Valentine's Day

On valentine's day Jerod and I are travelling to Chicago to attend and participate in the Chicago Handmade Market. We're excited and have been working very hard to make lots of things. Its at a bar and has a fairly large reputation and following. Plus my mom is babysitting so we get to go childless and spend the night in a hotel! Fun Fun Fun
http://www.handmadechicago.com

I made some pretty cute new brooches, a whole ton of them. These are my favorites right now. And a real sweet coin purse.

I carved a new stamp last night, a sweet cardinal, and made some cute valentines day cards

I went to value village last night and hit the jackpot! maybe it's too cold for people to go shopping? i don't know but it was sweet for me! I found this awesome vintage owl lamp! and a rusty birdhouse and a whole lot of plain t-shirts in good shape each for 50 cents! I am going to take some to fasten for printing but keep some for myself for reconstruction and printing!
I also had a custom request for a wallet which involved ordering a specific color, which i happily did because I'll use it myself. I got it today and boy do I love these new colors! Cute pastels for thinking spring!

I like to buy supplies from etsy sellers because, one, its usually cheaper than michaels or joanns, and two, it feels better supporting independant business people. Today, I found an excellent etsy supply seller! She ahs some GREAT stuff for really good deals!
check her out at http://halolo.etsy.com

Google Analytics

I started using the google analytics on my etsy page right away but hadn't really had a chance to explore the report. So I finally clicked "view report" and explored and Wow! so much information. How fun is it to clikc on traffic overview and be able to see work for work how people got to your site?! 56 people got to me by searching for somethign in google. thats pretty sweet i must say. I found myself on several blogs and websites I've never heard of. So If you haven't started using this yet, I deffiantely recommend it. Its so easy. If you don't know how yet, there are several tutorials in the etsy forums, but like I said, it's so easy, you dont have to do anything!

Jerod made me these little journals to sell with my artwork (and his) on the covers. they're pretty cute. Some pages are just lined, some have little bubbles for doodling and some are blank. I think they'll be a hit :)

I am really really loving my serger. I have a lot to do trying to beef up my inventory for a show in chicago on valentine's day So I haven't had time to play around with things i can serge but i have been using it on the inner seams of the zipper pouches, then i dont have to trim. pretty sweet.

So if you go take a look at http://www.indieparade.com today you'll see one of my owl's right there on the front page :) Never even been to that site before but they sent me a message telling me they'd featured me today. so thats pretty cool.

I recently started doing some cross promotion with fellow etsian and wisconsinite Rana muck of http://ranamuck.blogspot.com/ She sent me her cards and i sent her some postcards and bookmark promotional items. We send them out in each other's packages and get some free advertising and promotion, pretty sweet. Would you like to join in on this? Give me a hoot on etsy or here and lets do it!

I worked for about 4 hourse today cutting out pieces and sewing until my back and shoulders could take no more. It's fun when a new shipment of felt comes in but then I'm overwhelmed with how much i want to make and can't physically accomplish all at once! Here's what I have done today, workin like hell to keep up with the owl demand.

Journals

I started making these little journals to try and utilize all the upholstery fabric we've got around here from my mom's old job. They look cool in the end but they're a realy bitch to bind and whatnot.

We bought a new camera today! Its a pretty sweet deal. Super fancy fujifilm. takes crystal clear amazing pictures. these are some right out of the box testers. Unfortunately theyre all yellow frmo the no flash. but theyre still sweet

I really suck at this. I try to be better. I got a serger after christmas, a gift to myself. So I'm going to try out some new things. I cant seem to make enough owl wallets. I got new felt yesterday so ill have some fresh new things!