So my eye has been bleeding again. It seems to bleed at night when I’m sitting down doing nothing and not exerting myself, sneezing or being stressed - unless of course it’s just a delayed reaction to what I’ve been doing during the day!  I took more photos of it this morning, it’s looking more vampiric by the day and the good news is I will probably still have it at Christmas and I will be able to scare small children and repulse people while they’re eating their Christmas dinner - see everything has an upside!  I made another batch of Tablet last night but I’m not eating it, nuh huh.  I will have to hide it from my sister though lol

When I stocked up my Zazzle shop a few weeks ago (3 almost) I set myself a little test target just to see if anyone would want to buy anything that I created, and also because statistically less people know about Zazzle than Cafepress.  Well I exceeded the target I set for the month in just under three weeks, so thank you everyone who bought anything from the shop and especially to all the crazy Twilight obsessed fans who are just buying everything I have.  Thank you all!  I’m really surprised at the popularity of keychains btw, I guess they make good stocking fillers.

It might be a bit of procrastination on my part but I am still trying to reorganise my sewing/craft room workspace instead of doing any actual sewing.  I’m taking a break for lunch (even though it’s 3pm) as I just managed to dig my way out of mountains of fabric. Remind me why I think I need more fabric?  Speaking of more fabric I am fretting quite a bit that some things I ordered at least 2-3 weeks ago have still not arrived from the US, whereas a beautiful bracelet (a present and unfortunately not for me) I ordered via Etsy arrived today, also from the US.  I just hope they aren’t holding my fabric up in customs as I REALLY NEED IT and it’s very sexy.

Still also waiting for my recent ebay purchases but since some of them are from Saturday I know I’m being unreasonable.  I just want them now. (like I don’t have enough fabric lol)

Photos of the new and improved sewing room will be posted - maybe a before, during and after makeover lol.  I found stuff up there buried deep within the depths of the spare room that I forgot I even had, but also I found fabric that I bought in Glasgow last Christmas and that reminded me that the shop (Mandors) will be having another sale this Christmas so I definitely need to put that on my to-do list.  I seem to remember last year having to enlist the help of a couple of family members to carry everything I bought.  Fabric is heavy you know.

Book Group

Just a quick mention about the book group since this isn’t the book group blog!  1984 - George Orwell and Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer are the books for this month, and in the Paranormal Social Club we are reading Pleasure Unbound - Larrissa Ione.  And of course you can read whatever you want and come talk about it with us.  Virgin Suicides and Time Traveler’s Wife discussions are still going if anyone wants to jump in.  Plus also we have very sexy Rules of Book Club designs on a bunch of items on both Cafepress and Zazzle.

Just a reminder that today is the final posting day for overseas mail that is “guaranteed” to get there for Christmas (of course it doesn’t mean that if you post after today that it won’t get there but it’s not guaranteed)

Consequently Zazzle has free postage offers for today and Cafepress are giving free postage on their FLIP mini camcorders.

There are also lots of sales on Etsy today and this weekend, so now’s your chance to pick up something special at a discount. Remember too you can filter your browsing results by locality which is great if you want something in a hurry - order from someone close to where you live! I’ve been buying a few things there this week and it occurred to me that if anyone came up with handmade things for teenage BOYS they would make a fortune because there isn’t anything and they are so hard to buy for. I checked the gift guides on Etsy and not only is there nothing for teenage boys, men are not really catered for either. I guess it’s a girl thing huh? Wanting to have pretty shiny handmade things lol

*goes into man bag production overdrive*

Speaking of men, I was shopping in the men’s underwear section of Tesco last night because I’ sick of freezing (I’m tempted to say “nuts off” considering what I bought) and decided to invest in some thermal underwear! I bought some men’s long johns in attractive white with handy little pouch for storing things or keeping your mobile phone handy. I may have to dye them purple or something though as I don’t like white. Next week I’m going to get the matching t-shirt, also thermal

I bought the object of my fabric lust yesterday btw. There was never any doubt that I would buy it but I’m still short on ideas what to do with it when it arrives. It is very pretty though. I keep thinking moulin rouge and corsets. I don’t know why.

Only Vampires Love You Forever design remains my top seller on Zazzle. It’s now available in four colour options and it’s selling like hotcakes. Keychains in all designs are also flying off the shelves. I also added some embroidered hats, totes and t-shirts in two new forum related designs - 100% Book Addict and Paranormal Social Club. Probably doesn’t make a lot of sense now but it’s all part of my not so cunning plan.

I’m hoping this doesn’t turn into a bit of a rant but I was kinda annoyed when I woke up this morning, checked my email and found one from Zazzle announcing now that my Book Club (you do not talk about Book Club) design was not allowed to be sold in the marketplace because they have rules about parody.

Ok I get rules, I love rules, but only when they make sense and are consistent.

What annoys me most is that when I do a search for book club, other designs in other zazzle galleries come up!  When I do a search for Fight Club, I get 12 pages of results!  TWELVE PAGES!!!  Some of the designs are blatantly ripping off the soapdish image from the movie dvd/posters yet - hell there’s even a design on there called FART CLUB - these are allowed but somehow mine isn’t?

FFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I run a freaking Book Club for crying out loud.  The designs have been up for over 2 weeks but now there’s a problem with them?

Well Cafepress don’t have a problem with them, they love them.  Quite honestly I wasn’t even going to bother uploading them to zazzle in the first place as it’s such a chore to get anything done over there but then I thought, sure why not.  We’ll there’s an hour+ of my life I’ll never get back and I love so much wasting time like that when I have so much on my plate right now. So if anyone wants one, you can find them in the Cafepress shop.  I’m not sure I will continue with my zazzle experiment.  I’m wasting too much time uploading designs, manually creating products, editing them, changing them, removing them, uploading new designs, being told days/weeks later that they’re getting removed for whatever reason meanwhile similar products continue to sell in other galleries.

Consistency people consistency is everything!

Needless to say I did fire off a reply to their email this morning highlighting all of the above and more.

Hmmm, well this is a design I’ve had on Cafepress for a few months now but I put it in Zazzle at the weekend and people seem to love it!  I changed the background colour and they are selling like hot cakes

Who knew!  Anyway the keychains are particularly popular but so are the mousepads, the greeting cards and the mugs.  I really like the mug options they have there, so much more choice!  Cafepress briefly had travel mugs in the summer but now they seem to be permanently out of stock.  I even made shoes like this too lol.

Now I’m going to change up the design on the Cafepress stuff and give them the pink background option too.  They don’t have keychains on Cafepress but it should work on some of the other products.

We are still having that really hard frost, that’s been there since Friday and hasn’t defrosted.  We just get more layers on top of more layers.  It makes the garden look so pretty though and hides a lot of the ugliness from the crappy gardens down the street so at least I don’t have to look at their mess for a while.  Downside is that it’s very bloody cold, and I have about 5 inches of oil left in my tank, so I will have to order very soon.  At least the barrel price of oil has gone down so hopefully that will have affected my prices in a good way.  The kitties are not impressed with the cold, and are either wedged under a radiator or wrapped around my neck.  Last night I had to provide a hot water bottle for them as it was so cold here once I switched the heating off for the night.

My virus seems to be on the way out too.  I’m really surprised it didnt last very long but I’m glad as I don’t have time to be sick right now.   The Barry White voice has gone, the germs seem to have relocated from my throat to my nose but at least my head is a lot clearer and I can get on with stuff.

Got a big parcel of fabric today that I ordered from ebay last week.  Mainly boring things like interfacing but some nice checked wool dress making fabric that I liked the look of and a little bit of silk.  Don’t know where all the other things I order have got too.  I just hope the US stuff doesn’t get held up in customs and cost me more money

I decided yesterday (and the postman agreed) that I sounded like Barry White after a hard night of booze and cigarettes.  So I decided to track down some Barry and compare.  Actually I kicked Barry White’s ass, my voice is much deeper at the moment and maybe I should go out and do some one night only appearances around town.  (Remember Phoebe from Friends with her “sexy” deep cold induced voice?)  Problem is I feel too sick to leave the house let alone go out on the entertainment circuit lol.

This damned virus is getting in the way though and I have so much I need to get done, including a term paper due on Tuesday and a bunch of stuff to make for the shop and for Christmas, but it’s making me a bit useless at the moment.  Stupid viruses, I feel like a man, I’m complaining so much about such a small thing.  The IT Crowd was on last night but I couldn’t enjoy it as much as usual because trying to laugh results in a coughing fit and it shoulds like I’m hacking up a lung or something lol.  I recorded it and will watch it again when I feel better and can give it laughing justice.

Everything was white when I got up this morning.  It’s not snow, it looks like really thick frost.  I had no idea it was so cold last night but then I may have a fever.  Still waiting for the postman to deliver something/anything but the Christmas rush has started already and the postman is running about 2 hours later than usual.

Part of my order from Zazzle got cancelled while I was sleeping last night.  They had a problem with one of the images, which is odd because of the four items I ordered three of them had the same image and they were all approved. *scratches head*  They sent me a nice email with links to the approved and un-approved items so I could see what the problem was, but unfortunately none of the links they gave me linked to any of the products, so I am still clueless.  It will be a surprise when the package arrives since I have no clue what I will be receiving.

Colour me confused!

What else is confusing about these people is that I never get any emails from them if anyone buys anything, comments on my shop, etc but I do get emails from them advertising stuff, confirming my orders etc.  I have all the notifications set correctly, I emailed them about it last week and all I got back was make sure you check your junk mail!  I was under the impression that no one was ordering at all but that’s not the case.  People are ordering, I just don’t get told about it!

Ah on Cafepress everything is so transparent.

Got an email tonight from the lovely Zazzle people announcing that they will be having a Black Friday sale this Friday, some product lines will be 20-50% off, plus some free shipping options and a bunch of other stuff.  I’m going to bed so I can’t do much about it now, but I guess I should aim to get as much product in the shop tomorrow in preparation for the sale.  At least that way there will be something there should anyone decide to buy something.

Bought more craft supplies today.  I can’t really say I needed most of it but I like to be prepared and have things just in case I might need them.  I guess I missed my calling as a boy scout. Spoke to the girl in the craft shop and she was saying the same thing.  She likes to have something just in case.  Maybe there’s a lot of that going around, what do you think?  I also told her about Etsy and she wrote down the URL and might be checking it out.  She makes jewellry too!

At the moment I reckon I could open my own craft supplies shop as I have a fair amount of stock just sitting around waiting/begging/pleading to be made into something, and um well not a lot of free time to sit down and do it.  Plus I keep going off on tangents.  Today I saw things in the shops, got inspired and bought raw materials to try and make my own.  Not what I went out to get.  Also ordered some rather nice fabric last night from the US, stuff I can’t get here, and then tonight ordered some more fabric via ebay, for the same reason - can’t get it locally. See I just went off on another one, what I was going to say is that I’m very good at the organising/getting the supplies in side of things but I fall down when it comes to the actual doing part of it.  I’m ready and have just about everything you can think of that I might need to make just about everything… or open a craft shop!

All the pretty bags arrived today for Tablet packaging but unfortunately me and my BIL/sister seem to have eaten it all so I will have to start again tomorrow *whistles*

Oh and I nearly forgot, Cafepress have added five new products to their list, all hoodies, zip up hoodies, black hoodies etc.  And last night Zazzle made it easier for shopkeepers to add designs to multiple products.  It’s all happening!

Ok I am waaaay too excited about this but look what I made today.

Ok, so I know that no one will probably EVER want to buy them but I really had a lot of fun designing them hehe.

I came home today and felt inspired to create something, so I decided to try out the shoe design option on Zazzle.  I think I’ve made 5-6 pairs tonight but they have to go through an approval process and this is the first one I made and it just got approved!  Yay!

I feel the need to make more shoes, but it is a little time consuming and I haven’t eaten yet and I need to watch True Blood in about twenty minutes, and as I’m typing this I’m thinking that actually if I could have a superpower I think right now I would like Hiro’s so I could stop time and get a whole lot of work done lol  That’s one handy power he has there.

Now, apart from these Keds shoes on Zazzle, I also came across a pattern for making these slippers the other day

So I can feel like Betty Grable

I really want to make these NOW.  The ones in the photo don’t have any soles so I think if I was making them I would be adding some rubber soles, preferably non-slip.  (note to self:  track down supplier of non-slip rubber soles)  I really think my mum would love these, she loves the 40s and she has some peep-toe shoes, so I think maybe if I can find the sole suppliers, then I might make her a pair for christmas.  Of course she never wears flat anything but maybe she’ll love them and make an exception.

Now back to the shoe designing…