First Irish Sale :D !

Yip, all that green energy paid off after all - a green customer, of the éireannach variety, my first! And she bought green too - all of the Patrick's Day cards except the snake. Poor snake! Anyway, voila the package...

Mother's Day Card

I am not as sure about the colour of this one now as I was in the shop! But at least it's not Green ;p!

I like the reduced size of the cream insert against the orange, it looks well with the outline - it may become a feature...

The embossing on the front, hmmm: I knew I wanted the main flower and the lickle-ickle flower which is looking up to it, aw, to be highlighted, but as I was scattering the powder on the first card quite a lot clung to the ink of the surrounding flowers...and I thought I'd see what that looked like, as I liked the idea of it looking like a reflected glow from the main flower...and it kinda does.

Kinda!

I wasn't completely sold, so for the second one I cleaned it up much more, but filled in the leaves to have a little wow factor. Hmm. Again, not completely sold on that, but some of the pictures of both cards did come out well.

Finally, I was considering a little white ribbon holding the two pieces of the card together, which would bring some more colour to the front of the card, but then I tried the reduced insert and so had to stick it in to keep the lovely surround. Again: hmmm!

Final St. Patrick's Day Card: promise!

This, like the Tricolour card (completely unloved and unhearted on Etsy btw! Boo!), has been kicking around in my head for a while, mostly because I do like drawing snakes; but, of course St. Patrick afficianado's out there will know, snakes are also relevant to the great man himself, seeing as it is popularly believed that he single-handedly drove all serpents from Ireland (and kept them out by growing fields of shamrocks - news to me ;p !)

So here's the before and after - dammit all but again I'm disappointed that I couldn't get all the details of the drawing to show through in the embossing, but CLOSE! Actually the detail - showing the under-and-overs of the celtic knotwork - can't be seen in the above pic, the final one is in Paint and I couldn't find it to upload. Silly!

Anyway, I'm retiring my Green goggles now - my Etsy page looks mouldy at the top, thank goodness for the featured spots to showcase a little colour!

St. Pat's day cards #3!

I know, once I was booted onto the St. Patrick's Day bandwagon I went wild for it! Here's a third option, that I did up on a whim seeing as I have had that knot drawn up and scanned for ages now...

St. Patrick's Day Card #2

This one took a little more 'thinking', and drawing up the knotwork was a bit difficult. I thought I HAD it but the embossing does muddy up some of the finer details (fun game, see if you can spot where...!) (Please don't!) I'll see if I can give it a bit of a touch up.

Also, curses, this paper I'm using has a smooth and a rough side...and I never know which I prefer for images and embossing...In these cards the textured side of the white card shows as the second panel of the flag, which works well as it leaves the writing side inside smooth. My mistake was in having the green smooth side out - what possessed me? I'll definitely try changing it next time.

But I do like this idea, of the tricolor...Yep, I think I probably definitely do.

St. Patrick's Day

Naturally, I had the best intentions of doing up some Paddy's Day card ideas, and then Didn't! But today I received an enquiry on Etsy about whether I would be doing anything and tada - I was up off my tóin and giving it a go.

Having said that, in such a short time I fell back on an old reliable: the celtic heart design, on lovely sage green card, with gold embossing and a white inner card: green, white and gold, see? I DID put some thought into it :)

Back in the Upswing

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39115749

3 things:

1. New sale - and to a familiar Name: Peppercorns2! Which I am convinced prompted...


2. Receeding cold, cough-cough-phew! It's a miracle! And the final miracle...


3. a new treasury! As a result of having the great good luck to be born on this damp lovable little island, I have struck leprachaun gold and been featured in an Irish centred treasury, http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=87279 ...yay!

My favourite item of the treasury is the photograph listed above, or more precisely the next photo in the series, Dark Hedges 2 - the link below the pic goes to Photosworldwide's shop for a peek ;)

Flower for Balanced :)

Aw, Balanced tried to cheer me up! I'm embarrassed now about the "whimper", but as a general rule I'm only REALLY whimpering when I don't use exclamation marks, then there's trouble brewing :p

Funnily though, I killed off another thread yesterday - can't remember what I said or what it was about, I was that fixated on seeing my name in the 'Last posted by' column!

But Never mind, 'cos I had an epiphany - I do not do well haunting the forums, and therefore WON'T any more...and haven't today and already feel better :D

Except I think I'd miss some excellent helpful threads...hmm, back to the drawing board, maybe I just need a Time limit!
As to views, it's not actually that I wanted so many more, it was the cruel irony of working harder, FOR LESS! But that's just the kind of week I was having last week!!

Thanks Balanced, you're good people!

And even BLUER...

I threw up a last Claddagh ring card on Etsy, another blue one. Today, I think how utterly daft I am to bother - I have a headache and a sore throat, and almost no views on etsy at all yesterday, despite the fact that it's the only time I've ever listed four days in a row. Yeesh.

AND I posted a question on a forum thread yesterday, because I was genuinely curious (how DO you get a gazillion fans on your facebook page if you never promote it?!) - and killed it dead! I don't mean I was wildly inappropriate and the website shut down while they escorted me out, just that I pressed 'post' or whatever and suddenly...empty. All the cool kids had left :(

Whimper - I need a lemsip!!!

Better, Brighter, Bluer

Le Grá, with Love. Not too gooey, right?

It is possible to click on the pics to see them a little bigger - so you can see the nice texture of the pale internal card especially. Not my doing personally!, but I think it's lovely...

No prizes...

...for guessing what colour jumper I was wearing today! Amateur!

Actual DOING

Papering, that is. It's outrageous that what, 2 weeks?, could have gone by between my actually making something, booo...

So I lit a little fire under myself to do another few valentine's cards. I don't actually think they would even get to America in time now, but I gave myself a giggle-blush with the prospect of having them to bring to a shop or even a market stall to sell, fun!

Anyway they are just a variation on previous: a golden claddagh ring on red card instead of white, and with the words "Love, Friendship, Loyalty" in Irish embossed inside instead of the phrase 'Let Love and Friendship Reign'.

That textured card is lovely in real life...you'd never really know it, wouldja? :( !

Google AnaLUNACY!

UGLY?!!!

Eek! I get it that I DON'T get google analytics, and that I only really check it just to make me feel like a "real" craftsperson, giggle...but it's all fun and games until it ends in tears! And I felt close to tears when I saw my google analytics telling me that I had some traffic from...uglystuffonline.com and oddee.com!

The first speaks for itself, it's a blog someone has created to showcase all the most minging stuff that is currently being sold online (!), and the second is a website dedicated to, well, odd stuff found online...Whimper!

Well, since then I think I have deduced that it doesn't mean I was featured on these sites, just that someone came to etsy, and then to me, from them....and if I'm wrong about that frankly I do NOT wanna know!

Another day another...

...treasury list!!!

I couldn't make this up actually :p, at the end of a long day yesterday I had a few minutes to glance online and there was a note from modmomME on Etsy, saying Oh, By the way, You're in my new Treasury...!! It's called Love in Many Languages, here: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=110735

Sweeeeeeeet! Granted, the last treasury made very little to my Pocket (read: none!), but jeepers it is a huge help to think that anyone likes the look of them enough to announce to others that hey, I like the look/idea of this...Nice.

However - it is sad to add a new post, that picture in the last one is gorgeous against the green when you first log in! Damn my popularity on treasuries all of a sudden!

Did you know...

There are as many Treasury Lists on Etsy as there are drops in the ocean! Never mind, I still can't believe VintageEmbellishments even thought of me.

Pointless post, except: Balanced commented on the last one and I'm not sure how best to reply! Having the words 'Front Page' even written in here, without prompting!, is almost as good as it actually happening. I'd hate to ride on anyone else's coat-tails to get there though...but if I start getting my smalls in a twist about that kind of thing, I need only look at Leslie Thomson's 'A Moment of Calm' (above) to completely zen out and just be grateful again! Aha, therein lies the success of the "Calm Reflections" treasury!

And http://balancedcrafts.com/ is one of the nicest websites I've seen - bizarre that I've never thought of a blog outside of one of these hosting sites (that is what blogger is, isn't it?) but it's so nice to see one in the context of someone's main website. Really fascinating blend of super cool technology (= maintaining your own very beautiful website, imo!), and Artistry. Cor-blimey...

Etsy Treasury Nod!

Is this happening? After such a desperately bad week, is this really happening, no strings attached?!
I was contacted by VintageEmbellishments, my third ever sale and my second biggest ever sale, to say that she had added me to a treasury list she had made! She's amazing!!
And to see my little thingín beside real etsy art - right beside a $225 piece of art, in fact! - is beyond the pale...
See here http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=110290 to tell me if it's really, really happened!

OMG! There's more - Peppercorns2, possibly the only Etsy person in the world EVEN NICER than V.E., and my first ever sale!, posted a comment on the treasury list bigging me up! I'm pretty happy.
PRETTY happy! ;D

More of the Little Grey Seal

More pics of the custom card: and voila in the bottom picture, the teeny tiny Big Sister card and teeny tiny matching envelope :p

Cute, cute, cute!