Dia de los Muertos Decorations

I'm excited about Halloween, and I want to put a cool spin on it this year with some awesome Dia de los Muertos skulls!

How do you like your sugar skulls ...

Black and White?

[Edit: My black and white skulls treasury was featured on the Etsy Treasury Hunter today!]

Or Full of Color?

Stitching in Circles featured at Heart Handmade

Mandie of Heart Handmade sweetly featured the upcycled accessories I sell in my etsy shop on her blog!  I am so flattered.

Check out the profile and feature! StitchinginCircles on HeartHandmadeBlog

Dissertating

I am deep in my dissertation work right now, with deadlines looming, and I have to plan 2 summer classes that are both starting in a month, so I am taking a break from Etsying and Blogging for the near future. But it is only temporary!

Santa Barbara Skies

I've been taking lots of pictures over the last few months, and I thought I would share some of the gorgeous skies we've had in Santa Barbara recently.

I took these pictures on a warm and clear Friday morning when I was walking some Etsy deliveries down to the post office last week. I love the way the clouds slumber on top of the ridge of the Santa Ynez mountains just north of town. I wish I could capture on camera their simultaneous solidity and ethereality.

On my way back from the postoffice, I stopped by Renaud's Patisserie and Bakery and picked up some gorgeous croissants for breakfast: pain au chocolate and one covered in almonds.

A few days later I was walking home and I didn't have my camera with me, but I just grabbed my phone to try to capture some similar clouds piling up on the corner of the ridge, behind the tower of a giant old movie palace called the Arlington Theatre.

Rockabilly Street style

Rockabilly Street style by Tina S featuring a cropped jacket

Saw a gorgeous woman with dyed white hair and a style all her own in a black Rosie the Riveter kerchief, cigarette pants, and the cutest polkadot espadrilles on the street today. I didn't take her picture, but I tried to reconstruct her outfit as best as I could here!

Music for a Busy Day

It's been a busy week, in a good way! Seeing friends, family, doing lots of real work... but it has meant that I have had to neglect all my little side projects. But I do have a plan for some fun posts after I battle my way through this pile of grad school work!

I actually got my dragging body out of bed at 6:30 AM today to continue my project this week of organizing an interdisciplinary conference with grad students from all over California. I hope to have the vast majority of emails that need to be sent out of my drafts file and into my outbox by the end of the day. I managed to get to a yoga class in the morning, and then in the afternoon went to a discussion by a bunch of Santa Barbara writers about their perspectives on writing about place, which was nice for a change of pace. I don't go to half the writing- and art-oriented events that I want to in this town. Now I am home, but the day is far from over!

So, my soundtrack for a busy Santa Barbara day:

Etsy News

Just the headlines!

• I am delighted to announce that the giveaway I participated in at Fantabulously Frugal has been won by Terecille of New Jersey -- Congratulations Terecille! Her bobby pins went out in the mail earlier this week.

• new bobby pins are in my shop! 

• I sold three items this week -- what a rush!  One to a friend, and two to a lovely woman I have not met who runs a letterpress company and makes gorgeous things. In fact, she heard about me solely because I left several very enthusiastic comments on the giveaway she is running right now: $50 in letterpress products or in a gift certificate to Apple, MyFonts.com, or Amazon: go check out Dingbat Press's blog! So there has been lots of packaging and careful final finishing of my little fabric creations before I send them out into the wide world. And another friend, Megan, who modelled these bobby pins and this collage pin, is loving the bobby pin set I gave her as a thank you, and is going to buy more!