DZ Fantasy Feature

I just got featured on DZ Fantasy's blog. Check it out!

In other good news, my boss gave me an extra day off! That's exciting because I get to spend some more time at my parent's and with some friends.

Today's favorites from Etsy!

Jupita makes some awesome bracelets out of beads and recycled Starbucks gift cards.

I really like Coffee Talk and I adore Star(bucks) in Her Eyes.

Maybe it's mostly because I adore the artwork on most Starbucks brochures, pamphlets, & gift cards, but I'm also a fan of the way Jupita cuts them up and there certainly is an art to how she strings them together with other beads.

And while I have never held one in my hand the quality looks stellar.

Lily Queen also has some lovely jewelry. I don't know if it's the most unique stuff I've seen around, but I just think it's put together beautifully.

I adore the clasp on the Berry Bracelet. And these Toffee Drop Earrings manage to be orginal and elegant at the same time. My absolute favorite, the one I would buy if I actually had extra money (oh how I wish I had extra money!) is this beautiful Flying Across the Lawn Bracelet.

She has TWO in stock which I find immensely comforting.

That Silly Girl is somewhat limited in her selection, but I love the Amy Butler Lotus Pouch. A little bit Retro, a little bit Modern. A lot orange. Just great all together really. So many things that look 70s also look tacky, but this looks 70s to me and it looks really, really class as well.

Vaca!

Mostly I'm not doing anything interesting on my vacation. I draw, watch movies and put up with my sibling's Fable obsession.

Last night Holly, Bethy & I went to see Valkyrie. We were out so late that I nearly suggested Bethy and I skip Sunday School because I was so tired. I wish we had, the whole thing was more than usually frustrating.

Tommorow, Bethy and I are going shopping because a beloved aunt sent us gift cards to Barne's & Noble. Bliss.

I've also been spending a fair amount of time promoting my etsy store because...well I'd like to sell things. But promoting it has also made me realizing how HARD it is to get exposure, so in the interest of helping others, here are a few of my current favorites:


The Pair A Birds makes lovely (and pricey) prints that I adore. The style is just amazing. I might be a little bit jealous - actually.
My favorites are Orson and Melba in the Field of Marshmallows, Ruby, and Poison Ivy.

I love the Whirl Ring by Rafya. I love the color and it just seems unique. The beauty of handmade. The "whirl" is made of cold clay (I have no idea what that is) but the base is adjustable. And $12 is a pretty sweet price.

The only reason I'm mentioning Faeried Treasures in this post is that I feel confident that the impressive lady who makes them will make more should the items I adore be bought up. If I did not believe this I would hide it from you all.
I think these little owl earrings are the cutest ever. Forget that owls are a fad - I would love them no matter what (and so should you!). These are actually made of vintage beads and come in a variety of colors.
I also love these In the Tall Trees earrings. They're so elegant!

That's it for today. I don't want to be overwhelming, but I do think I'll keep posting my favorites. Not many people read my blog, but some exposure is better than none - I think.

Greeting Cards and Fun Stuff like that

My new Etsy shop is up at EverybodyElse.etsy.com - I'm excited about it. Tell your family and friends. And, any feedback you have would be appreciated because I'm new at this and I don't know what the heck I'm doing!

Etsy Shop Name?

I'm getting ready to set up my online card shop. I'm having trouble deciding what to name it though. I'm thinking that my current log on name of "littlecynicism" (which under etsy would also be my shop name) is not such a good pick. For one thing, my drawings aren't cynical at all. People usually coo things like "sweet", "dear" or "precious". For another, I've found that most people can't type the word cynicism correctly more than 5 times out of ten.

So, I know I should have my own ideas, but I'm kinda unsure.

Just to be clear, anything along the lines of "Melody's Art & Cards" or "Designs by Melody" is not going to happen. The trouble is coming up with something unique...but not so unique that people can't remember it.

Christmas Shopping

It's that time of year when everyone expects you to get them stuff, so it's time for another shopping post by me. Last year's posst continue to get the most hits out of anything I write. Not all that surprising.

I'll start off by plugging the Etsy shop of my friend Crystal aka indiglow84.

Crystal makes her own felted beads, the necklace and earring set pictured also feature some nice antique beads. I also especially like this necklace with green felted beads with tiny sea shells, but of course the butterfly necklace is lovely too, so I'd really recommend any of them.

Of course if you like the felted style there is plenty out there for the clinically insane...



I've not linked to them because the likelihood of anyone wanting to purchase them...

She's not selling them on Etsy right now, but Crystal also makes some cute magnets. I can only assume that she'll be selling them at the craft fair (December 6th!).

Pretend for a second that felt is the theme for this post, because I think that these felt trivets I saw on delight.com are awesome. They come as a set of four (in one color).

I'm also a fan of the Bow Lovely Wristlet Clutch from Fred Flare. I'm always a fan of wrislets because my friends seem to boycott purses. Since my purse is huge I end up holding their keys, ids & whatnot. If only they owned one of these (or any) wristlets they could carry it all themselves without feeling so weighed down! I love all things Hello Kitty and so do both of my sisters, so I consider these vinyl Hello Kitties from Urban Outfitters would make an adorable addition to any gift. And at $8 each - so affordable! My one complaint is that you can't choose which one you get, which almost ensures that I will get the one that is least adorable.



Still obsessed with trees, so I think this 100% post consumer recycled material journal with unlined paper - is amazing. The cover's made out of cherry wood!

Continuing the tree obsession - this Little Birch Jewelry Stand (also from Urban Outfitters) is all natural looking (except not, because it's metal).



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Musical Motels

I'm sitting in a hotel room finishing up the movie "Titanic" - probably not appropriate viewing the night before you're supposed to be boarding a large boat. On the other hand, I somehow doubt we'll encounter many ice-burgs in the Caribbean.

Robin and I are spending tonight in Miami and tomorrow we board our cruise. We are not at Ocean Surf, the hotel we had reservations at. We are almost positive that hotels.com told us there would be a shuttle from the airport to the Ocean Surf hotel. As a point of fact - there is no shuttle. Not to that hotel.

Instead we hopped a shuttle to a surprisingly nice Days Inn. I was sad at first because I couldn't see my relatives in Miami, but as my aunt was stuck in an early voting line all day I suppose I wouldn't have seen her anyhow. My mother also informed me that she read an online review of the Ocean Surf hotel which proclaimed it to be like sleeping in a dorm room with rough sheets, a hair on every pillow and surly staff.

So maybe it's all for the best.

Ooh Expo!

After hiking through the woods a couple dozen times this weekend I was a bit worried about how I would hold up at the Graph Expo today. I shouldn't have worried. By the time we got to the McCormick Center I was already giddy.

Being the sole representative of my company at the expo might have made me feel really grown up...except for my "business casual" attire of a hoody & jeans...and the fact that my objective for the expo was to grab as many freebies as possible.

So mostly it was like college, except that being with people from our split off company I sometimes had to actually listen to what vendors were saying. But that was fun too because I got to play pretend and act like maybe I actually knew what was going on. Even more amusing was when I actually did!

The only sad moment in my day was when we were driving up to the center and I thought about how funny it would be if I ran into Prof. Davis with a new group of graphic design majors going to their first expo. Oh yeah. That can't happen.



The rest of the day was, literally, a bunch of giggles. Leslie and I laughed. All. Day. Long.
I don't know the last time was that I've laughed so much. All the other attendees looked serious and bored the whole time. We laughed about ev-er-y-thing. Vendors, freebies, other attendees, demonstrations. All funny.



And I did get a ton of cool freebies. Mostly posters, but I got a nice pen, a usb-multi-port, a bag & some spiffy die-cuts too. A lot of the posters I had no interest in because mostly they were just pictures of pretty, often scantily clad, women. Could it be because most expo attendees are men? But towards the end we visited the HP booth and, whatever HP lacks in service (it's a lot) they make up in posters.

Is your boyfriend a soldier

Ok, way back I posted about my roommate's boyfriend being a soldier and the shirt I designed. Well, that shirt hasn't been printed, but at cafepress I now have available a whole host of shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, buttons, pins & so forth. There are two designs,"My boyfriend is a Soldier" & "My Boyfriend is in the Army".

Because of the way that cafepress is set up I have to set up different shops for each design - so this should be, well interesting. But, given the excessive number of people who are dating boys in the armed forces I think that at least some people will be interested in buying my stuff. My actual art work might be a bit harder to sell.

This is not my life

Currently trying to come up with a logo for column in the mag. You know, I think unpaid writers may be the most pretentious people in the world?

Now, I don't use this word lightly as I think that it is mainly abused by pretentious unpaid writers (it's right up there with misanthropic, which is fun to say but shouldn't pop up nearly as often as it does), but it fits.

Note that this is not about paid writers. These people have to actually work to come up with something that pleases their client or boss, just like the rest of us. Because when the paid writer receives their work back with red ink all over it they can ramble all they want about compromising the integrity of their work, but to receive payment they will make those changes.

The unpaid writer has no reason to not ramble. And ramble they will. Frequently about inane topics such as who they handed a safety pin to twenty years ago or, in fits of absurd superciliousness, quoting themselves.

But it doesn't end there. One ill fated day they will send you an e-mail suggesting that they need their own logo and a column header three inches high.

Since all we pay our writers is the ego boost of seeing their name in print I suppose this is something akin to a raise in pay.So perhaps this could all be solved by handing our writers a couple of dollars every month. Just as long as we never pay them by the word.

A Summer Glow and Corporate Greed

I went tanning for the second time today. Each time I was told completely different things about what I should try as a new tanner, but I took today's advice because...how do I know which one is right?

The whole thing with Malibu Tanning, I'll tell you why Malibu Tanning is evil:

In January I signed up for the Malibu Tanning VIP membership. I was told that you sign up for three months of unlimited tanning, $20 each month. It was a wedding expo and my friend was getting married, so I thought it would be nice to be tan for her wedding. The nice, tan girl at the Malibu Tanning booth told me they would need my credit card number then in order to get the deal, but that I could come in to any Malibu Tanning and activate my account any time in February.

I never came in and figured that since it was not activated I wasn't being charged. Now, I should check my bank statements closer, I should. But I didn't notice until much later that I had been charged every month for a service I'd never activated.

When I called I went through a lot of rigmarole with unfriendly people...only to find out that Malibu Tanning has a policy against refunding people for services that they haven't used.

Because kids, because I could have come into Malibu Tanning and used the service I did not know I had at any time. It's not Malibu Tanning's Fault

I can't find the contract I signed. Legally Malibu Tanning may be in the clear - and certainly the amount isn't worth hiring a lawyer over. But, if Malibu Tanning had even the ethics of Wal-mart, they would have refunded the money they took...for a service I was never provided.

Malibu Tanning would not lose out by refunding my money, because they never provided any service. Not once. But evidently getting something for nothing appeals to the owner of Malibu Tanning.

I begrudgingly offered two months of unlimited tanning "free". Two months when I paid for seven. I pressed farther and got three.

When I complained that lady on the phone kept saying, "I'm sorry you feel that way." I told her it was unethical, "I'm sorry you feel that way." I told her I'd be informing all my friends that Malibu Tanning enjoys cheating people out of their hard earned money, "I'm sorry you feel that way." I told her that she knew perfectly well it was unethical and that if it were her she wouldn't be taking any lousy three months when she'd paid for seven, she paused, "I'm sorry you feel that way."

In the end I took the three. I don't suggest that anyone do business with Malibu Tanning. I will be writing to the owner and describing my experience. I'll post the contact info when I find it, in case anyone reading this has also had a bad experience with Malibu Tanning.

When I went in to Malibu Tanning a couple weeks ago my roommate came with me. She had also bought the VIP plan, but they'd stopped charging her after a couple of months so she stopped going in.

When she went to buy a package (I didn't think she should, but she wanted to keep me company) she was old that Malibu Tanning had been charging her card for the past several months and it was about to be sent to collections. Malibu Tanning hadn't been able to actually charge the card because it had been reported lost or stolen. But they kept charging a lost or stolen card.

Her case is stronger than mine. She wasn't paid up so she never would have been able to use the service those months that they've charged her for. Malibu Tanning's argument with me was that I technically could have - even if I was hindered by knowledge. They wouldn't have let her use their service - so she shouldn't be charged.

And that kids, is why - if you're going to tan - you shouldn't choose Malibu Tanning.

Tonight

I'm always jealous of people who have these beautiful friends who are willing to pose for photos, seemingly, all the time. My friends mostly refuse point blank.

That's why I spend two & a half hours photographing one of the highschool students tonight. She loves to pose and I'm desperate for people to let me take their photo, so it's pretty much perfect. She brought along extra outfits to change into and everything! So much fun.



------------------
On another note,

I'm much too tired to explain fully why Malibu Tanning is a bad company. But since Malibu Tanning is all too happy to take my money and provide nothing in return - I am compelled to mention that Malibu Tanning is in want of a conscience, as often as possible.

More on this and why even Wal-mart loves you more than Malibu Tanning, at a later time.

Goodnight kids.

My (Roommate's) Boyfriend

I designed this for my roomy. We saw a shirt proclaiming the same message, but it was ugly. Why should having a boyfriend in the army mean she's going to wear an ugly shirt?

Yeah, we couldn't think of a reason either.

It's also available like this:

RedisWhite

I'm a regular reader of the Relevant website. I'm also a graphic designer who has a love/hate relationship with threadless. Love, because there are some awesome designs submitted...hate because almost none of them get printed.

So, when I saw RedisWhite advertised on Relevant my first thought was, "Oh good. Another Christian product rip off." And, to be fair, it is just a less awesome, Christianized threadless.

On the other hand, I was impressed with some (some) of the artwork on RedisWhite.

And I have to be all in favor of more opportunities to submit designs and get printed (since nothing good is printed on threadless lately).

Forever 1990

Last weekend Robin and I went shopping. I took a lot of photos in Forever 21, which has some of the best and worst clothing in the mall.

We weren't sure about these little green shoes. They're almost cute, but I'm not sure how they would look with an actual outfit.

You know you owned a shirt like this in the early 90's.

Robin tends to like tops like these...all frilly and lacy. I'm not a lace person.

I hate this type of pattern. The fashion mags are calling it "Painterly", but to me it looks more like someone attacked this dress with a permanent marker.

I love the pattern on this dress. It's amazing.

This looks like the type of bag I would have been embarrassed for my mom to carry when I was a kid. Seriously, I knew people who owned this in the 90's. Why is it back - and why at Forever 21?

These shoes remind me of my first hideous pair of high heels. They belonged to my cousin in the '80s and I used to wear them around the house for dress up.

It's a Party!

I don't normally write about graphic design sites on here, but PhotoShopStar is having a sweet give away to celebrate it's second birthday. Posting a comment gives you a chance at winning some minor goodies, but linking back to the site and the sponsors lets you win some much cooler stuff.

The prize I'm drooling over most is the free 1 page design by psd2html. Basically I would design my web page and they would make it work. For someone, like me, who consistantly fails to understand web coding, this would be amazing.

Ok, so that's the only prize I want.

The Blubs Wordpress theme liscence might be amazing - but I don't Wordpress.

And I don't have actually have anything I want to advertise on PhotoShopStar (though freelancers are probably getting giddy at the very thought).

Even so, it's pretty cool.

Backstory

For the past two Saturdays I've gone shopping at the mall. The selection was pretty sad, especially in the shoe department.

I've never understood why anyone would want a Coach purse, but I understand these boots even less. To me they just seem like large, rubber mistakes.

Last Saturday after shopping Robin showed me Ox Bow park. The park gives me the feeling that I'm walking through a King's Quest game. It seemed as if it were divided up into screens that should be accompanied by descriptions like, "You have entered a sunny meadow, a rabbit watches youm," or "You have stumbled upon a picnic area, a group of Mexicans are singing in the distance." And then of course you would have to try different actions like, "Feed rabbit" or "Sing with Mexicans" until they produced something good or killed you.

Some parts of the park reminded me of the 1985 Alice in Wonderland. When I saw this lane, I felt as if I would see Alice arguing with Carol Channing over yesterday and today at any second.

Probably this lane is not so very like the movie, but it felt that way.

Mostly the park is very, very large. I can't wait to have a day when I can just go and get lost there.

Today Jon had a open house of sorts, to raise money for the VBS Sara Frantz is helping out with. I saw a lot of people that I haven't seen in quite a while, which was nice. I wish I'd been able to talk to some of them more, but I'm bad at dealing with big groups like that. It seems silly to say, because when you're talking to one person it shouldn't make a difference than there are twenty other people around doing something else...but it does.

Tommorow, back to work - my first day to start handing out assignments to my intern! Also exciting is that with our re-organization of the office everyone seems to have less space - except me. Somehow I came out of this with more. I get giddy just thinking about it!

Daniel

My little brother is nine years younger than me and five inches taller. Last summer he decided he wanted to get a job, but for a year he has been told by everyone that he needs to be at least 16. That's how he got a job at the cow farm.

Our mom thinks it's good because he'll learn responsibility. I think it's good because it will toughen him up. He thinks it's good because of the money and with his new wealth he has purchased what no game store can keep stocked: the Nintendo Wii.

Since I'm visiting for mother's day, I got to enjoy the newness of the game with everyone else. We played Wii Bowling and Mario Karts. I kind of expected it to be cooler, but it's still a good time. I'm a better bowler on the Nintendo than in real life.

This morning I convinced my brother that he wanted to go clothes shopping with me and Mom. The last time he wanted to go shopping with me he was eight and I promised him that we would stop at the candy store and KB Toys.

He'd given up a concert to have some more time with me, so I wanted him to come along rather than just waste the extra time. Originally he looked at me as if I'd asked him to accompany me to hell. But I explained that having me in the store was better than a frantic phone call about what he should buy, so he agreed to come. I think he reconsidered the wisdom of that once he was in the car, but with help from the sales guy we managed to purchase two pairs of jeans that are indelibly cool.

Our mother still has no idea why those jeans were cooler than the others. I took photos and I'm making her a chart.

False Start

For the past week my car has been a little quiffy with me about starting up. My first thought was that it had to be the starter, but my second thought was, "Corrosion, it could totally be corrosion," and I didn't check the problem until this morning, when my car refused to even pretend to start.

There was a lot of corrosion and that buoyed my spirits considerably...until I cleaned it off and my car behaved in the exact same way. A call to my father was less than encouraging and prompted more calls to every garage in town.

Garage #1 was not home. No recorded message of when the hours are. No answering machine.

Garage #2 Quoted me a price that seemed astronomical, given what my father told me the part cost. But, they did promise a nice waiting area (I hate garage waiting areas, they're so uncomfortable).

Calls to garages #3-6 made me realize that Garage #2 was actually a steal, but I had one more call to make.

Whenever my dad can't fix the car himself (which is not that often) he goes to Sears. It's not loyalty, it's just that Sears is cheap without being detrimental (like Wal-mart). And since my least favorite way of spending money is on my car, cheap seemed like a good idea.

As it happens labor is really, really cheap at Sears, but the part wasn't all that cheap. Even if they'd only taken the one hour quoted to me by every other shop around, they would have come in $20 more than Garage #2. But they didn't quote me 1 hour, they told me it would take 3-4 hours and made foreboding suggestions that the other shops didn't know what they were talking about (all 6 of them?). The conversation went like this:

"Year? Make? Model? Air-Conditioning?"
I answered yes to that last and could hear the air disappearing inside the Sears auto center.
"That'll be a long job"
Asking what "long" meant, I wondered if Sears was simply so efficient than an hour seemed like a lifetime. Unfortunately long was, indeed, long.

The mechanic explained that when his Geo was fixed -
"It's a Chevy."
- when his Geo was fixed -
"It isn't a Geo I own a Chevy."
- when his Geo was fixed it took a fearful long time because of the a/c and the oil pan (???).
"But I own a Chevy. They're different cars."

Geos are pathetic cars. Cute. But pathetic. Once a little old lady backed her Geo Metro into my dad's Cadillac, going about 10-15 mph. The hood of the Caddy was imperceptibly bent. The entire back of the Metro was smashed in and as she pulled away there was a trail of Geo chunks left behind.

A mechanic who would drive a Geo is repulsive enough. If he doesn't know enough about cars to pick out a good one, how can he know enough to fix mine? But the fact that he thought we owned the same wimpy car (the makes sound alike) is just ridiculous. I do not own anything associated with Geo, my car's a frickin' Corolla on the inside! A Geo?! No.

This clinched it for Garage #2. They fixed my car. It took an hour and it cost what they said it would, almost down to the dollar. My one complaint is that my dad just fixed my radio the last time I was home...and now it doesn't work again. Bummer.

Your market is who now?

My roommate and I were enjoying a food court dinner, a few nights ago. Adorning our table was this advertisement announcing the arrival of a new store.

If you've been in a mall during the past five years you've probably seen an Aerie store and know that it's an American Eagle niche store selling undies and bras to the 12-18 set.

The catch phrase on this ad did what it was supposed to do and caught my attention.
"Turn some heads..." it demands of Jr. - Sr. High girls everywhere. Turn some heads? Plural? More than one individual is going to be seeing them prancing around in their underwear? Where do they think their target market is going to be, a brothel?

The opposite side of the advertisement relies on a girl in a bra to make up for their vague assertion they Aerie is "more than just sexy..."
Oh yes? There's more? Like what, pedophilia?

I can envision how it went down. The design firm saying, "That doesn't actually make sense" and "That's a little weird for your target market, what if we said..."
Sadly they were cut off by the owner who said, "No! That's our catch phrase, that's our idenity! We need people to think of that when they think of Aerie!"

Never fear Mr. Aerie CEO. In my mind, Aerie is now forever linked with child prostution. Never fear.

Snapshots of a Weekend

"This place is a tomb! I'm going to the nut shop where it's fun!"
- George, You've Got Mail

My sisters and I used to watch You've Got Mail [whisper]every day[/whisper]. This is one of Holly's favorite quotes. Encountered with a store actually called "The Nut Shop" I had to take a photo.

Robin and I ate at Pizza Hut. We were asked if we'd like lemon with our water. This is what we got.

We also went out to buy gardening supplies. We bought a lot of seeds and a couple rose bushes and a grape vine. And then it rained...so nothing got planted except for the trellis.