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I have had an etsy thread bookmarked for months and never went back to it until today when I was looking for another bookmark. It is a list of really amazingly helpful links to navigate etsy.com that you won't actually find on etsy. Make sense? Others have compiled a resource of tools and information here.

Great for both searching/shopping and for sellers =)

happy holidays!

i made some ornaments for my tiny tree today!

they are so very handmade, arent they? i have presents for my family piled around the large sewing supply tin i have it perched upon, with a scrapbooking doily-looking embellishment paper as the "skirt". i found the perfect size string of lights at cvs for 99 cents maybe? i decided to try something different for gift wrap this year and decided to wrap three of my gifts in a few layers of a tissue paper vintage smock-like dress pattern ill never use, and used some natural colored cotton string with a simple handmade gift tag. i used the pattern's directions for another gift. i recycled two brown paper gift bags and some unused tissue paper to finish up the final two.

reminder : shipping deadline

this was one of my favorite baskets i think? and a metal watering can.




so yep, the shipping deadline for this year is december 19th. anything ordered from my etsy shop [handmade.etsy.com] will be shipping after january 1, 2009.


my hands need a break. and i am really looking forward to enjoying this holiday season.

december 20th : mark your calendar

for jackson

sent out this special rush birthday delivery to a little boy in cincinnati. i love the bright royal blue as the backdrop for the colorful fruits and vegetables! happy birthday jackson!

handknit latte sweaters revisited

happy thanksgiving!



now that the holiday shopping season is officially upon us, i would like to reintroduce the latte sweater as a marvelous little gift idea. i was amazed at how quickly these little beauties were snapped up at last weekends handmade market, so as i sit here, knitting some more, i thought i would remind everyone that these exist.







if you have a friend or co-worker or someone that is a regular coffee drinker who often uses take-out cups, you might consider giving them a handknit latte sweater to re-use instead of throwing away cardboard sleeves or double-cupping. i knit these with little bits of handspun and other bright, colorful yarns, and dress them up like little tea bags. see?

they dont have to be for lattes, just any warm drink, like hot chocolate or apple cider. they will keep your hand burn-free, are helpful for distinguishing which cup belongs to whom, and would make great little stocking stuffers =)

i love how they look in their little display box!

handmade's t-shirts, playfood and market sign

handmade's t-shirts, playfood and market sign
Originally uploaded by clevelandhandmade

awesome photo that smashing took of my stuff at sundays handmade market.

Cleveland Handmade Market November 2008

Cleveland Handmade Market November 2008
Originally uploaded by virtuallori

what a great group we have! the show was so much fun and sooo many people showed up! you can tell that i pretty much abandoned any thought of sleep the night before [too much to sew!] but it was worth it to spend time with these awesome ladies! thanks to everyone who came out and shopped! and thanks again to the awesome musicians who provided christmas music for us!

we made the IT list !!!

the Cleveland Plain Dealer did an IT List of local holiday shows to find awesome gifts and things, and they totally included this sunday's cleveland handmade market! i hope this means we will get lots of eager shoppers =)

team treasury!

on thursday etsy did a few live team trunk shows including one for the cleveland team! they even put a team treasury on the front page to spotlight some of the people featured in the trunk show as well as other members of the team. i was working at the coffee shop but popped in to make a few comments and say hello to all between making lattes and sandwiches =)

front page!

i am so excited!
my carrots were put in a treasury that made the etsy front page today! what a cute bunch [harhar!]

mark your calendars!

you may have noticed a new blue box to the left over there. see it? did you click it yet? you should! if you are in the cleveland area, you should totally stop at the Cleveland Handmade Market on sunday, november 23rd from 10a-4p. you can find all sorts of amazing handmade items for you or for the special people in your life. plus, i will be there, and coffee will be there, and we will have music playing by real live musicians, and a crackling fireplace to give it that extra cozy christmas feel. yay!

O City Pumpkin 2008

saw this on my walk yesterday =)

the exact OPPOSITE of the McCain campaign

this video makes me cry. it reminds me that there are some really thoughtful, good, honest, hard-working people out there who want a better life and deserve the opportunity to have their needs met and to live a healthy and happy life. i truly believe the Obama campaign wants that for people. i really dont think that john mccain is what this country needs. we need a uniter, not someone who divides us and has run a campaign based on smears, lies, and general misinformation.

remember to vote this tuesday if you havent already taken advantage of early voting!

So much for seperation of Church and State.

A Mormon man named Joe Vogel wrote a very thought provoking and sincere article about California's Proposition 8, and how the Mormon Church has donated $19 million to try to help overturn the gay marriage amendment.

He says,

"With Proposition 8 it is time to stand for justice, not discrimination. It is time to stand for equality. It is time to be on the right side of history. Regardless of race, gender, or sexuality human beings are human beings and deserve to be treated as such. Today I voice my public support in favor of treating my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as equals, and ask my fellow Mormons to do the same."


The entire article is very informative on the history of some important milestones in the church and in the world - from the Equal Rights Amendment for women, to Race Equality, and more.
I often find myself wondering why some of the most religious people seem to judge and condemn others when I was under the impression that most religions teach love and forgiveness, plus that "Judge not lest thee be judged" or "let he who has never sinned cast the first stone" stuff. Those aren't the exact quotes, but I recall learning those lessons as a kid.

I especially do not understand why some people have issues with other people being gay. I am of the impression that gay people are born gay, and the only "choice" they have in the matter is whether or not to be honest about that. Often, we see people who choose to deny their inner most feelings and try to "turn" themselves straight because they are taught that being gay is "wrong". This just encourages closeted, dangerous behavior where people like Larry Craig try to solicit sex in an airport bathroom.

Anyway, this is where Vogel breaks it all down -


"So here we are, in 2008, and now the threat is gay people who are already gay, who love each other and in many cases live together, and want to get married. How does this hurt the average Mormon family?

If the concern really was the practical welfare of the family, perhaps the Church could instead invest its vast resources into making healthcare universal and affordable, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act, cracking down on child predators, and improving the quality of our educational system. All of these issues have a direct impact on my family and millions of others.

You hear of marriages ruined all the time because of abuse, neglect, or stress over finances. But I have personally never heard of a divorce caused by another gay couple getting married.

Yet instead of focusing on issues that can really help nourish our families we obsess over a word. A word we refuse to share. A word that has never been perfectly fixed. There was a time, after all, when inter-racial marriage was just as taboo and illegal as gay marriage. Marriage has been many things, but the common ideal has been and should continue to be a relationship built on love and commitment.

So to my fellow Mormons: I ask you to please re-consider. Take the time you would spend fighting this errant cause with your family. Go to a movie. Take a drive together. Watch the World Series.

Maybe you don't completely understand homosexuality. Maybe you think it's a sin. But shouldn't we leave that to God and allow others to be who they are and make their own choices? As followers of Christ, isn't it always better to err on the side of compassion and love? "

When did "smart" become "elitist" and "bad"?

Literacy is important. To bow to the word-fad of recent years: "literacy matters."

While I'm not suggesting that Palin can't read - she reads her teleprompter gamely enough - it's not the first piece of evidence to suggest that she's no great friend of the written word and it all points to an alarming lack of intellectual curiosity. (As does getting her first passport a year ago.) I'm not saying she's stupid, but intelligence without intellectual curiosity is a blind and reckless force at best.

Listen to the profoundly empty "Joe Six-Pack", "Hockey Mom" blather that she's injected into the campaign, as John McCain's designated culture weapon, and it's no wonder that the Republican Party is shedding intellectuals faster than Karl Rove sheds subpoenas.

As conservative columnist David Brooks of the New York Times pointed out, Palin is the latest "cancer" to result from the virulent strain of populist anti-intellectualism that has come to define the modern Right. With Parker, and then William F. Buckley Jr. both being tarred and feathered by their conservative brethren, simply for voicing dissenting opinions and now with Brooks coming as close to a outright endorsement of Obama today as he likely ever will (unless he wants to change his home address) - one has to wonder how we got to such a crazy place; a place so crazy that brains have become a wedge issue.

It didn't start out this way.

Once upon a time we had leaders who were both highly intelligent and intellectually curious. While our current president struggles with English, our Founding Fathers spoke four to five languages. They weren't just politicians but diplomats and inventors, scientists, authors and public intellectuals.

And they were, to a man, extremely well read.

In college, Thomas Jefferson often read fifteen hours a day - and he read important works in the original - as it was a given that, along with mathematics, history and philosophy, an educated person should know Latin, Greek and French. There was a crazy idea at the time that if you wanted to play a role in the affairs of the world, you should learn a thing or two about it first.
There was a time when America's leaders neither aspired to be average nor pretended to be. They weren't Joe Six-Pack (or more aptly - Josiah Six-Ale). They were the best among us. They were the elite. In fact, they were our leaders precisely because they were the best among us. And that kind of made sense.

There are a number of qualities essential to good leadership. Courage is important, to be sure, but a cool head and a firm hand are important as well. Knowledge both wide and deep and the judgment to wield it- wisdom in other words - is perhaps the most essential quality of all.
Plato talked about the "philosopher king" ...well we've had almost 8 years of an idiot-king who flew by the seat of his flightpants and it's nearly ruined us; leaving us mired in two wars abroad with quaking markets and a gaping deficit at home.

Now, in a highly touted "change" election, one party is running a former D student who himself admits to being hot-headed and impulsive, whose low-road campaigning has tarnished both the electoral process and his own reputation and whose political ideas become less credible with every emerging reality. As his running mate this man has, either recklessly or cynically, chosen a woman who believes instead of thinking, who knows little of the world and whose every tortured sentence is an affront to the logic of language itself.

Forget the White House. The only public building these people should be heading for is the library.

At the worst of times we need to turn to our best. So bring on the bookworms, bring on the deep-thinkers, bring on the leaders who make decisions with their minds and not with their guts or their bibles.

from the article Sarah Palin... If You Don't Read, You Don't Lead.

end "fat talk"

"fat talk" means saying things like "do i look fat in this" and "you look good, did you lose weight?" and this short video talks about how there are more women in america with an eating disorder than with breast cancer. eating disorders and body image issues are a real problem for many women and we can change that by rethinking how we interact.

my thoughts exactly

"If you are a woman who believes that every home should have an assault weapon, that government should have dominion over our bodies, that the future defender of our educational system has yet to have a child who made it past high school, that stem cell research is evil, that Adam and Eve kept pet dinosaurs, that shooting wolves from helicopters makes for a fun afternoon -- then by all means, vote for McCain-Palin.

But if you are voting because there is a woman on the ticket, then you have fallen for one of the cynically sexist scams in campaign history.

Palin is on the ticket because of the same triumph of allure over ability that has denied women opportunities for decades."

full article here.

hindsight is 20/20

way back in february of this year, an attorney named sean olender wrote an article warning about the fannie/freddie bailout fiasco and it turns out, many, many others [like major economists] predicted just such a thing. at that time, no one was paying attention to the warnings because everyone was out spending their stimulus packages or something. if there is one thing our government really knows how to do, it is distract the public.

the original article can be found here. the following paragraph from the article really made me shake my head and sigh. can you believe it has come to this?

In support of the economic stimulus bill, Bush will have to face "working American families" and explain that some of their tax money is going to be spent guaranteeing $730,000 mortgages on $1 million homes. It's like some sort of upside-down communism where the poor pay the rich welfare. Why should taxes from families earning $48,000 a year be used to support expensive mortgages in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco? Welfare for the hungry and homeless is evil, but welfare for million-dollar homeowners facing a tough refi ... well, that's called "helping the economy."

If we're going to have a government-financed intervention, it should be to make sure that Social Security benefits go to those who paid for them, that the poor are fed and housed, or that the army of uninsured receive health benefits. If, as they say, we don't have enough money for those important things, then I think we don't have enough money to bail out banks and bond investors.

really, really think about it.

at the risk of sounding preachy, i'm just going to put this out there.

i posted this as a response to something a girl said in a mutual friend's blog, but wanted to put this out there for other people to read and really think about...

can you imagine being a 14 year old girl who survived a brutal attack and rape, and being FORCED AGAINST YOUR WILL to carry your rapists baby and be reminded every day for NINE MONTHS of your horrible ordeal?

can you even freaking imagine what that would feel like?!

how is that not considered cruel and unusual punishment? why would anyone want to punish a victim of a horrific crime like that?!

it blows my mind that there are people out there who think this is acceptable. especially when one of them could potentially run our country.

john mccain and sarah palin want to overturn roe vs. wade.

sarah palin, in particular, is extremely anti-choice and believes there should be no abortion even in cases of rape and incest. no exceptions.

that kind of thinking is anti-woman!

we will never have equality when there are rules about what a woman can/cannot do with her body and not a man. not to get gross, but, if there was a law telling men they could never jerk off because it "wastes seed" that could potentially become life, they would never stand for it. i know it isnt the same thing exactly, but think about it - there is no law telling a man what he cant do like they want for women. thats just messed up!

if you are pro-choice, please vote for obama! dont let the right wingers take away more of our rights! and don't let mccain's talk of "returning the decision to the states" fool you, either. if that happens, almost 50% of the states would have an abortion ban.

dont punish the victims!

please dont support the republican presidential candidates decision to take away more of our rights.