29 Geek DIYs to Make Right Now

If you aren't familiar with Buzzfeed then clearly you don't get distracted by cool sounding links people share on facebook. If you are familiar then hopefully you have been entertained with their lovely lists of cute/geeky/random things much like this one (link):

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Geeky craft projects? I'm sold! And just in case you needed a further push to check this article out - look who made it as number 28 DIY:

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Yaaayyy! It's me! Well...not actually me...but the soot sprite pom poms I made years back that still live in the corners of my home! Oh I feel special! Happy thursday everyone! 

Avocado Love!

There's nothing quite like reading through my blog roll and seeing a picture of my very own creations! Lesley Jean from Yessiree Petunia (one of my favourite vintage etsy shops I gabbed about here) bought an avocado brooch from me a while back and was a dear to write a post featuring my shop on her blog (link)! She even included a snap shot of her sporting my handmade smiling pal and he couldn't look sharper on that mustard scarf:

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Oh Lesley - you've made my day! I am always so thrilled to hear about happy customers and am even more excited to see my craftiness in action! Thanks for the feature and great picture Lesley! You rock! 

Buy Handmade

A while back Trisha from Veranellies asked me if I was interested in being interviewed as part of her "buy handmade studio tour" blog series! I (obviously) jumped all over that opportunity and last Sunday it went live on her blog! It was so nice to see how it all came together and the collage of my crafts is a lovely colourful delight! Check it out:

Ah! Trisha managed to pick out some of my most favourite handmade goodies I make to mash up into one lovely piece! But then again...when I think about it, I love all the items I craft so it isn't hard to pick out nine that I like... If you feel like checking out the interview (and sneaking some peeks of my craft space) take a trip over to Veranellies and drop Trisha a line! (link!) Hooray!

luxurious mushrooms

I'm always stoked to see people enjoy my buttons, and am extra thrilled that Kaylah of the Dainty Squid is enjoying her mushroom buttons I sent her! She even put them in a cute little blog post about things that make her smile, and boy do they ever look luxurious on red fabric:


Aren't they dear? I really love getting a glimpse of how other people photograph pinback buttons and hopefully in the new year I'll get a chance to play around with my camera and lighting to take some new shots for my etsy shop. Until then I will just keep enjoying all the lovely comments I get from lovely buyers that makes craft selling oh so wonderful! Thanks everyone!

Ad-tastic!

All the way back in February of 2010, my etsy pal Art Tales asked me to make up a little square ad for my shop so she could put it on her blog. I jumped on the opportunity and came up with this:


Not terrible for a first attempt if you ask me (since all of my photo editing up to this point involved MS Paint). It was simple, sort of science-y (since that is the underlying theme of my crafting after all), and cute! When I saw Leigh-Ann (of Freckled Nest) offer free advertising for the month of June to her readers I figured I should join in! After all, I am one of her readers (along with hundreds of other blogs I'm faithful to) and why pass up on the fun? Time for me to make a new square ad! Since I have long since sold out of the little love robot charms in my shop I figured it was time to freshen up my advertisement while still keeping the fundamental elements of my etsy shop and blog in check (being cuteness and science of course). This is what I came up with:


I tried to keep it pretty simple and eye catching and used my glassware illustration as a good representation of what I'm all about! Throw in some futura font words in there and bam! An ad was born! It is substantially easier this time after a year of playing with photoshop (hooray) and I am so pleased with how it turned out! Check out a screen shot of the ad on her blog:


Oooo! Do you see me there? Snuggled right between a picture of Leigh-Ann and Michelle's ad from Scissor Quirk? Eee! How exciting! What do you think? Does anyone out there pay for advertising? Do you think it is worth while?

Oh! And since we're on the topic of Freckled Nest and exciting things...I won her big May giveaway this past weekend! That's right - all of my hopefully entering to giveaways has finally paid off and I am absolutely thrilled! It is 9 different items from 9 amazing ladies!!! How lucky am I!? I'll probably be sharing more details about the prizes as they arrive (I am so stoked to be waiting for 9 parcels! You know I love my mail!) so stay tuned for more! Hooray!

Find me at: Plush on Main!

A few weeks ago I got an email from Brigitte asking me about wholesale prices on my illustrated goodies. After a few messages back and forth we worked out what she wanted and I got to package up a whole box of items for her shop! I love doing packaging and was so excited to send my handmade goods away in the mail:


Where did they go you ask? Why a most wondrous little shop on Main Street in Vancouver called Plush! Lindsay and I recall visiting there during our Dan Mangan Main Street tour last year (in fact they were playing some Dan while we were there) and got to see all the fun handmade and local items Brigitte has for sale. Her shop may look small but it packs a punch! Plus there is a DIY workspace in the back where the ladies host workshops and projects (so fun)! Take a peek:


Oh! How exciting! Brigitte is thrilled with her new pins, magnets, and mirrors and even sent me a picture of my items in the store:


Hooray! Fox mirror was the first to sell (he is awfully cute) and hopefully they continue to do well in her charming shop. Next time you're in the area take a pop by, save on shipping, and adopt your own anthropomorphized friend. Or if you're not in the buying mood soak up the loveliness of local handmade goodies and give Brigitte a good, "Hello!" for me! Yay!

woo hoo!

The other morning I woke up to find 29 lovely emails in my inbox. I was overjoyed with the prospect of a big sale day on my etsy shop and it was true! I had made 11 sales and had 5 email conversations from buyers requesting sold out items in my shop! I figured something must have been behind such a surge of sales so I went searching. The first thing I found was this wonderful tweet from style sister:


Fun! It links to an amazingly flattering little article on my cute science illustrated goods, which I am over the moon about! Nothing like a blog feature to start off the day. How nice!

As I continued my perusal of the tweets I missed while sleeping the night before I came across an even more exciting one - from etsy:



Forget the front page - all you need to do is get tweeted to get noticed! Oh and it coincides with a etsy status update on facebook too:


Woohoo! Talk about exciting! I can only imagine what the sales would have been like if my shop wasn't experiencing a post-holiday/out of stock lull (which I am working on by the way...). What an accomplishment! And boy! What an exciting jump in site visits (got to love google analytics):


It looks like that one little tweet drew a whopping 1835 people to my shop that morning! I figured that must have been a site visit record for me so I searched back on my site tracking history and...


Yup, it pretty much blew all my other days out of the water. See that little blip in july there? That was the day I got on the front page (and am still overjoyed about). I can't believe it! All over some scientist buttons! Now I'm on the crafting warpath and super motivated to get my shop restocked! However trying to balance life, etsy, and preparations for my second fabulous finds show in march is a little tricky! Alas. I'll just keep at it and see how it goes. Oh. and I also decided since the scientists drew so much attention to my shop I'd work on an expanded set for the near future...hold tight though! I'll reveal them when they're finished!

Friday Find: box of birds

This week's find is thanks to a tweet I got from another empire who was kind enough to include my microbe buttons on her brooch beautiful blog (link!). As soon as I saw the wide eyed cuteness of box of birds I instantly fell in love! Take a look at some of her goodies:


Oh my those are darling! I especially love the little red fox in the corner there. Plus they are made from one of my favourite mediums - felt! It really makes me want to get to cutting and embroidering!! It also reminds me how everything from the UK is just that much cooler. Seriously. I'm sure there are statistics to back this up...somewhere...

Front Page News!

Yesterday at 1am etsy time (sunday at 10pm my time) something wonderful occurred. Something I have been striving for since my shop beginnings back in october 2008 - one of my items made the front page of etsy! Sweet! The bad news? I was busy at work at the time of the posting and only found out about this fp glory long after the sightings. Rats! Such great news and I didn't even get to witness it! But all is not lost - my twitter pal Ele (minouette on etsy and fellow msoe member) was kind enough to link me to craft cult (a wonderful site that keeps screen shots of etsy's front pages in their archives)! Hooray! So if you're like me and missed my exciting moment - let's relive it right now:


Eeee! Oh woodland creature buttons! I'm so proud of you! And as a bonus the front page is not only elusive but also lucrative since I got home to 10 etsy sales! Woohoo! And that's not all...look what it did for shop visits:


Oh my! Totally the most exciting google analytics visit I've had all year! It also bumped up my etsy hearts from 877 to 907! Thank you to those 30 people who discovered my shop and loved it! I'm positively gleaming with excitement! I hope everyone is having such a great beginning of their week too! Yay!

All the features!

So I've been meaning to do a post about all the great treasuries I've been featured in for a few days now and since I unfortunately brought dead camera batteries (for the second time) with me on my weekend at the lake, there is no better time than now! Apparently robot treasuries are all the rage:

1) Love Robot Pocket Mirror (link to treasury). I am also in love with the robot buddy charm also shown in this one! Cute!


2) Love Robot Pocket Mirror! Again! (link to treasury). Yay! Double featured!


3) Love Robot Pinback Buttons (link to treasury). Wow robots are a popular crafting item...


4) E.coli Plush & Microbe Pinback Buttons (link to treasury)! Extra fond of this one. Not only did I make it in there twice, but it's nice to see a nice sampling of bacteria on etsy too!


5) Blog feature of my Famous Scientist Buttons! (link)! Go Physics!

and finally...

6) Customer appreciation photo by Arixtstix! (link) I love to hear when people love their purchases from me and simply adore seeing photos! Thanks Alix!!!


*Whew!* I'm so flattered! Thanks everyone for featuring me and next time I'll try to bring charged batteries with me when I go away so I can give you better blog posts! The baby bunnies I didn't get a picture of where SUPER cute! You'll have to trust me...

ACEO-X 3.0

I'm so thrilled to be participating in ulixis' "art cards, editions & originals" (ACEO) exchange (version 3) and am really happy with the card I came up with! Since there was no theme this time (last time it was autumn - check out my last ACEO here), I decided I'd go with a springy/summery item I particularly enjoy drawing - mushrooms! But no wide set eye smiles here, I went on a completely non-sharpie approach and did some charming amanitas with pointillism. Behold:


I hope my exchange partner likes it! And I am a little curious what the other participants came up with (specifically which one I end up with - oh the anticipation)! This exchange will officially bring up my art card collection to a solid two cards, which is far from making one of my collections blog posts! Ulixis on the other hand just did a post showing off her solid amount of aceo's and you can even spot mine in there from aceo-x 2.0:


Do you see it? It does have some pretty cute little anthropomorphic acorns! You can read/see her entire collection here if you're interested too! I'm hoping the $1.25 store restocks their card plastic holder things soon so I can start a binder of my very own! Because clearly I need to start collecting more things...I mean I don't even have a collections post this week! Gasp!

Interview! With me!

While I'm home sick (*eugh*) I thought I might take a little time and do a second friday post like old times! What to post about? How about the wonderful interview sasha (whatnomints) did for me on the MSOE blog! (click the adorable culture picture for link)


I tried to make my charming wit shine through, but read it for yourself and make your own opinion. What do you think?

Five Questions

Wonderful news! Tmcphoto has posted an exclusive interview with yours truly! Read all about it on her blog (link). Lovely! Also begs the question - what would your three design wishes be?

Sunday Update

Well since I didn't get around to dual postings on friday it looks like sunday is the the lucky winner of the extra blog post! Exciting things to chat about include: (oOo! A list!)

1. It's just chemistry!

TwighlighterVA was kind enough to include my labware pinback buttons in her lovely treasury of chemistry related goodies! What great geeky items etsy has and what a wonderful bunch to be included in! Take a peek at the live version here or glance at the picture above if you missed the listing. What fun!

2. Etsy Sales!

Not sure what triggered it, but my super slump of sales in the shop seems to be over! I've made 7 sales in just the last 2 days! How lovely! Perhaps this has to do with that treasury I mentioned above....except that my labware buttons haven't moved...hmm...

3. Bizarre Bazaar!

I've applied to become a part of Kamloops' thursday crafty event the "bizarre bazaar" held at the court house all summer long from 12 - 7. No word back yet on whether I've got in, but the president of the Kamloops Art Council did email me back so hopefully my chances are good! I'll be sure to keep you all updated so you can plan your road trips to Kamloops around my crafting schedule (haha)

4. Salmon Arm!

Speaking of road trips, I had a great one to Salmon Arm the other day! On the drive there and took my camera out of my bag to snap a few shots when I quickly realized that I should have checked my battery power before I left. Oh dear! No photographic evidence! But highlights of the trip included many great fabric finds, super cute sparrow silver earrings, and baby emus! Oh they were cute! Hopefully I'll have full battery power next time so I can show you all...

April Showers

Time for a little extra celebration of one of my favourite button sets of my new design bunch - rain! Nothing beats a nice downpour to cool off a hot summer day and there is nothing like a little april sprinkle to help melt away the snow and bring out those spring flowers! Apparently I'm not the only one that thought so since Hearts Run Free snagged an april shower's themed treasury:


Darling! Check it out here until later tonight, or just check out the image above for long lasting rainy enjoyment!

And if that wasn't enough I also got a nice mention in AJ's blog as she received her rain button set from my giveaway! Glad to see she's enjoying her buttons (and her mini moo bookmark too)! Hooray! I got an email from kate (another of my giveaway winners) who said her microbe pins are enjoying their stay on her backpack. Cute!

Oh - looks like my woodland creatures made it into treasury form too (Yay!). This one is particularly cute - thanks Abject Craftility!

Anthropomorphic creatures are my fav! Check it out here for some click and comment love! What a wonderful day!

Oh Internet...

Oh internet...how I love you...


Thanks to the random site generation of stumble upon we've been blessed with this adorable darth on cat image. I wish mini darth would ride percy around our house...because we all know percy is sith. Sure he's cute, but there is no denying how evil he is. Seriously...

In other wonderful news - Rachel did a sweet "i heart science" post on her blog and included my plush microbes! (link)! Woohoo!

Clean Sheets!

When I got my spout of extreme illness a few weeks ago, my poor compromised immune system was working overtime! In its elevated weakness, opportunistic pathogens dominated my skin's defenses and I got the glorious pleasure of contracting impetigo. Gross. Reflecting back on the infection has reminded me of one fantastic thing - clean sheets are the best thing ever!


Mmm. Nothing beats crawling into crisply laundered linens (especially with fresh jammies) and having a highly contagious skin infection means I had to have clean sheets every night! Now that I'm back to semi-perfect health I'm really missing that fresh sheet luxury! It was so nice! But when it comes down to it, I'm much too lazy wash my bed linens every day to get that feeling back...and it would be so bad for the environment! But even still...it was nice...

All this clean sheet discussion makes me wonder:

- How often do you change your sheets?
- How many different sets of sheets do you own/use?
- Do you make your bed every morning?
and
- Can you think of a bigger daily luxury? (Uhh...within reason...)

In other news - my rain button set got featured on sand fiber's blog! Yay! (link!)

Multiple Post Friday!

Yup - once again it looks like I have so much to spill I need to do multiple posts! I guess that is the thrill of being so wonderfully blog post scheduled in advance - plus I'm sure no one minds my extra musings after my friday find thing right? (And if you do mind - then why are you reading this!?)

Here we go:
1) Hooray! Thumbs up yeti made it into a treasury east!


How lovely! 42 Things was nice enough to include me in her "wild, warm, and whimsy in the north" collection from loads of fellow Canadians! Check it out live for some comment and clicking love! I didn't even know "treasury east" existed! Or it's crazy more horizontal format! Neat! But I'm not sure how long it will be sticking around...so better click on that link quickly if you'd like to catch a glimpse...

**OoO! Update! It's true! Treasury east is new! I snagged a spot in a super quirky mad scientists of etsy feature too - take a look:

Double hooray! Can you spot my darling little wide set eye smile influence? Don't forget to comment and click it up!

2) Misobel's blog post of her order!


I find it amazingly flattering that a customer (especially such a great blog following/facebook fan/twitter friend like Mary) took the time to document the arrival/appreciate of her goods! I think the mustache kitties look awesome in her photograph and I'm glad to see the tea pot mini moo is enjoyed as well! Yay!

3) My current to do list:

As a listing fiend I am feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of items I've decided to take on. Here is my documented goals for the day:

- photograph some sweet mail arrivals for future posts
- write a few more blog posts about the exciting things happening in my life! (to be scheduled into the next few weeks or so)
- chose an amazing outfit for the art show I'm going to tonight (any suggestions?)
- attempt some belated pen palery
- finally get around to those blog featured interviews I've been procrastinating!

Five things doesn't seem too unrealistic - here's hoping I can successfully manage the truncated list! What are your plans for the rest of the day?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program...

I've been working really hard at making up for lost sick time and have been buckling down on those blasted to do lists! (and by blasted I mean wonderful?) All this productivity has resulted in scheduling a nice boat load of blog posts for the next few weeks too! Hooray! Overachiever-y progress!!! All this blog preparedness has actually left me with a surplus of articles to share so just like last friday, I've got some bonus posting for you! Here's the stuff I felt necessary to add into my blog today:

1) Square-dancing Mushrooms from Articulate Matter!


Who doesn't love a little fungus and gingham crinoline? (Okay, so they're not wearing fluffy skirts - but that is one of the best things about square dancing). I've really been enjoying all the clay sculpted goodness from Articulate Matter ever since I stumbled across them back in March, and find it refreshing that the dikarya she chose are strangely familiar to my very own mushroom button set:


2) Mother's Day Treasury Feature!

Thanks to Slitely Askew for including my tea buttons in her awesome picks for mom! I loved this treasury so much I even purchased something from one of the shops featured! Any guesses on what I bought? The treasury is up until saturday evening so give it some click and comment love or view the timeless page capture here:


3) Wide set eye error messages from etsy!


Yup - pretty darned cute. I love how the yarn is sad the sweater has three arms too. I find I often end up in craft-astrophes like this and have no clue what I did wrong! Much like no clue what I clicked on etsy to get this image! Oh well! At least it's cute!

4) Fantastic/Crud-tastic developments!

It seems like every time I get one thing right something conveniently counteracts the awesome thing. Way to go life. Stop playing around. The list of good/not so good things includes:

- Great craft and dollar store finds/being sold out of the one thing I actually needed
- Finally getting over my plethora of infections/bombardment of more chronic incurable illness (rats!)
- Action packed crafting and indie rock May/doubfulness of being able to get the time off work
- Crazy amount of packages I'm expecting in the mail/only bills in the mailbox
- Epic brainstorm of ideas to blog and craft/No time!

Okay...I think everyone runs into that "not enough time and money" thing once in a while (or, you know, all the time?), but that is all part of the fun challenge of life! If you didn't have a few dozen hurdles to jump over then it wouldn't be as fulfilling when you get to the finish line. Or at least that's what I'll tell myself. Maybe you should just scroll back up to those mushrooms again and I'll pretend I left this post on a positive note...yay! Adorable mushrooms!

Yeti time!

I got the wonderful pleasure of being interviewed for an article Michelle did for her blog indie smiles. The two part feature was all about yeti and bigfoot and their constant appearances on etsy! She stumbled across my thumbs up yeti button set and thought I was a perfect candidate to be included in the article! I've been meaning to blog about this for quite some time (seriously - the article was posted in march...) and I figure no time like the present! Especially since it gives me the excuse to show off my super limited edition (didn't even put it in my shop) thumbs up yeti postcard I made:


Isn't he cute! I sent him to a very special sibling of mine (in fact my only sibling!) and I certainly hope leslie is enjoying him!

As for the blog article, Michelle asked us all a few questions and the answers are both hilarious and very much give you an idea of the unique personalities of the crafters who sell on etsy.

Here are a few answers to the question, "What would you do if you ran into Bigfoot or Yeti?" (see if you can pick out my answer):

- "Hopefully shoot some non-shaky film, get some un-fake-able photos, and throw a press conference."

- “Offer him a cupcake. And then run."

- "compare shoe sizes."

- "I’d ask him to have a drink with me so we could get acquainted in a relaxed atmosphere. Then, if he was up to it, we’d go shoe shopping and he’d buy a pair of Onitsuka Tigers if they had his size (royal blue ones with white stripes and red accents). If things were still going well, we’d go out for a pasta dinner and then maybe catch a concert if someone good was playing. At the end of the night, I’d send him home with a plush Domo to keep him company in the woods and a promise to call within a week."

- "(Hope they recognize the fur-less me and) give them a big hug, catch up on all the bigfoot gossip, and tell them about my city adventures."

- "As a scientist, fact and logic always seem to override any possibility of imaginary undiscovered North American creatures so if I ran into bigfoot or yeti I’d be sure to give him a killer high five and request a small fur sample for microsatellite genetic species analysis! Interestingly enough, during my undergrad I actually performed genetic tests on hair samples collected from scientists in attempt to identify the unknown species of Sasquatch. Unfortunately the fur ended up being black bear…but it was exciting nonetheless…"

- "Give the dude some space. I’ve heard they’re pretty smelly."


Okay - it's pretty obvious. And I do like to ramble don't I? Well I certainly recommend checking out the articles (part 1 here, part 2 here) and some of the other rad bigfoot/yeti goods! What fun! Anyone not able to guess my answer?