Now Open for Business!

I finally got around to posting something (anything!) for sale in my Etsy shop, The Blue Forest Shoppe. Yay! So far, I only have a few of my handmade wirebound blank books. I make most of them out of found items or postcards from my extensive collection of postcards and other paper goods. For example, the Pineapple Express journal is made from a postcard I picked up at SDCC last month. Most of these would be thrown away, I hope I've saved a few from that sad fate. :P The TTT one to the left was made from a tent card ad. Even the backings were cut from saved bits of chipboard packaging. So, I get to combine two things I love...geekery and conservation. Woohoo! I will try to upcycle, recycle, reuse, etc. anything I can, so don't be surprised if I've turned a used box inside out. ;)

I've also created a few postcards which I am planning to offer soon. (Have I mentioned how much I love postcards???) One card is made from a photo I took of an actor, and the rest are (so far) mostly based on my papercuts. My favorite is based on the cover of a book by Dr. Seuss. They will most likely be offered in sets of 5 or 10, with envelopes or without.

I am trying to keep the costs reasonable, but competitive, and I might be able to take special orders. Since I am currently on break from work, I can afford the time to be crafty, but normally my labor is just too expensive! Hahaha...

Visit The Blue Forest Shoppe by clicking on the links at the right. Thanks!

Other Things I Collect

Besides debt. :P

Before I became a "collectibles" collector, I had various and sundry little things that I liked to collect. I amassed a big tangle of keychains, flirted with stamps and coins, but I didn't get obsessed with anything until my Lord of the Rings habit. It was weird because I didn't have a lot of toys growing up, I had moved on to books at about the age of 5. The toys I had would collect dust on a shelf. My brothers were the toy guys (GI Joes, HeMen, Transformers, all that 80s goodness), so it's crazy that I was the one who wound up with hundreds of little plastic men. :)

I do still have a couple of other collections which I cultivate: postcards and shotglasses. I pick them up to mark my travels, but I receive many as gifts as well. Above, a few new items I got in Vegas this week.

With the postcards, I like to get one postmarked, so I mail them to myself. Lame, I know. I will often just stick an address label and stamp on it and draw a happy face. I've mailed myself postcards from Canada, Scotland, England, Wales, and all over the US. When I was studying in London, I brought a sheet of address labels so I could easily send cards to all my friends. There are a few old Chinatown and Disneyland ones from my parents and from friends around the world. A while back I bought a postcard spinner at Pottery Barn that I LOVE! The sales guy tried to sell me on its uses as a photo display, but I really wanted it for postcards. :P Of course, my collection has already outgrown the thing, but whatever. I just signed up for http://www.postcrossing.com/, which sounds promising. Only, I recently discovered that it costs 90 cents to mail a postcard internationally (via a returned-for-additional-postage card), which is more than double the 26 cent domestic rate. What's up with that? I normally would just put two postcard stamps if mailing overseas. Sigh.

As you can imagine, the shotglass habit started about the time I turned 21. Hehe. I had long stopped collecting keychains, but I still wanted a small, ubiquitous collectable I could pick up on my travels, in addition to the postcards. It didn't hurt that these could get some practical use. ;) Since they are breakable, I get a little nervous about using the "irreplaceable" ones. I try not to spend too much on them. The ones I got in Britain usually cost . Whenever possible, I get one that is $1 or less. One favorite is from Maui. My best friend picked it up on her honeymoon, I think, and it has a little island sculpture inside. Another is from Stratford, with a "gold" rim that I paid one pound for at a shop near Trinity Church. I like the standard single and double shot shapes best, though I do have a few novelty ones.

See? Some people are just born collectors. :P