Reason #6272 to love Etsy treasuries.

While taking a break from my Crafty Bastards application yesterday afternoon, I browsed a lovely teal and red treasury, finding a collage print by Michele Maule that features a twin of Bianca, my bicycle. I explored her work a little more and found what appears to be the parent of the collage print. Dan played for me the song that inspired the title of the work, and I was sold. Then, it was.

Depending on how much space we have left on the walls once we decorate, there may be more purchases from Ms. Maule in the future. In the meantime, enjoy her beautiful work!

Happy Earth Day!

I'm totally ganking and re-adapting Sara (from Girls Can Tell)'s idea for today's post. In honor of Earth Day, post your favorite eco-friendly shop in the comments. You can decide its eco-friendly-ness in whatever way you want -- using recycled materials, making a product that helps you create less waste, or making old things new again are all good definitions. You can give us a link to your own shop, but only if it meets the eco-friendly requirement AND if you link to another shop that is not yours that also is Earth-friendly. It's all about the community-building, folks. Spread the love! (To help you get started, here's a link to all tagged items from Team EcoEtsy members.)

One of my favorite shops for perusal is Chakra Pennywhistle, where you can find reclaimed fabrics made into sweet pillows like this one below. She's also a fellow Team EcoEtsy member like me, so that gives her some bonus points.

Lastly, in celebration of Earth Day, I'm offering a 20% discount on any item in the {craftgasm} Etsy shop! You have to order by the end of the day (I'm defining "end of the day" loosely -- just make sure the order is in before I wake up on Thursday morning), and in the "notes to seller" box at checkout, tell me your favorite eco-friendly tip. I may share the best tips here in the blog with a link back to whatever URL you'd like, so make 'em good!

I can't wait to see all the Earth-happy goodness you'll put in the comments!

Can I be six again?

Photo courtesy of and taken by Leanne at See the Woods and the Trees.

Following the Craftzine Twitter feed has never disappointed me, and paid off once again with this genius idea from See the Woods and the Trees, linked to this morning. Leanne helped her daughter make a four room dollhouse using reclaimed catalog pages and some cardboard. The result is so cute that it makes me want to have a toddler of my own just to have a socially-acceptable excuse to play with it.

I think it could be made even more eco-friendly by using old cereal boxes or somesuch reused material as the walls. Want a second story? Place another layer of cardboard on top of the first floor, then make another level. (This gives you the chance to paste a floor down, too.)

Best of all, since the dollhouse folds up, it doesn't have to take up a lot of room when it's put away. You could have dozens of setups ready for mixing and matching, and only use a few inches of bookshelf space to store it all.

Image by The Handmade Movement.

I just learned via Etsy about sneak attacks on new Etsy sellers by The Handmade Movement. Despite the alarming-sounding name, the goal is a worthy one -- give a newer Etsy member a boost by having as many people as possible buy an item from them all at once. How fun!

The sneak attacks are announced at 7pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so head over to check out who the latest victim is! (I'll be on my commute home during tonight's, but they assure readers that participating a little bit late is okay. )

Excellent news!

Etsy is reporting that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has granted a one-year stay for enforcement of the CPSIA rules to review the issues that have been raised by small businesses.

This is fanfreakingtastic news for both small businesses that create items for children and for families that want to buy high-quality, unique, and natural toys and clothes for their kids. Keep up on what further work needs to be done to make sure the exemptions are granted in the next year, but today I think we can give ourselves a pat on the back for all the letters we've written and calls we've made that have helped this day arrive. Hooray!

Linkity links and a question.

After the exhaustedness of last week's Inauguration, and the exhaustedness of the excitement leading up to Inauguration, I've been totally pooped. (What excitement, you may ask? Well besides the peaceful transfer of leadership to the first minority leader of the free world, there was also the small matter of being invited to the White House on Wednesday, January 21. Yeah, that picture was taken from inside the gate.) Plus, DC was amazingly vibrant and dense with all our houseguests and various visitors coming for the festivities. It was fabulous to ride Bianca down the street and have groups of people respond to her bell with cheers. I'm sad that people have left and cars have returned.

In other fun news, my landlord determined my house's roof leak was caused by the heating system's expansion tank, which was housed in my closet. The back of my closet. The back of my deep closet. At least removing three years' of stored stuff from it (plus my clothes) means I have an opportunity to sort through and donate a ton of it to help me get ready for the big move in April. Unfortunately, this requires me to get it off my crafting area's floor in a reasonable amount of time. Sigh. I'll be doing that the next couple of evenings, rather than the much funner creating of new stuff.

Long story short, to tide you over, I'm going to link you to some fabulosity that you hopefully haven't come across before (or that you should rediscover if it's been a while). I can't remember where I first heard about all of these, so I apologize for the lack of hat tips.

} Open Drawer, a de-stash Etsy shop run by the woman behind d. Sharp and the d. Sharp blog.

} Dating a Banker Anonymous girls, a terrifying-if-true blog where women dating bankers in the financial meltdown can commisserate about their suddenly lower-rolling lifestyles.

} Angry Chicken, the blog written by Amy Karol that has now inspired me to eat much, much better (once I move out of my group house requiring me to share a somewhat-gross refrigerator with four other people, that is). Oh, and there are occasionally beautiful projects.

} Chez Larsson, a blog written by Benita, who has a lovely sense of simplicity in her Swedish home. It's a little heavy on the white for me to live with every day, but I do enjoy the tips on organizing and decluttering.

Semi-relatedly, is anyone interested in swapping before-and-after blog posts about crafting or studio spaces? I know I could use some motivation in getting my space cleaned up of things that don't belong in it, as well as better organized.

My first blog mention!

A blog other than my own, that is.

The folks over at SuperEco, a blog about green living, included my Recycled Stationery Sets in their green last-minute gifts post on December 18th. I'd have never known if it weren't for Google Alerts, so I'm grateful for that -- and for the fact that I have a new blog to check every day! (Like I needed another one of those.)

I hope you had a very happy Christmas or Hanukkah (or for some of you luckies, both), and that your 2009 is fantastic!

The Lovely "Lovely Design"

I planned for my next post to be about my ridiculously cute (if I do say so myself) stationery sets made from repurposed materials, but a troublesome camera and much more exciting news precludes that: Lovely Sharilyn of Lovely Design once again has her journey books in stock! For a long while, the only thing in stock has been the address file cards (which have totally been inspiring me; more on that later) because she's been busy raising her daughter, but we all benefit from these lovelies being back in her store. They're not going to last long, so if you want one, get it while you can!

She also writes a well-photographed blog; whenever it's updated, it's the best part of my blog-reading that day. Check it out!

I will update soon on the new-old stationery, I swear this time!