A New Goal...

I'm just so horrid at updating this blog, and I hate it. My blog is like this constant nagging child, screaming for attention, and I'm just not any good at updating it.

So.

Since we're transitioning into the fall, I'm going to make it my goal to update my blog once a week minimum. And the posts will actually have to be interesting. *scary, i know*

I'm setting fall Etsy shop crafting goals and coming up on a new term at the HPKCHC on Ravelry, so there will be things to blog about. Honest. ;)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in 15 m!

YAY! Cleolinda's done it again! God, how I love her...

I present to you, HBP in 15 minutes!

**Warning: Swear words, extreme movie spoilers, and moments guaranteed to make you giggle loudly are included***

More Musical Fun...

I recently saw Movits on the Colbert Report, and fell in love! They are this awesome blend of irony, a Swedish swing rap band! And they are amazing!

So, imagine my happiness when their album Äppelknyckarjazz popped up on iTunes' New Music Tuesday today! Yay! I didn't buy the whole album, but got the song i had heard on Colbert, Fel Del Av Gården and made this playlist so I can listed to the rest of the album to pick my favorites. Thanks to Imeem, I can stream the whole thing to see what I like and what I don't. listen! Love!

(You might have to click through to Imeem to listen to the full songs...)


Äppelknyckarjazz

Team ESST's August Weekend Shopping Extravaganza!

My supply shop, PiratesDreamofPearls (that I share with PresentsforPirates and KnitandPearl ) is a member of teamESST, or the Etsy Supply Street Team. They have these awesome Weekend Shopping Extravaganzas, and they have one this month! Come check it out for some great specials! Click 'this month' for the official Promo Thread on Etsy.

Here's some info from the TeamESST blog:

ALL ETSY SHOPS - HANDMADE, SUPPLIES AND VINTAGE - are invited to participate by placing an announcement in your shop and joining in with promoting on the "Official" Promotional thread in the Etsy Forums. This will be a “Shopping Event” similar to a Public Marketplace. There will not be a "Overall theme" since Etsy is a Global Marketplace hence, the seasons, cultures, holidays, etc. can vary quite a bit. Although not required, we do strongly encourage shops to have a feature, theme or sale as this can pique interest and help you to draw people to your shop. You do not have to participate for the whole weekend simply join in when you can on the Promo thread in the Etsy Forums.

My sale is 50% off Storewide! And US buyers who spend $25 after discounts get free US shipping. Yep, yep! Come check it out! I'll be adding new items all weekend!

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade suenosdejmi.etsy.com

Get Moving...

Muevete!


One thing I really can't ever get enough of is any kind of music with a good beat. I like other music too, but if a song has a great rhythm, I'm hooked---doesn't matter if it's pop, hip-hop, or in another language, if you can move to it, I'm with it. :)

Have a Laugh On Me, sorta...

A very funny Stewart/Colbert moment. How I do love the moments like these...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Daily/Colbert - Universal Health Care
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

*Testing: 1, 2, 3...

I'm working on some videos for the Trunk Show. I started this one a while back using Picasa, but stopped it when I realized the quality might have issues. So I got frustrated (naturally), then IckyDogCreations had some of hers on her blog, and taught me how to do the Picasa videos through Blogger, and when they show up they show up a lot better! This is me working on testing them. Whatcha think?

Warning: these have music!

The above video is my original edit, and this one is me going back in and doing some editing.

Love, Alisa :)

This week's showcased Owls member in our little HPC (hooters promo club!) is lovealisa. Alisa's one of my favorite Etsians, and I like to think that she would be even if she wasn't an Owlie. She's always had cute items, but recently she's went through this big shop overhaul and has started making adorable clutches and relaunched her jewelry line as well.

A part of her overhaul was new graphics and a new approach to photo taking. She shared a lightbox tutorial with us on the Owls blog, and it's definitely on my list to make one of these for myself! I mean, look at these results!!!

Check her out over on the left with her Etsy mini, or just click through here:

Happy Birthday to...

Me! And Frida Kahlo! And George W Bush

I'm enjoying a nice slow birthday at home, had a birthday lunch, and launched the new Etsy Owls Challenge. I haven't entered a challenge for the team since Valentine's Day, so I was excited to actually enter this one. Come on, it's Frida! I can't miss Frida! This little gal is my entry:

I had a lot of fun making her, and I think she's in great company with some of the *awesome* entries that the Owls and Spanglish team had to offer.

Now I'm off to crochet. :) Go vote for me! :) (click that awesome entries text above to see the blog!)

I have a Facebook Fan page!

I'm not sure why, but sure enough, I have one!

Now I know this is exciting news, and I really hope that I can use it as yet another promotional tool ( Twitter, anyone? ). I've managed to get some photos uploaded, and the next step is getting people to fan me, right?

So what are you waiting for???

Also, while you're clicking some fan love, be sure to check out my friend Squarejane (of whom I have fan page envy) and also our Etsy Owls Team fan page.

Thinking About Frida

The July Challenge for the Etsy Owls is in honor of Frida Kahlo, so I've really started trying to think about something unique and different. This challenge is going to be hard for everyone, because it does require some deep thought and creativity, but I feel like in many ways it's going to be harder than average for me since my main art form is crochet. What to do, what to do?



Anyway, in planning for this, I think I'm going to spend some time browsing through my Frida sketchbook and looking at some of my favorite Frida pieces. For some reason, I can't get Blogger to let me upload a photo, so for now I'll put in a link, but later, I'll add it in. My favorite Frida painting:

lo que el agua me dio

Spanish Civil War via Magnum Photos

I really don't spend enough time posting about things I'm passionate about. Some of you might know I spent 3 months in Spain last year, and came back with a great appreciation for a lot of the culture and history there, particularly some of the art and literature born of the Spanish Civil War (1936 to 1939) and the time after during the reign of Franco. Also my recent subscription to American Photo has really gotten me into looking at the work of others.

Anyway, I made my way to this because I saw Robert Capa's brother Cornell listed in the current issue of AP, and remembered that Robert had taken some photos during the war, so I set off to find them on Magnum Photos . These photos aren't all his, and also include work from others from the same time. I'll be sharing more soon!

Click on each photo to be taken to them on the website where there's a bit more of a description that what I'm giving here, as well as around 1000 more photos from this time.

David Seymour: Children seeking shelter from bombings in Minorca

David Seymour: Pablo Picasso w/ painting Guernica, Spanish Pavilion of Int. Worlds Fair (France, 1937)

Robert Capa: 1939, With Barcelona fallen, people evaculate for France for political asylum from Franco's regime.

Yart Sale Sneak Peek...

So, I'm working on planning what I want to do for the Yart Sale in my various shops, and here's what I'm hovering around thus far. Let me know what you think!

Dreambirdphotos:

$2 5x7 prints!

Yep. Every 5x7 in shop: $2. How crazy is that?? This is a $5 savings per photo.

Also available: $1 4x6 prints!

suenosdejmi

$5 fingerless gloves

$5, $10, and $15 scarves!

Average savings per item: 50% off!

Here are some of my scarves, check back later for exact sections to see the savings!

Go Wild with Etsy's Yart Sale!

Have you heard about the Yart sale?



It was started last year by one of the teams I'm in, the Etsy Supply Street Team. It started as a little bitty idea but expanded so much, and last year's Yart Sale was huge! It's basically a gang of people offering fantastic sales, think yard sale, but with gorgeous art instead of that junk in your garage :)


Of course, this year's will blow last years away, because this year's sale gets one of the coolest teams on Etsy- us! :)

We've decided to participate this year as a team, it won't be our entire team, but I'm hoping it'll be a good amount of us. You'll be able to see our items by searching etsyowlsteam + Yart and before the sale we'll post all of our sales on the blog for a look see, too!

If you're an Etsy seller, you should participate! For some awesome information on how to do that, check out the Etsy Supply Street team blog for all the latest information and also this very helpful article on the Storque!

See you at the Yart Sale!

Sale of the Week!

50% off Scarves! Buy two items (any two in shop) and get free shipping!!

Select scarves only in 'Extra large Scarves' section apply for 50% off discount. Prices have not been adjusted. Convo first or wait for a Paypal invoice before payment.

Have I shared my Cleolinda love here?

I don't know if I've posted this here, but a conversation in the HPKCHC on Ravelry reminded me of it. I haven't read it in quite a while, but Cleolinda's fantastic. She makes these awesome parodies, MoviesinFifteenMinutes, in which she, well, takes apart a movie in fifteen minutes of hilarity. My favorite of these all is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Seriously. Read it.

Summer Sale of the Week!!

Since the summer heat isn't very good for my line of business, I've decided to have a Summer Sale. Each week, I'll feature a different type of item on sale for the entire week. To start it off, I'm starting with my fingerless gloves!



Get any pair of fingerless gloves for only $5! That's 50% off on average, and $10 off of this pair!


Prices have NOT been adjusted so please wait for a Paypal invoice before completing payment or convo me for a special listing


Buyers from the US and Canada: If you purchase more than 1 pair, or any other item with the fingerless gloves, you'll get free shipping on your order!


This sale starts right now and will run until Sunday, May 31st at 10:00 PM Eastern. A new sale will begin at that time, and the Summer Sales will continue until August!

Zazzle! (because I don't have too much to do already)

create & buy custom products at Zazzle

Just Popping In...

I really dislike that I let my blog go, sometimes for weeks at a time. I just wish there was more to blog about. My life is all about the Owls, the HPKCHC on Ravelry, and work. That's about it. lol. :)

Today was a nice break from the normal, as my bf and I went to see Star Trek with a friend of ours. Being that the movie theatre is (in another city) near a Hobby Lobby, I also side tracked and bought a bit of yarn. I needed to get Gryffindor colors for a House Unity project I'm doing in the Cup, but it turns out that what I ended up buying could've been purchased at my local WalMart.

Go figure.

I did get a gorgeous skein of green Caron, it's Simply Soft Shadows. It's neat because it's a solid color with a series of different colors twisted in. It works up gorgeous. Well, Shadows does. I've never used the green, but I did get a grey once, called Mardi Gras. It works up like this:

(Note that you can click that to see it still in my Etsy shop :))

This is the green version. Isn't it gorgeous?

I also bought KNITTING needles. Yep. I'm ready to try it again. (it was a terrible disaster last time). I'll be sure to let you all know how it goes, and also how my crochet projects are coming along. I'll be better, I promise! Happy crafting!

The tunes that move me...

Yup. You know it. Music feeds the soul. Here's what my soul's munching on lately.

WARNING. My music is strange, just in case you didn't know. :)

If it gives you that 30 second crap, there's a link in the top of the box that says 'play full song here' or something like that. just click that if you want to hear more.

May