Melissa, the Craftasaurus

Lately I've been putting more time into my crafts. I redesigned my craft site, twice. Here's how it currently looks.



I also created a new craft blog where I can show off some of the new things I've been creating. I'm going to try to spend some time every week making new cards. This is depleting my wallet a bit because I've made trips to the craft store for the past three weekends.

There are a few things going on in the upcoming weeks. On Tuesday, Roberto y yo will be eating out at Harú, an awesome Japanese restaurant in the city. It's restaurant week in Philly, which means $30 for a appetizer, entree and dessert. Suh-weet. Then Wednesday we are checking out the King Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. It's teacher's night, which means no $28 admission! Woohoo! Friday we need to pick up a futon because the following weekend Maria and Jamel will be visiting! YAY!!!! I'm so excited that they are coming out here! That means that Rob and I have some serious cleaning in our future. We need to make this place suitable for guests!

Okay, cutting this shorter than usual because I want to get some more craft time in tonight. But before I go, here are my recommendations for the week.

#1 - Basecamp, project management software: got it at work and it rocks
#2 - ReadyMade magazine: ordered a 2 year subscription for $15, great zine
#3 - Craft punches: so much better than the stupid circle cutters I've used for years

G'night!

Designs up the wazoo!

Well hello there! Just thought I'd share some of the goings on in mel-land right now.

First of all, I've been lurking around (and minorly participating in) a craft forum called The Switchboards. It's a place for crafty business ladies to gab and share secrets and find answers. So anyway, lately a few of these ladies have been asking for some minor design work. A 2"x2" ad. Making a change to their index page. Small stuff. So I started doing it, and it's been great! It's only a couple bucks here and there, but it adds up. And plus it's great networking. I've even worked for some trades. Right now I'm redesigning someone's business cards for some lotions and bath products. :-)

But I got a great one last weekend. A member posted that she needed some invitations asap, and was willing to part with any purse on her site, Margaret Nicole. After a few emails, I agreed to whip up 30 birthday invitations for her in exchange for this adorable bag:



She was such a delight to work with, and I can't wait to see my new bag! Oh, and here are a couple photos of the completed invitations.






Also, last week I finished up an invitation design for work. This really is my favorite thing to do, so I was glad I got the opportunity to work on a project I actually liked. Here they are:






And then today I received an email from a woman who I used to do an occassional newsletter for. She needs an ad "jazzed up". And I might be doing some Flash clean-up for an animation/design studio. And some record store in Florida asked if they could sell some of my notecards, but I haven't heard from them in almost a week, so I'm not counting on that one. Oh, and a woman contacted me via my website about doing her wedding invitations! The year is starting off on the right foot! Yeehaw!

On another note, my lovely Maria, who will be visiting in a few weeks, asked if I might want to send her some Valentine's cards to be shown at her company's gallery for First Friday in Phoenix. I need to play around this weekend, but I made this one last weekend after a major craft store splurge. I LOVE the little skulls with the red eyes!




So things are moving along. I've designed to revamp melissahead.com to focus on paper goods and custom work. I don't want to cloud it up with other crap. Although now I'm not sure what I'll do with the 175 key fobs I have lying around.