My Creative Space This Week...

This week I decided to make a project that was going to take me a little time and utilise a beautiful Matrix Picasso Jasper Coin focal which I've had for several months just waiting for the right setting!

Using my recently acquired 'el-cheapo every bit as good if not better that the expensive ones' pliers (you'll know about this if you follow me on Facebook!), I measured and shaped 3 frame wires.

Holding the wires and focal in place are half the battle with wire weaving - bless the wonderful person who invented painters masking tape - the kind that adheres when you need it to but also comes off with ease when you're done with it.  I also tend to use more tape than most would as I have a hand that was broken as a teenager and my fingers don't always go in the direction I intend them too!

Usually I would start at one side and weave right around to the other finishing back at the top, however this weave really requires consistency which can be lost if you don't work both sides at the same time.

I'm now about ½ way through and will post finish pics when done :)

Update: here it is!

I was ever so tempted to stop and do one of the other hundred or so designs sitting in the back of my head when these supplies arrived yesterday....

Containing - among other things - the most DIVINE hand-dyed leather cord in violet purple, pacific blue, turquoise green and black.  I have literally searched all over the on-line world for leather cord with a natural finish as opposed to the versions you most often see which look like they have a fake coating of some sort. 

I can't wait to get started using these beauties :D

Pearls - Freshwater and Saltwater - What's the difference?

There are 5 different shades of fresh water pearl in this pendant - can you spot them all?

And 5 in this one too!

I recently had an interesting conversation with a Korean stallholder friend who wanted to know the difference between fresh water and salt water pearls.  In her country, round perfect pearls are much sought after and she had not heard of the fresh water variety which are a more 'free form' or irregular shape.

Personally, I love fresh water pearls and use them a lot in my embellished paua bracelets and pendants (my Sea Garden Collection).  I marvel at the many colours you can get and their often unusual 'organic' shape and spend much time sorting through my collection to find the right 'match' for the piece I am creating.

But who can go past a gorgeous string of perfectly round, lustrous salt water pearls?!

Both Fresh water and Salt water pearls have their own unique place I say!

These are the differences between the two...

• Price - Salt water pearls are more expensive than Fresh water largely due to their 'perfect' shape and smooth texture.
• Creation - Both types of pearl are made in shellfish - where an irritant like a grain of sand is placed inside the shellfish and it secretes a smooth substance over the irritant to protect itself.  This substance is nacre or mother of pearl and the layers build up to form a pearl. 
  
  Fresh water pearls are produced in Mussels, Salt water pearls are produced in Oysters. Both types of shellfish used to create pearls are 'farmed', ie, produced and cared for in designated areas specifically for the purpose of making/harvesting pearls.
• Shape - Salt water pearls are generally a perfect round, fresh water pearls have a more bumpy potato-like shape and are referred to as off-round, egg, or Baroque.
• Colour - Fresh water pearls are often dyed to give vibrant colours and shades, in their natural state they can range from white, cream, pink, lavender and copper taking on the colours of the mussel shell.  Salt water pearls too come in a variety of colours most commonly white, cream, grey, silver.

A pearl being extracted from an Akoya Pearl Oyster - Photo courtesy Pomakis, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pearl_Oysters.jpg

A Fresh Water Pearl Mussel Shell - Photo courtesy of Tom Meijer, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl

Salt Water Pearl Farm, Seram, Indonesia - Photo courtesy Mark Richards, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pearl_farm_(Seram,_Indonesia).jpg

Undyed Fresh Water Pearls

Salt Water Pearls

So as you can see - both salt water and fresh water pearls are equally as 'real' in their composition, and it comes down to the personal preference of the buyer as to whether you like colourful, irregularly shaped and affordable freshwater pearls or the more traditional, classic round shape and colour of the salt water pearl.

What is your preference - salt or fresh?

Our Sea Week Beach Adventure

As you know, I love the beach - for lots of different reasons, none-the-least of which is the beautiful paua which lives in the sea and whose shells I use in my Sea Garden and Tidal Treasures Collections!

Every March in New Zealand, we have 'Sea Week', a time to focus on the beach/marine environment with many events around the country educating and celebrating the sea, marine creatures and beach. 

Here in Hawkes Bay, the wonderful Colin and Kim of Gannet Beach Adventures in partnership with DOC (Department of Conservation), hold a 'Beach Cleanup' using their awesome Tractor/trailers and offering their Cape Kidnappers tour at half price for  the public to join them cleaning up the stretch of beach from Clifton to the Cape which has an amazing geological history and is home to a long established Gannet colony.

This is the 2nd year my boys and I have gone with my 'bestie' and her children, and this year my hubby came too - we had a fantastic day, with lovely weather and the 4 x tractor/trailer loads of us cleaned up a huge PILE of rubbish on the way out to the Cape.

Here are a few snaps of our 5 hour adventure (we didn't climb up to the main gannet colony this year (it's a bit 'pongy' to be honest!, preferring to enjoy the beach during our lunch break instead....)

Can you spot the 9metre drop in the cliff face where you can clearly see a fault line in the 300,000 year old layers of river stone and volcanic ash? Amazing!

My youngest son and I were delighted to both find 1 million year old fossils within a few minutes of each other too - how special is that!!

Martinborough Road Trip ...

I'm a little bit in love with Picasa !  Do you use it?  So much fun for organising photos and creating collages and more and the perfect tool to make a photo summary of the weekend that was and my road trip to Wairarapa for the Martinborough Fair.

As you may have heard, the fair had to be cancelled (the 1st time in 35 years), due to the 'weather bomb' that ripped through New Zealand.

Putting aside the disappointment of missing out on this iconic event, my mum and I had a ball travelling down the day before and visiting galleries, a paua factory, driving through the beautiful countryside and walking around Martinborough which is a seriously cool boutiquey township.

We also had THE best bed and breakfast experience you can imagine with primo purpose built accommodation with other stallies staying too, and just the most lovely hostess you can imagine - she even found me gluten free muesli, how nice is that?!  It may have been pouring with rain and blowing gale force winds - but perked coffee, a warm open fire, fresh fruit and homemade jam seriously takes the edge off :D.

I'm really glad we went and I'm up for another trip as soon as the postponement date is finalised.

Now back to Picasa - I feel a new collage coming on!!

Market Preparations

Things are all go at my place as I rush to get everything ready for this weekend's Martinborough Fair.

Apart from making like crazy to get my stocks back up to a respectable level for such a huge event, I'm sharing a stall with my mother who is actually my helper but who I've insisted should be selling her paintings for her efforts too! 

We haven't had a stall together for a couple of years so had a trial setup over the weekend.  5 (yes FIVE) hours later we had a stall setup that I think will work brilliantly. 

Honestly, hanging paintings with thoughts of weatherproofing, ease of access and generally how to display was a challenge to say the least!

I'm really looking forward to a road trip with my mum, we really don't spend enough quality time together :)




Making the most of my lunch break at work (Thursday)




Casual Friday and the bracelet making continues ... notice the coke? Caffeine has now become very necessary!



Ignoring the creased table cover which bugged me the whole time! - we have a display that should work really well.

I love that my mum is inspired by so many different things.  She had to ask my son the names for the moves in her skateboarder series - funny :)