First Giveaway!

I've been promising a giveaway for a while now, and I'm hoping all this waiting around has inspired a bit of excitement/impatience...maybe someone's even queued up for a chance to win? Well, here's your chance:

I've made two Where the Wild Things Upcycled Journals, and since they went so quickly, I've decided to offer a mini version as the prize this time.

Here's some stats for you:
- 220 pages (both sides) of Strathmore Sketching Paper
- 3 1/8" tall
- 2 3/8" wide
- 1 1/4" thick
- coptic stitched with black waxed (by me with this wax here) thread
- may contain monsters, but those with nut allergies are perfectly safe

Ways of Winning This Giveaway:
1 point  -  favorite one item from my Etsy shop
1 point  -  favorite my shop on Etsy
1 point  -  comment on one of my blog posts
2 points -  follow my blog (or convince someone else to) *Edit: if you follow me with some other method than blogger and/or your picture doesn't appear on the sidebar, let me know and I'll make a note of it*
2 points -  add me to your circle on Etsy
2 points -  like my facebook page
3 points -  purchase one item from my shop

For each point you receive, I will enter your name once into the drawing. The first three listed above can only be used once apiece...meaning, you can't favorite 12 items in my shop for 12 points. However, multiple purchases do count!

This giveaway ends November 31, when I will be doing the drawing. Best of luck to everyone! If you, for some reason, don't take a fancy to this journal, you can wait around until the middle of November, for my next giveaway. And here are more photos to drool over:

Book of the Week: Where the Wild Things Are, An Upcycled Journal

Ever read Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak? Well, if you haven't, I suggest you run to the Library now, and get it. Or look at this small preview.

It's a lovely book about where imagination can take you, and I very luckily found a copy in the Friends of the Library Room. And of course, I made it into an upcycled coptic stitched journal for one lucky person to fill with their own imaginative tales or drawings. *It sold to a very special customer today, and I'm very happy it's found such a good home.*

The outside covers feature Max in his costume, just before he's fully transformed his room to Where the Wild Things Are, and the on the back are a few of the Wild Things he meets there. The signatures are covered with small cut-outs of the illustrated endpages, and sections of the same illustration cover the inside of the front and back. I LOVE this book.

Find the description here.

In other news, a.k.a. ranting:
Etsy's changed it's search default from recentness to relevancy--which is good for some, but VERY bad for me. It's good, for example, for someone selling "vintage alarm clocks" or "blue enamel teapots" or even "screen print t-shirts". But I don't make typical books, and often my customers are not looking specifically for, say, a journal inspired by Oliver Twist. This means that I have to title and tag my unique journals under more broad and general categories like "leather journal" or "upcycled journal" instead of giving them the air of whimsy they used to have. And it also means, that I'm much more hard to find.

I'm so sad about this, really. Not necessarily because it's meant I've had a significantly lowered number of views/favorites/purchases in my shop, but because so much of what I LOVED about Etsy was one's ability to browse and be SURPRISED by the unique and thoughtful things people create or find. I never would have thought to browse for some of the art pieces I've discovered: like this artist book of Shakespeare's 116th Sonnet, or these Bow Tie Fingerless Mittens by Vanessa Ewing. You have to STUMBLE UPON them.

Anyway, I've had to purchase search ads, which aren't exactly working well, and while I feel my tagging is accurate, It's irritating that because I make all unique books I'm rarely being seen. Stupid Etsy!
Stupid Grinch! Stupid Christmas!

Anyway, enough rant and onward to a good little tid-bit: I'm going to have my first give-away soon! Though I'm satisfied with my four brilliant followers, I'm feeling a bit ambitious. I want FIVE! You'll be hearing more about it next week so constant vigilance my friends! Constant vigilance!