Banner Greeting Card

I am definitely one who prefers to make a card instead of buying one.  I'd rather just not give a card than buy one at the store.  My need to create my own greeting cards stems from my late grandmother's influence on my crafting "career".   As far back as I can remember she would make cards for everyone in our family for their birthdays, Christmas, etc.  As a youngling, I would sit on her bed with her and make my own cards.  She had more pure creative talent in her pinky finger than I have in my whole body, so I was lucky to have her as an onsite consultant to assist in my card-making endeavors.

I've found that creating greeting cards is a nice creative hobby because you get to give them away.  You aren't stuck with another useless art project sitting around your house. (Or maybe that's just me...)

This past Father's Day I made my dear 'ole Dad this "bunting"-inspired banner card.  I recently discovered mini buntings and am kind of obsessed with them.

 I was on a roll after I made this, so I also made a "Happy Birthday" banner card for my Mom and also for my Step-Mom.

I was recently involved in a very large move and I only packed the absolute bare necessities when it came to my art supplies.  Therefore, I really don't have that much to work with, which I suppose is good if you'd like to recreate this card. 

Supplies:

-a blank card/envelope

-parchment paper (for the little triangle pennants) 

-thick black thread

-black acrylic paint

-black ink pad

-gel ink pen

-glue stick

To begin, I watered down a little black paint in a bowl, and then used my fingers to flick the paint all over the card.   I then cut little triangles out of the parchment paper and rubbed the ink pad along the edges to give them a little more detail.  Using the gel pen I wrote a letter on each triangle.  Lastly, I glued the lil' triangles onto the card, making sure that the black thread made it underneath so the pennants had something to hang on.

Now I just need another holiday/birthday so I can make more cute little buntings/banners/pennants. :)  Maybe I could just string them across my kitchen cabinets...

Mount Wollaston Cemetery

I really enjoy visiting cemeteries.  Any kind of cemetery suites me just fine, but I find historic cemeteries to be the most interesting.  During the recent Memorial Day weekend, I visited Mount Wollaston Cemetery in Quincy, MA.  This is one of the largest cemeteries I've been to yet, and I still have more areas of it to explore. 

Baby Patrick

Mother, Lizzie, Willie

Not lost, But gone before.

Bertie

I believe what I enjoy most about observing all the old grave markers is trying to piece together the story of these people's lives with very little information.  The headstones themselves are also quite fascinating when navigating the symbolism of the designs found on them.  I had an internship once where for my "work" I visited cemeteries and wrote articles on the symbolism found in the various types of decoration on the headstones.  I was able to talk to the caretakers of the cemeteries and really gained a lot of historical insight into the town that I was interning.  Oh, what fun times! :)

Spending a Weekend Away

Happy weekend! :)  My boyfriend and I are celebrating our 2 year anniversary (which was in April) this weekend at the Latchis hotel.  It's a place where we can sleep, go to the movies, and get some drank all in one building! Holla!* I'm excited. Catty is not. He will be left at home alone for the 48 hours we are gone. 

Hopefully he doesn't annoy the neighbors too much with his incessant meowing. On our last 2 day trip, we found a Dorito on our door handle when we got home. What the hell? I think our neighbors wanted to see how long the loud, whining cat was left alone/potentially starving.  For the record, he meows because he's a very social, needy cat and wants attention, not because he's hungry or being neglected.  Well, he is being neglected in a way because I'm leaving him all alone and he hates that, but there's nothing I can do about it and he's just going to have to suffer. ><

I almost want to go next door and confront them about the chip on the door handle and let them know the situation with my catty.  However, I also don't know for sure that it was them, and I like to avoid all unnecessary social contact with my neighbors...

I worked in the jewelry department of the best craft store around for 7 years.  For a short time the store sold a pack of charms that were all in the shape of different Spanish words.  One day some idiotic teeny bopper came over to me, holding this pack of charms and pointing to the "HOLA" charm, and said, "Does this say holla?" My response: "Um, no.  It's pronounced O-la, it's Spanish for hello?"  Looking back on that fond memory, I really wish I would have told her, "Yes.  That charm is totally saying holla!  It's on sale. You should buy it." 

Cat Toys

My evil cat's favorite game is Throw Stuffed Animals Down The Long Hallway. In this game, my wind resistant cat will run across our apartment and down a hallway as fast as a freaking cheetah to capture a thrown stuffed animal. He may leap up into the air.  He may actually catch the animal.  He may not move at all, and instead snidely stare at me as the poor animal I just threw plops on the ground with no one to attack it.  The one thing he will for sure not do is return the stuffed animal it to the person that threw it.

Because my cat is mean and doesn't fetch, I have to manually retrieve the animals I throw down the hall for him.  Needless to say, he has a lot of toys. That way, I can minimize my energy output by having to retrieve these stuffed animals less frequently.   I grab a handful of toys, stand in one spot, and throw them down the hall.  Then I run to the end where all the animals have been collecting, and throw the animals back up the hallway.  It's a viscous cycle that my evil crack baby never wants to end.

Let's see... In the photo above we have a small assortment of toys Rasputin enjoys chasing down the hallway.  A small vibrating mouse, a World of Warcraft Wind Rider Cub, a Beanie Baby bear (his FAVORITE toy), a felted octopus, and a Zhu Zhu pet hamster thing. Yes, this particular cat bed is in a dilapidated cardboard box - his choice.)

Our Own Love Padlocks.

A while ago I mentioned my recent discovery of "love padlocks" attached to a fence near where I live with my better half.  I thought it was a super cute, romantic idea, so my boyfriend bought us a lock to hang on the fence with all the other locks.  I then used my awesome Dremel tool skills to engrave some info on the lock.  Ok, ok...the engravings I made are barely legible, but I know what they say, and that's what matters. :)

Ours is by far the newest one in the group. (And the only one that's been engraved, that I could tell.)

"BMM + MRM  est. 4.23.09"

"Brandy ♥ ..."

".... ♥ Matt"

After a million tries, I got a picture of us with our lock in the background. :)

I'm really glad that we did this. Now every time we go out on evening walks we get to pass by our little "love padlock".  We say hi. It waves.

Destination Wedding Tags 2

I apologize for the lack of posts recently.  I've been freakishly busy making tags.  One particular tag to be exact... This tag was featured in a Father's Day Gift Guide by the blog A Cup of Jo and I have been over run with orders for it.  I am almost scared to look in my inbox. Anyway! Back to an actual post. :)

Today's destination wedding location: COSTA RICA!!

These tags were made for the bridal party of this tropical wedding.

Falling in Love with the Mind of a Gay Dead Man

In middle and high school I was forced to read books that were written a million years ago, and though they were written in English, I could not understand what the heck I was reading.  It was like trying to read a book in a foreign language.  As I've gotten older, my brain has really matured and I've come to love and appreciate books like Dorian Gray and Pride and Prejudice.  I can actually understand their historic tongue now. Yay!

Anyway, as I've started to return to these types of books, I've discovered how freaking awesome Oscar Wilde was.  He left the world with a plethora of fantastic thoughts.  I think I love him.  Here is the smallest sampling of my favorite quotes:


"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." 
— Oscar Wilde

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." 
— Oscar Wilde

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." 
— Oscar Wilde

"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all." 
— Oscar Wilde

"I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there." 
— Oscar Wilde

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does, and that is his." 
— Oscar Wilde

"Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught." 
— Oscar Wilde

Paypal Sucks So Bad

Normally, Paypal and I have a pretty decent relationship.  They collect money on my behalf, I give them a little money in return, they let me print shipping labels, and then Paypal kindly contacts my US customers to notify them that their order has been shipped and even gives them a link to where they can track their order.

Not anymore.  They will gladly take their cut of my income, but Paypal is no longer allowing me to print shipping labels.  I am beyond pissed and annoyed.

On May 25, 2011, I attempted to print a USPS shipping label off of Paypal like I've [correct use of] literally done over 1,000 times.  I was greeted with this response:

PayPal Shipping is not available. We apologize for the inconvenience.


Huh.  So I try again. All day, every hour I attempted to print out shipping labels. No success.  I contact Paypal's support through email.  They suggested that I'm just an idiot and doing something wrong.  Needless to say, I told them in polite words, that I do this crap every GD day and I know how to print an effing shipping label.  After phoning the customer support, I got a somewhat more satisfying response.  I was informed that Paypal shipping was broken (for a handful of poor souls) and it will be fixed in 48-72 hours.

After getting off the phone I was shocked. 2-3 DAYS before I can print a label?! You have got to be sh*tting me! (I'd lost all sense of class by this point.)  For 3 days I still tried printing labels with no success, but knew that was going to be fixed soon, so I didn't stress too much.

I finally gave up hope that Paypal was going to be fixed, and had to lug accumulated orders to the Post Office so each could be given postage.  I was there for a while...

It is going on 3 weeks and I STILL cannot print my shipping labels through Paypal.  I am forced to go to the Post Office and have a human manually add postage to ALL of my outgoing orders. This wouldn't be too horrible if it didn't cost more - I have to pay an extra $.62 for Delivery Confirmation when I ship my domestic orders at the Post Office.  I've shipped about 50 orders since this crap started, so I'm out about $30 so far.  I don't want to raise the cost of shipping on my listings, because I don't want the Domestic shipping price to be higher than the International shipping price.  Also, it's not my customers' fault that Paypal is completely incompetent.

Sometimes I email the Paypal support person that I've been dealing with, and send him my sob stories.  He entertains my complaints by actually responding to me.  If you are bored, here is a TINY smidgen of the correspondence between me and Paypal on this issue:

_______________________________________________________

05/28/2011 07:18 AM

I have been unable to print labels for 3 days now. Can you give me any kind of time frame?? When I called Paypal support days ago I was told that the problem would be fixed in 48-72 hours. 72 hours has now passed. This is ridiculous. Look at my account. See all the things that I need to ship. :( 

-Brandy

_______________________________________________________________________________

05/29/2011 11:05 AM

I know that probably only a handful of people are suffering from this "not being able to print shipping labels" issue, so it may not be that high of a priority for Paypal. However, it is seriously affecting my business. If I at least knew when it would be resolved, I could plan for alternative shipping methods. It has been 4 days since the problem arose. :( I've had a Paypal account for many years and have given Paypal a lot of money in transaction fees. I really wish this problem would be resolved. :( 

*waterfall tears*

-Brandy

_________________________________________________________________________

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND.  ALL EMPLOYEES OUT OF THE OFFICE AND NO ONE LEFT TO WORK ON MY SAD LITTLE ISSUE.

___________________________________________________________________________

05/31/2011 07:01 AM

Hi Brandy,

Engineering is still trying to determine the root cause for this bug. At this point in time, we do not have an ETA.

We are recommending to merchant to use the USPS or UPS web sites to print labels until it is fully resolved.

As soon as we find out anything, it will be passed along to you.

Thank you for your patience,

Frank

__________________________________________________________________________

06/07/2011 08:33 AM

Wow. So it's been 2 weeks that I have NOT BEEN ABLE TO PRINT SHIPPING LABELS OFF PAYPAL. It is not possible to print First Class labels off of USPS.com (which is the shipping option that my customers paid for). I have to physically go to a post office everyday and have an employee process all my packages. I then I have to return home and manually enter in all the tracking info that I over paid for (it is $.60 more expensive at the post office than online). This is now costing my business money. Am I going to be compensated for all the extra costs I've accrued as I am forced to ship my orders in this manner??? 

-Brandy 

__________________________________________________________________________

06/07/2011 08:48 AM

Hi Brandy,

I do apologize for the inconvenience, but this is in the hands of the engineering department. They are working to fix the problem. They are aware of problems this is causing .merchants.

Have you tried shipping through eBay? 

We will notify you when engineering has solved the problem.

Thank you for your patience,

Frank

________________________________________________________________________

AHHH!!!!  So.  I have no freaking clue when I will be able to print my labels off of Paypal again. I don't mean to be a whiner, but this sucks.  Hence, Paypal sucks so bad.

A Few Random Custom Tags

Some recent work.  I would like to be able to organize my posts of custom work by theme or layout, but I've just found it to be way too time consuming/difficult. So!  Here is an assortment of samples of custom leather tags. :)

Supporting Hoarders

My newest guilty pleasure TV show is Hoarders.  The show focuses on people that fill their home - from floor to ceiling - with junk, trash, and animals (the animal hoarding episodes are the best).  In each episode a team is brought out to the property to help clean up and declutter.  Animal Control will visit if animals are involved to make sure the animals aren't suffering and are being properly cared for.  Often times Adult Protective Services enters the picture and deems the home "unlivable."  When this happens, if the property isn't cleaned to a certain standard, then the homeowners can be evicted. It is at this point that I get annoyed.

One guy hoarded 2,000 pet rats.

The condition that these people live is beyond nasty and ridiculous.  However.  If they own the property (and are not renting) then I feel how they live in their "home" is their own business.  If a tower of trash falls on them one day and kills them, then so be it.   If minors are involved, then of course, the home must be safe.  Animals should be cared for as well.  I don't condone the mistreatment of animals.  But if the home is only occupied by adults, then the condition of the residence should be of no concern of the city government.

It is a waste of tax payers' money to send officials out to nasty homes (that don't house children) and threaten the owners with eviction.  If someone loves living in trash and cat feces, then that's their choice and they should have that right.  I feel it's just not right to tell people how to live in their own homes.  If their filth and junk piles aren't hurting anyone else, then what's the problem?

I think this is a living room...

Some of the hoarders live in neighborhoods, so I can understand neighbors not wanting bugs from a nearby trash laden house to come next door and infest their own home.  But a lot of the people on this show live out in the country. They have no neighbors or neighborhood association.  Why does the condition in which they keep their home have to be regulated??  Whose business is it how these hoarders (or anyone for that matter!) choose to live their lives?

But, maybe I'm a weirdo for sticking up for the hoarders...

Getting Ready For Peru: Part 1

I have always longed to travel.  I want to see and experience absolutely everything that I can.  For example, this past January I went skiing at Killington.  I feared for my life the entire time.  I just wanted to LIVE and not die!!!  But I'm glad I went and can now check that horrifying experience off my list.  To help satisfy my desire to travel, my better half and I have decided to take 1 international and 1 domestic trip every year.  This year's trip is my baby.  Together, we spontaneously decided to go to Peru, and I am taking care of every single aspect of this trip.  Luckily, he gets to plan (and pay for, yipee!) next year's trip to Japan.

As we are only going for a week, we pretty much only have time to visit Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca (yes, I am hoping to meet the great Cornholio).  R.E.I. has been our go-to store for all the "supplies" that we need for the trip.  A few months ago we went to R.E.I. during a "Garage Sale" event and bought our foot wear for the trip at a major discount.

 My shoes for the trip.  We aren't doing any major trekking, so we just need some comfy walking boot things.

 The good/bad thing about REI is that you can return anything at any time.  These "new" shoes are scuffed and have dirt in the grooves on the bottom.  I bet their previous owners went on a trip, hiked for a few weeks, then returned these shoes when they were done with their trip.  This is why they were able to be moved into "damages" and sold at a discount at the "Garage Sale" REI has every few months.  

 Originally $120.00, I paid $45.83 for my comfy shoes.  Upside to buying used shoes: they are already broken in.

 My boyfriend got these guys.

 His shoes only suffer from light scuffing.

 Originally $199.19, these shoes were purchased for $89.87.

I'm with my Little Man all day.  He's kind of a big part of my life. :)

A Gal Pal Visit + A Birthday

So...my shop has been closed for the past week as I have been quite busy at home. While I've been able to continue working on orders placed before I closed my shop, I didn't want to take on any more orders while I wasn't able to be near my computer for most of the time.

My dear friend from Georgia came for a short visit earlier last week.  We visited Bunker Hill, the Holocaust Memorial in Boston, and the Natural History Museum at Harvard.* We had a gay ol' time.

* Harvard's Natural History Museum is now my all time favorite museum.  I enjoyed it more than the High Museum, The Met, MoMA, The Guggenheim, and the Smithsonian.  I am somewhat sad to say, I even enjoyed this museum more than the Museum of Sex!

The tamest photo from the Museum of Sex I could find in my personal collection.

The day my friend left, my boyfriend's mother flew into town.  This past weekend we all went to my boyfriend's grandmother's 70th birthday.  It was 50's themed. 

Cute lil' figures rockin' and rollin'.

A costume was "optional".  When I first got the invitation to the party, I squealed with joy.  [correct use of] Literally. I always wanted a reason to wear a poofy dress.  I scoured Etsy looking for a dress for many, many hours.  I scrolled down so many times, that my eyes became all pissed off and strained.  Then, I found it.  A vintage 1950s party dress. Color blue (one of the colors used in the birthday party).  Later I found a super poofy crinoline and so I was set!

 Whenever I wrangle my better half into taking photos of me, I plead with him to tell me how to pose.  His response: "Look cute."  Are you kidding me? How the hell do I do that?  In 90% of the photos he takes of me, I either have my eyes closed, or no upper lip visible, or I look sleepy and cracked out. He takes the worst pictures of me.  Luckily, I can use about 10% of the photos after some editing.

 I wanted to get a shot of the poofery of the dress all spread out on the ground, but for some reason I just squatted down on my feet instead. ><

Classic spinning-in-dress-with-crinoline-poking-out shot.

On a totally different note:

On this 67th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, thank an Allied WWII veteran you aren't speaking German.  Unless you are German...then I suppose just be happy that your country isn't evil any more.  Yeah...I'm going there.

While you're at it, join me in spirit as I marathon one of my Top 3 favorite TV shows/mini series of all time - Band of Brothers.  This show is like crack to me. I have "Wild Bill" Guarnere's autograph hanging above my work table.


One last thang! The shop will reopen tomorrow.  

Short and Sweet Tags

Sometimes the saying "Less is More" rings true.  Below are some recent custom tags that are stamped with a short and sweet message.

Evil Cat Asylum: Update

I recently introduced the Evil Cat Asylum...

Well, I am sad to say that it was demolished the other day.  Apparently a cardboard Evil Cat Asylum will not survive an 8 lb. catty sitting on the roof.  All that remains in its stead is a cat bed hideaway.  Here, a sleepy evil catty day dreams.

Yes, I bought my cat a zhu zhu pet, hoping it would occupy him for copious amounts of time.  I didn't factor in that he would knock the moving hamster thing over every 25 seconds, thus forcing me to get up and place it right side up for him to continue playing with it.

At least he enjoys sleeping for long periods of time. :)