I’ve been doing a lot of crafty thinking recently and decisions are afoot.
The fuel for all this is coming to the end of my second fused glass course and wondering how I’ll cope without a glass kiln of my own!
Starter glass kilns are £500 to £600 and saving up hasn’t got me the full amount, coupled with financing my crafting becoming more challenging, I’ve decided my crafting needs to start paying for itself at least.
This has brought up many more issues to consider!
Back in 2005 I had to give up my complementary therapies practice, as energy and health wise I couldn’t run my own business and home educate my children too.
At first I found giving up my complementary therapies business very difficult, especially from a personal identity point of view. Over time though I very happily rediscovered the true me, no longer defining myself by my profession and very importantly rediscovered my love of and passion for arts and crafts
In the in between (nearly seven) years I’ve attended lots of arts and crafts courses and workshops, from paper and textile multi-media art, to mosaic and clay, various types of wet felting and most recently fused glass, along with reading lots of crafting books and doing lots of crafting sampling and experimenting.
Although I’ve always crafted since childhood, I had neglected my love of crafting for too long and it was wonderful to be able to explore it in much more depth than I ever had before and really develop my range of crafting skills.
And finally, I now feel confident and happy enough with what I am creating to consider offering my arts and crafts for sale. I have even got two local venues organised where I can sell my arts and crafts.
But I’ve had and have more challenges to face…
Lots of personal issues around balancing work with home education/family life/time to relax and to do other things I love, issues around work been hard and difficult and its effect on my health and well-being, along with financing my business – where the money could come from and uncertainty of returns (not that I will ever craft to make money!)
So I’ve done lots of journaling, healing of negative beliefs with EFT and my Health Kinesiology treatments have helped too – maybe even brought me to this place of feeling confident about offering my arts and crafts for sale!
And most importantly I know I must create for the love of creating and create what I love, never create stock to just sell!
An inspirational live interview of the wonderful Wendy and Brian Froud cemented this one in place
Finally, I’m in a place where I’m ready to take the leap, then our finances become more challenging and I have just one more major hurdle – as we are renting we have to ask our landlords permission for me to work from home and they are taking their time – 10 working days from last Thursday!
So I’ve been trying not to get too excited and reign myself back and told myself if it doesn’t happen its not the right time and I’ll cope without a glass kiln for now (I don’t think so, I love fusing glass!).
So waiting was feeling like a life time with so many mixed feelings going on, then yesterday happened…
I went along to a jewellery workshop at Bunyip Beads in Exeter, with my daughter, we had a wonderful time doing wire work to make beads into charms and created charm bracelets. I’ve so wanted to learn wire work for ages and want to learn much more
Then synchronicity took us to Opus Mosaics which has lots of lovely mosaics and fused glass pieces, fused glass and mosaic workshops and offers a glass fusing service at a very reasonable price too
So the pressure is off regarding needing a kiln so urgently and it might be a potential solution to worries our landlords may have about me running a glass kiln.
What a roller coaster of a ride!
And lots of positive thinking continues at this end, whilst I wait for our landlords decision…

























































