June, 2008

Welcome everyone! We have been working around the clock behind the scenes here for quite a while, and today is the big day. We're finished! Hooray! Please let me be your guide as I show you around our new digs.

First, you'll see the look of the site changed. The last site was graphically pretty (round corners, lots of graphics, etc.), but it was all hand-coded and difficult to manage. Plus we were hosting the site ourselves and, if the power went out here, everything went down. So we've switched to a hosting provider and are using Drupal as our blogging system. This has taken away some of the pretty bits (at least for now until we really understand Drupal and CSS), but has given us so many additional features that I'm happy with the trade off.

The blog has a great new editing tool that will hopefully help us post more often. There is a recent posts section on the left to help people navigate the latest posts. We also now have a true archive (again, over on the left), which will allow you to actually go back through all our posts. In the past, we had turn the posts off when we no longer wanted them to appear on the main page (the only page we had), so the old post would just disappear. That's not the case anymore! You will also be happy to see we have an RSS feed for those that prefer to be notified of new material. We also have comments—yay! Please tell us what you think of the new changes.

However, the biggest feature? WE HAVE A STORE AGAIN! Our last online store was also hand-coded and a beast to update. The new store is wonderful—there are categories and navigational features like handy little menus and breadcrumbs that help you find our items easier. For instance, the New Items category will let you easily see what's new to the store. We'll be adding new items regularly, so please check back! Another great feature of the new store is our shopping cart (Ubercart), which lets you purchase more then one item at a time. We've changed how shipping works too, to make it more affordable and to allow you to ship more then one item in one package. We still use PayPal to handle credit cards and other payment types; it's secure and simple to use.

Many other little things have changed in the background that you might not notice. Our Gallery (images of past creations) now takes you to our Flickr images; it's faster, and we found we were updating Flickr much more often then our own Gallery (again, because it was hand-coded). We still have Custom Order and About Us sections on the top right. And on the lower left there is a Check Us Out At section for a list of where you can check out our items in person; stores such as Crafty Planet, I Like You, and the gift shop in the Wausau Center for the Visual Arts (CVA). This section will also list craft shows and any other place where our work is represented.

So, if you are visiting for the first time, hello! But if you're a return visitor, please check out all the new changes. This is still quite a work in progress, so if anyone finds a broken link or something that doesn't work quite right, leave a note in the comments or email us. Thank you so much!

I recently completed a custom order camel for a woman finishing her dissertation. It seems she's been laboring at it a rather long time, and to entice her to finish, her parents told her they'd take the family to Egypt once her dissertation is complete. How cool is that?! Anyway, the woman wanted a physical, visible reminder of the pyramid-shaped carrot her parents are dangling in front of her, so I made her this cutie:

His blankets are made in the recipient's university colors. She plans to place the camel on her desk , and move him closer to the pyramid (and farther away from the university) as she progresses with her dissertation. Best of luck to her!

Edited to add:

I received this kind note from the camel's recipient: "just wanted to say that I received my very own custom made camel last week and he's GORGEOUS. Thank you so much for your artistry and skill. I've named him Lawrence and he's been a big inspiration already."

Notes like this really touch me. To hear that I inspire others with my creations is the best compliment any artist could ask for. A big thank you to Lawrence's owner, and to all who support Crabtree Studio's work. You guys rock!

While at Shepherd's Harvest this year, a young man stopped by the booth and mused that one of my monsters reminded him of Sigmund from the 70s TV show Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. The show was on-air a few years before I was born, so I never watched the show myself. And, after having watched a few clips on YouTube, I can't say I feel I missed anything. :) Anyway, a few days after the show, the young man asked me to create a plush version of Sigmund for him.

To make this strange creature, I adapted my monster pattern, making the body a bit wider and longer. Then, I added eight tentacles and a smattering of wool felt leaves, tacked together one by one. The suckers on the tentacles were added by hand also, with a French knot in the center.

I wasn't sure when I started that I could pull off the tentacles, but they came out even better than I had planned. I'm very proud of Sigmund, and even though he's probably the most time-consuming plushie I've made to date, I had so much fun making him that I can't wait to adapt the pattern for various other sea creatures.

Crabtree Studio now has some retail presence! We're super excited about our new opportunities at I Like You and Crafty Planet. I Like You is a fabulous store that carries local handmade goods only. You may know owners Angela and Sarah from some of the local craft shows, most notably Handmaiden Minneapolis, which they run four times per year.

And, of course, we've raved about how cool Crafty Planet is before, which is better than ever now that they're in their new location on Johnson Street.

Crafty Planet is carrying Amy's wonderful new knitting needle holders:

And here's a peek at some of the items available at I Like You: