I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• A neat egg dyeing technique at IndieFixx – One of my favorite parts of Easter is dyeing eggs, and I can’t wait to share the tradition with Ellie (when she’s a little older, of course). Until then, I’m happy to try this on my own.
• Creating the perfect iPhone app for your biz at Design Sponge – I’ve been working on a mobile Web project at the office, so I’m in an iPhone-ready mindset. This article has some very helpful information about the process.
• Handmade Spaces: Jennifer Ladd at Modish – Loving these colors!
• Not Martha’s vacation slides of her time in Paris – Chocolate. Chocolate?  CHOCOLATE!
• Yummy pink at Poppytalk – I admit it. I have a love/hate relationship with pink. When I was four, my parents built an addition onto their house. When asked what color my new room should be, I (of course) answered, “PINK!” I spent the next 16 years sleeping within walls the color of bubblegum (and loudly complaining about it for the latter half of those years). I’m still drawn to all things pink, although now I’m a bit pickier about the shade!

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• Eeep! My First Fail is always good for a laugh, but this makes me feel slightly uncomfortable – And they said my doll photos were creepy!
• Heidi Kenney’s cupcake designs are splendid – I also adore these real-life “TV dinner” cupcakes she made. The talent is blinding.
• Speaking of cake… the two pans in this post at Not Martha?  Major want – A big cookie and a winter village. Now if only I could bake worth a darn.
• Caryn’s been posting about her crafty Christmas projects – There are some great ideas here. If I were slightly less lazy I’d probably try them.
• Jesus, Karaoke, and Serial Killers: Funny Venn Diagrams – I LOL’ed! Courtesy of the Huffington Post.

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

I collect links the way some people collect magazine clippings for an inspiration board, and Google Reader allows me to star and share interesting tidbits I find as I’m reading. Here are some of my recent favorites:

• Bear Duck Designs has some awesomely tech-geeky stuff in her Etsy shop – If I can’t have an iPhone, at least I can have iPhone magnets! via Indie Fixx
• Christine Berrie’s pop culture illustrations are so colorful and fun – I’m partial to the vintage cameras and the VW Bus. via Poppytalk Handmade
• XKCD’s Academia vs. Business – Sometimes I think this is my life in a cartoon strip.
• The suitcase sofa via shelteriffic – Gotta love design that is both clever and functional.
• Loving this home design at Design Milk – The natural wood tones, the bright, open rooms, clean lines and big windows… *sigh* Where do I find one of these in rural Maine, hmm?

Find these and more at my shared favorites on Google Reader!

Hey look! A shop update! Yay!

I have some photos from the dollfood series that came back from a consignment contract… this means two good things for you: first, I have 8×12′s of most of the new photos on hand, so those prints will ship the next day (Sunday obviously being the exception, and this is assuming I don’t get a sudden influx of orders for the same prints–that would be nice, but has never happened, so!). And second, the prints cost less than they did on consignment! Yay!

I’m in the process of putting the series up right now, so go see!

Also, it appears I’ve been named ThisNext’s “Expert Maven” for all things handmade. I’m not sure why (I’ve been neglecting ThisNext recently, alongside most of my other regular Internet endeavors) but now I have to live up to my title, don’t I? And thanks to baby fever, I have a new excuse to window shop and recommend more handmade products!

New posts coming soon. I’m currently experiencing an unexplained revival of first trimester ickiness. Let’s hope it’s short-lived. 7 p.m. is a perfectly appropriate bedtime for an adult, yes? I thought so.

Tim’s birthday was on the 8th (happy 26th, hon!) and then I got a surge of custom orders, so I’ve been absent from blog-land for the last few days, and I don’t think it’s going to slow up any time soon! I was lucky enough to be featured in yet another edition of Etsy Finds (thanks, Anda!) and have since found my sales at Calobee Doodles a little overwhelming. But overwhelming in a good way!

Speaking of Etsy, I’m quite excited about the upcoming EtsyMaineTeam meet-up this weekend in Augusta! The last meeting was snowed out and rescheduled to a time when I couldn’t make it, so I’m eager to catch up and meet everyone.

Now, we interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for a dose of girl-talk, of the “OMG SHOES SQUEE” variety. Please forgive me in advance:

On Tuesday evening we took a trip to Target, where I found not one but two pairs of cute shoes. This is amazing, because I haven’t bought a pair of shoes in a retail store in years (save for the occasional $5 flip-flops, and my annual trip to the Saucony outlet for new sneaks on-the-cheap) because they never fit. My feet are very short and wide and tall–a shape that pretty much rules out anything that has a pointed toe, or even the slightest hint of a pointed toe… in other words, anything that isn’t designed to be worn by a duck. In fact, every pair of dress shoes I’ve ever owned (that would be 2 pairs, mind you) in my adult life came out of a “special” mail-order catalog for people with ridonkulously weird feet.

That’s right, folks, my feet are “special.” And now you know why I spend 99.9% of my time in sneakers.

But my new shoes? They’re cute. And when I say cute, I mean, adorably perfect in every. single. way. They’re comfortable and stylish, dressy enough for the office but casual enough for weekend wear. I bought two pairs–one in the ribbon style, one in black–because I’ll probably never find any shoes so perfect ever again. In fact, I recommended them on ThisNext long before I’d seen them in person, so it must be fate! The shoe gods are smiling upon me.

(This girl and her smug little cat is in the shop at Calobee Doodles!)

I didn’t actually start selling until the 31st of March or so, but as of the 22nd I’ve officially been with Etsy for a year. And what a year it’s been! I went from feeling like I’d probably never sell my work to making 1-2 sales per week. That may be small potatoes for most, but it’s a huge accomplishment for me.

I also picked up “doodling,” which was both an excellent business move AND a lot of fun! It’s opened the doors to doing custom work, which I really enjoy, and it’s more relaxed and low-key in comparison to my photography.

All in all, I give the last year’s business adventures an “A.” There have been bugs here and there, but ultimately, opening an Etsy shop has been a very fulfilling, rewarding experience.

And now for the best part: in honor of my Etsy-versary, I’m having another contest! Yay!

Here’s the nitty gritty:

• The prize is one print of your choice from any of my shops, up to a $20 value. Two small prints would be acceptable as well, as long as they total no more than $20 (not including shipping).
• Leave a comment on this blog entry and tell me which print(s) you want to win.
• The contest ends March 31st at 11:59 p.m. I will draw the winners on April 1st and contact the winner by e-mail.

(Please note that comments are turned off at Vox and Livejournal, so you’ll need to comment at the blog.sixhours.net address to qualify, and don’t forget to leave your e-mail address so I can contact you if you win! This contest is open to U.S. and international readers alike!)

Good luck!

It was a busy, productive weekend, which is exactly the kind of weekend I like best. I made these fabric thumbtacks, Tim and I spent some time in the kitchen making meals for the week (the fridge is packed full), I doodled a bit (see my pretty new desktop?), had dinner with Sarah and Ian, and hung out with Danielle.

One thing I didn’t do that I wanted to was set up another photo shoot, but that’s OK. Thankfully Danielle is in the area often, so it’s not hard to find a few hours here and there. The days are getting longer, too, which helps tremendously, because I can schedule shoots after work instead of restricting myself to weekends.

I also spent a bit of money, which is something I’ve been trying to avoid doing lately, especially where sales have been slower than usual… but I couldn’t resist a bit of retail therapy. In the spirit of NaBloPoMo, a list:

• I loved the fabric thumbtacks so much that I bought a bunch of supplies to make more, along with some super-strong magnets so I can try those as well.
• I won an eBay auction for 6 vintage cups and saucers with the same pattern I found on my favorite thrifted platters. Liz (Madeinlowell) pointed out that my platters are Temporama, which was a very popular dishware set in the 50′s. I did a search out of curiosity, and wound up bidding on a few auctions. I’m going to try to incorporate the cups into a photo shoot or two (at least then I can say they were a business expense!)
• Also from the ‘Bay, a wireless remote flash trigger, so I can use my studio strobes with my camera. The Pentax K10D is inconvenient in one giant glaring aspect, and that is the lack of a PC socket for additional flash units. At some point I’d like to get a real hot shoe flash, but this trigger will work in the interim.

Also: Stay tuned for a contest! Someone’s Etsy anniversary is coming up…

Thanks to everyone who’s weighed in on the prints pricing issue so far! I appreciate your input. More thoughts/opinions are welcome!

I posted a few photos of my office at Flickr. Someday I will be one of those people whose home inspires lengthy interviews on interior design blogs (heh, yeah, right). Until then, you get to see my fugly beige carpet and bright purple walls with blue trim.

In other news, I am so excited because Etsy re-launched Alchemy  today! I’ve never had the opportunity to experience the wonder that is Alchemy… when I joined last March, it was but a whisper in Etsy legend, and many feared it had gone the way of the unicorn. But now it’s back, and I’m already hooked!

For those who aren’t familiar with the concept, Alchemy allows buyers to request custom handmade items and designs. Etsy sellers can bid on buyers’ requests and offer to make whatever it is the buyer wants, and the buyer chooses the bidder that best fits the bill. I’ve placed a few bids, and I’m already dreaming of all the things I could request.

On a related note, you may notice that there is a “Request Custom Item” link on the right-hand side of my Calobee Doodles shop. By clicking on that link you can now place custom orders using the Alchemy interface, which allows you to request specific items or designs I hadn’t thought to include in my standard “Custom Doodle” listings. Please feel free to abuse it!

Yesterday was quite a rush, so today we’re taking it easy. Thanks to everyone for the congrats! We went out to eat last night to celebrate, and stopped by the local Borders to pick up a copy of The Somnambulist just so I could stare at it and giggle.

In other news, I finally finished up the layout I’ve been working on for the last week! Go see!  I normally don’t like a three-column layout because it can look crowded, but this layout lends itself very well to blogging and shopping, which brings me to….

… the surprise: I’ve set up a shop at Sixhours.net! I’m experimenting with Prestashop, an open-source PHP-based Web interface. It was relatively easy to set up, and I think it is easy for potential customers to use. Etsy has been great to me, and I’ll continue to maintain those shops as well, of course. But I’ve wanted to have something hosted on my own domain, too, in the event that Etsy goes down for an extended period of time. I believe it’s sage advice to not have all your eggs in one basket.

There may be some kinks to work out, and for now I can only accept PayPal (support for Google Checkout is coming soon), but I look forward to seeing how it goes. I’m sure that, like everything else involved in running a business, it will be a learning experience.

My very wise friend, Sarah, wrote about Etsy on her blog, The Quest to Become Debt Free, which is about… well, I’m guessing you can tell what Sarah’s blog is about!

At first, I had a difficult time trying to figure out how Etsy and saving money go together. In my personal experience, it’s very hard to save money when you have Etsy’s vast array of goodies tempting you on a regular basis. As someone who spends most of her hard-earned Etsy money on Etsy, I know this!

But then I realized that, if I’m going to spend money on gifts or other potentially frivolous purchases, it makes more sense to give that money to regular folks–people who are probably also in debt or struggling to make ends meet, or maybe they’re just trying to make a little extra spending money, like me–instead of patronizing the big box stores, where your money will only serve to make the executives at the top of the food chain wealthier. When I support an economy that’s a bit closer to home, so to speak, I don’t feel so bad for splurging!