beetiger

I'm planning to do another little order of Crowdsource Tarot decks in preparation for Morphicon, sometime this week. Does anyone want me to add one to the order for them? $18 plus $3 S/H within the US gets it to you a little cheaper than buying it direct from the Game Crafter site, and makes me a few extra pennies. Please let me know by Wednesday night if you are interested in one. Thanks!

As requested by several of you, I've added some simple pendants at the Frozen Honeybee site, i.e. "just the bees". These can be strung on a simple cord or chain, or used as the centerpiece of your own jewelry creations.

Check it out at the Etsy page, under Pendants/Focal Beads. And please send over anyone you think might be interested.

Some things I've been doing lately:

*Making jewelry out of honeybees encased in resin. I'm turning some of the winter die-off from the hive into beautiful natural art. I should be updating my inactive etsy site soon with a variety of necklaces and brooches from this project, as soon as I manage to photograph them and make a decision on what's reasonable to charge for them.

*Starting training as a labor doula and postpartum doula. I've been reading lots and lots of books, and trying to talk to people whenever I can. I completed a course in postpartum work this afternoon, and was just informed by my mentor that I will be able to attend my first birth with one of her clients in March. I'm still working with a lot of fear around this whole process, about my own abilities both as a caregiver and as a businessperson, but I'm also very inspired by this after having not been inspired by much for a while, so this is good. I'm trying to give myself permission to explore the "what if" without shutting myself down.

*Volunteering with Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic in NYC, which records textbooks for students with visual and reading disabilities. The reading is generally interesting and I feel like I'm offering something that uses at least some of my scientific background. Getting into the city for a few hours once a week has been good for me in terms of trying to ramp myself back up into a faster pace of living life again.

*Planning lediva's epic 30th birthday bash. If you know her but somehow have missed getting an invitation to this, do let me know.

*Trying to get various things done in preparation for Morphicon. Deadlines for that are coming up much more quickly than I've been willing to admit to myself.

Voting has begun for the Rose and Bay Award, a new award honoring crowdfunded projects. The Crowdsource Tarot has been nominated (along with a bunch of other amazing projects by a bunch of other amazing people) in the "Other" category.

Go on over there, check out the links to some of the projects, and support the award by voting!

http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding/164525.html?#cutid1

Here's a survey that's being done about the birthing experiences of queer women, especially those who ID as genderqueer or butch. She's having trouble getting sufficient data, and her results are Relevant To My Interests (TM), so I'd like to see her get enough data to do something publishable. If you qualify, please consider participating!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5FFMZPM

I'm going to be redesigning the Little Pagans piece of my business, moving the designs to one of the third party printers rather than printing the shirts myself. What this means is I've got a decent selection of American Apparel T-shirt blanks in my warehouse (aka basement closet) I won't need.

If anyone here would like to buy some or all of my inventory of blanks for somewhat below current wholesale prices, please drop me a line. I'll get you exact numbers if you are interested, but in general:

*Basic cotton baby tees in sizes 3 months-24 months in white, black, and natural, plus a few blue, yellow, and lavender, plus natural onesies.

*Toddler baby tees in size 2T- 6T in white, black, and natural, plus a few blue, yellow, and lavender.

*Adult (men's cut) tees sizes S-2XL in natural and black

*Youth tees from No Sweat Apparel, sizes S-L, in white, natural, and black.

I've got about 6-24 in each style.

Thanks for listening!

For anyone who will be in the NY area this weekend: I've finally gotten back to choral singing after a way too long hiatus. I'd love to see you at our concert this weekend!

Concert info is as follows:

The Winter Concert
Sunday, January 17, 2010
4:00 pm at the Chapel at Maryknoll
55 Ryder Road, Ossining, NY

The concert will feature Handel’s Foundling Hospital Anthem which concludes with his famous Hallelujah Chorus. This music was composed and performed as a fundraiser for an orphanage - out of the composer’s desire to assist the downtrodden - and includes such phrases as “Blessed are they that considereth the poor and needy.” A selection of Mendelssohn motets will also be included. The concert will take place at the beautiful chapel at Maryknoll with accompaniment by an orchestral ensemble.

I've been rearranging things around here again, and I've realized that I have a lot of jewelry. I have a lot of friends that make jewelry. I do a lot of jewelry swaps. I participated in the Sampler for a while, and there was a period in which it was pretty much all earrings, all the time.

I also make jewelry a bunch, myself. Sometimes I wear it and sometimes I sell it, but sometimes I just want to give it to people.

In any case, I have a lot of jewelry, mostly cute beaded stuff, that I like a lot but that I don't seem to ever put on. I also have stuff that's totally not to my taste, that I've ended up with and would like to find a better home. I'd like to give some of it to you.

So anyone who wants something random from my collection and answers this poll by...oh, let's call it Tuesday or so, gets a late Winter Solstice gift/early Valentine of possibly slightly loved, but thoroughly cleaned jewelry from me. No guarantee if you'll like it or not. If you guys swamp me with requests, I'll take it as an opportunity to make some more stuff, so no worries.

[Poll #1509489]

bard_bloom and I have officially paid off our mortgage.

So yeah, we own this place, and the cash flow opens up a *lot*.

There are a lot of things that need fixing and repairing here still, and if we were smart we'd start putting some of the money that used to go toward monthly payments toward that. But I think first I will buy summer programs for projectmothra. And hats, and sushi. But not sushi hats.

Anybody have firm plans to be at Pax East this year? I'm thinking of going, but tend to get rather lost at this kind of thing if I'm not hanging with people in particular.