Through the end of December I took some time off of work to make my family’s Christmas presents. I ended up making personalized ceramic ornaments for 34 people! It certainly gave me some needed experience in streamlining things. I have some photos of them to post soon.

In early January I was working on some ring and bangle prototypes that I’ve now pretty much worked out and will start producing soon. I had a kiln disaster right around then, too, and basically had to trash something like 50 beads, buttons and more, because I overloaded them and they all collapsed and fused together. I thought I had pictures of that too but apparently I was too traumatized to think of it.

And then, late January, when some personal tragedy struck I pretty much took off working for a few weeks. It’s weird…like, no matter what happens to the individuals in most businesses, even small ones, everything still can continue. But when it’s just one person and the whole thing is dependent on that person being creative and productive, the actual output is such a kind of tenuous thing, prone to hazards and whims…

Right now I am still trying to get back in the swing of things: catch up on my Flickr pictures, make more stuff, glaze even more stuff, take photos…the whole lot. Which right now all still feels a little overwhelming.