone's head off or fall into exhaustion. I realised last year this was not the way to handle it ( for me) It may work for you though heheh.
I have learned to break projects into manageable bits and write them on a day planner so I can see progress. If it is all swirly in my head, I get confuddled and make mistakes. I also have a stressor on a subconcious level. Therefore, writing it down takes the stress away.
Meditation is another way that I relieve stress. Even if you do it for five minute increments throughout the day, it helps you focus on your breathing, lowering your heart rate and becoming in tune to the world around you. I have visualized a dark crevice and go there, feeling and being one with the world even if for a bit. Amazingly refreshing.
I try to avoid toxic people or snarky threads cus I get sucked into those always. I am a wet paint toucher. I find that not letting my expectations exceed my limitations helps as well. "an unexamined life is not worth living" is a truth I believe in. I know that today is going to be my past tomorrow and I will not get it back. How do I want to spend those precious 24 hours?
Sales are important, but not to the point that I cannot create. I have spent more time lately promoting and working with others than I have in solitude with my gems and metals. I am planning on spending more time with that and listing ( I go in spurts) Unpacking my studio after the move, I was so excited touching the stones .... that is sad that I have neglected my friends. They give me purpose and comfort in creating. So that is what I focus on in these times.
So how do you deal with it?
Monday, November 29, 2010
Thursday, November 18, 2010
More New Members! Welcome!
This is so exciting! More new members to our Texas ArtFire Guild!
1. Roxy And Things - Roxy says: "I provide handmade, handcrafted, bridal, custom, vintage and vintage redesigned pieces to customers like you. All of my jewelry arrives at your door in special packaging, whether a gift for yourself or someone else."
3. Dougal's Doo-Rags - Bio reads "My dogs love their bandanas, and soon people noticed the cool patterns and fabrics. I started making them for neighbors, friends and co-workers, and now I make them for you! I also make catnip pillows, using organic catnip. Kitties like to huggle the pillow while on a nip trip."
4. Sonora Kay's Creations - Bio reads "I have been weaving dream catchers for about 10 years now, of all shapes and sizes. I also make jewelry from hemp, and I have recently taken up playing with beads and wire, which have been incorporated into my designs.
The dream catcher earrings and pendants are all hand woven with beading thread. I have been creating and selling my work for close to a decade now at craft shows, consignment shops, online, and by word of mouth."
1. Roxy And Things - Roxy says: "I provide handmade, handcrafted, bridal, custom, vintage and vintage redesigned pieces to customers like you. All of my jewelry arrives at your door in special packaging, whether a gift for yourself or someone else."
Checkout these beautiful 14kt Gold Filled Earrings with Chunky Adventurine!
How about this one - Glass and Gemstone Multi-strand Neclace!
I absolutely love your 'torso' display! I want one of those!
Lovely - Sterling Silver Breathe Bracelet!
2. Polkadot Toadstool - Cherie says "My art is mostly in creating of characters in the form of art dolls, fantasy, or anything else I feel inspired to give a personality to:-) Recently I also started making miniatures."
Ohoo, how lovely - Dollhouse Doll Miniature Child in 1:12 scale one inch scale
So pretty - Fairy Queen or Goddess necklace in tan with some sparkles
Oh, no, the space aliens are here! Miniature Space Alien in his spacecraft
What a cutie this one is (dog and bandana)! Snowflake Dog Bandana with easy Velcro close
My cat would love these! 5 Animal Print Catnip Pillows
Love this one! Patriotic Flag Dog Bandana with east Velcro Close
The dream catcher earrings and pendants are all hand woven with beading thread. I have been creating and selling my work for close to a decade now at craft shows, consignment shops, online, and by word of mouth."
These are so beautiful! Holiday Pearl Necklace
Picked one I would love to own! Antiqued Copper Earrings with Green Accents OOAK
Wire Dream Catcher Earrings
Well, I picked all the ones I want, now you go visit their shops and pick the ones you want! Have fun visiting and be sure to add their studios to your Market. And tweet those items you really love!
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