happy belated canada day & early 4th of july

the photo is of a pair of key rings i made a while ago from these fabulous jade soochoo stars.  i only have one left - i forget where i put the other.

we canadians celebrate our country's birthday on july 1st - and this year things were "special" because prince william and his new bride were in ottawa to kick off the festivities.  not that i'm a royal watcher or anything but it's hard to miss a royal visit like that when it's all over the internet and every media outlet.  secretly, i am charmed at the british monarchy's continued attempts at maintaining a sense of his-and-hers-royal-highnessesses but really, a cup of earl grey tea is a little more regal to me.  that being said, happy 4th of july to all of you in the US - yay for independence!  i love it that there are two very similar holidays in our neighbouring countries that include bbqs, patriotism and fireworks.

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cannonball.

some dude said about this song - "Holy f*ck, that bassline nearly opened a portal back to the 90's." i couldn't agree more. and to make it even better, the mini loves loves loves this song.

she is so cool. so are the breeders. yay.

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open hoops.

lately i've been thinking of other design possibilities for the 'open hoop'.  i have found that for someone accident-prone like i am, that these types of earrings seem to be the best choice.  not only are they lightweight and easy to wear, but they are less likely to fall out or be pulled out of shape (or out of my ear) by a small toddler.  i also love the organic look obtained by melting the end of the wire into a little ball and these on the right encompass all of those qualities.  i like the modern, linear quality of these - kind of a like a little punctuation mark for your ears (or maybe a safety pin?  punk throwback, much?) can't beat that, now can you? 

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good bookkeeping. (and no, that doesn't describe me)

i am sooo not a bookkeeper.  or accountant.  despite the fact that a lot of my real job has to do with money and spreadsheets, i'm really an artist deep down.  which means i am numerically challenged.  (but don't tell my boss that)  i finally had some time to sit down and sift through the heartsy voucher information from two weeks ago - initially i had been keeping great records (yay me!) at what vouchers had been redeemed and what balances were left over, if any - but as orders came in and then the strike happened, well, let's just say i got a little derailed.  so i used the heartsy csv feature and imported my voucher information into an excel spreadsheet and cross referenced with my etsy account.

(for all you sellers thinking about running a heartsy feature - take it from me and keep on top of your vouchers from the get go.  then you'll save yourself the trouble of sitting down for a couple of hours digging through everything.  heartsy has a fabulous csv export feature.  use it.)

so far, there have been 39 out of 75 vouchers redeemed (or partially redeemed).  not bad, seeing as how over the past 12 days i've been able to get almost all orders made, tumbled and packed.  the only delay has been the canada post strike (which is now OVER and the mail gets moving on tuesday!  thank you, L, for the txt message updates).  not too shabby!  (and also means i have to go on a supply run for sterling but oh well.  like shopping for precious metal is a bad thing.)  and i feel organized.  at least for today.

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i will follow you into the dark - part deux

seriously - as if this song couldn't already make me cry - combine it with piano and this dude... and i'm done. seriously done.

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