Happy Customers!

I made a custom set of Flim Flam Brother necklaces for someone, which were Christmas presents for her and her sister. Got some absolutely wonderful messages back from the both of them, which absolutely brightened my day! One of the best parts about this job is the lovely feedback I get from customers! : )

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Thank you so much for the commission Flim and Flam necklaces for me and my sister. They are perfect and came very quickly. My Discord necklace is also awesome!

We were also very surprise to see the magnets and the Black Widow keychain that my sis had her eye on for a while. That made us really happy!

Thank you so much and have a very merry holiday!

-Meg

P.S. Did you choose to send us an Applejack sticker because of our Flim Flam necklaces?

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Thank you thank you THANK YOU! so much for the custom Flim and Flam necklaces! They came just in time for Christmas and I was so excited to tear open the package! The charms are beautiful and look really classy! You can expect more orders from me sometime soon! ^^

I love the extra stuff too! The magnets are awesome and the Black Widow keychain is hanging proudly from my laptop case! It's beautiful! I'm so happy! I have a new favorite necklace! 

-Heather

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They were also kind enough to snap a photo of them wearing their new matching necklaces! : )

-Amanda

New Plushies!

Christmas is almost over and it has been super busy and fun for me!  While making presents this year I tried out a new plushie pattern that I really love!  Ended up making three plushies as presents and was so happy with how they turned out that once the January rush of conventions is over I might try to take some commissions!  I'll have to figure out prices but for now the range seems like it will start between $65 and $80.  Once I have it all figured out I'll make sure to update, but for now here are the plushies I made~

First is Sollux Captor from Homestuck that was made for a Secret Santa exchange on the My Little Pony subreddit (of all places!)  It was a lot of fun figuring out this whole pattern and how to make everything and I was quite pleased with how he turned out!

Next was Chuck from Motorcity made for my friend Clarissa (who's the biggest Motorcity fan I know!)  He was pretty simple to make because I figured out most everything making Sollux, though making his shirt was a bit of a challenge due to slant of the seams on the sleeves~

And finally here's a humanized Rainbow Dash I made for my partner in crime Amanda!  She was super hard and helped me discover I'm not too good and making up outfits!  I still think she turned out fabulous as I went for a sporty basketball theme with her (I really just want to make those short shorts, everything else I just made up on the spot XD)

I hope you all like these and I look forward to hopefully taking some commissions in the future, but for now I need to get back to work for all these conventions in January!  I hope to see you all then and have a fantastic  New Year!  

~Cassie

I have a Fabric Addiction!

My fiancé is building me a new ironing board/shelving unit for the workshop. Got all the wood and supplies purchased, except for the fabric to cover the board with. I've narrowed it down to these 6, but this is tough! :o

I suppose this would be much easier if I didn't love fabric so much! Leaning towards the colored British propaganda patchwork design, though. I am so excited for the new ironing board, my current one is old, flimsy, and WAY too low for my tall body to use without getting a back ache. D:

Hopefully I'll get the whole workshop all finished soon, and I'll post some photos online~

-Amanda

Christmas is All Around! :D

Totally forgot to make a follow up post, but my Christmas ornaments are now for sale in the shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Monostash?section_id=12686561

Also, I am having a sale in my shop until Christmas, just enter the coupon code: YOHOHO to receive 5% off your order! Happy holidays! : )

-Amanda

Surviving Black Friday and MLP Ornament Preview~

Survived Black Friday! I got up with my (very patient and wonderful) fiancé at 5AM to head out to Joann's. Thankfully, the majority of my Thanksgiving was spent organizing my new workshop (just started renting a new house, I am totally thrilled with all the work space I now find myself with~), and planning my Joann's trip, right down to the color and yardage of every fabric I planned on picking up. We got in and out of the store in an hour and 15 minutes (a huge improvement from years past, when it's taken 3 or so HOURS), and I saved OVER $500. O___O 

Stocked up on a lot of fleece for hoodies, and also picked up some cute prints for phone cases, and colored flannels to make My Little Pony phone cases! Hopefully I'll be able to make some soon, but most likely I won't get a chance until after Christmas since all my gifts are handmade~

Also, got a (somewhat crappy cell phone) photo preview of my newest item: My Little Pony Christmas ornaments! I am SUPER pleased with how these look, the matching ribbon and rhinestone is totally perfect~ Waiting on some supplies to come in so I can finish the rest, but I hope to have the Mane 6 (and possibly also Luna and Celestia ) ornaments finished, properly photographed, and up in the shop by next week!

Alrighty, back to making things and playing Civ V...
-Amanda

Shadocon

Shadocon has come and gone and we had a ball there!  Everyone we met was really nice which lead to a much more enjoyable weekend, we're looking forward to attending Shadocon again.  I also want to give a big shout out to whoever found my boyfriend's DS at our booth Saturday night and turned it into lost and found, we were really shocked and excited that it didn't get pocketed!  Thanks again mystery person~

Once again we were terrible at getting photos of happy customers but we did manage to snap a couple so here they are!  

(this shot was totally candid hoho)

Thanks again to everyone that came to see us at Shadocon!  We look forward to seeing you again, either at Swampcon or whichever con you see us at next!

Project Open Squish Pre-voting dates

The dates for the Open Squish pre-voting have been announced and two of my entries are due to be in these pre-voting rounds!  Basically multiple entries of the same type will be voted on and the top two entries will move on to the actual voting rounds where the winners will be made into Squishables!  To vote you will need to go to http://www.squishable.com/ and make an account (which they are doing to prevent spam votes) and then when voting you will be sent a confirmation email to verify your vote. I want to thank everyone who is going to vote for my entries and I'm hoping they do well enough to make it to the finals and possibly even win! X3  Thanks again so much!

Pre-voting for the Dodo entries will begin at 12:00am EST on Sunday the 14th!  Voting will be up for 24 hours before the winners are decided, my Dodo design is below~

Pre-voting for the Pug entries will begin at 12:00am EST on Wednesday the 17th!  Voting will be up for 24 hours before the winners are decided, my Pug design is below~

Thanks again so much for supporting me, it means so much!  I will also be making entries on the actual day of voting to remind people and it would mean a lot to me if you could share this with your friends!  

Project Open Squish!

Something exciting happened today!  A couple weeks ago I entered a contest called Project Open Squish hosted by Squishable.  For those of you who don't know what Squishables are, they're basically big, fat, round stuffed animals, so pretty much they're one of my favorite things X3  The contest they were holding was to design a Squishable and I ended up entering six designs (after the only design I entered was rejected but they really wanted me to enter some more since they loved my art style)  In the end, 4 of the 6 designs I entered made it into the finals (and that's about 50 designs out of the 2000+ that were entered)!!!!  I'm so excited and can't wait for the voting to begin!  

Two of my designs are in a animal only vote off, where multiples of the same animal will go against each other and the top two will go to the final voting rounds!  Those two are the Dodo (which was super surprising) and the Pug,

Dodo Design~

Pug design (I really like his wall-eyes)~

The other two designs will be up for vote in the Fall/Spring (not sure when that is, but I'll make sure to post when it's happening) voting period.  Those are the Beaver (which is my absolute fav of the bunch) and the Puffin!  

Beaver desgin

 Puffin design

I am just way too excited that so many of my entries made it into the top and I hope at least one of them might win!  Just too exciting X3

Birthday Goodies! And News About AWA~

A customer returned to my shop, requesting a custom made Fluttershy necklace (it looks so pretty with the teal chain!), to be shipped directly to a friend of theirs. I put together some extra goodies for it, including a MLP-themed jewlery box, stickers, a tattoo, and a little card (I think drawing human Fluttershy is my favorite lol).

In other news, my fiancé and I are hard at work, preparing for Anime Weekend Atlanta (which is coming up on us WAY too fast). It's my one con for this year to just enjoy for the convention, and I am super psyched! My plans are to relax, cosplay, and drink. :3

This is my inspiration wall, next to my sewing machine. The Gumshoe and Edgeworth picture is hilariously inspirational. :D

My cosplay lineup for the con is:
Friday Day: Hikari/Molly from Harvest Moon: Animal Parade
Friday Night: Racing Queen Meiko from Vocaloid, My Original Design (possibly)
Saturday Day: Rider from Fate/Stay Night with my fiancé as Archer
Saturday Night:  Racing Queen Meiko from Vocaloid 
Sunday: Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney with my fiancé as Gumshoe

I am running a panel about how to keep your cosplay organized, Friday at 2:30! Need to finish tweaking the panel, but I'm excited about that too, been a while since I ran a panel~

-Amanda

Now Selling In-Store!

So we have some very exciting news! An anime store is now in Orlando again! We're very excited because we haven't had one for several years. And to make things even MORE exciting, we are actually renting out our own shelving unit to sell stuff in the store! This is a great way for local folks to get our stuff any time (especially since Cassie does not have an online shop), not to mention help support this awesome new store! 

The manager, Chi, is a really great guy, and very friendly to talk to! Everyone that came by on opening day had nothing but good things to say about him and the store, so please make sure to check it out!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Anime-Orlando-Inc/440160219337844

Con Season: Webcomic

Some of our very talented friends have written and drawn an awesome webcomic, all about cosplay and conventions! It's super funny, cute, and addictive! : )

Please check out their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/ConSeasonComic

And website: http://conseasoncomic.com/

Tubby Tofus!

Took some photos of what I use to call Tofu standies but they now have a name: Tubby Tofus!  These are mostly the new MLP Tofus but there's a couple from different shows!

Rainbow Dash

Applejack

 Pinkie Pie

Derpy Hooves or Ditzy Doo

Surprise

 Kyubey or Cube-y

 Plusle and Minun

OAD Picture Post

We've finally remembered to post pictures that were taken at a con somewhat soon after it's over!  We didn't take too many pictures at OAD this past Saturday but the ones we did we're pretty good!  

First we got some new booth babes to come and hang out at our booth!

I think they did a pretty good job of getting people's attention.  

Piccolo and Maaya Pakamoto bring in the customers

Someone asked us if they could design their own button since we like to have

the button maker at the booth and of course we said yes!  Unfortunately when I went to

make the first button it got ruined so she made another one which led to this hilarious

picture of the two X3

Gengar is upset with how the original button came out

And finally we decided to try out something new at OAD that we are definitely going to 

continue making:  Grab Bags!  They're full of stuff that we make and other random goodies

and there will usually be one of two that have double the amount of prizes in it!  You also get 

three free buttons of your choice when you buy one which is an added bonus!

There is actually another bonus that we didn't expect to be so popular with the grab bags; you get 

to pick from a variety of random drawings on the bags.  We never expected people would want to 

keep these things we drew at one in the morning but we're glad they were well liked X3 And 

without further ado, the grab bag collection!

Rainbow Dash eating a cookie and Goku eating a cupcake

A Dalek exterminating a cake and Dovakin eating a waffle

Tofus with Pizza, Sexy Kyubey and an Alpaca with a milkshake

Miku eating a hotdog and Black Widow bringing Hawkeye some cake

 Panty eating a hotdog and Sailor Moon wanting all the candy

Orlando Anime Day

We had a great time seeing everyone at Orlando Anime Day today!  We really love to attend OAD cause it's such a fun little event and if you haven't been to an Anime Day before we definitely suggest you check one out!  I think there's 5 different cities they're hosted at right now in the Southeast and they always seem to be getting more shows going in other places.  You can check out the page here for more info~  I'll also be posting some pictures tomorrow for everyone to see but for now I need rest X3

In other news, though we're not officially attending as The Tofustache, we're going to have a presence at Otakon at the end of the month!  Our great friends at Athena's Wink needed some help with their booth so Amanda will be up there helping them out as well as selling some of our stuff!  So make sure to stop by and say hi to her and check out the sweet swag Athena's Wink sells as well (it's pretty sweet!).  They'll be at booth I-13 in the dealer's room and I will be here in FL playing pinball while they're both working mwahahaha!

Now it is time for rest because tomorrow the work begins again!  

~Cassie

My Little Pony Jewelry Sweatshop

OMG soooo tired. Past 3 days my living room has turned into a My Little Pony jewelry sweatshop. D: I have some friends that are selling at Bronycon this weekend (http://www.etsy.com/shop/AthenasWink), who have been gracious enough to sell my jewelry at their table. Unfortunately, I got so caught up in working on hoodie orders, and I grossly miscalculated how much time I would need to make jewelry to send them. So the end result has been staying up until about 7 in the morning, working all night, sleeping for a few hours and then continuing to work. I wound up having to pay crazy $ to send the package express, but good news is that it should be there tomorrow, and I will hopefully make a lot of money, making all the stress and lack of sleep worth it lol.

I attempted to take some pictures of the sweatshop with my phone, which unfortunately has a REALLY crappy camera.

I wasn't sure how much to make of everything since I've never sold at an event that was strictly MLP, so I tried to make as much as possible (though there was still more that  plus this was the first time I've had someone else sell my jewelry for me. I tried to make everything as organized as possible so everything should be really easy to understand, but I can't help but feel apprehensive since I'm not actually there. *fingers crossed* Everything should go well though~

All in all, I have a pretty crazy and restless month ahead of me until Otakon, but I am plan on relaxing as hard as possible after that! Going to definitely need a day of nothing but lounging by the pool, drinking beer and hanging with friends~
-Amanda

Metrocon 2012!

Metrocon is coming up this weekend and we are working hard to finish up everything!  If you're attending be sure to stop by and visit us in the Artist's Alley at booth A-16!  I decorated this map terribly in MSPaint so it'll be easy to find us!

New Necklaces from The Monostash

HE'S COMING. HE'S COMING. HE'S COMING. (Creepers, not George Washington! New necklaces to premier at Metrocon in 2 weeks!)

-Amanda

Princess Luna and Celestia Costumes

Designed some cute (and comfy) Princess Luna and Celestia costumes that Cassie and I can wear together while working at the table! I really like them a lot! :D

-Amanda

New designs I've vectored. Just made the new Avatar designs today, in time for Animazement this weekend. I had to make the shipping designs lol. If Tumblr is any indicator, there are some pretty crazy Mako/Korra and Bolin/Korrin fans out there, so it seemed like a good business idea to make something extra for them. I want to make a Fire Ferrets logo too! ;D

I already have the new pony designs available in my store (as necklaces, lanyards and magnets), and will try to get the Avatar designs up soon!

-Amanda

HSP Miku!!!! And some actual news~

For the sake of updating Imma post something unrelated to Tofus and mustaches!  As some of you may already know I'm a pretty avid Hatsune Miku fan and my new HSP Miku scale figure just came in the mail today!  I'm obviously super excited about it cause the post office decided not to update the tracking after it got to NYC and I was afraid she was gonna be stuck there for two weeks like my last batch of figures.  Luckily she made it safe and sound to my doorstep and turned out to be way cuter than I was anticipating!  If you're into figure collecting at all or want to get started I'd definitely suggest picking her up!

GIGA kawaii!!!

In actual news, with Animazement coming up in a month's time and Metrocon shortly after we're going to be super busy getting ready for them between now and then.  I've been sequestered to the Tofu Mines, which is filled with long days of grueling works and cute faces.  I might try to take a picture of all these Pokemon Tofus with just their faces on soon cause they really look way too funny without their ears and details X3  For now here's a shot of a bunch of the new mustache Tofus looking super proper on my crafting desk!

The 'Stache Army

Now back to the Tofu Mines to slave away till Animazement is here! 

Super exciting news!

The Tofustache is proud to announce the engagement of one half of our group!  The lovely Amanda from The Monostash is now officially engaged to her fiance Graham!  They were pretty much already married but now it's going to be official!  Yay!!!  Here's a picture I took of the happy couple + dog!

And here's me making the picture better :3  This is for you Amanda <3

Again Yay!!!! Congrats you two~~~~

New Product Preview

A preview of my newest product: Mass Effect phone cases! : ) I'm really pleased with how they look so far~

I'm getting some of these ready to sell at Khaotic Kon next weekend~

Sonoshee Costume Commission

Just wanted to share what I've been working on all week, a costume and wig commission of Sonoshee from the (absolutely fabulous and awesome) movie, Redline.

I'm so happy with how it's coming out (and also happy that I'm almost finished, costume commissions are way too stressful! o___o)