I sat down this morning with a piece of paper and a pencil and began to make lists- specifically, those who liked the Lemon, the Squid, the Eyeballs or any combination of the above. I numbered said lists, and then pulled up Random,org's number generator to get the following:

Lemon Buttons Winner

Lemon Lime!

I love what you do. You're very talented. I would love to see vegetable buttons of all kinds.

pricklypearcactuscandy@comcast(DOT)net

Squid Toggle Winner

buttons

They're all awesome, particularly the squids. There aren't enough squid buttons in the world.

wrongtree09atgmaildotcom

Eyeball Button Winner

I would love the eyeball buttons--my brother-in-law is an opthamologist and I could crochet him a cool hat and put the eyeballs on it!

Misty.Creek
misty.creek1 at gmail dot com

Congrats to the winners! And followers, new and old (at least, I hope I picked up some new ones- I did get a lot of traffic!), stay close: I'm going to give you guys another shot.

If you're looking for my giveaway day post and don't feel like scrolling, it's here!

Which of you have etsy stores? Of those who answered with an enthusiastic "me!", which of you have tried paid advertising? Where did you advertise and how did it work for you?

I've been contemplating using my copious free time to do some experiments in advertising my etsy shop. While I can't afford a massive campaign, there are places where I could throw up an ad for a day or two for just a few dollars- long enough to see what kind of impact it has on my analytics, and possibly on my sales. After all, it'd be nice to have a little bit of income over the holidays, if only to feed back into updating and advertising the shop (keeps me feeling productive).

I'm a scientist at heart and thrive on experimentation, but I have yet to do much experimenting with the shop, besides trying to learn the essentials of SEO. Advertising is totally new territory. Perhaps I'll even gleefully report my results- which ads in which locations for what price gave me the largest bump in page views, or even sales. Good information for us all, no?

First, though, I require an ad. So far, my attempts at throwing together said ad have resulted in this concoction:

I'm rather new at this, though, and don't know if it's effective or merely annoying. Suggestions?

Hello and welcome! Today is Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day! As I'm anticipating a lot of new visitors, I'd like to introduce myself: my name is Tala, more commonly known about the internets at Corvus. I'm a recent graduate who emerged from the halls of academia with two Bachelors of Science and no employment (yet!), and I like to create. It's a bit of an understatement to say I'm not real picky about the medium; more like I won't be satisfied until I've tried just about everything crafty.

This blog chronicles it all: my knitting, my sewing, my (sad, failed attempts at) crocheting, my many works with polymer clay, my embroidery (with free patterns!), my octopus obsession, my various forms of jewelry making, drawing/painting/general art, travels and adventures, tutorials, pirates, science and even the occasional bladesmithing.

Recently, I've been making buttons out of polymer clay, and last night I posted them all over the Internet asking which buttons I should give away. By popular consensus I came up with the following:

Squid Toggles

A set of three Squid Toggle buttons.


Lemon and Lime

And a set of two lemon buttons (the pair on the right).


Single Eyeballs

And, because I'm morbid and creepifying and want to throw it in, a pair of eyeball buttons. That's three prizes in all!

So here's how to play!

Step 1: Leave me a comment by clicking on the blue pencil on the top right of this post. In this comment, please tell me which of the buttons you prefer (all of the above is a perfectly good answer). If you have any ideas for other buttons I could make, caned or sculpted, let me know! If you don't have a livejournal or OpenID account, don't worry; you can comment anonymously.

Step 2: Everyone please make sure to sign your comment with your e-mail address (and, if you have it and want to share, a blog address), otherwise I won't be able to tell you if you've won.

Step 3: Sit back and wait. This giveaway is open until December 6, at which point I will determine the winners by random drawing and ship the booty by December 12.

Unfortunately, as I am currently looking for a job and not yet finding one, I can't manage international shipping; thus, this giveaway is US/Canada only. My deepest apologies for that.

Check out all the other giveaways at the Sew Mama Sew Blog: Handcrafted Item(s), Handcrafted Item(s) + Supplies/Materials, and Sewing + Knitting Supplies/Materials. Thank you!

ETA: If you can't see the pictures here, you can see them here.

Vroom!

Behold, my beloved Dremel! She and I have been busy...


Mess? What mess?

...making messes...


Sizes

...and buttons! I find it a fantastic way to use up canes, and satisfying on some deep "OMGILOVEBUTTONS" level. Buttons, you see, are one of the few things I collect (along with yarn, fabric, books, corsets, hats and unexpectedly, roses made of various materials... okay, maybe not so few). Making your own collection? Priceless.


Lemon and Lime


Checkers

Each button was buffed with a fabric buffing wheel and the above beloved Dremel, hand-polished with felt, and then sealed with a glossy polyurethane coat, mostly becase I like things shiny. There's all sorts in all sizes; citrus and checkers and eyeballs and stars and even toggle-like squid.


Stars (Which Glow!)

The stars glow in the dark. The giant star button is probably my favorite.


Single Eyeballs

Because normal button eyes aren't creepy enough. Please ignore the bad photo editing; sometimes (particularly with a really cheap loaner camera) I just kind of give up.


Multi Eyeballs

Tomorrow is Sew Mama Sew's Giveaway Day, and I wil be giving away buttons. This gives me a bit of a category error (handmade or supplies?), but that's okay. The only thing left to figure out is WHICH buttons to give away. Time is short, but if you have input I'd love to hear: which are your favorite buttons?

I've got all sorts of fun plans for even more buttons. I'm going to sculpt some. And yes, there will be octopus.


Squid Toggles

Cuttlefish!

Eyeballs are not the only things I've made in clay recently. I've also, unsuprisingly, churned out some cephalopods. The world could always use more cuttlefish jewelry, no? The two small beasties are for earrings and the larger are pendants. The one on the right is an experiment in using acrylic paint to highlight details and shadow and maybe make it look a little less... playful? Bright? Young? I'm not sure what I think yet. I'm also not sure how I'm going to integrate the pieces into jewelry; I have lots of ideas, some more difficult than others.

I tried to add a lot more detail this time as compares to my previous cuttlefish jewelry, and I'll add even more detail in the next go-round. Maybe some day I'll learn enough to make species-specific pieces with all the relevant coloration and anatomy, rather than this general styelized representative.

For example, this is the Flamboyant Cuttlefish:


Image By Jenny Huang, http://www.flickr.com/people/diverslog/

It stretches all of and imposing 6 to 8 cm long in the mantle and sees its world from a leisurely walking pace. Unique to the Flamboyant Cuttlefish, the species' cuttlebones (used in other cuttlefish both for support and buoyancy, and by humans as calcium supplements for pet birds) is so underdeveloped that it doesn't float, and instead walks around on the ocean floor.

So why would a slow-moving, tiny cephalopod flash such bright colors without marking itself as a particularly beautiful snack? Why, because it's poisonious of course. The Flamboyant Cuttlefish is the only known poisonous cuttlefish in the world.

This has been your daily dose of zoology nerd. I highly reccomend Nova's Kings of Camoflauge for more.

(Side note: It's been snowing -and hard- since Tuesday night, with no sign of letting up. I'm more of a tropical gecko than a snow bunny myself, so I'm staying safely inside where the temperature is adjustable.)