Attention!

I'm the youngest child in my family. I also have red hair. Both of these things combined have made me into the lovely attention whore I am today...although whore is such a "negative" word....Or is it?

You may question the red hair thing, but when you're a member of just 2% of the population on Earth, people comment on your hair.... a lot. Especially when you were such a cute little bugger. (See above.)

Attention seems to go in waves. Particularly when it comes to my Etsy shop. Sometimes things are all a flurry, and sometimes not so much. Right now it's certainly a-flurry! Hooray!

I've had the lucky-luck of having been featured in an Etsy-wide (subscribers at least) email by Tina seamonster, who is everywhere and is super-awesome-wacky-fun. I've also been on the homepage of Etsy.com a couple of times within the last month or so.... And 1000 Markets featured my bacon puppet--and then a pretty snarky twitter account who can get downright mean sometimes (I won't mention who...) featured me as well! Wheee!

So I've been getting lots and lots of "hooray me" time. Isn't that fun?

There's more, world. There's more....

Not only is this a feature, this is a call to duty for you good people...all 27 of you. It's time to stand up for your country--whichever country that may be--and vote for my wonky finger puppet! I know you may be tempted to vote for something better or more adorable, or better made, or funnier...but resist those urges that cause you to be honest in your voting and vote for me! This is a friggin popularity contest here and won't I be so sad when I only have 2 votes at the finish line. So yes, I'm asking for your pity-vote. Hooray pity votes!

The sad thing here is that I'm "competing" against some of my favorite people--totally unfair...and I'm finding new favorite people, too...I mean, c'mon, pizza cake? Total winner!

So yeah...uhhh vote for my finger. please.

That's the entire point of this blog post.

I'm getting all serious about poop

As the title would suggest, I'm getting serious about poop. And I don't mean I'm making more toilet paper finger puppets. Not until the first one sells, anyway. I mean that I'm setting up goals! I'm asking myself if I'm successful. I'm pursuing talking about success so I can avoid actually taking action on that success. (I'm honest, right?)

So I set out some goals for myself. As I mentioned...yeah. I'm on codeine (legally). Give a girl a break.

I often get a bug in my butt to go posting to Etsy.com's forums about how to succeed in life. And I give amazingly good advice. Such good advice that I actually sell it. And people actually buy it (crazy, right?). So this is a refined post to the forums that got ignored, but I don't want myself to forget it. So I'm posting it here so I can go back and read it like a narcissist.

Some of them are pretty darn generic. OK, most of them are. It's like they don't really tell me anything, but it sounds pretty.

Ready? Are you? You don't care, do you, you just want to see pictures of puppets. I made dead jam the other night. It's nice. I'll get photographs up once my ruptured eardrum (yes, ouch) allows me to get up and do things. like shower. (I know).

OK so some of these things have already happened, so that's awesome. Some I'm still waiting on. That's okay. In fact, I think it's good.

Artistically I'll know I'm succeeding if:
1. People all over the world are viewing my work. And smiling.
2. I get compliments on my work.
3. I'm creating new work that isn't forced.
4. My work is represented in multiple cultures/countries and speaks to a broad population.
5. I gain recognition among peers in my field.

Businessly(totally a word, I did not just make up that word):
1. People buy my work.
2. Enough people buy my work that I survive.
3. I have 1000 fans that spend at least $10 each year.
4. I gain at least 100 hearts/month*


Ways to make it happen:
1. Not treating it like a job, but rather treating it as though I'm positively surviving on loving what I do./Focus deeply on loving what I do.
2. Seeking out avenues locally to display and showcase my work.
3. Pursuing education in my art form so I don't become stagnant.
4. Introducing my work to people outside of my selling venues.
5. Establish meaningful connections with fans. But not in a whore-y way.
6. Seeking out support from other artists, both in my field and elsewhere.
7. Not allowing myself to not create. Pushing past the runner's wall.


OK so some of those sound a little gay. (Pause--I tried to think of a synonym for this that would still convey the fact that I understand that I know I'm being really....uh..gay about it all, that wasn't offensive, but I'm taking codeine and my brain-thesaurus isn't working properly, so gay it is!--Unpause) But that's what I came up with for goals. I have a few specific goals that I didn't put here because I just didn't. I don't need to justify to you people!........Ok so it's because it's just businessy stuff that probably isn't useful to anyone but me. A laundry list, if you will.

*For those of you who don't know, "hearts" on Etsy.com are given to you when someone adds your shop or item to their favorite bookmarks to their profile. So the goal here is to have 100 people add my shop to their favorites per month. I could just say that, but hearts sounds more cutesy. And if I'm all about anything, it's cutesy. Hence the bloody tampon. Schmadorable.

Oh, and somewhere in the middle, I threw in a picture of a daisy in a jar. I've decided that jars are the way to go when packaging my finger puppets for in-person shops. I suppose if people want, they can have jars in the mail. I'm sorry Amanda, but I really, really like it. Thems is funny to me.

On that note, you should come watch me every Tuesday night at 11pm EST on blogtv. because you need further proof that I'm a dork. Yes, watch me make finger puppets and chat with the people. My good friend and fellow puppeteer, Mack Duncan usually co-hosts with me.

Hello, Target Audience

I'll admit, I didn't know who you were for a long time. Oh, I had a vague idea. You're someone who likes silly things. You've got a pretty good sense of humor. You like to give cute things to small children. Sometimes you talk to people in silly voices. But I didn't know what other things you liked. I didn't know where you spent your time.

I tried to find you a few places, like street fairs and and you weren't really there. I'd get people who looked and giggled, but they weren't you. I just figured you didn't really leave the house. Maybe you just like getting stuff online because of my fancy writing words. Maybe my target audience just likes reading, and that's cool. You can read. I'll just not go out into the world to try to find you. Problem solved, right?

Then my friend asked me to accompany her to the Phoenix Comicon. I did. I found you! I didn't think I'd find you there, but I did! You do leave the house! But I don't think I found all of you...

So, I guess I still don't feel like I know who you really are. I know you're not always into comic books and Star Trek. You might be into puppetry, reading books. You might hang out at libraries, or at Starbucks. You might be Miss Soccer Mom in a hot bikini. Heck, you might even be Mister Soccer Mom in a hot bikini....But I just don't know.

Now is the time for me to get to know you. Please leave a comment just telling me a bit about yourself. Be anonymous or not, I just need to know the essence of you. Where do you go? How old are you? What kind of job do you have? Are you a homeowner? Do you like your job? What are your favorite kinds of stores to shop in? What do you watch on TV? How often do you wash your hair? What is your favorite movie from the 80s? What kinds of puppets do you think I should make? All of this is to help me stalk you. All of you. No need telling me what time of day you wake up, I'll find that out on my own. From your lawn.