Terbearco stamp!

I must say I am frankly astonished at the great custom stamp I just received from terbearco. The package was full of discount cards, goodies from other Etsy shops, nicely shipped inside a little cotton pouch and packed with tips for stamping... definitely one of the best Etsy packages I've ever received. Unbelievably nice. The stamp works brilliantly and she even included a little pumpkin stamp just in time for Halloween! 

I can't recommend her highly enough!

What's busier than a bee?

Because that's how busy I have been. If I was a bee, I would be calling in for backup. I'm totally, completely, ridiculously swamped.

There's the new car, of course, and on Thursday my mother got rear-ended. Hard. So there's dealing with her insurance and taking care of her, and trying to keep up with the day job, and so much more.

I haven't been making any books at all lately. But I did sell a few - these three left for new homes:

And all got rave reviews from their new owners! So that's very exciting. 

I'm thinking of doing some softcover, maybe longstitch lizard skin journals in the near future. And I have a great idea for some rose-colored snakeskin I bought recently. 

Hopefully I'll be back to book making very soon! :)

And yes, she is that good.

Exciting and Frightening!

It's heeee-eeere! My lovely new little miata. Silver and sexy. I'm thrilled, just thrilled. Joe and I took her out last night, and we were out until 12:30, teaching me to drive stick shift. I don't know how well I will do today, driving stick for the first time in traffic and with people around. It makes me slightly queasy. We'll see. I just hope I don't crash!

Also, my business cards came in! They're beautiful! I will post up some pictures soon so you can all see.

:D

Extra goodies!

Woo, and I forgot! I finally ordered a logo stamp from terbearco, and some business cards from greenerprinter.com!
I really wanted to use an Etsy shop to buy my business cards from, but I couldn't find any shop that listed clear instructions for submitting artwork, or any that clearly described paper options and design options. I found a million "business card design" listings, but I already had a design. I just need the printing done! Preferably on recycled paper. So I'm glad I found greenerprinter. They use 100% recycled paper with 50% post-consumer, and paper whitened with a non-chlorine bleaching process. Hooray! 

I'll be posting photos when they arrive. :D

Progress, finally!

Well, I finally got all the unfinished books finished, put a few disconnected ideas together into books, and got everything photographed. It took me all day, but it's done! :) And anyway, a day spent bookmaking and Etsying is a pretty awesome day. 

This is what my desk looked like this morning: 

And here is one of the results:

 

It's so bright! I've been working with black so often that I wanted to do something fiercely bright. I wanted to do a little stenciling, and I wanted to use rich, deep colors. I also wanted to try using colored signature reinforcements. It came out so well, I'm definitely going to make more of this kind of journal. I had really missed using cotton fabric. It's so much easier to work with than leather. I'm particularly happy with this journal because I was able to avoid glue smudges anywhere. I am continually plagued by glue smudges.

Here are a couple other recent listings:

A black leather casebound with gold. This one has hand-sewn headbands, which I'm going to do a tutorial on soon. They're really satisfying to make. It's a really nice touch on any journal.



My little lizard minis, which you saw a few days ago:






A square coptic lizard skin mini:



Black leather coptic with lizard skin under windows. The windows were so hard to get right - the flaps of leather that curl to the inside are so small and hard to glue down. But it did come out nicely.

So there's what I've been so busy with lately. I have one more to list, but that can wait until tomorrow. As Lilli Von Schtupp might say, let's face it - I'm tired! :)

Newsish.

Whoo... what a week. Most of you begin your week on Monday and end on Sunday. My week is all over the place - never the same days off. Tuesday was my Monday this week. And what a week it was. So much to do and think about.

Most likely the big mommy station wagon will be going away soon, and I will be glad to see it go. It has served me well, but I'm done with the broken air conditioner, done with the anemic engine and the DVD player I have never used, the aircraft carrier-esque handling, and the American engineering. Sorry, but I actually need all the parts on my vehicle to function as they should, and last more than a few thousand miles. Plus I have to work on the car, and I can personally assure you all that there were zero mechanics on the Saturn design team. 

And I will be getting into a lovely, tiny, light, efficient little Miata. What a relief that will be. For one, I won't be spending so much on gas. And for two, I might actually enjoy driving around. Since I drive roughly 800 miles per month, that is rather important. 

So anyway, I had the Etsy front page feature the other day, which was thrilling, and I've had two showcase spots recently, but those last three journals are just sitting around in the shop. I think it's bare shelf syndrome. People get uneasy when a shop only has a few items. I know I do - I always wonder what's going on in the seller's life that they only managed to list two or three things. Fortunately, I had a rather productive evening and I have two new casebounds to list, one possible coptic (I might keep it), one mini coptic, and the two eeny teeny longstitch journals. 

Since I found paper mojo the other day, I have been browsing an awful lot. I decided to sit out the labor day sale, since I am still not sure exactly which papers I want to order. Such a wide selection. There are a few chiyogami papers that I am eyeing. We shall see. 

I don't have any photos tonight - I may have some tomorrow, but I will leave you with ridiculously adorable photos of Max. Enjoy. 

He does this all the time. He just loves that rug. Silly cat.