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/