I’m working on revamping brochure for the campaign
And I’ve been making some presents for special people who already have everything that I could possibly buy them:
A metal cuff wrapped in ultra-suede, African turquoise in the center, mother of pearl half-moons left and right, and lots and lots of charlotte beads in black and white.
A mirror pendant wrapped in colorful beads for a lady who has found liberation in making her life and her surroundings as fabulously colorful as possible.
It was a lazy week, at least in writing. My self-imposed schedule is a “serious” post at the beginning of the week and a crafty (super serious) post at the end of the week. I let that slide this week, but I’ve been very active offline. I got more involved with the local leadership of the Circles® program, I met some Circles® leaders, took pictures, got Facebook access to the pages of the local campaign and ELTC.
Long story short, there’ll be plenty to write about soon. Oh, and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, check this page.
In other news: I haven’t been lazy. I started to learn how to sew, and I haven’t sewed a finger to a piece of fabric yet.
I’ve also made some more peyote work. I hope you get something out of these.
Tubular peyote (TP) choker, and TP wrapped around a wire ring, connected with one bigger bead (top). I have some pictures here that show how to make the wire ring.
Made this one last week, but added the snap button and some beads on top.
Use this to check your eye makeup or blind unlikable strangers! It’s a little mirror with 11º and 13º beads woven around it. plus embedded sweet water pearls.
From the top: odd-count peyote earrings (I was trying to go for a “buckled” look, diagonal peyote, and stitched leaves (basically diagonal peyote), all 11º and ~13º beads.
Well, I’m practically done. The only thing missing is a snap button the black-and white (café latte?) bracelet. The black and white beads have clean cuts on two sides, which gives them a smooth feel, and they reflect light nicely, without being overly shiny.
The purple earrings I will send on their way to a fellow-blogger in New York. Weeks ago I had a little back-and-forth comment chat with her, in the course of which I asked for her mailing address as a joke. Well, she liked me well enough to give it to me, so I will send her these as an appreciation of her trust in somebody she’s never met…
I’m thinking about giving some stuff away to a couple of bloggers (strangers!) when I launch my Etsy shop (yes, I’m a total procrastinator). In return I’d like to encourage a small donation (maybe the stamp money?) to ELTC (my volunteering gig). Does that sound like a good idea? Is that…coercive?
Last week I started to get involved in the social-media outreach of “my” non-profit, ELTC, and I can tell you that I’m pretty stoked about it. Of course I’m especially excited about the storytelling/blogging aspect :D
About Poverty As you can see in the graph above, poverty is a pressing issue of our times, although, depending on our personal living circumstances, that may sometimes be hard to believe. In Larimer County for example, which is where I currently live, about 8,000 families live in poverty. (If you’d like to see “how rich” or “how poor” your area is, check out this map.)
Soon we’ll be looking for new volunteers to produce video footage and testimonials of personal success stories, we’ll meet new people and make connections ourselves, and with a little luck we’ll be sparking attention, passion and hope, and I hope you’ll stay tuned.
I’ve been “hooked” on peyote stitch for a couple of weeks now, and below you’ll see my latest little creations. A friend of mine said they look like little flapper dancers:
The ring is brass-colored wire that I’ve had for a while. I had bought it for a different project, but it turned out to be too stiff to actually use then. If you’d like to get started with peyote, too, or if you’d even like to remake these earrings I included references and a little picture gallery for you.
Subscribe by email to find out when you can order these things for self-beautification
;-)
How to make a flapper dancer
You’ll need the following tools:
Jewelry pliers
Wire cutter
Bead tube (for shaping the wire)
Needle(s) (I use 13º, you might want to have more than one ready as they break easily)
Tiny, tiny pair of scissors.
Plus the material:
Brass-colored wire
Ear wire/ hangers
15º seed beads
Nylon thread and conditioner (or other thread, whatever you prefer).
If you’re in the Fort Collins area, I can recommend the Bead Cache on College Ave. for (lots of things but among others) their nice selection of 15º seed beads, and they also have the tools and material you might not find as easily in the big stores (thread, conditioner, needles).
If you’re getting started with peyote,this is an easy enough beginner’s tutorial.
I use odd-count peyote stitch (see end of tutorial). For this one I used 11 rows of 13 bead each before I started to reduce to seven beads for the following five rows (minus three on each side). You could use even-count peyote for this one, but if you wanted to end with a triangle and not a square-ish shape (I might do that next), you’ll have to use odd-count to be able to end in one bead and still keep the symmetry.
Wrap the wire around the tube three times (my preference). You’ll need one end to wrap around the rings for 3-4 times and the other to make the hanger and wrap around 2-4 times, so one end needs to be at least twice as long as the other before cutting the wire. Make sure you hold the loops together tightly before you slide them off of the end of the tube.
Wrap the short end around the rings for about 3-4 times (or more if you prefer). Cut if necessary. Bend up the long end to make the hanger.
Bend the wire around your pliers (round-nose pliers if you have them).
Then wrap the long end around your rings for 3-4 times.
Wrap the smaller end of the flapper around your wire ring and stitch is to the second 13-bead row from the top. Make sure the first bead of the small end is aligned with the fourth bead of the row you’re attaching it to!
This is a reflection on the poverty simulation carried out by the Education and Life Training Center (ELTC) and the Larimer County Circles Campaign late in 2012 as it was published in last week’s ELTC newsletter (yay me :). It was a very informative and educating, if not humbling, experience, and I’d like to share it with you.
***
First of all I’d like to thank all of the non-profits involved in the Circles Poverty Simulation. They did a tremendous job informing and educating us participants.
Approximately 40,000 people in Larimer County currently live in poverty.
I have to admit that I didn’t quite know what to expect from the poverty simulation. How to simulate being poor was, to be honest, beyond me.
To explain it to people who haven’t participated, I’d like to describe it as an reversed and acted out version of the game “Monopoly”. Just like “Monopoly” the simulation gives its participants an identity, tokens for money and some other belongings, a home, a car etc. The difference is that the goal is not to buy as many streets and build as many houses as possible, but to maintain a certain standard of living while circumstances (unemployment, mortgage payments etc.) make it nearly inevitable to transition into poverty.
In my case my identity was “Albert Abel”, head of a family of five who had just lost his job. We had mortgage payments to make, one car in need of repair and another that wasn’t yet paid off, and at least one of our children could have been considered “at risk”. My wife had a close-to-minimum-wage job and my unemployment benefits were about to run out.
Reversed Monopoly: four 15-minute “days” (rounds) simulating the events of four weeks.
One round of “Reversed Monopoly” consists of a 15-minute simulation representing the course of one day: my wife was absent for 8 minutes (at work), our three children for a couple of minutes less (at school), as I spend my “day” at social services trying to ensure that my family will be sheltered and fed for the worst case scenario: me not finding a job. There are no dice rolls in “Reversed Monopoly”, and every trip out of the house cost us a “transportation ticket”, which had to be bought beforehand. To get our hands on those tickets we had to pawn belongings, because we hadn’t yet received my wife’s paycheck, or because we weren’t able to cash the check.
I have to say that my “family” failed completely. At the end of the simulation, we had lost our house, none of us had eaten enough, and we were sleeping in our decrepit car.
Being poor in the US is very time-consuming and expensive.
That is my personal bottom line. Of course a simulation can’t do reality justice; reality may sometimes be less harsh, or even harsher, but I understand now that being poor, and transitioning into poverty can be a full-time job, when you’d actually like to invest time into finding a new job or give much needed care to your children.
