Sunday, January 25, 2009

It's only just begun...


It's only the start of the third week of the semester, and I am already starting to feel overwhelmed... My original plan was to graduate in December with a major in Anthropology and a minor in Spanish. Well, plans changed, I was short 3 credits to have 'enough' to graduate, so I came back for spring semester. Since I needed to come back anyway, my adviser for Spanish told me that I might as well just take the Spanish major - I was only 3 classes (12 credits) short.



So here I am, 12 credits deep in Spanish, and one 3 credit anthro elective to keep some English in my final semester here. I'm a bit overwhelmed -- I haven't taken much Spanish over the past year and a half, and suddenly being in 300 and 400 level classes... well, lets just say that I feel a little bit behind. 10-15 page reading assignments take me two hours because I have to look up TONS of words. Ugh. I imagine it will get better as the semester goes on and I get back in 'Spanish mode', but right now it's just kicking my butt...

But on the bright side, this is my last semester. When this semester is over, I will enter the 'real world', and not have to worry about doing homework anymore (or until I start grad school... but we won't think about that right now).

Friday, January 16, 2009

The best thing for the winter chill...

a sale in an online shop!

With the temperatures here and all over the US being so darn cold, who wants to leave the house to go shopping when you can do it online?

Right now I'm having a "Dead of Winter" sale in my shop -- all pendants are buy 2, get 1 free; and all order of $25 or more will receive free shipping!

You know you want to look ----> Tangerine Sunshine <--- click here!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

A new love...

As part of my "expanding" into new hobbies, I decided to take a step back into my childhood and start playing with Perler beads again. You know, those colorful little tube-like beads that you put on the pegboard and melt with the iron?

Yep. Those.

Well, thanks to a fun little ebay shopping excursion, I have about 20,000 perler beads in a variety of colors to play with:



I picked up some peboards and ironing paper at Hobby Lobby, and I've been searching for fun patterns and ideas online for a few days. So far some of my favorites have been various video-game sprites, especially pacman and old-school mario. I don't have any finished products yet, as I'm still waiting to get my iron back from someone that I loaned it to, but as soon as I do you can bet that I will blog about it! I plan on making magnets, coasters, boxes, keychains, necklaces, earrings... Pretty much everything.

If you know of any good patterns or have some crazy ideas, feel free to share!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Quick Update

Well, I am back from Mexico! It was warm, beautiful, and fabulous :) Pictures will be posted soon, but right now they are on my dad's camera, so I'm waiting for him to get them posted! But until then...

I listed some new items in my Tangerine Sunshine and Bohemian Kitty shops. I'm also working on lots of new stuff that I hope I will get finished and listed over the next few days. School starts up for me again on Monday, so I will have a little less time to dedicate to Etsy, but I'm certainly going to try! I would also like to fix up my blog a bit -- new banner, background, layout, update all my links, all that sort of stuff. Look for that in the coming week or so :)

Saturday, January 3, 2009

My first try...

Last night when I was at Hobby Lobby grabbing a few things I needed for some keychains that I am working on for my shop, I decided I might as well start on one of the things on my "To-Do" list of hobbies to pick up this year. So I wandered around the aisles until I found the felt -- they were 5 for $1, so I grabbed 10 different colors and added them to my cart.

When I got home I realized I had absolutely NO CLUE how to sew felt... I mean, I have hand-sewn miscellaneous other things before, but never felt. So after a little bit of searching, I came upon this futuregirl.com craft blog tutorial, which helped me out and got me started.

First things first. What did I want to make? Originally I wanted to make a pin out of a little stuffed critter, but since I couldn't find my stuffing, I settled on making myself a little pouch. I need something to keep business cards and coupons organized in my purse anyway. I debated on colors a bit, but finally decided on brown because it's one of my favorites. I sorted through my embroidery floss to find a color that coordinated, then sat down with my scissors and started cutting.

A few hours, google searches, random breaks, and spontaneous thoughts later, I had myself a finished project:

Ok, so it doesn't look at that great. My least favorite part is the button hole, as I feel it looks like I did it whilst blindfolded... the buttons and such are all sort of random, but I just wanted to play around with and make it colorful. The back is still kinda boring, but I might add something later to practice a few different things. All you felt people out there, try not to make fun of me too much!

Friday, January 2, 2009

Things I Want to Learn

One of my goals for the new year is to learn a new hobby. In reality, I'd like to learn a lot more than one new hobby.... And I'm hoping to expand my Tangerine Sunshine shop into something a little more eclectic - I think that would better suit my personality rather than just focusing on the jewelry as I am now.

Some things I'd like to do, or work with:
  • sewing -- mini zippy pouches, fun bags and skirts... mostly for myself, really, but some stuff to hopefully go into the shop. All I am missing right now is the sewing machine...
  • knitting/crochet -- one or the other, I'd really just like to learn. So far my experience with attempting to knit has been disastrous, but I am willing to give it anther shot!
  • felt -- I see SOOO many cute things made with felt - little buttons and brooches, fun pouches, hair accessories... I just want to give it a try :)
  • keychains -- I want to make my scrabble tile pendants into keychains as well. This one is going to be the first one of this list to actually happen, since I am pretty much in the process of working on them right now...
  • perler beads -- I used to play with these all time time as a kid, and I totally want to go back to them! I've seen some really awesome stuff made with perler beads on Flickr, and I want to make awesome stuff too!
  • cross-stitch -- I already do this a little bit, even though it's a "grandma thing." Whatever, I think it's cool! I am more in to fantasy stuff like dragons and faeries, and video game themed stuff.
  • and some things I'd like to work with eventually but don't have the money to start up on... lampwork beads, polymer clay, soldered jewelry... maybe some day.
So... If anyone has any supplies for some of these things that they'd be willing to destash for cheap, comment or email me! Or if you know of any good resources for getting started on them, that would be appreciated as well!