I would like to REMIND everyone who purchased anything from me that when you email me, you need to be able to receive the reply! Add my address to your whitelist. I have replied to a few people that did not respond, so I’m not sure if my email was blocked by a spam filter. I will try to reach you through 2 email addresses, and if I don’t hear from you after that then I will let it go. A good alternative to this is to send me a “convo” on Etsy; that gets around the problem of email spam filtering.

Also, I’ve gotten the store back up to speed and am listing some new items! Keep an eye on it since I will be updating nearly every day.

I will be moving to New York on July 4, so things will be busy around here. Custom requests will have to wait until after then, as will shirt listings and purchases. The shirts are already packed up in boxes. After I finish moving, there will be approximately a week before Otakon, and then another two weeks before ConnectiCon. That’s the end of con season for me, so store listings will pick up heavily in August. As always, I’ll post here when I deactivate the store for a convention or when I do a major update.

Thanks again everybody!

Every single item in my stock is going to be for sale at Animazement (in Raleigh, NC) over Memorial Day weekend. Anything left after Animazement will be going to Con Carolinas (in Charlotte, NC) the following weekend. This INCLUDES all items listed in the Etsy store. I don’t want anyone purchasing an item from the online store only to find out that it has been sold at the convention, so I will put my Etsy store on Vacation mode and TAKE DOWN all listings for items that were sold at the con before re-activating the store.

I have considerably more stock than I have listed on Etsy, so more items will be available in the Etsy store shortly after it is reactivated. However, they may not be the same ones that are there now, and I don’t like to make exact duplicates of items. Consider this your warning: If you’re considering something in the store, try to decide before May 20. Otherwise you may lose the opportunity!

I’m very excited about Animazement…I hope to see a bunch of you there!

After seeing the trailers, I expected the movie to be enjoyable, but not great. I was happily surprised that I enjoyed the movie immensely and was not at all struck by cheesiness or camp. (Some of my friends had been calling it very cheesy, in a good way.) I personally felt the actors did a great job of getting into character. One of my friends compared it to Serenity. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but it did have its moments. I don’t think it had the plot strength of Serenity, but it did have almost that level of dialogue and excitement.

In particular, the backstory at the front end of the movie was a great addition that I didn’t expect. There was just enough setup to the story that you could connect with the characters. This movie is clearly a character-driven story and not a plot-driven story, so don’t expect an earth-shattering plot. Go see it for the characters, not for an amazing story.

Regarding canon, I personally have no ill-will toward a director who messes with canon, provided he/she lets us know well ahead of time that they are doing it. Abrams very clearly stated that he was departing from canon, so anyone who doesn’t want to see a departure shouldn’t go see this movie. There were a few times during the movie that my brain had to do a little adjusting, but most of the time it was easy enough that it didn’t impact my enjoyment.

Overall, I heartily recommend you go see this movie if you haven’t already. Even if you have, it’s worth going back to see again!

I love these lampwork pandas! They are SO CUTE! I wanted to hang them from a lucky bamboo plant, but I didn’t happen to have one around.

And of course, I finally got some hanging mannequins to display the shirts. This will help quite a bit at Animazement! The girl is a little nipply, though…Makes me wonder if I should buy her a bra for the shows.

(Pssst…these thumbnails both link to the items in the store. There’s only one of each, so it’s first-come first-served.)

Artist Alley # 36 – Clay to Wax Pt. 3

I’ve started restocking the Etsy store (link at the top of the page…check it out) with new jewelry. Remember, each item (except the stud earrings) is one-of-a-kind, so if you see something you like, don’t wait until you see me at a con to get it! It might be gone by then.

Custom requests (currently the only way to get shirts and hats, as they are not regularly stocked in the Etsy store at the moment) are welcome now. Use the contact form on this site or convo me through Etsy; either way, it goes to my email!

Check out all the yummy goodies!

And here they are all spread out:

Still waiting for Chessex to get my wholesale account application so I can get some dice from them, too. I hope it gets done in time for me to get some more Chessex dice for Animazement! I still have quite a few of the Chessex dice I picked up at Dragon*con last year, so at least I will have some of the elaborate pretties if all else fails. For now…grinding, drilling, scraping plastic off the bit…so glad I have a nice dust mask from the lab!

I’m doing my best to have tons of shirts and jewelry available. I won’t be taking custom orders at the con. It just gets way too hectic, and inevitably I or one of my helpers forgets to get some piece of crucial info, or the dog eats the order form (and I don’t even own a dog!), or something else. I’ll take custom orders through the website as always, but at the con what you see is what you get.

I have a limited quantity of styles and sizes for the shirts; each one is made individually, and there are various different types of shirts. I do not bulk-order standard T-shirts for these because it would get too boring for me to work with the same kind of shirt over and over. Many of these sizes and styles (especially XXXL or other rarer types) will be extremely limited. I recommend contacting me ahead of time or coming by the booth very early if you are a non-standard (not S, M, or L) size.

Thank goodness I don’t make products targeted toward children. Our congress has consistently failed to see the consequences of their shenanigans, and the CPSIA is no exception. They passed a huge, broad law with no thought as to how it would affect small businesses and libraries. The most incredible irony of this law is that while well-intentioned, it completely FAILS!

Children have access to dozens of small items that were never intended for children. This is because their parents are incompetent, neglectful, or make occasional mistakes. If a charm falls off of a mother’s bracelet and her child finds and eats it, that is her fault. It also will not be prevented by all of these new regulations. Sure, they look on the surface like we are really concerned with our children’s safety, but how effective are they going to be, really? Children have a way of getting into trouble that is seemingly unstoppable. Intelligent parents take appropriate steps to prevent undue harm, and they also let their children make mistakes! One of the biggest teachers in life is the mistake. You make it, you deal with the consequences, and it teaches you why you don’t do that. I’m not saying we should feed our children lead; I’m simply advocating a lowering of the padded walls and placing more responsibility on parents, teachers, and caretakers to have common sense. Letting a child chew on possibly radioactive jewelry = not okay. Letting a child go down a slide and possibly end up with a skinned knee = okay. Perhaps the problem is that people are too stupid these days to know what presents a substantial possible hazard to children? This isn’t a problem we can fix with a law that takes away opportunities for learning.

The one thing this act will succeed in is trashing our economy and our ability to educate our kids even more. Small businesses, second-hand stores, and craftspeople are faced with a difficult choice. Well, it’s not so difficult for some who would never be able to afford it. They can either stop selling any products that would ever be considered as intended for children, or they can have every item they make or all of their materials tested for phthalates and lead. This means astronomical cost increases for these businesses. Thrift stores can’t afford that kind of per-item cost increase, so they are throwing away all of their children’s items. THROWING AWAY. The new law makes it illegal to sell or even GIVE AWAY these items.

In addition, we are in danger of losing all children’s books published before 1985. Can you imagine what will happen to libraries (Do your kids have a library at school? Do they like to take home piles of books to read during the week? Not anymore!) when they have to pull 60-70% of their children’s stock and trash it? I am fully in support of protecting our children from lead poisoning, but how many kids have been seriously harmed by book poisoning? Seriously now…as a blog I read said, If You’re Eating the Book, You’re Doing It Wrong. No more hand-me-down books with fantastic illustrations from great-grandma. Nope, into the trash it goes. Well, unless you want to break the law. You don’t want to be a criminal, do you? Little Jimmy might decide it works better as a meal than as a book, and we certainly can’t disabuse him of that notion!

The CPSIA is a bullshit law passed too hastily in an attempt to look like we were doing something. I fully support the sentiment behind the law. I agree that regulations on hazardous materials should be enforced. However, browbeating every reseller into testing end products is not the way to do this. Mass manufacturers should bear the responsibility for certifying that their materials are made without these hazardous materials. This should apply to all items, not just children’s end products. Anything containing a high level of these haz-mats should come with a warning label. If these chemicals pose a threat to children, what makes you think adults who don’t know better won’t give their children access to items that were never tested? “Warning! May contain lead levels that exceed 600 ppm. Not for use in children’s items! Oh, and by the way, don’t use this to paint dishes or make utensils from, either.” Crafters who use these materials should be able to point to the manufacturer and say, “Look, the materials I used were certified. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that I am covered under their certification.” Even if you don’t have to do the testing on your end product, you still have to get certified under this law.

I thought we were trying to help small businesses get back on their feet, not yank the rug out from under them. I thought they were the “heart of the American economy.” Yeah, help us get loans…and then tell us that you’re increasing our operating costs tenfold. Good plan, America. Look, if you want to control hazardous chemicals, I’m all for that. But could you please, please, try to do it in a way that has a chance of working?

Thank goodness I don’t make products targeted toward children.