Tag! You're it!

Facebook is hilarious. I always get tagged in such ridiculous pictures.
This face pretty much sums up my facial expression in every picture I'm not "normal looking" in.
(I can't wait until I get tagged in the picture of me dancing with an oompa loompa impersonator. Yeah, it happened last Wednesday. hahah)

I think EVERYONE should post a funny picture of them with an unexpected face.
I'm tagging all of you! It'll be fun, I promise!

Besides that,
You should check out Wichser Studio's blog! She's having an awesome giveaway with THREE winners. She makes these pretty necklaces and each winner gets one. Plus, the 2nd and the 1st winner win extra cute vintage items! Check it out! Also, take a peak at her Etsy shop while you're at it. Maybe you'll find something for yourself!

10 Things I Love

Hello everyone! I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Be sure to check out my Formspring Answer post and my post with some pictures of my craft room!

Let's spice up Monday evening with a list of 10 Things I Love!

Source: steffanmacmillan
(1) Colorful homes! I can only imagine living on that street and waking up every morning to look out my window to such beautiful homes!

Source: 69skin
(2) This skinhead boy on this scooter. That's 2 points in my book! I also love the colors and the composition of this picture.

(3) Twiggy. Eyeliner. The 1960s. Everything about this photo. I love it.


(4) Alice in Wonderland! I can NOT wait for the movie to come out.

(5) This photo. It reminds me of my long days at school. I love the solitude feeling of this photo.

(6) Blue hair. I've been looking for a part-time "real" job but haven't had any luck so I'm about to color part of my hair blue!

(7) My roasted gorgonzola crisp crackers from Trader Joes. They're only $1.99 and I swear I can eat a whole box in one sitting!!

(8) I know I say this in every post but I stinkin' LOVE CHICAGO.

(9) Weeds! I'm getting discs 1 and 2 of season 5 in the mail tomorrow from Netflix. FINALLY!

(10) Wild Light - "California on my Mind". My friend Chris sent this to me because he knew I lived in California for a while. I sort of have a love/hate relationship with San Francisco & Oakland so this song is so perfect.

Each photo, unless stated differently, is from weheartit.com.

Let the good times roll, let the good times roll.

A few peaks of my studio room and it's wild pink walls.



Top left:

-vintage globe, a very lonely canon (i need to start using it again), my zune, vintage thermo (i won that from Danielles giveaway! i love it!), my squirrels, a cute owl, a card with a turtle shell from Sharon Montrose on Etsy, and a colorful vintage tile display with an Adam & Eve (I'm not sure what it's real purpose is).

Bottom left:

My favorite vinyl covers from my collection. Billy Holiday, Pat Benatar, Sammy Hagar, a few Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Talking Heads, Billy Joel, and Nancy Sinatra's Boots.

Right:

My almost empty spool organizer. I really need to stock up. A Miller High Life tin poster showing my love for the midwest! Plus, I love the colors of it and the girl's fancy striped dress.




Here's a better picture of that colorful vintage tile display. This is when I had it on display on my old record player, which sat right next to my kitchen, in California.



Once Chicago isn't freezing anymore, I plan on painting my walls. I've had this same color for a few years now. Any suggestions?








Some more of my favorite things that I have hanging out in my studio room:



Top left:

A polaroid I took in 2005 (I think it was 2005).

Bottom left:

A vintage sewing machine picture frame that my ex found for me at a garage sale for $1!! I haven't found the perfect picture to put in it yet. It needs a little bit of cleaning but I love it.

Top right:

A homemade felted bowl with my stash of neutral colored vintage & new buttons.

Bottom right:

-DOMO cup! He's from 7/11. I love him. He just sits there... there's nothing in him because I don't want to ruin his adorable self.

-Mini moo cards.

-A picture holder made out of real wood and a real twig. It holds a polaroid of a wooden fence. It was only like $3 from this cute store in Geneva, IL.

Formspring answers!

Here's my Q&A the few Formspring questions I had received!

I love packaging, it is a great way to establish a personal connection in an electronic world. Even though the item is handmade, it is the first thing your customer sees that says, "Thanks for buying from me!" :)
I completely agree! I did a blog post on packaging in January because I think it's extremely important for the customer to know they're buying something that a lot of love went into.

Here's the blog post:
http://birdtrouble.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-idea-of-creative-packaging.html

Here's my forum post in the Etsy forums that was featured in the Etsy email list:
http://www.etsy.com/forums_thread.php?thread_id=6322096

this is kind of personal... but how much money do you make from your etsy shop, per month? you have so much awesome stuff, i want to buy it all!!
The profit that I make from my shop really varies from month to month. I don't really want to give exact numbers but some months, I only make $500 and other months, I can make $700. Right before the holidays, it was crazy busy and really successful! This past month was slower but still successful with returning customers and custom orders. I only have my phone bill and my tuition to pay so I can squeeze by... but I hope it gets busy enough to where I can rent my own place soon.

I love your blog and shop! by kelsilove
Thank Kelsi! Congratulations on winning too! :)

I looooove your packaging, it's the cutest thing I ever received. Do you make your own stamps and labels? If so how?
Yay! I'm glad you loved your package! I love packaging my orders. The Bird Trouble stamp that I use was created by Modern Art Stamps on Etsy. I sometimes use a bird stamp, if I don't forget, and that's from Michaels Crafts. Other than that... I sometimes use a To: label that I designed on picnik, put it onto word, and printed it out on computer paper (that I buy from thrift stores!). I really love incorporating paper doilies in my packaging also.

Who designed your website?
If you're talking about www.birdtroublehandmade.weebly.com,
I made that myself with the help of weebly's templates. Weebly.com is free and is so easy to work with! I plan on getting a more professional website in the future, but that one is good for now.

What design program do you use on your computer to make your graphics, its so cute?
Well thank you! I just use www.picnik.com to add borders, add words to them, or stickers. I love picnik because it's free! You can pay to use some extra special tools but I like the basic tools good enough. :)

Pancakes or waffles?
Waffles all the way!! Waffles, french toast, then pancakes. Pancakes are just boring to me!

Delete Your Response

how many tattoos do you have? what are they?
I have a total of 5 tattoos. My whole upper right arm is covered so I'll consider that one but it wraps around under my arm too. The outside of my arm is of a Spanish lady on top of a rose. The inside is another rose and a sugar skull inspired by Dia De Los Muertos. Let's see... I have two dots on my wrist that represent snake bites (inside joke with a friend, I don't expect any of you to think that's cool hahah). I have my toes done that I got with my ex, so I need those either covered up or removed. My first tattoo, which is another cute skull with hearts on my lower hip. I also have a blue/red heart behind my left ear. I love tattoos! I plan on getting more work done as soon as I can save money aside from school.

You are so cute! Are you married? If so, how long have you been married? Do you like being married?
Thanks! No, I'm not married. Me and my boyfriend of 3 years just broke up this past New Years. I plan on staying single for a very long time! haha

when did you start sewing? what's your favorite thing to do while you sew? [as far as multi-tasking is concerned...]
I started sewing in 8th grade. So...when I was 13, I think. I had to make a pair of boxer shorts for class. I also took 4 years of Fashion Design in high school, 3 of those years being Independent Study (that's when I really started loving it because I was open to make what ever I wanted). Then off to Fashion Design in college... but I didn't go through with that and here I am! As for my favorite thing to do while I sew... I usually ALWAYS have a movie or a TV show playing off Netflix. I love Netflix. I swear, I'd go crazy without it! haha Lately, I've been just playing Pandora.com stations because it's less distracting.

That was a lot of fun answering those. Keep asking me questions! I gotta get to work on my Sociology paper and then I'm going to sew for the rest of the day and all day tomorrow! Yay!

Shop update!

A few days ago, I added 10 new coin pouches to the shop. You can find them in the pouch section. We have a total of 33 pouches in that section now! That includes big pouches and small pouches, so you'll be sure to find the perfect one for yourself!



AND!!!




I introduce you to the thin bifold wallet! A brand new design!!! There's only one in the shop so far, but I plan on adding more within the week. After doing that custom order a few weeks ago, I decided to add this design into my shop for the dudes in your life or for those gals who just don't carry purses! Like me, for instance. I hate carrying my bag around when I go out. So, I made one for myself too!




I'm also extending the Haiti Relief promotion until the end of this month. I feel like I didn't give myself enough time to prepare for promoting the last week of last month. So, here are the details....

Until March 1st, 10% of all Bird Trouble's proceeds are going to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief. This is a great way to help out if you don't have tons of money but you want to have a part in helping. I'll announce how much we've gained on March 1st. I'd really, really appreciate it if you told your friends, tweeted about it, blogged about it, or threw it on your facebook status!



Besides that...

Wow, it's February already? January started off to a get start! Obviously, despite the tough first break up week, I really couldn't ask for a better start to 2010. I'm completely fine with the break up. Actually, I'm more than fine with it, I'm extremely happy about it. School's going great. I love all of my classes... well, besides Sociology. It seems as if my teacher has no clue what she's teaching. I've spent more time with my old & new friends than I have in the past 3 years. I've been more creative this month than I've been in a while. I even started writing in a journal again. I can't stress how much I love Chicago. I just wish I lived in the city, with the public transportation, because it's hard for me to get around without it.



Well, I gotta get to classes in a few hours so I'll leave you with another polaroid of mine.



2005, I think. That's my ex standing in the field. We were walking around a forest preserve... like we usually did every day... and it got really dark out. We were having trouble trying to find our way out and then it started raining. After who knows how long we were running around aimlessly for, we finally got to my car. We found about 30 ticks on us and in my car. Yeah, you can imagine how horrible that is. :)