Seen on Nebraska Ave, en route to downtown Toledo for a Mud Hens game this past Saturday.
Category Archives: creative
Zen Altar with New Bowl
I purchased this bowl on Etsy.com from Bridgeman Studios. Beautiful workmanship, simple design — exactly what I was looking for.
The flowers in the background are clay flowers purchased at the Ann Arbor Art Fairs… but they deserve their own close-up later.
Graffiti Conversation
Seen on William Street during the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, 19 July 2008.
Etsy (or, Who Knew I’d Buy Homemade Crafts?)
I first learned about Etsy from Dooce.com. Heather buys lots of interesting and kitschy prints and bags and whatnot, and posts about them on her site. Honestly, a lot of the things she posts about are a little too cute for me, so I didn’t really go check out Etsy just on her recommendation.
Later on, Aaron pointed out some video game related items that were posted on Etsy: earrings, specifically, I believe. It was at that point that I realized that there are all kinds of crafty people that make all kinds of crafty things, and I started looking for things that would suit my own style.
While I’ve found some interesting items that I haven’t actually bought, I have purchased an etched Buddha pendant, and I have some more purchases on the way this week, including a hand-thrown bowl (for burning incense on my Zen altar) and a cup/mug, and a triptych of Zen-inspired gicleé prints.
Maybe I’ll pull a Dooce and photograph my finds and post accolades as appropriate. We’ll see…
P.S. – I can’t deny the fact that I’ve considered making things to sell on Etsy myself — specifically, my soy candles, and maybe prints of my photographs. Honestly, though, I’m not sure they’d sell very well. I’d have to come up with some sort of gimmick to make them more saleable — holiday gift sets, or unique packaging, or something like that. I haven’t ruled it out, but I have plenty of other projects to keep me busy right now.
P.P.S. – Along those lines… If I were to start offering a weekly candle sale on my blog, to liquidate my current inventory (and actually make some off-peak income to keep funding my hobby), would I have any takers? Or would it really depend on the price? Leave feedback in the comments…
Eagle-Eye or Anal-Retentive?
I see these all the damn time online. I suppose I shouldn’t be so continually surprised that professional organizations are apparently bereft of their copy editors in the rush to get news posted online. But typos in ads? This banner ad ran on CNN.com for several weeks before a corrected one appeared.
I’m such a stickler for typos anymore. I guess I always was, but I’m finding them even more lately. I just finished reading a trade paperback — a Sci-Fi Book Club printing, I believe, of The Dragonriders of Pern — that was embarrassingly rife with typographical errors. They’re like speed bumps; they take me right out of the story. I can’t fathom how a three-in-one book like that got published with so many typos. Don’t these companies have editors? Even for a reprint, mistakes happen, and I’d think there would be someone to catch them.
Simple errors like that can make or break a professional relationship, especially one so dependent upon the written word. Would you trust a newspaper that misspelled the word “missile”?