Month: April 2013

We rented a car in Melbourne today and drove out to Phillip Island to visit the Koala Conservation Centre. There was another park nearby where I think you could get closer to the koalas and pet them and stuff, but we decided to check them out in their natural environment, minding their own business, doing koala things. It was kind of like a game of Where’s Koaldo, craning our necks up at the trees, spotting little fuzzy dumplings napping on branches. My photos are terrible since they are from my iPhone. We’ll have much better photos and video from the other camera, but for now, you get a teaser! There’s a story about these two. One is a mama and one is the baby. The baby is old enough to be independent, but is still learning about how to be his own koala and have his own house, so apparently, these are some difficult teenaged koala times.  You kinda just walked around amongst the trees, and all of a sudden, there’s a koala or two or four. It was really neat! Most of them were napping and swaying in the wind (it was super windy). We found one koala who looked somewhat more active and was kinda looking at us. Then she started dropping some poos, which was really exciting for me, cuz it was like, NATURE!!! SO NATURAL!! And THEN, she PEED!!!!! And then she pooped some more! And then she scratched her rump a few times. And then she tucked in for a nap. It was amazing. (I’m just going to assume now she was a ladykoala because I read that they don’t keep as many boys in the center to avoid fighting.) And then there’s the random take-a-picture-of-my-outfit-in-the-koala-park outfit shots that you always need to have, even if your outfit is not that exciting. I travel in comfort! We have one more day in Melbourne, then we’re flying back to NZ for one night and heading home!

My new free pattern is up now at Michaels.com: Veggie Pen Cozies! You get the patterns for the asparagus, lettuce, and carrot! They work up super quick and are a fun stash-buster for all your veggie-colored yarns. We did some lettuce pens with green and purple that were really fun! Edit, June 4, 2014: Please find the pattern here on my blog. Michaels.com is currently re-vamping their pattern/project section, and the above Michaels.com link is disabled for now.      

I’ll need to sharpen my green thumb and get a whole new wardrobe, but I just wanted to let you guys know that we visited Hobbiton, and I’m moving in! After spending a few days in Auckland, living the city life, Hairy drove us down to visit Hobbiton and the LOTR/Hobbiton movie set, which is in the middle of a giant sheep farm filled with cute sheeps whose job it is to look adorable and munch on grass all day. I believe our tour guide said that there were like 4o hobbit holes on the premises, some big, some small, depending on whether they wanted to film a human or a hobbit next to it. There’s not really stuff inside of them. They are all mostly facades, and any shots from the inside of a hobbit hole were filmed in Wellington on a set. It was really super cute there, but what really struck me was the care and attention to all the gardening. There was a central vegetable garden with actual chard and squashes and herbs and all kinds of veggies and things. I live by the ocean where there is no sun, but I felt super inspired to grow food because it just looks adorable aside from being edible…! You also get to visit the Green Dragon for a free beer, cider, or ginger beer! (Oops, no photo of that yet…!)   I’m not even a really gigantic LOTR fan, but I thought that visiting this place was really fun. Time to redecorate my house!! I took more photos and TOOOOOONNNS of video, but we are off now to find dinner in Wellington!

Here’s a tiny snippet of what we did today: took a ferry from Auckland to Waikehe Island, went on a tiny hike….and then it started to rain! Classic me: I complain if I’m hot, I complain if it’s windy, and I complain if it rains!

I just finished giving myself my vacation mani! We are off to New Zealand and Australia for the next two weeks. I loaded up my Kindle with a kabillion books. I’ll try to blog a little here and there with photos. Have you guys ever been to either of those countries? Any favorite spots? See you soon!  

Recently on Tumblr, someone asked me about how to get their Etsy shop noticed, and I kinda get this question every now and again, so I thought I would write a blog post about how to start spreading the word about your shop/brand/business. I don’t know of any special magic, and my shop is certainly not the most popular or anywhere near there, but here are some initial ideas if you’re just starting out. I’ve never done anything super fancy, so all my advice is kinda basic, but it has worked for me so far! The first thing that comes to my mind is how we’d always get asked, “What’s the secret to making a bestseller?” when I worked in publishing. Well, if there were a secret, and if we (or anybody, even the publishers) knew that secret, then all the books would be bestsellers. Let’s face it. There are duds. You could be the dud. 1. Be a trend-setter not a trend-follower – I say this a lot in blog and magazine interviews, but I believe it super strongly. Be unique. Don’t just see something popular and think, “Hey, I can do that,” and just put MORE of the same thing into the universe. Add something new! Add something YOU! That’s how you will become memorable. Not everyone will love your work; some people will even hate it (years and years ago, someone in an online crochet group said my old-school rocket pop scarf was stupid and looked like a penis). But you will be memorable if you make the effort to be creative (who’s laughing now, penis-hater?!). If you are the only person making a certain thing at a certain time, people will HAVE to go to you for that special product. When I first started, I googled and searched all over eBay (Etsy wasn’t really a thing yet and totally not on my radar in 2005) to see if I could find anyone else who was making what I wanted to make. My mom was like, “Maybe you should focus more on colors that remind people of food, rather than actually crocheting scarves that look like food.” Moral: it’s ok to be weird. It’s probably good to be weird, even if everyone hates your peas-n-carrots scarf, and you never make one ever again in the history of ever. 2. Have a voice – Sometimes I’ll browse Etsy shops and feel like their products are all over the place. I’m not saying you have to pigeon hole yourself, but … I sort of am. In the early stages of your business, I think it’s important for people to be able to easily associate your brand with a particular style, philosophy, aesthetic, and/or product. “Crocheted, food-themed scarves” is pretty specific as a focus, but I think it really helped people to remember my work and who I was. When I worked in an office, I used to DIY random and weird gifts for my boss. She was always hounding me […]

One of the things I was busy doing last week was planning/decorating for my brother and SIL’s baby shower which was on Saturday at my mom’s house. Their favorite book is “Ender’s Game,” which they are naming their baby after, so I tried to incorporate the book into the baby shower theme without getting too weird about it (Manda wanted to make everything ALIENS!). Instead of going full Battle School, I went with stars and a couple images of Ender. As always, I started with a sketch to plan out the colors and items on the dessert table. I have never created one of these tables before, so I did lots of research on the internet first! The real thing had a few changes, but overall, I thought it was funny how the drawing translated to real life!