The Potbelly Pixie

LOVE

For my secret Valentine at illustratedATCs.com. Part of a larger package of other nifty heart-y things including earrings (not shown), Sweethearts, a Valentine-y tall mug, and an IMP.

REAL Treasury

Wow!  Persistence pays dividends!  I sat staring at my computer like some kind of frozen, comatose geek for a while today, and ended up lucking out with my first ever Treasury. 

Click here for some o' that NUTS FOR NEAPOLITAN goodness, and support starving artists, and the handmade cause!

Here's the REAL thing -->

And PS:  I'm positively CRINGING because I spelled NeApolitan wrong in the title of my TREASURY.  TREASURY titles are un-editable.  AARGH!!!!

Faux Treasury

I was playing around this morning, trying to learn more about how to get a Treasury on Etsy, and I stumbled across the POSTER SKETCH feature there which allows you to "try on" a Treasury listing before taking it live.  Fun.  This is all assuming  I'll ever get a Treasury; they are elusive little buggers, those Treasuries are... and I'm even having trouble accurately predicting when they open, because it's NOT necessarily when one Treasury expires, but when ENOUGH expire that the total number of Treasuries drops below 333, which involves counting backward from the one due to expire soonest until you reach 333.  And that makes my head hurt.

But I digress.

This morning, in the midst of all that befuddlement and confusion, I assembled my dream Treasury (to please today's whims, anyway) using POSTER SKETCH around a "Nuts for Neapolitan" theme.  Looking at my blog and website decor, have you noticed I like the combination of pink, brown, and white?  :)  Hopefully I'll be around to grab a real Treasury later today.  But if not, this exercise will make for a good start from which to begin a Treasury someday, when I finally do get one.  Included in my list are items from friends in the art card and bear worlds; I looked for anything that might fit a pink, brown, and creamy theme.

Pretty, no??

Misery Loves Company

My 12-year-old son Noah got his braces this morning and he was so happy and all smiles about it.  TRUE, he got only his upper brackets today, versus getting uppers and lowers bonded; lower brackets will follow in a few months.   NO,  he doesn't have to endure the STUPID bite blockers on his back molars which are so aggravating and make chewing absolute torture.  And he's young... not some begrudgingly aging, ex-cheerleading, marginally vain, middle-aged woman like me.  This is what I tell myself, anyway, as he oh-so-gracefully enters his era of orthodontics, as compared to my own entry just one week ago -- which was more, shall we say?, of the wriggling-uncomfortably-and-quasi-reluctantly-into-place variety. 

Noah requested rainbow alastics his first time outta the gate, which firmly cemented his reputation at Dr. Hood's office as "uber cool" and "adventurous."  Rockin'!

Check out this beautiful tin grin.  I love this boy!

CROWing about these!

Lookie!  I got some tres cool goodies in the mail yesterday.  First, a set of nine crow inchies from awesome UK watercolor artist Emma, which I received as part of a 1:1 personal swap.  Are these not the most masterful, wee bits of art??  There's so much detail in them.  Emma even created nine tiny one-inch pockets to display these babies, and inked a pretty surround, complete with cut paper crow and heart at the corners.  What a treasure.

Making her parcel that much more special was the RAK she sent me of two hand-stitched, bonbon-colored, felt hearts, one of which is immaculately embellished with beads and metallic cord lace and ribbons. The entire thing came wrapped in robin's egg blue paper with a pretty pink organza ribbon tied in a bow on top, and she included a beautiful card.  Special note:  You should SEE her handwriting!  It's art in and of itself! 

Just gorgeous!

Wisdom

Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.

- Eleanor Roosevelt

Host card & Rolo

I don't just obsess about my teeth; I also create stuff!

Here, an altered Rolo for Terryart...

... and a hostess card for Sarah, who organized the Happy Hearts garland swap.

Imps & ligatures

Whee!  I feel happy and breezy and light!  First of all, huge THANKS to the five folks who (already) bought my first IMPS of 2008.  I awoke this morning to find them all purchased.  WOW!!  They'll be travelling all over the globe -- to Sweden, Australia, Denmark, and the US.  Totally exciting!  I spent part of this morning at Michael's gathering pretty Valentine-y supplies for wrapping them nicely.  I really try to please my customers, whether they've spent $500 on one of my pieces, or $30.  Every one is appreciated.  :)

I was interested to learn how many people favored the tutu-sporting IMP, "Kitten's Gotta Dance!!"  She was nabbed first by a lovely someone, and several customers who went on to purchase other IMPS mentioned they would have bought her, if she had been available.  I think this means there will be more tutu-wearing IMPS in the future.  That's called "smart business planning," methinks.  Here's a closer peek at Kitten.

I decided to remove the MY ETSY showcase I had just uploaded to my blog yesterday, because once my Etsy shop was emptied, MY ETSY was a huge column of NOTHINGness, and it looked really silly  Boy, am I lucky that this is what my problems look like:  my shop has been emptied, so my blog sidebar looks funny.  Anyway, in case you're wondering where it went, I removed it for now.  Once I get more IMPS back into my Etsy shop -- or other items, for that matter -- I'll activate it again.  It'll be in the left hand column, near the top.

Second, on an orthodontic note (braces, still very much on my mind)... my teeth were getting icky and yellow over the last week I've been in braces and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why since I have impeccable oral hygiene, especially now!!  Turns out, the sealants they put on teeth prior to bonding the brackets sometimes gather stains.  That, and also, any leftover bonding material that sits on the exposed tooth surface will also tend to stain, and I had plenty of that gunk still attached.  I'd already flicked several chunks of bonding cement off my teeth over the last week and planned to ask, "What's the deal with that??" at my next visit in February, anyway.  In the meantime, though, I was getting sick and tired of thinking my mouth looked like that of a lifelong smoker who'd never seen whitening toothpaste or a brush.  So I called my ortho, and they fit me in for a prophy.

After a quick cleaning/polishing, the RDA and I did some talking about continuing with my white wire ligatures, versus trying clear rubber alastics (yes, that's how it's spelled), which I had decided against (in consultation with my doctor) because they tend to stain and it's a long time between appointments.  Ultimately, I decided to try the alastics.  Mostly, because the white wire ties were so starkly white against my "normal" shade teeth that they made my teeth look even yellower!  And also, because office visits will be sooooo much quicker if alastic ligatures are used instead of wire ones, which have to be hand-twisted to each bracket, one by one.  The alastics slip on quickly with a hemostat; it literally took 1/10th the time to attach them that it took to attach my wires.  Here's a picture of a gal with colored alastics on her brackets, just to illustrate what they are and where they go and what they do... followed by a picture of me with white wire ligatures (last week) compared to clear alastics (this week.)

Image courtesy braceface.com

The best part is, I learned I can visit my ortho office ONCE A WEEK, EVERY WEEK if I want to, to have my alastics changed. How cool is that??  This was an important condition in my decision making about ligatures today, since I've read extensively on the web that the clear alastics do stain easily from coffee, tea, curry, and acid/tomato foods.  I get to make those alastic-changing visits at no extra charge, and the office staff was chipper in offering the visits to me, to boot.  They even sent me home with a giant bag of alastics to keep on hand and change myself, if I want to, and can figure out how.  I was told some people use tweezers, but in the office they use a locking hemostat.  Now, where to find one of those, to make the job easier...?

I'll still have my regular ortho visits every six weeks or so, where I'll see the doctor for progress checks, and it may come to pass that I'll need wire ties on some teeth, at some point, because plain and simple, they're tighter, and move teeth better.  But I'm told that if I do in fact end up changing my (stained) alastics every week or so, they'll never really get "loose" anyway.  And in the meantime, I'm so much happier with how my mouth looks.  Relief!  I've been feeling really, really self conscious since my braces weren't nearly as invisible as I thought they'd be.  Now, they are... thanks to the clear alastics I'm wearing, instead of those original opaque white wires, in my mouth.  Such a simple thing, but with such profound consequences.  Now, fingers crossed they don't stain too badly, too quickly; that I can figure out how to change them myself; and that my teeth continue to move well using them.

All in all, a very happy morning for Shel!

Happy Hearts

... for a heart-garland swap at ATCards.com.  I probably won't hang my returns (I'll get 9:9), but instead, display them in my ATC binder.  The point of the swap as OY conceptualized it, tho, was that we'd punch holes at the sides and hang these as Valentine's Day garlands.  Clever and cute... garland or otherwise!

Here are mine.

About Etsy

Since I've mentioned Etsy several times now, I figured I might oughta talk a little bit more about it  for anyone reading this who's unfamiliar with it. More and more, for a variety of compelling reasons, I'm about the "buy handmade" cause, so Etsy merits deeper mention.

Etsy, in short, ROCKS.  I have no better shorthand with which to describe it.  It's overwhelming to learn at first, but with a little perseverance, it pays huge dividends in the form of the most marvelous, original, brilliantly priced and soooo inspirational eye candy.  My family, and Santa, brought me many Etsy gifts this holiday season past, and I've been impressed with the quality and creativity of everything I've received.

So, what is Etsy?

First and foremost, Etsy is about all things handmade.  In fact, it's a condition to selling that items be wholly or mostly handmade and original.  So that makes Etsy a great place to find original, cutting edge art, sometimes at excellent prices.  And I have to say, Etsy hosts some of the most creative jewelry designers I've ever seen assembled in one place.

Second, for those of you familiar with eBay, Etsy is a sales forum -- not an auction site.  Items are listed at fixed prices and are immediately available for purchase; there's no waiting for auctions to close and there's no competitive nail-biting that goes on, waiting for news on wanted items that runs right down to the wire.  Occasionally, sellers will post options for a custom-created item that might take a week or two to complete, customized to the purchaser.  Interested buyers simply purchase the "special order" for their custom item at the fixed price designated, and then await delivery on their own original work of art. 

One of the best ways I've found to explore on Etsy -- which I'm still learning, myself -- is to browse the TREASURY.  In simplest terms, a TREASURY is a collection of items assembled by an Etsy member (anyone can make a Treasury).  Treasuries are usually based on a given theme (such as a color, era, type of object, season, medium, etc.)  There are 333 active Treasuries at any given time; when they are created, they are assigned a random expiration date.  All Treasuries expire.  When one does, that makes room for another Etsy member to create a new Treasury of his or her own, so that the number of active Treasuries at any one time is always roughly equal to 333.

What this means is that someone else is doing all the hard work of assembling great art FOR you!!!  Browse the list of Treasuries and be amazed:  you can find Treasuries for every color, every subject, every medium imaginable.  Some Treasury themes are funny and light; others, dark and fetish related.  You can click through all the active Treasuries from the link I provided, above.

Here, for your enjoyment, are screen caps of just a few Treasuries I stumbled upon today, which had fun and different themes, which caught my eye.  I was introduced to so many new and wonderful artists while assembling these images for sharing here on my blog, and it'll be easy to remember them all because I "hearted" them as FAVORITES.  That's Etsy lingo for you -- "hearted."  As in, "I heart this seller" or "I heart this item."  See?  It's not just about great art.  It's also just plain fun at Etsy!

I heart Etsy, fo sho.

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VINTAGE KITCHEN TREASURY

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VALENTINE TREASURY

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HONEY THEMED TREASURY

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CATS TREASURY

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BLACK & WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY TREASURY

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STRAWBERRIES & CREAM TREASURY

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Pretty, no?  Inspiring, yes?  Now get ye to Etsy, and do some TREASURY spelunking of your own!!