Category Archives: etsy

Happy Labor Day!

Due to a scheduling mishap, I had a rare four day weekend this weekend, and did my best to enjoy it! Here’s a little rundown:

Friday

Had lunch with an old friend who is moving to Chicago next week. Sad, but now I have someone to visit in Chicago 🙂 And Chicago sure seems to host a lot of cons!! (Don’t tell her I said that already) Afterwards I popped in Richmond staple Stories Comics and picked up a few horror magazines. I am prepping for MonsterFest in Chesapeake, but given Saturday’s events that ended up being a bad plan. Listed at least 50 new items on etsy while watching really cheesy television. My shop now has over 200 items in it, and that’s got to be less than 20% of my stock. That means that 1) I need to list more on etsy and 2) if you haven’t checked out my display at a show this summer, you should come by the Costen Floors bazaar in Richmond next weekend or MonsterFest next month if you’re in the Chesapeake area!!

Saturday

Drove with R & D down to Virginia Beach to see Carbon Leaf again. I’m really not sure why I keep heading to the waterfront resort areas in peak tourist traffic, but whatever. We planned our route around 2 comic book stores. The first was Bender’s Books & Cards in Hampton. D & I first heard about this place when we had a table at the Virginia Beach Memorial Day Sci Fi yard sale when I made a deal with the owner for some of my Doctor Who books & collectibles. On the way home from that trip, we stopped by the store. It is a treasure trove of vintage comics, magazines, and, well, pretty much anything collectible. Make sure you bring your hand sanitizer because you will get dirty, but seriously, this place has everything. Piles and stacks and shelves of it. I came away with a big stack of monster books, magazines, and comics, as well as some Doctor Who magazines. They have a bigger Doctor Who display than I ever thought I’d find in Hampton, as well as a TON of Star Trek stuff (probably because of the annual sci fi yard sale).

Next we headed towards Zeno’s Books in Chesapeake. This is another store we heard about at the Sci Fi yard sale. They actually had the booth next to us and we kept each other entertained all day – apparently I was the first customer they’d ever had who bought comics based on what was on the BACK covers, which amused them. I also spoke to them at FantaSci and the July VA Comic Con, so even before I’d set foot in the store this was pretty much my favorite comic store. The owner had set aside the merch we were looking for which was really nice, and I also picked up some more magazines and comics to use for MonsterFest items. I’m getting really excited about this event!! Although a much smaller store than Stories or Benders, the friendliness and helpfulness of the staff is a huge plus and they still have a very impressive inventory for the space. I got some great deals, and one or two items that I might not be able to bring myself to cut up.

Finally, much to R’s relief, we eventually headed towards Virginia Beach. Carbon Leaf was playing for free as part of the Verizon Wireless American Music Festival. We got there just in time to catch most of the opening act, A Silent Film, a band out of Oxford/London. I had never heard of them before but we all enjoyed their set and I intend to check out their albums.

Carbon Leaf were amazing as usual, although they seemed to have some technical issues throughout the night and I’m pretty sure Barry wasn’t feeling so great although he did borrow a punter’s hula hoop and hula hooped on stage and they still played at least 2 hours. They played a new song which Barry identified as Bloody Good Bar Fight Song/ Donnybrook Affair, and there were 2 songs in the encore that were either so old or so new that I didn’t know them. All three showed a lot more of the celtic influence that they used to have, which I appreciate. I think this is probably connected to them dropping their major label and going back to their indie roots.

Sunday

I caught up on Doctor Who. Can you believe I missed the Doctor Who premiere for real life fun? Yeah, me neither…

Monday

Spent the day rearranging my workspace. Now that all the magazines and comic books and books are in one place and sorted, I’m a bit overwhelmed. No more comic book stores for me for a while!!! Time to do some more cutting up & etsying!

My First Etsy Treasury Spot!

Etsy member Dolphinmooncreations has featured my Caribbean Sea Earrings in her The Blues Have It! Etsy Treasury featuring blue items from Virginia sellers! (you can click on the image below for a larger view) Be sure to check out the Treasury, as well as the curator’s shop- she has a ton of options for personalized pendants and other items that look so awesome. My mom’s on this new hummingbird kick, so I’m very tempted to buy her a “My Hummer” necklace!

This follows on the heels of a custom order from an old friend (which I’ll be writing about as soon as I have my camera handy) as well as my first etsy sale in over a month. I’m feeling a renewed sense of excitement, so hopefully I will be listing plenty of new items in the shop soon (although I guess it’s too late to list those Fourth of July earrings I made like three months ago, right?)

I am housesitting this week and I think the computer’s haunted… at the moment it’s not letting me upload photos, so this is a rather boring looking blog entry. Sadness! Hey, at least I made time to post…

Welcome to 2009!

Here’s hoping it will be better than 2008 has been! I haven’t made New Year’s resolutions in a long time, since I never managed to keep them. This year though, I’m going to make some craft-related resolutions.

1- I’m going to be productive every day. This can be working on a craft or listing something on etsy. Reading other blogs or browsing other etsy shops does NOT count, since that’s all I manage to do anyways! It can be as simple as knitting one row on a scarf, which really shouldn’t be a problem since I’ve usually got at least 3 scarves in progress.

2- I’m going to work through my craft stash as much as possible. Any new project, unless it’s a specific custom request from someone, must include something from my stash. Ideally, I’d like to be able to fit all of my yarn in the set of drawers that’s meant to be my yarn stash. And I’d like all my beads to fit into my bead box again, lol. Seriously, it’s at least 12x12x12, so it holds a LOT of beads as is.

Not craft-related, I WILL find a full-time job. Although the craft store is promoting me as of Monday to a temporary Front End Supervisor, so at least I’ll make slightly more at that job 🙂

For a different take on the New Year, I’ve just been reading Lucky Girl Trading Co’s blog post about making a New Year “theme” rather than a resolution. She’s got a contest running where you choose a theme for your year, and then leave a comment about which item in her shop will best fit that theme and help you work towards it for the New Year. I chose “simple/simplify” and I think my crafty resolutions above fit into that. I found this lovely dichronic glass pendant in her shop that strikes me as simple but elegant. You should check out her shop and also the details about the contest, as you could win a $15 store credit and I’m SURE you could find something to spend it on (or hey, you could pass it my way and I could spend it for you :P)

HauteAndi is also sponsoring a contest via the shop’s blog, Hauteness. The shop is full of adorable hats made from upcycled materials. This is all coming from someone who isn’t a big fan of hats, and really doesn’t like wearing them, and yet I felt very reluctant to advertise this contest, because I WANT THIS HAT!! Still, I thought the shop deserved your attention! 😉

Ok, I’m going to stop rambling and roaming etsy-related blogs, and go be productive because hey, it’s my resolution!