I think my favorite has to be the triangle necklaces, and there are so many fun color options! What are some of your favorite Etsy finds these days?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Hug a Porcupine
One of my latest Etsy finds are these adorable little pins and fantastic geometric necklaces from Hug a Porcupine. It's really hard not to like these enamel accessories.
I think my favorite has to be the triangle necklaces, and there are so many fun color options! What are some of your favorite Etsy finds these days?
I think my favorite has to be the triangle necklaces, and there are so many fun color options! What are some of your favorite Etsy finds these days?
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Punch List
It's been a while since I've done a Wednesday punch list, and there are plenty of things to mention.
1. Yesterday I actually had FUN teaching for the first time in a long time. Many of you know that I've been feeling burned out and struggle to make it fun for myself. I taught my eighth graders a U.S. History lesson about pre-American Revolution happenings and we drank tea, paid our taxes to the king with Skittles, started a rebellion, and still got work done.
2. I am officially hooked. I read The Hunger Games (almost the entire thing) while sitting in jury duty last week. I'm on to Catching Fire at this point. I'll have to figure out what to do about the third book since I don't have a classroom copy that I can steal to bring home. In other news, my school's PTA has ordered a classroom set for me so that we can use it as our next novel! I know my kids will love it, so I'm quite excited about this! And that is saying a lot since I'm usually the first to bash these types of trilogies.
3. Speaking of books. One thing I promised myself this year was that I made time for myself to read. So far, I've been able to stick to that. I'm proud to say, so far in this new year, I've spent more time with a book in my hand than time in front of the tv. I'm not going to lie, Andrew and I were becoming Storage Wars addicts. Now we've been using the free on demand feature and catching up on our shows on Friday nights. Perfect too because it cuts out a large portion of the ads, saving us even more time from being in front of the tv!
4. Andrew's parents gave us a home brew kit for Christmas. We're both love really good beer and had been wanting to try home brewing for a while. We're really looking forward to giving a go. It could definitely have potential for a pretty awesome hobby. Andrew already has plans for me to design beer labels for our brews.
5. You may have seen me tweet about this already, but I'm incredibly excited about the reception for one of my latest Valentine's cards. In one short week, the card has had 11 sales, over 100 favorites, and over 700 views. I would be lying if I weren't to say I am overwhelmed by the response. I know a lot of Etsy shops have this sort of thing happen on a daily basis and it may not seem like a big deal to those people, but for me it's a sign that I can do this! Or that I can accomplish all of my goals!
6. The Steelers lost in the playoffs on Sunday night. I was bummed, but it's just sports so I got over it pretty quickly. Is it bad, though, that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself in those 3 extra hours each Sunday? :)
7. Remember my post about boots earlier this fall? Well, I'm pretty sure Andrew's mom is pretty awesome because being the sneaky person she is, she bought me the Free People socks featured in the post for me as a Christmas gift. And if that wasn't sneaky enough, she also stalked my Etsy favorites and bought my fave t-shirt from Blonde Peacock. She's one incredibly thoughtful and sneaky Christmas shopper!
8. After the holidays, we are now loaded up with a year's supply of chocolate. Good chocolate too. I'd estimate we have nearly 100 Lindor truffles, several delicious chocolate bars, plus a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember at the moment. One piece of chocolate per night after dinner for dessert. That's how we made it through the stash last year.
9. Every night at about 9:30, Lilah and Finn wrestle. They wrestle and play for a good half hour. We call it Wrestlemania Time. Never before have I seen a cat and dog get along so well and it makes me smile each time.
10. In the coming weeks, I'm hoping to introduce a super fun social experiment Andrew and I brainstormed in our car ride home from Cleveland. I don't want to say a whole lot about it just yet, but it has to do with mail and will involve some of my cards. I'll be sure to fill you all in. Stay tuned in the event you'd like to participate! :)
1. Yesterday I actually had FUN teaching for the first time in a long time. Many of you know that I've been feeling burned out and struggle to make it fun for myself. I taught my eighth graders a U.S. History lesson about pre-American Revolution happenings and we drank tea, paid our taxes to the king with Skittles, started a rebellion, and still got work done.
2. I am officially hooked. I read The Hunger Games (almost the entire thing) while sitting in jury duty last week. I'm on to Catching Fire at this point. I'll have to figure out what to do about the third book since I don't have a classroom copy that I can steal to bring home. In other news, my school's PTA has ordered a classroom set for me so that we can use it as our next novel! I know my kids will love it, so I'm quite excited about this! And that is saying a lot since I'm usually the first to bash these types of trilogies.
3. Speaking of books. One thing I promised myself this year was that I made time for myself to read. So far, I've been able to stick to that. I'm proud to say, so far in this new year, I've spent more time with a book in my hand than time in front of the tv. I'm not going to lie, Andrew and I were becoming Storage Wars addicts. Now we've been using the free on demand feature and catching up on our shows on Friday nights. Perfect too because it cuts out a large portion of the ads, saving us even more time from being in front of the tv!
4. Andrew's parents gave us a home brew kit for Christmas. We're both love really good beer and had been wanting to try home brewing for a while. We're really looking forward to giving a go. It could definitely have potential for a pretty awesome hobby. Andrew already has plans for me to design beer labels for our brews.
5. You may have seen me tweet about this already, but I'm incredibly excited about the reception for one of my latest Valentine's cards. In one short week, the card has had 11 sales, over 100 favorites, and over 700 views. I would be lying if I weren't to say I am overwhelmed by the response. I know a lot of Etsy shops have this sort of thing happen on a daily basis and it may not seem like a big deal to those people, but for me it's a sign that I can do this! Or that I can accomplish all of my goals!
6. The Steelers lost in the playoffs on Sunday night. I was bummed, but it's just sports so I got over it pretty quickly. Is it bad, though, that I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself in those 3 extra hours each Sunday? :)
7. Remember my post about boots earlier this fall? Well, I'm pretty sure Andrew's mom is pretty awesome because being the sneaky person she is, she bought me the Free People socks featured in the post for me as a Christmas gift. And if that wasn't sneaky enough, she also stalked my Etsy favorites and bought my fave t-shirt from Blonde Peacock. She's one incredibly thoughtful and sneaky Christmas shopper!
8. After the holidays, we are now loaded up with a year's supply of chocolate. Good chocolate too. I'd estimate we have nearly 100 Lindor truffles, several delicious chocolate bars, plus a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember at the moment. One piece of chocolate per night after dinner for dessert. That's how we made it through the stash last year.
9. Every night at about 9:30, Lilah and Finn wrestle. They wrestle and play for a good half hour. We call it Wrestlemania Time. Never before have I seen a cat and dog get along so well and it makes me smile each time.
10. In the coming weeks, I'm hoping to introduce a super fun social experiment Andrew and I brainstormed in our car ride home from Cleveland. I don't want to say a whole lot about it just yet, but it has to do with mail and will involve some of my cards. I'll be sure to fill you all in. Stay tuned in the event you'd like to participate! :)
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Year of the House
As we move from the outdoors to the indoors in cold weather times, Andrew and I have started thinking about way to make this house what we've really wanted. After living her for a year and a half, we realized that many of the things we had hoped to do right away are still lingering. The half bath tiles were never ripped out, our upstairs is still painted entirely white, and our scuzzy Ikea sofa with dog drool all over it and a faded arm is less than charming. So Andrew has dubbed 2012 "The Year of the House."
The first deed was done when we spent an afternoon in the DC area and picked up this desk.
Then, over the New Year's weekend when we ordered this sleeper sofa and chairs.
The one distressing part about this is that we're not entirely sure the sofa will fit into our basement. Andrew did all sorts of calculations and thinks it'll work, but there's still a part of me that's very worried. On an upside, the chairs will definitely fit, with one of them going into my new studio. We've decided that since we don't have that many guests, we'd opt for a sleeper sofa in the basement and use the second bedroom as a studio and reading room. So it's out with this room, and in with some new decor-- already. Though we're planning on keeping some of the elements.
Before choosing a sofa, we decided to take care of the ugly black one inch square tiles that are in the half bath and chose out new cork flooring. I love the look of cork floors and since it's pretty pricey, we decided the small space of the half bath would be the perfect place to put it to add some light, warmth, and keep the cost low.
Finally, this past weekend we picked out paint for our studio and bedroom.
The transition begins this Friday when the Salvation Army comes to get our old couch and mattress. This coming weekend will be a painting fest, for sure in the studio room, in anticipation for the arrival of our sofa and chairs.
Within the first ten days of 2012, I would most definitely say this has become the Year of the House. Looking forward to these transitions and I'll be sure to share photos as progress is made. What sorts of home projects are you working on this year?
The first deed was done when we spent an afternoon in the DC area and picked up this desk.
Then, over the New Year's weekend when we ordered this sleeper sofa and chairs.
The one distressing part about this is that we're not entirely sure the sofa will fit into our basement. Andrew did all sorts of calculations and thinks it'll work, but there's still a part of me that's very worried. On an upside, the chairs will definitely fit, with one of them going into my new studio. We've decided that since we don't have that many guests, we'd opt for a sleeper sofa in the basement and use the second bedroom as a studio and reading room. So it's out with this room, and in with some new decor-- already. Though we're planning on keeping some of the elements.
Before choosing a sofa, we decided to take care of the ugly black one inch square tiles that are in the half bath and chose out new cork flooring. I love the look of cork floors and since it's pretty pricey, we decided the small space of the half bath would be the perfect place to put it to add some light, warmth, and keep the cost low.
Finally, this past weekend we picked out paint for our studio and bedroom.
The transition begins this Friday when the Salvation Army comes to get our old couch and mattress. This coming weekend will be a painting fest, for sure in the studio room, in anticipation for the arrival of our sofa and chairs.
Within the first ten days of 2012, I would most definitely say this has become the Year of the House. Looking forward to these transitions and I'll be sure to share photos as progress is made. What sorts of home projects are you working on this year?
Monday, January 9, 2012
The Final Product
So you may remember some fun I had with markers and I had promised I would show the end result. I finally had the chance to get everything printed, photographed, and listed in my shop. And here is the final result.
While the vibrancy of the colors became a bit more dull, I am still happy with the outcome! So much so that I had to try another idea with creating a scanned image card. This time, I used paper cutouts of hearts, did some PhotoShop magic, popped the PhotoShop magic into an Illustrator file, tweaked a few things here and there, and viola!
What do you think?
I'm loving all of the fun ideas I've been having for Valentine's cards, but have been trying to design some new stationery these days as well. I'll be back with that in a few days! :)
While the vibrancy of the colors became a bit more dull, I am still happy with the outcome! So much so that I had to try another idea with creating a scanned image card. This time, I used paper cutouts of hearts, did some PhotoShop magic, popped the PhotoShop magic into an Illustrator file, tweaked a few things here and there, and viola!
What do you think?
I'm loving all of the fun ideas I've been having for Valentine's cards, but have been trying to design some new stationery these days as well. I'll be back with that in a few days! :)
Friday, January 6, 2012
All in the Family with StarSeventeen
I'm pretty sure that art runs in the family. My dad's art is building guitars. My mom's is baking bread and making woodblock prints. My sister's is hats. Yup. Hats. Well, that's not entirely true because she's pretty amazing with all sorts of media-- painting, drawing, knitting, collage-ing, jewelry-making, card-making, sewing, and probably a bunch of other things that I can't even remember anymore. So to say just hats would be silly when she's spent her entire life doing art of one sort or another.
Her latest focus, however, is her Etsy shop StarSeventeen. She especially loves creating geometric designs. And she paints her geometric designs on hats. I love the originality of this particular art and the fact that no two hats are alike.
And if that's not enough hats for you, I'm pretty sure she rocks at making knitted hats too. I can fully attest to that one considering that both mine and Andrew's favorite winter hats are ones that she knitted us for Christmas a few years ago. A few of those for eye candy as well...
And we even share an obsession with Sharpie markers...
She sells her hats on Etsy in her shop StarSeventeen. And you can check her out on Facebook as well. In the future, she's hoping to focus mostly on her geometric designs, expanding to poster prints, and even clothing. Lots to look forward to in the future! Show her some love and head over to her shop and facebook page to favorite and like her!
Her latest focus, however, is her Etsy shop StarSeventeen. She especially loves creating geometric designs. And she paints her geometric designs on hats. I love the originality of this particular art and the fact that no two hats are alike.
And if that's not enough hats for you, I'm pretty sure she rocks at making knitted hats too. I can fully attest to that one considering that both mine and Andrew's favorite winter hats are ones that she knitted us for Christmas a few years ago. A few of those for eye candy as well...
And we even share an obsession with Sharpie markers...
She sells her hats on Etsy in her shop StarSeventeen. And you can check her out on Facebook as well. In the future, she's hoping to focus mostly on her geometric designs, expanding to poster prints, and even clothing. Lots to look forward to in the future! Show her some love and head over to her shop and facebook page to favorite and like her!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
A Little Update
Just wanted to pop in to give a little update on some of the things I worked on for my shop over my winter break. While you may remember that I worked on this project using hand drawn images, I also did some digital design as well.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may remember this little sneak peek. And here we have the final product.
I loved the geometric squares, so I just had to make it into a Valentine's Day card as well!
A fun little idea for a moving announcement card popped into my head.
And my most favorite of all? This Valentine's card that so clearly speaks the truth!
Because let's face it-- we all know you love your special someone not just on Valentine's Day! ;)
If you follow me on Twitter, you may remember this little sneak peek. And here we have the final product.
I loved the geometric squares, so I just had to make it into a Valentine's Day card as well!
A fun little idea for a moving announcement card popped into my head.
And my most favorite of all? This Valentine's card that so clearly speaks the truth!
Because let's face it-- we all know you love your special someone not just on Valentine's Day! ;)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
2012 Goals and Exciting Things!
Over the past year, I've worked really hard to get where I am at this point with my Etsy shop. The ultimate goal, in time, is to be able to quit teaching. I've always been a creative minded person, and I get the most enjoyment out of doing creative projects. The current school year has been especially trying as it feels as though the cogs of a bureaucratic system are finally getting the best of me. So I began thinking of ways that I could make my new side business (as it is right now) become a full time business.
I've always been a list maker, so it made sense that I jot down my goals in one of my many notebooks.
Here is the list that I'd like to accomplish by the end of the new year.
1. Have 200 designs in my shop.
2. Double my sales for the year with 400 sales.
3. Complete my first craft show.
4. Design a website (Right now I'm thinking of using Big Cartel. Anyone have any experience or success with that?)
5. Design at least one new design per week.
6. Finish setting up my studio. (Did I tell you I got a desk?!)
7. Complete at least three blog posts per week. (I'm trying not to let this blog fall between the cracks).
8. In that same grain, I want to work on gaining more followers-- maybe up to 300!
9. Create a new packaging concept for my cards and stationery-- something that looks more professional than just a cellophane sleeve.
10. Create one treasury per week to amp up exposure.
Think I can get it done? I am so incredibly excited about this coming year! There are already some super exciting things that I've done this past week to take things a step further. I opened a separate checking account for my business only, and I registered my business name! Woohoo!
What sorts of goals have you set for your business this year?
I've always been a list maker, so it made sense that I jot down my goals in one of my many notebooks.
Here is the list that I'd like to accomplish by the end of the new year.
1. Have 200 designs in my shop.
2. Double my sales for the year with 400 sales.
3. Complete my first craft show.
4. Design a website (Right now I'm thinking of using Big Cartel. Anyone have any experience or success with that?)
5. Design at least one new design per week.
6. Finish setting up my studio. (Did I tell you I got a desk?!)
7. Complete at least three blog posts per week. (I'm trying not to let this blog fall between the cracks).
8. In that same grain, I want to work on gaining more followers-- maybe up to 300!
9. Create a new packaging concept for my cards and stationery-- something that looks more professional than just a cellophane sleeve.
10. Create one treasury per week to amp up exposure.
Think I can get it done? I am so incredibly excited about this coming year! There are already some super exciting things that I've done this past week to take things a step further. I opened a separate checking account for my business only, and I registered my business name! Woohoo!
What sorts of goals have you set for your business this year?
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