Dolls, dolls I say!

So I realized I had posted this to my other blog but not this one(oops!)

TokyoPop, a manga company teamed up with the Principality of Sealand to host an appreciation contest. Being a fan of Hetalia and Sealand in general, I decided to enter.

This, in turn, opened up a whole new world of potential for me: Dolls.



As mentioned in my previous post, I plan to start making this for adopting out. I love the idea of making customs for people, of their characters and the like.

I hope you like him!

Black Friday, Holiday Shopping and new designs

Been a while since I wrote in this ~hangs head~ I don't know how regular bloggers do it!

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday officially over, it's time to catch up on orders and get ready for the holiday rush. I'll be putting up some new sales on the website in hopes of enticing shoppers. Currently we have a 15% off your order coupon. Just use: BLACKFRIDAYBLOOP at check out! This coupon will change soon, so keep your eyes open!

Some new items on the horizon are:

~Dolls: Original Designs and some Fanart, custom orders will be available
~Christmas Ornaments, also fabulous for rear view window hangers!
~New Scarf Designs

Trying to not bog myself down too much, since that seems to be my downfall.

I'm really feeling the holiday spirit and hoping to use it to keep myself motivated.

In honor of the holiday season and launching the Christmas Ornaments, I'm considering a small give-away. Would you be personally interested in such a give-away? Feedback appreciated and will dictate the direction I go with this <3

For now, I'll keep this short and head to bed. Early morning! Pics to come soon <3

Of Dreams and Dancing, of Colors and Song

Have you ever had an epiphany out of nowhere when writing? That beautiful, glorious moment when things suddenly make sense to you? My muse finally cooperated with me today and gave me a glimpse into where my story would go, for which I am incredibly thankful.

As I said in my previous post, I am not really a writer. In my opinion, my writing is trash. I have problems conveying what I am thinking verbally, so writing is always a long and slightly painful process. This is, in part, why I have problems keeping up with snail mail, e-mail correspondences and the like. I never know what to say, or if I do, I don't know how to explain it.

I am incredibly envious of those people who have the gift of word. The way they elegantly weave an image always amazes me.

My word count is currently only 3,551. I have until 11:59 to get to 5,000 words or face Nano's daily progress calling me a loser. I'm giving you my life for a month, isn't that enough for you?

Making dinner currently, Chinese Pan Fried Noodles with vegetables and maki rolls for dinner. After a few days of heavy food, it'll be a wonderful change.

Nanowrimo

So I've been trying to figure out what to use this blog for. I think I've decided, for at least the moment, that I'll be blogging about my Nanowrimo adventure.

For those of you who don't know, Nanowrimo stands for "National Novel Writing Month".

Every November, people from all across the globe with the same goal: Write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Sound insane? Well, it is!

I am not a writer, which is why I have such problems keeping this blog alive and going.

I'm a visual person by nature, so sometimes the words just don't come.

With the support of three of my best friends, we're setting out on the journey together.

You, my fine readers, are witness to my declaration:

Should I make it to the end of Nanowrimo with a 50,000 word novel, I will take the steps to have it properly looked over by an editor of sorts. It will then be shipped off, forever doomed to the slush piles. I've always wanted to say "I wrote a book", just to say I did, and this is my chance.

I have a main character. I have a basic plot. My fingers are not broken, it's go time.

Today's word count - 3517
Sounds of note that helped me write today - Lets Go by Frou Frou

Anyone else out there participating in Nano? Shout out!


P.S. Youmacon went fabulously and Kurokiiro is this weekend, will I have enough stock? God, I hope so!

Changing gears, holiday saving potential!

Hey all! Hope you're having a good start to the week.

Today I wanted to just pass on something I find neat. With the holiday season coming up, we're all slowly shifting gears to holiday shopping. With our economy how it currently is, that's hard for some people. So here is my little tip to help stretch those dollars:

Have you ever heard of Groupon? It's a Daily Deal website that features a certificate to a random local business. You pick the city and every day you'll get a deal sent to your in box. Many times these are drastically discounted certificates to everything from food and clothes to sporting events and rental cars. For instance, in my city today's deal is Spend $20, get a $40 gift certificate to The Body Shop.

Combined with holiday sales, it's an amazing way to stretch your budget. You can purchase for yourself or a friend and the certs are generally good for a few months up to a year, depending on the seller.

Here is the link, check it out and pass it on!

Groupon, Saving Money and Getting Swag at the same time.

Mrs B's 31 Days of Halloween

It's that time of year again folks! Mrs B is hosting her 31 days of Halloween(And you can expect to see a couple items from me soon)

Today she has this absolutely fabulous bath and body set up for grabs! Wonderful, hand mixed items to melt away a long day of tension. I can't deny it, I'm hopeful to get it! She's also got a book and bookmark that are lovely. Stop by and check them out!

Bath set

Book

Bookmark


In other news, I've been working on preparing for Youmacon in Detroit over Samhain/Halloween weekend. Lots of adorable Bloops just waiting to get home and some new items as well.

I have to say, I've been feeling sort of down in regard to my art. I feel like I haven't come up with anything really new/original/appealing in a while. It's sort of like I'm drifting along a river while there is a party going on on the shore. I look around and see all these amazing things and wonder "Why didn't I think of that?"

I'm one of those people that want to do everything, so I spread myself super thin, then I feel like I'm not really growing in any one field.

What do you do to get our of your slump/spark the muse? I'm afraid that my first full year of business was a fluke and I won't really be successful in this.

To add to the "new things that I shouldn't be focusing on" I did a little sewing yesterday:



Not anything too super fantastic, just playing around with this Minky Fabric I have. The ears weren't sewn in far enough, but it's a start.

Maybe I'll get into making sewn plush once I get the craft room finished.

And this was a very rambly post. I hope this finds you all well!

~Aria

P.S. During August I went to Japan for 18 days. I may post some of my photos here for the heck of it. I apologize now for the potential pic spam!

Another post so soon?

Hey guys! Recently I joined PayBox.Me. It is a website that is working on developing a new payment processing system, similar to PayPal. They are currently looking for Betas to help with giving input and general testing in the future.

THIS IS NOT SPAM. Let me stress that point. I've done the reading and from what I can tell, it is not going to end up losing you any money nor does it ask for any personal information. I received the reference from several well established bloggers who's judgment I trust, thus I am passing this along.

It gives you a chance to make a little money. Currently it is just accumulating their own form of currency but it is supposed to be convertible to various currencies in the future.

It takes a couple minutes a day and filling out a survey or two a week.

If it never goes live, you just lose a little time.

So if this is something you are interested in or if you'd like to read more about it, check out my referral link which will take you to the site:

Pay Box Link Here

Thanks for looking!

Money problems for me means SALE FOR YOU! + Some updatey thoughts

Hi all! Unexpected car maintenance(isn't that the worst?) is prompting a weekend sale. 10% off everything in my ArtFire shop. In addition to that, the first ten shoppers will receive FREE SHIPPING on any order of $10 or more. Simply use the coupon code: GRANDOPENFREESHIP

I understand times are tough for everyone, but if you're in need of a cute gift or just something for yourself, please stop by my shop :3

Shop Preview:

Bloop For A Cause, Breast Cancer Awareness Plush:



Set of four Sweets Shop Candles:


Cutie Corn Plush:


Chainmaile Flower Necklace:


Check the shop out at: Manifested Dream's Artfire Shop

Thanks for stopping by!
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In other news, I'm heading down to Florida next week to visit my parents and grandparents. Really excited to play on the beach and gather up some sea shells and shark's teeth. I'm hoping to gather those pieces to make some jewelry. Drift wood would also be fun to play with.

I recently ran into a woman who kayaks our local rivers, cleans up the "trash", glass, drift wood, whatever she finds, and turns all those pieces into hanging pieces of art. It really inspired me. I love upcycling and re-purposing.

I also joined a swap a few days ago. Granny Squares! The idea of joining these swaps and slowly collecting squares from different people to make a blanket seems like a lot of fun. As if I need another project!

Speaking of blankets, I started work on a quit a few months back. Almost finished cutting out all the fabric. It uses very unique shapes so it's a bit time consuming. Once I get my first quilt block made, I'll start posting progress pictures.

And that's it for me. Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

Ponderings

I originally created this blog to keep up with my business announcements and the like. Then I found that I really wanted to be able to just...write what was on my head.

I stopped using this because I didn't know what direction I wanted to go in.

I've considered making a personal blog to keep things separate but I'm not sure that I would update both. I feel like they go hand in hand, but I worry that people would become disinterested if it became more my personal thoughts.

I'm not sure if anyone reads this, but if you do, what are your thoughts? New Blog? Just use this blog for whatever I want? Something else?

A new project!

So I fell off the face of blogging for a bit(EEP!) but I'm back now and will try to keep up with this xD Thank you to all my watchers who haven't vanished! I promise I'll do better from now on.

So anyways, I'm writing today to spread the word about the new fund raiser I have going on!

Recently we have been hashing out the details for making high quality, acrylic jewelry featuring our Octobloops.



After a lot of research(and help from my mum, thanks Mom!) we stumbled across a charity called "Kick Starter" that helps Indie artists start up fund raising projects to get their artistic endeavors off the ground.

Project home:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/manifesteddreams/spreading-happinessone-bloop-at-a-time-3

The goal is $1,500 by June 1st, 2010. If we are successful we will be able to produce a minimum of 10 designs to be made into; Rings, Cell phone straps, hair pins, necklaces, earrings and more! I am EXTREMELY excited about this prospect and am really hopeful that it will be a success.

There are gifts for each donation tier which you will receive for donating. The items are matched up with donation amounts in such a way that it is essentially a pre-order without the cost of shipping!

Please have a look and if you are interested, your donations are greatly appreciated! Be the first to have some awesomely amazing Octobloop swag <3 Even if you can't donate or would prefer not, that's totally cool too! I'm thankful to any re-posting/word of mouth advertisement I can get for it. This is the first really huge art endeavor I'm taking and admittedly, it's scares me. I have a huge fear of failure but at the same time, I've met so many amazingly awesome artists that took steps even though they were afraid. It gives me a lot of hope.

I'm hoping that by the end of this, I'll have a wonderful story to tell and intend to frequent the site in search of other projects to donate to.

Thanks for looking everyone!

Haiti Earthquake relief, how you can help

Hey everyone! I'm popping in today to relay some information about how you can help the relief efforts for the Haiti Earthquake that happened on Jan 12th.

As some of you may know, my boyfriend works for a non-profit charity in Pittsburgh called "Brother's Brother Foundation". This charity focuses on overseas aide and has appeared in Forbes as one of the top efficiency charities in the country.

I know that a lot of people are wanting to offer aide to Haiti right now, but might not know where to go. While most of you are not in the Pittsburgh area, BBF is collecting "Hygiene Buckets" as I am calling them, for local drop off. They are also taking monetary donations, more information on both can be found here: http://www.brothersbrother.org/haitidonorguide.htm

This is one of the few charities out there that has such a low overhead while doing so much good. I've included links to the Forbes articles that explain a little of what they do as well as show the numbers. So if you feel compelled and want to help, this is a good place to go.

Thanks for taking the time to read this everyone!

2007 Forbes article: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1210/180.html

200 largest charities: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/14/charity-09_The-200-Largest-U.S.-Charities_FundRaiseEff.html

BBF's Number run down: http://www.forbes.com/lists/2009/14/charity-09_Brothers-Brother-Foundation_CH0025.html

BBF's Haiti Assistance Page: http://www.brothersbrother.org/haitidonorguide.htm

BBF's Donation Page, where monetary donations can be made: http://www.brothersbrother.org/donate.htm

Mrs B Give-away

I fell way behind with this thing, I'll try to come back strong though! Expect to see a post with substance soon. Thank you for bearing with me!

Admittedly though, this is just for another entry in a giveaway xD

Mrs B at "Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom" is hosting a giveaway for a beautiful Tungsten ring. I want this thing so badly. I'm not sure why, but I am in love with the thicker rings and want one for my thumb @_@ Here is hoping!

http://silvermoonwitch.blogspot.com/2010/01/tungsten-wedding-rings-review-and.html