Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Life is busy right now, I picked up my first wholesale customer, I just got home from an anime convention with some of my favorite people in the world, tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and the day after that I will face my first Black Friday as a retail associate. WOW.

The convention was an amazing time but I missed most if the formal events, staying with friends from 3 states away will sap away the weekend quickly. Luckily I'll see most of them in a month at my favorite convention of all time, MAGfest! MAGfest is a small nerdy music and game festival that is like a giant room party. Concerts 24/7, friends as far as the eye can see, and a very understanding welcoming hotel staff. If you are on the east coast and are a fan of video game music then you should definately check it out. It's Jan 1-4th, in Northern VA.

Must go back to family for the Holiday, I will be out of town until Friday but considering that it is a post office holiday anyway I have left the shop open for business.


Remember! The Rose Pendants are selling out as fast as I post them! The oly way to secure one in the color you want is to email me at Dragonkuh@aol.com or to convo me as user Magnoliafern on etsy.com, about a custom listing. I am more than happy to reserve a pendant for you, and you will have a say in it's general size and a specific color.

There is no extra cost for this, and I will create the rose so you can approve it before you purchase the listing. Email today!


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Oh the Horror of Bad Movies

A favorite past time of mine is to watch absolutely awful movies. I blame this nasty habit on my childhood veiwings of Mystery Science Theater 3000. My good friend and I have braved many terrible movies, often with a couple of drinks for courage in the face of poor storytelling and terrible acting.

Before he and I sat down to absorb and relish in the utter failure of these movies I was certain I had seen the worst movie ever. It was in the DVD collection released by good old MST3K (Mystery Science Theater 300) "Manos the Hands of Fate." Those of you will notice that "manos" is Spanish for "hands", so it translates to "Hands the Hands of Fate". This movie is awful, it was written directed and starred a fertilizer salesman from the Southwest, the story vaguely focuses on a family getting trapped at a strange lodge, with a strange bellman (who has the best theme music of all time), and fighting off the demonic Manos and his horde of barely dressed wives.

This movie is watchable only because of the jokes the beloved MST3K robots and human make throughout the duration. The plot is so senseless and bizarre that it will leave you laughing.

I was so certain that this was the worst movie ever. Oh how I wish I had been right!

More bad movie stories tmw

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

A few weeks ago I was asked how I cure my polymer clay things without burning them, since this was a big problem for me in the beginning I wrote the person all of my tips, and I decided to post them for you here.

"A lot of polymer sellers would tell you to get an independant oven thermometor so that you can make sure your oven isn't lying to you. I just experimented and found that if I cooked items at 265 F in my oven they would cure just fine without the risk of scorching. I also cook them for small periods of time, if I think it'll take 10 minutes in the oven, I cook it for 5, then let it cool and test it and then send it back in the oven.

For the roses and tiny minis I use a handheld heat gun, they're too small to justify turning on an oven anyway!"

How do my fellow polymer artists cure their projects?

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Lentil Focal Beads are all on sale in my shop, these are closeout prices, get them out of my store!


Currently I'm sculpting away rose earrings, building up inventory in the hopes that I will make it into Chop Suey Bookstore's Bizarre Market. Any richmond locals know Chop Suey Bookstore, they are a nifty second hand and new bookstore in a very fun corner of the city, right across from an ancient opera house that shows movies now, the famous Byrd Theater.

Anyway, the bookstore opens up a room for local artisans to get an amazing amount of foot traffic from clientele you readily pay more for quality and local ownership. This is a juried show and I hope my roses will get in, as I feel that Richmond would love them!

They announce who made it into the show in November so be sure to snatch up any roses that you'd been saving before then, as they may get put in the market.


Also I've ordered some supplies for new projects, stay tuned to see what crafty mischief will come about!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Yet another Halloween, and another reason I can't make it to the Richmond Zombie Walk. Every year it's the same! I recently got a new job behind the jewelry counter of very nice department store. This very nice store has me scheduled to work while the zombie walk is commencing, I swear one of these years I'll learn the date early enough to put in a day off.

In other news, I'm preparing for Halloween, I have no costume yet but I'll hit the patterns and see what jumps out at me. I'm thinking I'll dig into the Japanese trend of Elegant Gothic Aristocrat, basically victorian costume in black with a hint of ghoulishness. This appeals to me because I can rewear the costume at conventions, and I have a large amount of black fabric stashed in the wall of craft upstairs. Lots of ruffles, and tailoring, it should be fun :)


Anyone interested in Halloween themed goodies in my shop should hurry up and buy them as they will be deactivated and stashed away until next year after Halloween. I feel that my shop has a few too many items in it so I'm looking forward to clearing out the kinck knacks and bringing in new lines.

I'm off to work on custom rose earrings orders! Email me with any and all questions at Dragonkuh@aol.com


Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The new rose themed jewelry is officially a hit!

I've sold several pairs of earrings of the rose sculpts, and everyone loves them, I even got the highest praise with a pair of blue rose earrings. Danilatham of etsy said this about them: "These are exquisite. I am SO happy I found them; they are exactly what I was looking for. I will be wearing these on my wedding day! Thank you so much!"

Each pair of earrings are different, so the ones in the picture are exactly what are available for purchase. I look forward to when my handiwork becomes more uniform so this becomes less necessary.Also in a few weeks check my shop for a new line of stamped pendants I'll be producing. I received many wonderful tips from MissFickleMedia on how to produce top notch pendants, and I'm currently waiting for the proper materials to ship in so they will have the perfect glazes and bails. Expect many Fern, Rose, and Flower themes in the stamps themselves.

I can't wait to see how they'll turn out!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Ah, real life, so real, so life-y,

currently I'm wrestling with a number of computer viruses on my sister's computer, it's 3:40am and my computer guru has long since gone home. So it's just me, my sense of logic and the simplicity of tril by error. Oh boy are we in trouble!


I could go on about my strategy and attempts, but we've all been there, and we all realise halfway through the epic virus battle that our story is not interesting in the slightest to anyone else. So I will save you and speak on other matters while the poor computer's antivirus software runs on overdrive.



Next week I will be at Otakon, for those of you who aren't anime fans on the east coast of the US, Otakon is an anime convention that has somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 people visit every year. Basically all of Baltimore will be a playground for anime fans, dressed as their favorite characters.

I am really excited about seeing the voice actors there, one I've hung out with after another convention, one I've met before and one I've been dying to meet and talk with as she directed the english dub of my favorite anime show.

I will be wearing a costume (or cosplay) of a character from that show, imagine a bridal gown made of liliac satin draped with sashes that trail feet behind the train, and a light green wig which is 48 inches long. Oh yeah, this is one serious cosplay!

The costume is the character Harmona from the anime show Wolf's Rain. I wouldn't reccommend it for everyone as it is a serious drama with an odd morbid fantasy twist. The entire show focuses on a pack of wolves hunting for paradise that will be opened by wolves at the end of the world. The entire show is bathed in snow and everyday people are feeling something drawing closer, and the few who have read the banned book "The Book of the Moon" can see the signs for the end of time. The Wolf will seek out the Flower, a Lily white supple maiden made from lunar flowers, and the appears the wretched beast.

The first time I saw the show in bits and pieces on tv, I didn't think much of it until I saw one episode. The youngest of the pack of wolves, had spent most of the journey falling behind and generally being useless. The pack are attacked by a giant walrus as they were crossing a frozen sea, and something in the youngest wolf snapped. He charged in and latched onto the walrus's eye, and held even as the walrus shook all of the other, stronger wolves off and dragged the the young wolf through enough frozen underwater terrain that the walrus actually caused his own demise.

The change in character caught my eye, and the closer I look at this series, the more rewards it has given me. If you like to turn over shows in your mind for months after you've seen them, then this is the show for you. To say anything more would ruin it for you :)


I've rambled enough about my show, I'll post again soon.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Buisness tip was a fluke, the person never paid so I had to cancel the sale. So my little watermelon slices continue to receive no love. Oh well.

Things are quiet in my world right now, I'm bashing through thousands of unfinished projects that have been literally sitting around for months. Fixing seams of clothing for friends, sorting and storing seasonal goods that noone will be interested in until winter, and desperately trying to complete the commissions.

Had some friends over for a classic gaming night Sunday, and we got farther in the classical Castlevania game than we ever had before (for those nongamers, the game is for a console that came out in 1985, a true classic) and the house is obsessed with classics. My sister is playing through a 10 year old zelda game, and screaming and enjoying it as much as when we first got it.

Now I'm running back to work, just wanted to update the blog quickly!

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Yay!

I was swimming through all of the business tips threads on etsy.com, and one suggested that you convert everything to free shipping. Apparently a woman had trouble selling a very nice vase at $20 with $10 shipping. She changed it to a $30 vase with free shipping and it jumped into someone's cart immediately.

Since I offer international shipping, I carefully added "in usa" to free shipping, but I started converting the items in my shop accordingly. Starting with all of my miniatures, and I am happy to say that I've sold some of my favorite mini foods because of it! Remember the allow for the 3.5% that etsy takes of a sale if you're going to insert shipping into the actual price. Besides that I can't think of a reason to not do this with smaller items.

The watermelon slices were one of the first things I made that were fit to sell, and anyone who saw them in person swooned over them, but not a single slice sold online. Until today! I'm so happy to be shipping some out finally. The watermelon batch was a large one so if you're interested the listing has been renewed.



So if you're having trouble selling, try the free shipping method! I'll keep you all posted if it keeps working for me!

I'm off to work on my commission :)

Friday, June 26, 2009

Adventures in crafting!

This week we find our beautiful heroine hacking through the jungle of unsorted craft supplies. Only those who have dredged through the jungle truely know how dangerous the trek can be! But hark! What is that beautiful thing standing up out of the darkness? Ancient ruins? A monolith left by aliens? Pocky? No! It's a 5 shelf, adjustable, chrome plated shelving unit!!! It will bring peace and civility to the jungle that is the craft space. Or at least it will allow me to reach my clothes in th emonring without stepping blindly into forgotten scissors land. Check out this awesome birthday present I got to make me more productive than ever!


And don't be silly of course we got the bacardi box from the liquor store, (that's a great resource for boxes for all of your the run out of packing boxes so quickly!)

The Hop Devil, Victory Brewery box on the other hand.... yeah, we drank that.

Hey look! In the top right hand corner of the picture you can see my pumpkin drawing! And on the left side you can see all of the torsos of the Gobbleskat plushes I made for X-Strike Studios


All silliness aside, I'm doing a horrible job of attempting to get back on a normal sleeping schedule, and should hit the sack soon. But I wanted to show the results of me playing with my embossing materials (the ones I scored at a yardsale for 10% of their value!) I love the outcome, but when I look at the pictures I see all the errors and smudges I ignored at first.

So they may not be ready for retail, but I think they're a darn good step in the right direction and I love how two of them turned out, the first one I'm putting up in the etsy shop the second I'm keeping for myself. The rest I haven't decided what to do with. Maybe I'll offer one as a prize to the first person who shows me how to add pictures to a blog without having to drag them through the entire document!


G'night!

Thursday, June 25, 2009

There is a Japanese Graphic Novel Series (or Manga for those in the know) that I have fallen madly in love with, a few years after they stopped printing it. So now I've been crawling all over anime convention dealer rooms asking about this fairly obscure manga that noone has.

Pet Shop of Horrors, it's a very episodic story, featuring stories of customers who buy from this strange pet store in Chinatown in NYC. Most of the stories feature either a mythical animal being given as a pet, or a normal enough animal that appears human to the customer. The stories range from tragic, to frightening, to romantic. Sometimes it's dependent on the customer not following 3 specific rules they agreed to when they purchased the animal (Gremlins anyone?), other times the customer was marked for death the moment they caught the animals attention. I being the awful romantic that I am, fall head over heels for the love stories. And I love the idea of animals being more active in the decision of where they live. The owner of the pet store doesn't sell an animal unless the animal approves of the customer.

So long story short I have 4 of a 10 volume series, and anyone who has the other 6 issues aren't selling! Oh woe is me! The worst part is my volumes are from random points in the series so I know some characters who havne't been introduced yet. I desperately want to hear the backstory of the little "lap ram" as I call him, who eats human flesh. He's adorable, about the size of a house cat, and constantly threatens to eat the customers, who wouldn't want to know that story?


So if anyone has copies and they're looking to sell, let me know! I love the twilight zone feel of these stories, and the ornately dressed and comic animals. Spread the word around! Maybe we can even work out a trade, a sculpt of your favorite animal from the series for the issues I don't have? Oh I'll stop my begging, until then please take a look at the item I'm most proud of in my shop.



Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Greetings

I refuse to look at when I last updated this blog! I refuse!

Moving on, I've come quite a long way since then, but I have a lot further to go if I want to be successful. Since my last post I picked up two large clients; X-Strike Studios and Blue and Blond

For X-Strike Studios, an independent movie studio outside of Buffalo NY, I created 20 plushies of their favorite monster. The monster shows up in most of thier movies in one form or the other, resembles a turkey with a gas mask for a head, and two giant claws, one on each arm, instead of hands. The plushes were pains to make but I love how they turned out and the guys at X-Strike couldn't be sweeter about the delays in constructing such little cuddly monsters.




For Blue and Blond, a webcomic about goodnatured surfers, I was asked to create the tiny mascot for the comic, a surfing Guinea Pig named Ripcurl. He turned out darling and was a dream to make once I finished a prototype I liked. I created 20 little Ripcurl phone charms and can happily say they've been a huge hit with Blue and Blond's fans. So much so that some actually got swiped off of the comic's table at conventions!







Now I'm working on a few private commissions, and of course cosplays for friends. But I look forward to playing with the embossing equipment I picked up from a yardsale. ($100 dollars worth of supplies for $9.25!!) I hope that embossing make accent my disc pendants that noone else seems to like! I think these deserve at least a second look so here's hoping I figure something out. Take a look at these beauties, and let me know what you think!
Oh man has it really been that long since I've posted?! Well I'm off to play with fabric, wish me luck!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Back from MAGfest with new inspiration and energy

I just back from the best convention experience of my life. Magfest 7 was like stepping into someone else's life for a weekend. The guests welcomed me like an old friend and it wasn't long before even this shy gal was laughing and playing with the best of them. I can't thank everyone at www.x-strikestudios.com and www.pbc-productions.com for making me feel like family.

Besides the zombies and the comedy, I got some great face time with a formally invited guest at the con. A professional author's table was set up behind my table, because of the island set up we were using the same chair space. Robert Aldrich put up with kirby attacks, over the shoulder spying, and all of my other less than tolerable habits, and then took the time to give me some hard learned advice. If you want all of his sage wisdom you'll have to grab him at the next con he'll be at. I can't say enough kind things about guy, so check out his website

http://www.teachthesky.com/

Anyway his input along with being surrounded by happy people who are doing what they love is kicking me into gear. My aunt asked me via email what art form I wanted to focus on. The answer is all of them. I'd like to think I've got a keen eye for charcoal drawing, but I also want to keep stretching the possiblities for cosplay with limited budgets. I want to perfect a realistic human form with sculpture, but I don't want to give up my tiny miniatures either. I will follow as many paths as I like, and since I decided that I feel the veil of creative block lifting in my mind.

I no longer will worry about if I'm working on the wrong project; if I must dedicate every last ounce of energy to one field alone. That worry was keeping me for accomplishing anything, and honestly I feel all of these can improve each other. The miniatures help me work on my detail for larger sculpts, the larger sculpts help me develop 3 dimensional cosplays from flat possibly impossible designs, and the drawing helps to understand the shades in a curve for realistic sculpting.


Now I need the work, I am burning with the hunt for the next commission, I actually sent off samples to Robert Aldrich begging to be used in a future book in his series. Here are the pictures I sent, feel free to comment below. The Tiger was drawn before my art class, everything else during.