2010 - it's going to be a good one!

Best wishes for the upcoming new year

I'm taking a break, see you in a week or so all bright, breezy and refreshed.

I have really good feelings for this next year

2009 was pretty amazing

2010 is going to be a happening one!

A Mermaid and a Fairy

I’m trying out one of the mermaid dolls (Beatrice in green) in the new felt shop to see how she goes and I also put a new fairy doll (Pip in pink) in my etsy shop last night.

The market was incredibly busy, lots and lots of “isn’t that cute,” and “do you have a card” no sales though, seems to have been a trend with the other stall holders so I wasn’t too upset. I enjoyed chatting to everyone and met a fellow that used to live on a sheep station who used to spin wool and knit his own jumpers, he told me that lichen off a gate post will dye wool orange. I love learning new titbits like that

The barbecue is well and truly christened, we used it Sunday and Monday and plan on using it tonight too. It’s so much easier to cook outside when the weather is warming up. The cottage has a tin roof so when the sun has been shinning all day it gets incredibly hot inside.

I thought I might try my hand at writing a tutorial over the holidays. I’m off work until the 11th January so I’ll have time to write the steps and take progress photos. I just have to decide what it is I’d like to share….

Felt like Etsy :-)

I found a New Zealand site that has some similarities to Etsy and ArtFire so I'm going to try it out and see how it goes :-)

This is the shop www.JacBer.felt.co.nz I've taken some stuff from the shophandmade shop which wasn't doing well - I'd basically opened it, put some of our stuff in it and left it to itself, and after 4 months we were averaging about 2 views a month which was pretty crappy, so we'll see if we do better here. It's also were I can point New Zealand customers too without having to worry about exchange rates. I just have to wait for the first 5 listings to be approved, so hopefully that will be soon!

We're christening the new Barbecue tonight! We're having posh sausages, chicken drumsticks and vegetable kebabs

Last craft market of the year tomorrow and I'm predicting a total sell out!

Featuring an Etsy Blogger

Another part of being in the Etsy Bloggers team is to feature the team member of the month. And December is all about the lovely ladies who have all of these shops!
http://www.calkat.etsy.com
http://Ametista.etsy.com

http://TheClayShoppe.etsy.com

http://YogaFairies.etsy.com

Here I am just handling the one I’ve got lol!

What it does mean is that there is a plethora of fabulous items for me to choose from!
And they have free shipping worldwide until New Years Eve!

Lotus Fairy

Fairy Mold

And they blog: http://calkatthejewelryjunkie.blogspot.com

Hypnotic Treasury

One of the loo roll dolls got itself in a Treasury on Etsy.

I do believe that this is a really good thing

She might be picked for the front page if they decide to do pink stuff, and from what I've read, to be on the Front Page is like winning the lottery!

So I thought I'd share the linky thing should you want to check out other pink stuff, it's there for a day or so http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=99970 and big ups to http://www.etsy.com/shop/FancyFairieGirl who chose her for the treasury.

We had my 'work do' on Friday night. They had a hypnotist and people volunteered to go and be hypnotised and do silly things. I think people making fools of themselves is great (it takes the spotlight off me for a bit!) for some reason though, the being hypnotised and doing it really got to me, the whole mucking with someones head, I have no idea why, just that I didn't find it entertaining. At least I know not to go and pay and see someone hypnotise people now :-)

Resurgence!

My move from the great and fantastic granny square to other types of crochet began with Loo Roll dolls. I wanted to make kitschy stuff that was a bit funky and I am quite passionate that Loo Roll Dolls will adorn the cisterns of toilets everywhere.

For the past 8 months I have been trying to convince the world that no loo is quite complete without one.
My passion was begging to wane.

I was starting to give up hope.

Perhaps my dream wasn’t to be.

Hello etsy……

One of my favourite ones was featured on etsy storque a couple of months ago!
I had hearts and views – hurray!

There are other Loo Roll doll lovers out there!

Last week I sold 3 of them!

Toilets around the world are being glammed up.
The resurgence has begun!

Even better - now I've got a great excuse to make more :-)

A Kind of Kiwi Christmas

One of the badges on our blog is for the etsy bloggers team. I’m just a new member and I’ve found that one of the things we do is a blog carnival where we blog about a certain topic. One of the themes at the moment is “The month of December is filled with many traditions from around the world. Share one with us.” So I thought I’d share some stuff that happens for our Kiwi Christmas

Moving to the summer Christmas of New Zealand from the freezing winter Christmas of north of England 25 years ago was quite a culture shock!

For the first couple of years my mam and dad tried to keep up with the English Christmas day tradition of a big roast turkey lunch with all of the trimmings. After finding that sweating through our lunches in the humidity and mid day heat wasn’t the nicest way to spend the day we started to do what most people do. Barbecue. So now we have pancakes, strawberries and bucks fizz for breakfast, and a late lunch sat outside in the shade eating salads, ham steaks and prawns from the bbq .

Also New Zealand tends to close shop, from December 24th to about January 11th a lot of businesses close and heaps of people take their summer holidays, the cities are quiet and the beach towns swell to 3x their usual size. We also have 2 public holidays for Christmas (the 25th and 26th December. The 26th is Boxing Day, which is an English tradition) and 2 for New Year (the 1st and the 2nd January)

So that’s a bit about our Kiwi Christmas. And talking of bbq’s ours is broken beyond repair and after a very successful couple of hours on our stall at my work we now have enough to go and buy a new one this weekend in preparation for the summer ahead - hurray!

Spare Time and Some Shopping

When I have some spare time or just want to hang out on the computer I like to do these 3 things in this order:

1. Read the blogs on my bloglist and add comments - which is like a “Gill waz ‘ere” stamp


2. Play addictive time consuming games on facebook and try and beat my friends (they are usually those ones with a 1 – 3 minute time limit so I have no idea where an hour goes!!)


3. Stare in a trance at Time Machine 2 on www.etsy.com
   

I usually just have time for the first one on the list, however just the other day I skipped down to number 3 (bypassing addictive games) and did a bit of Christmas shopping. Which I can't show you in case any one I bought for is reading..... so here are a couple of other shops that I love

www.JeByJa.etsy.com has this fab mushroom made from an old record which I think is the coolest thing ever (and might have to be my next purchase!)

www.dzfantasy.etsy.com has fab fairies and mermaids (not this fairy head brooch though cos I bought it! I wear to work to brighten up my uniform and have gotten loads of compliments – big-ups to DZFantasy for that one!)

Tie Skirt, B.O. & Walks

Here is the tie skirt I made... I might even wear it out in public!

After work this evening we went for a walk at the beach and around Mount Maunganui. The walkway is wide enough for about 3 people abreast. It's a very popular spot for walkers and runners, the view is fabulous as you head from the harbour to the surf (or the other way around if you prefer, seems everyone has their own idea of the 'right' way). This evening we seemed to be overtaken by lots of runners, it is after all a great place to go for a run, no need to worry about being run over by cars or cyclists.

With so many runners passing by I got wondering. Are there runners who make sure they smell fresh before they run, or do the majority decide they'll shower afterwards? As runners passed by and I held my breath I decided that should I ever take up running out in the open I would definitely be the former, I'd be horrified to think that I had left a B.O. wake behind me :-)

Creations Galore

Well, we didn't get on the bikes, but we created so much!

Below is a brother to a new addition to the etsy shop, a mouthy mushroom. And above is a fancy dancy sparkly wrap that Andrew thinks looks like the Milky Way

I even approached the sewing maching (dum dum duuummmm) and I didn't even break it - hurray! On Saturday I bought 10 ties from an opportunity shop, unpicked them, sewed them back up and made a skirt. This is my first attempt at sewing a bit of clothing, and I'm almost impressed! I'll pop a picture on during the week. (It's on the line at the moment - I had to wash it to make sure it didn't fall apart!)

I'm tentatively thinking about having a bit of a stall at work one lunchtime. Isn't it funny, I'll go to the markets and sell on line and yet having a table at work scares the beejeezus out of me! Shame I can't have dutch courage at work!

Escape

Hurray!

It's nearly time to escape from the working week and enjoy a fabulous weekend of creativity, cycling and relaxation.

We're going to be sewing & crocheting lots for the last couple of pre-Christmas markets and we've also started to organise a cycling holiday in the South Island for the end of March, (when it's not to hot!). So it's on the bikes for some practice :-)

To go with the feeling of escape I'd like to show you some items from a fellow etsyhooker.

Here are a couple of fabulous items from http://www.juliaemily.etsy.com/

(I personally love her masks so much pop along and have a look :-) )

We had a fabulous day at the races on Saturday. We put on our glad rags, packed a yummy picnic with some bubbles and took a few dollars to have a flutter. Sunday morning came as a great reminder that number 30 SPF sun cream needs to be reapplied during the day and to do it before you put your frock on in order to get the best coverage.

I find the bra straps the hardest to place in just the right spot so that they won’t aggravate the red bits.

And so with the onset of summer down under I thought I might make something summery for both my shop and the markets. A lovely lady at work was complaining about sarongs coming undone and having to fiddle with them, so the other day and I bought a wee bag of metal suspender clips from

www.FunkeyMonkeySupplies.etsy.com to try out an idea.

I crocheted some pretty flowers and got the hot glue gun out (always a danger for me with my clumsy ways) I glued the flowers on to the clips with a button in the middle of the flower to finish it off. I thought I might try some fabric flowers as well. bluejulesews blog has a great tutorial, I’m not a good sewer, but she makes it look so easy! http://bluejulesews.blogspot.com/2009/11/tutorial-ii-fabric-flower.html The next thing is to try them out and see if they work!

Traffic

We don’t really have much traffic apart for the holiday season.
Tauranga is a city, and to become a city in New Zealand means that 20,000 people or more live there. Which in comparison to many cities around the world we are pretty small. I usually give myself 20 minutes to get anywhere in town and 30 minutes when I think it might be busy. So I don’t have much sitting in traffic time.

On November 1st using cell phones in a car had become illegal. This has posed a wee problem for me, I’ve been used to using that 20 minutes or so to catch up with friends or check with Andrew what I might need to pick up on the way home.
We are a week into the new law and I’ve found that crochet is pretty hard to do whilst moving, however is not too bad if I get a red traffic light, I've also found that the CD’s I have popped in my stacker are okay for now and then and not quite entertaining enough for 20 minutes in a row. Last week I had an audio book in my CD stacker, I’m unsure if it was a good thing or not…. the actual story was great, I couldn’t really tell you what happened on the way to work though, and I also was late starting a couple of times because I wanted to catch the end of the chapter!

I did get to make this new addition to my ArtFire shop whilst at traffic lights over 3 days this week …..


What do you do to entertain yourself in the car if you’re the one driving and you’re not allowed to be on the phone??

Shawls and Shores

This has felt like a ‘Summers here’ weekend.

We went down to the beach early on Saturday for a walk, it felt like the calm before the Christmas storm. Soon the bachs’ (holiday homes) will start to fill up and then the beach gets busier and busier.

The tempo changes, so many people on holiday gives it a real beachy vibe, it means it’s easy to relax by popping down to the beach for a walk or a drink on the way home from work.

We also popped to the hardware shop and I bought a piece of aluminum rod which we bent into a supersize hairpin (yep, I’m still excited about the hairpin lace!) And voila, I whipped up this summer shawl out of that cotton I bought the other day. I think it’ll be just the trick to keep the shoulders warm on those long summer evenings that are on their way

Highlights

5 orders this week for stuff I make from lovely workmates

Tried newly re-opened local restaurant which was fab

The sun is shinning and is supposed to be like this all weekend so that means a trip on Audrey to the beach :-)

Have successfully remembered to do the etsyhookers promo thread before I go to bed

Made 4 chokers using the paperclip for the market stall

Purchased some lovely off-white cotton to make myself a summer shawl using a bigger version of the paperclip

It's Friday afternoon and I've finished work for 2 whole days

And to round it off, here are some highlights from a fellow etsyhooker www.PixieWorx.etsy.com; a fab brolly that would add interest to an outfit all year around, and a very fun ski hat :-)

Paper Clip Lace Crochet

Today I discovered how to crochet hairpin lace.

I taught myself with the help of the most fantastic resource in the world - the internet. I found this site the easiest to follow, http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art5429.asp the pictures were very clear and allowed me to see if my picture looked like theirs (which is always a good start!)

I've used a really big paperclip and re-bent it, to turn it into a hairpin lookalike. I put the cellotape at the end just to stop the lacey bit flopping about when it got long ('flopping about' is a technical term).

I'm quite excited by the results, especially this one, which I made with pink cotton, my big Paperclip and a #4.5 crochet hook. After I did the hairpin bit (I had 32 loops on each side) I did a single chain along one edge went a bit further for a tie and turned it into a choker.

I think it is very feminine and quite victorian :-)

I get very excited when I find a way to expand my repertoire! Now I'm trying to think of all of the ways I can incorporate it into what I make, and how to make different hairpins so I can vary the size of the loops and use different yarns. I'm thinking shawls and broom sticks!

Technology is my friend

Technology is my friend
Technology is my friend
Technology is my friend

I chanted as I set up a Facebook fan page with the help of a cold glass of Riesling, and then I tried to link it to my blog.
Do I really need one? Well apparently so!
Just like the blog, the twitter, the etsy shop and the artfire shop, plus I need to

Promote! Promote! Promote!
Forums and threads, chat rooms, join a team, do a challenge, do a giveaway.
Give out my card (after I’ve made one using some fancy pants computer application)
Wear my creations, go into local shops and show them my stuff, try and convince them to stock it and sell it.
Do the local craft market twice a month, and the other local craft market every Saturday.
Do the housework, the washing, the shopping and the cooking

(phew that I don’t have children as well!).
Read all the forums and threads that tell me to do all this stuff
Go to work at 7.30 a.m., get home at 5.00 p.m. and start all over again
No wonder I love it!

What a buzz :-)

Engaging writers block

I recently read an etsy forum thread that was called something like "you blog? why should I care?". It basically questions the writing style of bloggers, why they do it and how they engage the reader. So I've obviously been over thinking how I put together my blog because I now find myself with writers block.

So today I am going to show you some fab creations by a fellow EtsyHooker http://www.bagsandmorebypam.etsy.com/.

Just before I do, the etsy hookers team have a EtsyHookers Creative Challenge - Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose competition going at the moment and if you fancy having a vote, it's really easy just pop by here: http://etsyhookers.blogspot.com/.

Now back to Pam :-)

I like the name of this bag "Bead me up Scotty" it appeals to my Trekkie side.

The green in the scarf is one of my favourite colours, and the cats collar is something I've never seen crocheted before, very fab :-)

Kooky Kiwis and a Guest

I've been a guest blogger this weekend here http://www.blueberryjunkie.com/2009/10/guest-blogger-sundays-jacberkitsch.html. I really enjoy reading blueberryjunkie's blog, she makes very cool kids stuff, I especially enjoyed her how to make a sock puppet post :-)

I posted the last Kiwi on my Facebook page and got so much great feedback that I decided to make a couple more and put them in the etsy shop in my new Kiwiana section along with the Pukeko. Lets see how popular they are :-)

This one is called Bert :-)

Kiwi’s and Cupcakes

A friend of the family is leaving our southern shores to return to Scotland and his family. We’ve had many Christmas’s together so I thought I make him a Kiwi reminder.


Kiwi's are flightless birds native to NZ and are one of our natural symbols, as a couple they are monogamous, and I do believe that their nostrils are on the end on their beaks.


My Kiwi bird looks a bit crazy, which I think should remind him of us because it kinda reflects our family :-)

It’s always nice to arrive at family dinners with stuff to share, so I’ve crocheted a bead necklace for my sister, we have free-range eggs from my friend and we’re going to pick a bag of oranges from the tree.

Last weekend Andrew made his first cupcakes. They look pretty fab so he might choose to throw some together to take for tea as well :-)

The World of Blogs

I love spending time reading through the blogs that I follow.
It's great to be invited to share someones thoughts, ideas and sometimes their creative process and I find it a more chilled out way of networking than Twitter or Facebook

Just today I've seen tutorials, recipies, interviews with people from etsy and ArtFire, giveaways and product features. I sometimes leave comments so that the author knows I visit, it's the same as most things eh? I like to read comments on here, so think everyone else likes it too lol!

From last weeks reading I learnt what Snickerdoodles were and made some and I also won a giveaway on a blog that I follow http://christiecottage.blogspot.com/ where every Wednesday there is a giveaway and I was very fortunate to win a gorgeous fused glass pendant from www.FirstLightGlass.etsy.com where I also love this bowl :-)

I've persuaded Andrew that since it's our blog he does need to contribute sometimes and so he's promised to have something written by Friday, so a new voice to look forward too.

Spring Time means Audrey Time

Audrey Hepburn is, in my opinion, the most gorgeous and sophisticated woman ever. My favourite of her movies is Roman Holiday. I dreamt of driving around Rome on a Vespa for many many years before I actually bought one.

She's just like this one and she is of course called Audrey. As a totally fair weather rider Audrey gets put away under cover for the Winter, and now with the warmer weather on it's way it means that Audrey gets to go for her service this weekend and it's time for rides to the beach!

Hence my favourite purchase from etsy recently is this pendant from www.LaughingVixenLounge.etsy.com

I think that I'm in love.

I finished the doll I was making and introduced Emelda to the world through my Etsy shop.
She's so cute! She is very different to other things I've made so far, and I love her. In fact so much so I've started on a sister for her and I'm thinking of doing a range of them, and making them fairies and princesses. And maybe some boys, though I'm unsure how to go about making their bums/shorts.

Also my friend who was being the Super Hero won the radio competition - hurray!

The rest of today's blog all about another fellow Etsy Hookers team mate.

Here is www.thecrochetloft.etsy.com

I've picked a pair of her fingerless gloves that I've admired on her blog www.thecrochetloft.blogspot.com

They remind me of icrecream.

And a very unique scarf that has a pussy cat on it.
Although after the other night when our two woke me up at 3.00am crashing about I shouldn't be finding cats cute lol!

Hand Made what a Doll

I had one of my favourite tea cosies chosen for a gift guide on the Handmade Highway http://www.handmadehighway.blogspot.com/ it's called Black Forest because it reminds me of a gateaux :-)




Anyway I've ended my creative mudbath and picked up a hook and some yarn and now I'm in the middle of trying to create a different kind of doll than I've made before. I've got it's main body (it's a frock) now I'm trying for the shoulders, neck, head and arms. I've unravelled it 4 times so far :-) I'm hoping that tonight is going to be the break through!



Since I started on etsy and more recently on artfire I've noticed myself leaning towards buying hand made products rather than mass produced.

First off

they are usually unique items and no one else will have one and the things I have bought have had so many comments.

Secondly

I love creating and am so honoured when others buy my creations that I think that other people that make hand made stuff feel the same, and I love how it makes me feel so I want to spread that joy There are heaps of amazing soap makers on etsy and one day I will try them all, in the mean time at the end of my road (the one in the picture up there) there is a shop that sells handmade soap that I never ever had thought to buy from before and now it's all we use. Doing what I'm doing has made me look at hand made products with new eyes.

Rainy Monday

I don’t think it’s stopped raining all day today, we’ve had to get the heater out again and there’s been snow in the middle of the North Island. Hmmm, perhaps I was a little presumptuous saying spring had sprung.
After seeing the pictures from Samoa and Thailand it’d be incredibly selfish to whinge about anything, never mind a bit of rain, so we’ll be thankful to the rain for keeping the garden growing.

My friend is trying to win a local radio competition. This has involved him dressing up like a Super Hero and running around town doing challenges. He’s had to wear his cape for the past 2 weeks. He’s one of those people that really throws himself into things. This is him in his full regalia at the main beach as a lifeguard J If you feel like seeing more he’s on

www.morefm.co.nz and select Tauranga as a region.

The etsyhookers team have a challenge on at the moment to be creative in an eco way or a recycle way. I really want to come up with something truly amazing but as is always the way when I try hard to be creative my mind becomes blank! This has also had the side-effect of interrupting my normal creative flow so I’m kind of wallowing in a creative mud bath. My only plan to get it going again is to grab a ball of yarn, a hook and see what happens. Fingers Crossed! In the meantime, here are some fabulous creations from a fellow etsyhooker http://www.TheCrochetQueenn.Etsy.com, Excellent items for that snow today!

And a purse to match, perhaps :-)

Phew! What a week!

Earlier on in the week I found out one of my loo roll dolls was in a storque article on etsy. http://www.etsy.com/storque/etc/keep-it-weird-excretions-and-secretions-5354/

Perhaps not exactly the classy association that the girls would like lol! Publicity is all good and my views flew up for the week. Thanks etsy!

Also one of my ribbon necklaces has been chosen for a treasury by www.thegoblet.etsy.com very cool! Here it is: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=70399

Andrews dad passed away at the beginning of the week and so the week has been full of funeral organizing, tea making and everything else that goes with that sort of thing. We’ve both been a pretty shattered and exhausted.

The big ball of odds and ends got a bit of a workout as there was some waiting around, here is the progress so far. I think it’s quite effective and slightly funky now I just need to recharge a bit and think what to do next.

And on a happier note spring is definitely here, our irises and fresias look lovely, the clocks have gone forward for daylight savings and our evenings are getting longer.

Hoarding Brightly

I’m a bit of a hoarder and Andrew is a bit of a collector, I’ll let you create your own mental image of what that means to the inside of the cottage :-)

After a year or so of full-on crocheting I seem to have horded the last meter or so of every yarn I’ve ever used. Those bits that will come in handy for something, sometime. We had a bit of a tidy up yesterday and voila; a plan!

This afternoon I sat and tied it all together to make into a big ball and I now have my crochet hook at the ready to make….. something….. I think I might do a circle and maybe then it can be fashioned into some kind of purse. As you can tell this plan is as clear as mud in my head!

Who knows – whatever it becomes it might be the next BIG thing :-)

I’ve also been attracted to some really bright and fun yarns lately. As a result there are some pretty funky new coasters in my etsy shop all green and orange with a splash of yellow.

I was also inspired to zoop up these brown and green granny squares with some lovely bright yellows and made it into a scarf which I’ve popped into my ArtFire shop.

Introducing Sam and three other happy things

One

On Sunday at the Arts and Craft market I met a fellow etsy seller. It was really cool. I read on the etsy forums about teams all meeting up and people in the same area getting together and I have been a little bit jealous. There seems so few of us in NZ that to actually meet someone else doing the same sort of thing gave me a real buzz. I doubt if it was such a highlight for her though :-)

Two

Today I made my 2nd sale on etsy. It's so exciting to send my things to other countries. That someone has seen something that I've made and want to buy it... I've been grinning all day!

Three

Andrew won a prize in the colouring competition. His fabric collage came 2nd. Hurray!

Sam

Introducing another etsy hooker team member www.samscrochet.etsy.com
Sam is having a special sale on the 24th September, plus there 20% her hats for September!


Sam also has some really fantastic bags which are very reasonably priced!

Rosette & Pizza

It was NZ Safety at Home week last week. As part of the entertainment/education at work there was a colouring competition for 5 different age groups. Yesterday we decided we needed rosettes for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd winners to go with their (incredibly cool) prizes. The commercial ones were going to take 4 weeks to get to us, so I surfed the net and put up my hand. I had great fun, apart from a couple of stabs with the needle, oh and I'd forgotten just how hot the hot glue gun makes the glue :-)
Hopefully the kids will like them. And fingers crossed for Andrew's entry the adults prize is very fab!. He used fabric and made a collage. It's judging day tomorrow. I think his is the best one there, but I may be slightly biased lol!




I just put this in my Etsy shop with the description as "Red and green can never be seen, except upon a beauty queen" which was a saying I learnt from our mam, and it had another version, "Red and green can never be seen, except upon an Irish queen" I have no idea where they come from....

Andrew thinks it looks like tomatoes and capsicum, or maybe a pizza..... I wonder if that would make it a big seller ? ? ?
Maybe uniform for a pizza delivery firm ? ? ? :-)

Smell-o-vision

It would be so great to have smell-o-vision! Why, when it's been talked about for so long, has no-one actually invented it? Some of the Etsy sellers have great looking soaps and I'm sure it would help their businesses! And you would be able to smell how lovely the Jasmine is :-)

It grows all over the bamboo at the back of the orchard and up the drive, it doesn't seem to last long, and when it does it's so lovely. I think in some places it's a noxious weed which is such a shame, this morning I picked a big bunch for the cottage, it smells so beautiful.

Yesterday I popped into Spotlight in Hamilton and went a bit crazy in their yarn sale. One of the things I bought I made into this choker. When I was making it last night it reminded me so much of a dolls evening dress that I think my aunt made for my sister when we were really young. It was incredibly glamorous :-)

I though I might wear one of the chokers tomorrow at the Bethlehem Arts and Crafts market to attract buyers.

How are you finding the new look super-posh blog?