Success!

Well this was my list from yesterday of things I hoped to accomplish:

print dragon bags for geek.kon
package pins
finish one of the custom button orders
work on craftacular flyer design
start printing one other bag design (the one that I was talking about earlier this week that involves kittens and gnomes, ha!)

Can you believe that I did everything except the packaging? I even ENTIRELY finished the new bag design. I am thrilled with how it turned out and can't wait to show you. I will try to get a photo up this weekend.

Tonight we'll be having a heat setting party, for sure. Soooo much heat setting to do, ugh.

And tomororw morning we'll be at Geek.Kon bright and early! Actually I will be. As it turns out we will not have a babysitter as we had hoped. So for most of the weekend we'll be trading off working the table. I can't wait until my kids are a little older and can keep occupied long enough that I can bring them with me to shows!

Have a lovely first weekend of autumn!

Andrea

busy busy busy + a WINNER!

Congrats theresaj! You are the lucky winner of the geeky goodies giveaway! Thanks to everyone who entered. It was totally fun to hear about all of your favorite robots.

Lars is four years old today. I took the day off thinking that we'd go to breakfast and maybe a movie (we've been wanting to do a movie for like 2 weeks and it hasn't worked out) but sadly I don't think we'll have time to do much more than breakfast. I have 2 big custom button orders, a show to prepare for this weekend, and several other projects in the works that are time sensitive. When it rains it pours! I'm happy to have lots of work and lots of things to keep me busy. It's just funny how it always works this way, isn't it? Plus Chad went to sleep with a headache and woke up with an even worse headache. NO FUN! I hope he's back to 100% soon so we can both get to work.

I'm off to get started on my gocco. Here is what I hope to accomplish today in the world of craft
(maybe writing it down will help me get organized?!)::::

print dragon bags for geek.kon
package pins
finish one of the custom button orders
work on craftacular flyer design
start printing one other bag design (the one that I was talking about earlier this week that involves kittens and gnomes, ha!)

But in all honesty, if I get even half of those things half finished it'll be a good day.

Tomorrow is going to be all about the heat setting. Ugh. My least favorite part about gocco printing.

I will leave you with this cute owl man that I found while thrifting recently. He's found a home on top of our (again) broken record player for the time being.























ok have a lovely day everyone!

Check it.

Chad and I are working on a new and exciting product.

it involves:

stuff
things
gnomes
trees
kittens
love

but mostly stuff and things.

We are still in phase one which involves a lot of brainstorming and waiting impatiently for supplies.

More soon as the story unfolds.

xo
andrea

Super Secret Geek.Kon Post II

Geek.Kon is a mere week away and you should be excited! The lineup is coming together and it includes awesome sci-fi and anime viewings, lots of special guests, panelists, artists, vendors and a ROCKBAND competition to name a few highlights.

And it's FREE?!

Will you be there? You would pretty much be crazy not to be there. The level of awesomeness is just too severe.

Plus I am giving stuff away.

If you are attending the con this weekend and want a chance to win something for FREE (or even if you're not and you're just into free stuff…) well here is your chance! Just leave a comment on this blog and give me your two cents on this topic: your favorite robot. It can be any robot - from T.V., movies, cartoons, whatever. I'll start: I love iron giant. It's such an awesome story and he's such a cool looking robot. I have to show my kids this movie soon!

Make sure you leave an e-mail address or some way to get in touch with you if you are the lucky winner. I will pick a winner randomly on Thursday 9/25 and post back here to announce who gets the goods.

The goods? What are the goods you ask? We are giving away an ultimate geek gift pack. It includes: Lord of the Rings Magnet Set, Hellas Kitty Notecard, and a TALK NERDY TO ME pin.






















Good luck! See you next weekend, fellow geeks! Please feel free to stop by and visit us in the vendor room at the con. We might have something special for you if you mention this blog post.

xo
andrea

cuteness overload

lars & jette
Originally uploaded by space oddities

Chad ordered the most adorable plushies from bubbletime's etsy shop. One for Lars, one for Jette. Thank goodness for that - no fights so far. The fluffcrobes are super soft and sooo painfully cute. Love love love them. Thank you, bubbletime!

I want to try to take the kids to a movie tonight. They are 2 and 3 years old and we have NEVER tried going to a movie besides the drive-in. I think that Lars will do fine, he likes watching movies and can stay interested for quite awhile. Jette I am not so sure about…she pretty much never watches T.V. except for an occasional few minutes of Arthur. But I think that if we give her some yummy theater treats and go kind of late she'll maybe just snack and then fall alseep. Maybe. Ha! Any toddler movie tips??? Wish me luck!

fall shows, to-do lists, stuff

Look, a new mirror!


french text mirror
Originally uploaded by space oddities

I can't believe it's already Thursday! The week has flown by. This week at work I've decided to force myself to be severely cheerful. To my surprise, it's really working and is making my days go faster and things generally more pleasant. Not that my work isn't generally pleasant...it's just that lately there are a lot of times when I'd just rather be home with my family, you know? It's funny how the pretending to be in a good mood can work. I'm really in a good mood. But...well, it's 3 a.m. and we'll see how I feel at six when I get up to go to work again. Ha!

Today I made a massive list of things to do to prepare Space Oddities for upcoming fall shows (see the list on the top left for Fall Shows!) and the upcoming holiday season online and in brick & mortar shops. It turns out I have a LOT to do! One thing I have to do a lot of is packaging. I have a ton of pin and magnet sets and mirrors ready but need to make them look pretty and and finished. I've started to cut paper in bulk which makes things faster, and have realized that I should probably begin to print my labels instead of hand stamping them all due to the time it takes. But I really love the hand stamped look even if it's NOT so perfect and polished. So I think at least for now I'm sticking to it.

I'm excited for our non-eventful weekend. I'm hoping we can just hang out at home, maybe go to the market on Saturday, and spend some time crafting! I just ordered a batch of new tote bags to print on and just maaaybe I'll get them in time to bust out the gocco and print this weekend. Fingers crossed!

Shows to apply for! Contests to win!

A couple of things you should know about!

First, before you do anything else, go to Christopher and Tia's blog for a chance to win a set of my French Text Revamped notecards! I believe you have through Wednesday but hey, why wait.

Next, there are fantastic craft shows coming up in Wisconsin this winter and it's time to apply!

Glitter Workshop is now taking applications for the Winter Craftacular on December 6th. It's at a new location, downtown Madison at the Masonic center. For more info and to apply for this awesome show click HERE.

And if you're a member of the WIST (Wisconsin Etsy Street Team,) it's time to apply for our second annual WIST Holiday Trunk show at Lazy Jane's in Madison. For more info and to apply for this event, click HERE.

farmer's market, stuff, more stuff.

farmer's market: We decided to go to the west side Hilldale market this week. We weren't feeling up to the chaos of downtown and really just wanted cheese bread and pastries, not a big production. It was really nice and mellow and the kids did great. We polished off a carton of raspberries before we even left the market!

stuff: I was able to clean up the house a little bit which makes me happy. I bought a new vacuum cleaner and a new broom which helped a ton. I also bought a new cordless phone. Our old one broke a few weeks back and since then we've been using a ridiculous ELVIS phone that signs Jailhouse Rock every time someone calls. It was realllly getting on my nerves so I broke down and got a new phone. So yeah, I pretty much bled money this weekend.

more stuff: I made a bunch of pins and mirrors last week and started to get some of them packaged in sets yesterday. I am usually not very efficent with this piece of my business and I usually package things here and there, rarely in batches. This time I decided to try to try doing each piece in an assembly line fashion, hoping to get more done and not have to repeat the same steps every time I need something packaged. So I cut about 100 paper backings and stamped them, cut the same number of paper pieces for the top labels, and started sorting items to be packaged. I didn't finish a ton of stuff completely but I have all of the pieces, so when I'm ready it'll be quick. Yay! Instead of making matchy matchy magnet sets, I made a batch of "mix it up!" magnets featuring six various magnets with images from childrens' books, french novels, pretty papers, comics, textbooks and more. I dig the variety, it makes me happy.



















xo
andrea

GEEK.KON is coming!

Geek.kon is only a few weeks away! If you're near Madison, register now for this FREE two-day event (September 28 & 29) featuring "all things geek." Check out the geek.kon website to find a list of artists and vendors that will be attending (including Space Oddities!) Some of the special guests have also been announced and the panelists are soon to follow.

Kid conversation of the week:

Lars - "mommy, vampires are going to come and bother daddy."

Daddy - "do you know what a vampire is?"

Lars - "can you tell me?"

This conversation still has us giggling. Lars, our three year old, continued on to tell us about what vampires are and what they do. To sum it up, they pretty much shoot lasers out of their eyes…and bother daddy.

xo
andrea

new cards!

Originally uploaded by space oddities

I've been busy creating this weekend and will be posting cards, mirrors and more in my shop this week!

I made a batch of cards last night using images I found in an adorable old childrens' book. I cannot get over how cute the illustrations are. I let this book sit for a long time before I finally tore into it...it was almost too cute to destroy!

The one pictured above is one of my favorites. What a perfect little card for a birthday or thank you.

My weekend was nice. I worked a little but made sure to relax a little, too. Yesterday the whole fam went to House on the Rock in Spring Green. It was crazy busy which we should have thought about considering the holiday weekend. But it was also super fun. The kids did great and thought it was pretty amazing. They really liked the gigantic carousel and the massive whale. Can you believe I forgot my camera? I ended up using a disposable so I could at least get a few shots. We'll have to go again so I can capture some more of the amazing, creepy stuff in that place!