Kadiera's Cauldron

long time, no update

2011-01-09T12:52:00.000-08:00

Have I mentioned that life with a special needs, medically fragile kid is tough? Have I mentioned that adding a full time job to that means there's not as much time as I'd like to actually do things like art?

*sigh*

I'm not generally one for resolutions, but my goal this year is 1 hour a week on art-related stuff. I'm hoping for 15 minutes a day, but I know that's not likely to always work. I'm planning to use that time to update websites, get some networking going, apply to some galleries....

.....and, *gasp* actually make some art.

We'll see how well this works....

Giveaway today - Runes!

2010-10-19T01:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome guests who are visiting as part of Mrs. B's 31 days of Halloween!

I have to admit, I don't post here quite as often as I should, but I'm hoping to improve that this fall when the weather is more conducive to working inside and making more art, rather than sitting outside here in Michigan.

Things in the works include updates to my more traditional Native American beadwork site, new runes (possibly silver and copper ones), new dream catchers, and maybe more.

So, have a look around, check out my etsy shop, say hi, and maybe head back over to Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom to enter to win a set of runes!

First sale!

2010-08-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

I made my first etsy sale today!

In the meanwhile, I've re-listed a few more things, and will hopefully be listing more pendulums in the next few days.

Pendulum charts - limited quantity

2010-08-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get a few more things relisted in the last couple of weeks, and will continue listing new and old stuff every week (I hope).

I've also listed a pendulum necklace with a pendulum chart - we developed these several years ago, and I thought they were gone, but I recently discovered some more of them. When the cards are gone, they're gone - the file to print more is lost in the ether, and I no longer have access to the CAD program I used to draw it up.

A little slow around here

2010-03-27T17:50:00.000-07:00

We've been busy packing - we had someone make an offer on our entire remaining inventory from the business, and of course, after some neegotiations, we said yes - no sense in all this stuff just sitting here.

With that in mind, I've got a few more sets of runes that I'm keeping out that still need to be listed, and after that it'll likely be a while before there are new runes - thousands and thousands of stones are already packed up to go to their new owners. I likely won't be able to pick up new stones until the return of the gem show in July - we do have a couple of mail-order sources, but they're somewhat flaky at times, and don't always have the things they claim to have in stock.

Not to worry though; I've still got plenty of jewelry to photograph and get listed. Time to do that will have to wait until everything here is packed and shipped, taxes are done, and my son gets through surgery in late April.

Posted tonight

2010-02-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

Runes, finally!

Amazonite, Apache Tears, Aquamarine, Bloodstone, Hematite, and Lapis listed tonight. More to come later this week.

Moonstone runes winner & a lack of new items

2010-02-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

@MendyLady won the moonstone runes - I'd intended to announce that earlier.

I'd also meant to get more items listed, but Acorn has been sick again. I got photos taken of more runes tonight, but just editing the photos has taken forever, so I'll try listing them tomorrow or this weekend.

Custom work and customers' choices

2010-02-08T18:11:00.000-08:00

You know, there's a part of me that loves doing custom work. I love making what other people picture in their heads into a reality.

That being said, about as often as something fabulous comes out of their suggestions, something hideous is born. This came to mind tonight as I'm working on custom dreamcatchers from my other site, http://lakotadreamcatchers.com - some of the choices are pretty typical, like black and silver or pink and white...but then you get things like brown everything, except light purple beads...

The same is true with jewelry. I once made a custom piece for someone that involved 3 weeks of back and forth with photos and scans of beads, me telling her that a gold design on a brown background was a bad idea, and her insisting that it was exactly what she wanted.....and then she returned it, because the design wasn't pronounced enough. (note: I am smarter now; custom work like that comes with a non-refundable deposit, and I'm not so anxious to have work that I will do anything, even against my better judgement)

Then again, there are the amazing pieces. The same fall that I did the gold-on-brown beadwork, I made an amazing bone choker for a woman with wire-wrapped bear claws that she'd sent me. The claws were real, and old....with a very deep, peaceful feel to them. It was the kind of custom order that I could only dream of getting, and one that I was afraid I couldn't do justice to. When I sent the necklace, though, the response made it clear that this was a far far better result than she had ever hoped for.

All that said, even I make some odd choices. Like the hot pink and turquoise dream catcher....as hideously day-glow as it was, it sold the second show I put it out at. So all in all, I guess there's no accounting for taste, and I hope my customers like what they've requested.

Grand Opening Contest #3 - better late than never

2010-01-31T18:01:00.000-08:00

This life with kids is unpredictable, really. You'd think an ear infection wouldn't be such a huge deal, but it is - we've suctioned Acorn's trach more in the last 2 days than we did in the first 2 months he was home from the NICU.

That being said, here's the final contest post, late but still getting posted. This one will run through Friday at noon.

Up for grabs is a lovely 4" x 4" ceramic art tile by Sarah Pauline.

In my former life as a business person, a large part of what we did was licensing fantasy and Pagan artwork. It was fun, we worked with a lot of fabulous artists...but it was also a very time consuming sort of gig. This is one tile still left in our inventory - things with Acorn happened so quickly that we never got around to having a proper going out of business sale.

These tiles are made with a digital transfer process, providing fabulous detail in the final product. They're not heat safe, so don't use this as a charcoal holder, but it'd look lovely hanging on your wall, or on a stand on your favorite Bast altar.

Want to win them? Follow the instructions below, and I'll use random.org to choose a winner:

First, post a comment telling me anything. Make sure you leave me your email address so I can contact you, or that I can read it on your profile.

For additional entries, make a separate comment for each entry:

1. Become a follower of this blog, or add my feed to your favorite RSS reader. Post a comment telling me you're a follower of the blog.

2. Subscribe to my newsletter. Post a comment telling me you're subscribed.

3. Follow me on Twitter. Comment with your @ and tell me that you're following me

4. Post a comment on any other post on this blog, and then come back here and post a comment telling me you did.

5. Tweet about this contest (no more than one tweet per 12 hours) and post a comment here with the permalink.

6. Heart my Etsy shop

Grand Opening Contest #2 - Moonstone Runes

2010-01-30T17:37:00.000-08:00

I'm one of those people who just doesn't get tarot. When I discovered that I could read runes, I had to try out various different materials and types to try to figure out if it made a difference in my readings.

Over the years, I've made runes out of everything from glass to plain stones picked up from the yard to polymer clay to emeralds and silver topaz - so if there's something special you've been looking for that you haven't been able to locate anywhere, I can probably make it for you.

Up for grabs in this auction is this set of moonstone runes:

Want to win them? Follow the instructions below, and I'll use random.org to choose a winner:

First, post a comment telling me either what kind of runes you wish you had, or what your favorite is. Make sure you leave me your email address so I can contact you, or that I can read it on your profile.

For additional entries:

1. Become a follower of this blog, or add my feed to your favorite RSS reader. Post a comment telling me you're a follower of the blog.

2. Subscribe to my newsletter. Post a comment telling me you're subscribed.

3. Follow me on Twitter. Comment with your @ and tell me that you're following me

4. Post a comment on any other post on this blog, and then come back here and post a comment telling me you did.

5. Tweet about this contest (no more than one tweet per 12 hours) and post a comment here with the permalink.

6. For 2 entries, make a purchase on htpp://kadiera.etsy.com and come back and comment twice to tell me about it.

I'll close this contest Tuesday at around 6 pm eastern.

Grand Opening Contest #1 - Prosperity Kit

2010-01-30T13:04:00.000-08:00

For those who aren't aware, I'm actually a published author; one of my paid writing gigs was an article on prosperity from a metaphysical perspective. The anthology is called "Manifesting Prosperity: A Wealth Magic Anthology" (and yes, that's an affiliate link and I get a few pennies from Amazon - I've already been paid for my contribution, so I don't get royalties from each copy).

Since we've all been suffering through this recession lately, money is on everyone's minds, even if you've got a job. So it seemed to me that the best way to start off a new business venture was to offer to share the prosperity around a bit.

So, our first contest for the weekend is for a prosperity kit:

These cute little kits come with 4" candles, candle holder, 4" incense sticks, incense burner, prosperity oil, a stone, and a "scroll" with instructions.

So, how do you win? Follow the instructions below, and we'll use random.org to choose a winner:

First, go over to http://kadiera.etsy.com and check out all the stuff I've got listed so far. Then come back here and leave a comment telling me what your favorite is. Make sure you leave me your email address so I can contact you, or that I can read it on your profile.

For additional entries:

1. Become a follower of this blog, or add my feed to your favorite RSS reader. Post a comment telling me you're a follower of the blog.

2. Subscribe to my newsletter. Post a comment telling me you're subscribed.

3. Follow me on Twitter. Comment with your @ and tell me that you're following me

4. Become a follower of my prayer book blog, or add the feed to your favorite RSS reader. Comment to let me know.

5. Tweet about this contest (no more than one tweet per 12 hours) and post a comment here with the permalink.

I'll close this contest Tuesday at around 6 pm eastern.

Grand Openining Specials!

2010-01-30T07:42:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our grand opening extravaganza!

I'm running a bit behind today due to a sick kiddo, so giveaways might run into tomorrow....

All orders today will receive a free gift and free shipping.

Giveaways today will include a prosperity mini-kit, a set of runes, and at least one ceramic art tile. Pictures coming this afternoon when I get back from karate

Favorite pieces

2010-01-26T17:09:00.000-08:00

I think most artists have some pieces they like better than others.

I'm pretty sure this is my favorite:

I've always loved the look of those golden beads, and the dark blue accents give it a very Egyptian feel. It probably doesn't hurt that my school's colors growing up were blue and gold :)

It's listed over at Etsy now, and I'll be listing more pieces throughout the evening, assuming Acorn cooperates. With any luck I'll be posting about this weeken's specials tomorrow.

New items in the shop

2010-01-22T19:31:00.000-08:00

Tonight's postings include dream catchers, hand blended incense, and jewelry.

There's lots more to come, but I'm in need of sleep. I haven't even gotten through all the photos I took tonight.

About Kadiera's Cauldron

2010-01-22T06:22:00.000-08:00

Kadiera's Cauldron is my little corner of the net to showcase my artwork, jewelry, and other things I've made.

Once upon a time, I thought I was going to make my living as an artist. I was young and naive, and hadn't really understood the concept of market forces :)

Over the years, I did build a successful business - as a wholesale and retail distributor of metaphysical, Pagan, and occult goods. We didn't make a huge profit, but we were widely known, carried a full line of everything a Pagan store might need, and had a large customer base.

There were two problems with this. (1) I got farther and farther away from the things that I loved - creating, designing, etc, and (2) It was a lot of work for not a lot of profit, especially given that my husband and I were both working full time on top of it.

The problems came to a head about 2 years ago. I got pregnant after 5 years of on-again-off-again fertility treatments. The prospect of having to pay for daycare caused us to decide to fire our employee (and things there were complicated anyway). Only a few short months later, we realized we could not run the business without help, and we started to shut it down.....6 weeks later, I was in the hospital, gravely ill from massive complications, and delivered our son 13 weeks early.

In some ways, it was a good thing that we had been shutting down the business. Acorn (the name I use for my son online) needed us more than we could ever have imagined, and he spent 291 days in the NICU. There is no way we could have worked our day jobs, run a business, and taken care of Acorn during that time.

So....here we are two years later. Acorn is still complicated - he has a tracheostomy, and a g-tube (though he's mostly eating on his own, and getting better at it every day). He's finally off his ventilator all the time, and we've kind of found our rhythm.

And one of the things I'm realizing is that creating is important - it's a huge part of who I am. And so is running my own business, though this time I'm focused more on selling as a side benefit - I need to make things, and there's only so much you can make and store in the house, so these creations of mine need to find homes.