Ben the Bibliobug

Pinky has some fun company in the new shop - Ben the Garden Variety Partier is there with her. Since Ben is a voracious bookbug, Pinky has thrown the book that has taken over blog-o-landia onto his to-read pile. He is slowly getting over himself and warming up to it, even if he grumbles to himself and yells "OMG! Hello stalker!" and "Seriously, what chick falls for a dude who asks her if she thinks he's scary?" as he reads it.

To see a large version of this photo of the many angles of Ben, please click on the photo itself:

Pinky the Elephant

Meet Pinky! She is one perky pachyderm! And she is now available at my new shop. I am so excited about this! So far, I love the way my shop looks at bigcartel, and I hope that this will work out for the best. I mentioned in my post about commissions that I am in the process of making the move away from etsy. It is not a decision that was made lightly. I talked with Matt about it for months, weighing the pros and the cons, and recently, while talking with Caro of Splityarn about it, it became perfectly clear that I had already made my choice. I love etsy and what they are doing, but it is no longer working for me. You know the saying: don't hate the player, hate the game. Well, I don't hate either, but I would be lying if I said the game was easy. With so many vendors over there and every category so over-saturated, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get new people to look at the shop. I am very lucky and immensely grateful to have repeat customers who are kind enough to tell their friends about me. Thank you so much, seriously. I hope you folks continue to stop by and check out my new shop from time to time. In fact, as Caro pointed out in her latest post, if you subscribe to the shop's RSS feed, you are notified immediately of updates. If you are on my mailing list, I will continue to let you know about new updates and all that jazz. (To get on my mailing list, email me at sotosofties[at]gmail[dot]com.) My next update, which will be in about two weeks or so, will take place over at the new shop, and slowly (as my listings expire) I will be moving what is currently in my etsy shop over to the new shop. Once again, I just want to reiterate that there are no hard feelings; etsy just isn't working very well for me at the moment. Anyhoo, please have a look at the new shop. Hope you like what you see so far. I still have some work to do, and if anyone has any advice or suggestions, I would greatly appreciate it all. Thanks folks!

commission guidelines

Hi all! I get a lot of requests for commission work, but unfortunately due to my schedule, I usually cannot accept any of these requests. However, time is on my side these days. The summer is slow, and my schedule is much freer. So for the next few months I will be open to doing commission work again. For the sake of making things clear and easy for everyone, I thought I would list some basic guidelines:

• To order your custom piece, please email me at sotosofties[at]gmail[dot]com with the word "commission" somewhere in the subject header. I would prefer if you contact me through my email and the blog and not through etsy (as I think I will be making the move away from etsy very soon).
• If you contact me through etsy, I will post your finished item for you through etsy (reserved especially for you) as it is only fair to them, but once again, I would prefer to be contacted through the blog and at my email address. If you do contact me through etsy and we finish the transaction through them, please do take a moment to leave me feedback. It is greatly appreciated.
• Please allow 2 - 3 weeks for your custom order. If I do not have a specific material at hand or if you have a highly detailed request, it may take a little longer, but I will let you know what the approximate time frame is.
• Please note that sometimes there may be delays. I will contact you and let you know if I am running behind. In the meanwhile, I will do my best to get your order to you in a timely fashion.
• Pricing for commission work is an additional 25% of what the item would normally cost. For instance, a critter would be $50 and a wee mouse or a bat would be $62.50. If the piece is going to be a specialized, highly customized order, then the price will be commensurate with the amount of detailing necessary.
• At this point, I can only accept payment through PayPal, which actually works beautifully and protects both the customer and the seller.
• As for shipping, I ship via USPS Priority Mail with insurance.
• Any of the designs that you see in my softie gallery would be available as a commission. However, please bear in mind that some of the fabrics you see might no longer be available in my stash, and I may not be able to locate more at a store because the fabric has been discontinued (it happens, sadly). If that is the case, I would let you know immediately, and I would be happy to use an equally lovely and appropriate fabric as a substitute.
• If you need to cancel an order, please let me know at your earliest possible convenience.
• I reserve the right to turn away a commission if my schedule is all booked up and there is no feasible way I can squeeze in one more order.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me. Thanks, all!

you can't help but laugh really

It's a good thing I am the kind of person who no matter how light I like to pack when I travel, I always bring an extra t-shirt and extra underwear because you just never know. Well, what we originally thought would be an overnight trip has turned into a four day stay in Farmington, Maine. We drove up Saturday morning so that Matt could finish up the mural he worked on during Dance Camp, and sure enough, just as we were driving into town, less than a mile away from the Citylights building, our car died. Now, it can be said that we just have crappy luck with our cars (as some friends may remember the hilarious albeit frustrating fiasco at the Canadian border for our honeymoon when the customs official went to check our trunk and our only key for the car broke in the trunk lock with all the doors locked and Mali waiting patiently inside the car - we were able to unlock everything when a female officer whose arm was very slender was able to slip her arm in through one of our open windows and unlock that door). Call it bad car-ma if you will. Maybe one of us tried to assassinate Henry Ford or something in a past life. Whatever the case may be, the fact of the matter is that the distributer died, and we're in a small town where we couldn't get a mechanic to look at it until today. Hopefully, it will be ready tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully. This is fine; the situation is pretty darn good when you think about it. It's not like we're stranded in the woods with no food and water. Hey, we even have internet access, however sporadic it may be. So we are far from suffering here. The only thing is that Matt has to miss a couple of days of work, and I am also missing a couple of days of work here. It's not like I brought my sewing machine with me or any projects to work on, either, since I didn't foresee this turn of events. Hence, I am going to be delayed on a few projects that have been in the works. Gah! Not a big deal, though. Everything is good; I'm just fighting back that slight wave of panic that hits me whenever I think of all the things that I have on my work table waiting for me to finish up by the end of the week. (I am also trying not to even think about how much this is going to set us back cash-wise. I swear, I will give myself an ulcer if I think about this right now. I can feel the acids in my stomach churning like a washing machine.) Anyhoo, that's how it goes. We may be home tomorrow night. I will post all the info regarding commissions then. In the meanwhile, the mini-mantis pictured above is Mandy, and she is just the first of several minis that will be up in the shop this summer. Hope your summer is going beautifully.

the elephant parade

When we lived in LIC, whenever the circus would come to town, they would have the elephants walk from the train tracks at Hunter's Point to the Midtown Tunnel, where they would march all the way to Madison Square Garden. Regardless of whatever political stance one may have on circuses (I know people who think it's criminal and I know others who think it is vital to the preservation of certain species), it is truly awe-inspiring to see these gigantic animals get in line and trot through the deserted industrial part of the neighborhood (which has probably been converted to condos at this point) under streetlamps and march to the Tunnel. I am left with a mixture of joy and sadness, totally amazed by their beauty and stature, wishing they were going somewhere much nicer than MSG.

These elephants aren't joining any circus or marching anywhere else for that matter, but they have made their way to the shop and hope to find themselves new homes soon.

ele-pa-hants are on their way!

Hi folks! It may be quiet around this here bloggy-thang, but it is busy-busy in real life. I have a bunch of new softies in the works, including a limited edition batch of elephants, which will be going up in the shop this Thursday at 3PM EST. I am planning on doing limited editions of different designs here and there throughout the summer, in addition to commissions, so please stay tuned for those as well. And yes! That's right! I will be taking on commissions once again. I am very excited about this. There will be new rules in effect regarding commissions, however, that will hopefully make things run smoother, and those will be posted later on in the week. Thanks for dropping by. I hope you are all having a fabulous summer so far and that it only gets better.

P.S. - The elephants you see in the photo above are still in progress, and they are two of seven. Since I am not quite finished with these, I am unable to take reservations at this moment. Thanks for understanding.

we're back!

Dance Camp was awesome! Lots of work, lots of dance, lots of fun. To see more photos, please go here.

Now it's back to softie-making as usual! Hope to have new stuff to share with you all very soon.