The Week That Was..

The past week has been a busy one! Our eldest son has been away on school camp and his brother was lost without him, requiring lots of afterschool games from us - great fun, but jewellery had to take a back seat until after bed time meaning a few late nights this week getting ready for the upcoming Hohepa Market.

Local Etsy Get-Together... Last weekend I had the pleasure of joining the Etsy HB group's monthly meeting held at Bay Espresso Café between Napier and Hastings. There were several of us 'newbies' and it was lovely to meet the creative people behind the shop names, a couple of which I've met on-line
via Felt and Facebook too! With wide and diverse interests including textile art/clothing, knitted goods, printwork, felt art, jewellery, there was much to talk about and learn. Of course, even though we differ in our chosen creative paths, there was much commonality too - on-line selling, blogs, customer service, packaging and freight options to name a few. It was a very informative and fun meeting and I look forward to future
get-togethers, maybe even a road-trip to the next Craft 2.0!

Paua Processing...During the week I started a trial of removing the lime backing (the rough white/grey coating) from paua shells without the use of a grinder or file. Paua dust is nasty toxic stuff with a similar affect to asbestos if you're unlucky enough to inhale it, and working with it always requires a really good mask and eye-protection. Hence I've always preferred to buy the paua I work with in a tumbled and polished state ready for drilling and embellishing.

BUT, I heard about this fantastic stuff that loosens the lime off the shell and just requires a bit of chipping and rubbing to get it in a workable state. Does it work? Yes it does! These pics show several shells which have been soaked in the solution for a few days and as you can see the rich colours of the paua are visible even without me having a rub! I'll post some more pics of the work in progress when I get a chance to have another play. It's very exciting to think I'll be able to process paua almost from scratch (I draw the line at diving for and shelling the paua - I leave that part to my brother-in-law! Elvin, I hope you're planning a trip to NZ before the World Cup because I'll need some more soon!).

Website Language...I've also delved into the world of website programming speak! Frustrated at not being able to get quite the functions/layout I wanted on my blog I sought help from Jess of Bam Bam Creative (who's blog layout is super-cool). Jess pointed me in the right direction (thanks Jess!), then I spied a "Teach yourself HTML in 24 Hours" book in a work colleagues bookcase and he's kindly lent it to me for few days.

All the things I wanted fixed, I had done by the time I got to Chapter 4! Goodness knows what my website and blog will look like by the time I finish the book!!

Hohepa Fair.. And so to this weekend, which sees the annual Hohepa Country Fair. I love this event. Set in the grounds of the Clive's Hohepa community, it's a great family-orientated, organic fair with a fantastic
atmosphere and quality arts, crafts and activities. Can't wait!

Here's to another productive and busy week, hope you're all experiencing the same! - Mel x