KitCameo's Mostly Random Thoughts

Dogtor Who

2011-11-29T15:58:00.001-08:00

So, I was shopping at Michael's one day when I came across this kit:

I knew I had to make it into a TARDIS somehow, it just screamed out for it. It took me a while to get it started, because I didn't know how I was going to do the walls, or make it more TARDIS-shaped, and I knew it was going to take me a long time to make. Eventually, though, I ended up with this:

Once I had the basic TARDIS shape all figured out, I knew it would get easier from there, so I kept going. I wanted to make The 10th Doctor, a Dalek, and a sonic screwdriver, but I saved those for after the TARDIS was complete. Now, after a week of working on my project, it's finally done! All-Seeing Eye Dog: Dogtor Who, and Dalek, and of course, the TARDIS, which is bigger on the inside!

I'll be uploading the rest of the photos shortly on my Facebook fan page, so that you can see all the angles, and the unfinished versions of the Dogtor and the Dalek. I'm pretty happy about the way they came out, and I hope you enjoy the photos!

Birthday Surprise from Wenchkin and Scott Krichau

2011-11-01T19:44:00.000-07:00

Woo! I got another birthday surprise yesterday, and this time it was totally unexpected. A package from New Mexico showed up for me and I was curious as hell about it! I opened it up to a bunch of surprises from Wenchkin and Scott Krichau!!

I got two screen printed shirts, a custom screen printed cup cozy, and some hand printed cards with Scott's creature art on one and Wenchkin's calaca Snufalufagus on the other!

Here's my very own Glitter Bitches shirt, since I recently became a Glitter Bitches Affiliate, and now it's official!

Just call me Marilyn from now on! EAT IT, logic!!

Birthday Surprise from Creeplings

2011-10-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

I know I promised to update this blog more often, and it just hasn't been happening. I'm not much of a writer, you see, so it's tough to psyche myself up to do one of these. However, today I got an awesome birthday surprise in the mail from Rebecca Roka of creeplings on Etsy, and I knew that just showing the photos on Facebook or Google+ wouldn't be enough. She had said that she was sending me something practical, so naturally I expected a bra, but what I got instead was a hundred times better!

The trivet all on its own would have been a great gift! I love it, because it's the color the Cheshire Cat in my first painting, and I'm going to be using it for my coffee every morning. BUT, check out that box with the ribbon on it....

I recognized it immediately as a Super Sculpey box, but was instantly confused by the addition of one of my own little sculptures, the Wyvrog, on the cover! Then I took a better look at the box. Rebecca had made a sleeve cover for the "Supurb Sculptee"* box featuring my sculpture and all little quips about my creations! "America's premier boob modeling substance". She even added a Fuckery Seal of "Aproval"*!

The Whimsicle* logo and the gift tag she used on the ribbon are her own creations, and are available as tags in the Ornaments and Tags section of her shop. She has also made several Whimsicle pillows with this design for Regretsy charity auctions and prizes!

So there you have it! I really wanted to show everyone my fantastic birthday gift. I'm going to use the hell out of that Sculptee, but once it's gone I'm going to keep that sleeve for every new box I buy. Thank you, Rebecca! ♥

*All spelling errors were intentional.

I'm Kinda Weird.

2011-08-07T16:58:00.000-07:00

I've been sketching a lot of combination animal/thing creatures lately, and last night I went a little over the top...

Mini Horse in a Doggie Door

2011-08-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

HOLY CRAP, AM I POSTING HERE AGAIN?! It sure seems that way! Let's hope it sticks this time. It's been ages, but I have a lot of stuff I'm working on, and way too many big changes going on in my private life.

First, let me tell you about Quixote. Quixote is my mom's mini horse that she's had since the end of last year. The last time I posted I was living upstairs in my parents rental house, while my parents lived a few blocks away in the same city. Since then my mom decided that she desperately needed to own a mini horse, and the area they were living in was not in the equestrian district, so she had to pick up the family and move before even considering buying a horse. She quickly did so. The whole family, besides the two of us who were renting out the other house, moved to a smaller new house in the equestrian district, and my mom got a mini horse. The little guy is a bastard. He bites, he doesn't come when he's led, and he sometimes pushes my mom into the street while she's walking him for his daily exercise. We're told it's because he hasn't been gelded yet, but we're also told that mini horses tend to be ornery. He does seem to love my mom in his own way, and in the picture above he has his head in the doggie door because he heard her voice in that part of the house, but he knows he has strength in him, and my mom is not at all a very good match for him when he wants his way.

None of the above would have effected me in any way, of course, except that my parents are now trying to sell the house that I was renting a room in. (Anybody looking for a place in Burbank? It's well worth it for the amount you can make off of renting parts of it out.) So, now I'm once again living with my parents in a very small space. It's a devastating blow to the ego, but in a place like LA, when you are just barely paying your bills every month, it is very difficult to find a place with affordable rent. It's cramped here, and I have a LOT of stuff because my last apartment was so big, but I am still garnering up some creativity to get a few new things done here and there.

What I'm working on now are mini paintings of pun-animals. They started out as goofy sketches in my sketchbook when I was bored one day, and people started asking me to paint them, so I have been. These three are my faves so far, and the paintings themselves were purchased right away. What I would like to do, if I can ever get my brain in working order, is to start writing little stories for them. It would be cool to make a childrens' book or a comic, but I haven't had to write anything with a lot of content in so long, that I've gotten very rusty at it (as I'm sure you can tell by this post). That's why I'm starting to write here again. I'm going to try and hone my writing skills a little bit, even if it's just to report the things going on in my daily life. It may be boring, but there's a good chance there will be pretty pictures to distract you, so please stick around!

Framed Wonderland Paintings

2010-05-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

I just thought I'd post a few photos of my Wonderland paintings in their frames:

"Uff With Her Head!"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

"Smoke Rings"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

"Absinthe IS Wonderland"

16" x 20" canvas, framed

"This Damn Thing is Broken"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

"The Cheshire Cat and the Tea Rat"

8" x 10" canvas, framed

If you are interested in any of these paitings, please email me at kitcameo@kitsglass.net

2010-03-02T23:01:00.000-08:00

Today was an awesome day!

I'm so glad I got someone to take my shift at the movies!

First, I stopped by the copy shop, Color Images, to get some prints they forgot to give me yesterday, and they ended up giving me 10 extra prints for my trouble! Then, I stopped by Hyaena to give Bill the prints and my newest paintings, and I found out I had sales on my consignment (woo, something big sold!) Next, I headed out to Magnolia because I had to make a return in that area, and I went to the Bank of America there to deposit my Hyaena check. While I was there, I figured I'd check out this cute little boutique across the street (Encore Nouveau). I found a vintage Gevinchy bottle necklace there that they sold me for $15!! THEN, the woman working there, Lauren, saw the Cheshire Cat necklace on me, and ordered one of them PLUS the extra set of prints! She then walked me across the street to Mindfulnest, and the owner there (Amanda) ordered all of the lockets from me that I just ordered this week, PLUS extra mini prints, PLUS 2 of each of my 8X10 signed prints!!! I'm now out of lockets before the movie's even out! THEN, Amanda sent me to ANOTHER shop called 34 fourteen who also want to do consignment with me for the Alice items, and any other paintings/pendants I make!

Needless to say, it was the best day I've had in a long while! I'm just hoping my pendant order comes in soon so that I have more in time for the movie!! Don't worry, I still have the three I relisted on Etsy, ArtFire, and Zibbet in stock, so you still have a chance to get one before the movie comes out ;)

Oh! I forgot to mention that I finished a few more Wonderland paintings, and I can now release the extra sets of mini prints for the lockets!! Today I brought The White Rabbit (titled "This Damn Thing is Broken!") and Alice (titled "Absinthe IS Wonderland") to Hyaena, fully framed. I had dropped off The Caterpillar (title "Smoke Rings") last month. I'm going to be listing full size, hand-signed 8X10 prints very shortly as well.

Wonderland Glass Lockets

2010-02-13T15:14:00.001-08:00

Hello! I realize it's been a while since I've updated, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things now. For those of you who don't know, I've been working on my painting lately, and have started on a Wonderland series of acrylic works. The originals all end up at Hyaena Gallery in Burbank (and are available for sale through their website), but I've decided to get creative with some prints from the series! I got some new glass lockets that are fully reversable, and I thought it might be fun to make some mini prints of my artwork to put in them! The mini prints are each hand-signed, and have been made into magnets so that they are easily stored but not easily lost. I started with the Cheshire Cat print!

The idea with these pendants is that you can change out the print whenever you like, or even put a photo behind it to make it reversable! Once you remove the print, all you have to do is place it on a magnetic surface to make sure it doesn't get lost. Once I have finished a few more of the Wonderland paintings, I'll be listing sets of 5 mini print mangets on a small magnetic stand that you can place on your vanity for safekeeping. You will never have to buy another pendant to get the design you want, just purchase the mini print sets and use the same pendant over and over!

I'm going to try to get at least three more paintings finished by the end of this month, so be on the lookout for the mini print sets in any of my shops in the beginning of March!

Thanks for looking!

~KitCameo

I SHALL Paint!

2009-09-21T00:06:00.001-07:00

Well Hello!

It's been a while since I've written anything art-related in this blog, and I guess it's because I've been in a kind of slump lately. I enjoy etching, you see, but there is far less freedom of design choice when working with such a medium, than there is with sketching or painting. I had been wanting to branch out for a while now, but I was always afraid to start something because it had been so long since my last painting (in fact, probably since high school!) In an effort to force myself to set out in a new direction, I took a personal vow not to etch anything new (with the exception of custom orders) until I had gotten at least one painting done! It took me quite a few rough sketches before I would finally put a brush to canvas, but once I started it was like riding a bicycle! I worked on my first painting (in a gazillion years) from start to finish in two days, and ended up with a finished product that I'm actually very proud of!

I call him "The Cheshire Cat and The Tea Rat". I started with Cheshire Cat because I thought it might be a fairly simple design to ease myself into painting again, but now I think I may just do a whole Alice in Wonderland series, with my own take on all the characters! I've already framed this piece, and I'm trying to decide where he will go, but I would like to make prints to sell, if I can only get the materials I need together! If anyone out there in cyberspace *might* be interested in a print, I would certainly appreciate if you would drop me a line of encouragement to get my arse in gear and get it done, lol!

Thanks for reading, and feel free to give me a nudge (or bonk me on the head) when I'm not updating enough!

~Kit

kitcameo@kitsglass.net

Anora the Mermaid 4 @Aquathon, on #ArtFire

2009-07-25T12:39:00.001-07:00

Today is @KirstieAlley's 24 hour Aquathon on Twitter! Unfortunately, I myself am so broke I have to use credit to buy groceries, so I'm unable to give any money to the cause. I do, however, have an art bottle that I've had for a while, which I think goes along with the aqua theme very nicely! She's Anora the Mermaid, and she's another one of my ooak large art bottles. She has been very popular, but hasn't gone to the right home yet, so today I decided to list her on ArtFire in support of Aquathon's cause! 100% of the proceeds from the sale of this bottle will go directly into Aquathon!

8:19pm E.T.A. Anora has sold! To NIA VARDALOS!! I'm so excited that she'll have one of my art bottles! And I already sent in the donation to PlayPumps (the wells that they will be installing in Africa).

Why haven't you joined #ArtFire yet?

2009-07-23T14:50:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I came across ArtFire on Twitter, and I added them in the interest of having more online art markets to choose from. I wasn't sure if I was going to join the site or not, because I have my hands full trying to keep my own website updated, and my Etsy shop, AND my blogs, AND Facebook, AND MySpace... you get the idea. It seems like a few simple clicks, but all that time really adds up when you're keeping track of a lot of different sites! So, it got to the point where I was groaning at the thought of setting up another shop.

Still, shortly after I followed them I noticed a tweet stating that the CEO of ArtFire was also on Twitter, as ArtFireJohn. This interested me, because as far as I know the CEO of Etsy is not on Twitter, and not very easy to get in touch with. So, I immediately added ArtFireJohn to see what would happen. Well, shortly after I added him I got a DM (direct message) from him welcoming me, and asking me to contact him if there was anything I needed to know about ArtFire. This might have been an auto-DM, but I messaged him back with something goofy anyways (I do that sometimes), and immediately got another DM with an answer that went along with my goofy question! I was very pleased to see that the CEO of ArtFire would take the time to respond to any weirdo that felt like DM-ing him, so I decided to join ArtFire as a seller, and took him up on his offer to answer any questions I might have. I also tested the ArtFire Twitter account by replying to them several times, and whether I was being relevant or goofy, I still got a response every single time!

On my new ArtFire account the first thing I was VERY happy about was the fact that ArtFire Basic is completely free for life! At the time it was only 10 listings and not much use of the artisan tools, but now Basic allows 12 listings, Rapid Cart (of GREAT use to my fellow bloggers!), and Market Hub (something Etsy should learn about)! Rapid Cart is in use on this very blog right now, and it allows my customers to buy directly from here. Another thing I LOVE about ArtFire, and which has come in VERY useful, is the fact that my customers DO NOT have to sign up with ArtFire in order to buy from me! Think of how hard it's been to try and convince your clients to sign up for Etsy in order to buy from you, and then tell me you don't think it's helpful to COMPLETELY eliminate that step! And what about Market Hub? Right there in your ArtFire studio is a menu bar that allows you to put the links to all your social networks, your own site, AND even your ETSY shop! You know what this reminds me of? Have you ever seen It's a Wonderful Life where the Macy's Santa Claus starts recommending other shops for the customers to buy from? Kudos to ArtFire for having such an unselfish attitude as to advertise their main competitor right inside all of their artisans' shops!

Have I not given enough reasons yet to join ArtFire? Well, how about these two....

Not too long ago Ashton Kutcher wrote to his Twitter audience asking about gifts to buy 300 people. I responded quickly asking him to buy handmade, as did a few other people, but he shot down the idea right away as being too difficult. Well with 140 character count, that doesn't leave much space to convey why he was mistaken in his thinking, so I wrote a blog letter to him here, to ask him to reconsider. I quickly went about spreading this to every Twitter artisan I could, to try and make sure it made it's way to @aplusk (Ashton). I also asked ArtFire, ArtFireJohn, and Etsy to RT (re-tweet) it as well, because it was written to highlight all of the Handmade artisan communitys, and to give articulation to why we do what we do. Instantly ArtFire and ArtFireJohn RT'd the tweet, and in doing so got a great deal of their followers to RT it also. Etsy flat out refused, stating that they could not RT something that an artisan directly asked them to RT, because it was against policy. Thanks to ArtFire, though, the word got out, and @aplusk finally read the letter!

And here's the second reason, and perhaps the most important. Last week a friend of mine's father went missing in LA. My friend, Noah, made an appeal to all his friends online to spread the word however they could to try and get as many people as possible to be on the lookout for his dad. I knew that there were a few people following me who had a great deal of followers in LA, so I re-posted his letter to my blog, and tweeted as much as I possibly could to ask people to spread the word. Again, I directly appealed to Etsy, ArtFire, and ArtFireJohn. What I didn't know at the time was that Noah's sister, Erin, is actually an artist on Etsy, and that she had started a thread about her missing dad in Etsy's forum! Well, once again ArtFire helped out and RT'd everything I wrote about it, and ArtFireJohn took it one step further, coming up with a hashtag specific to the case so that we could spread the word more easily, and so that people could keep up to date with what news there was on the status of Noah's dad! From Etsy I heard nothing at all. I then tried one of Etsy's employees on Twitter, and she flat out refused. In the meantime I learned that Etsy had even shut down Erin's thread in the forum for an hour and a half because they "don't allow private information to be posted on our public Forums", but then they apparently thought the better of it because they re-opened the thread later on. I won't get into what happened with Noah's dad here, but I will say that with ArtFireJohn's help we were able to reach thousands of people with the hashtag, and get them out searching for Robert Korda. If you want to know more about it, then you can read the news story here.

So there you have it. I'm not trying to bash Etsy, but I did want to note them in an effort to show how much more interaction and attentiveness you can expect from the ArtFire team. I don't think you can honestly expect them to RT every time you list a new item, but you can expect them to be a lot more human when important things come along. Even if you don't Twitter, you can still chat with their CEO, John, every Thursday on Blockhead Radio! I'm certain that with the amount of effort and attention ArtFire is putting into their studios and artisans, soon ArtFire will be the greatest online handmade marketplace there is, and the best place to find unique gifts! So, what are you waiting for? Why haven't YOU joined ArtFire yet?

Freeway Kitty!

2009-07-22T14:35:00.000-07:00

My sister gave me a call last night while I was eating a bowl of cereal to ask if I had some wet cat food.

"Why?" I said.

"Because I found a kitten near the freeway that was crying, but I couldn't get it to come to me!"

Well, I didn't have any wet cat food, but I did have cereal milk (which really isn't good for cats because they can't fully digest it, but in this case it was good for coaxing), so we took a small dish and went to go find the kitten again. We walked to the spot where my sister had found it, and started meowing to see if it would respond. Immediately we heard baby mewing coming from behind a metal fence. The kitten was nervous, but it did keep trying to get to the milk; however, it seemed to be having a hard time getting through the holes in the fence. Luckily, not too far off was an area where the fence was a bit above the ground, so I put the milk down near it and lifted it a few more inches. The kitten shyly edged towards the milk until she was on my side of the fence, and I quickly grabbed her. The poor baby had a hurt ear and a gouge in her leg, which leads me to believe she might have been picked up by a predator and then dropped. She was also covered in burrs and fleas.

When we got her home I gave her a quick bath with a no-tears human shampoo (this is not something you should regularly bathe cats with, because it might irritate their skin, but no pet stores were open at the time.) We also picked up some de-worming medicine which I put in some wet food my sister bought for her. She ate all the food and the medicine, and she was even drinking a lot of water! This morning I found that she had been making good use of the makeshift litter box I created for her, and I tried her on some dried cat food, which she ate up quickly as well! I'm happy to say that I think this kitten is going to be fine, and my youngest sister took her home with her this morning. The cut on her leg seems to be healing, and my family will take her to the vet for shots. My mom hates cats, but she's an animal lover, so she just couldn't keep saying no after she saw such a cute little kitten =^_^=

Now the only person left to convince is my dad... ;)

Should I?

2009-07-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I announced on my various social sites (Twitter, MySpace, Facebook) that I would be raising prices last week to keep up with my prices at Handmade Galleries. I had fully intended to do so, too, but I had put off art related stuff to try and help Noah earlier in the week, and then later on I started to debate this issue again. In order to afford my spot at Handmade my prices there are pretty high, but for the most part they are ooak (one-of-a-kind) designs there, so you won't be able to buy one of my necklaces at Handmade directly from me. On the other hand, my necklace prices are a LOT lower online, and they are wholesale from me, only because I was afraid no one would buy them at retail prices. No one is buying them anyways, and I've even had some ballsy people question me on the prices of my hand-sculpted, hand-etched mirror pendants!

What should I do? Should I raise them to the retail price, or at least something above wholesale, or should I keep them at the prices they are now, and hope people will come to their senses and start buying? I realize that even $30 might seem like a lot to pay for a necklace that isn't sterling, but I also know that you can't get one anywhere else, and you sure as hell won't find someone as daffy as myself willing to do the work and charge the minimum!

Robert Korda has been found

2009-07-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

Please see Noah Korda's own blog for any more updates there may be: http://dirtnap13.livejournal.com/

I wish things had turned out better for this family, and I will keep them in my prayers.

7/13/09 9am ETA: I just want to thank everyone who helped spread the word to try and get this man found. We were able to reach a lot of people, and get them out there searching. The search did not end well, but I know that the family appreciated all of your efforts, and words of encouragement.

I would also like my readers to know that Twitter user @ArtFireJohn is the one who originally started the #FindBob hashtag.

Thank you again, and God bless.

7/13/09 1:57pm ETA: Here is the most recent news about what happened: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/07/missing-man.html

PLEASE HELP FIND THIS MAN!

2009-07-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

AS of 11:55pm 7/12/09 Noah updates that his father has been found, and that his family are making funeral arrangements. Please follow his blog for any more updates: http://dirtnap13.livejournal.com/

7/13/09 1:57pm ETA: Here is the most recent news about what happened: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/07/missing-man.html

7/13/09 ETA: I just want to thank everyone who helped spread the word to try and get this man found. We were able to reach a lot of people, and get them out there searching. The search did not end well, but I know that the family appreciated all of your efforts, and words of encouragement.

I would also like my readers to know that Twitter user @ArtFireJohn is the one who originally started the #FindBob hashtag.

Thank you again, and God bless.

ATTENTION! This note was written by Noah Korda today at 1:03am on Facebook. For some reason every link I send out to the note only redirects to the FB homepage, so I'm reposting his message here! PLEASE spread the word and FIND THIS MAN!!

RT on Twitter with the hashtag #FindBOB

ROBERT KORDA'S DAUGHTER IS ON ETSY! SUPPORTERS HAVE MADE TWO TREASURIES TO SPREAD THE WORD!! READ ABOUT IT AND FIND THE LINKS TO THE TREASURIES HERE: http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6216151

CBS 2 NEWS COVERAGE: http://cbs2.com/local/missing.violinist.professional.2.1082710.html

ALSO, Here is the link to the thread on Etsy by his daughter, Erin. http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6214000&page=1

NEWS COVERAGE: http://cbs2.com/local/Missing.Violinist.Robert.2.1081499.html

UPDATE 7/12/09: Noah says Verizon is finally cooporating but only due to a court order. LAPD is searching the last area his cell was used: http://dirtnap13.livejournal.com/ KEEP VISITING NOAH'S LIVEJOURNAL FOR UPDATES FROM NOAH HIMSELF.

UPDATE: Here is a banner his son made with a photo of the make of his car: http://www.batsday.net/missingrobertkordaposter.pdf

UPDATE 7/11/09: SEARCH PARTY AT THE CORNER OF LAUREL CYN AND VENTURA, 11AM!! http://dirtnap13.livejournal.com/ KEEP VISITING NOAH'S LIVEJOURNAL FOR UPDATES FROM NOAH HIMSELF.

UPDATE 8:08PM 7/10/09: Last actual person who saw my dad was in the Studio City Hill area. I do not know if he would have taken Mulhololand back to his house. My sister is checking the area out before it gets too dark which i think it may be. i have to go to my dads to meet the media. Possible search party tomorrow in that area.

NEW UPDATE FROM NOAH: Quick update:Thank you everyone. I have spoken to LAPD Downtown. They have checked everything in the system from tow yards, Hostpital and even coroner. It sounds like they are going to get the trace on the cell phone thing going but I am not holding my breath. He is now on the hotlist.I am going to go to his house and try to take care of a couple of things. There has been talks about doing a net search by driving search. I am not sure how to start or where to start.Thats it for now. Thank you everyone. Somehow I am still holding up and havent broken down yet.

NEW INFO: My Father's License plate number from the car he was driving.CA 3GPJ453 1993 White Geo Metro

I dont know where to begin. PLEASE HELP. MY FATHER IS MISSING.Hi guys,I know this is going to sound like another bogus chain email but I assure you that it is not. I personally dont know how I am keeping it together at the moment.

My father has gone missing and I need help.

I know that sometimes sending out messages like this can help locate people. I am asking for any help at this point. Someone might have seen him.

The police is not really doing anything about it other than just reporting it as a missing person. The best part about all of this is that his cell phone is on and I know that they could do a tracking on it to locate him. They cant do anything without a court order which I am going to try and get, before his cell battery dies.

My father left Thursday 7/9/09 morning @ 7:45am to go to a job and never made it to the job. The job called the person who booked him the job and said that he never showed up.

He left from the Van Nuys area. Major cross streets Woodman & Victory. His destination was to be in Hollywood at the Gower Studios at Sunset & Gower.

He was driving a white 1994 Geo Metro. I dont have the license plate but will get it. My father is the type of person that is right to the point so he would have just taken the most obvious route. Victory to the 170 to the 101 to Gower. But at this point who knows. He is also the type of person that wouldn't really go somewhere with out telling someone. Its like he just disappeared into thin air.

Name: Robert Korda

Age: 69

Height: 5'5"

He is in good health

Any info would be great since we are at a total loss. We have contacted all the hospitals and police stations and there has been no one with his description at all. This is why I am now going to cyberspace since it seems that normal channels are not helping.

Any info can be emailed to me @ findrobertk@aol.com

As much as I would love emails that say Im sorry for your loss, please do not send this kind of emails to the email account or to this post. Thank you for this your understanding.

Any info that can help would be greatly appreciated. My family is a mess right now and we dont know what else to do. You can repost this to other groups if you need to.

Thank you.
Noah Korda

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/note.php?note_id=113994988512&id=699078447&ref=nf

A Bat for Two Cats!

2009-07-04T21:33:00.000-07:00

A while ago I was contacted by Krissi of Skelekitty and Friends about my Have a Nice Night necklace. She wanted to know if I would like to do a swap with her for one of her custom items in return for my necklace! I was thrilled to be able to get a Krissi original, so I immediately went through all her shops to find ideas for what I would want on my plaque. I knew I wanted a regular skull on my piece like the one in her "Grinding To A Hault" piece (which i will covet someday, since it's right around the corner at Hyaena Gallery), with a gradient background like the one in the "A Brand New Sky to Hang the Stars Upon Tonight" piece. I also decided I wanted some kitties in mine, because I love my kitties,^_^ so I asked her to have two kitties (one for each of my cats) leaning up against the skull!

Well my piece was finished quickly, and she even brought it down here to Burbank with her as she was passing through to do her Santa Clarita Craft Lab! She left it with my friend Bill, at Hyaena, and I picked it up soon afterwards! I absolutely love it, and the attention to detail is excellent! There are even little tiny skull and crossbones in the background, and a few "Meows"! The colors are amazing, and exactly what I was hoping for!

If you want to see more of Krissi's work, check out her flickr page called Mixed Media & Mexiphemera, and make sure to visit her blog here on blogspot as well!

Dear Mr. Kutcher, Please Consider Handmade

2009-06-02T02:09:00.001-07:00

This blog was written for Ashton Kutcher, in response to his Tweet last evening asking, "Looking for a great gift for under 100$ bulk any thoughts?" @aplusk

Dear Mr. Kutcher,

I apologise for not writing to you directly, but I'm not quite sure how to do that... Trying to write back to you on Twitter when you also have nearly two million others doing the same, is like trying to squeeze my head through an ant crack in the concrete!

I wanted to get this message to you somehow, though.

I'm an artist on Etsy (http://www.etsy.com/) and ArtFire (http://www.artfire.com/), and I have my own website as well; but it's a very difficult thing to do, to try and get noticed through the throngs of millions and millions of other online sellers. I'm part of a team on Etsy, Etsy's Dark Side Street Team, and in the past year a great deal of my teammates have lost their jobs and some have even lost their homes due to the state of our economy right now. These people make beautiful items, and they absolutely love what they do. This is our passion, creating art, and our heart goes into everything we make.

I've been trying to write to you to get you to consider making your purchase from one of the handmade artisans out here. I can see that I'm not the only one either, as @ArtByChrysti has actually managed to get her tweet through to you, asking you to consider her artography prints. I was greatly puzzled by your response to her though:

"@ArtByChrysti the problem with art is that it's very personal hard to do for 300+ people".

While it is true that fulfilling a handmade order for 300+ items will be a large task, I can guarantee you that any of us (artisans) would give our right arm to have the chance to fill that order for you! It is the chance to get paid for doing A LOT of something we love! Just imagine if you were offered the chance to star in and produce an epic movie based on your favorite novel. A daunting task, I'm sure, but wouldn't you jump at the opportunity?

There are a great deal of reasons to buy handmade too, and some of them already come close to some concerns of yours. I've seen you tweet about ending hunger in the U.S. ("Call to Action for Hunger Awareness" Join the campaign. Change yourself, change your community, Change the world http://bit.ly/MGWTc) Hungry people in the U.S. are people who have lost their jobs and couldn't get new ones to help them pay for food. They are people who cannot find ways to support themselves and their families, because jobs are outsourced, and very rarely do fellow Americans buy items that are "Made in America"! These people still have talents. A great many people can create, and love to do so, but until it becomes more popular to buy a handmade purse rather than a Gucci one, people will not be able to turn to their artistic talents as a way to sustain themselves!

There are other reasons to buy handmade (environmentally sound, personal gifts from the heart, made with great care...) but I will let you read about them on Pledge Handmade, because they have a lot of good arguments already! I will say one last thing though; if you decide to give 300 people a brand new toaster oven, they'll probably be excited and grateful, but in a few years that toaster oven won't be worth much. However, if you order 300 one-of-a-kind handmade items for your gifts, those recipients will have a present that will not only be made with pride, but will also become worth more and more as the years go by because of its rarity, and even more so because of your involvement!

Thank you for taking the time to read all this! I hope I've given you something to consider...

~KitCameo

PS. Fellow Twitter artisans out there reading this, try to use #buyhandmade in all your art-related tweets! We CAN get the word out!!

New Website for Handmade Artists!

2009-05-23T17:43:00.000-07:00

I ran across a new site called Zibbet on Twitter today that's made for artisans like myself. From first glance I like the setup, because the front page is not overly selective, like Etsy's, nor incredibly cluttered, like ArtFire's! There are three rows of five photo slots on the front page, with one row for the Showcase(which will eventually be purchase-able ad space, but is currently random listings), another for the most popular items, and the last for new listings. All the rows are clearly visible on one screen without scrolling down or to the right, which makes the page look clean, like Etsy, but also allows every artisan a chance at the front page, like ArtFire!

There are no fees for listing, which sounds pretty good, but the transaction fee is 7.5%, which at first sounds kind of ridiculous! However, they have an EXCELLENT referral program, that nets you 2.5% of the sales/purchases of the sellers/buyers that you refer! Also, if you refer someone who buys from your own shop, they reduce the commission they take by 2.5%.

I decided to sign up myself, in an effort to have my name out there as much as possible! Also, I hope I can make some extra money off of their referral program. Therefore, if you do decide to sign up, please use my link:

http://www.zibbet.com/KitCameo/sell

Thanks!
~Kit

Create Your Own Seed Paper! Paper You Plant and Grow Into Flowers!

2009-05-21T15:51:00.000-07:00

I just got a job at HandmadeNews.org, and I thought I'd share with everyone!! This is my very first article!

http://www.handmadenews.org/article/index.php?id=1076

Presents for me!

2009-05-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

So, this is a bit late, but I thought I'd share with you some of the Get Well gifties I got from my family after my surgery!

First, my brother came to visit me in the hospital and he brought me a chocolate covered strawberry bouquet from Edible Arrangements! It was very tasty, let me tell you, and also really cute. Shortly afterwards my sister and her roomate came in with cute hommade cards and some really delicious extra dark chocolate cookies. Mmmmmm....

Then, while my brother and I were watching a movie on the portable dvd players he brought in to hang out with me, a woman walked in with a GIANT candy bouquet! She was not only the delivery person, but she had also created the bouquet, which my grandmother had ordered for me from Candy Bouquet! It was huge, and filled with chocolate!

I thought that was my Get Well Present quota, but then, the morning after I went home I got a knock on the door. I thought it was my mom checking up on me, but it turned out to be the Candy Bouquet woman again, this time with a huge cookie bouquet from my Aunts Kathy and Judy!

I just want to say thank you to my family for all their love and support, and for copious amounts of junk food, which is just what everyone needs to feel better!!

Twitter

2009-04-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't noticed from my sidebar, I have a twitter account now! Etsy Dark Side Teammates let me know if you're on it too, so I can follow you! Here's my link: http://twitter.com/KitCameo

Fibroid Photos

2009-04-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

So, just as I promised I'm posting the photos of my fibroids right here. These pictures were given to me by my surgeon, Dr. Landay. I'm going to put a large gap in between this paragraph and the first photo, because there are obviously guts involved, and I don't want anyone to accidentally happen upon my page and see something that will make them sick. Therefore, anyone who is interested in seeing what my fibroids looked like can scroll down the page for the photos and a bit more information...

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While you're scrolling, here's a picture of a fetus bottle I made! ;)

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Okay, so this first picture is of my large fibroid still attached by it's stalk to my uterus. The uterus is about the size of a pear, and as you can see there were three more smaller fibroids starting to grow as well. A fibroid is (usually) a benign fibrous growth that can be attached to the uterus via a stalk on either the inner or outer uterine wall, or enclosed within the muscle of the wall itself. The fibroid is basically an extra muscle growth that will start to appear once a woman reaches the age of menstruation, and usually will begin to shrink once a woman reaches menopause. No one yet knows what causes fibroids, and it's possible that mine will grow back, but researchers believe that it could be genetic, and that it's affected by estrogen and progesterone levels. It's pretty rare for a fibroid to get the size that mine did, which was 18cm; however, smaller fibroids are fairly common, with 20-80 percent of women developing them by the time they reach the age of fifty. If you'd like more information on fibroids in general, please take a look at this website, womenshealth.gov, which is where I got most of my information from before I went to the specialist. It's always good to be prepared ahead of time, so that you know what questions to ask!

This next photo shows the fibroid still on it's stalk, and if you look closely you can see a very large vein which is providing the blood supply that kept the fibroid growing. Occasionally the fibroid would twist on it's stalk, cutting off it's own blood supply, thus "choking" the fibroid. At these times there was extreme pain that lasted quite a while, and wouldn't dissipate with pain medications. In fact, the large fibroid was twisted twice over on it's stalk (you can see it a bit in the first photo), but somehow it managed to still keep a blood supply open, so as not to kill itself.

And finally, this last photo shows all the fibroids after they've been removed from my abdomen. Currently I'm still healing, so the pain hasn't gone away completely yet. The recovery time for an operation like mine (a myomectomy) is six weeks.

Surgery

2009-03-22T18:56:00.000-07:00

I'm having a myomectamy tomorrow(removal of a uterin myoma, or fibroid.) Hopefully I'll be back soon, once I'm feeling better, and I'll tell you all about it! :)

Other blog

2009-03-19T13:29:00.000-07:00

Hullo! I set this blog up because I changed the address of my Kit's Glass blog to http://kitsglass.blogspot.com! This will end up being my general artblog, but for now this entry just serves to inform those of you who were following my blog that it has switched over to that domain! Thanks!

♥Kit