cut path x little pancakes / renegade!

I promise this is NOT a blog about my jewelry, but here is one more post about my jewelry.
 
Internet circles being as tight-knit as they are, I know some of our readers are already fans of Little Pancakes jewelry.  Melissa's designs are sweet and fun...perfect to wear every single day of your life if you're interested (as I hear some people are) in feeling less sad!

 
So when Melissa brought up a possible collaboration, I immediately, enthusiastically said "yes".  Our first piece is kinda exactly what you would expect from the two of us together (in a good way!):  her popular brass bunting necklace meets up with a motif near and dear to our hearts...a kitty cat, naturally.


Here is Melissa herself rocking one:

And you can check out the listing here!


BUT the fun doesn’t stop there!  Melissa is coming to Austin this month for Renegade Craft Fair (May 19 -20). She’s staying at our house and we plan on making more jewelry (probably including one of a kind pieces!) to sell.  I’ll be hanging out at the Little Pancakes booth, so come say hi if you’re in town!  


MAKEatx is also setting up shop, so check out their booth!  I've seen a bit of what Kristen and Eve have up their sleeves for the display, and I think it's gonna be pretty rad.  


You can buy stuff like this from them:

 

pen pals n stuff

So I guess I never mentioned here why I'm lasercutting everything these past few months - it's because I've been interning with MAKEatx. I'm mostly a go-to Internet girl (I looooove the Internet, of course), which means that I started and maintain the blog and update Pinterest and Twitter. I also do miscellaneous workshop dutIies, including production of the products they sell throughout the greater Austin area.  The coolest perk is that I get access to a laser cutter and can play with it to my heart's desire (seeing as how my heart does not desire to do anything destructive with powerful machinery.)

I'm working on a lot of new, different things to put up on Etsy (and,  not to jinx it or anything, but elsewhere if Tuesday goes well.)  I think I definitely like making packaging more than products themselves, though!  I've had the luxury of experimenting with a lot of different ways to ship out my products, and the latest is my very own customized jewelry boxes.

P.S. Anyone who sells handmade goods or whatever and is interested in lasercut packaging, please get in touch!  I'd love to work with you.

I am currently working on a collection of stationary that isn't quite ready yet (get it right or don't do it) & have a lot of variations of my packaging (including cards for thank you notes)  that are still in "sample" form just hanging out.  PLUS my mom is visiting for the very first time next week, so I've been cleaning up like crazy and finding all sorts of hidden gems.

In light of this & my pretty decent collection of stamps waiting to be sent all over, I've decided WHY NOT SEND STUFF TO INTERNET FRIENDS?????

A lot of my current IRL friendships originated online, honestly - it's a cool place to get in touch with people with similar interests!  But there are a lot of variations of it: roommates and other friends I see on a weekly basis, friends I contact via Twitter frequently or text, friends who I met that one time when we happened to be in the same city,  like-minded darlings who read this blog but don't actually talk to me or comment that much, etc. 4evs.  The point is, I like you all and wish to be a mulch-millionaire who could visit you all!  Since I can't, though, how about I send you some mail?

If you wanna be included, e-mail me at ventriclestory at gmail.com with your address!  There are a lot of things you might possibly get, including a nice note, blank stationary I made myself, prints of work by both myself and friends that are extras hangin' out after they were included with old zines I distributed, and maybe even originals. WHO KNOWS?

Please don't be hesitant to shoot me an email if you don't think we know each other that well - the point of all of this is to get to know people better! I'm happy to send things internationally, too, so that shouldn't scare you off!

P.S.  I know I definitely owe a few people mail...mostly people I had great ambitions of making something original for & haven't quite gotten it right yet (lookin' at you, Zoe) and people who I should have sent something to long ago but might not even have the right address for anymore?  (*cough* Liz *cough*)  You guys are already on the list, but if you think I don't have a current address for you, please get in touch!

and the jay-z song was on

After I helped Eve and Kristen over at MAKEatx create some pop up unicorn business cards a while back, I've been meaning to make some of my own inspired by Miley Cyrus.

I really love "Party in the USA" with no shame - super catchy and I like to think of it as a response to one of my favorite Jonathan Richman tunes, "Parties in the USA" even though I know that isn't true.  However, I am a little embarrassed by the number of juke boxes tucked away in dive bars of the greater Boston area that I fed dollar bills so I could hear the song, but me spending money I shouldn't is not Miley's fault, is it? It's totally the fault of bars in Boston being so very not good. 

Got my hands up, they're playing my song

And now I'm gonna be okay

Yeah! It's a party in the USA!

Another update is that they actually have a URL on them (look who's hustling now) and instead of saying handmade jewelry, they say handmade goods.  That means new things are coming, y'all - some of it is different jewelry, but some of it is not jewelry at all!

A side note: why isn't this Portlandia sketch getting more attention? We all talked about Put a Bird On It to death, didn't we?

One of the constants of the past decade had definitely been hearing Carrie Brownstein's voice in my head and thinking, "she is totally singing about my life!"

 

Also, flowers, right? I bought these on a whim the other day and it made everything better.  Pictured hangin' out with Jamboree by Beat Happening (hearts in my eyes for Calvin Johnson forever) and Kill All Of Your Friends by The Disaster Life. I was looking through stuff trying to kind of clean the house and thought they all belonged together.  Jessica mentioned a sequel zine on Tumblr and I hope that happens and I get my hands on a copy.  But I don't know. My hands might be otherwise occupied being all UP and stuff because they're playing my song.

paint it gold

Excitement is the word. Excitement!

I purchased some fancy gold leather paint & I'm now offering a few shiny pieces in the Cut Path shop and will soon have even more designs available.

I think I'm definitely inching a bit closer to the aesthetic I'm super into - twee occult: for girls who wanna spin Beat Happening records while they play with Ouija boards.  Derivative as fuck! But I love derivative. I mean, I'm not down with outright plagiarism, but references piled up on each other to the point of being practically meaningless are cool with me.  Enthusiasm is the new apathy! 

what's the bizness, yeah?

I've wanted business cards for some time now. Not because I have particularly serious business to arrange or because I'm constantly weaving in and out of social settings where I leave people wondering how can I get more of what you have to offer? I just like them.

I finally got around to making some today with the lasercutter, and I quite like how they turned out!  Are they terribly informative? No, not at all...but hey, do I really have that much information to give? No, not really.  

Since it's the internet, here is a shot of what they look like next to kitten paws so you can fully understand them.  

I don't know if you can really tell from these photos, but the text is etched into the paper.  It's really, really cool if you happen to get excited about things like indentations in paper.  

Probably my favorite thing about the whole thing is now I have hand confetti! A new lease on life, for sure.

While I'm blabbering a bit about personal branding, here's the current packaging for my jewelry.  Nothing too fancy yet - definitely by no means final, but it'll do for now! 

P.S. the fabric in the background of these photos is some cotton I dyed peach. I'm gonna make a stamp and do a floral pattern on it one of these days and make a fine lookin' pillow cover.  

introducing CUT PATH

If you follow me on other corners of the internet, you might already know this, but I'm making and selling jewelry now!  I had initially hoped to launch my Etsy shop, Cut Path, in a more organized fashion...but I don't anyone who knows me will be surprised in the least to find that it didn't quite go down that way.  

The cool thing is that at this point, my shop has only been open for a couple days and I've already sold most of what I have in stock & have a couple custom orders in the works....and for that, I want to extend a gigantic thank you to everyone who has bought something or simply mentioned it to a friend.  That was way cool of you! I'm sure your radness will be rewarded when the universe decides to distribute the next wave of good vibes or something.  Or maybe you'll just really like your jewelry!  

Thanks to the sales I've made, I will be able to make more & I will have a shop update Wednesday and can show you a more complete selection of my current range of products.  Until then, here are some photos of my beautiful friend Joyce wearing my wares and Caroline's flawless wardrobe.   Thanks, ladies!