The Afterglow Lives On ...And On

This weekend Guiding Light fans will gather in Atlanta for a second "So Long Springfield" event and in a few weeks, they'll converge on Las Vegas for another one. Thinking of my friends who are planning on attending these events reminded me that I forgot to report on the events of October 9-11, 2009 in New York City, so here goes....


Although I was not able to attend the Guiding Light Fan Club Luncheon I felt like a part of me was there. Quite a few online friends of mine were there and also attended Crystal Chappell's Fan Club luncheon the next day and they made sure I was well represented.



I did a big custom button order for the Big Purple Dreams message board for Otalia fans, turning out 200 commemorative buttons to be given out to members attending these events, plus another 200 of my "Afterglow" buttons.





These buttons were to be given out at two events on Friday and Saturday nights, October 9th & 10th but so many Big Purple Dreamers showed up that they ran out of the buttons on the first night! (That's Liron Cohen, aka @Sunshineliron on the far left in this picture, someone who may be familiar to some readers of this blog.)







My friends also offered to deliver something special to the Guiding Light actors at the Fan Club event so I made my 1 inch "Afterglow" buttons and sent enough so every actor would get one. I was told each actor present received theirs and greatly appreciated them, too. Here is Jennifer Roszell (Eleni) with her button.








Then for a few of the GL actresses I had been interacting with on Twitter I made an "Afterglow" pocket mirror to go along with their buttons and also included a "Team Otalia" button, to thank them for their support of that storyline.








In this picture of a fan (Hi, Tori!) with Beth Chamberlin (Beth) and Tina Sloan (Lillian) you can see Beth's pocket mirror on the table in front of her. Later on Twitter, Beth & Tina both thanked me. Beth said "love, love, love the afterglow compact. Thank you!" and "I got one of your great compacts & recognized your name. You should sell via the glfc." Twitter has been a wonderful way to maintain contact with Guiding Light actors we miss seeing on TV and to find out what they're doing now. I've included links to Beth & Tina's latest projects here.

Frustration

I can blog today.

I would have had a hard time doing that yesterday or the day before because my cable internet service was out. That's two days. I've had glitches in my service before but that's the longest it's been down since the last time a hurricane came through here.

I was not a happy camper.

I couldn't check on my Etsy shop or my Zazzle shop to answer customer inquiries or list anything new. I couldn't do any of the usual things I do online. Keep in mind that I'm usually at home without a car all day and the internet is my link to the world.

So today, Broadstripe, I salute you with the above photo of a button, made from a recycled vintage magazine, that I have for sale in my Etsy shop.

I call it "Frustration."

Christmas in July

I'm participating in the Etsybloggers Street Team's Christmas in July sale. I keep a Christmas section in my Etsy shop all year long, letting some of the items expire as the year goes on and bringing them back during the fall. This year I'm bringing them back early and all Christmas items are marked half the usual price so get 'em while you can!

This is your once a year chance to get my handsewn Puzzle Ball Christmas Ornaments for only $20. Every stitch made by hand, I don't use a sewing machine for these. I'm considering extending my sale through the month of August, too, since it'll take me a while to make more of my Mini-Puzzle Ball Ornaments (I sold out last year).



I also have my Pocket Mirror Christmas Ornaments which were good sellers for me last year. Some are my original designs, some made with one of a kind images recycled from vintage magazines, but any and all will be beautiful hanging on your Christmas tree.



Grab a few of my "Merry Christmas Darling" buttons to add to your packages this year or let me make some custom buttons for every member of the family!



Keep checking back because I'm planning to add something new to my Christmas section every day!


By the way...the cross-stitched log cabin wreath posted at the top of this blog entry is not for sale. It's one I did many years ago and I'm keeping it. But I am considering putting a photo of it on mugs in my Zazzle shop, so I'll let you know when that's available. Stay tuned....

Save the Light Rally NYC 5.22.09

I've made no secret of the fact that I watch soap operas. I keep the TV on while I'm doing my artsy craftsy thing every day and my soaps keep me company while I work. A few years ago, when I was stuck in the house with a sinus infection and feeling particularly isolated, I looked around on the internet and found a way to connect with other soap fans on message boards and my life has been enriched as a result.

I now have friends all over the world, many of whom I've met in person at fan events or when they vacationed in my area. I've even made some of my teddy bears to be autographed and auctioned off for charity at a luncheon for Eden Riegel in October of last year.

So when I was contacted by organizers of a very special event, I was delighted to do what I could for the cause. Fans of Guiding Light will be joining together for a rally in New York City on May 22, 2009. The organizers of this event found me because I'd made some buttons for "Team Otalia", the fans of the love story of Olivia and Natalia on Guiding Light. These buttons had been mentioned by some soap reporters who covered a fan event at Universal Studios. It was Andrea Berry of eLife magazine who remembered those buttons and told the organizers of the rally how to find me. I put together some designs and now, you can get your buttons for the rally here.



This show has been on the air for 72 years (first radio, then TV) and was recently canceled by CBS. I just started watching this one a few months ago and was immediately hooked by some of the best writing and acting I've seen on daytime TV in years. Like millions of other fans, I am hopeful that the show can find a new home on another network.

CPSIA

Recalls of toys and products for children because of dangerous lead content has resulted in the CPSIA, a law that could wipe out handmade toy makers. Since I've been making my handstitched teddy bears and puzzle balls for children, that means me, too, and thousands like me who sell their products at crafts fairs and on Etsy.com and other online sites.

You can read quite a bit about this new law and the impact it will have in these articles in Etsy's blog, The Storque. This article on CNN.com outlines what's at stake, too. For more information and the opportunity to join in discussions go to CPSIA Central.

And if you want to let everyone know what you think of the new law, you can get these buttons in my shop on Etsy. The design is by MamasLittleMonkeys. Take a look at her shop on Etsy or you can find other products with this design in her CafePress shop. She has You can buy one or buy 10 and if you need more, just leave a comment here or a convo on Etsy and I'll be glad to fix you up.

Merry Christmas, Darling!

With Thanksgiving becoming a memory we can now officially turn our eyes toward Christmas. I've been wallowing in Christmas for weeks now, working on a large order for my Mini-Puzzle Ball Christmas Ornaments.

Here's another series of projects I've been working on. These are just right for using as tags on your presents, adding to your package's ribbons as decorations, include them with your Christmas cards, or pin one to your lapel to make someone smile. These are a few I've come up with so far, but if you have other ideas, feel free to leave a comment or send me a convo on Etsy if you'd like to order Custom Christmas Buttons this year.

I'm a Winner!

Today I discovered another benefit of being a member of the Etsybloggers Street Team. I visited one of my fellow member's blogs and left a comment on one of her posts. She had shared a photograph she'd taken with a question about the best way to crop it, seeking comments from her readers. She planned on picking one of those who left comments to win some of her vintage photo greeting cards. Contests are always fun and I really liked the photo, so I left a comment.

And I won! So, thanks to TheFabMissB!

Maybe I'll have a contest of my own here on my blog. I might give away some of my vintage buttons, magnets, thumb tacks, pocket mirrors or tie tacks.

What do you think? Leave a comment about what you'd like to see me give away from my Etsy shop.....

Office Treasures

Items from my shop are currently featured in two different Treasuries on Etsy, both related to offices:




Click here to go to this one.



Click here to see that one.


When I think back on my days as an office worker, I think the "Frustration" one is particularly appropriate to the theme!

Meet Brother Blotz

I want to introduce you all to a new feature in my Etsy shop.

Meet Brother Blotz:



Brother Blotz was born the same year I was, another product of Doug Dillard's creativity, I guess you could say. Yes, my father is Doug Dillard. Throughout my childhood, Bro. Blotz was featured in numerous Baptist publications, as illustrations in books, and starred in a series of cartoon books of his own. To quote my father's website: "Brother Blotz cartoons use humor to poke holes in our pomposity, chide us for our inconsistencies, and hopefully make us want to do better. He first appeared in print in 1961."

Brother Blotz, one of my favorite pastors, taught us all that even in church, we shouldn't take ourselves too seriously.

When I got my first button machine I realized I could finally do something I'd always wanted to do...put Brother Blotz's image on a button.

So I scanned some pages from the first book, "Meet Brother Blotz" and the cover and made the buttons pictured above. My father loved them! A few months later I attended a conference where I knew I would encounter several of my father's old friends and I took a few of the buttons to give to them. Usually, when I attend these events, my dad says "If you see anybody I know, tell them hello", so I thought the buttons would be a nice touch.

Then I recalled the sweatshirts my father had made for the family when I was a kid and decided to duplicate the design on 2 1/4 inch buttons:



When I sent them to my dad he got the idea that I should make these available in my Etsy shop and he would link to it from his website, http://www.brotherblotz.com. And that's what we're going to do.

Brother Blotz now has his own section in my Etsy shop, with buttons, keychains and magnets available for purchase. So, if any of Brother Blotz's friends and family are looking for unique gifts, they'll know where to find them!

Here's to you, Brother Blotz...and thanks, Dad!

Treasuries Abound!

I was delighted yesterday to discover I was featured in one of Etsy's Treasuries. Treasuries are like a mini-gallery of items from all kinds of Etsy sellers. Any Etsy seller can set up a Treasury and pick out an assortment of products from different Etsy shops, usually around a theme. A certain color, or activity or topic of some kind. Here's one I'm in now, featuring sellers who are all part of the EtsyMom Street Team:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=5227



And here's the one I just found out about today, also featuring EtsyMoms:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=5433



I hope you'll click on those links and go check out those treasuries for yourself to get a closer look at all the wonderful things made be these featured EtsyMoms!

Popular Pocket Mirrors

I've gotten lots of comments on the pocket mirrors I've listed in my Etsy shop and I've just sold another one:



I'll be posting more soon!

My cat, Sebastian

Sebastian has made a brief appearance in this blog once before, in my previous entry about ACEO's but I think it's time to make a formal introduction.

Sebastian and his sister, Snowflake (she'll be the subject of my next entry) were rescued from neglectful next-door neighbors when they were just a few weeks old. We could tell that Sebastian would be the larger of the two, but we didn't know that he would grow into a beautiful Maine Coon cat, or as close as you can get to it without the pedigree.

I always thought Sebastian was a little like a 10-year-old boy. He'd let you pet him, and he'd enjoy it for awhile. But then he'd shake it off and go his own way like a kid wiping off the lipstick kiss of an overbearing distant relative. He was also my watch-cat...yes, like a watch-dog. When he heard someone coming to the door, he'd come running as if to say "Who are you and why are you coming to my house?!"

And when Sebastian was truly satisfied he'd smile. I explained to my daughter that this is the way cats smile...they slowly close and open their eyes. That's all. They'll look right at you, then slowly, their eyes will close and you can almost here them saying "Aahhhhh".

That's what Sebastian was doing when he posed for this first photograph. Oh, he seemed to enjoy having his picture taken when he saw me take out my camera. I did my best to do him justice. I've included photos of the keychains I made with these, too, which are now available in my etsy shop.

EtsyMom Promos

I've been keeping both of my button machines busy making promo items for the EtsyMom Street Team.

I got permission from plainjanedesignz (plainjanedesignz.etsy.com) to adapt the design she did for the banner used by the EtsyMom Yahoo! Group and the EtsyMom Blog and make it fit the round format of a button. Then I made a design of my own using the phrase she had used for that banner. I also adapted the standard orange Etsy button for the EtsyMom group.

Now I have several options posted in my etsy shop. I have 1 inch buttons with pin backs and with magnets. I have 2 1/4" buttons as keychains and magnets, too. And I have these grouped by style and also in mixed sets and the 2 1/4 inch magnets are sold individually.

Now I'm toying with the idea of making some 2 1/4 inch pocket mirrors, too, but I'm waiting to hear from the other moms and see if anybody is interested in those.

When one of the admins of the EtsyMom group suggested that I make these promo buttons I was delighted to give it a try and even more delighted to hear the moms liked what I came up with.

Treasury!

I made it into a treasury! I think this is my third one, but I didn't get a screen cap of the others. My electric guitar buttons are featured (they're in the first picture in my previous post, "Pushing My Buttons"). Here's the link:

"Rock My World" Etsy Treasury

And here's the screencap:



I'm also an alternate for another one...which means I won't have my item displayed in it until something else in it is sold. I'm not sure which of the items from my shop they've picked for this one. I have some puzzle balls with red, and a teddy bear with red hearts, and a couple of photos that might qualify. I'm hoping I make it into this one so I'll know what they picked! Here's the link to that one:

Red Hot Etsy Treasury

American Idol ...Old Style

I just posted this 1 inch button I made from a recycled magazine picture from the 1940's. At the time I made it I was watching American Idol as it was counting down to the final...hence the name!



I've got lots more of these vintage buttons yet to list, but I'm trying to spread them out. I usually list these as pin-back buttons, but I can always glue a magnet to the back of it if the buyer prefers that. I don't want to do that to start with, though, since these are one of a kind. I'd hate to have one fixed up with a magnet and find out somebody really liked it but wanted a pin, instead...kinda hard to "un-glue" that magnet, don'tcha know?! But when it comes to my cats, which are my original photographs, or photography-related stuff (which I have a LOT of), I can always make more that are similar, so I've been making some up as magnets and thumb tacks, too.

Oh! I almost forgot...I made a sale today! But I'll tell you about that next time....

My Dad's Cameras

A few posts back I mentioned my dad and all the pictures he took of my family when I was a kid. As Father's Day approached this year I wanted to make something special for him. I'd been combing through all my old photography magazines I'd collected, looking for small images of cameras and other paraphenalia that I could use to make buttons, magnets and thumb tacks for my etsy site. So I went digging again to see if I could find the cameras Dad used.

I found them.

A beautiful full page ad for the Yashica 44.

A smaller image of the Leicaflex SLR and an even smaller one of the Miranda G from old annual buyer's guides included in the magazines.

Not wanting to take a chance on ruining my only copies of these images during the construction of my projects, I opted to scan these into my computer, tweak the brightness and contrast and sharpen them up a bit. Then I used printouts of them instead of the originals.

For each camera, I carefully cut out the entire image, leaving only the camera itself and no background. I glued these to green cardstock and cut mats for each out of black matboard. The Yashica 44, matted, is 5 x 7 inches and each of the others are the standard ACEO size of 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches, like others I've posted on my Etsy site.

I had called Dad to warn him that his Father's Day present would be arriving late, but he said he didn't mind. We've been spreading out our holidays lately, making them last a long time after letting the dates slip up on us too late for gifts and cards to arrive on time. Mom was the one who always remembered such things and since her death a little over a year ago the rest of us have been trying to play catch-up. Oh, well...it makes those special occasions last a little longer.

I finally mailed these today.

I hope he likes them. I think he will.

Camera Buttons

I grew up in a family of photographers. Some of my earliest memories include gathering with the whole family in a corner of the living room near the largest expanse of blank white wall to watch a slide show presented by my father. Dad had an old Argus slide projector...the kind with a flat round plate with slots for the slides...you loaded one in the top, rotated the plate until the slide was in its proper place, then take out the old one. One by one, we'd see the whole show. And in the blank spaces when he was searching for a particular slide or fixing one that was upside down my brother and I would jump up and start our shadow-animals show while everybody waited.

One of the cameras Dad used often was a Yashica 44 twin lens camera that used 127 format film. Later it was a Miranda G outfit with three lenses and then Leicaflex, the first SLR ever produced by Leitz. I learned photography using that old Miranda G and I still have it. The Leicaflex I sold years ago (with Dad's permission) to get my first Martin guitar, but I'll save the guitar stories for another day. I started to really get interested in vintage cameras when I began researching that Miranda camera, wondering if I might find more lenses to go with it.

I started browsing camera shows when I lived in Ft. Worth, TX, talking to photographers at the campus print shop where I worked and became thoroughly fascinated. If you knew the features of a particular camera, understood how it worked, and could find the film it used, you could take it out and get beautiful pictures with it, just like when it was new.

Working without a light meter forced you to be more aware of the light and how it played on the subject. When I entered a room where I knew I wanted to shoot some candids of people, I would take a small hand-held light meter from the back pocket of my jeans and take a reading off my hand in the shadowy corners and in the brightest part of the room. Then I knew the effective range of shutter speeds and apertures I could use. I would watch for the changes in lighting and shoot without having to refer to light meter again all evening and was generally pleased with the results. Of course, I could've gotten a new camera with a light meter built in, maybe even with autofocus...but where's the challenge in that?

To honor this heritage of photographers and the great old cameras they used, I've been making buttons with images of classic cameras recycled from photography magazines I've collected. Some are listed for sale in my etsy shop, and I have lots more I haven't gotten around to listing yet. (I've also made some ACEO's with them, but you'll have to see a previous entry for those.) Here are a few of my favorites. (If you don't see your favorite classic camera here, leave me a comment and tell me what you're looking for...chances are, I've got it here somewhere!).....

Pushing My Buttons

I just love this little button machine! Everywhere I look I see little one inch circles of art and come up with new things to do with them. Pin-back buttons, button magnets, thumb tacks, you name it. Here are some I listed on my etsy site this weekend: