Shop Update - Charms!

I had my first (paid) etsy sale on Thursday! Thanksgiving indeed. It's all packed up and ready to go in the mail tomorrow. I listed one more pair of earrings and a phone charm tonight. This will be phone charm week, I'll have a new one (or two) listed each day through Sunday.

I hope everyone who reads this had a happy and safe holiday. Mine was filled with family, friends, and lots of food! I made earrings for my mom, sister-in-law, aunt and cousin, and of course neglected to take photos of any of them. Oops. Oh well, they were a big hit, and I'm grateful to have their support.

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Tomorrow evening the DH and I are driving to Annapolis for Thanksgiving. The celebration will be at my brother and sister-in-law's house, then moves to Virginia for a day with cousins, then stops back in Maryland to visit (and bake cookies) with friends. For me the baking started on Sunday with pumpkin pie-

I made one big pie for Thanksgiving, and mini pies for hubby (he loves pumpkin pie). I've decided that there's no need to make pumpkin pie again, since it tastes just like the storebought kind. Oh well, it made the apartment smell great. Two of the mini-pies seem to have mysteriously disappeared...

Last night I made oatmeal raisin cookie dough. My favorite recipe is this one from Quaker, just add one cup of raisins at the end.

I saw a blog that used pumpkin quick bread mix to make madeleines. Being pumpkined out, I opted to use a Vanilla spice quick bread mix. I got this super cheap at a Williams Sonoma outlet. They seem to discontinue their new flavors almost as fast as they come out. The results...super tasty! These will not all make it to the car. Four have met their demise next to a mug of apple cider.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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Three more pairs!

I'm sticking with my goal of one listing a day all week, these three cover Thursday through today. I really like them all, but the blue manga pair is my favorite. The star on the left features Nana, my absolute favorite manga / best things I've read ever. It's hard to tell from the photo, but it's Nana O's eye, she's looking up at Ren onstage. I made tons of stars from the chapter of the first concert.

The pair on the left is from either a Pier 1 or Pottery Barn catalog. I liked the mix of patterns. None of the earrings match, but they go together. They're among the first stars I folded specifically to make into jewelry. I like this particular design personally, they're the right blend of delicate and chunky, but still very lightweight. Plus the stars have a lot of movement so you can see both sides easily.

The pair in the top right is made from that Japanese Teen type maganze I picked up for $1 at Book-Off. It has the most fabulous quirky stuff in it. Apparently Japanese teenage girls have an obsession with Disney, so I have a lot of stars with Stitch, Mickey, Minnie, Pooh, and other characters. These stars came from a page of tiny pictures and notes. There's a small hand-drawn heart, the word "friend" in English, and hand-written text.

In life news, I got to show my parents around the park I work in yesterday. It was freezing, but still a lot of fun. Afterwards we ate sushi at Chelsea Market. I love that I have parents that love sushi. Today the DH and I met up with friends to see Twilight, which pretty much met my expectations. Cheesy, but fun to watch. I'm optimistic that the sequels will be better since they won't have to introduce so many characters. Tomorrow I'm going to continue holiday crafting, hopefully I'll have a lot of finished pieces to give away by Thanksgiving (then I can right about them here!)

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Oh Noes Vampires!

Maybe it's the impending premiere of Twilight, but I felt like today was a good day to list my vampire stars. These were made with promotional materials from Dark Horse comics and feature Hellsing and Blood the Last Vampire. Alucard is centered on one, and Saya peeks out from another. More detailed shots are in the etsy listing.

The beads are Czech crystal, I bought them from a really spiffy shop in Martha's Vineyard last summer. I could have blown a whole paycheck in that bead store, it was incredible. The findings are a great gunmetal finish, I lucked out and got those on sale at the local Michaels. I do love Fire Mountain Gems, but sometimes actually seeing and holding a product is nice.

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Let them wear cake!

I say it about a lot of stuff, but I love these stars! I hope they find a good home on etsy. I've been working to update the shop consistently, and have posted a new pair of earrings each day for last three days. The digital macro function on my camera is amazing, I want to go back and reshoot the cards.

In good news- Ikea called, and our new table is in! We don't have the co-op yet, but I worked with their office today to send over more paperwork. What I'm most looking forward to is all the extra space! *keeping my fingers crossed*

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Shop update!

It's a small update, just two pairs of earrings. I'm focusing on getting some giftware in the shop for the holidays. I'll post some more generic stars in the coming days, but in the meantime there areAvatar and Bleach pairs for sale.


I've been working on a lot of holiday ornaments, too bad I can't post pictures of those here yet!

My good friend Beth helped me set up for photos. We were very limited by the amount of daylight today, but I still see a big improvement. I really appreciate the help, let's see if it translates into sales!

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Keeping my fingers crossed

My husband and I recently put in a bid for a new place, and it was accepted! Unfortunately, it's a co-op, so we have to go through board approval. While our entire financial history is in their hands we just get to daydream and plan for our new, and much larger home.

We made a trip to Ikea this weekend, and now have a rain check for a dining room table. My parents met us there (since they have an SUV, essential for Ikea) and the basement that the table would live in until we moved. It was a bit of a letdown, but Crate & Barrel was much better. My mom spoiled me with holiday baking goodies- like the cupcake wrappers and stencils above. I was inspired by the decorations and ornaments, and have a lot of ideas for handmade gifts (other than stencilled cupcakes). My good friend Beth joined us for shopping and lunch, afterwards we headed to the nearby Pearl Paint. The NJ location is laid out much, much better than the Manhattan one. I picked up a jar of glass etching solution in the hopes of dressing up the usual jars of cookies I send out to family members each year.
Waiting for the co-op is a bit nervewracking, but in the meantime I have plenty of Christmas craft ideas to keep me busy.

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Election Day

So...somehow Election Day was a floating holiday for certain government employees today. I voted, got my free Starbucks coffee, supported the economy by purchasing socks, played copious amounts of Rock Band 2, and printed up some Sugar & Spice cards.

In addition to the one that sold in my etsy shop, one of my husband's co-workers bought 5. This is my first time reusing a gocco screen. I took it out of the freezer two days ago, and ran some test prints. I had to clean coagulated ink out of some of the letters, but it turned out pretty well. I did a better job cleaning it and returned it to the freezer for another day. I have about 49 cards here. Six are flat, which was a purchasing error on my part. I'll package them together and put them in the shop. I think I'll sell the rest in sets of five. With the exception of the flat cards these were cut and folded by hand.

After snapping photos of the card lab my DH turned the camera on our chinchilla. Her name is Momo, but we mostly call her Chilla.

Mmm...sticks.

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Breaking news!

This just in- my first etsy sale!

Hooray! One of the Sugar & Spice cards sold! I also have to take those out of the shop, since one of my husband's co-workers asked to buy the rest. I'm so excited. Maybe this news will make the front page of the Daily Planet.

I hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

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