The Owl Eyes Have Spotted Me!

A few days ago I was contacted by a very nice student from the University at St. Andrews in Scotland asking if they could use a photo of my "Road Trip" Domino Keychain for an article about a trip through the southwest of the United States. 

Of course, I was thrilled to be asked, especially after looking through their wonderful online magazine called Owl Eyes. The writing is excellent, and it is a fascinating look into life at "uni" in Europe. 

St Andrews is Scotland's first university and the third oldest in the English-speaking world, founded in 1413. They celebrate their 600th anniversary this year! 600?! Wow!

"Road Trip" Domino Key Chain
Mixed media and paper collage on a domino
© 2013 Victoria Porter

I highly recommend reading some of the articles to get a feel for the life there. The Big Top Ball is a good read and shows how different US and European colleges are in relation to student activities (and drinking on campus).

Reading through the article That Time I Went to A 65th Birthday Party In Spremberg had me laughing! How I would love to hitchhike in an event sponsored for charity! That doesn't happen here in the States. 

It makes me want to go to University at St. Andrews! Or at least visit Scotland - that is on my bucket list. I'll need an amphibious car to make it a road trip, though! 

- Vickie

"Put A Bird On It!" :: RNEST Challenge

It's time for another Rochester NY Etsy Street Team Monthly Challenge! November's theme is "Put A Bird On It!", which is more in reference to the delicious and varied poultry we will enjoy on Thanksgiving than the current cute trend. 

Personally though, I love putting birds on anything. I adore little birdies. If I could be any animal it would definitely be a little bird!

My "Party Bird" domino pendant was created with ridiculously tiny, hand-cut pieces of paper that I painted myself. Even the little poofy part on top of the hat is hand-cut! 

Head on over to the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team's blog to cast your vote! You have until November 14th at midnight.

You can also head on over to In My Head Studios' Etsy shop to buy this dapper little fellow for yourself! 

- Vickie

T'was the Night Before Mayday! Underground

The nights before my craft shows tend to be busy with last minute projects and calculating how much glue I can get to dry by the following morning. Tonight is no exception!

I just got back from The Main Street Armory to drop off my tables. Oh my goodness, it was good that I did! I have a corner spot which means I can set up more than one table. Yippee! 

Now I have to pull out the extra displays from the basement and dust them off from last year. I hope there is room for the silver candelabra again. I think that looks awesome with pendants hanging on it. Oh, shiny!

I definitely have enough Tiny Works of Awesome to fill my tables! I made about 10 new domino pendants this past week. About 40 more Scrabble tile pendants were finished as well. Plus we have some new Reclaimed Hardware designs featuring rescued-from-the-scrap-heap metal nuts, washers, and other machine parts mixed with beads and wire. They are really cool mixed media jewelry with a funky steampunk style.

Yeah, I'm the girl at [big box home improvement store] staring at the Oh, shiny! displays of wing nuts, washers, gaskets, and hinges - and I look lost or possibly abandoned by the male who must have dragged brought me there - but I am only lost in thought as I dream up ways to use these beautiful shinies in jewelry. 

Come see them for yourself at Mayday! Underground Crafts + Art on Saturday, November 5, 2011 at The Main Street Armory in Rochester, NY from 10 AM to 5 PM!

 
    <3  Vickie

Some Works In Progress

A sneak peek at a few domino pendant works in progress...


Isn't she the cutest little fairy?

These will be ready to go for reHATCHED: Female Artist Showcase Series this Saturday at the Tango Cafe! Hope to see you there!

- Vickie

Double Your Fun! : A Giveaway!

I am super thrilled to announce another event I’m doing with my local Etsy Team*, the Rochester New York Etsy Street Team (RNEST)! We are a group of artisans living in or around Rochester, NY, joined in a common cause, creating handmade items that we share with the world in our Etsy shops. This is a fantastic group of folks to work with. They are fun and knowledgeable about the business of handmade. Plus they are seriously generous! There is a giveaway on our team blog every week!

Michelle from The Quilted House and I decided to double-team y’all for the holidays. We are offering a great big giveaway! A full gift ensemble… wrapping included!

I am giving away a domino pendant in one of my favorite designs – the “Home Sweet Home Nesting Bird Collage” Altered Domino Fine Art Pendant.

The collage on this domino pendant is a print of a larger work of art that I made specifically for my domino jewelry. The original is 6” x 3”, about the same proportion as a domino but bigger. I sent the edge of the house layer through my sewing machine and am delighted that the detail of the stitching came through in the tiny print on the domino. The text “home sweet home” is itty bitty text cut out, backed with red cardstock, and glued to the little print. It has quite a lot of dimension for being so small.

The winner gets their choice of black waxed cotton cord, ball chain, or ribbon for the necklace as well as their choice of length for the necklace. Keep reading for the details about how to enter the contest.

Plus, through December 31st, entering the coupon code RNESTROCKS will net you 10% off everything in my Etsy shop! [Shipping deadline for Christmas is December 20, 2010] 

Michelle, as you can maybe tell from the name of her shop, The Quilted House, loves quilting. She loves to create useful quilted items such as qPouches for your music player, gorgeous notebook and journal covers,  and awesome stockings and ornaments that are beautiful and will make you smile every time you use them. Her shop is currently chock full of fun items for the holidays and beyond!


 

She is giving away a cute little quilted mini gift tote! This little quilted gem is the perfect size to hold a few truffles and a gift card, earrings, a ring box, or the fabulous domino pendant you just won. The recipient can then reuse it the next time a gift-giving occasion arises - the gift that keeps on giving! How cool is that?!

I can personally attest to the precision with which Michelle creates her works of quilted awesomeness. I’ve never seen such neat and tidy seams and hems! Don’t get me started about her folded corners on her line of jotters! Whoa! You cannot go wrong with purchasing a bevy of gifts from her shop!

The coupon code RNESTROCKS will give you a 10% discount in The Quilted House, too!

Ok! So you are saying, “Shut it already! How do I win this pot of gold??”

Go to the Rochester NY Etsy Street Team blog and get the details, which involve the usual things like hearting my shop, following the RNEST blog, and bonus entries for tweeting and blogging the giveaway. The winner will be chosen using the random number generator on Tuesday, December 14th and will be announced in the next Wednesday Wellspring on the RNEST blog on December 15th.

Good luck! I can't wait to see who wins! I get excited about giveaways! 

Happy Holidays!!

- Vickie


*What are Etsy Teams? They are an Etsy.com community feature where one can gather at the crossroads of the handmade marketplace and community, meet people with common interests, and collaborate. The Teams feature makes it easy for you to join an existing team or to create, maintain, and promote a new one. It's also a way for shoppers to browse by theme or location and find shops that might interest them.

Where Did the Last 30 Days Go?

Busy! Busy! Busy! And none of it was so interesting that it got a blog post! You know, the ho hum of everyday. Maybe I don’t see the interestingness for all the doing that gets in the way. So I guess you want an update on things seeing as it has been a month since we last met? Where have I been? What have I been doing?

A couple days after the show at St. Rita’s last month my dad had emergency surgery. Big, major, scary surgery. It went as planned but there have been a few complications. But Dad is now doing super-duper well after all the surgery and poking and testing. He is staying here with Mr. M and I for a bit. To be truthful, I like having Dad stay here with us. I get to hug him whenever I want and spoil him a little. He deserves it. He’s an awesome dad!

I get a lot of my craftiness from him. He makes things, too, but in a much larger scale. His skill in restoring antique cars and hot rods is stunning. He does it all old-school with steel sheet benders, welding, and paints them himself. You don’t find that much anymore. We have been hatching plans to restore a little MG he has hidden away. Of course, I want to make everything we would need from scratch, but he is experienced enough to know that is not practical if we ever want to finish it. C’mon! It’s a giant art project!! On wheels!

Other than that I have just been making “Tiny Works of Awesome” for shows. That’s my new slogan. Do you like it?

Way more custom orders came in this year than last and caught me off guard. Those are taking a little longer to finish than I hoped they would, but only because I want them to be my best work for my customers, and I am taking care of my dad at the same time.

If you are considering a custom order for this holiday, I encourage you to hop on it very quickly. I am only taking custom orders until December 6th in order to assure on time holiday delivery.

The photo up top on this post is a new work of mine. Trying the steampunk thing. She has a lot of little details like tiny watch parts, beads, washers, mini brass lock nuts, and brass nails. This one sold at my last show, but I am taking orders for more like her. Let me know if you dig it and want one.

Want to shop in person with In My Head Studios? I love to meet people at craft shows! My next show (and possibly the last show of the season):

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Irondequoit High School’s Arts & Crafts Sale

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Irondequoit High School

260 Cooper Rd


Rochester, NY 14617

Last Show of the Season

This week has been busily spent getting ready for the next craft show today at the Irondequoit High School. This is going to be a good show. I can feel it. I’m pretty much all packed up and ready to go. I have three pendants that were sprayed with sealer yesterday to finish.

These are domino pendants I finished this past week. I am unable to pick a favorite from this bunch! They’re all really nice!

Stop down to the show if you're local. It's our last show of the season!!

Irondequoit High School Arts & Crafts Show
Saturday, November 28th
260 Cooper Road
Irondequoit, NY 14617
10 AM to 4 PM

I'm offering free worldwide shipping on everything in my shop at inmyheadstudios.etsy.com. It's good until Monday! And for reading my blog I'm also offering an additional 10% off through Monday if you type "Blog10%" in the Message to Seller upon checkout! I'll refund your discount promptly through PayPal.

Etsy Buy Handmade inmyheadstudios

I'm In A Treasury

One of my Etsy Twitter Team members made this treasury to promote our team! I'm honored to be included in such great company! Thanks!

Click on the image below to visit the Treasury. When you're there please leave a comment! Also it helps us move up the "hot" rating if you click on each item. Happy browsing!

Created by Caelum.etsy.com
expires May 21st

Original post at: Etsy Twitter Team: Team Treasuries

And Hopefully They Don’t All Fall Down

Today has been all about sealing dominos for the upcoming show at Spot Coffee. Yesterday I managed to complete a lot of them to the point that they need to be sealed. The process involves an acrylic glaze medium and my finger. Or my mom’s finger as she actually does most of the sealing for me. She rocks. But I have digressed.

It’s sort of fun to line them all up like when I was a kid and would make complex set-ups of dominos in elaborate designs. I would carefully craft stairs or obstacles for the dominos to navigate. Then I would push over the first domino and hope they would all fall down in a giant chain reaction. We had a huge living room/family room and I would take over the whole thing!

But here if they fall down it is a problem. So I put another domino next to them to keep them upright. The white you see on top of the dominos is the sealer that has not yet dried. Preferably, I like to let them dry on each side for a day so I don’t smush fingerprints into uncured sealer. However, I was careful today (and brave) and sealed five sides out of six for 21 dominos. Cords and beads are the next steps after adhering bails. That’s a fun part too.

I really like making altered dominos! I’m using many skills I have acquired over the years like graphic design, using a drill, wire wrapping, basic jewelry making, and rubber stamping. There really is no limit to what you can do with them. I’m beginning to think about doing original drawings on them. But I’m having some self-doubt about my drawing ability and what people will like and buy. I need to get over that and just do it!

I will be at the
First & Last Arts & Crafts Show
May 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
5 – 10 PM
Spot Coffee
200 East Avenue
Rochester, NY 14604

Get your Mother's Day gifts at the show and buy Mom something really special! It's local and handmade! She'll love it!

Textured Dominos – New Work

Much of my day is spent staring down a pile of dominos trying to figure out what to make them into. About a week ago I came up with one of my best ideas ever. Yes. Ever. And I would love to share the details of what I came up with, but I don’t want anyone to copy my idea. So I’ll share the pictures of my new work instead, and you can try to guess at how I did it. :)

These domino pendants still need the final glossy coat, a bail, and to be strung on a cord and beaded. I’d love to know what you think about them.