another day, another Totoro

After much thought, I finally decided to craft up some characters from one of my favorite movies My Neighbor Totoro. I usually stick to making imaginary things that spawn from my brain, but I just couldn't help making a few Totoros because they're too cute to not! And as silly as this might sound, I don't even mind if they don't sell right away from my etsy shop because I think they make my shop look even that much cuter.

On a more serious note...I've been searching literally my whole entire life for polka dot tissue paper. I love using polka dot packing materials for my figurines, but for some reason I can't get my hands on polka dot tissue paper. I've scoured the web for hours, days, months, with no luck. I'm looking for the classic polka dot pattern. Not random dots all over, but organized neat little dots in a row. I can find random dot tissue paper everywhere on the web like it's my job, but for some reason I can't find the classic polka dot patterned tissue paper. Or I've run across neat dots in a row but for some reason the dots are HUGE. I'm not a fan of huge. Cute and tiny is the name of the game here. Color isn't even important at this point in time. Any polka dot tissue paper would do.
Okay, that's a lie. The dots have to be white. Any color with cute small white dots. Those are my only discrepancies. That's not asking too much, is it?

During my most recent endless search for polka dot tissue paper I stumbled on the Folding Trees blog where there's this really nifty tutorial on tissue paper carnations! Very cool, and amazing what can be achieved with a little marker accent.
I'd be all over this project if I didn't have evil demons for cats that I just know would promptly bat these flowers off the table and use as soccer balls. I really must invest in some display cases, or glass doors, something...

cake topper madness!

Next on my neverending list of things to do is whip up some cake toppers. With everything else going on, I haven't had a chance to make any wedding cake toppers to list, aside from the custom ones I've been making for people. Originally I had five sets sculpted out, but in one brilliant and swift move I accidentally decapitated one of the grooms. So now I have 4 sets and 1 lonely bride. I'll make her a new husband soon enough and all will be well and good.



The other day one of my shipping supplies I ordered online arrived.. I was super excited. Finally..I had more shipping boxes to mail my figurines in. Unfortunately, they're a bit smaller than I had anticipated. Perhaps next time I'll actually read the dimension description thoroughly. Here I was expecting something along the lines of 4x4x4 inches and received something more like a third the size of that. I have no idea how I managed that mix up. But I DO know, that these teeny boxes are so freaking adorable that I'll find something to do with them. They're definitely way too small to use as shipping boxes.

wedding cake toppers....!

Bah! Why do I always have the worst timing/luck? Etsy has a section of their site dedicated to articles about craftiness and whatnot. I happened to take a glance and noticed a "vote for your favorite wedding cake topper!" article here

I come back from my hiatus...I haven't yet listed my new wedding sets and the next day Etsy goes and holds a vote for best wedding toppers. darnit. I miss all the fun. *pouts*


These are some previous sets I've made...

My hiatus is officially over.

Hello!

I'm back. Okay, I never really left...but my computer did. It was in a "coma" for a solid month, until I was able to get it fixed. In that time when I had limited computer access, I really felt a void in my daily routine. Sad and pathetic, but true. I have a lot of blog reading and catching up to do. All of my networking and promoting has been lacking with lack of internet access.

On the bright side, I was able to take that time to temporarily put my Etsy shop in vacation mode and devote my time to making a huge new batch of Plinis and other figurines. It was relaxing indeed.



I've also been working on photographing some ACEOs to list that I made a little while ago. I've been feeling a little self conscious to list them though. Will they groove alright in my shop with my Plinis? Will other people like them they way I do? I guess the only way to see is to list them!



On top of that, I've been working with shrinky dinks again. I made a small pile of adorable charms that I can't wait to list, but now I'm dealing with the problem of how to seal them. I've tried all kinds of glosses. Some smear the ink, melt away the plastic, peel away the design. It's a pile of shrinky dink drama. I don't want to sell charms that aren't going to last. I have to do some more digging.