Hi

I’m sick. Again. It’s starting to get incredibly annoying. I don’t feel as bad this time since Cody was also sick and Udom appears to be coming down with it too. Which means it’s not just me getting sick.

I’m still working on my stuff for Origins. I’m feeling better about that at least.

No house projects done. Heck, I didn’t even realize it was Wednesday until Udom told me. Awesome. I’ve lost pretty much a whole week. /sigh

So hello from the geek house of illness. It’s going to be a lovely week!

Edited: June 16th, 2010

Dragon Talk Radio with Jon Klement

Thursday night found me on the phone talking to Jon Klement for his weekly radio program called “Dragon Talk Radio.” You can click this link to hear my interview if you didn’t get to hear it live. I don’t think I sound like I normally do but I’ve been assured I don’t sound horrid either lol.I had a lot of fun doing the interview and the time just flew past.

Jon writes some neat books and comics and I first met him at a convention called VisionCon in January 2010. VisionCon was my very first convention and I met some amazing people there. One of the callers asked me if I’d had any lasting relationship come from going to Cons and it was a hard question to answer. I say this because my first con was only 6 months ago so while I’ve stayed in contact with people, it’s difficult to say if it’s a lasting friendship I didn’t get to answer that question as well as I would have liked so here’s the expanded answer

I did meet Russell Dickerson at VisionCon and we’ve stayed in contact. I think he’s an awesome guy and his art work is pretty amazing. One of his prints hangs in the front living room and we talk occasionally on facebook messaging. I also stay in contact with him via twitter and hope to  see him again at the next visionCon.

I also met Phyllis and Shanda of Con-Vixens. We chat all the freaking time and I would LOVE to live near these amazing women. We’ve met again at several conventions and it’s always a blast. We chat via text message all the time and facebook and twitter as well. Did I mention they’re awesome? Because they are

I still talk to Director Dave as well. I think he was what made my first con so freaking fun. I bought him on a whim at the slave auction where they were auctioning off people to help raise money for a breast cancer charity. I bought Dave for a bargain price and he was a my bitch for the rest of the Con. And when the Con Director is your bitch, so is everyone else that works for him. Fun times! Anyway, he took me around and introduced me to people as his MASTER and apparently that helps you get remembered. I still talk to Dave as well and think he’s also a great guy to hangout with I even went to another Con as just a people so we could hang out for a bit. He rocks!

Anyway, the rest of the interview went well and I hope to do it again. That was my Thursday. Blog post later about my weekend

Edited: May 24th, 2010

Dragon Talk Radio

I’m on Dragon talk Radio with Jon Klement

It’s on right now! If you want to call in, the number is (646) 378-1593. If you miss it, you can still hear the entire interview on Jon’s website.

Edited: May 20th, 2010

Elsewhere on the interwebs

I’m the Shop of the Week for the etsy twitter team.  Here’s part of the interview:

Amanda is @geekdetails on Twitter. Her Twitter philosophy? “Follow who you like and converse with them. Don’t just mindlessly follow everyone…and don’t follow people simply because they’re following you. This may lose you some followers, but the quality of your twitter connections will be higher! For me, twitter is about making connections with people. One connection with a rabid follower of your work is (imo) far superior than 50 followers that don’t really care about what you’re doing and are just upping their numbers. It’s quality over quantity for me!”

And you can read the rest of it on their site

Want more interviews? I’ll be on Dragon Talk Radio with Jon Klement on Thursday evening at 9 pm MO time. I met Jon at my first con and bought a hat that my youngest son wheres EVERYWHERE. No joke. Kid does not take it off and I even used taking it away as a form of punishment. The hat is just that cool. Jon writes some really neat children’s books that my kids like, perhaps your kids will too. Check him out The call in number for the show is (646) 378-1593 if you want to call in tomorrow.

And in other news, I’m helping some other con friends set up their website. The Con- Vixens have a neat little etsy store where they sell tshirts. They’re also very active on facebook and twitter.

Edited: May 19th, 2010

Happy Mother’s Day

We don’t do a lot for holidays like this one. I’ll call my mom (my dad’s second wife and the woman I consider my mother although she did not give birth to me and they are no longer married). Cody will call my mother-in-law. The boys let me sleep in and then give me whatever they made in school. Cody made breakfast and someone not me did the dishes. We keep it low key and I like it.

My oldest made something at school and I really liked it. He wrote out a poem I’ve seen before but this time the teacher had the kids actually write it out instead of just printing off something. It came with kisses around his heart made of handprints. I removed the kisses and plan on framing his art for somewhere in the house. It makes me smile. I’d show you the youngest son’s art but it has his photo on it so I shall refrain.

The rest of the day is being spent finishing up small projects around the house and catching up on our television shows. I’m slowly starting to feel better and have been taking it easy when I start to feel ill again. I’m hoping I’ll be well soon and can reopen my etsy store. I don’t like to have it open when I’m dealing with being sick because I tend to lose track of days and that’s a bad thing. So here’s to finishing up projects, posting about them soon, and a speedy recovery.
Happy Mother’s Day

Edited: May 9th, 2010

Oh my Gawd

I died…No not really. My internet got turned off for a week because I had to get my own internet. Lawl, I have 3 bills now! I’m so excited! It’s like I’m finally growing up! But not really because I still feel like a 16 year old. I am going to hang on to that for as long as I can though. Not those crappy 16 year olds that drive like crap and thinks it’s cool to cuss loudly in public. One of the cool ones that likes to play games and stay up really late. Yes. One of the good ones <3.

Anywhozel!
I made a couple of things while the internet was down but mostly I read books. Amanda would laugh at me because I finished 3 or 4 books while internet was out; The books are regular sized paperback books and it took me 7 days. She could finish one of them in like…20 minutes…Yeah, not kidding. I wish I could read that fast. But I will just have to keep reading till I can.
Anyways, really neat series by Charlaine Harris, the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Great books. Also known as TrueBlood on HBO. As much as I like the series I like the books way better. Also…Bill and Eric are the kind of vampires that burn in daylight if that makes anybody happy. No sparkly vampires in this series.

So, the creations I made.
A cute Alligator Ring that I heart.

A pretty red bow with white polka dots.
Also a ring. I was testing out my glue, so I used the boring rings. My glue works good. The next one will have a pretty, intricate band.

So, this is my second to last post on Geekdetails.
Tomorrow, I will be purchasing my very own blog/journal/thing for my business. I will post a link to it here once I make it pretty. Should be easy enough. I dabbled slightly in coding, but I’m sure I can find a premade layout till I can make my own.
The Happy Toad opens soon. A little nervous, but it’s time to start it. ^.^

Happy Crafting Everybody!
XoXo – Brianne

Edited: April 28th, 2010

TaD – decoupaged tiles

One of the thing a day projects for this past week was my decoupaged tiles. Like a lot of my projects, I’ve had the parts in the house for a while now and just not done anything with them. I fixed that last night (or the night before, I’m not really sure anymore).

I found my camera finally which means I could take photos to post. I’ll take photos of the yard tomorrow because Jordan and Udom worked hard on it today. I didn’t help though because I spent the majority of my day passed on thanks to cold medication. I’m feeling quite a bit better now!

I’m going to St. Louis tomorrow with Cody. He has a work thing there and we have friends we trust to look after the boys so he asked me to go with him. I’m meeting up with @u2acro and a bunch of other people at the st. Louis tweet up. I’m hoping it’s fun. It’s with @u2acro though so how could it not be fun? I’m also going to go thrift store shopping Thursday while Cody is at his thing. Friday is my birthday (YAY!) and we’ll be coming home to spend it with the boys. It’s a busy week, but a good busy. Tons of photos to take tomorrow though, bags to pack, and then we’re off. YAY!

Edited: March 23rd, 2010

Cranberry Cake Recipe

This is one of my favorite things to make this time of year. I forget where I found the recipe, but it’s delicious. It calls for kirsch which is difficult to find in my area. I talked to the liquor guy at Parker’s (a local grocery store and the liquor guy is AWESOME) and he recommended 99 Black Cherries instead of kirsch. He said it’s about the same flavor, easier to find and only $17 instead of $44. Given that you use so little of it, I didn’t think the substitution would matter and it doesn’t. I tried a bundt pan this year and that was a fail… I’ll be putting whipped cream on the top to hide the mutilation for extra yumminess…

On a side note… I need new light bulbs. I really don’t like my eco friendly ones because my house looks very yellowy in person and in photos. It’s really starting to bother me and I don’t know if I should just try another type or if that’s just how they are. I hate the ones I have though. HATE

Cranberry Cake
makes 1 9×13 or 1 10″ springform cake

3 eggs
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened and cut into chunks
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
1 tablespoon kirsch (optional)
2 cups flour
2 1/2 cups cranberries (1 bag)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9×13 pan or a 10″ springform pan.

Beat eggs and sugar together for 5-7 minutes; the eggs will increase in volume quite a bit, streaming into ribbons when you lift the beaters. They will also turn pale yellow. Add butter and flavorings and beat for 2 minutes. Stir in flour and fold in cranberries. Pour into greased pan.

Bake 45-50 minutes for a 9×13, or a little over an hour for the springform. You made need to tent the cake with foil in the last 15 minutes or so to keep the top from browning.

Cool completely before serving.

Optional pecan topping:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup pecans, toasted

Heat the butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Add the sugar and stir. Add the toasted pecans and cook for several minutes, stirring, until the butter and sugar mixture is shiny and smooth and the nuts smell toasted. Spread over the cake batter and bake as above.

Edited: November 25th, 2009

And we’re back

The boys and I were stricken with piggy flu, but I think we’re better now.  Mostly anyway. I’m so far behind on stuff it’s insane, but I’m attempting to catch up tonight and tomorrow. I have new items for the store that are slowly being listed and I have my lovely Daisymoo has been in the studio helping me get things done. She’s very lovey lately and I’m not sure what’s up with that… normally my cat is an evil evil bitc… I mean….

Edited: November 5th, 2009

Studio Frustration

I’m having a heck of a time separating my items I use to create new product from my items that are finished products and my things I use to mail orders. I like things really organized and this room just isn’t coming together the way I want it to look. It’s frustrating for me to not always be able to find things I want to use for packaging or shipping or whatever and I’m unsure of how to organize my shiznit. I do NOT want a bigger space. I want to figure out how to make this space work for me. I think I’ve figured out I like baskets and drawers instead of open shelving. I like to be able to sort my items by like item so that all my ribbon is in one tub, all the tape in another etc etc. I don’t feel I can do that just yet.

So I’m frustrated and trying to create makes me more frustrated and and and and and… I need a freaking glass of wine. /sigh
Anyone have some pictures of an awesome looking and yet well organized functional studio space for me to look at so I can pick apart how they did it and redo it in my room? Pretty please?

Edited: September 10th, 2009