First, we had the walls painted! Goodbye yellow and pale green (not that we didn’t like you, just that you wouldn’t quite match our decor)…

Hello, blank canvas white! We chose to go with Behr’s Interior Flat Enamel in Decorator White to keep it simple and let the focus be on the fun, colorful products we’ll be carrying. It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint will do. The place felt instantly bigger, newer and brighter! I have a great painter to recommend if you need one. You’ll notice that the place is a little more cluttered today than it was pre-paint, but that’s because Jimmy and I started moving stuff in over the weekend!

Today was the first day I spent an extended period of time at the shop (5 hours). Thank goodness I had my laptop/iTunes otherwise I’d have toiled in silence! I spent most of the day assembling an IKEA table, wiping down surfaces, putting up some of the display fixtures I bought from Grand & Benedicts Fixtures on Monday, and observing as Steven from the Alameda Towne Centre masterfully fixed the pressure-assist system inside the toilet tank.

It was awesome when Jamie came in to hang two nicely sized “coming soon” signs. They’re great because once they went up, almost every passerby stopped to peek curiously into the window. Thanks Jamie!

The next highlight in my day was when Marianne of Maebee Jewelry — and my fellow Full Time Etsy Crafters (FTEC) team member — came by with her product delivery! I look like I just crawled out of bed, but Marianne was kind enough to say that it’s only because I was working hard. I like that Marianne. :]

Her chic little bracelets look perfect on my new T-bar display, and I love the tiny branded stickers she attached to each one.

I was also incredibly happy when the postman handed Rachel Austin’s package of goods to me too! Rachel’s yet another member of my FTEC team. I’m so lucky to have such a talented circle of team members. I’m still toying with the displays, but here’s my first crack at putting Rachel’s work up:

There’s a lot more to be done, but I’m pretty happy with the progress so far! We’ll see what tomorrow brings…Similar Posts:

• Introducing…Modern Mouse!

Yup it’s true. I hardly know where to start, but luckily this has all really only been brewing for…the past 17 days, if you count today. And if you count from the day I actually made my final decision to open up shop, then that narrows it down to 11 days. And heck if you count from the day that I signed the lease and got the keys placed in the palm of my hand…it’s been less than 36 hours! So there’s not that far back to go!

Alright already, what am I talking about here? Well in just 18 more days, I’ll be opening the doors to what I hope will be an exciting and energetic space in Alameda, California for people to come and discover the wares of more than 30 amazing, talented and fun designers from right here in the San Francisco Bay Area to across the country (and one in Japan)! The shop has been dubbed Modern Mouse, and it’s a temporary retail venture — i.e. a pop-up store! — which means you’ve gotta come by as soon as it opens and then as often as you can! We open our doors the 2nd week of November 2009 and invite each and every one of you to our grand opening celebration on Saturday Nov 14th!

We’ll have goods ranging from hand felted vases (Papaver Vert, Alameda, CA) to screen printed wool coasters (Girls Can Tell, Philadelphia, PA); t-bone steak plush toys (Sweet Meats, San Francisco, CA) to handmade soldered map pendants (XO Handworks, Osseo, MN); quilted Japanese-style lunch bags (Yokomono Studio, Berkeley, CA) to build-your-own miniature dinosaurs (Tinysaurs, Brooklyn, NY); and asian pear-scented handmade body lotion (mi SPA, Alameda, CA) to wire-wrapped gemstone jewelry (Mu-Yin Jewelry, Charleston, SC). That’s just to name a few! And of course I’ll carry a selection of my own line of bags, purses and pillows too. :]

I’ll get into it more over the next few days. I have so much to say about what’s already been a crazy cool whirlwind of a ride and I’m just spilling with excitement (and nervous energy!) about this incredible opportunity. But in the meantime, you can read more about Modern Mouse on our new website.

If you’re wondering about my Etsy shop, it’ll be on a short break until Modern Mouse is up and running like a well-oiled machine. Since we’ve only got until January 15th to make that happen, we hope that time comes ’round real soon. :] But sign up for any of my lists, or just follow me on Twitter, to stay on top of all the updates!

YAY!!!!!Similar Posts:

• Setting up shop

• Researching color palettes made by other users or generated by you (I used a bunch of these during my wedding planning daze)
• Generating color schemes from photographs
• (I love the name of and the tool ColorSuckr — check out how it sucked the colors right out of my kisslock change purse!)
  
• Finding color schemes from other websites

The last category is where I found my favorite tool of them all, a simple but useful tool called I Like Your Colors. After last month’s Adora-inspired post on finding color names, I figured this would be a fun way to ring in October’s set of posts.

I’ve already used I Like Your Colors to customize the color palette of my new Artfire shop (er, studio). Artfire allows you to choose from an assortment of preset color schemes or customize your own. There’s not much you can customize, but it’s enough to give me some tie-in between my blog and my Artfire shop. And now for my amusement, I shall demonstrate how.

1) Type in the web address of the site whose color scheme you’re interested in.
Go to I Like Your Colors, scroll to the bottom of the page and type in the URL in question. Click Get colors.

Search field from I Like Your Colors tool

2) Marvel at the display of hex values in use on your site.
I Like Your Colors picks up colors from my website header image as well as from my Wordpress theme.

I Like Your Colors search results

I Like Your Colors search results (from Wordpress theme)

3) Hop on over to your Artfire studio and customize your colors!
In the Edit My Studio section, choose (1) Colors & Themes. Click on the (2) Custom radio button. Select a (3) color for the top navigation bar. Then, set your colors for (4) Primary Font — see below for details on how to do this, (5) Dark Background and (6) Soft Background. Click (7) the Save Theme! button when you’re done.

Artfire's Colors & Themes page

How to set the hex value for your colors (numbers 4-6 in the image above).
Click on (1) a square to set colors for the primary font and backgrounds. A large color palette will pop up on your screen. It’s not immediately obvious that you can manually enter a hex value here, but you simply scroll down to the bottom of the color palette, highlight any hex value that’s already in the (2) text field and replace it with your desired hex value (you don’t need to type “#” first, but you can). Hit Enter or Return on your keyboard, and your color is set! Note that if you roll your mouse over any of the colors in the color palette, the field will automatically populate with that color. So keep your mouse out of the way.

Color palette

4) Click on My Studio in the left nav, and check your work!

NOTE: I use a backdrop image for my studio banner so you don’t see as much of the color customization as you would if you used a regular sized banner, but I like the backdrop image option a lot better because it gives you more control of the top of the page’s design.Similar Posts:

• Name that color!

What is Ebates? Ebates is a website that helps you earn up to 25% (but usually more like 4-6%) cash back when you shop from any of their participating online retailers. All you have to do is sign up for an account (preferably through the link I keep providing so that you’ll oh-so-kindly help me earn a $5 referral fee if you do =), then begin your shopping session from their site.

So let’s say I decide I’m going to order some photo prints from Shutterfly.com, which I do every now and then. I know that Shutterfly is one of the companies that partners with Ebates and that I’ll get a whopping 10% in cash back if I just 1) go to Ebates.com, 2) sift through their drop-down menu of stores or go straight to my Favorite Stores list (below), and 3) click on the Shutterfly link from there.

Clicking on Shutterfly from Ebates simply opens a new window in which the Shutterfly site loads, and when I place my Shutterfly order from it as usual, my order is assigned an Ebates tracking ticket and my account gets credited for the appropriate amount of cash back. If I spend 20 bucks on my order, I get 2 bucks back! Okay so it’s not a HUGE amount of money, but in my opinion it’s a really small effort on my part to occasionally get a few bucks back here and there. And now that I’m a full-time small business owner, every penny counts!

Is it safe? I’ve been a member for a few years and have never had any problems with them. All I do is make sure I go through them when I shop, and every 3 months they send me a check. For me, it’s a no-brainer. But, they also have an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. Plus, according to their website:

The company was founded in 1998 by two Deputy District Attorneys in Silicon Valley who used to prosecute online fraud & identity theft before starting Ebates (so you can be sure we are very into secure online transactions!)…Joining Ebates is always free – you’ll never pay us anything…

And this is how it works:

People often ask: “This sounds too good to be true, how are you able to do it?” It really is quite simple. Just like almost every other online shopping center, we get a commission from the stores when you make a purchase. Instead of keeping that money – like almost all other sites do – we share it with you!

I showed an excerpt of the participating stores that I have marked as favorites, but here’s my full list. They don’t have EVERYONE I shop with, but they have enough to make it worth it.

So decide for yourself but me, I’m gonna go deposit my $26.19 check!Similar Posts:

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rainbow lorikeet photo by mrclean1982

This post is inspired by my friend and neighbor Adora, who sent me a note last night in which she happened to say: “My dream job is to name colors… like, colors of paint, nailpolish, lipstick, etc.  My friends randomly point to objects and I tell them what color it is!” I had to pause at that and think: wow, that would be my nightmare job, cuz I’d be like, “Uuuuuh, that one is…dark green with sort of muddy brown undertones. And that one? Oh, that one’s more like bright green, slightly neonish maybe but not really.”

Ya. I’ve always had a hard time being able to name colors that aren’t your basic rainbow of fruit flavors. This I suppose is a rather odd shortcoming for someone who sells items made with fabrics in the most delicious assortments of color! It’s not that I’m colorblind or anything like that. I can see and differentiate colors and their variations, I just can’t recall their clever names!

What’s a girl with such a deficiency to do? Well let me tell you how I cheat my way through it! I hereby present you with…

5 tools to help you pick your perfect color name!

1) Consult good ol’ Crayola!

Crayola.com: There’s Crayola’s own list of Current Crayola Crayon Colors (CurrentCrayolaCrayonColors! CurrentCrayolaCrayonColors! CurrentCrayolaCrayonColors! CurrentCrayolaCrayonColors! CurrentCrayolaCrayonColors! Yup, 5 times fast ain’t easy.)

Crayola.com's list of current colors - an excerpt

Okay, so some of these color names just wouldn’t work in my Etsy shop. Can you imagine: “The color palette on this pillow cover includes shades of inch worm, macaroni and cheese, and a splash of jazzberry jam”?! That’d be nuts! I do love the name “manatee” for that light grey though. :] And indigo, mahogany, magenta and mango are perfectly reasonable color names.

Wikipedia: And of course Wikipedia offers a MASSIVE List of Crayola crayon colors, along with the dates they were issued as well as hex and RGB values. It’s easier to see the colors on their color chart, and the page also includes Crayola’s specialty crayon colors in addition to the standard. Fun!

Crayola colors on Wikipedia -- an excerpt

2) Look it up on — where else — Wikipedia!

It’s no surprise that Wikipedia has its own List of colors that go beyond just the scope of Crayola-made. This page lists colors alphabetically, and by shade! Here are some that start with the letter “E” (eh heh heh):

Colors that start with the letter "e", from Wikipedia

And colors that are shades of green:

Colors that are shades of green, from Wikipedia

3) Find synonyms and related words on RhymeZone.com

I use RhymeZone.com all. the. time. All the time! That’s my dirty little secret, not so secret anymore. Augh! There goes my edge. Sigh. All for the sake of the blog. The blog, I say!! Ya so anyway, RhymeZone’s good for any type of word. But did you know it’s good for colors too? Allow me to demonstrate. “Computer, show me words that are related to ‘green’!”

RhymeZone.com related words search

4) Use HP’s Online Color Thesaurus

The HP Online Color Thesaurus is a cool little tool that lets you enter your starting color and spits out 5 related and 5 opposite colors! The initial set of results is kind of limited, but you can drill down into more results by clicking on colors that come up in the results until you get where you wanna be. You want green, you say?

HP Online Color Thesaurus

5) Get fancy with these two related color tools: Name That Color, and Color Name & Hue

Remember that first green I was trying to describe, the “dark green with sort of muddy brown undertones”? Thanks to some color picking in Name That Color, I’ve figured it out. Avocado! It’s avocado!

Color tool: Name That Color

And the “bright green, slightly neonish maybe but not really” color? Hm…let’s see what Color Name & Hue, which was built based off of Name That Color by a color-blind fella to further identify the hue related to each color, has to say about that. That’s it, it’s chartreuse! Thanks, Color Name & Hue!

Color tool: Color Name & Hue

Am I the only one who comes up short when trying to drum up descriptive color names? How do you choose your color names? Inquiring minds want to know…Similar Posts:

• I Like Your Colors. My Artfire shop does too.

Used to be, I’d indulge myself and buy a sheet or two to use for the occasional piece of snail mail I end up sending out each year. But recently, USPS postage rates have been so on the rise that stamp values become obsolete way too quickly and I end up having to pair them with a gajillion of these make-up stamps:

Or these, which are slightly cooler but still annoying to use:

Like, 42 cent stamps came and went in such a flash (didn’t they?!) that I barely even had time to notice these awesome Year of the Ox stamps, much less get myself a sheet!

These days, I hardly use stamps anymore anyways. Even stuff that I used to snail mail — primarily legal documents, checks, that sort of thing — I now just scan and send via email, or pay with PayPal. Who needs stamps?! Not me. But I want them anyways! Who can resist USPS’s awesome online Postal Store, where you can find all sorts of cool stamps — AND OTHER STUFF! — for fun, for collecting, and of course for mailing. Doesn’t this super-cool Pewter Stamp Dispenser just make you want to run online and pick one and a coil of stamps up for yourself OR WHAT?!

Similar Posts:

• Curse you, BOE!
• Shopping for shipping supplies

Right, because I recently started working with a few local retailers and am SO excited about it that I’ve wanted to spread the word everywhere: on my blog, on Twitter and of course on Facebook, to name a few! So I added a Retailers page to my blog, updated my Profile in my Etsy shop, tweeted it out and made a few Facebook status updates about the news. And this week, I added a new tab on my fan page called “Where to Buy”!

Here’s a tutorial on how you too can add a custom tab to your very own fan page!

You’ll need:

• A Facebook Business Page (aka fan page) of your own
  • If you don’t yet have a fan page, see my previous post entitled Promote your Etsy shop on Facebook for assistance or try one of the many other fine tutorials that have been written since!
• Some very basic HTML knowledge…or simply the ability to copy other people’s HTML code!
  • Here’s a page from w3schools.com with four very basic HTML tags that make a perfectly good start for HTML newbies! If you’re feeling more adventurous, use the menu of the left side of their site to find out how to make bulleted or numbered lists, basic tables…and more! Hack away, no harm done!

Ready?

1) Add the Static FBML application to your page

• Go to the Static FBML application page and click “Add to my Page”.

• Tell Facebook which of your fan pages you want to add the Static FBML app to. Click Add to Page. Then click the Close button.

2) Go back to your fan page and open the newly added Static FBML application

• I usually access my fan page either through a bookmark that I’ve added to my browser, or through a shortcut I’ve created on my Facebook profile page. Below is a screenshot of the latter.

• Once you’re on your fan page, click Edit Page.

• You’ll see a list of editable stuff for your page. Scroll to the Applications section. (1) Click on the pencil icon to display the edit menu and (2) Click the Edit link.

3) Create content for your new tab

• Clicking the Edit link above will take you to a simple form page where you can edit (1) the title of your tab and (2) the content to be displayed in your tab. You’ll notice that I’ve used some really basic HTML tags in the FBML box in order to format how my content is displayed. If you don’t know any HTML, you could just enter plain text but everything will just show up as, well, plain text and in a single paragraph — no line breaks, no bullets, nada.

• When you’re done, click (3) Save Changes.

• Facebook will confirm that your changes are saved. Then, click on the name of your fan page to return to its front page.

4) Tell Facebook to display your new tab, dammit

• When you get back to your fan page, you’ll see that your new tab is…nowhere to be found. WHAT?! Not to worry. Click on (1) the + icon to add a new tab, and (2) select your newly created tab — in this case, “Where to Buy”.

• You should now see something like this, where your new tab is displayed, content and all, alongside all your other tabs:

You did it! You did it! Jump up and down, call your mother, tell your friends and holla at ya fans! Your new tab is in town!

Addendum:
Waaaaaait a quick second. Say you come back to your page the next day and WTH?! Your new tab is M-I-S-S-I-N-G. Freak out! No no, don’t do that. This just means that your other tabs have momentarily crowded it out. Just click on (1) the double arrow >> icon, and (2) select your previously “missing” tab. Note that you can shuffle the order of your tabs around just by clicking on the tab you want to move and drag it to your desired position, holding your mouse button down while you do this. Hooraaaay, happiness returns.

Feeling fancy?
To take it to the next level, or for more ideas and information, try these helpful articles:

• Customizing Facebook Pages with “Static FBML” application by HyperArts
• Static FBML: Not Every Facebook Fan Page Needs An Application by Snipe.Net

I hope this was helpful! If you have any other tips to share, I’d love to hear your inside scoop!Similar Posts:

• Promote your Etsy shop on Facebook
• How to add a zippered pocket to your handbag
• DIY shelf curtains!

Here’s me getting excited over a couple of cool sewing machines on exhibit at The Museum of Modern Art:

On our Ellis Island tour, we came across this word origins tree and see if you can figure out which word just popped right out at me:

And finally when browsing the library at our Gild Hall hotel, I happened to spot this book in the collection:

Talk about having bags and sewing on the brain! And now that I’m back home, I get to get right back to it. So I’m outta here! Got some sewing and (photo) shooting to do.Similar Posts:

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I awoke this morning to a fun note in my Etsy inbox informing me that one of my “ID, Please!” folding card cases was nominated for the “Which item gets you into a fabric frenzy?” poll in this week’s round of The Voter! The Voter is an interactive tool built by Etsy that lets the community vote on their favorite of nominated items within certain categories. Voting runs for one week, and at the end of the poll the winning item gets featured on Etsy’s blog, The Storque! It’s a big deal for Etsy sellers to get featured on The Storque, so I’m excited to even just be a nominee. :]

As of the 5th hour of voting, I’m in 15th place out of 39 total. And I can’t stop checking! Now there’s a productivity buster for ya. So addicting!

If you’re reading this and it’s not yet August 10, 2009 at 7am PT, vote for me! Vote for me! You’ll have to register an account on Etsy so your vote can be counted, but why wouldn’t you want to do that anyway?! ;] Hooray, woohoo and thanks!

Similar Posts:

• I’d give my right arm for a wallet like that
• Pouches y polka dots
• Faux bois for moi, faux bois for toi

The other day I came across this sweet looking book Drip.Dot.Swirl. by illustrative designer Von Glitschka, via a Craftzine book giveaway.

I tried to win the book but alas, no such luck! Phoo. So onto the Amazon wishlist it goes, because a) I love the title and b) it looks sooooo chock full of drool-worthy designs. Plus, PLUS! the book comes with a DVD containing all the vector patterns (in three color themes each!) that you can customize in Adobe CS2 or higher as you so please. How ya like that?!

images from Art Backwash

The author offers some freebie teaser downloads that you can test drive:

• “Beautiful” from his book site, Vonsterbooks.com (in the Drip.Dot.Swirl. column under “FREE Pattern Download”)
• “Memory Lock” from his blog, Art Backwash

And then TODAY while I was searching for Drip.Dot.Swirl for this post, I found Wallpaper Projects by San Francisco’s own Lauren Smith and Derek Fagerstrom! This sweet-looking bundle of pages boasts, as the subtitle says, more than 50 craft ideas for your home, from accents to art. And while it features wallpaper as the material, I’m thinking a little Mod Podge + fabric would work just as well! Maybe?!

I can’t believe I didn’t know about the book before but now I do, and yup — hellooooo, wishlist!!! Sheesh, still almost six more months til Christmas. Can I even wait that long?! Perhaps not. So I best get on it and sell more pouches y pillows, people!!!Similar Posts:

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