Why do you need to look in my closets?!

So as some of you may know our house is on the market.  This keeps me pretty busy making sure that everything is dusted, put away, and generally ready for a last-minute showing.  Plus with an active toddler it is hard to keep all of my crafting items out.  Since we are trying to sell the house, I've had to pair down (more than a few times) what I am keeping at the house and what we are putting into the storage unit. 

Too bad this is what my study closet looks like after I've gone through it about 10 times in the last week.  Hopefully this doesn't turn off an potential buyer.  What you can't really see is that the shelf in the closet is stacked to the ceiling with stuff.  It is organized into bins, but isn't very inviting.  I tried to convince my husband that I was showing the capacity of the closet but I don't think he bought that reason.

(Sorry for the sloppy picture)

How do you store all of your craft items?  Would you be able to pick and choose what to keep at your place?  I've gone 13298792370498320948320 times to the storage unit to pull stuff out that I wish I had kept at the house.  Luckily I wrote the contents on the top of every box (I was fairly specific with my stuff) so it doesn't take ages to find.  I've also had my share of box cuts since it is finally getting kind of cold (does 50F count as cold?) and my hands are dry from washing them a bajillion times a day.

Mickey Mouse is keeping the germs away.  And ignore my nails if you can, this is what happens to 3 layers of nail polish after washing your hands a bajillion times each day.

Fiddlesticks!

Don't you just hate it when you are trucking along on a project and a cat comes out of nowhere and makes you drop the canvas you've been painting for the last hour on your leg and subsequently the carpet?

Luna, you are lucky you are cute!

That is her "I'm innocent" face.

Bah!

This is me starting it over from scratch.  I don't think the customer wants carpet fuzz in their painting...

Sneak Peak!

Here is a sneak peak for one of my newest projects for elementop!  Can you guess what I'm up to?

Excited for how it is turning out so far!  I can't wait to show you the final product!

What's in a Name?

I get really strange looks when I tell people what my shop name is.  I think it is cute and rolls off the tongue, but it has also been proven time and time again that I am not like the typical person, but I digress.

I had been thinking hard for weeks on what I wanted my shop to look like.  How I wanted to brand it and carry out general business.  I was going crazy trying to remember all of the hints and tips I was learning while scouring the internet.  I decided to take a night off (or so I thought) to do some browsing on Amazon for wish list gifts for my 15 month old when I saw some building blocks.  Then it came to me!  The periodic table is the map for the building blocks of life - babies are new life - the probably most repeated song ever is the alphabet song (don't lie - you still sing it to find out what comes after K)!  That's it!  LMNOP!  eLeMeNtOP!  ahhh! elementop!  How do you get more perfect than that?!

I quickly ordered the Melissa and Doug building blocks and they arrived two days later.  I didn't even wait to leave the kitchen before opening them up trying to arrange them into the shape I wanted - the periodic table.  The set was PERFECT.  There are 55 blocks and I used all but 1.  Talk about kismet.

I couldn't be more pleased with how the name and logo turned out.

What do you think?  Did it make sense to you before? or only now after I explain my kooky logic?

Who needs the new year to start something new?!

Not this gal.  I've been prepping and researching and making and waiting and doing some more prep and finally have opened my first Etsy shop!  This will be the official blog for the shop where I can put up works in progress, talk about the shop going ons, post coupon codes and other general chemistry/science nerdy-ness times.


So first off - the shop!  (this is the point you click on the link and see how awesome my shop is since I don't know how to put etsy listings into a blog yet)

oooo!  ahhh!  such wonders!  right? 


I have a whole slew of ideas that I will be busy "makering" in the upcoming weeks. I had Heather at HMD Photography take these excellent pictures for me to get my shop up and running.  Since she is a few cities over and it is hard to plan when to meet up, I'm going to try to take some of my own for the next items before begging asking her to take some more for me.

These are the times I wish I had saved up money all year to get a Black Friday deal on a SLR...maybe next year.

Oh!  and before I sign off for the day, just so I have it on "paper" - My goal for my shop is to have 50 sales by this time next year!  Since I am a full time stay at home mama, I feel like this is reasonable :)

Anyway, take a look around the shop.  Let me know if you have any questions or even critiques.  Everything on Etsy is ever-evolving so I need to stay hip (a challenge for me, even on a good day). 

Looking forward to seeing where this year takes me and my shop!