Chocolates & Photography

I was in an EtsyVeg team chat a few weeks ago. One of the leaders, Kylie, offered to send me vegan chocolates. I've been looking forward to getting them and they came in the mail today. It was also nice because I was having kind of a long Monday and it felt like getting a present in the mail. :) I was going to take photos of what I got, but my digital camera's not working. I took photos with my cell phone, but I can't figure out how to email them to myself (it looks like there's only an option to send them to someone's phone number). I got: Green & Black's Organic Chocolate, Shaman's Vision Chocolate with Coconut, Raspberries in Dark Chocolate (I haven't opened it yet, but it says there's a love poem inside, haha), and some mini sized chocolates. She also sent me a card.

Speaking of EtsyVeg, I was featured in this cupcake treasury on their blog which has cupcake items. I also noticed today I'm featured in these picks of butterfly items.

I don't have a lot of shop updates. It's hard to work on items because I'm working on a lot of final projects for my classes. I might make some items if I get inspired though. I thought I'd share some of my photograph today. :)

One of my assignments for my photography class was to take photos of my spring break. I went to Millennium Park one day. I don't live in the city of Chicago (I live nearby), but I figured it would be nice to get to Millennium Park to get photos because it's a really pretty area and I love city parks. Here are some of them (they're kind of grainy because of the negatives being dirty, but I think it kind of makes them look old fashioned):


Buildings in Chicago.


Walking in Millennium Park.


This is a piece of artwork called the Bean. You can see the skyline reflected off of it.


Reflection from the Bean. It's a great place to take photos.


Ice skating rink. I actually wrote a story in my fiction class based on this memory I had of going to the ice skating rink when Millennium Park first opened (I ended up changing it in my story so the ice skating rink is in Minnesota, and it was a little different in my memory than in real life).


This wasn't from my spring break or Millennium Park, but it's a photo I took of the inside of a piano. It was actually for an assignment for my photography class where we were supposed to take a photo representing the word "naked". I wanted to do something less obvious than a nude body and I liked the idea of the piano being "exposed" and showing it's organs.

If you have a camera, at 8:09PM eastern time (or whatever time that is for your time zone - you can check here), you should take a photo of wherever you are and submit it in to this project called Worldwide Moment. It's this idea that people take photos at the same time around the world for a moment of peace. It started last summer, but their doing "mini" moments. I just noticed that the photo I did from the first moment last summer is used as part of their logo thing on the front page of their website (it's the one with the chocolate and fork, haha, I was cooking).

I also went to a dog show this weekend. I took a lot of photos which I'm thinking of using for my final project for my photography class (and if not, I'll just have a bunch of cute photos of dogs). Some of my film got messed up though so I don't know how the photos turned out yet. We got to walk around a pet a lot of dogs (who were all so well mannered). It was a lot of fun and made me want a puppy!

Pi Day

So I just noticed this weekend was Pi Day (on 3/14 - the date is meant to match the approximate number of Pi - 3.14) I made a Pi Day card last fall. I think it's a unique item and it would be cute to give somebody who really likes math. I made it because I had a number stamp I wanted to use. It says "Happy Pi Day!" on the inside. Maybe next year somebody will buy it. :)

Pi Day Greeting Card



Spring Break has been nice sofar. I'm going to a meditation class tonight which should be relaxing. I've been watching some movies lately (it's nice to catch up on movies during break). I saw Sicko the other night, which is a Michael Moore documentary about the health care system. I had seen part of it before, but didn't see the whole thing. I really enjoyed it. I never really knew a lot about health care or how universal health care worked, so it was really informative for me and I thought it was interesting how some other countries have health care systems that seem to work a lot better than here.

I might make a journal or two while I'm home. My mom picked up this bookbinding book that might show me how to do more stitches (the book seems kind of complicated though). I also have to retake those photos I lost of two new journals I made and hopefully get those listed soon.

Music Principles Journal

Yay, I finally got a new listing up here. It's for a book with music note paper. The paper was made in Italy and I think it's really pretty. I messed up gluing down the cover (it's hard for me to get decorative paper to glue flat) so I ended up ripping pieces of the paper up and making a collage design on the inside and outside. I think it makes the book unique.

Here's some in the process photos.




Gluing the boards together and the decorative paper on the outside.


Collaging pages together on the inside. There's also gold music paper collaged together.


Letting everything dry with wax paper.

Here's how it turned out:


My computer crashed and I might have to restore it so I might lose some new photos I took for some new etsy I made. So I might have to retake those before I list new items. It's my first day on spring break though. Yay, I'm excited to be on break. :)

Art Show & Spring Break

I just finished all my classes before spring break. I'm really excited to get a week off. College gets so overwhelming sometimes and it will be nice to be home. I miss my cats.

There's an EtsyVeg team chat tonight. I went to the last one and I thought it was fun, so I'm excited to participate in it again. I also got featured in an EtsyVeg treasury. Mine's the yellow journal towards the center.

I've been playing around with my twitter lately. I found these tools (click that link if you use twitter) and I never noticed you could so much with twitter. It's really just a site that allows you to mini blog/write updates, but you can get really advanced. It doesn't have to be with my shop, but I found this one tool called Dream Tweet where you can write down what you dreamt about and see other people's dreams. I also found a site where you can set it to automatically update twitter at a time you choose. Look out sometime in the next few days for a discount code for my twitter followers. ;)

If you see posts on my twitter replying to heaptweets, that's unrelated to etsy. It's this sort of contest thing where this singer, Imogen Heap, is making a biography of herself, but instead of just writing about herself, she's letting her fans write short tweets about her. You answer questions like "Describe her music" and she's going to pick some tweets people do that answer the questions. I think it's a really creative idea and if I get chosen as part of the biography, my username will show up and it might help get a little exposure for my shop. :) I wasn't sure if it might confuse people because I'm trying to make it so my tweet focuses only on my shop. I didn't know where else to do it though. I have another twitter account that I use for my Personality Psych class and I might use that account as a personal one once the class ends.

I submitted some of my photos for the student art show in my college. Even though I've made a lot of art and taken a lot of classes, I realize I've never been in a real "art show" where they hung my art in a gallery. You get judged and not everyone makes it, but the Student Art Society (a group I'm a part) has a separate show with "rejected" artwork so everything has a chance to be displayed. You can also sell your art if you're in the show and set a price on it.

I don't know if any of my photos will make it. They're not perfect technically and my negatives had some scratches and dust marks on them. I thought it'd be fun to enter though. Who knows, maybe some of my photos will make it.

Shecky's Trade Show

my Roses are Red box got featured in this EtsyVeg treasury on their blog.



I got offered to sell at a trade show in Chicago called Shecky's. It's like this event for young woman. This what they said about it:

"Launched in 2001, Shecky’s has grown to become the largest consumer shopping party in the US ! Every spring, summer and fall–the event attracts thousands of women for a 5-hour evening of spectacular shopping, beverages, product sampling/demos, fun female activities and coveted gift bags. For the independent, hard working, fashionable females across America, this is a much needed ‘special’ night out without the boys where all women can focus on being female, catch up with their girlfriends and bond over all the things that make being a girl SO FABULOUS."

I was really excited to get this opportunity because it seems like a great way to get my name out. I've also never done a craft show before. It's also in Chicago when I happen to be home for spring break, so the timing was perfect. The only problem is I didn't realize there's a fee for going - it's $500 a day, which is a lot considering I haven't made that much with my shop yet. I don't even know if I'd make $500 if I sold all my stuff.

I was excited they considered me to go though. Hopefully, they'll be more (cheaper?) opportunities like this in the future.