On My Desk

{This will be become a regular column featuring various Etsy artists.  If you want to be featured, please contact me! You can e-mail me or send me a convo on Etsy.}

Yes, I know the lighting is terrible on all these pictures.  This room doesn’t have a lot of natural light and  I refuse to use flash.  I just flat-out refuse and you ain’t gonna change my mind! Flash makes everything all washed out and blah looking.  This way it looks….dramatic!

Trust me, I tried taking the pictures with the flash and they looked even worse.

 

What’s on my desk?  Let’s look at bit closer….

 

  
1.  Your standard, boring desk stuff.  Twirling organizer thingie stocked with pens, markers, ruler, scissors, pliers, Ativan.  Wait, what?

  

2.  This green magnet strip above my desk is how I keep track of my Etsy orders. When I get an order, I handwrite an invoice and place the customer copy up on the magnet board, along with any other paperwork for that order.  Once the order is ready to go, I take it down and tuck it into the package.  As you can see, business is a bit slow right now, so my otter pals are keeping me company.

 
3. A dictionary and thesaurus because I don’t know how to spell and Photoshop Elements (where I create my product labels and business promotional materials) doesn’t come with a spell-check.

 

4. An essential oil diffuser.  I love this one because it’s so tiny and unobtrusive and it makes hardly any noise at all.  Unlike many diffusers where you add just a few drops of oil, this one has little bottles that you fill with about 5mL of oil, so the scent lasts a long time without needing to be refilled.
{I offer this diffuser for sale if you are interested. Just contact me for more details.}

  

5. Books, books, books. I’m always consulting my books, whether it be for writing a blog post, creating a new blend, or just learning something new.

 
6.  Pepsi.  Cause it’s awesome.

 

7. Modem & external hard drive.  I actually backed up to it a few weeks ago! Now if only I did that on a semi-regular basis, I wouldn’t live with the paralyzing fear that my laptop is going to die and leave me all alone in this world.

 
8.  This is intended to be a pull-out keyboard shelf, but I use it to hold anything that I don’t want to look at on the top of the desk.  Basically I just shove stuff in there until there is so much that it starts falling off the back of the shelf and onto the floor.

 

So what’s on your desk?  Leave me a comment, or send me an e-mail if you would like to share your desk on my blog.

If you’ve already blogged about your desk and wouldn’t mind me re-posted it, please share!

{I’ll forgive you if you use the flash for your pictures.}

Spotlight On: Cardamom

Botanical Name: Elettaria cardamomum
Botanical Family: Zingiberaceae
Type of Plant: Herb
Part of Plant Used: The pods (or seeds/fruit)
Method of Extraction: steam distillation

Cardamom (sometimes it is spelled 'cardamon’) has been used as an herbal remedy in traditional Eastern medicines for over 3000 years.  Even Hippocrates mentioned it as a remedy for coughs and digestive system spasms.

The scent of cardamom probably conjures up images of yummy Middle Eastern or Indian food dishes.  I’d bet that people in countries where cardamom is used extensively in cooking don’t suffer from a lot of indigestion!  Cardamom is an excellent digestive aid, as well a being carminative (helps to relieve gas). 

Cardamom belongs to the same plant family as Ginger. When it comes to aromatherapy, I prefer Cardamom, both in scent and therapeutic properties. Beyond its obvious use as a digestive aid, this essential oil is a mental stimulant.  Try it in a blend with some Rosemary & Basil to help clear up “brain fog”.   

To help relieve nausea (especially pregnancy-related), try putting a drop of Cardamom and a drop of Spearmint on a tissue and sniffing it throughout the day.

The Cat Owns You – You Don’t Own the Cat

We want to move.

First we have to sell this house.

That involves a lot of cleaning, sorting, and throwing stuff away.

Since my studio is one of the first rooms I sorted through, I thought I’d do another post about it.  Yeah, again.

So I set up my massage table today for the first time in weeks.  Okay, more like months.  Things have just been too hectic lately for me to have any in-home clients.

Looks inviting, doesn’t it?

Good thing massage tables are meant to covered with crisp sheets and comfy blankets.

Because despite my best efforts to keep the table protected when it was folded and not in use, it has been abused by certain household members. I’m not going to name names, but I will tell you this much: They are of the feline persuasion. And they are pictured below.

They have been using my table as a scratching post.  More like a poking pad judging by these teeny tiny holes.

Grrrr! This greatly reduces the life of the table.

It could also greatly reduce the life of the cats.

 

I’ll tell you what.  The ONLY reason these cats haven’t been tossed out the door is because they are good mousers.  Well, one is a good mouser. 

The other one is just cute. 

It’s all she has going for her, really.

Tutorial - Matchbook Notebook Promos

There’s a great thread going on in the Etsy forums about promotional items other than business cards.  It inspired me to try making some super cute matchbook style notepads.

You will need:
Cardstock
Plain paper (for the insides)
Paper trimmer or scissors
Stapler (high-quality, you need to go through a lot of sheets)

I started by making a 2.5” x 5.5” file in Photoshop.

Then I added my image.  You will have to put your image (or text) at the top & upside down. If you wanted to add text to appear on the back of the notepad, you’d put it where I indicated in the image.  The lines are where you will fold – I didn’t print these, they are just there for the purpose of this tutorial.

I then created a new letter-sized file and arranged 6 of these images on it.  Next, print it out on cardstock and cut apart.  If you don’t have Photoshop, that’s fine.  Just cut out 2.5” x 5.5” strips of cardstock and you can decorate them with stamps, stickers, etc…

Next you’ll need to cut up the paper for the interior.  Cut plain paper into 2.25” squares.

How much you cut up depends on how many books you’ll be making.  Each book will hold between 10-15 sheets, depending on how good your stapler is.

Take one strip and place it on a hard surface, image side down.  Fold up along the centre fold line (use a bone folder to get a crisp fold).

 

Next fold up along the bottom fold line.

Add your sheets of paper to the inside.

Fold the bottom part over the sheets of paper and staple.

Put your back into it, or you’ll end up with a messed-up staple like this, and you’ll have to remove it and do it again.

I really wanted to use these cute purple staples I had leftover from my scrapbooking days, but they just weren’t meant to go through more than 5 sheets of paper.  So I switched to utilitarian silver Swinglines.

Some of them I had to trim a bit off the front flap to get it to fit smoothly underneath the stapled flap. 

Not a single one of my matchbooks ended up being the exact same size.  That’s just how I roll.

Finally, I customized the back with a “Thank You” sticker and a stamp of my URL.

Now you’re done!  Cute little promos to give away at shows, or to stick in with a customer’s order.  This is also a fun craft for kids in the 8-12 year old range, especially little girls.  I loved stuff like this when I was a kid – you’d never find me in the toy aisle, I was checking out the stationary and office supplies.