In the Home Stretch…

10th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Neapolitan Sundae Ring

I can tell that my body is ready for a nice, long break. Yesterday, one of the muscles above my left knee was twitching around in these strange little spasms that I could literally see through my pajama pants. Kind of creepy. I’m sure it’s because I’ve recently added (slow, uncoordinated) running to my schedule, and I ended up taking the night off from yoga to give my poor, spastic knee a rest. I also ate a couple of bananas, since potassium is said to help ease muscle spasms, and it did actually lessen the jumpiness. But I’m sure you’re not here to read about my knee, so on to the mini foods!

Lemon-Lime Earrings

I made a new lemon cane yesterday and used it to finish a handful of Juicy Lemon-Lime Earrings and four pairs of Organic Meyer’s Lemon Earrings. I also made a few pairs of peach earrings, and it’s strange–the pigment that I used to give them a much rosier glow disappeared during the baking process, which has never happened before. It seems to have been absorbed by the clay. After that, I replenished my stock of eggplant and carrot earrings, made my first pink rose necklace, and took loads and loads of pictures.

Meyer's Lemon Earrings

Aside from a few pairs of strawberry and grape earrings that I had planned, I really don’t have anything remaining on my to-do list, but I can’t really see myself lounging about the day or two before a show, so I guess I’ll go over my inventory and see if there’s anything missing. More fruit tarts, perhaps? Or different vegetables? Hmm…

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Three Days Left…

9th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Rainbow Sparkle Gummy Worm Cupcakes

Yesterday was busy, busy, busy, and my work table has been transformed into a veritable mini-making factory. I finished five rings, all of new designs, including rainbow lollipop bouquets, a Neapolitan ice cream sundae, chocolate chip cookies, and campfire s’mores, as well as an ice cream sundae and hearts barrette, candy apple with nuts earrings, more rainbow sparkle doughnuts, gummy worm cupcake earrings, and strawberry confetti cake slices. Whew. I can’t wait to see everything arranged in the booth this weekend, because I feel that I have a much wider variety of pieces in a greater diversity of colors than any of my previous shows, and hopefully the lighting will be such that I can take some decent pictures this time.

Campfire S'mores Ring

While digging around in the garage yesterday in search of my ramekin set (which I never found), I came across an extra long loaf pan that I’d completely forgotten about, and it solved two of my display problems in one fell swoop. The pan is roughly a foot and a half long, and once I fill it with colorful sand it should make a nifty display for my rings, and I can affix the few magnets that I still have left for sale to the front of the pan :)

Caramel Apples with Peanuts Earrings

Today’s efforts will be focused on flower accessories, and I hope to finish a barrette and a handful of flower pot necklaces and charms. Depending on how much time I have left, I’ll work on more citrus pieces, and perhaps even tackle a few charms, now that I’ve decided to turn the little white tree in my display into Charm Central. I forgot that I had a number of loose pieces, and I can sell most of them for less than $5, which will be nice for the adorable little girls who are often disappointed when they can’t leave with something, however small.

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Win Free Goodies! Lolita Charm Giveaway

8th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Lolita Charm Limited Edition Set

The Lolita Charm giveaway has launched, so be sure to visit the Lolita Charm blog for your chance to win $38 worth of Mouse Market swag and to grab a coupon code valid through March 31, 1010. I thought this announcement deserved its very own post, so scroll down and click on “Booth Display Dry Run” to see today’s original post, too. Happy Monday, and good luck! :)

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Booth Display Dry Run (and more doughnuts)

8th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Tentative Booth Display

This weekend, a great deal of my time was spent on readying my booth display, and I successfully finished everything on my to-do list, including painting and attaching the little wooden strips I’ll be using as mini shelves for my earrings, sewing the table skirt, cutting poster board to cover the unsightly underbelly of my display, and other miscellaneous tasks. The picture above shows the booth without the poster board side covers attached to the table risers, and, obviously, with none of my pieces displayed, but you can still get an idea of where I’m going with this.

Mermaid Lagoon Doughnut Earrings

My tentative plan is to fill the white cork board area with earrings (propped up on the wooden shelves) and necklaces and bracelets (pinned to the cork board and allowed to hang). The very top shelf of the table risers will showcase the small selection of dollhouse miniatures I’ll be bringing to the show, and the green area to the right of the table risers will house the mailing list/business card station, adjustable rings, which will be propped up in little ramekin dishes filled with white or green sand, magnets, and maybe some hair accessories. I still haven’t decided what I’ll be hanging in the little white tree, but I’m sure I’ll find some odds and end pieces to display there.

Orange Sherbet Doughnut Earrings

I spent a good amount of time at the craft store trying to decide on an appropriate glue for affixing wood to painted cork out of the eighty billion or so options, including special glue for sticking crap onto rubber flip flops. Really? We need a special glue for that? I finally opted for Elmers’ Super Duper OMG! Glue or something like that, mainly because it had a picture of the Elmer’s cow, which normally looks rather sedated (or perhaps high on glue fumes), only it had been transformed into a blue, steroidal monster with rippling muscles that was snorting fire out of its flaring nostrils, all of which did wonders for inspiring my confidence in its supernatural gluing abilities.

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Weekend Tidbits and Loads of Pics

6th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Toasted Meatball Sub Earrings

The sandwiches have struck again! This time, I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon creating Roast Beef ‘n’ Cheese and Toasted Meatball Sub Earrings, as well as a somewhat disturbing-looking pair of Crispy Fried Chicken Earrings. I discovered that by mixing sand with Liquid Translucent Sculpey I could recreate the breaded appearance of the chicken, and I already have a few more ideas for employing that nifty technique.

Roast Beef 'n' Cheese Earrings

Later this afternoon, I’m planning on dragging out the new booth table I recently bought and setting up a mock display so I can figure out a way to extend my table skirt, which was originally made for a smaller table, preferably without spending any more money on supplies. I’ve been toying with the idea of using two panels of patchwork papers, almost like table runners, to cover up the gaps on either side of the original skirt, and I might have enough decorative papers in various green patterns to make the booth look nice and St. Patrick’s Day-ish.

Handmade Garden Tools

Last, but certainly not least, my dad surprised me with another miniatures special delivery, this time a box full of summer-ready garden tools and beekeeping equipment, which will be perfect for my woodland room box!The squeal-worthy handmade items include a wooden bee hive and smoker, six wooden boxes for Mouse Market Farms organic produce, and three hand forged metal garden tools. Amazing! And get this: My dad pulled the typeface from my logo and had to reassemble the “f” in farms from other letters, because he didn’t want to ask me the name of the font and ruin the surprise. *sigh* Unbelievable.

Handmade Beekeeping Equipment

P.S. I’ve been following the Crafting an MBA blog for the past month, and I recently read two posts that might be of use to fellow crafters in the process of launching their own businesses: How to Lower Your Prices Without Reducing Your Profits and Does Your Business Stick?, the latter which includes tips from the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath.

Have a great weekend! :)

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We All Scream for Ice Cream

5th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Ice Cream Earrings

Yesterday was another mini-making extravaganza, and I put the finishing touches on a set of ice cream earrings, whipped up my very first barrette, completed a variety of lime earrings and a bunch of juicy, red tomato earrings, and started some fried chicken earrings. I’m still working on the texture for the chicken, but fingers crossed that I can figure out a way to make them look crispy-crunchy.

Mint Chocolate Chip Earrings

I’ve been toying with the idea of making miniature trees, after seeing a beautiful Crepe-Paper Spring Birds tutorial on MarthaStewart.com. My mom had a little, white Easter tree when I was in high school, and I absolutely loved the teeny, brightly colored eggs. Perhaps I could make one tree and sell sets of itty-bitty ornaments for different seasons/holidays.

Rainbow Bright Ice Cream Earrings

Today’s projects? Sandwiches, sandwiches, and more sandwiches: meatballs sub, croque monsieur, and roast beef sandwich earrings. If I have time, I’ll complete a pair of candy apple earrings, and start working on new lemon and grapefruit polymer clay canes. Whew. I’m definitely looking forward to having a day off after the show…before the madness starts all over again for April’s event. ;)

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Etsy Finds Wednesday and Giveaway Info

4th
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

100% Mineral Makeup

[To give you an idea of how lost in pre-show preparations I am, I actually thought today was Wednesday, and since I've already written this post, we'll pretend that it is, just this once.] This week’s Etsy Find is shimmery, colorful, and downright sexy. (Drum roll, please.) Without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to Orglamix, home to artisan crafted 100% mineral makeup that comes in a rainbow of beautiful colors free of icky chemicals, all at very reasonable prices, too. I stopped wearing makeup about two years ago after discovering that most of the ingredients in standard products are things that I wouldn’t even want to use to wax my bike, much less slather on my face, but when I came across Orglamix, my inner princess was intrigued and I decided to splurge on some powder foundation.

Vegan, Bamboo Eco Brush Set

My little pot of mineral foundation arrived in a cute drawstring bag that also included a handful of sweet-smelling rose petals, and I’m pretty sure I let out an inadvertent squeal. The powder was fantastic, and I was so excited that I decided to go back for the hazel eyes kit, which included three shimmery colors of mineral eye shadow, and I’ve been having far too much fun with them. They brush on evenly, and they really make my eyes pop. Did I mention that they also carry bamboo makeup brush sets and amazing starter kits? Yep, I’m hooked. :)

Lest I continue to ramble on about the wonderfulness of Orglamix, let me also mention that the Lolita Charm giveaway will be launching Monday, March 8, so be sure to visit Victoria’s blog next week for your chance to score $40 worth of Mouse Market swag!

Posted in Etsy Finds, shop news | 2 Comments

A Never-Ending Stream of Doughnuts

3rd
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Rainbow Sparkles Doughnut Earrings

I finally finished photographing the giant pile o’ doughnut earrings that I made yesterday, and I swear, each doughnut was on a mission to try my patience. As I was corralling them together for what I hoped would be an attractive photo, they kept shifting out of place or leaping off of the miniature table entirely, and it only occurred to me later how ridiculous it would have looked to see a grown woman hunched over little, innocent doughnuts, muttering and cursing, had someone been watching. But, it’s over. Thank goodness.

Doughnut Earrings in Cotton Candy Pink

Today’s projects include teeny ice cream sundae rings and possibly necklaces, finishing up the ice cream cone post-style earrings I was working on yesterday, and tackling my first meatball sub and roast beef sandwich accessories. I’ll also be working on another pair of St. Patrick’s Day cupcake earrings, only this time I’ll be photographing the entire process from start to finish for the upcoming tutorial eBook, which, if I want the spring holiday treats featured in the book to be of any interest, I should probably finish before, say, next Christmas. ;)

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The Mini-Making Madness Continues

2nd
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Mini Food Preparation

It’s been quite the busy day so far, and with a commitment to complete two hours of web design each morning this week for one of my clients, I’ve been getting up earlier to ensure that I have enough time to photograph my pieces before the good, natural lighting fades. Today, I completed a variety of colorful lollipop earrings, about eight or so pairs of doughnut earrings, a handful of ice cream cone earrings (my first!), French fry earrings, and a whopping fifteen pairs of cotton candy earrings in anticipation of the Indie Craft Revolution. (I haven’t finished attaching the various pieces to the jewelry findings yet, so I’ve shown pictures of the preparation stage.)

Doughnuts Awaiting Posts

Speaking of Indie Craft, I just received my booth assignment today, and my eager beaver enthusiasm paid off–I sent in my contract ASAP and I’ve been given Booth #1, which appears to be one of only a small handful of booths in the immediate entrance area. I’m really excited, because I spent my very first craft show tucked in a somewhat remote pocket of the theater, and many shoppers weren’t even aware that there were frustrated artists hiding back there!

While I work, I’ve been mulling over potential booth display ideas for my first all-miniatures show in April, and it occurred to me that I’ll have to do massive amounts of preparation for that show, more so than any of the shows I’ve participated in thus far, simply because my inventory of jewelry is so much bigger than my 1/12 dollhouse pieces inventory. To give you an idea of the necessary scope of the preparation, for a jewelry show I typically bring about 200 pieces, and I generally already have about 100-150 in my inventory at any given time. In contrast, I only have about 15 or 20 dollhouse miniatures pieces at the moment, and the size of my booth at the miniatures show will be twice that of my jewelry show booths–yikes!

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Plagiarism on a Small Scale

1st
Mar. × ’10
By Mo Tipton

Fresh Baked Bread Accessories

Something has been nagging at me for the past couple of months, and I’ve decided to air my frustrations in the hopes of finding a new perspective on things, because my current outlook seems to bring me nothing but grief. Since the online miniature food community is somewhat small (no pun intended), it’s not impossible to keep abreast of other artists’ current projects, particularly if they’re on Flickr, which seems to be the case for nearly all of the artists who are working on carving out a serious career in miniatures.

Poppy Seed Crusted Challah Earrings

Because of this instant access to other people’s project lists, it’s possible to see who is clearly borrowing ideas from whom, or at least, it seems pretty obvious to me when Person A regularly comes out with items nearly identical to Person B within a few days to a week after Person B posts photos of their work. Without naming any names, I have three people in particular who seem to do this with my work with some regularity, and I can’t help but feel downright annoyed. Or am I being too sensitive?

For miniature food artists, there are two books by miniaturist Angie Scarr that are, I guess you could say, mini food-making bibles, and it’s common to see many people making items from those books or variations on those pieces. Hence, it’s also easy to tell when someone has come up with something uniquely their own. I suppose part of my frustration is that if I see another artist debuting a piece that no one else has made before, even if it’s something that was on my to-do list, I avoid making that piece. Should I not bother?

I suppose when working in any capacity in which one’s work is available to the public, which would hopefully be the case for anyone attempting to make a living at their craft, it’s impossible to avoid this sort of thing, but it certainly doesn’t ease my frustration, especially when copycatters find success in selling their pieces for far less than the work is worth, in my opinion, thus making it harder for others to charge an amount commensurate with the time and skill expended. *sigh* So, given that this is an unavoidable aspect of the work, I guess my best plan of action is to take a deep breath, resist the urge to check the copycatters Flickr galleries…and move on. :)

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