News, and Mario Mushrooms

First of all, the big news I alluded to in my last post:

Graduate school plans have been decided! This summer, I will be moving to Berkeley, CA to do the Physics PhD program for the next 6 years. (Give or take...) I'll still come back to St. Louis every so often to visit family and friends, and I'm hoping that once or twice a year that will align with some local conventions. ^_^ As for conventions in CA, I definitely plan to attend a few, but there might be a bit of a hiatus in my Artist Alley adventures. (I hear the first year of grad school is especially heinous!)

In the meantime, I'm going to try to get a Paypal store set up here before I move, with the buttons and cart and everything, so stay tuned!

I've also just completed a little project for my roommate. We've been playing entirely too much old school Super Mario Bros - and some occasional Duck Hunt - and thus, her (exceedingly late) birthday present was born! Small mushroom pillows, shown below with cat for scale. And added cuteness. Now kitty has 10 lives instead of 9!

Anime St. Louis was a blast!

Last weekend was ASTL 2011, and it was great fun! I barely left my table at all, and unfortunately didn't stay for any of the evening activities after the dealer's room closed. :( But, lots of fabulous and entertaining people stopped by and shopped at my table, so the weekend was a success overall. I also hung out with my fellow artist buddies Handmade Geek and Black Paladin during and after the con - I see Handmade Geek all the time at taiko practice (if you don't know what that is, go here), but the rest of the group are people I only see at cons, so it was a lovely time!

A HUGE shoutout to everyone who fulfilled my quest - I have never eaten so well (on so little money) at a convention before!! A few people were especially awesome.. you know who you are. ~_^

I also grabbed a couple pictures of people who bought my hair clips, and promptly wore them around. I know there were more people, but these three I happened to catch on camera. They've been added to my "Hair Clips in Action" album too.

(The other 2 after the break.)

New Stuff! - Hair Clips, PlushyPillowPurses, and Roses

Finally, a post! I have several pictures of shiny new items for sale, some of which I took to Kawa Kon, and some of which will be brand shiny new at Anime StL.

First of all, the new hair clips! The cat, lightning, and onigiri were all ready in time for Kawa Kon. The cherry blossoms, available in pink and white, will be new for Anime StL. Perfect for the "hanami" theme of the formal dance, no? ;) I also posted 2 new pictures in the "Hair Clips In Action" album, so check that out if you'd like to see these flowers actually attached to a head.

Lots more after the jump!

Kawa Kon

Super quick update before I hit the sewing machine for some extra Cheese-kun making: Kawa Kon is awesome so far! Much love to everyone who has hung out at our table, bought our stuff, or completed our quest.

I had intended to post pictures of new stuff before the convention, but completely ran out of time. But there are quite a few new items for sale at the table, and yes they will all be offered online as well! (Just in case anyone who just picked up my business card is reading this.) As soon as the convention is over so I have time to post them, that is. ^_^

Hair Clip Pictures

Here's me playing with my new camera some more. I had my lovely friend Liz model the anime emotion hair clips, and put those in a new album on Picasa. Click below to see all 4 pictures.

If anybody wants to send me pictures of yourself/your friends wearing these hair clips, or with any other items you've purchased from me, I would love to post those on my blog! This announcement is going up on the Conventions page as well.

Hair Clips in Action

I've decided to add links to any Picasa albums I create over on the sidebar, too, so they will be easy to find.

In other news, only 2 weeks left before Kawa Kon!! I'm nearly finished re-stocking the items I sold at Bishie Con, and have a few new ideas in progress too. There will be more pictures coming soon!

New Pictures Up!

I've finally put up some new pictures on the merchandise page! My photography skills are not so fabulous, but these picture are still a vast improvement thanks to my new camera.

I have also changed the design of the "depressed" hair clip, to make it look more cloud-like. Behold!

The rest of the new pictures are after the jump.

New "About" Page

Well, it's been an awfully long time since my last post. >.> I still haven't gotten very far with my new camera, and replacing the current not-so-pretty pictures on the site, but that will happen soon!

Today's big news is that I've finally typed out a blurb about me, to be found on the new "About" page at the top. I hate writing about myself, so that took an embarrassingly long time to write, but at least I have something to improve and add onto in the future. (Suggestions, insults, questions, critiques, etc. are always welcome.)

I'm also slowly re-stocking various items for Kawa Kon, and will have at least one new thing to show off before the convention!

Cheese-kun's Adventures

Here are some pictures of the first Cheese-kun's first trip to Otakon in 2009. He had so much fun on that trip! (So did the rest of us. ^__^)

http://picasaweb.google.com/craftyotaku/CheeseKunSAdventures#

New Email!

Brand new email address: craftyotaku at gmail dot com! I've also transferred control of this blog over to the craftyotaku email, so now all the related google stuff (gmail, picasa, and blogger) can be managed in one place.

I've also updated the Merchandise page with some small fixes related to organizing my pictures, and put the new email address in the relevant places.

Someday I am going to put up a real profile, and a proper "About Me" page, and start posting pictures from my new camera (it is soooo nice) and all sorts of fun stuff.

edited to add: I've also removed all the little summaries of past conventions on the "Conventions" page. Talking about what the con was like is the job of a proper blog post, not 2 sentences cluttering up that page! It's not too long now, but if I keep going to conventions, it'll just keep getting longer and longer...

Post Bishie Con Cleanup - Bondage Time!

Bishie Con continued to be excellent on Sunday, and then Christmas took over for a week, and life was crazy.. but it was all worth it! My wonderful, fabulous, esteemed parents got me a new camera!!! I haven't had much time to play with it yet, but pictures should be getting better around here, from now on.

I have cleaned up and updated the merchandise page, and the conventions page. I also fixed my time zone, so the posts actually show the correct posting time... oopsie.

But most importantly, I am posting the step-by-step instruction pictures from the bondage panel Saturday night! So without further ado...

Square not vs Granny Knot
The square knot is the good knot - it won't come loose like the granny knot does. It's pretty easy to tell the difference when this knot is by itself, but you'll want to practice it a bit so you can tell the difference when it's piled on top of other knots too.

This is a square knot. This is what you want!

This is a granny knot. BAD! Look at how the circled part is different than in the square knot.

The rest (there's lots!) after the break:

Bishie Con Days 1 and 2

The first couple of days at Bishie Con have been most fun! I haven't seen much of it, being behind my table in the dealer's room most of the day, but it looks like this year (the second year) is going to be even better than the first year.

Today I got this awesome present right before the dealer's room closed:

Handmade Geek was kind enough to take a picture of the drawing with her phone and email it to me. Sadly, by the time dinner (which was, in fact, pizza) came around I was already out of my C.C. costume, and had no Cheese-kun to cuddle. Otherwise, I would totally have reenacted this picture. To the person that drew this, thank you!! I am going to try to find you tomorrow to give you a present in return, but if you change costumes I might fail at that, because I am terrible at faces (and names, and birthdays, and...).

Also, thank you to everyone who came to the bondage panel! It was tons of fun, and I will be posting on here some pictures I had intended to use as visual aids/instructions at the panel, if there had been a projector. It might take a while, though, if I decide to use this extra time to clean them up, or retake any, or put together text instructions to go with them. Everyone who wrote their email down will get notified when all that stuff finally gets posted though. ^___^

Time to replenish a few more hair clips (man, those have sold fast again!) if I can stay awake long enough, then BEDTIME so I can hopefully survive one more day of con.

It's Past Midnight, So Bishie Con is TODAY!

Crunch Time for Bishie Con is officially over, and now it is simply TIME.

Something I totally forgot to mention: Handmade Geek and I are running a panel! It is a hands-on workshop called Bondage 101, and it is scheduled Saturday night at 9:30pm. I'll have to check out the room to decide for sure how many people we'll have room for with the hands-on part, but I have a feeling it won't be enough.. it just seems like it'll be a popular topic at this convention. ^_^ This is the first panel (or workshop) I've ever run at a convention, so wish me luck!

The merchandise page has been updated as well - check out some new pictures there, or after the break:

New Merchandise Pics

I am in full-on constant sewing mode now, and making serious headway on the stuff I want to have done before Bishie Con! These pictures are absolutely terrible - I stuck a business card in there for scale, but did not think of the fact that a white business card on a white background is basically invisible... also holding my laptop out at weird angles while trying to control Photo Booth sucks, so this is as good as its gonna get until my new camera arrives.  >.<  Try to imagine the cuteness in person, un-blurry and with okay lighting! Without further ado, pics of what I've finished in the past few days:

More raincloud plushies.

Keychain sized raincloud plushies!

Keychain-sized Cheese-kun. The hat brim is made of a single large sequin!

Another full-size Cheese-kun (about 15" high).

The merchandise page has also been updated in a major way with all this new stuff - all the prices are listed there, so check it out!

Bishie Con Crunch Time

Yesterday was a big day - I mailed out the other Cheese-kun commission from Kollision Con, and finished my applications for graduate school! (Well, sort of. I still have one small form to finish filling out, and then scan and email to one of the schools. That will get done tomorrow when I visit my parents and their scanner. There are also 2 more applications I haven't even started, but the deadlines aren't until mid-January, so I'm not worrying about those until after Christmas. All the ones due next week are basically done, which is what counts right now.)

Accordingly, today began official Bishie Con Crunch Time. Today's project was Cheese-kun keychains, plus some general cleaning and organizing that I had been neglecting.  I really hope to finish re-stocking all the items I ran out of at Kollision by the end of this weekend, so I can have the few days right before Bishie to try out some new ideas. ^_^ Whether this is actually possible, though...

I've updated the merchandise page a bit, and I will try to post pictures as I work on stuff. I say "try," since I am still limited to my Mac and Photobooth. Rumor seems to be that I might get a new camera for Christmas, though, so huzzah!

More Cheese-kun! (and Real Life Stuff)

I have finally mailed off 1 of the 2 Cheese-kuns ordered at Kollision Con! The other should be ready to mail on Monday.

Ready to head for his new home!

While working on that one, I also ended up making a sideways Cheese-kun. I say sideways because the fabric is stretchy in only one direction, and I accidentally made this one vertically stretchy instead of horizontally. I try to make even the smaller Cheese-kuns fairly plump, for hugging purposes, so this guy is a little skinny for my tastes. Still, I will be bringing him to Bishie Con to see if someone can give him a good home.

Good hugging radius for a small child?

In real-life news, I am nearly done with my first round of graduate school applications. There are 4 schools on my list with deadlines in mid-December, so trying to get those done in a timely manner (and well before Bishie Con) has been keeping me pretty busy. I've finished 2 of them so far, and just need to tweak my personal statements and finish up some odds and ends for the other 2. With those and the Kollision Con orders done, I will finally be able to concentrate on replenishing my stock for Bishie Con!

Kollision Con Day 3

Kollision Con has been over for a couple days now, but I just wanted to say I had a FABULOUS time.

Overall, it seemed like a huge success for a first year convention. Granted, I did not get to see much of the con besides my table, but the little wandering I did Saturday night impressed me. Things had definitely quieted down by Sunday, but a surprising number of people still stopped by the Alley tables before we all packed up and went home.

Now I must get back on the sewing machine and start getting ready for Bishie Con - wish me luck!

Kollision Con Day 2

It is actually Day 3 already as I am writing this, and I still haven't left for the con yet... I'm hoping to be there before noon though.

One thing has become clear... I did not bring enough stuff. The cuter the stuff, the faster it has sold out! Still, I plan to stay at my table most of the day, so people can take advantage of the Free Shipping for stuff I've run out of.

I also stayed later last night to enjoy the hentai panel, "My Bittersweet Iku," and it was fabulous! Karaoke rocked too, and I wish I could have stayed longer. I got in my song though - Again (the first FMA Brotherhood opening) - and got some blush-inducing compliments. ^__^ It seems that singing along to it (and the rest of my anime theme mix CD) during my entire drive up from St. Louis paid off!

p.s. Here is a picture of my obi from Day 1 of the con - it was just taken on Photo Booth, and is kind of crappy, but at least you can still see it. I tied it myself!

Kollision Con Day 1

The first day of Kollision Con is going very well! Now that school and work and such are over for the weekend, a lot more people are wandering the convention. My neighbors in Artist Alley are wonderful, and together we will fill the world with cuteness and joy. Mwahahaha.

I am cursing my lack of camera, of course, but have enlisted a few kind strangers to take pictures. I will post them if/when a copy finds its way to my email!

If anyone I've met so far at Kollision is reading this, hello!! And thanks for stopping by my table. :)  I have decided to do a Kollision Con Special, as follows: order anything (commissions, or just something you want that I sold out of), and pay for it at the con, and I will ship it to you for free!

Tomorrow: I will no longer be wearing my yukata (and awesome, yet uncomfortable obi). Instead, it will be time for my C.C. costume! I hear there may be a Lelouch wandering the halls as well, which is most exciting.

Raincloud Plushies

I have officially finished my new batch of raincloud plushies!

Dr. Horrible included for scale.

The idea for these started with an old gray blanket I had, which was chewed up in some parts, so I wanted to do something creative with it. Add some blue beads and fabric paint, and voila!  They've also got a little loop at the top, for hanging, which is really the best way to appreciate the rain. A few of them lean a bit to one side or the other, but honestly it just makes them cuter. ^__^

I've also found a decent temporary solution for the no-camera problem. Combining my roommate's nice floor lamp (and it's "daylight" light bulbs) and my Mac's photo booth actually gives pretty decent results. Holding the laptop up, and trying to tilt it at the right angle while using the track pad is pretty hard though... but at least I can update the merchandise page with a picture of these guys now.

Only a week until I head to Chicago!

Blog updates, and imminent conventions!

I have finished the merchandise page! Well, sort of. Since I'm still missing a camera, the pictures are just whatever I already had on hand from several months ago. There will be much updating after I've had time to replace my camera, or borrow someone else's for a while.

In other news, I failed to send any merchandise along to the Game Day over Halloween weekend, and have deleted it off my conventions page accordingly. But, preparations for Kollision Con up in the Chicago area are well under way. Just over a week until that convention! I've spent a lot of time at the sewing machine, working on hair clips, and am seriously considering trying to take pictures with my very crappy cell phone camera. These hair clips are just that adorable!