Taking a Break

The holidays are over (or almost over...), so it is time for me to bring things back into gear!  My better half and I (along with our demon baby) just returned from a 2 week journey to visit family in Georgia and Florida.  In just the past ten days we have put over 3000 miles on our car.  Now that we are back in our own home and don't have a cat meowing/howling loudly in our face as we drive, it feels great to be back!

 

Regular tree is covered with paper origami cubes with lights stuck in them with a paper origami owl sitting haphazardly atop the tree.  Sadly, the cat did not feel inclined to nest in the tree, or pay it any attention at all.  I was hoping he would climb into the tree and when I walked by he would "meow" at me all cute-like, but that dream did not come true. :(

I guess I'll be putting up the Christmas trees in the next few days. Last Christmas my Mim (mother) bought me a pink tree, and at the time I was a little confused as to why she felt compelled to buy me a tiny pink Christmas tree.  However, after putting it up sans ornaments, I have come to *love* the little pink tree!  It is just so pretty and bright!

Before our first Christmas together in 2009, my future husband guy and I decorated our own stockings.  He loves Cthulhu. I adore Salad Fingers.  While we decided to not do gifts or fill stockings this year (we went to Universal/Wizarding World of Harry Potter instead of buying each other gifts), I still felt it necessary to hang up the stockings we made during the early years. :)

Now that a very nice break has come to an end, it is time for productivity to resume!  The shop will reopen on January 3rd with all of its regular custom stamped wares.  In the meantime, I shall begin the super scary thing known as taxes. A pain, but such a necessity. Alas, I am the 53%!

Rasputin's Holiday Emporium

Last minute shopping? Me, too! But where to get the perfect gift for those who have everything???
I know! Why not try...

 This quaint little shop has it all!  A variety of products and services abound!

Also, you can't beat the prices!  Everything is **FREE**!  Rasputin is eager to move this product, so he's passing on the savings to you, the customer!

Deconstructed toilet paper, mice toys without tails, and cat food crumbs are just a few of the products that this wholesome boutique offers!

Scratches, bites, a showing of flips and leaps, loud "meows" in your face, and utter destruction are merely a sampling of the services Monsieur Rasputin can provide.  If an evil hairless cat can do it, Rasputin is happy to oblige - and always for **FREE**!!

Also, since this catty is so ready to make you a loyal customer of the Holiday Emporium, all confirmed orders include free delivery.  Yes - Rasputin will bring your product/service to you, (as long as you are less than 10 feet away).

Come on down, y'all!  ::waves::  

( a sorry attempt at making him wave...)

In more possible relevant news....custom leather tags and key chains will return to the shop in early January.  I will be spending the last two weeks of December driving from Boston to Orlando to visit my future in-laws (with a pit stop in Atlanta to pick up a lil' marriage license!).  The demon baby from above will be sitting in my lap the whole ride.  :(   

Anyway, Happy Holidays!

New Additions

While I am not longer taking custom orders for the rest of the year, there is now a large selection of 'ready-to-ship' items in the shop.  These items ship within 1 business day, all wrapped up and ready for gift giving!

Also recently added to the shop are Of The Fountain's first ever Christmas ornaments.  Like the ready-to-ship tags, these ornaments ship within 1 business day and are wrapped up ever so cutely in paper and ribbon.

Bring Out Yer Dead!

Well...not really.  What's another example of someone calling out into the streets, trying to make an announcement?  Anyway.  My point is coming, I promise!

Today is the last day to order custom items for the holidays.  After today all custom items will be removed from the shop and remaining in the shop will be a variety of ready-to-ship, premade tags featuring quotes and the like.  I will resume offering custom items in early January (probably Jan. 3rd*ish).  I just want to make sure that I have plenty of time to finish all custom orders to insure that they arrive in time for the holidays.

Not only that, but I have a busy December planned outside of working on my shop!
-Attending a wedding out of state
-Tending to my own wedding stuff out of state  (eeeek! 5 months.)
-Driving 1.5K miles to spend Xmas with family (with evil cat in car)
-Driving 1.5K miles to return home from spending Xmas with family  (still with evil cat)

I have a feeling December will fly by so fast.  This is scary, as 2012 will bring our wedding, and the proverbial "sh*t's gettin' real!"-time will officially begin! I don't want to be a bridezilla. Idon'twanttobeabridezilla. Idon'twanttobeabridezilla. 


Side rant over.  If you want a custom item made for a gift for the upcoming holidays, get your order in by the end of today. Thanks! =)

Simplicity

Some good friends of mine were recently married.  Doing what I do, I made them some tags, of course!!  I wanted to do something completely new for their tags, so I came up with a layout that was simple and to the point.  I really like the variety of the fonts and the alignment of the different elements.  Although, it is possible that I am a little biased. :)

Favorite Shops: Bullfrog Laserworks

 Holy crap.  I just stumbled upon Bullfrog Laserworks and am amazed!  Specializing in custom laser engraved products, such as tags, coasters, and wedding invitations this shop can make an insane amount of super custom products.

At first I thought I'd look into getting custom wooden tags to hang on our favors, but I kinda already made little tags to hang on our favors. And they were free.  So it kinda negates the saving-money-effort of my DIY favor tags if I buy these freaking awesome wood ones.  I've been annoying the crap out of my fiance to try and get him to think of SOMETHING we could get from this shop to use at the the wedding.  He is no help so far. :(

Perhaps I could get a little button made to hold our ceremony program "books" closed?

Anyway.  This is a new favorite shop of mine that I will be stalking on a regular basis.  Thank you, have a good day!*


*(Wow. I haven't worked retail in a brick & mortar store (interaction with real, human customers!)  in over a year and I still have the urge to say this to people when our conversations end...)

Get Your Map On! Part...3! I think.

I love how people are really getting creative with the info they want on their custom leather map coordinates tags.  Having map coordinates on a luggage tag is like a little secret (as most people can't just look at a set of coordinates and tell what location they represent).  On tags that are being created in celebration of a wedding, the coordinates could represent something other than where the wedding was held.  Is it where the couple met?  Is it where the couple had their first kiss? Is it where they got engaged? Is it where they are honeymooning?

Favorite Store, Favorite Color

It's always fun to add a new Etsy store to my "stalk" list.  The newest shop that I love to death is Blob House, and is filled with some of the neatest crap my eyeballs have ever seen.  If I had an extra pile of money laying around, I would probably buy up this entire store, and then sit on the floor of my apartment and be completely surrounded by all the neat little critters. Just sitting there, with a herd of cuteness staring at me.  That would be SO. AWESOME.

Not only are the scuptures found in this store utterly adorable and quirky, many of them are also my favorite color: blue!  While I would steal any of the sculptures, regardless of color, if I saw it hanging out of someone's purse (Wait, would I really do that? Probably not, but I would stare at it until the owner of the purse and adorable sculpture noticed, and then things got weird and I ran away.), the blue ones are my favorite.

[click images to visit shop]

It doesn't get an more wonderful than that, folks!  :)

Destination Birthday Celebration with Custom Tag Favors

None of my adult birthdays have ever included anything more than going to dinner and having a nice dessert. However, after creating these tags for a customer's destination birthday, I think I may be getting the short end of the stick!  I want a birthday that features traveling to somewhere fun and spending my special day surrounded by my favorite people!  Not to toot my own horn, but I think these tags make a perfect favor and memento for a birthday celebrated in such a fashion. :)

Catty VS Bag

My cat loves getting into things.  He's quite terrible in fact.  Anything that I leave unattended will be inspected and molested by Catty.  This poor plastic bag was one of Rasputin's most recent conquests....or was it?

 Everything started off great.  Catty found a new nesting spot inside the bag, the bag was getting used - all was just swell.

 Then the cat got stuck.  He ran around for while with bag flailing behind him like a cape.

Things were rough for a while, but after adequately licking the bag.....

 ...Rasputin was free!

The One with Quotes on Tags

Here's a few new guys.  I am obsessed with quotes, so it is always fun when I get to stamp a new quote. I had not stamped most of the quotes below before making the tags, so it was extra fun to create these tags. :)

HDR with Photoshop

After playing around in Photoshop today, I discovered the HDR Toning option!  I've always loved the appearance of HDR, but the few attempts that I made to try and create my own while I was taking a photography class in college were not successful. :(

Jump to a today: I figure out that Photoshop gives you the ability to quickly and easily give your photographs the HDR effect.  I tried it out on a few of my pictures from Peru.  So far, I've just been playing around with the different settings to try and make a somewhat interesting picture.  At some point I'd like to actually research the process more to know exactly what the crap I should be doing...

Anyway, here are the "before and afters"