Inspiration Friday

We talk a lot about Chickenpants on this site. But check out this chicken track suit:

Clothing for chickens. REAL chickens. Insanity! Hilarious, hilarious insanity.


♕ I adore these resolution charts by The Small Object. I am a nut for charts and making things visible in general, so these are pretty much the cat's pajamas. Most amazing still, they're free to download!



candysprinkles3
Originally uploaded by studiolooflickr


I want this yarn. I want this yarn. I want this yarn!
It's by Studioloo, and it's called Candy Sprinkles. It could not be more perfect!


♛ This post by Finslippy is hilarious. Also, short!



embroidery cheat sheet
Originally uploaded by Amy Cluck of Peptogirl Industries


I adore embroidering things, but I rarely remember this. That is, until something amazing like this cheat sheet by Peptogirl jogs my memory. Have you been to Amy's blog lately? It is, quite frankly, aces.

That's it for this week. Have a fantastic, weird weekend everyone!

Avatar: the update

Remember a week ago, how I posted a post confessing my ignorance of the whole Avatar thing, figuring it was a movie adaptation of Avatar: the Last Airbender?
WELL OH MY GOSH PEOPLE!

It exists! There really is an Airbender movie!
Guess who picked up the...giant stick wielding bald headed kid and made a giant motion picture?
M. Night Shyamalan!

Two things to notice:
1. BLUE. Check out all the blue in that poster. See, mistaking one Avatar for the other is totally reasonable.
2. They dropped the Avatar part of the name. The first part of the name, also arguably the main part of the name. (It's not like it would be any more confusing to have two Avatar movies running around. Just think of all the movie titles last year that involved "9". No, wait, that is totally confusing.)

Right. So this movie = totally my idea. Please send checks here: Absolutely Small, 1 Big Head Lane, Shamelessville, CA. Attn: Tiara Buying Division.

Topanga's Picks of the Week

Hello, humans. This is Topanga. Boss has hired me to help out with the merchandising around here. She is paying me handsomely in clementines and dog treats*. Mmmm, clementines.
So every week, I'm going to pick out a few things from the studio and share them with you. Then, I'm going to mark those few down. But just for the week. You know, like a sale. More sales, more treats. That's what she said. So, buy stuff, people.

You can help feed this starving pug. (Me, not Buster.)
Here we go:

Those are my picks of the week. Prices good from now 'till next Wednesday (Feb. the 3rd).
I'm going with a dog theme this week.
Let's start with this painting of a handsome fellow:

Isn't he a bit of eye candy? He was $40, but I clawed him down to $35.

Pick #2 is a plush dog named Joanie:

She's pretty. But I've got the pretty dog thing well covered in this house, so I'd like her to move on. Another $5 discount! Now she's only $30. Ha!

#3 is a much smaller dog painting - Underpants Thief:

It measures 4x4. Not that I can relate to stealing human underpants or anything. It used to be $25, now it's $21.50. Come to me, clementines...

Finally, one more plush dog for the road. Molly:

Again - was $35, now she's $30.
Remember, every thing you buy earns me more Clementines. *pug manipulation stare activated!*

You can get a better look at all of them here, in the new Topanga Picks section of the shop.

Come back next week, and I'll have some more picks. Probably not dog themed ones. Viva la...something else!

**UPDATE!** Boss has announced that if any of these things sell this week, she will film me eating said Clementines & post it here. Stay tuned!

Does Renewing on Etsy Work? An Experiment.

It used to be that you could renew an item on Etsy and receive a bunch of views. Then they changed some things around in the caching process and Etsy got a lot more crowded. Maybe evil elves got involved. I don't know. Point is, views received from renewing went down. Way down. Does renewing still work? I had to find out.

First up, a little explanation. I am not a techie. Nor a great Etsy seller of astounding greatness and sales magnitude. Technical explanations tend to wash right over me like water off a duck that has been rolling in an oil slick on roller skates.
So. Not a techie, not an expert. Moving on.

Now, the parameters.
I decided I would renew, list something new, or relist totalling 10 times a day for 30 days.
- Why 10 times? Because it's a nice round number and easy to keep track of. Also, it seemed like a LOT. (I tend to list/relist/renew only once-four times a day normally.)
- Why 30 days? Because things take time.
- What defines the success of renewing? Ultimately, sales. Views and hearts are nice, but unless they lead to sales they're meaningless.

As you know, every time you renew something, it costs .20 US. It's really not much...unless you do it a lot. By comparison, a Showcase spot will run you $7/$15 a day. (In my experience, I've never got more than a handful of hearts and 50 views from doing that. No sales. Not great.)

I began on 12/28/09.
Here were my starting statistics:
On 12/28/09-
Total Sales: 261
Items in Shop: 245
Shop hearts 12/28: 1220
*GA Unique Visitors: 990
*Visits: 2,171
*Pageviews: 6,504
*Pages/visit: 3.00
Twitter followers: 3338
Fanpage: 168
Blog followers: 140

*These stats are for the past 24 days, to keep things matched up.

I was also featured in one Gift Guide. The item hasn't sold, and it had been there for awhile.

Traffic sources according to Google Analytics (top 5):
Direct (Etsy): 676
Google: 404
Twitter: 277
Craftlandshow.com: 163
craftleftovers.com: 109


Field Notes:
12/29 - Listing/renewing 10 items a day is hard! Low views on the listings that don't make it onto Twitter. (I use TwitterFeed to automatically send one listing to Twitter every 12 hours.) I'm scared this won't work, but Dan encourages me to stick with it. Maybe there will be a cumulative effect.

12/30- Featured in a Chicken treasury. And then a Star Trek treasury later the same day. This after not being in any treasuries for months.

1/1 - Sold 6 items to a returning customer. Sweet!!

1/2 - Another sale, this time a Squid.ro (generally slow selling, just relisted 12/31.) Also in another treasury.

1/3 Another sale! Another new person.

1/4 - My South Bay hoodie guy gets featured in a Squidoo lens by someone I've never met before. Recently renewed items sometimes get new hearts. (Thanks, Statsy.org!) Older items do too, of course, but at a much slower rate.

1/5- Here comes a hiccup. I got word from the lovely lady of Regretsy that the pillows I made for the book were going to be featured on the site the next day. Listed 6 extra listings today for the Regretsy pillows, in anticipation of the article tomorrow.
STATS: 271 sales, 1251 shop hearts at end of day 1/5.

1/6- Regretsy article posted. 278 sales, 1268 shop hearts at end of the day.

1/7- Featured in a treasury...the item featured was just renewed, but it was also tweeted, and the treasury was made by a twitter person.
Also featured in another treasury about monsters. So 2 treasuries.The item in question was renewed 12/31.
ALSO: Made it onto the Etsy front page...with a Blythe hooded capelet, which was renewed 1/4...it was in a special Etsy made treasury.
ALSO, ALSO: My spreadsheets were featured in the Etsy Success email, huge traffic boost to my blog. And also my shop apparently. Lots of new hearts, but so far no direct sales (yet!). The image they used in the email was one of my dogs...which was renewed on 1/6.

So holy cow, did this experiment ever have some one stick their finger in the petri dish. Two amazing things happened, two days in a row. (And they had absolutely nothing to do with renewing.)

1/8- Small feature on an etsy blog that was new to me. Nice.

1/11-1/17- Sales slow to a crawl. Only 2 sales all week. 1 to a new person, 1 to an existing client.

1/18- Sold 2 items to a family member who I had just seen.

1/19- Sold 2 items...2 vintage items which were on the verge of expiring.

1/20- Honestly, not much has happened since the Regretsy/Etsy Finds email week. Renewing/listing 10x a day is a chore. I feel like I'm chained to the computer, as I need to renewed something basically every hour. Which means I have to stop whatever I'm doing, come back over here, and renew. And likely get distracted by something or other. And at 1 item every hour, I am totally chained to the computer ALL DAY. My productivity is way down. My internet shopping is way up. My Twittering is way down. (As are the hits coming in from it.) I am really not sure that this is working, and I am terrified to look at the bill. EXPERIMENT OVER! EXPERIMENT OVER!

TOTAL DAYS OF EXPERIMENT: 24. So close!

On 1/20/10-
Total Sales: 290
Items in Shop: 268
Shop hearts 1/20: 1380
GA Visitors: 2,084
Visits: 7,639
Pageviews: 26,409
Pages/visit: 3.46
Twitter followers: 3,529
Fanpage: 206
Blog followers: 258

Traffic sources (top 5):
Regretsy.com - 2,379
(direct) - 1,356
bronto (etsy success email) - 1,040
google - 662
twitter - 400

Sales not definitely from Regretsy/Etsy finds/other known source: 8
Now let's look at some charts.
Here's the view of the month o' renewing. The blue line represents this month's traffic, the green line shows last month's. Click on the images to actually be able to read them.



And here's looking at an entire year:


Does renewing work to increase sales?
For the first 9 days, it really seemed to. I was in treasuries! Sales from new people! After that (taking away the Regretsy/Etsy Finds days of debacle), things seemed to fall off entirely. This month wound up being far from average. Even if you take away the Regretsy & Etsy Finds numbers, views went up a little. Was this due to Twitter, blog posts, or other normal marketing efforts? It's very possible. I do those things every day, and have been for a long time. Looking at my Google Analytics data for the past year, I can see views very, very slowly picking up. If I squint.
Interestingly, views coming in from Google itself went up by about 200. That's got to be directly related to renewing. Over time (more time than a month!), that could really be something.
Bottom line: If your goal is to get into treasuries, then renewing works. Then again, so does hanging out in the forums and joining treasury teams. If your goal is increased sales...renewing constantly may help a little. But it's going to cost you.
I listed/renewed a total of 212 times. (That's $42.40. Uh, ouch.) (Listings: 55. Renews: 157)
Honestly, you can get better views on your items if you promote them yourself. You'd be better off spending your time and money developing a solid social network and marketing. Renewing alone is likely to be a disappointment.

Renewing frequently as a short term marketing blitz might still be a nice injection of views and energy to your shop, however. Think of it as running an ad- seeing the same ad over and over and over again makes you block it out, if not actively hate it. On the other hand, a cleverly crafted ad run once in awhile for short bursts can make you pay attention.

If you decide you want to try your own renewing rampage, go for it! And let me know how it works for you.

Best wishes for you and your Etsy shop!

Does Renewing on Etsy Work? An Experiment.

It used to be that you could renew an item on Etsy and receive a bunch of views. Then they changed some things around in the caching process and Etsy got a lot more crowded. Maybe evil elves got involved. I don't know. Point is, views received from renewing went down. Way down. Does renewing still work? I had to find out.

First up, a little explanation. I am not a techie. Nor a great Etsy seller of astounding greatness and sales magnitude. Technical explanations tend to wash right over me like water off a duck that has been rolling in an oil slick on roller skates.
So. Not a techie, not an expert. Moving on.

Now, the parameters.
I decided I would renew, list something new, or relist totalling 10 times a day for 30 days.
- Why 10 times? Because it's a nice round number and easy to keep track of. Also, it seemed like a LOT. (I tend to list/relist/renew only once-four times a day normally.)
- Why 30 days? Because things take time.
- What defines the success of renewing? Ultimately, sales. Views and hearts are nice, but unless they lead to sales they're meaningless.

As you know, every time you renew something, it costs .20 US. It's really not much...unless you do it a lot. By comparison, a Showcase spot will run you $7/$15 a day. (In my experience, I've never got more than a handful of hearts and 50 views from doing that. No sales. Not great.)

I began on 12/28/09.
Here were my starting statistics:
On 12/28/09-
Total Sales: 261
Items in Shop: 245
Shop hearts 12/28: 1220
*GA Unique Visitors: 990
*Visits: 2,171
*Pageviews: 6,504
*Pages/visit: 3.00
Twitter followers: 3338
Fanpage: 168
Blog followers: 140

*These stats are for the past 24 days, to keep things matched up.

I was also featured in one Gift Guide. The item hasn't sold, and it had been there for awhile.

Traffic sources according to Google Analytics (top 5):
Direct (Etsy): 676
Google: 404
Twitter: 277
Craftlandshow.com: 163
craftleftovers.com: 109


Field Notes:
12/29 - Listing/renewing 10 items a day is hard! Low views on the listings that don't make it onto Twitter. (I use TwitterFeed to automatically send one listing to Twitter every 12 hours.) I'm scared this won't work, but Dan encourages me to stick with it. Maybe there will be a cumulative effect.

12/30- Featured in a Chicken treasury. And then a Star Trek treasury later the same day. This after not being in any treasuries for months.

1/1 - Sold 6 items to a returning customer. Sweet!!

1/2 - Another sale, this time a Squid.ro (generally slow selling, just relisted 12/31.) Also in another treasury.

1/3 Another sale! Another new person.

1/4 - My South Bay hoodie guy gets featured in a Squidoo lens by someone I've never met before. Recently renewed items sometimes get new hearts. (Thanks, Statsy.org!) Older items do too, of course, but at a much slower rate.

1/5- Here comes a hiccup. I got word from the lovely lady of Regretsy that the pillows I made for the book were going to be featured on the site the next day. Listed 6 extra listings today for the Regretsy pillows, in anticipation of the article tomorrow.
STATS: 271 sales, 1251 shop hearts at end of day 1/5.

1/6- Regretsy article posted. 278 sales, 1268 shop hearts at end of the day.

1/7- Featured in a treasury...the item featured was just renewed, but it was also tweeted, and the treasury was made by a twitter person.
Also featured in another treasury about monsters. So 2 treasuries.The item in question was renewed 12/31.
ALSO: Made it onto the Etsy front page...with a Blythe hooded capelet, which was renewed 1/4...it was in a special Etsy made treasury.
ALSO, ALSO: My spreadsheets were featured in the Etsy Success email, huge traffic boost to my blog. And also my shop apparently. Lots of new hearts, but so far no direct sales (yet!). The image they used in the email was one of my dogs...which was renewed on 1/6.

So holy cow, did this experiment ever have some one stick their finger in the petri dish. Two amazing things happened, two days in a row. (And they had absolutely nothing to do with renewing.)

1/8- Small feature on an etsy blog that was new to me. Nice.

1/11-1/17- Sales slow to a crawl. Only 2 sales all week. 1 to a new person, 1 to an existing client.

1/18- Sold 2 items to a family member who I had just seen.

1/19- Sold 2 items...2 vintage items which were on the verge of expiring.

1/20- Honestly, not much has happened since the Regretsy/Etsy Finds email week. Renewing/listing 10x a day is a chore. I feel like I'm chained to the computer, as I need to renewed something basically every hour. Which means I have to stop whatever I'm doing, come back over here, and renew. And likely get distracted by something or other. And at 1 item every hour, I am totally chained to the computer ALL DAY. My productivity is way down. My internet shopping is way up. My Twittering is way down. (As are the hits coming in from it.) I am really not sure that this is working, and I am terrified to look at the bill. EXPERIMENT OVER! EXPERIMENT OVER!

TOTAL DAYS OF EXPERIMENT: 24. So close!

On 1/20/10-
Total Sales: 290
Items in Shop: 268
Shop hearts 1/20: 1380
GA Visitors: 2,084
Visits: 7,639
Pageviews: 26,409
Pages/visit: 3.46
Twitter followers: 3,529
Fanpage: 206
Blog followers: 258

Traffic sources (top 5):
Regretsy.com - 2,379
(direct) - 1,356
bronto (etsy success email) - 1,040
google - 662
twitter - 400

Sales not definitely from Regretsy/Etsy finds/other known source: 8
Now let's look at some charts.
Here's the view of the month o' renewing. The blue line represents this month's traffic, the green line shows last month's. Click on the images to actually be able to read them.



And here's looking at an entire year:


Does renewing work to increase sales?
For the first 9 days, it really seemed to. I was in treasuries! Sales from new people! After that (taking away the Regretsy/Etsy Finds days of debacle), things seemed to fall off entirely. This month wound up being far from average. Even if you take away the Regretsy & Etsy Finds numbers, views went up a little. Was this due to Twitter, blog posts, or other normal marketing efforts? It's very possible. I do those things every day, and have been for a long time. Looking at my Google Analytics data for the past year, I can see views very, very slowly picking up. If I squint.
Interestingly, views coming in from Google itself went up by about 200. That's got to be directly related to renewing. Over time (more time than a month!), that could really be something.
Bottom line: If your goal is to get into treasuries, then renewing works. Then again, so does hanging out in the forums and joining treasury teams. If your goal is increased sales...renewing constantly may help a little. But it's going to cost you.
I listed/renewed a total of 212 times. (That's $42.40. Uh, ouch.) (Listings: 55. Renews: 157)
Honestly, you can get better views on your items if you promote them yourself. You'd be better off spending your time and money developing a solid social network and marketing. Renewing alone is likely to be a disappointment.

Renewing frequently as a short term marketing blitz might still be a nice injection of views and energy to your shop, however. Think of it as running an ad- seeing the same ad over and over and over again makes you block it out, if not actively hate it. On the other hand, a cleverly crafted ad run once in awhile for short bursts can make you pay attention.

If you decide you want to try your own renewing rampage, go for it! And let me know how it works for you.

Best wishes for you and your Etsy shop!

New Absolutely Small Goodies

It's Monday! Which means I get to foist my latest creations upon your unwilling eyes. Mwah ha ha ha ha!
I think you'll get a kick out of what I have to share this week, though:

Pets! On leashes! For Chickenpants, Blythes, G.I. Joes, Barbies, and action figures of all ilks. The idea of Chickenpants befriending tiny creatures as pets is one that I've been toying with for awhile. What sort of creature is tiny enough for a Chickenpants to befriend, you ask?
Frogs, for one:

Tiny chenille chicks:
Is this politically correct? Do chickens even have political correctness?


Ladybugs:


Tiny dinosaurs:


And one truly inexplicable character:


They're all in the shop, and they're all just $1.50 each. Shipping on them is FREE with any other purchase. Ka-ching!

Finally, something that is not on a leash. Snuggies: they're not just for Humans, Dogs, Blythes and Chickenpants anymore.

Inspiration Friday

Let's start this Inspiration Friday off right with some eye candy:

Macarons
Originally uploaded by Tinymeat™

I could really go for some crazy colored macarons right now.

This video is called "Girls are bad at sound effects", but I think it's pretty awesome:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Pew pew pew pew!

Speaking of...sounds behold this comic of a chick doing impressions...

of other chickens.

Today, in the I WANT THIS category:

Pretty hairpins by DawnWillBreak.

I can't get over how beautiful this rooster is:

Chicken Crossing The Road
Originally uploaded by Bob Jagendorf

Click on it! You've got to see it big.

That's it for today. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Hamstercar!

I've previously mentioned on this blog my love of the amazing Hamster Car made by Raggy Rat. She's kindly allowed him to come visit the Chickenpants here in California...and he's here!

I don't know what happened with the uploading process, but things are all grainy. That's what I get for trying to film at night, I guess. Anyway! Working on some new Hamster Car related fun right now. You haven't seen the last of him!

Hamster Car's Creator: Raggy Rat. Check her out, she's awesome!

In which I start ripping on Avatar

First, a disclaimer: someone let Snarky Claire out of her cage this morning. The following post is going to be a mean spirited tirade about all that is wrong in the world movie. Don't read past this cute photo if you still want to think of me kindly, or absolutely loved the movie Avatar and think that it is "better than Star Wars!". Better than Star Wars? Better than STAR WARS?
***PUG BREAK***

Where was I? Oh yes:
It turns out that I am completely out of touch with popular culture. This is not really a shock or even news, but it's all come to an interesting head with AVATAR.
First of all: the name. Up until about a month ago, I was convinced that they had made a movie out of the animated tv series Avatar: The Last Airbender. I have never seen The Last Airbender. I have no desire to see The Last Airbender. And honestly, Airbender sounds like a fancy word for a fart. So why would I want to see a movie based on said flatulence? How was I to know there were no blue people(?) in said animated tv show? And why did James Cameron get involved?
I was calling Avatar "Air Bender" up until very recently. Actually, sometimes I still slip up and call it that.
So, just for the record:
THIS is Avatar: The Last Air Bender:

and THIS is AVATAR, no Air Bender:

I can tell the difference now! Interestingly, if you search Avatar Images on Google, this is what comes up. So at least it's not just me who's confused.
This poor movie really never had a chance with me. Maybe it was the McDonald's tie in commercials. You know the one, where the guy turns to the other guy and says "Since when do mountains float?!"
Since this:

1986, Studio Ghibli
and this:

(also 1986, Studio Ghibli)
and this!

And oh, say 1726 or so when Gulliver's Travels was first published. We won't even mention the whole "phantom cities" phenomenon that gets mentioned in those "unexplained mysteries" type of books. Not that yours truly is suggesting for a moment that said phantom cities have any basis in reality, merely that the concept has been out there floating around (heh) for a few hundred years.

But that's just one random comment in a McDonald's commercial. McDonald's commercials are known to be wildly out of touch and awful. (Remember the "I'd hit that" burger commercial? Good work, fellas!) It's not James Cameron's fault!

But this little tidbit from the hallowed halls of Fail Blog is pretty interesting:


And finally, the "better than Star Wars" line. Better than Star Wars? Them's fightin' words, mister! Okay, the newer three kind of sucked, and had numerous flaws, so maybe. But the older three?


Rant over. Okay, let the flame-y comments commence!

Absolutely Small Goodie Roundup

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you're enjoying a day off.
I've got a practically idyllic day ahead of me: the husband is home from work, it's amazingly stormy outside, and I just made a batch of ATF Gingerbread. Which said husband refuses to eat. (Too gingery!) So it's all mine. Sweet.
Anyway, onto the promised new goodies:
"Well, hullo there ma'am. Saddle your horse for you?"

That's right: tiny hats for Chickenpants! I've been hoarding tiny hats for years. It all started with another chicken based project*, actually...but I digress.
Choose from:

The Southern

Perfect for fanning your face with as you drink a mint julep and try to avoid catching "the vapors".

The Huck Finn

Mischievous Chickenpants need to keep the sun off their heads, too, you know.

The Mini Minnie Pearl

HOW-DEEE!

You can check them and many other neat-o accessories out in the Doll Accessories section of the shop.

I am racing to get this post posted before the storm takes out our power. No, really. Apparently, the power company did not plan for things like "rain" or "wind" when they built the lines. So I'll have to wait to tell you about the new creatures that will be added to the ol' shop very very soon. (New Jack the Jungle Pup! New CPs! New new accessories! Stuff!) Stay tuned, and stay warm everyone! ^-^


*Chicks in Hats- the live action short film. No, really.

Inspiration Friday

This week in decor: tiny paper cut bunnies in a row, sprucing up a lampshade:

a tiny row of paper cut bunnies
Originally uploaded by super ninon

I recommend clicking on the image to see it larger. This tiny shot does not do it justice.

I have no idea if this is real or not...but it's hilarious either way.
Peter Boyle IS Poochinski!

(found via Finslippy.)

If this isn't inspiring, I don't know what is:

Edie Christmas Jello
Originally uploaded by Victoria Belanger

All the classic inspiration ingredients are here: tiny environment, cute animal, jello.
Interestingly, the lady who took this photo is a modern day jello making genius! You can check out her blog here.

This stop motion Mario makes me want to bust out the camera and get crackin' again:

So cute!

And finally, the thing that inspires me to bake eat:

ATF Gingerbread, featured in the Storque a little while ago, but not forgotten. At least not by me. Maybe this will be the week I attempt to make it.

If you've got inspiring things to share, please post them below! I love to check out new links.
Happy weekend, everyone!

Rice and Lentil Soup

I love to cook...but I love to create things in fleece more. Cooking usually gets shoved way to the back burner (no pun intended), especially when I've got deadlines.
Fortunately for me, it's winter, and there are only two humans in the house. In other words: SOUP. Which we can then live off for DAYS.
Here's one of my new favorites. It's adapted from a rather good cookbook about fast cooking with whole grains that I can't recall the name of. This recipe is great for many reasons, one of which is the 10-15 minute gaps of time in the cooking. I like to list things on Etsy while those are going on. Or watch videos on Youtube. Whatever. Now, about the spices. If at all possible, don't buy those overpriced jars in the shop. If you've got an Indian grocery nearish by, swing by and they'll hook you up.
This soup is kind of spicy. You might want to add some plain yogurt as a garnish to tone things down. Also, there are no photos of this soup. It is not a looker. Tastes great, though. Okay, enough disclaimers:

Curry-ish Lentil/Rice Soup

2 tab. peanut or coconut oil
2 tab. minced dried onion
1 1/2 tsp. whole cumin seeds
2 tab. garam masala
2 tab cumin powder
1 tsp. granulated garlic
6 cups vegetable broth
1 cup lentils
1 cup brown rice
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 12 oz. pkg frozen spinach
salt

In a 6 qt. soup pot, heat the oil over med. heat. Stir in the onion & cumin seeds. Toast until the onion is lightly browned, 1 - 2 mins. Turn off the heat. Stir in the garam masala - garlic, and let sit in the hot oil for a few seconds.
Stir in the broth, 2 cups of water, lentils & rice. Bring to a boil. Cover & cook for 15 minutes.
Add the tomatoes & the spinach. Taste & adjust seasonings if needed. Cover and boil for 10 minutes. Break up the spinach block, if it hasn't done that already. Add salt to taste. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
That's it!
Serve with toast or nan or triscuits or whatever. Or nothing.
Serves two quasi grown ups 3 dinners.

Artist Chow - Quasi Indian

I love to cook...but I love to create things in fleece more. Cooking usually gets shoved way to the back burner (no pun intended), especially when I've got deadlines.
Fortunately for me, it's winter, and there are only two humans in the house. In other words: SOUP. Which we can then live off for DAYS.
Here's one of my new favorites. It's adapted from a rather good cookbook about fast cooking with whole grains that I can't recall the name of. This recipe is great for many reasons, one of which is the 10-15 minute gaps of time in the cooking. I like to list things on Etsy while those are going on. Or watch videos on Youtube. Whatever. Now, about the spices. If at all possible, don't buy those overpriced jars in the shop. If you've got an Indian grocery nearish by, swing by and they'll hook you up.
This soup is kind of spicy. You might want to add some plain yogurt as a garnish to tone things down. Also, there are no photos of this soup. It is not a looker. Tastes great, though. Okay, enough disclaimers:

Curry-ish Lentil/Rice Soup

2 tab. peanut or coconut oil
2 tab. minced dried onion
1 1/2 tsp. whole cumin seeds
2 tab. garam masala
2 tab cumin powder
1 tsp. granulated garlic
6 cups vegetable broth
1 cup lentils
1 cup brown rice
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 12 oz. pkg frozen spinach
salt

In a 6 qt. soup pot, heat the oil over med. heat. Stir in the onion & cumin seeds. Toast until the onion is lightly browned, 1 - 2 mins. Turn off the heat. Stir in the garam masala - garlic, and let sit in the hot oil for a few seconds.
Stir in the broth, 2 cups of water, lentils & rice. Bring to a boil. Cover & cook for 15 minutes.
Add the tomatoes & the spinach. Taste & adjust seasonings if needed. Cover and boil for 10 minutes. Break up the spinach block, if it hasn't done that already. Add salt to taste. Continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
That's it!
Serve with toast or nan or triscuits or whatever. Or nothing.
Serves two quasi grown ups 3 dinners.

Really Great Posts For Getting It & Keeping it Together

Okay. It's the second week of 2010 already. How are you doing?
Me? Oh, I'm okay. Thank you for asking. Actually, I find winter insanely difficult to deal with for many reasons. So I'm always on the look out for inspiring blog posts & books to give me a nudge. Here's a few that I think you might enjoy, too. (And please, post your own suggestions below! I love to read them!)

The Crafty Chica herself wrote a most inspiring blog post:
How to Keep Calm & Carry On
You've all seen the signs...but how exactly does one do that? Thanks Crafty Chica!

The Etsy forums have been bursting with super useful posts lately.
The questions in this one: Taking Inventory of 2009 I found particularly helpful. Even though it's *ahem* 2010 now. Still, those questions are great for a fresh start.


The Good to Know zine is completely amazing. Past issues have been devoted to topics such as "What goals have you set for your business? How do you measure success?" and "How do you manage your time? What's your secret to tackling the mountains of work that never seem to end?" It's chock full of tips and perspective by creative folks, for creative folks. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And finally, Christine Kane's blog is full of inspiration and helpful articles on just about everything related to living a creative, conscious existence.

What are some of your favorite blogs and books? I'd love to hear about them.

Really Great Posts For Getting It & Keeping it Together

Okay. It's the second week of 2010 already. How are you doing?
Me? Oh, I'm okay. Thank you for asking. Actually, I find winter insanely difficult to deal with for many reasons. So I'm always on the look out for inspiring blog posts & books to give me a nudge. Here's a few that I think you might enjoy, too. (And please, post your own suggestions below! I love to read them!)

The Crafty Chica herself wrote a most inspiring blog post:
How to Keep Calm & Carry On
You've all seen the signs...but how exactly does one do that? Thanks Crafty Chica!

The Etsy forums have been bursting with super useful posts lately.
The questions in this one: Taking Inventory of 2009 I found particularly helpful. Even though it's *ahem* 2010 now. Still, those questions are great for a fresh start.


The Good to Know zine is completely amazing. Past issues have been devoted to topics such as "What goals have you set for your business? How do you measure success?" and "How do you manage your time? What's your secret to tackling the mountains of work that never seem to end?" It's chock full of tips and perspective by creative folks, for creative folks. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And finally, Christine Kane's blog is full of inspiration and helpful articles on just about everything related to living a creative, conscious existence.

What are some of your favorite blogs and books? I'd love to hear about them.

The day in bullet points

Let me just start by letting you know: I'm up early. It's quiet. I do not know what to do with myself. I'm looking at my schedule for the day, and it looks like this:

✧ Find a vet who treats bunnies.

Finnegan's got something rashy going on with his parts. Ewww.

✧ Finish up a custom order.

✧ List. Relist. List. Relist. A lot. (It's part of the experiment!)

✧ Send out the mailing list. (Are you on the mailing list? It's...action packed.)


✧ Finish photographing new plushies.

✧ Take a break, rub some bellies:


✧ Put together get well package for a friend.

✧ Stuff new Chickenpants while watching Psych.

I guess it's a good thing I'm up weirdly early. What does your day look like?