Friday, February 12, 2010

What a Week!

Amazing things happen when tragedy strikes. It is often a time of learning about peoples real nature, for better or worse.

So far I have seen a bit of both. The initial interest when I say I make beads, that quickly turns into a quick change of subject when I mention what I am doing, with some people. But I am pleased to say that is the minority! The nicer, & certainly more generous reactions, certainly rule out the apathetic attitude of others.

First of all, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to the lovely guys at GafferGlass in Auckland, & feeling brave I told John what I was doing & asked if they would like to donate a few rods of glass. He agreed & told me to shoot them an email with a list of colours that I would like.
Darn it, that involved me making a decision! Now don't get me wrong, I would have been happy to just work with whatever they felt like sending. I wasn't expecting to be offered a choice, & lets face it narrowing it down to a few colours out of Gaffers outstanding palette isn't the easiest thing for a glass addict that needs a twelve step program, to do!

I decided to make it easy on myself & fill in the few blanks of Gaffer colours that I didn't have in my possession, along with some transparents & finally submitted my list yesterday. I cant wait until next week when it arrives & I have some new colours to play with.

My local cafe, Ris'tretto recently offered to put some of the hearts in there to see how they would go. Given that they roast & brew only 'Fair Trade' coffee, it seemed kind of fitting & the perfect type of establishment for this sort of thing to go in.


Of course this involved me coming up with a new way of presenting them, since there dont appear to be many designers locally.
I needed to come up with something that was ready to wear, that wasn't going to add too much in the way of cost to the hearts. Waxed cord with adjustable slip knots seemed to be the best option.

The local search (somewhat restricted) for a nice quality decent thickness of waxed cord led to another pleasant encounter. I found the type of cord I was looking for at "The Bead Shop". It was somewhat more than I wanted to spend per meter & I explained to the lovely lady helping me what I was doing & why I was hesitant to have to add to the price of the hearts. She gave me a substantial discount. I was thrilled as it meant that I could keep the pricing of the hearts the same across the board.


The week was rounded off nicely when, this morning, I made my first deposit of the money raised, across to World Vision. I can't even begin to describe how good this felt.

No beads to show today, but I will leave you with an image of what I came up with as far as packaging & display for the cafe.




2 comments:

Manuela said...

Dear Deb,

I am so impressed about what you´re doing and it is so great to hear that you have found supporting people in your area.
Thanks for taking your time and visiting my blog - you must be very busy and this is so much appreciated by me.
Sending money directly was my choice of helping Haitian people but now, I think that your way is the better way because you can talk to people and perhaps make them think about how they could help too.
Have a wonderful weekend,

♥ Manuela

rosebud101 said...

Glad to see that you are still busy with your help for Haiti. I like the way you packaged your hearts. Good for you, and keep up the great work!