Happy ^%*#$ Holidays

Well, the economy is dumping on everyone, it seems. The thought is handily illustrated by the lovely origami piece to the left, an original design by Won Park (*orudorumagi11) and you can see more of his awesome dollar bill origami on his deviantart page.

This week I found out that I am not getting a holiday bonus. The holiday party was cancelled. And to top it all off, the office is closed without pay on December 24 and 31. So I get to flush nearly $200 down the drain, right at Christmas when I need it the most. 

I am grateful to have a job. I am grateful to have a great boss who will go to bat for me and my coworker. I am grateful to have wonderful coworkers and a job that I enjoy doing, every day. I am grateful for an opportunity to work at a newspaper, express my creative freedom, expand my portfolio, have a flexible schedule... 

But damn, does that $200 loss feel like a kick in the teeth this time of year. 

NPR, my eternal companion, isn't doing much better. The excellent and very informative daily show, Day to Day, was cancelled, and Madeleine Brand, the host of the show was laid off today. Along with two other excellent reporters. 

I'm so upset. Happy holidays, humbug! My Etsy sales have paid for Christmas presents this year, and I'm shopping with the thought of struggling craftspeople in my head. I bought all but two of my presents on Etsy this year, and I have more to buy if my day job pays me some back mileage checks and boosts my budget a bit. I took the handmade pledge a few months ago and I did quite well! 

You'll remember the little garden I'm starting from the photos I put up in my last post. I'm sure glad about it. I now have rosemary, licorice basil, carrots, bell peppers, spearmint, beans, peas, spinach, lettuce, and some bee-attracting, pest-repelling marigolds and chocolate flowers. So in a few months I should be eating largely from my own garden. Hooray! Just about all my food comes from the farmers market now, and my grocery store shopping is all for staples like rice, beans, soup supplies, etc. 

Sigh. I hope all of you are doing better... Christmas looks to be pretty dismal this year. Best of luck to you, friends. 

November is Wonderful

Truly. I love October, but I love October best in the Eastern Sierra. Down here in Simi Valley October isn't nearly as nice as November. The rains arrive in November. First it smells like rain, and the slate-colored clouds crowd the sky. Then suddenly it's pouring, the grasses bending low in relief, the streets flooding, water staining the trees and earth dark. And the next day everything is bright, even the sky is bluer with enormous white clouds rolling over the valley.

I open every window in the house to let in the crisp breeze.



In the oven are delicious Thanksgiving treats. Pumpkin pie sweetened with honey, NOT sugar. Delicious local honey, from bees who make it all by themselves from Buckwheat nectar. I like bees. I'm that girl that rescues an injured bee from the hot sidewalk and carefully puts him down in the shade.



Lover boy relaxes on the couch while I check on the pie.



On the windowsill, my vegetable/flower garden seedlings are enjoying the sun.






Lots to be thankful for today. I listed five (FIVE!) new journals in the shop - I had a very productive day off yesterday - the photo album I was working on went over extremely well, I have a brand new first cousin once removed, and I'm in love!

More details on the new journals and the photo album soon.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Economic Depression

Depression indeed, but fortunately ONLY economic. I've been in otherwise excellent spirits, driving my lovely miata around beneath positively stunning blue skies full of fluffy white clouds, cuddling with my sweetheart, pulling out my winter sweaters (i just love wearing knits), and drinking lots of coffee and tea.
I've recently developed a fondness for coffee - but what a coffee snob I am. I only like the Ethiopian Arabica beans from CB&TL, ground in small batches and immediately brewed, and only by French press. Add a bit of whole organic milk, and it's a marvelous after-supper drink. What an egotistical, liberal elitist I am! ... I rather hope not, and I hope that enjoying a bit of coffee made the simplest, most wonderful way possible doesn't automatically put me in that category. Pooh on conservatives for creating that stereotype, haha!
Anyway, on to the real good stuff. I was able to put a few things in the shop lately, but some have already been snapped up! I suppose it's the Holidays coming. I do need to get my ass in gear and start working on new pieces before Holiday shopping really begins.
So here's what I've been up to lately:



I put together this little pouch, on a whim because I haven't done any hand sewing in such a long time. I think I may do a bit more soon, I rather enjoyed it. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, too.



I also bound this up - slender little thing, as I'm running low on paper at the moment, but nicely pocket sized.

These are still in the shop, and I'm hoping someone will fall for them soon. It's not that I'm so greedy for the money - although it does help pay for paper at a time when my wallet is stretched thin, that's always nice - I'm so much more excited about finding them a new home. I want someone to open up the package and be thrilled at their new journal. I want them to fill the pages with stories and sketches, populate the blank paper with trees and faces and long strings of beautiful words. It's the potential that I'm excited about. The pregnant book-ness, the opportunity to capture thought and stories. What a romantic I am, eh? Joe is always harping on me about the shops... he doesn't think I'm considering them real businesses. I should be thinking about Marketing and Sales and Overhead. But who wants to think about all that. These are Books! They are Magical!
Ah, I am a romantic fool. Haha...

Well, anyway. Here's a new shop inhabitant, waiting for words:



A big bruiser of a book, Belgian binding and drawing paper inside. It was actually my first Belgian book, but these bindings really need waxed thread for stability and strength, and I didn't know that when I bound it. So I tore it apart this weekend and re-bound it, and now it's lovely and much more durable.



You may remember I mentioned these three a while back. I was thinking of stenciling something on their covers, or otherwise jazzing them up. But they've been sitting on my bookshelf and I can't bring myself to add anything to them, so they went into the shop unadorned. Simple and plain, but charming nonetheless.

Well, that's the news so far. Holidays coming up, and I think I will be making some new miniature books - I have lots of paper scraps waiting to be used, and there's a Stocking Stuffers showcase soon, so it's a good excuse to play with tiny books. :)

Shipping and Packaging for the Holidays

Well, I'm starting to gather all my packaging supplies together for the holidays - since I have already started shopping, I figure others have too and I should be ready. I'm considering adding gift wrap to the shop, but I'm not sure how that will work. I can make the inside of the package pretty, but USPS and UPS stick labels and stickers and such all over the outside, so how can I pretty that up? Hmm.....
I still need to buy some plain brown boxes. I'm going with the natural, organic palette for packaging. I think it's classy. :)

I received this message in an email from Karen Allen, e-Consignment representative of Florence LLC, when I bought something from them on Ebay. I thought it was really funny and charming.

We do our best to hold true to a time tested shipping tradition passed down for over 5000 years :). This very intensive practice is only achieved after years of training, meditation, and deep breathing but mostly by holding our mouth just right while we concentrate. We donned special gloves and placed it into a fancy box made of magic, lined with KuKu bird feathers, tied the box with a few strands of Unicorn hair, and wrapped the whole thing in a sparkly looking faux gold leaf paper, with elm leaf inlay from Wal-Mart. Unfortunately, by the time it gets to you, that fancy stuff will most likely have been picked clean by the curious package handlers along the way. Please do not be surprised to see a plain package with your purchase inside :)

Today It Is My Birthday

Hooray! I have lots of photos to post - of the new stamp and business cards I bought for the shop recently, two or three from our recent vacation (i shot almost exclusively pinholes on Fuji 160, so those will have to wait for a while), and miscellaneous others too. I'll get them up soon. I thought I wouldn't have much to do after I returned from vacation, but boy was I wrong. So much to get done....

Too bad I have to work today, but least the weather is delightfully stormy. Finally feels like fall! I do love October, and not just because there is chocolate cake involved. :D

To celebrate, here are a few fun birthday goodies from Etsy. Pictures are clickable and take you to the Etsy listing. 

A simple and just downright cool card from tracychong, $4. 

Two cute candles from Candle Confections, $8.99. Nice touch with the sprinkles!

A squishable and snuggly slice of birthday cake from crazydaisy60, $21.95. I wonder if they come in chocolate....

The most adorable birthday hat, EVER! From CrashCanStudio, $17. I totally want one!!

A very cool card-alternative, with a candle, matches, and even a built-in candle holder. From dippylulu, $11.50 for a set of three. :)

A birthday card with an awful lot of work put into it. This is the ultimate in handmade cards! $4, from AJK Artistry. 

And finally, an adorable little wooden cake or cupcake-topper from kiwihandmade, $15. Too cute. 

Happy birthday to me! :D

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! :)

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! :)