Thursday 28 August 2014

CuAl6(PO4)4(OH)8·4H2O. What is this?


It being Thursday I have chosen to look at the color turquoise.I love this bright vibrant color that is neither blue or green.
It brings to mind what I imagine is the sea around Greece and it is also an iconic stone in Native American jewelry.
As always I used, http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com
Turquoise helps to open the lines of communication between the heart and the spoken word. It presents as a friendly and happy color enjoying life.
In color psychology, turquoise controls and heals the emotions creating emotional balance and stability.
A combination of blue and a small amount of yellow, it fits in on the color scale between green and blue. It radiates the peace, calm and tranquility of blue and the balance and growth of green with the uplifting energy of yellow.
This is a color that recharges our spirits during times of mental stress and tiredness, alleviating feelings of loneliness. You only have to focus on the color turquoise, to be ready to face the world again!
It is a great color to have around you, particularly in an emergency, as it helps with clear thinking and decision-making. It assists in the development of organizational and management skills. It influences rather than preaching and demanding.
This is a good color to aid concentration and clarity of thought for public speakers as it calms the nervous system, gives control over speech and expression, and builds confidence. Print your speech notes on turquoise and every time you glance down you will feel the effects of the color.

Turquoise encourages inner healing through its ability to enhance empathy and caring. 
It is a good color to use when you are stuck in a rut and don't know which way to move.

Too much of this color in your life may give you an overactive mind and create emotional imbalance, making you either over-emotional or non-emotional.
Too little turquoise in your life may cause you to withhold your emotions, resulting in secrecy and confusion about your direction in life.
From a negative perspective, the meaning of the color turquoise relates to being either over-emotional or non-emotional, lacking communication skills, being unreliable and deceptive.

  • If this is your favorite color, you are probably friendly and approachable, easy to communicate with.
  • You are compassionate, empathetic and caring.
  • You have a heightened sense of creativity and sensitivity.
  • You speak from the heart and love sharing your inner most thoughts.
  • As a personality color turquoise you usually have highly developed intuitive abilities.
  • You seek spiritual fulfillment, and you are often an evolved or 'old' soul.
  • Although presenting a cool and calm exterior, and appearing to be stable and balanced, beneath the surface you may be in chaos, on an emotional roller coaster ride.
  • With a personality color turquoise, you are self-sufficient, with good self esteem and an ability to love and care for yourself.
  • You are a clear thinker and good decision maker.
  • You have good organizational and management skills.
  • With a personality color turquoise, you make a good boss, as you tend to influence others rather than be bossy and demanding.
  • You are confident and find public speaking to be easy - with your ability to focus and concentrate on the most important things and your capacity for clarity of thought, communication comes easy to you.
  • You are good at multi-tasking - focusing on one thing at a time bores you.
  • You have strong powers of perception and can be selective and discerning, balancing the pros and cons of any situation, then identifying the best way forward.
  • Your thinking can become scattered at times, particularly when you try to accomplish too much at once. This can overtire you and you become emotionally out of balance.
  • You can be self-centered, tuning in to your own needs to the exclusion of the needs of others.
  • You can be boastful and narcissistic, appearing egotistical and conceited.
  • You fear being alone and can become aloof and unapproachable when this occurs, making the situation even worse.
  • You can be impractical and idealistic with an overactive mind creating emotional imbalance - you need turquoise to bring you back into balance.
  • If operating from a negative perspective, you may lack communication skills, have difficulty in expressing yourself, including your emotions, be unreliable and deceptive, have creative blocks, or be either over emotional or non-emotional.
  • You may be naturally drawn to turquoise when you are suffering emotional stress as it is the color that controls and heals the emotions - this may be a temporary choice of a favorite color turquoise.
Here are some turquoise items from Adiesdesigns.












Tuesday 26 August 2014

Off to market.... nearly

It is a busy week ahead as I am trying to get ready for the Huddle Park Craft market here in Johannesburg on the 7th of September. Lots of beading to do and jewelry to make.
I am trying to make a men's range of jewelry. Here is a small sample.


I have also made a few other pieces for market.


 And my daughter found multi-colored cord to make a gift for her friends Bat Mitzva (girl of 12). She is very excited to give something that she has made.

I am happy to say that I have reached a total of 70 people reading my blog, I feel great.
I also now understand why you can't get your blog sponsored unless you have been at it for 1 year. It takes commitment to blog regularly and A COMPUTER THAT WORKS!!!!!!!!!
So this is a very short blog today as my computer has become South African and is on a go slow/strike and only works intermittently. I will try again tomorrow.
I wonder what color I should look at tomorrow?

Sunday 24 August 2014

I found it!....maybe

I finally found a craft market that doesn't expect me to take a stall every single week! The new Huddle Park craft market.
I have been looking for a craft market for my jewelry for a while now, but every one I called said either they had enough jewelry sellers or that I had to take a stall for a month. Finally I heard about a new one, with the added bonus of being close to home, the newly revamped Huddle Park golf and recreation center, so I gave them a call, and spoke to a lady who said send pictures of your stuff, which I did and she called back a while later for me to book.  So Adiesdesigns will be at the Huddle Park craft market from 11am - 4 pm on the 7th September, for all the people in Johannesburg.

Now I need to make some more jewelry to fill the table at the market, as well as complete my inventory ( I got lazy).
With my online store I don't get local business as I think South Africans are still reluctant to shop online and I also think the fact that the prices are in $ scares them away, so here is my opportunity to capture a local market.

This is some a taste of what to expect.
















Not much of a blog tonight as the day was absolutely exhausting at work. Keep watching for new items for my craft market day.

Friday 22 August 2014

Part-time hobby or Full time career


I have recently been looking into making Adiesdesigns more than just a hobby. It is not that I don't enjoy nursing, that is who I am at heart, it is not just my job, however I am finding working with my junior colleagues very trying and quite disheartening. To most of them nursing IS just a job and this is evident in their attitude to everything from the way they wear their uniform to their lack of patient advocacy.  They just don't seem to care about their patient anymore. I will never give up nursing totally but I might change that into my hobby and see a few patients privately or work through an agency every now and then just to keep my skills up.
Making this change is not going to happen in the next six months or even a year, but it will happen eventually.

I know there are a lot of people who have made the transition in turning their hobby into a career. Etsy is full of these successful people and their blogs talk about this move, which make interesting reading. There is a lot of research and background needed before a decision can be taken.

One of the first things is your Pro's and Con's list. This is important to see if it is to your benefit to start your own company.
Here is my list:
Pro
1. I will be my own boss! No more office politics
2.I can work the hours I want.
3.I can be available to my kids on short notice
4.I can set the rules once I am successful enough to hire employees
5. I can hire employees to do the work I find tedious, once I am successful, things like going to the Post Office to mail orders.
6. When I am successful I can decide if I want to own a physical store or stay as an online shop.
7.I can earn what I want if I am willing to work for it.
8. I will have more time to cook which I love.
9. I can still do nursing through an agency, when I want to .
10. I can take a vacation when I want, I can take time off for the Jewish Holidays and I can make appointments when I want not when my shift allows.
11. I can go shopping for beads, with money from my company and not have it interfere with my home budget.
12. I won't have to rely on others to do the work, it will be my job.

Con's
1. Until the business is earning enough for me to stop my job, I will have mad hours.
2. I must self motivate (even on days where I would prefer to hibernate- cold days)
3. No sales no income!
4.Distractions when you work from home, will need to be disciplined with my work time.

For me it looks like the pro's outweigh the con's!

I have just sent photo's of my jewelry to a craft market near me that doesn't require you to sign over all your weekends. Hopefully they will think my jewelry different enough to the two other stalls that they have and give me the go ahead. Step one in getting my stuff out there.

I didn't make anything this week, but I did find pictures of a few of the first things I ever made and sold.








Thursday 21 August 2014

Purple Haze


It's Thursday so it is color day and for today I researched the colour Purple. Today's blog was once again researched on http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com

Now I have had some difficulty with this colour as to me purple and violet are the same, so I found this picture that shows what the difference is, and I still think violet is light purple.(Don't tell the interior decorators).

So if your favorite color is purple or if your favorite color is violet, here is what the psychologists have to say.
This color relates to the imagination and spirituality.  It is an introspective color, allowing us to get in touch with our deeper thoughts.

The difference between violet and purple is that violet appears in the visible light spectrum, or rainbow, whereas purple is simply a mix of red and blue.
In the meaning of colors, purple and violet represent the future, the imagination and dreams, while spiritually calming the emotions.
The color violet relates to the fantasy world, and a need to escape from the practicalities of life. 

From a color psychology perspective, purple and violet promote harmony of the mind and the emotions. Violet and purple support the practice of meditation.
Violet is the color of the humanitarian, using its better judgment to do good for others. Combining wisdom and power with sensitivity and humility, violet can achieve a lot for those less fortunate.
The color purple is specifically associated with royalty and the nobility, creating an impression of luxury, wealth and extravagance.
Purple has power. It has a richness and quality to it that demands respect. Purple is ambitious and self-assured, the leader.
Too much of the color purple can promote or aggravate depression in some. It is one color that should be used extremely carefully and in small amounts by those who are vulnerable to these depressed states.

You are a gentle and free spirit. Your feelings run deep and you can be quite sensitive to hurtful comments from others, although you would never show it.

You have a peaceful and tranquil quality and a quiet dignity about you. People are drawn to your charismatic and alluring energy. You are usually introverted and may give the impression of being shy although this is not the case.
You are creative and like to be individual in most of your endeavors, including your dress and home decoration - you love the unconventional. You are idealistic, and often impractical, with a great imagination, - you tend to look at life through rose-colored glasses. You inspire others with your creative thinking and your ability to deal positively with adversity. You are very intuitive and quite psychic or at least interested in spiritual growth or the occult - you seek spiritual fulfillment. You look for the meaning of life.you are a generous giver, asking for little in return except friendship.You can be secretive. If you constantly surround yourself with too much purple you can become moody. If this is the case, balance the purple with some magenta. You dislike responsibility and have difficulty dealing with real day-to-day problems. You dislike being part of the crowd, wishing to stand apart from the mob - you like to be noticed for your individuality. You don't like to copy others and you don't like them to copy you. You are a visionary, with high ambitions, dreams and desires, and a compulsion to help humanity and to improve the planet earth. You often hold positions of power because you are visionary, but you delegate to others all the minor details that you aren't interested in.you like to have the best of everything, so you aim high.Being the free spirit you are, you love to travel to experience different cultures and meet new people. You are a good judge of character and sum others up quite quickly and accurately, although you usually see the best in everybody. Time means little to you and you are often late. You need to be careful not to take on too many projects at a time as you can become quite scattered in your thinking, resulting in stress and confusion. Meditation is a good activity for you to help you become centered and balanced. You can sometimes appear arrogant and conceited if operating from a negative perspective. You can be selfish and self-indulgent as you don't like being imposed upon by others beliefs and regulations.

Here are some purple and violet and magenta items in my shop Adiesdesigns.