Sidetracked wedding update!

IOur wedding rings are in!!! They turned out perfectly!  They're so wonderful that I had to rip future hubby's off of him just to get the photos!  They're titanium bands with a super special inlay, granite from our ceremony site so we can take our special day with us wherever we go!  The inlay is a black granite with little white and pink specks.  Here's another look so you can see the pink better:

The granite comes from future hubby's parents home where we're having the ceremony.  Their home is built on a solid granite cliff (zero soil!) and is our favourite place on earth.  It's such a beautiful paradise.  Unfortunately, hubby's parents have talked about selling their home.  It's a heartbreaking prospect. 

With these rings we'll be able to take this day with us always.  I could cry.

The rings were made by the most awesome couple (married 17yrs! hope that luck rubs on us a little!), Rob & Leighanne, who's shop I found on Etsy through a recommendation of a friend.  I shipped them the crushed granite and they made up the rings with it.  (They also make rings using wood, like peoples antiques!  How cool is that?).  They were so awesome to work with, I'll always be thankful.  Here's their site. 

I'll leave ya with one more photo, cuz I know how you all love the porn.  I can't stop grinning! :D

Oh Canada!

How beautiful is this country?  Seriously.  Have you looked?

I'm continuously amazed at how gorgeous it is, and to be honest, I haven't travelled out of this province more than a handful of times. 

If you haven't noticed how beautiful is, then you need to get out of the city.  I've lived in a bunch of different settings; rural, urban, suburban.  I've lived in poor areas, and rich areas.  I've lived places where there are trees, and places that haven't seen trees in decades.  I've lived where there's heavy crime, and where there's no crime.  Let me tell you this one thing, if you can't find beauty in this country, you've lived in the city too long.

Sure cities are beautiful.  They're eclectic and vibrant, full of life, monuments to civilization.  A city at night, from the water, is a jewel on fire.  Cities are full of smells and sights and people.  Cities are full of adventures, both cultural and physical.

Cities are nothing compared to the country, THIS country, OUR country.  Cities are things WE made, humans made, albeit together, and beautifully, but still made.  The land made itself.  Our country is majestic all on it's own.

Canadians have known this as a truth for centuries.  We flock in crazy droves from the city further into our great white north.  We spend hours, bumper to bumper, simply to spend a weekend surrounded by trees and lakes.  Canadians are wonderfully unique in their love of nature.  Fleeing their cities to worship their land.

So I'm begging you, this weekend, for Canada Day, FLEE your city.  Run.  Go north.  Go as far north as you dare, and immerse yourself in our land.  Remember why we're here.

Behind the Orange Brick Wall - Part 3 Jmaeson

***The missing post from yesterday****

In this, the third installment of my Behind The Orange Brick Wall series on shops that have never been featured on the front page (but should be!) I'm introducing you to Janie from the shop Jmaeson. Jmaeson has beautiful sewn and crocheted items that are just to die for. Stay tuned after the interview where I'll be revealing the winner of this weeks Super Awesome Fantastic Giveaway!


Me: Jmaeson, let's start with your unique shop name. Whenever I see it, I always pronounce it "Jah-mason". Is it a combination of letters of your real name? Does it stand for anything? And, do you also run the shop "jmaeson1"?


Jmaeson: jmaeson is a comination of my whole name and is pronounced jay-mae-son. Yes I do run jmaeson1

Me: Lovely! Your "jmaeson1" shop focuses mostly on holiday items, while your jmaeson shop is full of beautiful textile items. The colours of your items are eye-catching. What inspires your bold (for Etsy) colour choices?

Jmaeson: My favorite color is orange, I've always had a penchant for bright bold colors...eye-catching is a perfect description of what they do to me.

jmaeson1 was made because of my love for the Christmas holiday...the feel of it is truly magical.

Me: I love Christmas too, it's pretty awesome. What do you have in the works right now? What surprises do you have in store for your customers in the future?


Jmaeson: In my Christmas shop I'll be adding some stockings and in this shop I'll be adding some more clutches with my crocheted butterflies and flowers.

Me: Those will be adorable! What's YOUR favorite item in your shop?


Jmaeson: www.etsy.com/listing/65701997/pin-cushion-grandmas-orange-patchwork

This is my absolute favorite...the patchwork material was left over from my moms stash when she passed away so that's very special and of course again orange is my favorite color...I have to argue with myself every week not to pull this and keep it for my self :)

(see picture # 2 of this post)

Me: That's super cute, and the orange colour just POPS. Last question, (and it's a tricky one), what's your opinion on Etsy's front page?


Jmaeson: Well, we would all love to be on the front page. I am 100% happy for those who do make it to the front page. It is what it is and I'm just a small spoke in this humongous wheel ;)

Me: Beautifully said!


Well, I'd just like to thank Janie again for the wonderful interview! She was just a delight to interview and I will cross my fingers for her that she makes it to the front page. You should definitely head on over to her shop and take a look around.

Super Awesome Fantastic Giveaway Winner!

Sorry for the delay everyone! I'm posting from my phone as blogger has crashed and has taken my whole computer with it. :( That does mean that you won't get to read my interview with the wonderful Jmaeson, so you'll just have to head on over to her shop and check it out yourself in the meantime.

So, without further ado........



The one you've been waiting for..............






The blog winner is.........(the anticipation! I can't stand it!).............

LORETTA!!!!!

Congratulations Loretta! Make sure you contact me by email or convo me on etsy so I know where to send your prize package. Thanks to all the awesome entrants! I wish I could give you ALL prize packs, but don't be discouraged, the next giveaway will be even MORE SUPER AWESOME FANTASTIC! Can you believe it? Wait until you SEE it! I'd tell you but then it wouldn't be a secret! Thanks again everyone!

posted from Bloggeroid

Behind the Orange Brick Wall - Part 2 Texarrakis

This is Part 2 of my new series featuring wonderful shops that have never been selected for Etsy's coveted FRONT PAGE (click here to go see Etsy's front page right now). Check out Part 1 to read my thoughts on why people are (or aren't) chosen for the Front Page. Etsy's Front Page images of 20 different items, rotates about every 20 minutes and are chosen by Etsy staff using their own secret criteria.

The first feature will be curiously wonderful shop Texarrakis Obscurities. Texarrakis Obscurities has been open since March 19, 2010 and in that time has never been featured on their front page. Here's my delightful interview with Texarrakis:


Me: Texarrakis, you have a lovely collection of vintage items in your shop. How do you select which items appear in your shop? Do you hunt them, or do they find you?


Texarrakis: Oh I like to think I am the hunter, but I believe, in reality, I might actually be the hunted. I scour thrift stores, flea-markets, yard sales, weird old antique malls for items. Sometimes I will spend an hour or two somewhere and not leave with a single item, or I'll spend fifteen minutes in a place and leave with ten amazing items.. I never know how it's going to work. The main criteria my item has to pass is whether I want it for myself or not. That is how everything has ended up in my shop, I think everything is amazing and I secretly want all of my items all to myself, that fit my bizarre aesthetic.





But now I have an overpowering amount of items (over 100 that haven't been listed yet), that seem to need constant attention and care, so I don't know, perhaps I have been manipulated somehow into acquiring them all...

Me:So your fans can look forward to 100 new items in the future? What sort of new items do you have in store for us?





Texarrakis: Oh well they can probably look forward to more then 100. I've quit my day job, and am moving from the city to the desert and mountains of far West Texas to attempt doing my Etsy store full time, which is why I've been in super awesome item hoarding mode for the last month, collecting all of these items. I have maybe 120 items all lined up, ready to photo and list. A lot of random goodies, twelve vintage cameras, goblets, more color slides from the late 1960s, and a whole lot of amazing books, including many Star Trek novels, Dune novels, and Choose Your Own Adventure books, which are my personal favorite of the store.

Me:I LOVE Dune! I'm a book hoarder myself, so I can definitely see the attraction. So what brought you to Etsy?

Texarrakis: Oh yes, Dune was the inspiration for my shop title; Texas + Arrakis = TEXARRAKIS. The name wasn't created FOR the shop, it's for the project that brought me to Texas originally. When I was 19 I bought five acres of land out in West Texas, about 80 miles from where I'm moving to. Last year me and some friends moved out to that property to start Fort Awesome, and we called the whole project Texarrakis, since we were trying to make something out of living in the desert. One of our plans was to start an Etsy store out there, but let me tell you, that is more difficult to accomplish in the middle of the desert completely off grid and out of tents then we imagined. For some reason. The whole project crumbled when we ran out of money.

But then in January, my girlfriend helped me get my Etsy store off the ground, and pushed me in the right directions to make it as awesome as I possibly could. And it has blossomed into something amazing! I love Etsy and the entire community here -- wonder people and shops all around.

Me: Texas + Arrakis! That's deliciously geeky! I love it! It sounds like Etsy is a big part of your life, do you also have a "day job"?

Texarrakis: I just quit my day job as an office manager to pursue Etsy full time. I'm not at a place with it where I'm making quite enough to support myself yet, but I was able to save up enough money to pay for rent ahead of time for three months, allowing me to give it a shot. My store is growing rapidly, and I make enough on Etsy to cover all of rent and some expenses, so my hope is that by the end of the three months I won't have to return to the workforce, or at least maybe just extremely part time.

Me:Out of all the items in your shop right now, which is your favourite?

Texarrakis: Out of all the items in my shop, this is my favorite right now I think: www.etsy.com/listing/70449923/choose-your-own-adventure-you-are-a Not because it's like a top item I'm going to make money off of, but I truly love this book, it sparked years of imaginative fun for me. I still, to this day, find myself sitting around thinking about this book. I've noticed a lot of books being sold on Etsy basically as like home decor, but I really like having my shop full of books I actually think people will enjoy reading.

Me:I do have one more question, last one, I swear. What's your opinion on Etsy's Front Page?


Texarrakis: I like it ok. It's hard for me to gauge though, I try and remember back to when I barely knew what Etsy was . . . I feel like the front page is good for people who already know what Etsy is, but to new people who aren't logged in, it should read, in huge bold letters, "THE WORLD'S LARGEST MARKETPLACE OF HANDMADE AND VINTAGE GOODS", flashing across the screen. Or something. I don't know. The front page right now is very classy, I like that, but for new people maybe there should be a bit more fanfare.

This last photo is my own favourite item from Texarrakis' shop. It's on my wish list. Now that you've read this awesome interview, go check out Texarrakis Obscurities and support artists and vintage collectors who don't fit the "aesthetic". After all, that's what art is about isn't it?

Behind The Etsy Orange Brick Wall - Part 1

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

For the hardworking folks with Etsy shops, perhaps the hardest and most frustrating thing is the struggle to be noticed. With the hundreds of thousands of shops on Etsy, and the millions of individual items, it's hard to be a shop that stands out. Arguably the best way to drive business to an Etsy shop is to have one of your items appear on their home page (or "front page").

Now, Etsy is a business, just like all of the businesses housed within it. To drive people to a business they have to have a demographic and a marketing plan. They need to target a certain set of people (whoever they think is most likely to purchase) and pull them into their site. Etsy has to have an image, one that "sells" a specific lifestyle to it's clients. "Come in and buy X and become Y!"

Being on the outside of the Etsy inner sanctum as I am, I can only speculate on their specific marketing tactics. However, if you observe the Front Page you'll see a distinct trend. Airy, pastel, light, white, washed out, trendy items. It's what sells them, it's what drives the traffic in. It's working.

Etsy is changing, for better or worse they're planning changes to the way that the Front Page works, who's featured, and how. Will they feature shops that fall outside their current aesthetic? Who knows, but if they do, will it cause traffic to decline? Ultimately, will the one thing people are looking for, to have business increase, be the one thing that causes business to fall?

Either way, Etsy is missing out, and so are it's customers. There are loads of beautiful shops on Etsy with gorgeous items that just don't "fit" the Etsy aesthetic. Shops that you have never seen on Etsy's front page. Shops that have never been featured in their e-mails.

I'm going to take you to visit some of these shops. In this series, starting with my next post, once a week I'll feature a shop that has never been on the front page, that doesn't fit the aesthetic. Shops that nonetheless offer beautiful homemade and vintage items, but that maybe aren't pastel coloured.

Lemony Snackets

On the quest for wedding perfection (HA RIGHT!) I'm attempting some cupcake recipes to find something delicious to bake as an alternative to our wedding cake. mmmmm delicious cupcakes....drool....

Sorry, lost myself for a moment there. Anywho, I've had a craving for lemon cupcakes, and I do love lemon cupcakes, so I thought I'd try a recipe out. This is an adaptation from Joy Of Baking.

Another egg-free recipe for you.

Ingredients
1/2 cup salted butter (throw it in the microwave for about 15 secs to let it soften...if it softens too much put it in the freezer for a couple of minutes) Recipe calls for unsalted and to add 1/4 teaspoon of salt, but I didn't have any unsalted, so I omitted the salt. I suggest using unsalted though.

2/3 cup white sugar
3 eggs (I used Pane Riso egg substitute)
1 splash vanilla extract (recipe calls for a teaspoon but I dislike vanilla extract, even natural vanilla extract)
Zest of 2 large lemons
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup milk icing sugar
small carton whipping cream (2 cups)
2 small packets of Whip It whip cream stabilizer
icing sugar to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350deg. Whip butter and sugar together until fluffy then add eggs one at a time.



2. Zest both lemons (for god sakes buy a zester, it's worth it) and divide zest in half, add one half to butter mixture.



3. Mix together flour, baking powder, and salt (if applicable).
4. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk.



5 Fill paper or greased muffin tins with batter and bake for 18-20 mins, test with a toothpick.


For icing:

1. Begin whipping cream in large COLD bowl. (See my previous posts about whipping cream)
2. Add remaining zest and stabilizer once the cream has developed a matte skin with bubbles.
3. Continue whipping until you get stiff peaks. Gently fold in icing sugar to achieve desired sweetness.


4. Decorate cupcakes by dipping, spreading or piping.

Mine made 9 cupcakes and LOTS of icing, which will keep for a couple of days. Or possibly much less time, considering the dog REALLY enjoys whip cream:

Fail Penguin.

Well, failure has to happen sometime right? Or maybe it would be more apropos to say that success has to happen occasionally..... In my case it's the latter. In honour of Earth Day I present you with ........*drumroll* ..........Pollution Penguin! (or as I like to call him, Fail Penguin):


Nice yes? Now, in case you don't read my blog every day (I hope you don't because I'm not that good at the updating) you may not know that most of my snowglobes don't look like this. They often don't have that yummy layer of suspended bits of green-brown stuff floating in them. In fact, I took a picture so that you could compare:


Lots of lovely sparkly crystal clear snowglobes? CHECK! One ugly-as-sin, muddy brown water, floaty bits of god-only-knows-what snowglobe? CHECK! Hrm..... Well, score one for education I suppose. Now WHY did my cute little snowglobe turn into the snowglobe equivalent of a chemical dump? Ah, I cannot reveal such secrets young grasshopper. I will tell you though, that the snowglobe underwent some drastic surgery today. It was touch-and-go for a moment there, but the penguin, AND the lightbulb, both made it through ok. The cork however has moved on to a better place (cork heaven, you knew it).

SO, to sum up my story, the snowglobe I've been trying to get listed for almost two weeks now, will be in recovery for a little while. Sad, I know. However, as I have a few days off coming up, the things you can look forward to are:

1. That darned baby mobile. It's still coming, I promise.
2. More paper decor, including more wedding, and household non-christmas decor
3. A blog post about lemon cupcakes in my latest attempt to bake something for my wedding dessert.


And, as a final nod to those rascally penguins, here's a Youtube vid of a penguin being tickled.

Long time coming....or not

Well I'm officially burnt out. Work promises to be 12 to 14 hr days for the next several weekends. They don't pay out overtime so the only advantage to working this much is time off in lieu. The big problem is that by the time you've worked three 12 hr days, the only thing you really want to do is relax. You end up spending all of your free overtime just recovering from the work. It really means that all my Etsy and my wedding plans just sit around on my day off, mimicking my state of relaxation. I've got my eye on another job, but it's an awful commute, and still not really what I want to be doing. Frankly, what I want to do is logistically impossible right now.

I've developed an obsession with the life of another Etsy seller. Now, don't freak out on me here. I'm not stalking her or anything. I just admire what she's doing and aspire to similar goals. Now, since I'm phone blogging again, you'll have to do the hard work of typing her url into your browser yourself. Www.longwinterfarm.etsy.com She lives in the woods, makes items for her shop, and has goats. That about where my obsession ends. I'd never be able to make soaps and perfumes without breaking into hives. I don't have the resolve to live in a yurt and I'm not sure I could milk a goat. That being said, I have definite plans to move further into the Canadian shield, live somewhere with more trees, have a shop that supports our life, and raise goats (small, pygmy sized, comb-the-wool-off-them kind of goats).

At any rate, and at the risk of embarassing her with my adoring fan love, you should check out her shop. She has the most amazingly scented perfumes at incredible prices. I'm still dying to try her earl grey lip balm.

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Technology, it's incredible!

It is, isn't it? I mean a few years ago the cell phone I had was the size of a brick. It made calls but only if you were lucky. Now cells phones are ubiquitous. They're everywhere and they can do anything. We're expected in our day-to-day lives to keep up with everything simultaneously, but to do that we need to purchase increasingly advanced technology that forces us to do more to pay for it. In my first year of university, which was well into the "computer" age, I was frustrated by the fact that many of my professors required essays to be typed on a computer. It was something I couldn't afford. I typed all my essays on an old electric typewriter. It meant days of retyping pages when there was a single error on the page, I was too embarrassed to hand in something that looked like it was written on a typewriter. So, it's with mixed feelings that I'm typing this post on a smartphone. I'm hoping that this is just a continuation of this new direction in my life where I attempt to be both less and more connected.

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Speak of the Stalker!

Well isn't this a great way to spend my day! So, in the last post, I drive-by mentioned Etsy Stalker and today I get a lovely e-mail from Violet at Etsy Stalker letting me know that I'm featured in one of her posts today!!!! Squeee!!!!
THAT is super freaking exciting! Yay! The item featured? My beautiful blue earrings! Check em out:
Plus I'm up there alongside a whole mittful of other awesome Etsyians. SOooooo awesome! Thanks Etsy Stalker! As a bonus, I get an "I've been stalked" badge to add to the site here! I know there's lots of clutter about, but check it out!

Snow snow everywhere and not a drop to.....drink?!?!

Well hello again, it's certainly busy here! If you haven't been around to my etsy shop lately you should really go. I won't make you.....ok I "might" make you....but believe me it's worthwhile. (I'm not getting much cooking in lately anyway). Wedding plans continue apace. It sounds like we'll be in the beautiful Muskoka region of Ontario. If you've never been, I suggest you google it, then I suggest you go, because really google isn't great and telling you how AWESOME a place is.

I have a surprise for you folks today, previews of my new etsy item BEFORE it goes up! I know! Shocking! You only get one picture though. Are you ready?

Tada!

Cute ain't it? I predict that lambs are the new owls. (In case you live in a non-crafty cave, owls were BIG last year, owls and cowls....so that means lambs and......tams? shams?...). Anywhoo (hoo? like what I did there?) it should go up as soon as it's cured, which takes a few days.

In the meantime you should check out EtsyStalker, they're a couple of gals who stalk etsy for the most beautiful items. Drool on your screen now, go ahead.

And, in case you live somewhere warm, I leave you with a picture of my dog, enjoying a nice, Canadian, February day.

Work in progress...

Today I have some images for you of one of my shop items in progress. Here's the finished item, a recycled lightbulb snowglobe:
First I prep the lightbulbs. I have no images of that yet, but it involves carefully smashing the glass and taking the bits of glass, frosting, and wires out of the bulb, then washing and drying it.

Then I sculpt the inside items out of polymer clay. You can see my clay bits in this fancy storage container. (I wrap them in PressNSeal and store them in a Ziplock bag).

Here you can see two prepped lightbulbs in the upper right corner, a large dowel I use as a rolling pin, and a set of exacto knives that come in real handy for this kind of work.



This snowglobe has a set of four, slightly marbled red and white hearts inside. I make the individual hearts and then "glue" them together with liquid Sculpey before baking them in the oven to cure them. I bake them on a plate (it's oven-safe). You can see the 5 hearts (one didn't make the cut) and another tiny sculpture (tiny lambs for another snowglobe) in this picture beside the bottle of liquid Sculpey.

In this next picture you can see the lambs in progress (that snowglobe met with an unfortunate accident and will be remade for the lambs and ready to post in a week or so).

Here's my work table with a number of other tools I use for this project. There are some kitchen skewers, a tube of glitter, and some little rubber bumpers I use as feet. The skewers are great for applying glue and pushing objects around the inside of the bulb. You can also see the tube of silicone sealant. Glue doesn't work very well underwater, so the sealant holds the sculpture in place and then seals the cork into the top.

At this point in the project I tried cramming the hearts into the lightbulb only to discover that they don't fit. The bottom heart was removed (saved for another project) and the remaining hearts placed into the lightbulb.

The pliers stay in the lightbulb for 3 days while the sealant cures. It takes another 3 days to cure the sealant on the cork stopper.


At the end of all that the bulb is filled with water, glitter, and the stopper is sealed into place. Tada! Check out the listing HERE.

And In Other News.....

I'm having an organizational crisis. It's true.

This Etsy thing may be the saviour in my life. The lighted path out of the dark. I need to get out of this job, and no matter how hard I look, the combination of "more money" and "less crappy" or "equal money" but "delightful" just doesn't exist. We have too many bills at home, so to quit my job would be pressure we just don't need.

I figure if I can just WILL this Etsy shop to work then I'll have it made. The one problem being that to make it work I have to DO the work. I need to get enough products up, fast, and I'm certainly struggling with that (enough that I've considered taking on another artist/crafter into my shop). I don't want to be responsible for the success of another person, but it WOULD definitely bump up my number of products. I also have to hit the marketing hard.

Because of this new shop I'm starting to lose my mind a little. I've got several more websites that I need to keep track of (including a Flickr account that you'll see here soon). I've got shipping and deadlines and other details. I've got my normal job to contend with.

Basically, I'm starting to forget things. What was I doing? Oh, right.....

I've tried to mail my watch out to be repaired 4 times now, but I keep forgetting to bring the warranty to photocopy. I've started writing the post on corn chowder probably a dozen times now but at some point I only uploaded 4 of the pictures.....where'd the others go? What WAS I thinking at the time? I'm trying to learn photography and photo editing but I can't remember to upload the photos....or where my camera is......or where I left the thing I'm taking pictures of....or where my brain went. I'm determined to get a phone with an organizer......except we forgot to pay the phone bill......

So, if you have any good organizational tips or ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Since I have NOTHING good for you today picture/recipe wise I'm leaving you with a brand new addition to the site. A BLOGROLL!!!! WOOT! To the right you'll find a whole list of brilliant, interesting and funny blogs. A number of these blogs are Etsy related. If you're nervous about me sending you elsewhere then you should check out Cakewrecks first.....You'll thank me later.