Etsy Bonus

In just under over two months of selling I've sold 49 pieces of jewelry! As a bonus to the purchaser of my 50th item, I will send a surprise pair of earrings!

Here's a picture of one of the newest additions to my shop:

Thank you to everyone I've interacted with along the way. I've had nothing but pleasant Etsy experiences so far.

Another Etsy first!

I bought my first piece of art! I have loved this print by Dan-ah Kim since I first added it to my Etsy favorites months ago, and it has taken my utmost restraint on several occasions not to purchase it. I finally broke down and bought it last week, and am so happy that I did! I love the simple feminine lines she uses. There are several more things in Dan-ah's Etsy shop that I would like to own someday, go check her out!

8 Days a Week

I worked for the past 8 days straight and I'm worn out! I recently started a new "part time" position that is more related to my psychology background. I am loving the job, but due to the unpredictable nature of "on call" the job has hardly been part time! I can't go into too much detail about the position due to confidentiality conditions, but I am working with at-risk youth and finding the work to be challenging and really interesting. I will be glad to get to the point when I have learned the many details of the job, because for now there are been many days that I leave with a headache from concentrating so hard.

I am so excited to be cultivating my creative side with Etsy while also nourishing my psychology/social service interests with this new job. I have the next couple of days off and am looking forward to working on Etsy orders, updating my shop, and catching up with my roommates and friends.

An Etsy First

I'll admit I have been a little blog-shy since I first started writing at the beginning of the month. I was having difficulty deciding what I wanted my blog to be about, and also feeling a little unsure about whether or not I actually had anything to say! I know that what I appreciate about looking at other artists' blogs is getting to have a little window into their worlds -- I like to see their creative process, what things inspire them, and how they produce what they do. For me there is nothing as inspiring as being around other artists, and so the art-blogging world offers a (not so) little virtual community of artists.

Since joining Etsy, I have enjoyed some sweet and unexpected interactions with new people. One of my first experiences was when my friend Elaine, who I had met when she was taking one of my beading classes the past year at Dava Bead and Trade in Portland, reconnected with me when she found me and my shop randomly when she was browsing a forum! Since then we have exchanged frequent convos over Etsy and also met up for a museum talk at the Oregon Museum of Contemporary Craft followed by lunch where Elaine introduced me to two of her other friends, Julie and Kara. Julie and Kara also have Etsy shops, HandmadeJulz and OctavineIllustration, respectively.

Another Etsy contact was with Ristowlk, who was kind enough to both include me in her beautiful treasury, and to let me know that she had done so! Recently her boyfriend purchased a necklace from my shop to surprise her with on her birthday. Kate makes beautiful jewelry herself, so I took it as a great compliment that she enjoys my jewelry too! And finally, I returned home from work the other day to find a message from RecycledIdeas. She is an evolutionary psychologist and I have been reading her blog for a couple of years, (I was a psychology major, but hers is a great blog for anyone interested in learning about evolutionary psychology). Recently I was on the Etsy forums and clicked on a link to someone's blog, and it turned out to be hers! I sent her a message then to introduce myself and say hi and to tell her that I'd been a fan of her blog for a while. Anyway, the message she sent me today was to tell me that my Art Deco Earrings had been featured in a treasury by GigglingGoldfish on Etsy's front page! She was even sweet enough to take a screen shot of the treasury in case I had missed it (which I did). I'm including a picture of the treasury for you to see. Didn't GigglingGoldfish do a great job with the items she selected?

Pumpkin everything, please

Last fall my roommates and I capitalized on all things pumpkin. In the span of about two weeks, we tried pumpkin milkshakes, pumpkin scones, pumpkin lattes, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin icecream, pumpkin cookies, and my new favorite, pumpkin beer*.

*Note: I just did a search on the pumpkin ale that I drank the most of last fall, and it only earned a C+ on the beer raters' scale! I guess I don't have very refined beer taste... but I did love this beer!

Tonight my pumpkin craving resurfaced, and I made pumpkin chocolate chip muffins! I found the recipe at allrecipes.com. The recipe is actually for pumpkin chocolate chip bread, but I adapted it to making muffins, baking them at 24 minutes a batch instead of 60. They turned out sooooo good. Thank goodness I live with four other girls who will help me eat them!

You can find the recipe for the pumpkin chocolate chip bread here. I noticed after baking them that many people had commented that they would use less nutmeg next time, and more chocolate chips. I already used twice the amount of chocolate chips called for in my batch, but I agree with the comments about using less nutmeg. That is, if you want to go for total perfection.


All of the recipes I've used so far from allrecipes.com have been really good. Last summer my roommates and I made these Oatmeal and Wheat Flour Blueberry Pancakes quite a bit.

Beginnning stages

I've been working on an assortment of projects this weekend.

I have some earrings and necklaces that need to be antiqued, polished, tumbled, and photographed before they can go in the shop:


And, I'm in the very early stages of a painting! Can you guess what it is going to be?

I also managed to persuade three of my friends to play night-owl Bingo with me last night. If you haven't had the chance to experience Bingo at an actual Bingo hall, trust me, you need to go! It is quite the experience. Our games started at 11:15PM, and we finally left at about 2AM. However, we could've stayed until 4 in the morning!

The best part of late night Bingo is the varied collection of Bingo players you meet there. These people are SERIOUS about their Bingo, and come equipped with multiple daubers (the stamps you use to mark your cards) fancy dauber pouches, and plenty of coffee. You can tell that someone is a regular when they yell "Bingo!" with about as much enthusiasm as someone whose number has just been called at the DMV. On the other hand, my Bingo-novice friends and I could hardly contain ourselves when one of us finally got a Bingo, winning a whopping $25.

Astoria Coffee House

I was so inspired by this photograph of the Astoria Coffee House that I came across yesterday in the gallery of Liquid Sky Arts' blog. Isn't it beautiful?! I love everything about it, from the vintage globes lining the top of the doorway, to the sage blue walls to the doily patterned tile to the Buddha bust on the back cabinet.

Now I want to make a trip out to Astoria! Maybe when the lovely and talented Jodi Mclaren gets back from London I can convince her to schedule a show there! I will have to write more about Jodi on some other day, but she is an amazing singer/songwriter. Look her up on itunes!