Time to clay and garden...

     I found some time to clay again and I already fixed my schedule. It's house work in the morning then claying in the afternoon. It's easier for me to work in the garden when Austin's awake compared to claying in the craft room. When he's with  me while I'm claying, it is just chaos!! haha He opens all my boxes not just the ones with big items he can play with but he targets the ones with small beads that are really hard to fix after.  But when I'm working out in the garden, he just stays beside me and plays with whatever rock, plant or worm (?!) he finds. He sleeps in the afternoon now after we pick up my eldest so it's perfect timing! I can clay all I want while  he is asleep and I can also help my other son do his homework without someone getting the pencil that he's writing with. :)

     Here are some of the new jewellery I made. Mostly earrings because I am still working on new necklaces and lockets. If you fancy a pair, they are listed in my etsy shop already.  Here's the link to my etsy: https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/RockyBeads

     The hubby and I have been busy fixing the front lawn. In my last post, I shared to you about the middle part of it and during that time we still didn't know what to do with it.  We finally decided to plant a cycad (low maintenance and easy to grow) and add some rocks to the side of it. Here are the before and after photos.

before

After

    Yesterday, the cat who frequents are front lawn decided to grace it with it's presence! It decided to poo there. LOL!

    That's it for now. I hope you had a good month. It's going to be April soon and school holidays are a few weeks away. Until my next post! :)

Some more gardening stories...

Hello! I'm back! Trying to keep my promise to write  more.

So what  have I been doing? I haven't clayed the past days. I am still busy fixing the garden. I want to finish it first before I clay again. I've been cutting and cutting and cutting and cutting all the trees and branches not needed in the garden. So far the sun can already shine through some parts. A lot of dried leaves to rake so that the soil can be seen and will be dried under the sun.

We bought a ladder so that we can reach some of the branches that already shoot up higher than the house. It was delivered today! Very fast! I bought it online from ladders4u last Tuesday. I happily used it awhile ago to clean the gutter of the pergola. It was already clogged with leaves. So no more overflow now.

Hanging plants add joy to the garden! If only they can flower all year. :)

This is in front of the house. It was full of plants before. Flowering ones and succulents but they were already overgrown and not really good to look at. And I think I can't save them anymore. So I decided to just clean it up ( it was no easy task!) and will eventually plant an agave in the middle then rocks/pebbles will be put on around it.

That's it for now! Time for me to rest this aching body! I forgot to mention that gardening is like working out in the gym! Oh my! :)

It's 2017!!

Ok, I admit I've been a bad blogger! I've neglected this blog. I'm not really a writer so putting my thoughts into writing is a bit hard for me. Sharing RockyBeads updates through instagram and facebook is the easiest for me because one or two liners work!  haha But here I am again trying to resurrect theclayingmommy blog. So bear with me if my writing is just blah blah blah. I will try my best to make it interesting.

Let's have a rundown of the events these past two years. I'm still a stay at home mum to my boys. Still busy with the toddler and when he's big enough to go to school, it would be time for me to go back to work again. So for the meantime, it's back to RockyBeads for me. I just went back to full time claying last year. I made a few orders mostly family portraits. Here are some of the finished pieces...

 I've been busy updating my etsy shop also. I joined an etsy market too and it was so fun. I also joined Handmade Alchemy. I took this info about our group from fb - "Alchemy can be defined as a seemingly magical process of transformation &/or creation. This magical process of transformation and creation is the perfect way to describe what you'll find from our talented Australian artists in the form of polymer clay and metal components for jewellery makers, craft and mixed media artistry. Essentially we are a marketplace group where you can buy handmade beads and/or components to use in your own creations. Our Australian sellers have been invited to sell their work via showcases because they create with a unique style, use excellent technique and strive for a high-level of craftsmanship in either polymer clay, metal or both mediums."   So if you are looking for unique components to use in your jewellery, head on to our group in fb. It's a fun group to belong to. I am planning of having another showcase soon. Here are some samples of the polymer clay components I made and sold there..

And to end 2016 in a high note, we moved from Sydney to the Central Coast.  I think I can already say that we're finally settled at our new home. Busy with fixing the house and exploring the Coast. I thought of writing again in this blog because I want to share with you not only my adventures in claying but also our (me and hubby) fun but tiring shenanigans in fixing our home. We've been busy fixing the garden. Lots of weeding and cleaning to do. I feel so fulfilled that I was able to clean one side yesterday. I didn't really expect that gardening would be so fun and relaxing...just like claying! Here are some photos of our garden (still have a lot to to but taking it one day at a time)...

Cut a lot of branches so that the lemon tree will have some sun. I can't wait for the lemons to turn yellow! :)

Adding mulch and sand is next in line.

I repotted some plants and transferred the Jade plants from the back of the house to this part of the garden. We added some hanging plants too! 

I hope you could join me this year and I also hope that I will be faithful in updating this blog! Let's have a wonderful 2017!! :)

Sketches for luggage tags..

I made sketches for two orders of  luggage tags. I'm excited to work on them. Thinking of using vibrant colors for both. I hope they will turn out nice. I will post WIP photos. 

front

back of the tag

front 

back

A Baptismal Gift...

Happy Easter!! I hope everyone had a very solemn and relaxed holy week. We just stayed at home because it was a very rainy Friday and Saturday. But thank God, it was a sunny Sunday! It was a Happy Easter indeed. :) 

I wasn't able to make two jewelry pieces this week because I had to finish a baptismal gift. I decided to make a personalized picture frame. I was supposed to use air dry clay for the letters of her name but when I was trying to position the letters on the frame, they didn't look nice. So at the last minute (as in the night before! haha!), I gave up and just used polymer clay. No regrets because it came out just the way I pictured it. 

Here are the details of the frame:

the meaning of Eunah

added some details at the sides of the frame using a stamp and acrylic paint

used the martha stewart letter push mould for the name

I love seeing the styled photos in instagram and decided to try it out. This is what I came up with. I think I will do this  with the new pieces that I will be posting. 

 For this coming week, I will work on two new pieces and a family portrait. I hope my two boys will let me finish something haha! Wishing you a good week ahead!:)