"breaking" news - pandemic activity

Late in the afternoon on 27 Mar 2020, I broke my arm. We were at the end of the second week of self-isolation in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Craftroom Transformation: Ink Pad Storage using Tjena packaging

I used a Tjena box from Ikea and the packaging from the box and another Tjena to make a storage rack for my Distress Oxide pads for under $5 Canadian and it fits in the space I have for it.

Craftroom Transformation: Kitty Stamp Storage, foam stamping, coloured pencil

As part of my Craftroom transformation, I decided I wanted to have decorated boxes for my stamps and other things. For my first decorated box, I painted a small Tjena box from Ikea and added a Kraftin' Kimmie stamp coloured with pencil. Rather fitting for a box with Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps.

Craftroom Transformation: Phase I - Painting

I've been thinking about paint colours for months and months and months. I finally decided on shades of green

This is the second post in my series about my craftroom. The Introduction post shows the rooms I am working in how I made the decision to transform my craftspace from one small room into a much larger room.

Craftroom Transformation: Introduction - The Tale of Two Rooms

My crafting space was cramped and messy and impossible to add anything more. I decided, as a birthday gift for myself, to make a change.

To keep the post size manageable, this is going to take a few posts to go through the tale of how I go from this above to the new craftspace (that I am still working on as I write this *laugh*)

InLinkz Project Manager changing to LinkDeli

I hate doing a wall of text post.. but..

I currently make zero from my blogging and pretty much close to that for the stuff I create. I occasionally do sell some items, but not even close to a level that would 'pay back' what I invest in supplies let alone the time. My goal has been to build a way to transition to full time creative when I am financially able to retire from my current employment.


So, what's changed? One of the online tools I use on the blog, one of the tools to help with the professional appearance, InLinkz is drastically changing its 'project manager' with a MASSIVE increase in price. I don't have affiliates (frankly, I haven't spent the time to seek them) and I know I don't have a large regular following either here or my blog (and haven't spent huge amounts of time cultivating that either). The price is going from $5/mo to $45/mo to keep some of the current functionality I use. The cheapest pricing is $15/mo but I would lose a couple features which I find important: being able to edit a listing so the 'mouse over' name on it is something relevant and concise and not a paragraph wall-o-text that completely obscures both the product and and the maker and the html links for the blog posts. I currently use InLinkz Product Manager for the Supply lists in my blogs, the little pictures of the products. (I'm not even sure what the usefulness of the $15/mo version is, other than a stripped down semi-Evernote-ish type product list. Evernote is far more useful and far cheaper.)


While I agree they can charge whatever they feel is necessary for their product, this utterly prices me out of using it past my current subscription (I still have over 100 days and can't find any information on how they're transitioning -that-).


So, my choices.. I can go back to creating my own links and even do so with my own a thumbnail images, but, while I do know html and image editing, this is something that would add a massive time burden to my blog posting, even if it's just text links it will add a massive time sink. I can look for a different product that does a visual product list for blog links. I can "suck it up, buttercup" and accept the massive price increase as the cost of building my possible future. I can give up blogging. I can try to monetise my blogging sooner than I am ready to (monetising it would come with added time commitments and requirements, something I don't always have while I work a 'day job'). None of these, especially the giving up blogging, is very attractive. I don't intend to give up blogging but I might have to reduce how much creative I do because of this.


I know I'm not the only one in this boat. This price increase is pretty insane.

(Reposted from my Facebook page for Rijacki Design.)

Sheepski Designs DT application

My nom-di-plume is Rijacki, a name I've been using online and for my creative side for more than a decade. It's a round about reference to my 'day' name, Kate (or Kathrine, as it says on my birth certificate). Rijacki is, as I have been told, Macedonian for Shrew (which is also why I use a shrew in my logo). One of my favourite plays by Shakespeare is Taming of the Shrew. The Shrew in the play is named Katharine or Kate (the bonniest Kate in Christendom). And... so Rijacki is a reference to Kate and also an example of how I link things.

I've done many creative things in my life: costuming, jewelry making, figureen painting, resin creations, and, as I'm sure you can guess, writing. But never any purely creative endeavor as a full time occupation.

I currently am on one design team as a "resinista" writing occasional paid freelance tutorial articles for Resin Obsession (byline Kate "Rijacki" Ledum). Some examples:

• Cookie Cutters as Resin Molds
• Resin Coasters

I actually got into papercrafting because of my resin-ating and jewelry making. I got a Big Shot a bit over a year ago.. and then started playing with paper. Several months ago I tried using a waterbrush with Distress Ink and fell headlong into the medium that most resonates with me for colouring. I do not own any Copic markers. The only alcohol markers I have are Chameleons. I like them, but.. once I started working with water medium they started gathering dust. A few months ago I figured out how to work with digis using water medium and started gleefully adding digis to my stash.

I like mixing up the mediums, digi with physical with die cuts with whatever seems the right thing to fit in the project. My style does tend to be more CAS without an abundance of embellishments, though occasionally shabby chic is what a particular project begs to be (and so I follow it). In papercrafting, I mostly make cards but sometimes a larger project decides to compel me.

By day, or rather when I am not creating, I do software testing on industrial router-like products that use cellular data communication for WAN (and more recently WiFi and Ethernet). I've been working with this product line for over a decade, almost as long as I have been using the name Rijacki. The company I work for, Sierra Wireless, is why I am living in Canada. Over four years ago, they closed the office near San Francisco, and offered to move me to the home office in the Vancouver area. I was born in Washington state, so moving here was moving home. I am a US citizen who is a permanent resident in BC, Canada.

I have a BA in history. Both my creative knowledge and my technical knowledge are almost entirely self-taught. I love experimenting and troubleshooting (figuring out how to break things or how they got broken) in nearly equal measures. In many ways, they're similar. Decades ago, mostly when I lived in Germany, I used to do medieval style Illumination and mix my own paints using researched techniques. It's some of those techniques with added marker techniques I have recently explored that I use to colour/paint digi and stamped images. I'm still expanding my abilities and experimenting with techniques I remember but haven't used in years. The one medium I don't like using is anything with oils mostly because the smell disagrees with me horribly.

And now that I have gone on far too long.. well. this is me. I like writing, teaching, exploring new things, exploring new creative techniques, mixing techniques and mediums from a variety of sources. I'm not very good at drawing (which is why I like digis and stamps *laugh*) but have been getting better, again, at painting.

Sheepski Design image printed on vellum and painted with Distress Ink and waterbrush. Elizabeth Craft Design - Way With Words die cut in two colours slightly offset for a shadow.

Happy New Year! The snow this morning in the view from my workshop was absolutely magical!

My goals for the new year:

I don't like making "resolutions" but making goals at the start of a new year can give one purpose of thought and direction. They're goals. They're not "I must do this" or "I should do this", but "I would like do this". If I don't manage to achieve them all, no guilt, move on, re-assess, it might not have been the time for it or it might not even be the right goal.

Continue to improve my colouring/painting and expand my abilities

1. Continue entering challenges: These have been helping to expand and push my abilities because it gives me a purpose, direction, and, yes, even a challenge to think in a different direction to meet a criteria I might not have thought about before.
2. Continue documenting my projects (i.e. written blogging): I have found that writing about how I made things after I made them, seeing them after they've been made in the photos I took through the process, helps me to see what works and what I need to improve on.
3. Watch the Kit and Clowder videos I've been collecting. I only have a few stacked up, and keep planning to watch them but get side-tracked by projects I am creating *laugh*. But #2 is part of #1 *grin* 
4. Watch more videos (or read technique books and blogs) on watercolour painting that's unrelated to cardmaking/scrapbooking to continue to expand my painting skills.
5. Continue to get braver about trying new media, new card folds, integrating more mix into my media. 
6. Work on bigger canvases more often. 

Blogging

1. Continue to write and write and write. (I have always loved to write and even planned to be a writer when I was in school. Even the college degree I have was with that in mind.)
2. Write about more than just card projects (which also means doing more than just cards or paper projects *grin*).
3. Do some specific technique related pages (card and other).
4. Find and obtain a new camera to replace the one which stopped working months ago. The old camera works but it's an utter pain to not have a way to connect it directly to the laptop and use a mouse for the shutter clicks as well as only having the tiny view finder and only automatic focus, etc. 

Start doing videos.

1. Build a rig/tripod set-up that is stable, puts the camera in the best spot, and doesn't cost much.
2. Don't put it off and wait until getting a video camera to fit in my budget. This means I'll have to start with my cell phone and also means I will need to build the rig to potentially accommodate both.

Make more time for a wider variety of mixed media 

1. Use the supplies and tools I have for the other media! I got "side tracked" by paper the last few months mostly because paper is easier to just start doing stuff vs set-up/clean-up time on some of the other media.
2. Stop fearing the fire! I have tools (and supplies) for metal clay, soldering, glass fusing, and other similar hot stuff. I got the tools and supplies when I found amazing sales or had a gift card.
3. Do more resin! I love working with resin, I really do. I have a pretty wonderful stash of molds and things. I need to just do more with them.

Sell stuff

1. Get a sales site going, again... Etsy is too expensive unless you're actually making sales but the work of promoting to get those sales is tough with a full time job and time for creating. Square Market might still be regional, but they did add online selling to the Canada Square so I might look into that again. 
2. Look at local markets and fairs (again) and add one or two if the budget can fit it (there are fees and equipment requirements).

What are your goals?

View from the Workshop - First snow

I woke up to snowfall today. This is the first snow of the winter here. We don't get much snow here in the Vancouver, BC, area, less than I would really like.

My sweetie took our cat, Scout, outside for a bit (he's harness and leash trained and likes going on walks, the cat not my sweetie *smirk*). Scout was trying to catch the falling snowflakes like he does bubbles. But he was getting cold and wet and isn't too fond of either (but not adverse to them) so he wasn't out too long.

I drove into the day job and am enjoying the fall of snow from the window at my desk. The drive was mucky and took 3x as long as normal, but I survived and made it to the office. I have a SMART with the same tires on it that were there when we bought it in California yet I have fewer problems driving in snow than many who live here *laugh* I will, though, take my work laptop home tonight and work from home tomorrow if it continues all day or gets icy over night (a co-worker mentioned a forcast of -6 C overnight, eeep). I really just want to sit and watch the snow. I wish it would snow on a weekend *wistful sigh*

What the weather like in your neck of the woods?