Camera Strap Tutorials

As I'm sure you know, blogging and etsy selling is often all about the pictures! What better way to combine your love for crafting and photography then with your very own DIY camera strap! I certainly thought it was a great idea, and so did how about orange as they did a post all about camera-related sewing projects. Since I'm already quite pleased with my camera case I was particularly drawn to the strap tutorials and lucky for us there are two available at different skill levels! Yay!

If you're not quite the expert seamstress and crafter, design sponge's covered camera strap is best for you. It shows you how to turn your strap into a masterpiece in just a few easy steps! And check out the results:


Oh how lovely! And if you're up for some extra credit sewing I suggest taking a gander at ikat bag's complete camera strap tutorial instead. I absolutely love the fabric they used to make their tutorial strap and it looks simple enough:


Now I'll just need to keep my eyes pealed for the perfect strap fabric! Hurrah!

Bizarre Bazaar - vol VI

Another week at the bizarre bazaar and another week of updates! Luckily jim was kind enough to help me upload the pictures I took onto his computer (since mine is on the fritz and macs don't seem to recognize my camera) otherwise we'd be suffering from a post with too much text and not enough imagery! And what a beautiful sight it was this week! Look at the wonderful flowers:


All that red and green sure pops! Even the geraniums look good, and I'm not a geranium fan. And since there was such a small turnout of artisans (only 4 of us when there are usually 13 or so) the rivertown players did their abridged fairy tale plays on the front grass:


What fun! As for my experiences this week - I had a great time hanging out with my mom who nicely set up my table while I was at a doctor's appointment. I also got some lovely visits from leslie, jim, and nick to top it off! Check us out:


Nice pose les, I warned you I'd be blogging about this. The buying traffic certainly surged this week with a nice radio advertisement in the morning leading to a day of great sales! I sold loads of plushies, pocket mirrors, post cards, and buttons making the day sail by smoothly. Oh, except for some massive threatening cloudy storms mid afternoon - which luckily passed before the show was over. The heat wasn't even that bad! What a success! This week I'm going to try to get more pocket mirrors and buttons made since the mirrors have been selling like hotcakes and I'm almost out of robots and labware pins! Exciting! Here's to hoping next week is as successful!

cat versus human

I am very much a cat person and I'm sure if I lived in a world with unlimited funds, space, and no cat allergies I would own many, many cats and become a cat lady. I, however, hope never to become a crazy cat lady. The lovely blog "cat versus human" explains the difference quite well:


Here's to hoping that never happens to me...oh and that blog is wonderful. I totally recommend checking out all their sarcastic cat comics even if you're not into cats. It's that good.

Friday Find: slide sideways

You know what is great? Surfing through other people's etsy favourites and discovering the most wonderful new shops! After a nice browse of quinn's fav list I fell for the wonderful screen printed organic loveliness of slide sideways. Fantastically simple and charming designs in drool-worthy colour pallettes! Take a look at a few of their products:


How awesome! I'm particularly drawn to their paper goods since I've decided moving into a new place pairs well with new etsy inspired decorating schemes! I'm thinking a nice inspirational wall of handmade screen/letter press prints in black frames? Preferably super rad designs in muted tones on white paper?? Too bad moving actually pairs with tons of extra costs and budgeting. Good thing my birthday is coming! Etsy money from everyone please! Okay - perhaps not...but once some spare funds come my way I'll be sure to make sure the printed goods of slide sideways are on my spending list! Yay!

the pen pal project

Many months ago I joined tea cups in peony's project pen pal where some pen pal seeking folks from across the globe signed up and got paired off to be random letter friends! (link). Well - I promised to keep you all posted on how it was going (notice the terrible pun I decided was so delicious I'd use it again) and...nothing ever happened! I got paired up with someone who never mailed me! Ack! What a disappointment! Well - fear no more. Luckily jen at IndieFixx has arranged a whole pen pal project group I have joined! Take a peek:


She started up this project around the same time as tea cups in peony's but had some issues with spammers using people's emails illegitimately (yuck)! Now she's relaunched the project in the form of a google group (go google go) giving me the perfect opportunity to jump in! All you need to go is join up with the sweet group and write a little post about yourself (spilling details on the kind of person you are, hobbies, interests, etc). Then you can search the posts for potential pen pals you'd be interested letter-ing with or let them find you! How awesome! So if you're a letter writing fiend like myself I totally encourage signing up too! Or even better - sign up and message me (since I imagine being interested in reading my blog must mean we have something in common)!! Here's to hoping this one is a success!

Post-it Stop Motion!

Here is a fantastic video I found after checking out my lovely reader marci's blog! Because who doesn't like stop motion short videos, procrastinating when work needs to be done, and post its (especially for us list writing addicts)?

I totally loved the rain part the best! What was your favourite part?

Sailor's Knot Bracelet Tutorial

Time to grab the twine and get weaving with this fantastic sailor's knot bracelet tutorial from etsy! I had no idea etsy's blog (the storque) had so many neat posts - and DIYs are certainly my favourite. Plus the nautical theme is super trendy right now - take a peek at what you could create:


Okay - so the actual tutorial is for a bracelet a little simpler than this, but I was won over by those oceany blues! Plus I'm sure once you mastered the simple weaving this wouldn't be too much of a stretch! Hooray! One more project to add to the to do list! I think I just need to convince leslie to make this one and I can go on with my vicarious crafting for the time being...yup...sounds great!