Full Circle ~ Self Care and Creative Windows

Getting back into the swing of things this week. Working on my next collection for spring and summer. Trying to focus more on self care. I often struggle with that last one. I'm so driven to work hard and create with Tangleweeds that sometimes it feels easier to, well, just do things the easy way, which for me tends to lead to long work hours and not a lot of time for taking care of myself. But I promised myself I'd truly make an effort to take better care of myself this year. I'm starting small: daily meditation (even if it's just in the car during my drives from Vallejo to Oakland and back), flossing (and making an appointment for a teeth cleaning), and stretching - all daily. 

Above, assorted photos from the Seattle tradeshow and work in progress. Also, I got a rolling mill last week and I couldn't be more thrilled. It's seriously helping to streamline a huge chunk of my production along with opening up some new creative doors. I'll post more about the mill once I really get crankin' with it!

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Below: Some pieces that shipped out to one of my new stockists in Seattle.
+ 
worktable explosion as I work on my next collection

Ahh, Thursday. My favorite day of the week. Seriously, for the longest time it's been my favorite. Two of my favorite radio shows are on on Thursdays (one about herbalism and one about astrology and activism), and in general there's just something in the air that makes me love this particular day of the week. Today I'm working from home, but I'm also going to take some time out to go see a movie all by myself, one of my absolute favorite things to do! I think I'm going to go see La La Land.

Enjoy your Thursday everyone!

P.S. Next Tuesday my first Creative Tenacity post will go up here. I'm touching on some of the most salient advice I was offered when I was first starting out, and why it took me a while to realize I needed to take the advice offered. I hope you'll join me here for a good read.

The First Day of Spring : Tangleweeds Open Studio

Happy new week to everyone! I'm dropping in here this morning to mention that I am now planning my next open studio. I'm going to be celebrating the first day of spring, on March 20th, with this event! More details to come soon, check our events page or Instagram for the latest info. 

My last open studio event, in November of last year, was such a great time. I loved that I was really able to spend much more one-on-one time with my customers, helping them (you guys!) to make jewelry shopping decisions for gifts for loved ones and gifts for yourself. 

I'm greatly looking forward to the next one and hope to see many of you wonderful folks there!

Full Circle ~ New Fairs and New Plans

Ahh, the summer. I love the summer. I love the warm weather and just the all-around feeling of "summer break." Except as an adult it's not really summer "break", is it?! 

The other day I sat down to plan out my working schedule for the rest of June and all of July and I couldn't believe how chock-a-block full it is! While I'm feeling pretty good about Tangleweeds' trajectory this year, the feeling of overwhelm does creep in sometimes. But this summer, I'm attempting to take the reigns on my time a bit more, hence the scheduling for the next month and a half. The goal: work my booty off through July and then lay low (or lowish) for the month of August. I feel like it'll be good timing too 'cause it'll allow me to re-charge my batteries before the lead-up to the holidays really gets into full swing. 

Above, components for earrings. All hand-forged!

And, below, a booth shot from a couple weekends back at the Fairfax Festival. That was my first time taking Tangleweeds to that event, and it was a great one! The second photo down shows a woman using my River Rock Lariat design as a sunglasses holder. I really like her ingenuity with this design. It's also a fun little pre-cursor to some future eyeglass lanyard designs that will be coming out in the fall for Tangleweeds!

Above, some gorgeous calendula flowers I picked up at the farmer's market near my studio. 

As you can imagine, I've been spending quite a lot of time at my studio lately: whether it be working on new designs for fall (see last photo) or catching up on paperwork, or creating multiples of the popular Tangleweeds designs, there's always so much to do. I've put quite a bit of effort into making my studio feel like a second home this year, and it's paid off. While it's not a huge space, it is a space that I am excited to arrive at every morning and a bit wistful to leave at the end of every day. The two photos directly below shows different sections of my studio.

Well, it's back to the workbench for me! Any local folks looking to grab a great deal on OOAK and discontinued Tangleweeds pieces should head on out to the Treasure Island Flea this weekend. I'm going to have lots of theses pieces discounted up to 50% off! Hope to see some friendly faces =)