I wanted to participate in the Bloggers Unite group activity for World AIDS Day, which is easy to do on my personal blog, but I was unsure how best to do so here the blog for my shop. But then I saw some other neat promos on Etsy, which inspired me as well. So here’s my idea: For any purchases in my shop completed on December 1, I will donate 10% of the item price to the South Central Wisconsin AIDS Network.
Are you promo-ing for World AIDS Day? I would be happy to help spread the word. If you are doing something similar in your shop, I invite you to post the details in a comment. (Just World AIDS day promos; no spam or other promos, please.)
This is a tough year for many people, with anxious days ahead. For Thanksgiving (and every day) I’d like to recommend the “click to give” Hunger Site. Corporate sponsors make a small contribution each time you click the Give Free Food link on the page, helping to support organizations including Feeding America (the new name for America’s Second Harvest).
A Very Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!
I haven’t been able to blog much lately, but these little guys are cheering me up on a snowy day.

I’m feeling very random today. It must be the change in seasons. I also couldn’t figure our how on earth to describe or display these. So I did what anyone would do: a pig and a pun.
I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!
It’s a beautiful day here, yet the trees are also starting to change colors and I’m fascinated by the fall reds on the maple leaves. I thought I’d also look for some patterns and colors to echo this in magnet sets, including this brand new Red Gumdrop set.
It was fun to realize, somewhat belatedly, that the 13 Delancey Street shop on Etsy has just passed its first quarter! It was even more fun to make the first quarterly donation to Carbonfund.org, which is the donation partner I’ve chosen for 2008. While my initial plan, as posted in the shop, was only to donate 1% of sales — to celebrate our first quarter I moved the decimal point one place and instead donated 10% of our first three months’ sales. And how nice — Carbonfund emailed me a certificate!
It’s been an interesting few weeks, and it’s very nice to be back. I’ve been thinking a lot about things coming full circle, and watching the fall colors begin to change. So here’s a little item along those lines, which I’m just calling Fall Colors - Circle Magnets — with my hopes that life is good for all
of you!

Yep, Soup to Nuts, really! (Hee-hee.) Got yer soup, got yer peanut butter . . .
The second runner-up name choice was “Macaroni Art” — I may have to make an Etsy treasury with this name, if can ever snag one.
I am like a little child when I discover one of my items in an Etsy treasury! I was especially happy to be included in Maddyandme’s treasury “Pumpkin Spice Latte Yummmmmm!” since it showcases such a nice variety of items, including jewelry, handmade soap (pumpkin lavender, yum!), clay pots, art prints, candles, and more. (Mine are the Pumpkin Spice Magnets, 3rd row center.)
I never really thought of myself as artsy (or even very crafty!) — it’s been so heartening to find a place where I can make little things and have them so warmly received.
You can visit the treasury here before it expires. Thank you, Maddyandme!
From all my years in New York, I developed a fondness for black clothes. And my favorite accompaniment is a splash of pink! So I was actually considering keeping these Pink Circles on Black for myself. Yet I demurred and added them to the Etsy shop instead. And now I’m off to see if I have an outfit to match. Hmmm . . . it might be time to g shopping!
I was so happy to see that one of our favorite Etsyians, stelabird, was featured in Urban Tulsa’s Annual Manual. The piece includes a full color photo of Ms. Estela, along with one of her trademark yeti. Check out the post on the always delightful Life of a Bird. And check out stelabird’s yetis (above) and little bigfoots on Etsy!
I was trying to figure out a small thank-you item I could include with the magnet sets. I’m not really artistic enough to make cards, and I wanted to ensure whatever I included was also recyclable, in keeping with my general environmental impulse in the Etsy shop. I had heard about tags punched out of recycled material — and we certainly have been putting a lot of light-weight cardboard packaging out for recycling at my house. So “upcycled” hang tags seemed like the way to go!
But of course what began as just a few sets of tags as bonuses for customers quickly grew into larger and larger stacks. On a whim, I decided to list some today, just expand the shop offerings a bit. They’re a bit quirky and not for everyone, but I’m going to see if there’s a niche market. At the very least, it was fun to try something new!
I couldn’t decide whether to call these Tequila Sunrise or Mango Sunrise. I finally went with the latter to match the neat background card against which I shot these. (For my Etsy shop listing I cropped the photo, but all of you lucky duckies here on the blog get a peek at my carpet, too!)
The Mango de Manila card in the background is just one of a set of “Loteria” cards I picked up from ImagineArt7’s shop. She has terrific vintage and ephemera items as well as supplies for altered art projects. Loteria is a Mexican picture matching game similar to bingo. The cards have such neat images and pictures — some of my favorites are pictured at right. I especially liked the mango magnets against the midnight blue of the Mango de Manila card.
I decided it’s time to start adding things I made over the summer to the Etsy shop — before summer officially ends! This is a mixed set featuring ladybugs but also some little dragonflies (or maybe regular flies, but I think the dragon-variety sounds nicer!).
Viva, summer. Viva, ladybugs!

A belated thank-you to LadyMetropolitan for including my Pumpkin Spice magnets in her Etsy “Autumn Lovelies” treasury, which was indeed lovely! I’m so tickled when one of my items shows up in anyone’s Treasury, but it’s a special pick-me-up when the curator is not someone I know.
Here’s a larger photo. I’m resisting autumn as much as I can, but I did like the cider-y look to these!

Despite that sneaky Labor Day holiday and the end of our permission to wear white, summer doesn’t officially end until September 21 — and I’m going to enjoy every minute of it!
See, just like magic you have an extra three weeks of summer! (Maybe I should go into business granting wishes — I wonder if there’s an Etsy category for that?)
It’s been a quiet week in the shop, so I thought I would start upgrading some photo backgrounds. These “I Want Candy” magnets look happier against a proper dinner setting, all set for a Labor Day picnic!A very happy Labor Day weekend to one and all.
I was so happy to find myself in an Etsy Treasury West today! Many thanks to tasteslikepurple for including me in “Violet, You’re Turning Violet!” I couldn’t get ScreenGrab to capture the image (just the frame) but here’s an image extracted from printing to a PDF (I'm in the bottom row on the left). Or you can visit the Treasury live before it expires here.
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Not a lot going on this week, so I thought I would play with the Etsy Mini and see how much I could squeeze into one post. It looks like the answer is 7 rows!1% of the sales price for these items (and all my Etsy sales) donated quarterly to earth-friendly nonprofits.
These green striped magnets are fairly dark and were completely defying any attempts to photograph them. I tried paintings, magazine covers — none of my usual background strategies were producing a result even close to the way they look in person. I had resigned myself to the fact that they needed a white background (a prob since I am able to turn even snowy white backgrounds gray). But then I stumbled upon these vintage drawings from the children’s page in a local newspaper, circa 1911.
The white balance and color levels are still giving me trouble — and for some reason Picasa’s sharp display image blurs each time I hit “save,” which is driving me nuts — but I love the drawings! The frogs (top) were what initially caught my eye, since the magnets are green. But I also liked the tiny child fairies playing on the books in the bottom image. Maybe the pixies here can show me how to use my camera properly!
1% of the sales price for these items (and all my Etsy sales) donated quarterly to earth-friendly nonprofits.