Coming soon to my etsy shop...

Strawberry Pudding Bearlet: $16+shipping



Christmas keychain pack: $16+shipping

Random button Assortment Pack: 12 buttons for $9 + shipping


Peppermint bearlet: $13+shipping

Snowman: $13+ shipping

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Thank you so much, all of you; to my blog readers and customers, as well as people who just stumble into my shop... I consider you all my friends, and since Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for what you have and to people who are special to you, THANK YOU!

Here are two ways of saying Happy Thanksgiving in Hawaiian:

"Hau‘oli Lā Ho‘omana": (Loosely it means a day of worship, but is specifically used for Thanksgiving).

"Hau‘oli Lā Pelehū": Happy Turkey Day! hee hee

If you want to learn more words in Hawaiian, you can go here to the online Hawaiian dictionary, just make sure you click the "English Text" button to translate the page!

Quickie post

Brrr... it was cold today! And by cold I mean around 70ºF, which is probably not that cold to mostly everyone else! It was cold to me though; I was wearing socks and a cardigan in my apartment... that never hapens! It was raining all day though, and the sun never came out at all, plus it was windy. The perfect Saturday for just noodling around at home all day... it was so relaxing!

Eating: Tabasco Fried Rice... I love spicy! Perfect for a cold day :)

Listening to: Mellowness

• Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston
• I Get a Kick Out of You by Jaime Cullum
• The Middle by Jimmy Eat World
• No One by Alicia Keys
• Rock Steady by No Doubt
• Viva La Vida by Coldplay
• Come on Eileen by Save Farris
• Ping Island by Mark Mothersbaugh
• On Love, In Sadness, by Jason Mraz
• Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Remind Me by Royksopp
• Wish I by Jem
• Chocolate by Snow Patrol
• Men Senara by Bebe
• Sunshine (Go Away Today) by Jonathan Edwards
• Cupid by Jack Johnson
• I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

Watching: Bleach

Doing: Washing my car... it consists of me driving my car around in the rain. All clean!

Making: Lots of stuff for Black Friday, in case people want to avoid crowded malls. 3 new pudding bearlets (2 purin flavor, 1 strawberry flavor... available in my shop 11.26.08 at approximately 10:30 pm Hawai`i time), many bearlets in a new style, a mushroom, a catepillar, keychains etc. And hopefully I'll get to some reindeer and snowmen before Christmas is over!

zazzle

Have you guys ever heard of this website? There are billions of customization websites (that is where you can use your own designs to make professional looking products); cafepress is one that you may be familiar with. However, I was just playing around the other day and I realized zazzle allows you to customize your own shoes, skateboard decks, mugs... so many things! The best thing is the amount of choices you have; if you have an image or a graphic, you can upload it to the zazzle, or you can browse through the uploads of a ton of other people. Even though I never wear shoes (ever), these mock-ups of berrysprite keds mini slip-ons have me drooling! You can customize them all the way; choosing the insole and lining, even the stitching and binding! As you can see, I'm especially fond of the polka dots! One of the best things is you can sell your designs; for every product purchased by someone else you get a small percentage of the sale (but you set the price for the product, and that price determines how big your cut is). The mini slip ons start at $60, but considering that many brands of shoes cost more than that, and this is after all, your own design, it's well worth it I think, especially if you wear shoes a lot :) I'm not sure how much shipping is, or if there are any hidden fees; I basically just stumbled on the site again recently.... just thought I'd share for all you artists out there!

zippered pouches!

This always happens! Christmas just sneaks up on you... and you're never entirely prepared for it. With Christmas a little more than a month away, I haven't even been able to make any of the things I wanted to offer in my shop for the holidays. Boo! Reindeer, Christmas ornaments, snowmen will have to wait I guess...sigh! I wish I could have a huge block of time to just craft, but school is moving into finals, I have two papers to write and a comittee to assemble (still!).

Luckily, I do have a bunch of stuff already made; mostly zippered pouches and clutches, but I do have a few amigurumi. I'll be listing them over this week. Best of all, I have a special going on with my zippered pouches (seeing as how I have so many of them)... I think I'll keep the special until Christmas. Anyway, they're deeeeply discounted if you buy three of them; normally I sell them for $8 each, but if you buy three (say for giving to your friends and family as gifts or stocking stuffers) you'll get all three for $20+$3 shipping around the world. That's actually the lowest I've ever sold them, and I think it may be one of the lowest prices on etsy. It's limited to the stock I have on hand, and the berrysprite fabric pouches are excluded (I know, I know... but I haven't even made anymore yet!)

xyron sticker machine

I've blogged about my sticker machine before, but I thought maybe its time to do a review for those of you who are wondering if it is a worthy investment of time and $$$! Mine is a Xyron 150, which makes stickers that can be up to 1.5" or 3.5 cm; they come in a variety of colors and sizes, so you can pick your favorite. You can pick one up at practically any craft store for $5-$10, and refills are around the same or cheaper. There are two types of refills; permanent and removable, meaning stickers can either be stuck forever wherever you first stick them or repositionable. Although the refill cartridges are supposed to just pull out and drop in, I found them a bit tricky (my dad had no trouble at all... go figure).

The machine works without any batteries; its pretty simple. Just stick whatever you want into the top part of the machine, pull on the tape on the bottom, and your sticker will be made by being sandwiched between a thin sheet that protects your sticker temporarily and another sheet that deposits stickiness on the back of your sticker... the front part of your sticker isn't covered or laminated so it is still susceptible to water or wear and tear damage.

I found stickers I make are great as little extras in my packages; just make sure you use the right materials to create your stickers. Because the stickiness is deposited on whatever you put into the machine, you want to make sure you use things that are heavier weight than normal printer or copier paper; this way your stickers will last and last. For example, I typically use cardstock or even index cards to make my designs; my favorite stickers are cut from blind boxes and cute lightweight cardboard, like the milk stickers in my picture. When making my own stickers, I use colored sharpies, but you can use whatever medium you want... keep in mind the stickers you make aren't the same as commercial stickers.

The hardest and longest part is cutting the stickers out; you can keep it pretty simple by just cutting out squares or circles (but I think a small white outline or flush to the shape is reallly cute). As you can see, the end result is well worth it... it's really great to make little things that you can give to people you appreciate! Therefore, I give the Xyron 150 a 10 out of 10 rating; excellent price, excellent availability of supplies, excellent ease of use, and finally excellent finished product!

New design and Inkscape

Did you guys notice my new banner in my etsy and on my blog? Yay, I think they look cute! Red riding hood is hopefully going to be one of my new fabric designs, and I designed all these graphics to go on my fabric. It was super easy to then take all those graphic elements and put them into a banner and this little picture... that is the greatness of adobe photoshop. Did you guys know there is also a really great program that is free that lets you design in vector (much like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw). Vector is really cool; no matter how big or small you blow up a graphic, it never gets pixelated (looks blurry or like its made of squares) if you use vector. Like I said, the program is available for free download here, and is called inkscape... it's so awesome, I used it to design all of my berrysprite fabrics! The only thing is I think it is a little buggy (because its free) so make sure you save your work often because sometimes it just quits... that's the only drawback I know of! Hope you guys find it useful!

happyapplet goodness

Sorry to get your hopes up guys; I didn't have a chance to make any pudding bearlets this weekend! Boo, where does the time go? I did get a chance to finish up a couple of custom orders, and I just listed a blackie cat in berrysprite (he is on sale because he has some freckles in his eyes). Also, poor neglected happyapplet, I haven't updated my supply etsy shop in so long! I got some new kawaii rubber stamps, erasers, and other cute Japanese goodness which I will be listing starting now. I'll list stuff this next week (probably Sunday, Tuesday-Saturday), everything I got except this little matroyksha rubber stamp; it was the last one and I just can't part with it!

coolcat

photo by coolcat

Aren't these eyechips sooo awesome? If you have a blythe or pullip, there is a great website called coolcat that sells a ton of eyechips, wigs, parts, supplies etc for your girls. These are the new eyechips, which are multicolored and come in many different styles, such as sakura and plum blossom. The eyechips sell for $3.50 a pop, so they're not that expensive. The only thing that I'm wary of is they contact you after you submit your order to them with the shipping costs; I've ordered before, and as I recall shipping wasn't outrageous, there was good service and the eyechips really do look very nice! My Wendy currently has coolcat eyechips and they are sooo much nicer than the stock eye chips. They also will paint in the black pupils for you, as well as include laser paper to put behind the eyechips to make them look super sparkly.

New pudding bearlet

I designed a new bearlet the other week and he came out sooo cute! He is based on purin, or pudding, which in Japanese animation always looks so cute! I've done actual puddings before, but this little sweetie combines the best of bearlets and pudding, so it's like you get two kawaii things in one! He comes with a little unattached whip cream and strawberry hat, and he has glitter yarn arms, legs and ears. You may have missed him in my etsy because the first one was reserved for a very special customer, but I should have time to make one or two more (maybe different flavors) this weekend. Anyway, just thought I'd give a quick preview! I'll keep you guys posted!

beaded pull tutorial

Here's another tutorial for you guys! It's super easy too! Basically, it's a tutorial on making a wire loop and coil for your special beads; from there you can make snazzy zipper pulls, pendants, earring components etc. I personally use this technique for keychains and to make cute little pulls for my handmade zippered pouches.

Here are the tools and materials you will need:

• Roundnose pliers
• chainnose pliers
• wire snips
• sequins
• kawaii beads (plastic or acrylic work just as well as ceramic, wood or glass beads...endless possibilities!
• headpins (at least 1" or 2.54 cm in length; if it's a little longer its easier to work with)
• jump or splitrings

1. Thread your bead onto the headpin. If the hole of the bead is too big to stay on the headpin, slip a sequin onto the headpin before you put the bead on... that way the sequin will act as a shiny stopper!

2. Using the roundnose pliers, bend the wire of the headpin at a 90˚ angle, leaving a little room between the bead (pushed all the way against the head of the headpin) and the bend. This way, you'll have some room to coil the wire down.

3. Hold and wrap the wire around the end of the roundnose pliers so that a loop is formed on the pliers, use the chainnose pliers with your other hand to wrap approximately 2-3 coils around the base wire, as close as possible to the bead. Snip off any excess wire.

4. Attach to anything using jump or split rings (if you are really good you can just wire wrap your bead onto a zipper or anything else right away, so you don't have to use jump or split rings).

5. Voila! Enjoy!