A Few New Things

A few new things to share, in no particular order:

www.heritagestudioandgallery.com/blog
Amy my photographer friend who is consigning a bunch of bags for me has written a lovely blog post about my shop (and my tendency to get lost while driving to a new place). In addition to having a beautiful studio, Amy has a sweet blog--check it out!

* Last night [dance of joy] I learned that my poem "Animal" will appear in Chopper Poetry Journal 4. (Incidentally this link is where I first learned about Chopper--I appreciated their somewhat sassy editorial note--and I think it is an important resource for every writer to know about.) I am so pumped! My publication history: in the 11th grade I won an Ohio Young Poets contest and was published in their very nice (and very legitimate) anthology. In college, one of my poems that I unfortunately titled "(untitled)" was published in the College of Wooster's student publication The Goliard. And now this! I am so pumped. Even my mom (who does not especially like poetry) wants a copy when it's out. :) Though I haven't double checked this fact yet, I think that "Animal" did not make the cut in the final draft of my thesis book. Isn't that funny?

* I have a new and very fun design that I think I will call the Pod. It was a commissioned design, and the first one was so cute that my friend who commissioned it wants another one! It's a little tiny thing, about a 3.5 inch square that has a magnetic snap flap and a hook on the back that you could hook onto a belt loop or any bag hardware. I am hugely inspired to make a bunch of them for the Open House.



* I also have a new design for a mommy-and-me passport cover, inspired by another friend of mine who makes frequent international trips with her family. With an extra pocket in the back, it comfortably holds 2 passports. I am pleased with how it turned out. I used a loop / tab closure, which I think is perfect for the design.

* I purchased an ad at Majaba.org. I am told that they get 20,000 individual visitors a day, which is amazing. So far it has increased traffic to my shop, but no new sales. That is OK--it is less than 1 day old. Majaba.org is this fabulous tool for Etsians to quickly see how their wares are faring--you can see shop hearts, item hearts, and new hearts all very easily.

Featured!

Today one of my cute little zippies was featured in a treasury:

Thank you, Scrapscribe!

This Cracks Me Up

Yes, a cat next to a gigantic Cats bag is funny, but the description is what is truly hilarious if you ask me:

"You loved the play now own the tote bag! Black vinyl measuring 19" X 14" and ready to go on your daily prowl.

"Linda not included."

Thank you for that perfect bubble of joy this evening, Pawedthrough. And Linda.

:)

Less Abstract, Zippers, and a Treasury!

Did you ever notice that when big stuff happens, sometimes the only way you can talk about it is in giant, sweeping abstractions? That would explain my last post.

I applied for a job that I would have enjoyed, and the other day I learned that I did not get that position. It was so disappointing, mostly because I had been mentally preparing for the job for about three months.

But life does go on. Let me tell you about that.

My zippers came in the mail today! Woohoo! I love my zipper lady. She has opened up a new shop just for zippers, and it is called ZipIt. If you need zippers, Jennie is your lady. So during naptime, I made the first 3 of 100 planned zippy pouches. They turned out pretty nice. I am so happy with how the zipper pull charms look on them. I was starting to think I'd never use all the beads I bought!

Today I discovered Twitter, and I tweeted some new zippy pouches--I was totally amazed at how quickly the views came in! More quickly than without twitter, that is for sure. My twitter address is www.twitter.com/custombags. "SeatOfMyPants" was taken already!

This weekend I bought a really insightful guide to improving your Etsy site. TheBuzz offers lots and lots of helpful tips--which I will not reveal here, since TheBuzz has a whole collection for sale at her shop. I am glad to have read through it, and hopefully by following some of the tips from TheBuzz, I will be able to get my Etsy shop to be more busy.

And one more tidbit:
Today I snagged a Treasury!




http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=56235

I made this little beaut this morning. I am pretty happy with how it turned out, though next time I have a pattern this big, I will pay more attention to pattern placement.

A philosophical moment from Seat Of My Pants:
Sometimes things work out in ways we don't understand. Other times thing work out in ways we thought would be a cinch, and we are surprised at how non-cinchy they actually are. At those times, we have to remember--I have to remember--that no matter, I am being watched over and cared for. Maybe it's hard to remember that, but it's true.

Fast!

This afternoon I sold this super cute mermaid zippy pouch--it couldn't have had more than 4 views! That is some kind of record!

Naptime today allowed me to make two pouches like this one, and two fabulous Kaffe Fasset card wallets. I'm pleased with how they turned out.

I have finished the written part of my thesis. The revisions went well and easy last night. Printing--now that is a different story all together.

Poems

On Friday, I will be submitting my thesis book, Bloomington Avenue.

What a tremendous sentence that is! Do you know what this means? This means that I am DONE!

Well, not quite. I am very nearly done though. This evening I am doing some final revisions (I feel like "final revisions" have included revisions that were far from final!) and preparing a draft to send off to a contest. In particular, there's this one poem about a tree that used to be across the street. One day a couple of summers ago, it started changing into its fall foliage in the middle of July--obviously it had died, or had been slowly dying over a long, long time. It was pretty remarkable to see a tree change that quickly in the middle of summer. Anyway, the poem has felt about half done since I wrote it and did initial revising back at the beginning of my MFA program experience. And last night, as I was contemplating a panel of instructors reading through my book, I realized that the poem was still very far from being done, and that if I turned in that draft, I would regret it. So I wrote some more! I think I took it a little bit too far--I have, evidently, this tendency to wax a little sentimental, particularly about the demise of things in the natural world--so I will be cleaning up a little excess from that poem tonight.

Then there's the task of page numbering. I somehow made it to the end of grad school without knowing how to properly format the page numbers in a paper where the first page needs no number, the table of contents need roman numerals, and the arabic numerals don't begin until page 4 or 5. I hate to resort to this, but I am not too proud to make a document that contains strictly page numbers and print them onto the already-printed draft.

I have high hopes for Bloomington Avenue. I think it is pretty solid as a book. I went with sections, which is something that I didn't think I would do! I had a working order of poems for quite a while, and as a strict academic exercise, I decided to shuffle them in to sections. What emerged were three sections that give the book some structure for its somewhat whimsical--and sometimes very short--poems.

So--off to revise. And then maybe sew.