Bajemas Scriptorium

These are some new craft items I’ve been working on to sell at our convention and craft show stops this autumn. These keepsakes are multiple purpose items. In their beginning stages, as shown below, they’re a decorative flower swaddled in ribbon and bows that hold a mini-art print and a unique charm. The keepsakes can be kept as is to be used as decorations for such things as being tucked into the soil of a house plant, collect a few of them and put them together as a little & unique bouquet as pictured below, and whatever your creative little mind can drum up.

The flowers in the keepsakes are handmade by my aunt and she paints each using soft color stains and India inks. The sepia colored ones are the coolest. She stains them with tea and then brushes just a hint of black ink along the edges. I made the mini-art tags out of an old French book on Marie Antoinette that is falling apart. The charms are my best attempt to make metal replicas of the various insect themed scissors and skeleton keys I drew for my Etta Diem stories. They’re not perfect yet, but they’re still pretty cute. I made the keepsakes mainly as a way to package the charms and make them look spiffy. Now I’ve grown fond of the items as they are. I keep these around my work space.

I’m currently working on putting my aunt’s shop online. She makes these flowers from scratch out of coffee filters, of all things. She makes them in three sizes, sort of the three bears sizes, pappa, momma and baby bear. She also has some very stunning floral photography. I’ve been combining the photographs and the handmade flowers into different types of scrap-booking kits and gift collections. What I especially like is that she takes requests so I’ve talked her into making a variety of more somber, autumn inspired flowers. I have my “Tim Burton” bouquet she made for me –it’s a variety of black, silver and silver blue blooms wrapped up in striped papers and tied up in pretty black bows. I’m hoping we can accommodate people who fall into my style of tastes… those who really like the whole Martha Stewart projects/home decor, but who prefer darker colors and more spooky, dark Victorian and Halloween themes in their homes.

Anyhoo, it’s been quite some time since I last posted here. I’ve been trying to get some more traditional projects done and get caught up on all these ideas I have. My health has been up and down again, mostly down again this past week. It’s a tad frustrating to me. Of course, art is great therapy, as is writing and I enjoy both no matter what state of mind or ills I am. Oh, and if you like the keepsakes above we’ll mostly be selling them at actual cons and art shows, but I will be putting a few ordering options up for them on the EttaDiem.com store. I’m currently giving that site a good overhaul and better organization. Oh! And let me not forget to mention the strange but squidy cute eyeball critter in the images is a small sculpture of Myke’s. He is the tentacle master.

“The red dragon’s native tongue was fire and for every soft and seductive word he spoke to his concubines each carried a small burn. His poetry had stripped the supple skin from the first lover’s lower back, all along the line where he whispered his thoughtful words. His quiet love songs sung for the benefit of the moonlight left rippling scars along the neckline of his second lover. Each concubine over looked the pain and abuse their skin suffered, a small sacrifice each was willing to make to allow their dragon his seduction.” –The Red Dragon, (c)Bethalynne Bajema, all rights reserved.

“The Pearl Cabaret always had the very best performers in all of the territories. There was nothing exotic enough for their human zoo. There was no act so perilous that it couldn’t be given the benefit of at least one performance. Some remarked that all the dancers needed was a collar and a tag to show them off for the trained animals that they were. Any one of the dancers could have directed you to the strange bar code on the back of their necks to illustrate that they were indeed collared and the cabaret owners did indeed view them as specialized livestock. Despite the popular opinion of how crude and unconscionable this was, it seldom stopped anyone from sneaking into the club to see all the rumored things that caused such controversy. The Pearl Cabaret was the busiest club that everyone proclaimed they never visited…” OE519,

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I can’t stand the weekends. They throw me off my schedule and as a true Taurus, a true creature of habit, I hate having my everyday routines shuffled. A friend and I were just bemoaning this fact and the conversation devolved into mindless chatter about the tv shows that play a part in our daily ritual. This bubbled down into the NCIS debate. There are two kinds of women in the world. Those who like Denozo and those who like McGee. It seems that gluttons for male torment go for Denozo and uber nerds get all McGee-ee. I fall among the latter.