Sunday Funday...Plus!

Plus a new listing...finally...and I'm very proud of this one. It's a Purple Fishnet Tank Top. Great for summer at the beach or at home over a tank top or camisole!

It was so much fun to make, I'm making another one right now. This one will be more of a beige...the same yarn as I used to make the Cafe au Lait Beret.




And now for the Sunday Funday Video!

Yes, it's back to the game shows again...but I really can't help myself, they're so funny!

A book and a treasury!

First things first...my Mint Chocolate Scarf made it into a mint chocolate treasury! Seems like I'm not the only one who has food on the brain...

Please click here and take a look at it...clicks and comments are always appreciated!

In book news:

I just finished For the Love of Evil by Piers Anthony. Now generally I don't tend to read science fiction, but this one seemed interesting enough so I thought I'd give it a shot. It held my interest throughout, but at times grew a little trite. It was good enough that I'm curious to read another book in the series to see if it will grow on me more...

It's all about a wizard, turned monk, turned incarnation of evil, and his trials an tribulations throughout. Even as evil, he still has quite a bit of good in his heart and only is evil to those that deserve it, otherwise he tries to do the right thing. It's an interesting conundrum that is going on in his head.

Off to the library today to get my next book club book...it sounds like it could be a winner...It's called "The Book Thief" by somebody or other, we shall see.

Friday's Favorites!

One item sold from the last Friday's Favorites I did...yay!!!

This week is devoted to fake food! I have candles, magnets, jewelry, knitting patterns, and even soap! All looks good enough to eat, but I wouldn't advise it since none of it is real.

See something tasty? Go ahead! Treat yourself!

S'mores and Submissions!

While I was on vacation I learned an entirely new way to make s'mores! Though a lot of people say one shouldn't mess with the original, I've never been a real fan of the graham cracker. Sure I like them, and sure they serve a pupose of keeping the chocolate in, but that was until my boyfriends sister-in-law showed a better way!

She puts the piece of chocolate inside of the marshmallow and then puts it on the stick. She roasts it until the marshmallow is nice and toasty and the chocolate has melted inside...then all you need to do is pop it in your mouth for some marshmallowy, chocolaty goodness. In my opinion, best s'mores ever!

On a side note, if you are a fan of the graham cracker, then you can take your chocolaty, marshmallowy goodness and put it on the cracker...with the chocolate melted, it makes it easier and tastier to eat!

In submission news:

Since tomorrow is Friday's Favorites, and I'm on a food kick right now, I'm looking for stuff that looks like food that isn't...like soaps and knits and anything else you can think of. Post your links in the comments and check back tomorrow to see the Friday's Favorites!

Worried that you might forget to check? You can subscribe by email at the top of the left hand colomn.

I'm Back!

I got back yesterday morning, and after driving for 26 hours, made it to work on time...I was a lot less tired than I thought I would be, but this morning, I'm really feeling it. I can make it, though, I have the day off tomorrow to recoup and clean this disaster that I call a house...If only the tooth fairy were real and instead of taking children's teeth, she magically came by while you were sleeping and cleaned your house...I might just give a tooth for that.

We ended up taking the dog, and she had an amazing time and was a perfect angel in the car...I was kind of worried about that, but she slept most of the way, and every time we stopped for gas, she got a nice little walk.

I didn't do any knitting while I was gone...kind of took a break, but I have a couple items ready to list and another one that's almost finished, that I'm going to try to work on today...

I'll tell you guys more later, I have to wait for my IV bag full of coffee to drip into my veins...lol.

Out for a bit...

We're going out of town for Memorial Day Weekend. I'll be back on Monday, so this weeks Friday's Favorites and Sunday Funday Video won't be available this week. I don't know what my internet access will be like, so I don't know if I'll be posting much.

Since I'm not going to be gone that long, I'm not putting my shop on vacation mode. Anything ordered will be mailed out on Tuesday, which, because of the big weekend, would have to be done anyway even if I were in town.

Don't dispair though, here are some "inspirational" posters for you to look at while I'm gone.

The Good, The Bad and Tuesday's Tips

Let's start with the good...

I have 200 followers now for my blog! Yay for another milestone!

In Bad News:

My hours were cut at work. I'm now working only 2 and a half days and no longer hosting any of the shows. They cut the variety artists down to 2 per day instead of three and because of the cuts in hours for the day, they did their best to make sure those that had benefits got to keep them...I pay for my own benefits, so somehow I was penilized for it...there's another performer who got my host days that can't host the show, so now they'll have to bring a singer from the other show to do it...I'm very frustrated right now, and I really don't want to go into work today, but not going won't solve anything, not with bills piling up.

In Tuesday's Tips:

Now that the bad stuff is out of the way, lets move on to something positive...I found another social network site for crafters. It's called cafehanmade.ning.com. I figure it can't hurt to join a bunch of these sites, besides, it gives you yet another place to post your creations so that maybe a potential buyer might see it. If you do stop by, my profile page is: cafehandmade.ning.com/profile/AllThingsTangled and then we can be friends!

Is it cold and rainy where you are? Maybe you'll find something here that will brighten up your day...or at least keep you warm.

Book Review

I know it's been a while since I talked about reading, but I just finished Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres and it took me about a month to read. It's an amazing book, but definitely not light. It centers around a small town in the Ottoman Empire and watches the effects as the empire breaks up and the town becomes Turkish.

The characterization is really amazing. You feel like you know each one because each chapter is written from a different person's point of view.

We read this one for my book club, and I'm so glad we did because I would have never picked this up and read it if it weren't for that. If you like dense books with lots of character developement and like reading about the history of other countries, then this book is for you.

Sunday Funday!

This is going to be a short post because I almost forgot that I'm performing in a benifit for the Earthquake Relief in Italy. It's not that I really forgot, I got asked to do it and then didn't hear from the lady again until last night. I'm doing close up magic for an hour.

Sunday Funday Video!

For this weeks video, we go all the way to FAO Schwartz (probably one of the best toy store ever!) and have a look at their giant piano.

FAO Schwarz - Big Piano
by soanepowate

Famous Boyfriend and Something New

Well, not famous really, but it was still pretty cool. The boyfriend loves boats and movies about boats, so whenever I'm on netflix, I always try to find some random boat movies. We started to watch one last night and he said that it looked really familiar...he used to do a lot of extra work when he lived in LA and he said, if there's a barbaque scene in this one then I think I'm in it.

No sooner had he said this, but all of a sudden there was the barbaque scene and there he was flipping burgers! How cool is that!

The movie was called "Madison" and I can't tell you how good it was because I fell asleep halfway through...I was really tired and had a glass of wine, so let's not let this reflect on the movie's merrits.

In other news:



I posted a new listing today! It's a Ribbed Zig Zag Headband; a great way to keep your hair off your face during these hot summer months. Machine washable too! And as always, free shipping to the US and Canada!

Remember to tune in tomorrow for the Sunday Funday video!

Friday's Favorites on Etsy

For this week's Friday's Favorites, I decided to go with things for your head...everything from clips to crowns, from scrunchies to hats.

Well here you go!



Let me know which ones you like!

Fixing Bugs

For those of you that use letsets.com, which is an awesome tool, there has been a little problem as of late. Because etsy has changed all there prices to have both the dollar sign and USD, the program gets confused and when you upload it to google base, it comes back as unsuccessful.

I had this happen yesterday, and not knowing what the problem was, I immediately went to the etsy forums to have a look. Thank goodness for the forums. There were a couple of posts about it up already and after reading through them, I found out exactly what to do.

For those that have had the same problem, simply open up the file after it has been downloaded, and scroll through all the code and simply erase "USD" every time you see it. After that save it and upload it to google as usual, and then it will work just fine.

For those that haven't tried letsets, it's a great way to be seen when people do a google search. Most of the stuff will pop up when people click on the shopping link. I usually re upload my stuff every time I have 2 or 3 new items. I'm hoping they'll have this bug fixed soon, because it is a small pain to have to scroll through code.

In Friday's Favorite News:

Because I've been obsessed lately with scrunchies and headbands, I'm looking for submissions of "stuff for your head" for tomorrow's post. Just post the link in the comments, I'll be looking there first and if there's not enough I'll go and look in the forums...It can be anything at all, as long as it goes on your head.

Birthdays, and Scrunchies, and Turkey oh my!

The other day was the boyfriend's birthday. He doesn't really like to make a big deal about it, but I love birthdays, so it's kind of a battle of wills between us. I got him presents which made him mad that I got them for him but happy because he loved them...I got him cake which he said I shouldn't have, but ate it with relish (meaning he enjoyed it, not with pickles)...the one thing I didn't do (because I kind of got lazy) was give him a pie in the face which is apparently what you do to a clown on his birthday...so next year, he better watch out.

In other news:


I listed a grey beaded scrunchie last night. It's the same as the pink one only grey. I still have a finished headband to list, but last night I was too tired to measure it...I don't have a big house or anything, but the few feet to the laundry room to grab the tape measure just seemed waaaay too far.

In Turkey news?:

I must have been featured on a Turkish blog. Yesterday I was getting a ton of hits (over 100) and I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. I wasn't featured anywhere and I wasn't in a treasury. Well, this morning when I checked my google analytics, there was this blog that I could see that all the hits were coming from. I didn't understand the language, nor did I even see a picture of anything I'd made.

So then I looked at the map to see where all this activity was coming from, and lo and behold, there was like 95 hits from Turkey! Though around Thanksgiving I do profess my love of Turkey, I haven't really tried to focus any of my advertising on the country itself...how cool is that?

I then looked at content by title and discovered that it was my Lime Green Tank with Gold Accent...Wow! The web is really an amazing thing.

Tuesday Tips for Etsy

Here we are again...another Tuesday, another tip. This one's all about business cards. We all know how important they are, and we all know we should have them, but sometimes our budgets don't allow it (especially during these troubled times). Well I found a website that not only gives them for free, but they don't even charge shipping! It's called http://www.marketsplash.com/res/business-cards-search.html?eprcd=MS11100FreeCards.

Now the drawback is (and of course there's always a drawback when you're getting anything for free) that you can't use your own designs. You have to make it with their premade cards. I'm still thinking of getting some though, the way I figure, it's better to have business cards than no business cards.

In other news:



I was busy yesterday making some smaller items for my etsy shop. You'll start to see them trickle in as the week goes by. The newest is a pink scrunchie with silver beads! As always there is free shipping to the US and Canada, and if you want to order more than one, it's only $2 for each additional scrunchie!

Sanitation by Joan

Finally, the upstairs has been cleaned. We spend so little time up there that it's really hard to work up the motivation to make it nice up there. Every night before bed I think, "OK, things I need to do tomorrow: clean upstairs." and then every morning I think, "I don't wanna! Maybe tomorrow." And so it's gone on for quite a while, but now the upstairs is a welcoming spot to be...now as for the downstairs right now...um...maybe we should just stick with my successes for the day.

Don't forget that tomorrow is "Tuesday's Tips for Etsy", check back for my newest etsy tip...

Can't trust yourself to remember? (That's totally me anyway.) You can sign up for an email subscription so the posts will come right to your inbox! It's easy, look for the subscription box at the top of the left column.

Sunday Funday...and a new listing too!

First off...Happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there!



Second off...I finally put up a new listing! It's a Lime Green Tank with Gold Ribbon Accent. I'm really proud of it...and I'm thinking other colors and versions of this might be showing up soon because it's fun to make and great for spring and summer!

Now onto the Sunday Funday Video! In honor of mother's day, here's a song that all you moms and those of you that have a mom out there will enjoy.



DON'T FORGET TO GIVE YOUR MOM A CALL TODAY!!!!

Almost Famous...

Well...not really...but I just got a phone call from my photographer asking me if he could use my photo in an advertisement in Magic Magazine. He takes pictures of magicians all over the world, so I feel quite honored that he chose my picture instead of all the famous magicians he's taken pictures of. This, of course, means that now I'm going to have to go out and buy a magazine...I used to read it religiously, but that was because I was working in a magic shop and I could read it for free...but in any case, I feel pretty cool.




And yes, that's the picture they're using!

Now I'm off to my friend's graduation...after today, she can officially put a "Dr." in front of her name...Doctor of music though, so if I fall down ill in her presence, there's not much she can do.

Friday's Favorites on Etsy

Wow! Another week has gone by, and it's already time for the favorites again. Since this past week was Cinqo de Mayo (the fifth of May, the Mexican independence day, like our fourth of July over here), I thought the favorites should have a Mexican inspired theme. Some of these photos are really gorgeous, and I had to stop myself from buying them because a: I have no money and b: I have no wall space left.

Enjoy:

Random Thoughts

I finally have a day off today, probably to be filled with cleaning and errands, but I think my expectations are slightly high on that front.

The new piece I'm working on right now is turning out really well...it might be a hard one to list since I almost want to keep it for myself.

It was really nice doing magic again at the Venetian, though I can fill other roles there, being a magician is what I do and who I am so it feels the most comfortable.

Still haven't heard from the custom order girl...I might send her a convo tomorrow, but if she doesn't have it set up to email her when she gets one, it might not do any good.

My weekly poker game is tonight...if I win, it will mean an extra present for my boyfriends birthday...I've already gotten him a couple of things which I can't wait to give him and which I can't post here just in case he discovers my blog.

Thursdays can be rough, it's not quite the weekend, but the end is in sight...why not buy yourself a present to cheer yourself up...There's a great store right here!...lol

The Waiting Game...

I finished and listed my custom order a couple of days ago, and convo'd the buyer...now I sit and wait for a response. I haven't ever charged someone for something before I've made it, even though others have told me that they do so because of this exact problem. I don't want to give up on her yet, so I'm going to wait a couple more days and then convo her again...of course she has no feedback, so I don't know if this is a normal thing for her, but I don't hold that against anyone because I've been several new etsian's first buys and I think that's great.

The listing was for a bolero jacket exactly the same as the original listing only one size bigger (a 6 instead of a 4)...So just in case I don't hear from her, and this is something that you might want, keep your eyes on this one and I'll let you know if it's open for sale.

In other news:
I gave up another magician day yesterday in order to do living statue...I hate doing this because being a statue is soooo hard and I hurt so bad after it's done, but it pays so much better and right now I need the money...and the money was pretty good yesterday.

Today, I'm back in my magic role which I feel the most comfortable...also, I just bought new shoes with super comfy insoles and so far because of all my day swapping, I've only really gotten to wear them for one day! I'm am excited to be walking on the cobblestone today in pure comfort.

Tuesday's Tips for Etsy!

For this week's Tuesday's Tips, there is a new site up that you can post your creations and vote on other's creations too! It's called www.votehandmade.com. On my google analytics, I've already gotten a couple of hits from them, and it's really a lot of fun to see what other's are up to.

Also, you don't have to just post stuff from your etsy shop, you can post blog articles, stuff from your website, stuff from artfire, or if you see somthing that you like online you can post that too! Check it out, and have a lot of fun.

Want more tips? Click here to view them all.

A day off...

...and all I want to do is lay on the couch and so absolutely nothing, unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen. I've got to go to the bank, the post office, pay bills and list my custom order...I'm going to try and do this as quickly as posible so my transformation into couch potato can begin.

In other news:
One of my sweaters was featured in a blog! Please stop by www.handbagcave.blogspot.com and check it out! I'm so excited!

In my other career news:
The cutbacks have started now. They're cutting down our hours by 30 minutes, which doesn't sound like much until you figure all the people who work 4 days will not be elligible for health insurance anymore...I have my own insurance, so it just effects me money wise...they are also cutting one singer per day (from 6 to 5), and one variety performer which is what I am (from 3 to 2). We don't know what the schedule is going to be like until next week, so everyone's a bit on edge...I picked up another statue day this week to help build up the bank account before the June cuts hit.

Sunday Funday Video!

I'm starting to get my land legs back from the boat trip...still haven't uploaded the pictures on my computer yet...almost finished making a custom order...and that's all the news so far...

Now onto the Sunday Funday video!

Who would have thought that "Pachabel's Cannon in D" could be so funny?



Hopefully you're laughing right now...and what goes great with laughter? Click here to find out

Friday's Favorites on a Saturday

I'M HOME!!!!!

It was so much fun...of course both the boyfriend and I forgot our cameras, so we used his phone and he still needs to send me the pictures...we're such goofs, most of the pictures were of the dog...I can't help it, she's so cute.

It's nice to be back...3 days on a 26 foot sailboat is nice, but it's also wonderful to be able to walk around and not bump into anyone...and a nice hot bath was a great welcome home.

In other news:

When I got back I found out that I'm in a treasury! Give it a clicky to see it. It's made by Nikid who is one of the members of the BNR list that I'm on.

...and now for the favorites:

Since I just got back from a boating trip, I made boating the theme for these favorites...If you have any boating themed items in your shop, post the link in the comments so we all can take a look at your's too!

Here we go...