Oh my FSM, I’ve been quiet with blogging lately. However I assure you, I certainly have been busy with many, many things… I hardly know where to start!

 

Well the gist of it all is January is my month for catching up on a bunch of administrative stuff I’ve been meaning to do get to these past few months. The top of that list is taxes, and taking all the steps to organize info from last year. What a job I’ve had!

 

There has been a folder that has gotten fatter, and fatter this past year, of various receipts I’ve been stuffing into for NifNaks. I had thought it was all organized, but it’s not until I started to coalate all of this information, that I saw a huge flaw in my “system”. I most certainly need to take measures to avoid some of this head-ache next year. So thanks to the SBA of San Francisco, I think I can really tackle this beast.

 

The Small Business Administration offers tons classes each year for business owners on a variety of topics all aimed at us beginning our small businesses. Now, I’m happily registered for a Quickbooks class at the end of this month. Perhaps I can finally get those receipts entered into the computer at regular intervals!

 

Other systems and plans are being formed and implemented, but I won’t go into them now. After all, I need to intersperse administrative updates with the fun stuff.

 

Next Post: Pirate Hats..... ahrrrr, Matey!

It's been a great year! From my first booth at the fabulous Maker Faire to the piles of dreads I crafted for Prepare for the Playa to the massive holiday rush that kept me busy throughout November and December.

Battalions of Flying Spaghetti Monsters, Cthulhus, DataWormz, and other NifNaks were adopted by people all over the world!

I was overjoyed to receive several letters of thanks from people! Including a fabulous print of the Flying Spaghetti Monster created by the talented Victoria Prozan McGlinn.

To celebrate the end of 2007 I decided to take a much needed vacation from all my felting. So I'll be getting away from it all for the next week. I'm going on a road trip with friends to Baha, Joshua Tree, and other beautiful places in southern California.

Thanks to all of you who adopted a NifNak this holiday season! I hope you had a wonderful 2007 and here's to an even better 2008!

Come meet my new friend in my collection of Data Wormz, custom mods of 4 GB USB Flash Drives. They are the cutest thumb drive you could ever have, and now, there will be another adorable little worm to hold all of your data.

 I will be officially introducing IOTA the EARTHWORM, this Saturday at the Bazaar Bizarre indie craft fair at the San Francisco County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco from 11:00am - 6:00pm. For the time being, you can only adopt her at the fair this Saturday, but I will be making her available on my website very shortly.

Without further ado, here's Iota!

 

Little IOTA the EARTHWORM may be a just a squiggle of a thing, but she sure is large in the personality department. She has a passion for learning and can squeeze a whopping 4 gigabytes of information into her noggin'. Sometimes Iota will spend hours on Wikipedia jumping from topic to topic, absorbing all the information she can. Whenever it rains, you will always find her dancing in a field of grass, singing her favorite tunes by the Sugarcubes. As you may have guessed, Iota loves flowers and gardening and is quite content to spend hours just digging through the dirt.  If you adopt Iota, you will never be want for love, because Iota has tons of love to give -- after all, she's got 5 hearts! 

Wow! I'm so thrilled that NifNaks recently was BoingBoing 'ed (both on the main front page, as well as complimentary write-up in BB Gadget !), Gizmodo 'ed, and many other blogs! I keep discovering other web sites where my Data Wormz and Cthulhu/FSM ornaments were embraced with fuzzy-geeky love. I'm thrilled that so many other folks love them as much as I do. Yay!

I'm astounded at the number of Noodly Appendages I've been touching daily, as I poke Him (and Him, and Him, and...) with my felting needles.

And wow, this is new--- International attention! I've gotten orders from Canada, England, Australia, Netherlands, and Denmark, and NifNaks has been browsed by 64 countries. I'm amazed.

I want to extend a warm welcome to all the many people who have discovered NifNaks through one of websites/blogs that have featured me. Please feel free to leave a comment on my blog -- I love hearing from you!

To celebrate this great occasion every family in Arkham decorates their Christmas trees with Cthulhu heads and Flying Spaghetti Monsters !

Celebrate just like families in Arkham do!
You too can join in and celebrate by getting your very own Cthulhu ornament, FSM ornament, or FSM treetopper! Each ornament is a handmade using felted wool exactly how the original Arkham ornaments are traditionally made.

Cthulhu Tree Ornament 

Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper

I’ve been working hard at NifNaks Studios to create a smarter, more intelligent design to my latest Head Wormz.

Luckily for me, tonight I got just the type of weather here in San Francisco that I needed to complete the experiment. (Imagine lightning a la Frankenstein.)  zzzttt! Zzz, zzzz zzzzzzt!

Behold! I now present to you my very first Data Worm, GIZZY the cutest thumbdrive you will ever see!   His name is Gizzy and he will astound you with his ability to remember things – 4 gigabytes worth, in fact! He loves super tart gumballs, and won’t eat anything orange. He enjoys bungee jumping, but most days he’s content just to sit around and read a book. Gizzy is of course an amazing speller and will knock your socks of in Scrabble.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He will soon be available in my store, along with his other super-smart worm friends. Stay tuned! 

UPDATE:  Check out my newest Data Worm MAGGIE the Maggot !

I got the coolest email from someone today. It was from a graphic designer in Madison Wisconsin, Victoria Prozan McGlinn - who was inspired by my rendition of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and is making silk-screens based of a photograph she took. She even offered to send me one! Cool huh?

I just love how folks in the creative/art/craft community are inspired by one another. It also fills my heart with warmth and joy, when someone reaches out to make a connection like that. Thank you, Victoria.

I created a few more wool tentacle scarves tonight, plus one new design for a wool scarf. It looks very much akin to a Victorian neck ruff of the 16th century. It surrounds my face like an exquisite flower - I’m in love with it!

I can’t wait to make one for my self tomorrow!

 

 

I was invited by a very nice gentleman from the Mycological Society of San Francisco to be a vendor at the Fungus Fair in Oakland next month.



I’m soooo excited to bring my little fuzzy friends to an event where they will truly be appreciated. I’m had some interactions with mycologists that were quite rewarding, but I’m definitely looking forward to bringing my Shroommate pals to an entirely new atmosphere than they’ve been before.

I’m planning on making a few additional species of mushrooms before the Fair. And because mycologists are a discerning bunch, I will make every effort to really capture the particularities of each mushroom by aquireing better resources than mere data I find on the internet. My totally rad mycologist friend, Mella, has offered to lend me a couple of books, of which have both lots of pictures and watercolors of various mushrooms. I must think of a special way to thank her in wool.

I now present to you some of the pumpkins that were carved up last week, at my Guts & Glory Pumpkin Carving Party.  I hope they inspire you to get creative, or just get silly. :)

My Pumpkin, a fish eating a fish, eating a fish, eating.... 

 

Pam's Pumpkin, Brightlight board inspired....

 

Colin's Pumpkin, little pumpkins in the face of a big pupkin.... 

 

Jamie & Ian's  Pumpkin, Space Invaders....

 

Simon's Pumpkin, Abstract Geometry...

 

 (photo credit: Colin Fahrion)