Pumpkin Bookmark

Can you see a running theme?

Here's a new bookmark I'm working on. As you can see, I'm a bit more comfortable painting with Photoshop than with watercolour, but I do love the simplicity of painting with water and little circles of powder. I'll be back to that soon. In the meanwhile, it's Photoshop all the way!

I like the way this has an almost stained glass feel to it. It's meant to be printed out and cut out around the picture with a black rim remaining, but it does look nice with a black background too, n'est pas?

Fat Grub Halloween

I did a little doodling the other night and came up with a picture of Fat Grub that I really like. He's decked out in a purple witch hat, surrounded by all manner of goodies!

What's he up to?

Well, in a moment of genius, Fat Grub decided to build his own magical Halloween empire. Of course, when Fat Grub is the architect, everything is edible and yummy to the extreme. Good job, Fat Grub!

Doorways and Regret

Yearning, longing for the end of the day
lost in the thoughts of the past
Wondering, "What if?" What if I had took
the other, less trodden down path?

Caught in the moment, I was swept along
I took it, the doorway, I didn't look back
but now on this doorstep, I turn and I look
Did I make the right choice?

There's no way of knowing. It's not like a book.
I can't flip ahead, look, and cheat.

Stuck in this moment, this doorway of time,
Indecision always my fate.

--Marie Tai

Rainy Day Thoughts

I want to bury myself in a big bowl of porridge
I want to crack an egg on your head and watch it drip
I want to step on a slug and watch it go smushy
I want to throw mud on the wall

I want to sit on a rock and think about life
I want to smell the sweet scent of a rose
I want to blow dandelion seeds all over the lawn
and roll on the grass till I'm green

It's rainy, it's wet, and there's no where to go
but inside where all is a bore
I'm wishing for sun and for sun ripened fruits
but even those fruits have torn open

Sad are the rainy days
sad days of life
Sad are the choices we've made
Sad are the rainy days
why can't it be sunny?
why can't the rain go away?

--Marie Tai

Unbelievable

I walked up to the cafeteria counter today and, as usual, I asked the cafeteria guy what was tasty that day. "Sooo, what's good today?"

I smiled at him and waited to hear what I should choose for the day. He usually knows exactly what is tasty and just begins scooping. Instead, he grinned at me and said, "Me."

"What?" I thought I heard wrong. Maybe he said beef?

"Me." Nope, I had heard right. Oh dear.

I laughed, "No, really. What's good today?" He grudgingly admitted that all the entrees were good today and that I could choose any one of them. I told him to just pick one, so he chose steak for me, quick to promise that he'd pick a nice rare one for me.

I smiled and thanked him, and walked away. A quick glance told me that he'd piled on unusually large amounts of all the side dishes, and upon tasting the steak, I was pleased to discover that he did choose a good one for me.

My co-workers always tease me about the cafeteria guy because they've noticed that I always seem to get more food than they do when we order the same thing. It appears that they were right after all. I told them what had happened and they roared with laughter, plotting to send me to get all of their food for them in the future.

Sigh, unbelievable.

Darned Horoscopes!

According to today's horoscope, my day is going to suck:

"You are looking for the promised land of milk and honey. Today your quest might take you through a desert where nothing grows."

Lol... thanks a lot, great unknown universe! Why couldn't it says something more positive!?! Isn't Monday morning bad enough without more doom and gloom!!!!????!! (Hehehe...)

Beastlies!!!

I came across these oddities called Beastlies today on Etsy and I love how expressive they are! Wonderful, aren't they?

One little baby... where are the others?

Sooo... we often think that the crazy mother fish is pregnant, but then she seems to magically lose the weight. Well, now the truth comes out. She WAS pregnant, probably all of those times that we suspected it. It's just that, um, they got eaten. This might even explain why she goes crazy sometimes and attacks her husband fish. Maybe HE ate her babies (or failed to save them from the giant koi fish).

Yesterday we discovered ONE baby swimming frantically around the mummy fish tank. It was so fast and so small that, at first, we thought we were seeing things. My sister screamed at my brother to get a flash light and a net and, together, they teamed up to catch the erratic misfit. Sure enough, it was a little black baby fish. We searched eagerly for other baby fish, but it appears that only one remained (probably because he was hard to see and much too fast to catch).

This new fishling is now safe and sound in the baby fish containment, but that was a close one. We're going to keep a closer eye on that mummy fish from now on. She's full of surprises!

Jane Danger In Progress

In between editing papers, I've been working on a new doll.

It's actually a custom order for a friend of mine. Her name is Jane Danger, and she's a super hero of sorts. I've just started cutting out the pieces of felt and sewing some parts together, like one of her pig tails. I'll need to pick up more brown fabric before I can sew up the other pig tail. I'm not sure if my friend will like it yet, but I'm having fun piecing her together nevertheless.

I always laugh at myself when I insist on making highlights and texture in the hair since it's rather tedious and time-consuming to do, but it just looks better to me that way. A little more stylish, I guess.

Jane Danger has a counterpart called The Watcher. I won't have time to start on that yet, but it will be interesting to see how they look together once they're both done.

Goblin Clothes and Wool Felted Acorns

It's been a while since I've featured fantastic finds on Etsy, so here they are for this Friday!

The Goblin Hood Frock Dress and blue fairy dress are by malam.

I think they're really beautiful, especially with the great Goblin hoods!














The wonderful wool felted acorns are by lil fish studios. If I could make little felted balls, you KNOW I'd be making some of these!














And tell me these photos and crocheted things aren't breathtaking!? This birch tree cowl and fish tail shawl are from Elita.

Crazy Moms are Scary

If you can believe it, the mummy fish has struck again.

Placed into a separate tank with just a male Molly fish and a large Koi goldfish, she's found herself inconveniently pregnant looking again. And is she happy with this? Oh no, she's not. Poor husband fish is now lying incapacitated in the aquatic weeds, contemplating his significantly shortened life, and mummy fish is very, very angry. She swims around the surface looking for food, and when she feels inclined, she'll swim down to the weeds to give her husband fish a good, hard (not nice) peck. He's still alive; he just doesn't want to move. (His wife must have given him the beating of a lifetime. )

Note to all other visiting male Molly fishes: don't mess with the crazy girl fish!

We're not really sure if she's really pregnant again, but she's a bit more rotund than she previously was. I wonder if it's because she's eating both her food and the food of her soon-to-be-belated husband? Oh dear...

Growing Old Sucks

I envy those high school kids lounging on the immaculate lawns at lunch break. I envy their relaxation, their ability to change their minds, their lives laid out before them with the ability to choose new paths, new relationships, and new... everything. Everything is intense. Everything is a matter of imagined life or death. It is exciting.

I'm not so old myself, but already I can imagine a lifetime of aging, wrinkling, and sagging, ugh! It's all downhill from here, so they say. Will I end up on a hospital bed being served tepid water by nurses that no longer care? Will I sit snoring in a lean chair in front of the TV while grandkids giggle behind me? Will I speed along the pavement in an electric wheelchair, bright orange flag waving in the wind? Are those my choices now?

It's no longer about the schools I'll be accepted to, the dates I'll accept or turn down. It's no longer about deciding on the right career path, and passing the next big exam. That's all over now.

I think passing over that bump in the road was quite fun. It was oh-so-hard, and now it's gone and I miss it. Give me a moment to mourn while I get ready for the next hurdles in the short marathon that is life.

Twilight Fans!

If you've read the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, these videos will amuse you. I'll add more as I find them...



I'm fond of this song "River Flows in You" by Yiruma:



This one is really quite nice too. It's "Lullaby" by The Mitch Hansen Band. If you like this song, check out the other Twilight-inspired songs here. I'm a-lovin' them!:

This is Sparta (Remix)

Lol... here's something to amuse you.

Green Polar Bears

Hehehe... check out this green polar bear!
He was stained green after swimming in a pond overgrown with algae and now the darned green stuff won't wash off. Poor thing! Luckily, over time, the green stuff will disappear by itself (in about 2 months) - phewf!

Read more here.

Project Wonderful Stats

Happy Friday!

So did some tallying up last night and I thought I'd share some Project Wonderful stats with you in case you're considering it. I'm at day 13 right now, so this what you can possibly expect in roughly two weeks with Project Wonderful.

Selling Ad Space
I have 15 ad spaces right now and after 13 days, I have made 76 cents. Not exactly a fortune...

However, it does make for some interesting new finds in terms of web comics, various products, blogs, etc. Compared to some other advertising programs, I actually like the advertisers that are posting on my site. Possibly because many of them are comic artists, their ads look nice! That is a big perk because some advertising programs have really ugly ads. Google Ads, for instance, were rather boring because they are all text-based.

And there's one more perk! Once you have the ads on your site, you can click on your ad statistics to see stats on your website! You can see how many page visits and unique visitors are viewing that particular page that your ad is on, and where they are coming from. In fact, you can click on the top referrer links available and see the exact search options that were entered into Google or other search engines to find you! How cool is that!?

Oh, and don't be discouraged if you have few advertisers during the day. For some odd reason, most of the advertisers come out at night. I can have empty ad spots during the day but, at night after 9pm, the ad spots magically fill up. It's like the 12 dancing princesses.

Buying Ad Space
I made 5 ads (2 for Blue Pandemonium, 2 for Mytutorlist.com) and spent a whopping ZERO cents. In return these ads did quite well.

The 2 Blue Pandemonium ads got 14105 page views (7964 of them unique). Of these numerous views, there were 18 clicks (16 of them unique). There was one button ad and one square ad. The button ad did better.

The 3 Mytutorlist.com ads got 26311 page views (13776 of them unique). Of these views, there were 91 clicks (88 unique). There was one button ad and two square ads. The button ad outperformed the 2 square ads combined at 58 clicks.

Summary
The online reviews were right. Selling ad space is not necessarily a great thing with Project Wonderful. Even if I sell all 15 ad spots every day for 365 days, I will only make $54.75. Considering the amount of effort I'm investing to monitor the ads and improve them, it's not worthwhile at all. If I was to try and improve this, I would have to increase my minimum bid from one cent to something higher. I will have to do some more experimenting with this in the future.

However, advertising your sites on Project Wonderful is actually pretty good. An extra 91 visitors at Mytutorlist.com over the past two weeks is a very good thing for getting the word out there. An extra 18 visitors at my Etsy store is also very good. And for what? Just time. No money necessary. That's pretty wonderful.

Is it Friday yet?

I thought for sure it was Friday today! I was counting on it, hoping for it, desperately reaching for it. Darn you, Thursday! That extra day before the last day of the work week!

Hehehe...

So the blog giveaway is over and I've packaged up the little white acorn for Chickenbells (Sadie). I'll make a stop at the post office after work and send it away.

My latest obsession- and I have a lot of them- is Project Wonderful. I've been dutifully watching those ads, seeing who bids, who doesn't bid, who disappears as soon as they have to start paying... it's quite fascinating. A few days in, I decided to give up on the free ad aspect and moved all the ads to one cent minimum bids.

At first, the advertisers all scattered. "One cent!?! Ridiculous! I'm outta here!" But they slowly returned and made peace with the penny. It's only one penny after all. Many of us don't even bother to pick up a lucky penny on the street anymore.

I made more room for the penny spots and now there are 15 in total. Some of them are very small button ads especially for web comics. I love reading web comics and would love to have more of them post on my site.

I made some nicer-looking "Your Ad Here" images too. The square ones overlap to tile the Mytutorlist logo (I'm quite proud of that :P), and the comic-only spots have a cute little, um, cloth-like banner design. I'm not sure how to describe it.

You can check it out here.

I'm going to keep watching those ads to see how they perform. The main complaint I read about online is that it's great for advertisers, but not so great for the publishers. You just can't make good money with them. I would have to agree with them so far since I'm still pluckin' at the one cent per day mark, but I will keep you posted and see if the scene improves.

Have a happy Thursday! Friday's a-comin' ("just around the riverbend!" Ah, I'm so cheesy...)!