Outfit: Christmas

shirt: Goodwill, dress: H&M, leggings: Forever 21, shoes: thrifted, tie: Flapper Girl

I wore this outfit for Christmas this year. I really love this dress, because the pattern reminds me of a Christmas tree. Sadly, after washing it once, it's now nearly shirt-length. Sigh. I seem to always have that problem with H&M's clothes.

It's really hard to believe that it will be 2013 in a couple days. This year sped by pretty fast!  I have the new years eve off this year, for the first time in a few years, so I'm really looking forward to ringing in the new year with some of my lovely friends!

Our rat, Volta joined me for a picture. She's the sweetest little rat ever. She even looked right at the camera! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope everyone is having a lovely day of loving love thusfar. Andrew and I are going to Cinetopia for dinner and a movie. It's a fancy smancy theater with a restaurant, wine bar, and the comfiest theater couches ever. They'll even serve you drinks and food while you watch the movie!

Also, I got a Valentine's Day present for you, internet! For today and tomorrow, you can get 50% off your whole order from my etsy shop. Just use HEYVALENTINE as the coupon code at checkout. Happy Valentine's Day!

Farewell, 2011!

(New Years banner from Etsy)

Happy New Year, everyone! Tonight, I’ll sadly be celebrating the same way I did last New Year’s Eve, working. I have a kitchen shift until after midnight. However, my lovely boyfriend, Andrew is going to come hang out at the pub to ring in the new year with me.

I’m usually not a huge fan of New Year’s resolutions, as they seem to fall apart within the first month or so. However, I’ve been pretty productive the past couple months. I’ve set goals for myself (start making jewelry, open etsy store, start a blog, etc) that I’ve been able to achieve and it has made me feel pretty proud of myself! I feel much happier now that I’m getting stuff done and spending my time wisely. So, I made a list of things to do/continue doing for this new year!

1. Blog at least twice weekly
I feel like I’ve been pretty good at blogging regularly, even though it’s only been a little over a month since I started this blog. I really enjoy blogging, and have found that I have more to write/post about than I thought I would! I’m not sure how difficult it will be to find subject matter in the future, but my crafting and thrifting adventures should help!

2. List at least 2 new items on Etsy every week.
I’ve found that I get more views/item favorites on Etsy when I list a new item. I used to list a bunch of new items all a once (20 or 30 in an hour or so), but I’ve found that it might be better to list one every couple days or so. I’m constantly making new jewelry, so it shouldn’t be hard to list a couple items weekly.

3. Break into profit margin with crafting business
I actually just hit $300 in sales yesterday (yayyyy!), but I’ve spent about $500 on supplies, ad fees, and such. So I’m still negative $200 as far as profit goes. I’ll definitely break even in the next couple months, it’s just a matter of how soon. This year, I’ll be working on ways to increase sales on Etsy and outside of the internet, which leads to my next goal…

4. Do a Craft Show!
I’ve only been to a couple craft shows, but they have all been awesome and pretty inspiring. It’s amazing to see the variety of lovely things people can make by hand. I definitely plan on going to any craft show I can this year, and want to eventually have a booth/table in one. It seems a bit intimidating, and will be a totally different experience from selling online, but I think I’m capable of it!

So that’s some of the things I’d like to achieve this year. I’m pretty excited for 2012! How about you guys? Any plans or new years resolutions?

Christmas Presents

I got a lot of amazing presents this year! My little sister, Kendra, visited us for the holidays and brought down a huge duffel bag from my mom. It was bursting at the seams with homemade Christmas candy (nom nom nom) and presents!

Crazy-wrapped present from my dad. Inside was this!

My mom got me a much-needed dremel tool. It’s going to be super useful for crafting, jewelry-making, and claywork! I’m really excited to use it for sanding and polishing clay, it’s going to make everything look much better! Kendra also got me something to use for crafting: a Sculpey cray conditioner. It’s such a relief for my hands. You have to “condition” or soften polymer clay before working with it. It can be kinda rough on the hands. One of my first times working with clay, I spent about eight hours or so playing around with it and making things. The next day my hands were insanely sore and slightly bruised! So a clay conditioner is very helpful!      I got lots of other neat stuff from my family, like super soft flannel sheets, a microwaveable aromatherapy stuffed animal, and some awesome knee socks!

Andrew got me a cute old-fashioned drinking bird (you know, the kind that bobs up and down “drinking” from a cup of water. yay, thermodynamics!) and some awesome Portal-themed stuff. If you don’t know what Portal is, it’s an amazing and hilarious physics/puzzle game. Andrew got me an adorable stuffed Companion Cube and a PotatOS science kit. Basically, in Portal, one of the characters is a piece of A.I. software known as GLaDOS. During a large portion of Portal 2, she is powered by a potato (as potatoes are an excellent conductor of electricity). So the science kit involves attaching the A.I. unit to a real potato to make GLaDOS talk and say phrases from the game! It’s really neat, and hilarious to listen to.

My lovely best friend, Stacey, got me some really awesome presents, mostly owl-themed! She got me two adorable fuzzy owls. I think the white one may be my favorite owl I own (there’s a lot of them) and probably the most realistic-looking one! She also got me a giant felted mushroom that I’m in love with.

She also got me a Star Wars Scanimation book (so cool to look at!), and stone owl coasters and White Ale Beer (with owl labels and bottlecaps! eeeee!)

One of my favorite co-workers, Drew, got me this adorable owl mug!

So that’s what I got for Christmas this year! I’m very thankful for all my family and friends. I had an awesome Christmas season, and really enjoyed giving and getting such great presents!

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday weekend! I opened all my presents on Friday while my sister was still here. I got some amazing stuffs! Maybe I’ll do a post about it later and show you all the awesomeness I received this year.

Here’s my outfit for today! Lots of red and bows. and red bows. You can’t tell from the picture, but I have a red bow in my hair and a black necklace with a teeny bow charm. Christmas just gives me an excuse to wear even more bows with my outfit than I usually do!

I’m wearing one of my favorite brooches which I made a couple years ago with an orphaned robot earring and some good old acrylic paint.
                                                                
Today I’m going to spend the day with Andrew, then head over to his mom’s house for some yummy Christmas dinner!

Christmas Decorations! Yay!

 I decorated for Christmas this past week! I didn't put up a tree last year, so I definitely wanted to this year. I have one of those super cheap plastic trees, but its dressed up with some silver streamers and multicolored lights! 

Adorable owl ornaments 

(2 bucks at Target!)

A set of zombot ornaments my mom made out of clay a couple years ago! So awesome.

 My favorite tree topper ever: Santa Yoda. Another gift from my lovely mother.

Santa sock monkeys! (Also from my mum. Hmmm, there may be a bit of a pattern here.) The adorable felt mushrooms are also from Target and super cheap.

I'm in love with this nutcracker. She's a crafty girl made of spools of thread and thimbles! It may be hard to see in the picture, but she's holding a tiny pair of scissors.

Anddd a big red bow on the front door!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I started the holiday off with some muddy flag football with my awesome coworkers early this morning (yes, 10 am is early for me). It was my first time playing flag football, and it was actually lots of fun. Andrew and I just got done having a crazy-delicious dinner at his mum's house, so now we're totally stuffed and relaxing at home. My favorite person ever, Stacey Sawyer, is coming over tonight so we can get some black friday shopping done tomorrow. It's been a lovely day so far. I'm going to go feed my little rats some green peas and crackers, nom nom! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!