Last Day of a Great Deal!

If you love my Sleep Angels, now's the time to get one! I'm offering free shipping on these dolls and their sisters until Monday at 12 midnight, New York time. Click here to see all the Angels I have available. Happy shopping!

My Niece...

... is beautiful!!!

And is a smart entrepreneurial spirit too. At 18 she's bought her own computer and is paying for her own Internet connection. All so that she can run The Dainty Shop, where you can find clothes and fun jewelry for teenagers and young women. Also on the repertoire of products are design services for Multiply pages. If you live in the Philippines, why not check it out and maybe do some Christmas shopping there.

P.S. The make-like-a-model shot was apparently taken for a class project to do with marketing or something like that.

Shopping List Saturday

Look at all these beautiful Etsy stuff that caught my eye this week!

First row, L-R: T-shirt necklace by Tabychan, Animal cards by Kup Kup Land Photography, European Pink Flowers by Holland Fabric House. Second row, L-R: Nuno Felted Pansies by Ingermaaike, Esme Pillow by Enhabiten, By the Sea Original Embroidery by Shelby Healey. Third row, L-R: Monster Mignon by Junker Jane, Silk Chiffon Scarf by X by LeinaNeima, I Feel Pretty Hat by Frosting Couture.

Want more? Please look at the right sidebar of Charlotte's blog for a list of other blogs with exciting weekend finds.

Holiday Reads

Heart Handmade's downloadable zine is up!

Looking for reading material and gift ideas for the holidays? The wonderful people behind the following blogs prepared these for you:

Always-fabulous Marichelle of Heart Handmade put together a downloadable zine. It takes a while to download, but with Marichelle's signature style of quick tidbits to read everywhere, it is a lot of fun to read. Very well done too!

Kelly of Kelly Loves Whales (love that blog name) put together what she calls an "Instant Happy" gift list. If you're looking for something short but sweet, click here.

I am enamored of Upstate Fancy's Holiday Gift Guide. It's straightforward but still very cute, and is stocked full of charming handmade goodies.

Full disclosure: There's something in all three about either me or my products, so yes, this is a self-serving entry :)

And, if you haven't had enough, Becky of The Fab Miss B did an interview of me here. I loved her questions, so please do click and read!

DIY: How to Make a Terrarium

1. Choose your vessel with care. A fairy's teacup, a magician's goblet, or a witch's herb jar will work particularly well, but in a pinch, something like an ogre's cereal bowl will also do.
2. Begin with a layer of ground dragon's egg shells on the floor of your vessel, about a dwarf's thumb high.
3. Cover the shells with a layer of volcanic dust.
4. Now cover your volcanic dust with the sighing moss to be found in the deep forests of Banahao.
5. Wait for the first full moon to find out what plants your filled vessel will give you.
6. In a fortnight, your terrarium will have been found by the tiny inhabitant it calls to. This creature will take care of itself.
7. You now only need to water your terrarium occasionally and sparingly with the collected sweet rain that falls on the first of May.

My magic terrariums will be on sale in the shop beginning tomorrow.

One-Day-at-a-Time Worry Dolls

Itsy sent me an e-mail, and a few days later, I made these. They're called One-Day-at-a-Time Worry Dolls, little creatures to help you work on your anxieties and your stresses. Miss Monday and Mister Tuesday are already listed in my shop.

Film Happening

To veer away from the happy-happy tone of this blog--but not by too much, as I have always made it obvious that I am a fan of strange stories--reading two articles in Le Monde (article no. 1 here and article no. 2 here) got me thinking of the Antonio Cuaron film Children of Men, where Clive Owen lives in a future where human beings have all become infertile.

The first piece begins, "The number and the quality of spermatozoa have diminished by about 50 percent since 1950. The incidence of testicular cancer have doubled in the past 30 years. The number of malformation of the masculine genitalia is on the rise..." The culprit? Scientists point to the barrage of chemical substances we are exposed to daily.

We might well be pesticiding and insecticiding ourselves to oblivion, it seems.

Read the article; it's guaranteed to get your brain running. (Maybe use Google Language Tools if you need a translation?) I, for one, have already gotten started thinking of a short story.

******

By the way, speaking of short stories, the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler is up. Editors Charles Tan and Mia Tijam describe it as a "virtual anthology" of speculative fiction in English written by Filipino writers. Cover art is by the very cute (I think) Andrew Drilon. Click and read!