Thanksgiving Weekend 'n Crafts

Happy Thanksgiving! (Day or so late :) )

Despite all of the business that’s going on (cooking, cleaning, spending time with cousins I haven’t seen in two years), I’ve still managed to write about 5,000 words this weekend (yes, that does include this blog post). I’m supposed to be at 41,667 words, but I’m only at 37K. Four thousand words behind is fixable, though. Five thousand words today, and I’ll be back to where I need to be. Almost to 50K!

Came to my parent’s house to discover that my sister is using an old glass coffee pot as a tank for her fish. Isn’t it cute?

I recently bought a sewing machine, and used it to finish up a couple of projects I’d started a couple of months back with my embroidery machine. You can purchase machines that both embroider and do regular sewing, but you’ll get products that are a little bit nicer (if more expensive) if you just get one machine for the embroidering and one for the sewing.

The first project is a bookmark (I’ve got about three different versions of these on my Etsy store – I’m a reader and a writer, after all). This bookmark was embroidered onto felt, and then I cut out the rectangle, cut out a plain one, inserted a cardboard piece between the two of them for stiffness, and sewed all of the pieces together.

Since I’d used gold as the border when I embroidered this, I used gold thread for the top, and purple thread for the bobbin thread. I’m really happy with the result! It is a bit on the small side for a bookmark (just about five inches, not including the ribbon), but it’s about the biggest that I’m going to get with my embroidery machine.

I also placed this embroidered owl on a small tote bag.

Came out cute! I didn’t make the bag or anything, but in order to have a flat single layer of the bag (otherwise I'd just embroider right though the whole thing), I had to rip the stitches out of the sides, embroider the owl, and then re-sew the sides back up. Very easy to do, just needed a sewing machine. So that’s why I had sat on this project for so long.

Both of these are in my Etsy store now, but, though I need to adjust the pattern for it, I also made a cloth headband that I want to put up for sale soon.

It’s reversible, so you can switch it around for a different pattern:

I’ve played around with making these before, but this time I included some embroidered designs. They’re supposed to sit just a few inches above the right ear (did it wrong for the brown side, as it places the flower designs above the left ear). The headbands are only about 2 ½ inches wide, which means the designs have to be no more than about an inch wide. Turns out I don’t have a lot of tiny designs, but the ones that I have came out nice. I also think I should’ve done a bright yellow for the daisies, instead of the orange, as it kind of fades into the dark brown of the fabric.

I also don’t want the fabric to come to a square end when it connects with the elastic – I want it to be more of a point. I’ve got an idea for how to do that, but haven’t had the chance to work on it yet :).

The elastic is a thick and woven type, so it won’t pull uncomfortably on anyone’s hair or skin. I always hate it when I find a hair decoration I like, but then it hurts too much to wear. For this one, I made the elastic too long by about an inch, so that’s something else to adjust.

Most of the fabric I have is cotton, but I do have some satin, so I wonder if that is something people would like? At any rate, I think these will make a fun addition to my shop.

Word Count: 37,303

Coupon still active! 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/WoolRanch?coupon=BLACKFRIDAYWEEKEND

Sales, Plays, and Witches

Before I get into my main news of this week, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are coming up. You can get 15% off at my Esty Store with this code: BLACKFRIDAYWEEKEND

This code lasts from Thursday, November 23 (for you early birds) through Monday, November 27. I’ll be dropping a direct link on the night of the 22^nd.

On with the rest:

I’m in a play!

It’s called the Crucible, and for those of you who don’t know, it’s historical fiction based on the events of the Salem witch trials, a disturbing yet fascinating tragedy. I’m one of the village girls.

I’ve done a bit of research on these witch trials that were occurring in the world, and it’s interesting. Specifically, the time-line of events in Europe and America. Witch hunts have occurred in other parts of the world (and some today, sadly, mostly focused on women, especially poor ones), but Europe and America were particularly odd stories, given the overall craze that went on.  Like other hunts, there was a pattern of attacking poorer women and children.

At the time of the witch trials, people Europe had a particular method of storing their food that caused a particular type of fungus to grow – an edible one, but one that is an ingredient similar to those in LSD. Basically, it causes hallucinations.

It’s not an excuse for the actions of this time, but it does explain how it was that a large group of countries, each with their own culture and ideas, became caught up in a single mass delusion. Imagine, if you will, a people that is largely uneducated, and someone influential makes a reference to being cautious of those called ‘witches’, the importance of removing them from society, and superstitions old and new. Also, at the time, obeying and believing one’s superiors was considered extremely important.

Certainly, there were incident of people accusing others in an attempt to get rid of them (for revenge or to take their property), but for the most part, the hysteria seemed to be rooted in what could be considered honest fear of witchcraft.

It was these stories of witches that the hallucinations focused on. Curiously, the mythology of werewolves was also around, but no one was killed for the crime of being a werewolf. Instead, people who claimed to be werewolves were considered to be in need of mental help. (Therapy for the mentally ill, rather than locking them away (or worse), really wasn’t in existent at the time, but this does appear to be one of its early appearances. I haven’t really researched into this, though.)

The worst part is that the accused basically had no defense – it’s a crime that can’t be physically seen. It makes one appreciate the theory of ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ that’s spread through Western culture.

If one was accused, one was guilty. Refusing to confess and proclaiming that one was innocent was taken as a sign that they were, indeed, a witch, and had to be tortured into confessing. (This type of process wasn’t exclusively for witch trials, it was basically a way of life for anyone accused of a crime.) Naturally, confession was a death sentence.

America’s inclusion into the witch hunts came as the hunts were heading towards their end in Europe, curiously enough. Looking at it, it almost appears like they were merely trying to imitate the events in Europe. The hallucination-causing fungus did exist in America, but it wasn’t as common. Fewer people died, and confession was taken as a sign that one wanted to repent, and they were allowed to live. Accusing others was encouraged during this confession. However, confession did mean that one was saying they had been a witch, and as a result they would lose their property.

But there were far fewer signs of the mass hysteria that had gripped Europe. A witch hunt could be ordered stopped by officials. An event could happen that would make a handful of people suffer, and then it would stop.

Like I said – a disturbingly fascinating tragedy.

Word Count: 25,073

New News!

Couple pieces of exciting news:

        Re-opened my Etsy store!

        Nanowrimo's started!

Nanowrimo:

I'm currently at just over 7,000 words out of 50,000.  For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo is a challange in which one writes 50,000 words during the month of November (hence, National Novel Writing Month).  In theory, writers work on one story that stars with nothing more than an idea, or - perhaps - some planing and plotting that was worked out in the months or so before.  The original challenge (about 20 years ago) said that writers had to be working on a totally new project (it also had a different word count goal).

In practice, a lot of people use this to work on stories that they've already started.  Some of them use this time to do something else entirely - it's called being a NaNo Rebel.  I'm working on a few projects, but the primary one is one that I've mentioned before on my blog during Camp WriMo's - small mini (or not so mini) challenges where you pick your end goal, whether words or hours.  It's a fantasy story with a humorous element where the narrator has gone missing, and the main characters - including the villain - are left on their own to write the story.

The biggest idea for Nanowrimo is NO EDITING.  Wrote a scene you don't like?  A) Why are you re-reading?  This isn't the time for that, and B) Re-write it - but don't delete it.  Both versions will go towards your total word count!  Afterwards, when you're editing your novel (hopefully with the end goal of publishing) you can take your pick of the versions, or even create a new one.

Since Nano starts on November first (midnight), any get-togethers naturally start on Halloween, so, yay! - excuse for costumes! Here’s a picture of what I wore:

In celebration of starting another Nano month, I’m doing a promotion of my book Glimpses on Amazon – from today through November 8, download it free! (See sidebar for a link.) And leave me a review! :)

In other news, and adding to the crazy business of my life this past week, I was asked to make some

cakes for my church’s seventh anniversary (and the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, when Martin Luther posted the infamous ninety-five thesis’s). Specifically, I was asked to make cake for 250 people, which is a lot of cake. Plus they were also having other deserts at the picnic, so I ended up making cake for only 200 people. Here’s the results:

 

Came out nice, I think. The frosting is a type of whip cream (so no having to spend forever trying to smooth the frosting out) and on the sides of the rectangle cakes, I pressed on rock candy pieces.

I was going to place little swirls of the frosting on the top of the sides of the cakes, but apparently thirty-three cups of frosting only just covers five cakes. :)

For my last bit of exciting news, my Etsy store (etsy.com/woolranch) re-opened on October 28^th. Here’s a sample of some of my items up for sale (as well as what you can see in the sidebar):

 

Besides what I’ve been selling for years (books, bookmarks, crocheted items, earrings) I’m including items made with my embroidery machine and bead loom. I’ll explain the last in more detail next time. :)

Word Count: 7,414/50,000

Catch-up Part Two

In my defense, I've been busy.  And at least I'm sticking with publishing once a year, right?

I was looking over my last catch-up post, and I think I'll just go over that first.  I've gone on hiatus with my writing/editing/summarizing/transcribing business and the acting (the auditions, while they went well (I got a callback!), didn't pan out into actual jobs), was in a play, ended my hiatus with my craft business, kept up with the ice skating and archery, got a job, and moved out of my parent's place.

Archery has gone really well - I went ahead and bought a glove, bow, arrows, and a bag, and made (with assistance from my dad) a hip quiver out of PVC pipe (and a shoelace).  For Christmas last year, I got a leather arm guard with a dragon on it.  I'm looking for a proper back quiver, but I'm currently lacking the funds for that.  It's a 25-pound bow, so I can't shoot more than about a dozen times in a row, but I'm getting better.  It helps that I don't have to go to a range to do it - whenever I go back up to the mountains (parent's place), I can shoot.

For my ice skating report, I've gone ahead and bought myself a pair of white skates, and got some orthotics for them as well.  Orthotics are a wonderful invention.  I still feel extremely awkward looking, but I don't fall down much.  Since my new job (started in March) I haven't had more than one or two chances to skate, but I'm working on my schedule.  It would help so much if there were more skating rinks in LA.  My knees won't be a problem, at least :).  In September, God healed them - completely.  I've been living for seven years with a lot of pain.

My knees weren't aligned correctly with my hips - I came out of the factory, like that, and in college, somewhere between carrying a bunch of books and running all over campus, they gave out on me.  I've done exercises, adjusted my way of walking and taken Aleve to handle the pain, but without surgery to place the knees where they needed to go, I was going to be like that for the rest of my life.  Even surgery wasn't a guarantee (and the thought of it creeped me out, plus the dis-alignment wasn't so major that I was forced to choose between having surgery and not walking at all.)  I've been wearing orthotics, which makes for buying fairly expensive shoes, but I don't need them now.  I can't run a marathon or anything yet, because I have about seven years of not using my muscles to make up for, but not being in constant pain (anything from very mild to very severe) is a novel, and wonderful, experience.

Acting-wise, I was in a Christmas play last year, It's a Wonderful Life, at the Santa Clarita community theatre.  It was loads of fun, and I was Miss Andrews.  I've tried out for a few more since, but I'm a bit limited in that I can't sing, and community theatres love doing musicals.

Job - I've got a real job!  Like, 9-5 type job.  I'm an office administrator at a small law firm (boutique, I think, is the word for it), which is so funny considering my background.  I applied in a whim, because he said he wasn't looking for someone with experience.  I had a grand total of six months work experience of being in an office, and figured I could do everything on his 'must-list' (even though I had absolutely nothing on his 'wish-list'), so I applied.  And he hired me.  I've applied to UCLA for their paralegal program, and that starts in February, so I'll let you know how that goes.  (Work's paying.  Which is good, because I totally couldn't afford it otherwise.)  It's 11 months long, twice a week, and at the end of it I get to take a test and be certified as a paralegal.  I'm very excited for that, AND happy that I get to go back to school.  Cause I'm weird like that and like it.  I am expecting my sanity to take a bit of a dive sometime next year. :)

And no, before you ask, I am not planning on going to law school and becoming a lawyer.

I've moved out of the mountains down to the city :'( into a one-bedroom studio.  I love my place - it's very out of the way from everything, and only three miles from downtown Pasadena.  The apartments are renovated from music studios which were renovated from being a factory.  It's a brick one-story (once but no longer an extremely important factor) building that's covered with vines.  I think I've always wanted to live in a building covered with vines.  I'm not sure why.

Crafts - I've renewed some of my items on Etsy - you can see them on the sidebar.  I went to a craft fair, and saw that someone was taking plain bobby pins, alligator clips, and other types of hair pins, and gluing buttons, beads, and ribbons to them.  And then charging $3 for them.  My natural inclination is that sewing is better than gluing, when whatever you're working with allows for that, so I did some research, discovered that yes, $3 is the general charge for that sort of thing (more if whatever's attached to the hair clip takes more work to put together), so I'm going to go ahead and give this a go.  My ribbon-tying techniques need some serious work, so I'm pretty much sticking with buttons, which are a lot of fun to work with.

I also took a soap making class last week.  It wasn't so much the 'make the soap from scratch', but a 'add herbs and other things to the soap, using a melt and pour base'.  It was a lot of fun, and it's extremely easy.  And clean.  When I'm making the soap, I wash my hands a ton.  It also makes for easy clean-up.  The pot, spoon, and molds have the soap to clean them already on them.

So far, I've tried using clear glycerin soap (can't get much more generic than that) with vanilla, lemon, chocolate mint, and cherry extract.  Chocolate mint (it's handmade) smells wonderful in a bottle, and great in foods, but it's awful in soap.  I love lemon, but either lemon extract, lemon juice, and lemon peel don't mix well or it's another thing that's awful in soap.  Is there commercial lemon soap?  Cherry soap is my top favorite.  Then, I added ground coffee into the vanilla soap, and though I don't like coffee or coffee smell, it makes for a nice soap.  I mostly used some plastic molds, but after a handful of uses, they stop working so well - the heat from the soap, I think, causes them to melt.  I'm buying some silicon molds, so we'll see how those go.  These ones are going to be used as quick Christmas gifts, but after I've got some consistency in making them and some scents and colors, I'll start selling them.  Also, apparently, you can take the soap, let it cool a bit in the pan, and then roll it into a ball.  Five-minute soap ball.  I'm a bit limited in supplies, so I've mostly just rolled them in crushed oatmeal and lemon peel, but it gives them a nice look.

Quickie - Valentine's Coupon!

Just a quick post - I've got a store at woolranch.etsy.com (it's in my sidebar, if you want to take a quick look) and up through February 14th, I'm offering a 10% off discount.  Just use the code VALENTINE10.

You do have to create an etsy account, but it's pretty easy and it's free :)

Kern County Fair Contests

Once again, I find myself on the fairgrounds multiple times throughout the week. I've been attending the Kern County Fair since before I started high school (excepting when I was away for college, in a different state). When I was younger, I stuck to showing sheep, but now I'm doing (and have done) poetry, baking, and crocheting.

I've actually only done poetry once, and won second place. In general though, my poetry isn't really weird enough to fit in with that sort of forum, so I haven't done it since. Maybe some other year :).

With baking, this was my second year entering the apple pie competition, and I tried a different recipe this year - but I think it needed to have more flour. Too juicy. Tastes good (both of 'em), but neither won.

This year, in addition to the pies, I entered the sugar-free dessert contest. My parents have Xylitol, a sugar alcohol, to replace sugar (which adds fat to our bodies), and sugar-free chocolate chips (sweetened with maltitol, another sugar alcohol). Using these, I made a Pillsbury chocolate chip crescent roll copycat (not my recipe). Now yeast - single cell bacteria - when combined with sugar and water, eat the sugar. It won't eat sugar alcohols. For this recipe, the yeast and sugar are separated. So this particular recipe works fine with Xylitol. Taste-wise, there's no difference when Ii use sugar versus Xyloitol, and cooked maltitol chocolate chips are the same as regular ones. I think they're tasty little things, though they didn't win :(.

As I've been creating more and more crocheted items, I decided to go ahead and enter one this year. My latest completed project is a dragonfly barrette - here's a picture.
It was a bit of a spur of a moment entry (I was entering online), but as cute as it is, I really was hoping for something. And apparently, someone agreed with me, cause I got an honorable mention !!!! (glee!!!!) It's also for sale on at etsy.woolranch.com, if anyone's interested.

Facebook Business Page

Naturally, of course, I didn't get half of what I was hoping to get done this summer. But I did get some. Part of it shows in my latest side-badge (gadget, whatever those are called). I've got a Facebook page!

It's for my 'administrative'-type part of WoolRanch (my business name) - transcribing, editing, and writing. Incidentally, the profile picture for that page is my general business logo - it's on my fiverr, etsy, and all of my other craft sites. If you've seen it somewhere else on the web other than here, let me know!

Anyway, about my FB page. It's still very very new - at the time I'm posting this I've only got 15 fans, very few posts, and the only interaction with my fans is with family members (not that that's not great, but it'd be cool to have someone that I didn't know beforehand on there too). I'm also not entirely sure of what to post where, but I'm figuring it out. If you've got tips and suggestions handy, I'd be happy to hear 'em.

...And this post was totally a plug for my FB page. But I'm so happy to have one!!

Shop Stuff

Shop stuff - mostly Etsy, actually. I know it's been a little while (i.e., way to long) but, hey there!

I mentioned this on my twitter a little while ago, (callistasteele.twitter.com), but since I haven't here, I'll go on ahead and give the long version. Etsy's closed down their Alchemy section for an unknown period of time ;(. Seeing as that's where I've gotten every one of my sales from, that's hit me pretty hard - it's been a few months since I've sold anything there. Internet marketing - marketing in general - is still a bit foreign to me, but I've thrown up my stuff on sites like bonanza, www.bonanza.com/booths/WoolRanch and Zibbet, zibbet.com/WoolRanch. Also, when I'm selling stuff on E-Bay, no matter what it is, I throw in a bookmark with my name and etsy site stamped on it.

Etsy also introduced 'Coupon Codes' awhile ago, and I've come up with some slow ideas since then. I had a sale on Cyber Monday weekend (no one came!) I've also found this neat site where you can put up a coupon for your etsy store, and here it is:
http://www.etsysaver.com/discount/woolranch-use-coupon-code-5percentwoolranch

For those of you who don't want to go to the actual site, here's the code 5PERCENTWOOLRANCH. Like the name implies, it's for 5% off at my Etsy store - so WoolRanch.etsy.com only. One discount per buyer only, please!

Another thing I'm trying out is using my bookmarks to promote in physical places, and not necessarily to a particular buyer - so today, at school, I'm leaving one with a coupon code on the back at the study table I'm currently at. Who knows what that might lead to!

Alright, I seriously need to get back to my transcribing (five jobs to be done this week) for fiverr, but I'm going to try and get back to posting twice a week.

School, Twitter, and Etsy

Too much stuff goin' on. If you saw my twitter from yesterday, here's the explanation (if you didn't, you should be following me (twitter.com/callistasteele) - (btw, it took extreme effort on my part not to have 'callistasteeletwit' as my username - I got it for a class)) So here's the list:

This was the last week of school for me, so I had actual studying going on, but the big project was the actual performance of that play I mentioned last time I blogged. We (the class, I mean) were in East Repertory Theater (an actual stage! which I've never been on before~!), and despite all of my nerves (and completely forgetting my lines in previous rehearsals), everyone's nerves, the night went really, really well. I think it helped that I could barely see the audience cause of the lighting :D. So fun!!!! Man, I can't wait for a chance to go at that again.

So not only did I have that going on (last Thursday night), I had a History final, a Java final, a Java project (which, sadly, got turned in partly done), and a C final, I picked up three jobs this week. Two transcriptions on Fiverr, both YouTube videos - I learned about motorcycles and website promotion - and a request for 2 books on Etsy. One of those transcriptions, I didn't actually get it done until just a few hours before the deadline. I haven't done that since the first one, and I didn't really know what I was doing when I did that one!

On another note, I gave into an urge to get more paper, something I've been looking at for awhile. Check it out!



It's fuzzy!!!! Anyway, though this one's girly, the rest of the book has got plenty of non-fuzzy, non-girly paper. Finally I have paper that's more appropriate for guys rather than just being, 'eh, that's kinda gender-neutral'. It's something that's been bugging me. Anyway, I've been wanting this black/grey and white fuzzy paper for awhile. Plus it's nice and thick, and folds really easily - no cracks.

Seeing as I'm back onto my Etsy store, I'll run through some updates that I've got planned. Matchbook notebooks, crocheted circular swirly, fuzzy coasters, crocheted earrings (that one's going to take a bit of work, still), and a business card - when I figure out how, I'll put a picture of that up here. Of course, I'm not going to get to much of these until after the Christmas craziness is over.

Yeesh, long post, huh? That's what I get for not posting for a long time.

Jobs, School, and Ancestors

I said in my last post that my next one might be closer to Christmas, but, hey, I've got a few minutes 'fore running off to school, so I thought I'd celebrate a bit!

I've gotten a few more etsy notebook orders (glitter, I love shiny paper!), few more transcription jobs offa fiverr, and one from 7freelance. So, that makes... almost 3 and a half hours of audio.

I'd show you a picture of that particular book I'm talking about, with the glitter, but I can't find it :(.

One of my school classes, a theatre class, I wrote a solo show for and will be presenting it early december. Cool, no? It's about my great-great grandmother's trip to America from Bohemia - and on a side note, it's amazing what you can learn by just typing things into Google. Her name's Frances March Caeser (isn't that name just awesome?), Bohemia was going through a long-time famine and drought during the time she left (1879), and most likely she came through Castle Garden port in New York (Ellis Island hadn't been set up at that point).

S'anyways :D

Bumbling Busy Bees

(I blame the absurbed title on life being hecting. And not writing enough poetry lately.)

Blarg, I've been exhausted recently. I've got two small jobs (one's temporary), school, etsy (at which I've gotten yet another order - squee!), ebay (http://tinyurl.com/wool-ranch - lookie! I'm wool_ranch there too!), and a dozen other things on my to-do list. Currently most of that's my future to-do list, but still, it's there for me to do. I mentioned blujay a couple posts back, which hasn't gotten me any orders, but still! Doin' stuff!

I really want to do more crocheted stuff, so I'm working on a afghan rag - using my own design. It's for myself, because I'm way to slow at crocheting to make it worth my while to do make 'em for customers :(. For the most part, cause I'm so busy, I'm just working on it a little bit every day or so (or at least, I mean to every day) to help myself relax. It's a little frustrating to not be able to do everything I'd like to (review my physics - yes, that's cool to some people - write my stories, etc), but sometime tiny like that's nice. At some point, I'll take a picture and put it up here, or over on twitter - which I'll update after this (promise!).

Anyway, most of that up there's my excuse for not posting lately - school and stuff keeps chasing blogging out of my mind. I don't mind being busy, I kinda like it actually, but too much of it and I get stressed. So things go on the backburners. (I think I have a dozen of those - sorta a requirement for writers, anyway).

Pics!

Here's the promised pics!


Ain't they pretty? I like 'em, anyway. They just went into the mail this morning.

Updates

Just a quick update.

I don't have the pictures for those nautical books yet, but they're made and ready-to-ship! Plus I got another order, Christmas ones this time, and the possibility of a third!

I've got an ebay site - have I mentioned that yet? - and pretty soon I'll be putting up wool, mostly raw, and 'vintage'-type items. Things like Look magazines, Hit Songs magazines, oil filters, and an old, unused Barbie doll. I'm also poking around on the 'net for other venues to sell my stuff on - the more I'm seen, the more I'll sell, right? (Hopefully, anyway)

Here's one that I found so far:
bluejay.com/WoolRanch

Let you know if it works!

Indigo

First - homefront.

I finished that etsy project, so here's the promised pic.

Ain't they cute? :) They're a quarter-inch thick (really thick, actually - the forty had to be flattened under a couple of dictionaries), and about 3.5 x 4. I like 'em, anyway, and they were fun to make.

Else Etsy-wise, I'm working on a new bag design, and have four coasters to cross-stitch. The coasters are a bit of a new thing, but I made up the design for the edging myself. I'm also trying to create an avatar (emphasis on trying. I think I might be graphically-challenged.)

I've also started looking more seriously at freelancing jobs, specifically in the writing area, since I've had no luck whatsoever getting a job in the 'real' world. Hopefully this pans out :D.


So now - Indigo.

I actually had to look up this color - it's not one I think about. In the visible spectrum, it's between blue and purple, was defined as a spectral color (one of the rainbow colors) by Issac Newton, and got its name from the indigo plant used to dye cloths. Primary Example: Blue Jeans. Although today, the dye is made synthetically. It's fairly popular, and isn't known for being dangerous (ancient or modern times. Important, no?)

Blue and Etsy

Funny, that title sounds cleverer than it really is. Anyway, exciting news first.

I've made an Etsy sale! S'cool. Someone wants 40 small notebooks (smaller than what I've got up for sale) with their clip art, so I'm working on that now. They're pretty cute - once they're finished I'll put up one, for an example.

Part of how Etsy works is through something called Alchemy - which is where this order comes from. Buyers make a request for a particular item at a particular, then a seller comes along, goes "Hey, I can make this," and makes a bid to make the item within a particular amount of time for a particular amount of money. Weee! I got picked for one! (Thanks so much, btw!)

So - blue. Here goes.

Sky, scarf, ruler, cd-holder, book covers (Hardy boys, Nancy Drew, Winnie-the-Pooh), notebook, shorts, atlas, C++ books, stickers, picture of Neptune, cereal bowl, bookshelf, folder, pen lid, polly pocket - that's most of what's in my room that's blue. :D