Safety of shoreline fading away

Wow, I sure have been a busy girl recently. There was a sudden explosion of sales in my Etsy shop last weekend - I was getting at least one sale per day of both GeekMagnets and copper pet ID tags. And then it trickled to nothing again, boo hoo.

But I really can't complain, because I'm now at 50 sales and I have just a week left before my Etsy-versary. So maybe I won't quite make "my number" but I'm *really* close, not to mention the tons of jewelry I've sold offline.

Thanks to my mom, I sold another 5 pieces to her when she was here this week. At some point her friends are going to get tired of gifts from Anandi's Laboratory. Good thing she has a lot of friends :)

TJ is off zooming around the local racetrack today on his Ducati, so the pups and I are enjoying a quiet weekend at home. I think there will be some craftiness in the plan - I got a shipment of metal pieces to try out, in different gauges, so I'll probably make some test pendants to see how that works out. I got some aluminum, so I want to see how that works out for stamping ID tags and keychains, since it's doesn't tarnish.

I also have a cute cross-stitch design to work on - it was the only kit at Joann Fabrics (yay 40% off coupon!) that didn't have Jesus, precious little country scenes, annoying florals, or romanticized images of Asians or Native Americans on it. It's a cute picture of a cartoon doggy with bones and balls, and because I'm crafty like that, I'm changing some of the colors in the pattern so it should be colorful and fun when it's done.

Three people this week have made fun of me for doing cross stitch. Dude, it's so much fun. It's mathematical and soothing. It doesn't require a lot of practice to get decent at it. What's not to like?

(Besides the usual hideous country samplers, Jesus, Precious Moments, and offensive ethnic designs, that is.) I suspect the same people who design jigsaw puzzles also design cross stitch patterns and kits. BORING, BORING, BORING, or just plain fugly.

Subversive Cross Stitch offers some cute patterns, but they're not exactly things I'm comfortable hanging in my home or office. But I definitely love the sentiment.

So as soon as I get back into it, I'm going to start designing my own patterns for me to stitch. Apparently it just requires some graph paper and patience. I've got the graph paper, anyway. Cheers!