I can’t bring myself to take pictures for this post because soon, very soon, those pictures will look pretty lame.

This little guy is on its way to my house as we speak. My beautiful Canon Rebel T1i, my first digital SLR. Order tracking says it’s been “in transit for delivery” in my city since 10am this morning… I’m lost trying to figure out how UPS can’t make it from their office to my house in 9 hours. Silly order tracking, hyping me up and getting me all antsy.

I’m so excited!

anticipation is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

I’ve been listening to CraftyPod in the car lately and it has my creative brain bouncing all over the place. There are dozens of interviews with people who have crafty businesses, and they all have such excellent advice. But half the pieces of excellent advice contradict the other half! Every day I come home with my brain buzzing as I wonder what the heck I’m supposed to do next.

Fluffyland isn’t the most profitable business. It also isn’t supposed to be; I like making things and I can’t keep them all, so really I’m just trying to reimburse myself for my fabric purchases. But it’s not like I want to be a virtual charity, because I still want to come close to making some profit. And then there’s the whole “updating zencart” thing that has the whole site in shambles at the moment… I really just don’t want to deal with that. So my thoughts are all over the place.

I even considered dropping Fluffyland to focus on my schoolwork, my busy life, and my little etsy shop. No more product shots, no more zen cart, no more narwhal tusks. But that would also make me an exclusively etsy seller, something I just don’t want to be. And it would also mean I was no longer the owner and operator of my very own online shop. Clearly, I was facing a dilemma.

So I made these two lists.

things i like

1. making stuff
2. people liking my stuff (especially enough to buy it)
3. taking pretty pictures
4. blogging
5. sending out orders
6. having my own business

things i don’t like

1. taking product shots
2. zen cart. ugh. such a pain.
3. getting a ridiculously low amount of site traffic lately
4. making narwhal tusks

The list of “things i like” made it very clear that I could not give up on my darling shop. And the list of “things i don’t like”? It’s really not that bad.

Number 1 has an impending solution: new camera!! While I love my pocket-sized Canon SD750, and will continue to use it whenever I need a pocket-sized camera, I think I’ve expanded my photography skills sufficiently in the past few years to merit the purchase of a fancy (but still on the low side) DSLR. I’m looking into that, and will hopefully have a beautiful new setup by the end of the summer.

Number 2. My nemesis. The greatest challenge. I just want a shopping cart program that runs like WordPress. Is that too much to ask? APPARENTLY. WordPress is free and beautiful and hassle-free, with an enormous and knowledgeable fanbase. There are virtually billions of shopping cart programs that range from free (zencart) to hundreds of dollars a month, and it’s difficult to figure out which are decent. I’m not making enough on my little hobby to warrant a monthly fee, so I guess I’m stuck where I am… it’s super unfortunate though. I spend so much time on the most menial tasks due to the terrible folder hierarchy.

Number 3. Who knows. I’m certainly not helping things by leaving the site down for over a week…

Number 4. I’ll deal.

So that’s that, I suppose. I’m researching cart options but they either sound equivalent to Zencart or super beautiful combined with super pricey. And it’s not worth changing everything I’ve modified just to get something that’s practically the same. But if you’ve heard any good words about particular software packages, my ears are open…

commerce conundrum is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

It’s a holiday weekend, summer’s making me antsy, and my recent gocco success has me fired up. So why not give you guys a sneak peek of my latest project?

Samantha Snap is my latest brainchild: an etsy shop focused on my love of photography combined with my recent obsession with paper goods. Yeah, I’m a little bit crazy. But this seems like it’ll give me a good time.

To start out, I’m planning on adding 5×7 prints of some of my (and your) favorite photos. I have been scanning my black and white film negatives, too, and those are even more awesome than the best of those featured in the year in haiku. And I’ve got my fresh-off-the-press orange camera gocco prints, which will hopefully be followed by moleskines.

Maybe it’s just the college kid in me, who believes in art as art. For awhile I want to dance away from the practicality of sewn objects and just toy with things that are pretty. We’ll see how this goes.

It’s amazingly refreshing to come up with an entirely new brand. The last time I did this, I was starting my freshman year of high school. I have learned so much since then about business and the internet and logos and marketing and especially about myself. I feel that right now I have the energy that starting up a business requires (at least one that’s on etsy). So there’s no fear… I’m just plain excited. It’s a refresh, and I can do it all right from the start. I’m taking budget sheets, a business plan, the works. eee!

Really, it’s all about camera love. Lately, I’m all about camera love.
And of course, it’ll be about gocco love, too. You know me. I can’t stick to one thing for long.

Fluffyland is “down for maintenance”. Is this why? Does that mean it’s going away?
No! Fluffyland is staying around for awhile. I’ll still be keeping up with all of that, this is just another project to keep my creative soul bouncing around. It’s down for maintenance because I’m installing a cart software update that’s being fussy and taking more work than I thought (like always).

Will Samantha Snap be solely an etsy shop?
I hope not. I know etsy is very convenient, and the thought of the convenience does sway me a bit, but etsy’s just a good starting point. If things go well and I decide I want to keep this going for awhile, it’ll get its own site. I like to have the control and the professionalism that etsy can’t provide.

refresh is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

landon, you’ve been my hero since i was 12 and you’re still not letting me down.

thank you, team usa is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

i haven’t been taking enough pictures lately.

but today is a day for making things.

let’s go make something.

and happy father’s day, papa! you’re the best.

carpe diem is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

This blog is filled with posts about me setting resolutions with the seasons and breaking them every chance there’s a sale… I keep promising myself I won’t buy fabric, and then I do anyway! Because buying fabric is fun, therapeutic, and inspiring.

But wading through bins full of that fabric is often much the opposite: it’s exhausting & utterly overwhelming. This summer, though, I’ve been determined to fight that overwhelmed feeling and make my way through my piles of fabric. Throughout my quest, I’ve been realizing that I have some really awesome stuff!

I frequently envy the many pictures of thrift shop or flea market finds that pop up on my favorite blog feeds. Often this envy is what sparks my desire to venture out into the world of fabrics to further saturate my stash. But through my current stash reorganization, I came to the conclusion that I, too, have fabrics and trims that are to be envied.

Today I’m cutting out a tote of this crazy-cool coral reef fabric, and reveling in my stash (and stash-busting). Now that I know what I have to work with, I have the power to make this a use-what-you-have kind of summer.

a use-what-you-have kind of summer is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

COLOR: green. lotsa green around here lately.

FONT: Stony Island (via this list of vintage fonts)

PATTERN: stripes, like the tote i’ve been mentally constructing out of this green canvas

SHAPE: ampersand, per usual (this awesome one is on etsy)

LETTER: Z, as in, mug full of Zippers

NUMBER: 2, the number of hours i must spare tomorrow making grapefruit marmalade!

WORD: cloudy… the sky, my brain, my thoughts at the moment…

(idea borrowed from elise, originally from ali edwards)

on my mind is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

my sewing machine should have an odometer, so i can have measured proof every time i’ve sewn to the end of the world and back again.

odometer is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

and famous: i have a featured blogger interview up on handmadenews.org!

home. is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

Lent is ending faster than ever (especially since I didn’t give up dessert this year) and Easter is fast approaching. Cleveland’s bipolar skies as of late have been toying with my sense of adventure, and I can’t help but feel a major rush of Spain withdrawal.

For spring breaks in both 11th and 12th grade, I went on class trips to Spain (with a dash of France). I love Spain. I love the colors, the food, the architecture, the language. I love how Spain pictures ended up in an incredibly large percentage of my haiku. I love the mystery and the adventure and the thrill of the unknown, the careful steps because getting lost in a foreign city is never a good option.

My posts regarding both trips were quite lame… so I figured I could relive those sunshine-filled days and give myself a photo tour of the adventures. It’s also incredible to look back to 2007 and realize that yes, I have improved greatly as a photographer, because the majority of those pictures were pictures anyone would have taken. My internal eye has been strengthened and I am better at seeing the picture that should be taken, the picture nobody else has ever thought of taking. But they were good enough that I can look at them and smell the sky and taste the foods… and I miss it with all my heart.

i miss the markets…

i miss the randomly adorable average houses…

i miss parc guell…

i miss calling a parcel of pastries a meal…

i miss exploring dali’s eccentricity…

i miss gaudi’s beautiful architecture…

i miss posing with random inanimate objects…

i miss rows of colorful buildings…

i miss the greener-than-green spanish countryside…

i miss buildings that look like coloring pages…

i miss it all and i want to go back.

spain withdrawal is a post from: Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog