Working for Nasa

Not employed by, but technically working for Nasa. As in, making my design submission for the Etsy/Nasa Space Craft Contest. When not celebrating Halloween that is.

This weekend's agenda:
Catching up on Etsy's Holiday Bootcamp
Completing project space-rock
Tunnel Exploration
Midnight movie (deciding between Nightmare on Elm Street and Poltergeist)
Possible Steampunk Haunted House

What about you?

I did get to load two recent items to the shop. Can't explain why it takes me so long to load new products other than that I'm still figuring the process out. Here's our Dandelion wish flower and Wishing Woman (or girl). We're going to offer them as a set and individually.

Nasa Contest Deadline November 2!

If you missed this Etsy announcement as I did, you will probably be thrilled to learn that Etsy is partnering with Nasa for a 2010 Space Craft Contest.

The contest has 3 categories and won't close until November 2nd so there's still plenty of time to create something spacey. You could win a trip to outer space! Not really, but that would be awesome. I would stay up embroidering for days if that were even a possibility. But the prizes are rather awesome:

You could win a trip to an upcoming launch as NASA’s VIP guest, Etsy shopping sprees, and cool merchandise from NASA and Etsy. Your artwork might even be flown on the Space Shuttle!

 The prizes aren't the point, of course. The point is to make something for Nasa! Win or lose, you get to say "...and this is the piece I made for Nasa."

I have a list of design ideas 3 pages long, but this is too fun to pass up. I hope everybody enters something, the contest is open to 2-D or 3-D handmade work. You don't even have to have a shop to enter, just be a registered user and email your photo in.

What will you enter?

New Tool: Craftopolis

I just discovered Craftopolis courtesy of the Etsy forums. Looks like you load your shop url and it tracks the treasuries you're in, hearts you receive, traffic and effectiveness of keywords. Hallelujah!

I am officially obsessed with tracking the number of views our items receive. A healthy distraction would be writing product descriptions for 5 new items staring at me with sadness saying "Why did you make me if you don't want to share me?"

Moriah, 1/3 of Wake Up Lady, keeps threatening to share her fabulous memory boards with the world. Hopefully they'll make a debut next week.

Tomorrow is farmers market day in my neck of Brooklyn. We're sad the tomatilloes and okra are no longer. Meanwhile, a plague of squash is upon us. We buy it and don't cook it. We have acorn squash, butternut squash, spaghetti squash, and 'golden mango squash' (I think the farmer made this name up). We've baked it, stewed it, curried it, souped it, made pretend pasta and butternut squash risotto, but still there is more.

On a bright note, muddy bland pear cider is excellent as a smoothie base. Here's a combo I love:
6 ice cubes, 2 handfuls frozen berries, 1 banana, 1/2 scoop vanilla protein powder, 6 drops of lemon juice, about 1-2 cups of pear cider. Tasty and purple! Next time I'll take a picture before inhaling it.

Preparing for the NY Marathon

Not the running part, mind you. Running the NYC marathon is my goal, but it won't happen this year. What will happen is picture taking for motivation. If you've never watched a marathon, there are few events that at once make you feel lazy and awesome. Runners make running look easy. I like to stand at the 7 mile point, before they've come close to reaching the half-way mark, but far enough along that many have to dig deep to keep going.

If you're planning to run the NYC marathon this year let me know! Write your name on your shirt and I promise to cheer for you - while snapping your picture.

Show & Tell Friday

Meet Time Plays. The clock is running down a fabric mountain deliberately holding the umbrella away so he can feel the rain. There are a few happy accidents in this piece. The pink fabric on the umbrella was chosen for its vibrancy, but up close it also has two tones of bright and darker pink, which makes the umbrella look wet.

The stitching on the umbrella is super tight to prevent the fabric from unraveling, and it creates this wonderful tiny fringe that gives the piece more depth. The polka dot mountain fabric was hemmed before being stitched onto the embroidery. The hands of the clock read the time of my baby niece's birth.

We're open

The good news = one item up on our etsy shop is totally cause for celebration!

Our first item is one of the first pieces I embroidered after deciding to open an etsy shop with my sisters. It's called the flower peddler, and it's about a man who peddlers giant flowers in the rain. I feel happier everytime I look at this piece.