2018 in Review

Firstly, I'd like to make a small announcement. My blog used to be hosted on a different site (Live Journal), but over the course of this year I've been transferring all of the posts over to this site. You can now see my entire blog right from the beginning, in one spot! Just go to the 'Archives' section in the right-hand sidebar. There are over 700 posts going back to 2004, so it's quite an achievement. And yes, here is the obligatory link to the first post, though I doubt it will make any sense to anyone!

Now, on to my review of 2018!

There were a few firsts -- and seconds -- this year. I finished my first magazine-style zine, Intensely Introverted #1, and took it to the Festival of the Photocopier Zine Fair.

I've written zines before, but this was the first one that I want to turn into a series, like a magazine. Work has started on Intensely Introverted #2, but you know what, I'm not sure that I'll return to the zine fair. The amount of anxiety and stress I experienced before and during the Fair wasn't really worth it. I just can't be in a room that full of people for that long. Or perhaps I'll skip a year and only do it every second year.


I went in three (!) art exhibitions, all at NOIR Darkroom: their first anniversary exhibition, Stay Safe, and A Very NOIR Christmas. I feel incredibly lucky to have had these opportunities, and I hope I'll have more in 2019!

(Mine is the one at the top.)Also at NOIR Darkroom, I did two workshops: Painting with Bob Ross and Screenprinting. Both are highly recommended! Since then, Husband and I have started watching Bob Ross' The Joy of Painting on Netflix when we want to relax. Though we now know that creating those paintings isn't quite as easy as he makes it seem!

Early in the year, Husband and I became re-acquainted with a foodie friend, and we decided to have a monthly lunch date together. I've been to many places that I wouldn't have gone to otherwise, and had a chance to dress up (Or even just get dressed at all quite frankly. Leaving the house voluntarily isn't really my thing!)

In June, I finished my first 101 Things in 1,001 Days cycle and started my second one. I did NaNoWriMo, went to the Melbourne Planner Market, and spent much more time outside.

Last but not least, in April I got to wear the Birthday Hat:

Now for the customary stats (last year's stat in brackets):

Books finished:
full-length: 19 (19) . . . . It's not a typo, they're the same!
short & manga: 16 (13)
currently reading as of today: 10 (14)

Blog posts: 46 (57)
Instagram posts: 285 (284) . . . . There may be more this evening!

Craft items started: 2 (2) . . . . (It seems like I never do any craft, but I've been working on my blanket a lot!)
Craft items finished: 4 (4)
Craft projects in progress as of today: 42 (42)

Zines started: 0 (1)
Zines finished: 2 (1) . . . . (if mini zines count! harhar)
Zines in progress as of today: 1 (1)

I hope everyone had a good 2018 and will have an even better 2019! I'll be back soon with my plans for the coming year!

I Went to the 2018 Zine Fair

Last year I went to Melbourne's annual Festival of the Photocopier Zine Fair as a customer. This year I went as a stallholder! (Or I 'tabled', as the kids say.) Hello to everyone who has found my blog through purchasing one of my zines or taking my card. I appreciate your interest: it means a lot to me. Thank you and welcome!

Having a stall at the Zine Fair was a huge step for me in several ways. I'm very introverted, I have social anxiety, and am starting to understand that I'm an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person). All of that means sitting in a huge room packed full of people all with their own nervous energy, while a stream of people come past judging my work, is not the best place for me to be! It was a really great experience though, and I want to do it again next year.

I first started writing zines in 2006. I even had an Etsy shop where I sold them for a couple of years. I closed it in about 2008-2009, partly because of declining sales, but mostly because my anxiety made it too difficult to go on. A couple of years ago, when I saw that zines were resurging in popularity, I was encouraged to start making them again. I had a lot of pieces of writing stored away that were too personal for the blog, not on topic for the blog, or I just preferred to present on paper. Instead of writing zines on single topics or in response to a prompt like I had in the past, I decided to write more of a magazine-style zine. It would have articles, stories, comics, and whatever else I could jam in there. I was hoping it would be the first of a series, and it would be called Intensely Introverted. My anxiety interfered often though, and there were long periods when I didn't work on it.

That was interrupted when I was invited to take part in an exhibition on Chronic Illness in early 2017. I was told that any creative endeavours including zines were welcome. I'd always wanted to write about my illness, so I made I Have Ulcerative Colitis and presented it there. I was proud of it, yet at the same time horrified that I shared such personal (and disgusting!) stories.

Intensely Introverted was my real baby though, and when I pinky-swore with my friend Fox that we would have a stall in the 2018 Zine Fair together, I knew I had to finish it! Skip forward to yesterday, skipping over a lot of stress, anxiety and last-minute trips to Officeworks, and I made it to the Fair.

I got to find out what it was like being on the other side of the table. I saw many interesting people, and met some lovely ones. I got lots of ideas for future zines and future stalls. I have a list of 'what to do / not do next time'. Which I may as well share!:

* Don't bring so many zines -- I really had no idea how many copies of each zine I was going to sell, so I brought lots. I had to lug them there and then lug the un-sold ones home! It was a great learning experience to see which ones were more popular and how many copies sold. (Of course, if I become a famous zinester in the next year, then I'll bring more!) Also, it's good to note that you're not going to fit more than 7 or 8 A5-size zines on the table.

* Having a card is a great thing -- Quite a few people took my card, and as a customer, I will always take the card of someone whose work looks interesting, but I can't buy it at the time for whatever reason. So I'm always very pleased when someone takes my card.

* Bring cough lozenges, breath mints and muscle rub -- My throat was very sore after 5 hours of chatting with my friends, I was paranoid about my breath after eating sushi handroll for lunch, and my jaw was sore after all that smiling!

* Make a greater variety of zines -- This is just an aesthetic point, but when I saw my zines all lined up in a row, they were all the same size, and most of them were black and white. I'd love to have some of different sizes, and with colourful covers as that suits my personality.

* Go to town with the table decorations -- Really, you may as well. You have an hour to set up, and an interesting display really brings people in. Even if they don't buy anything, looking at a cute and/or interesting display makes people happy, and I want to make people happy!

* Bring whatever you need for your self care -- I was so glad I brought my mascot Princess Fuzzyhorn. Stroking her and even just looking at her helped keep me calm. I wish I'd brought my essential oil roll-on too, so I'll do that next time.

I haven't posted for a while because I was focussed on the Zine Fair. Now that it's over for the year, I want to finish off some paintings, do some craft and start sewing again. All of which you'll see here!

My February

Once again, February whizzed by, and it was well into March before I even had a chance to look back on the month that was. It became much warmer towards the end of the month -- real Summer weather! I decided this month to focus more on things I want to do, things I won't have a chance to do once I'm working again, and not worry about whether they're 'productive' activities or not. Aside from doing a lot of crafts, I did some drawing and decorating of my Hobonichi art diary. I also watched a lot of Youtube videos, played games and caught up with friends.

I finally got around to setting up my new (well, new-to-me, anyway) phone. I didn't have a smartphone before, so I had to carry my old phone for communications, my ipod for music and my ipad for taking photos and playing Pokemon Go. It's so much more convenient to be able to do all of that on one device! I'm looking forward to getting some cute covers for it.


What I've been making ...
I finished off a couple of smaller craft projects: a scarf and cushion for my dolls and a rabbit plushie trackable. The scarf was actually on my list of projects to rip, but when I looked at it, I saw that all it needed was the fringe on the ends, so I decided to finish it. The doll cushion, as I wrote about in this post, was on my Top 5 crafts list. The rabbit was very easy to make; I used the technique from this site.

I also started my Temperature Scarf on 1st March. There isn't much to see yet, so I'll post a photo in a few weeks. Perhaps I'll do a monthly update.


Where I visited ...
I went to the Melbourne Zine Fair early in the month. It has exploded in popularity over the last few years! There were over 200 tables and it was incredibly crowded all afternoon. I spent way more than I should have, but it's only once a year. If I'm organised enough, I might even set up my own table for next year.

What I've been working on ...
We had a huge harvest of plums this year! I didn't write a separate post about it as I wrote about making plum jam last year. It got to the point where I was despairing a little on what to do with all the plums! I made about 1/3 of them into jam, but ran out of jars. Then I made stewed plums, and even using the large pot I still had quite a lot left over. In the end I made plum puree by cooking them in the slowcooker all day. I was thoroughly sick of de-stoning them by that point, but with this technique they are put in the slowcooker whole. All I had to do was fish out the stones with a slotted spoon. The puree tasted very strong and caramelised. I put it into ziplock bags and froze it. Later I'd like to try making plum sauce or perhaps a marinade.

Selections from Instagram

My August

August has been an incredibly busy month for me. I began my new job on the first of the month. I attended two events for the Melbourne Fashion Week Plus festival, going to a runway fashion show for the first time. There were birthdays, dinners and Pokemon catching days. I saw my two best friends more this month than I have in a long time, which was lovely. Work changed my roster and it's different every week, so I haven't been able to settle into much of a routine. Despite all this, I've been more inspired and had more of an urge to create than I have in a long time.

What I've been working on ...
I went through all of my crochet/knitting projects and re-arranged and re-prioritised them. I've been wanting to work on my monster plushies recently, and decided to start with this small yellow one. I haven't actually done much more progress on it, but at least it's easy for me to pick up when I have the time and inclination.

What I've been painting ...
One of my friends turned 40 years old, and I wanted to make her something special, so I painted her this painting. I had a 2-week deadline, and I had to work hard, but I finished it just in time. I'm quite proud of it -- it turned out exactly how I pictured it in my head. It refers to and event that happened over 15 years ago, and I hope it will convey how valuable her friendship is to me.

I was also spurred on to finish this painting which I began last year. It only needed a few finishing touches, but now I can add it to my finished works. (Of which, well, this is the first one that I haven't given away, so I have a sum total of one!)

What I've been making ...
I started a zine, my first in 7 years. It began as only a semi-serious thing, a reaction (or quiet rebellion, if you like?) to working full-time again. Then I met some amazing people at an event I went to, one of whom is also working on a zine right now, and I was incredibly inspired to commit to finishing it, as well as ideas for at least 2 more. I'm at the mock-up stage at the moment.

What I've been observing ...
Also, look at this! The fruit trees in my garden have started blossoming. This is a nectarine blossom, but flowers on the apricot and plum have also begun to burst open.

Selections from Instagram

My Story in June Warrior Call

I mentioned a few posts ago that I wrote a piece for the June edition of Warrior Call, the collaborative e-zine produced by the Creative Warriors Circle. The zine has now come out!

This month's themes are awareness, possibility and transformation. My story is about a discouraging experience I had when I was younger, and how I (eventually!) overcame it to start my journey of exploring creativity. There are also a piece by another guest writer, a vision board project, inspiring journal prompts, and more.

It was daunting for me to put myself out there by writing a personal story and submitting a drawing for all the world to see. I'm proud of myself! A huge thank you has to go out to Samie Harding for making it possible!
I hope you'll consider getting a copy!

❖ Purchase Here ❖

Etsy Purchases

Here are some things I bought recently on Etsy:

First, we have some zines and a handmade journal from Sparkle Blue Faery. I'm so glad she's started posting her art journal entries in her blog. I love her work - it's nature-based and has an authentic feel. She added in some extra zines and art materials as I was a repeat buyer. I was so thrilled when I opened the parcel! I'm torn between racing through the zines and reading them slowly to make them last longer.

The second photo shows some zines and a bookbinding kit from Craft Leftovers. Kristen puts out a zine and kit every month, but these are the first I've purchased. Her zines have a how-to theme, with a different craft featured each month. The zine-and-kit combos sell out pretty quickly, but back issues of zine only can be bought any time. I'm still deciding if I want any of the back issues. And, er, yes, that is an accidental but very lovingly-applied wine stain on the cover of the top one.

I've been home sick the last two days, and, throbbing head and burning throat aside, I've really enjoyed reading and pottering around and reading and a little writing, which I'm sure hasn't made any sense. If this post doesn't make any sense either, then I apologise.

Mini Zine Fun

As promised, here are some pics of the mini zine I made, which I am giving away free with every order until the end of August. My aim is to eventually write a trilogy, and make a snazzy envelope type deal to present them in. One day soon.

Meanwhile, I just finished reading this book which arrived in my mailbox the other day:

The Decorated Journal, by Gwen Deihn.
It tackles art journalling from a technical as well as an inspirational point of view. A wide range of materials and techniques are covered. There are many styles and themes of journal, many of which I hadn't thought of before. It's an amazingly helpful book, and I'm really glad I bought it. I'm sure I'll look at it again and again.
I've also been doing some writing, mostly exercises, and trying to get my head around the insanely large number of craft projects I have, and how to reduce them and sort them out.

August is Sort It Out Month!

Luscious Things for Sale!

New Mexico Harvest, originally uploaded by nicholsphotos.

We interrupt this blog to give you the following public service announcement:

I have reduced the prices on all of my larger zines to celebrate the fact that I have a printer now and I don't have to pay for them to be photocopied. I am also giving away a free copy of my new mini zine Dreams with every order until the end of August. (Photos next time.)

I've having a bit of trouble taking photos the last few months. I leave the house in the dark to get to work, and the light's too bad to take any photos when I get home. So I can pretty much only take photos on the weekend - if the sun is out! I'm looking into making a light box, but my place is full to the gills with stuff already!

I hope the rest of your week is a rapid but smooth slide into a relaxing bath of weekendy goodness.

Mail!

U.S. Troops Surrounded by Holiday Mail During WWII, originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution.

I'm so excited! I sent off my bulk order to the Lilmag zine distro today. My zines are going to be sold in Japan!

Yay!

These Things Take Time

Leaves, originally uploaded by apartmentcat.

My photos from my trip to Japan are up on my Flickr account. I haven't edited or cropped them in any way, it's just tourist snaps all the way. It's made me think that I really should get on with finishing the zine I've been writing about the trip, before the memories and impressions fade. But my brain has been fading in the heat! And I've become obsessed with Swap-bot again. I've been spending most of my time working on a big swap which involves a lot of writing. I've also joined a few other smaller ones which involve writing and making things such as bookmarks, which feeds into my obsession with reading at the moment.

After having no orders in my shop in about 6 weeks, I've had 3 in the last week! One is a bulk order for my zines from Lilmag, a distribution site in Japan. (If you want to look at the site, it's mostly in Japanese, so take the address and stick it into Google Translate or something similar if you don't read Japanese!) I'm very excited about this! I don't have enough copies of my zines lying around, so I've been doing some research on where I can get copying done without paying a fortune or being looked funnily at. It's a tough gig!

Meanwhile, things are happening! The Sticky Institute's annual zine fair is on this coming week. They are having a project where anyone can just pop in and contribute throughout the week, and a big sale and events next Saturday. The first Brown Owls event for the year has been confirmed in a few weeks' time. Numbers are unlimited, but it's members-only, and seeing as I am a member, that means I should go, but I can't take Boy or anyone else with me! *gasps* But I feel that 2009 is a year of change, and I can either hide away in my cubby-hole or embrace it and get out there!

This....

Louise Just Knew that Her Soul Mate Was Out There Somewhere, She Just Hadn't Met Him Yet, originally uploaded by viviennestrauss.

This is the kind of embroidery I want to do!
How whimsical, how sweet, what a witty title! What composition, use of different stitches and materials! What a large amount it was sold for!

*sighs*

Of course, I can't do work exactly like hers, cause that would be cheating now, wouldn't it?
To be honest, I really don't like it when embroideries are presented on the hoop. To me they feel unfinished. I'm looking around for other options.

It's been too hot to do anything lately, even hold a book up to read at times. I've been doing a bit of 'head-crafting' (I just made that word up) where I spend time thinking up ideas or imagining that I'm making stuff. Sometimes, when I'm at work or in other situations where I have to be doing something else, I imagine that my hands are knitting or crocheting something. It can be almost as calming as the real thing. I hope that doesn't sound too pathological. Other times, like when it's 45oC, my brain won't even do that.

I have to write a zine by tomorrow. Crap.

Zine Time

It's all about the zine right now for me. I've been working away on writing my travel zine. One reason I'm writing it is that joined a(nother) swap on Swap-Bot for a longer zine, and this is the topic I most want to write about right now. The swap is due on 2nd January. I hope think I can finish it by then!

Sister Diane's Christmas Digest zine arrived in the mail tonight too:

It has a hand-cut cover with genuine Christmas wrapping paper decoration, and a personal message from Sister Diane. What a sweetie! I'm having a lot of fun reading it.

I'm also well into my Etsy Swap item. It's a mini monster. One of the ideas was to make a smaller version of something you normally make, so I ran with that. He's in a lovely, sparkly festive colour. Sorry it's a bit fuzzy - I was on the phone at the time I took the photo:

All my monsters seem to have something sticking out of the crotch during the creative process. What's the go with that?

In other zine-related news, I've set up a free (basic) account on ArtFire and listed my zines on it. I'm just waiting to see what happens (if anything). It's interesting to compare ArtFire with Etsy:

Fees
Etsy - US$0.20 per item for 4 month long listing, plus 3.5% commission on sales.
ArtFire - Free account: can list up to 10 items. Paid account: flat rate of US$7 per month. No listing fees or commission fees on individual items. (At that rate, I'd have to list over 50 items per month for ArtFire to beat Etsy on fees. That's not taking Etsy's commission into account though. I'm not very good at maths.)


Listing
Etsy - Have to fill out 5 separate pages, so it can take a while. Tagging system is quite good though - it gives you suggestions to refine your tags. Categories are very straightforward.
ArtFire - All fields are on a single page. So for example you can download photos while filling out other fields. Very fast. Also has extra features such as 'Inspiration' field and how many hours it took to make the item. Much better! Category system is a little confusing, but they are refining it with user feedback, so I'm sure it will improve with time. With the free account, you can only list one copy of each item, so I'll have to be quick off the mark to relist a zine once it sells. Don't know yet if it has the 'relist' feature that Etsy has or if I'd have to start from scratch each time. ArtFire is more obviously geared towards artists that make one-off items.

Establishment
Etsy - Has been around for about 5 years; has a lot of word-of-mouth marketing and a huge seller base. Does some advertising in magazines and websites based in the U.S., but many people complain that they don't do enough marketing.
ArtFire - Has only just begun (it's still in Beta, I believe) and is a bit buggy. Not very many sellers yet. This could be a good thing though - not too much competition! However, they've done a huge amount of marketing geared towards buyers already: they've purchased the back cover of Craft: Magazine for the next year, advertised on TV shows in the U.S., etc. People are very happy about this!
Also, thanks to Twitter (where the admin of ArtFire have an active account), I have noticed that they are listening to/acknowledging requests from users, and often tweaking the site to accommodate them, sometimes within just a few hours. There have been very few user-initiated changes to Etsy in the time I have been using it.

Exposure
Etsy - When a potential buyer does a search, the most newly listed items come up first. Because there are literally millions of items for sale, if your item was listed some time ago, there's practically no chance of a buyer sifting through enough items to find YOUR little gem. Many sellers are tempted to renew items regularly to push them to the top of the list, instead of waiting the 4-month period for them to expire. Of course, this costs US$0.20 per time, eating into one's profit margin. It's a dilemma.
ArtFire - Apparently every item that's listed appears on the front page for a certain amount of time, giving every seller some great exposure. The seller base is expanding rapidly though, so who knows how long this will last.

Features
Etsy - Has the bog standard forums and favourite list. Many people complain that the search feature is a bit crap. Sure, you can search by colour or sellers that have recently sold something, but you can't search by base country of seller. What the? Features such as the Treasuries seem to be more for sellers to play around than for buyers to find what they are looking for.
ArtFire - Has all of the standard features of Etsy, plus a few others such as Badges and a Karma score that can be earned. (I haven't managed to find out too much about these yet.) A big one is that you can customise the currency you want the prices shown in. Some terms are different, e.g. 'shop' in Etsy is 'My Studio' in ArtFire, and sellers are referred to as 'artisans'. There's much more of an inclusive, community feel to it. The categories are slightly different and have more emphasis on different materials and artforms. ArtFire is definitely geared towards artists - of all kinds.

Whether one site is 'better' than the other remains to be seen. This post was a lot longer than I intended it to be, as per usual!

More updates as they happen.
Bye!

She's back

Well, it's been some time and I apologise for that. I've been back from Japan for two weeks now and I've been completely silent. I can't describe how absolutely amazing Japan was. In one word, it was brill! I'm writing a zine about my trip and observations. The working title is A Foreigner in Tokyo.

It was an intense 12 days of experiences - exploring, observing, walking, eating, drinking - and buying! I will mainly stick to the crafty stuff for your benefit. The store-bought travel guide was very useful for some things, but the only shopping it really touched on was electrical goods and vintage kimonos, neither of which I could really afford. Thankfully just before I left I just happened to stumble upon the most useful thing ever. I have to give unlimited amounts of gratitude to Marceline and her zine Tokyo Shopping Guide. This little guide helped me find all the crafty, cute, kawaii and kitsch shops I would never have found out about otherwise. Zines to the rescue!

The first craft shop I came across however was completely by accident. It was Day 5 and we had transferred from Tokyo to a small town at the foot of Mt. Fuji called Hakone.

A view of Mt. Fuji from Owakadani.

Boy and I were wandering down the street looking for a place to buy some food when I happened to glance through the window of a shop and see wool! My heart skipped a beat! I immediately went in and started rummaging around. It was one of those wonderful, old-fashioned shops where everything is all piled up, and the lady writes down the prices on a piece of paper. I bought a few kimono fabric squares, an amigurumi cow kit, some buttons, a crochet book called Magic Scrubbers Part 9 and my favourite find so far - a kumihimo braiding kit!

Braiding in action.

A few days later, we went to Tokyu Hands, which is a life-enhancing department store dedicated to all things fun and creative. Boy and I got some fun and creative stuff there! The top floor had a decent-sized craft section. It was interesting to see the types of crafts that were represented: e.g. glass engraving and leather-working. There were even a couple of whole calf skins! Euw! I only bought a couple of little things - some buttons and a stencil. The stationery floor was amazing! And amazingly crowded. Boy and I had a really quick look at everything, but nothing topped the rubber stamp making kits that we found. They came with a carving tool, 'blank' rubber stamp block (very similar to what erasers are made of), an ink pad and a handle for the stamp to slip into. Cool! Later in another store we picked up a whole set of tools with different profiles for advanced carving! This could be very fun!

My last crafty experience was on Day 10, which was a designated 'big shopping day'. :) After spending the morning in the electrical goods suburb of Akihibara, we went to Fabric Street, in Fabric Town. Well, it's actually called Nippori, but the whole place is filled with fabric and sewing accessories shops, so they must have thought they would just run with it.

I love this place!

The biggest shop was one called Tomato. It has a separate haberdashery shop, and then a main fabric shop with 5 floors. It was very exciting. I bought some kawaii buttons and beads, some braid, a frog plushie kit, some fat quarter packs, and some 1-2 metre lots of of some cheaper but still cute fabrics. I stood in a corner of the shop and quickly boned up on the Japanese for "one metre please" and "two metres please" before I approached the counter and I seemed to do OK. Interestingly the fabric with the cute kokeshi dolls on the black background was one of the cheapest in the whole shop. They had so many fat quarters that it made my head spin. In the end I just chose some pre-matched stacks with about 8 pieces each and 2 slightly larger pieces. Then I checked out some of the smaller shops on the street. One seemed to specialise in American quilt-making supplies, another had some random but great stuff. I could have bought a lot more, but I was aware of how the Australian Dollar had recently dive-bombed to pathetic lows, as well as the weight limit on my suitcase, so I was in tight-arse mode. I did stock up on some extra-large ricrac and pompom edging though!

Throughout the trip, I did no crafting whatsoever, and I didn't read anything longer than a menu. I thought I'd go crazy, but I didn't even realise until after it was over. I did however, put a lot of energy into writing and decorating my travel journal. I think that this was enough of a crafty/arty/writy outlet to satisfy me during the trip. Spending 12 days in an almost constant state of excitement was pretty draining - the first five days or so after I got back, I did very little, crafty or otherwise. I was suffering from a major case of the post-travelling blues. Then I got out my kumihimo braiding disc and gave it a try. It's my new favourite craft! I've churned out tons of five braids in different colours and materials, branching out from 8-strand to 16-strand thicknesses. I just don't know what to do with them, that's all. I've seen them made into keychains, necklaces and bracelets, but that would involve a foray into the realm of jewellery making that I've never been willing to take. When you think about it though, for every need that requires fairly thick string or cord, I could use a kumihimo braid. My brain is whizzing.

Kumihimo braid - 16-strand thickness using acrylic yarn; the first braid I made in 4 colours with cord from the kit.

In other news, I received my Etsy Christmas swap package last week. It's a beautiful illustration of a bird in a tree. I hung it in the loungeroom above the entrance to the hobby room and I love looking at it!

So pretty!

Also, I sold some zines while I was away! After a drought of about 6 weeks, I finally sold 2 copies of the Thrify Crafter zine. I also had a bulk order for 6 copies each of two of the smaller ones. That's so exciting! It's really spurring me on to write more.

Oh, yeah and P.S. here's a photo to prove I was really there!

Magazines

I let my subscription to Creative Knitting lapse - because it was shit* - and I subscribed to Handmade instead. I figured that as I was branching out in my crafty endeavours, this would give me some ideas for different crafts. I received my first issue in the mail yesterday. Perhaps I should have put in a bit more research before I decided where to switch my loyalties to. Or perhaps it was just an unfortunate issue to be my first. It's the bumper Christmas issue!

Well, I don't celebrate Christmas, and I only like Christmas decorations for their kitsch value, which kinda cuts out anything made after about 1980. Now, if it had a Dias de los Muertos issue, that would rock big time! As if! At least there's some sites in the U.S. that cater to that, like the Crafty Chica. It also had a rather disturbing preponderance of teddy bears. I like most stuffed animals, and even beanie kids, but traditional teddy bears just don't float my boat. Sometimes they even make me wanna cry. I don't know why. I must have deep-seated emotional issues.
Anyhoo.

I've been having a lot of fun making my monsters lately. I like them a lot more than the kokeshi dolls. They can be lumpy and lop-sided and have 7 arms and it doesn't matter. I feel a lot freer and less pressure to make them perfect. In an effort to give them more personality, I've decided to write a new zine called 'Monster Stories' or something similar, with a half-page story about each monster and a drawing of her/him. I might make both black-and-white and deluxe colour versions. Maybe I'll make a little mini-booklet to offer with each monster with the same information. Course, this may take some time as it takes me forever to make each monster.

Meanwhile, my brain has been obsessed with how to turn this into a softie:

An individual of the species Brongla.
It's my first Spore creature! Isn't he cute!

*goes back to obsessing*

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* Why was it shit? They take patterns from British magazines (with permission or not, I don't know) and Paton's pattern books for almost all of their content. There seems to be a lot of padding to make the magazine longer - unnecessarily large title headings, etc. Often, the finished item isn't shown from different angles; there's often just a single photo and you can tell the close-ups (when there are any) are all just zoomed in from the main photo. In the last few issues, there were no articles whatsoever. I buy magazines more for the patterns than the articles anyway, but many people don't. Also, the patterns were always pretty dull and uninspired. Yet another plain, stocking stitch jumper with a bit of froo-froo on the bottom hem. I've read similar complaints from other readers on their forums, which they don't seem to have addressed. And really, I already have more patterns than I could possibly knit in my lifetime. I've gotten much better patterns for free, Knitty being only one of hundreds of great sources. Then there's Twist Collective, a new online magazine where the articles are free, and you pay individually for the patterns you want. I must check it out sometime! But to be honest, I've gone off pattern collecting a bit. Even vintage ones don't excite me much anymore. I'm more interested in the pictures in them than the patterns. There's much scanning and printing and collaging fun to be had!