My Last (?) Jar Post, for Now. (?)

Yeah baby. #barrywhitevoice        

I just can't get enough of liquid in jars. Whatever that says about me. Today, however, we're introducing a new liquid, readily available from yon locale dollare shoppe. Baby oil.        


It even smells like real babies! Well, I mean, the not-smelly side of them. The powdery side. Of course, once you've sealed it away forever in its Mason jar vault, you won't be able to tell anyway, but it was at least nicer to work with than vegetable oil, which smells like deep frying. Don't get me wrong, I love deep fried food, but the smell after deep frying in your kitchen? It's a nightmare.The color of vegetable oil probably would have gone along really well with the orange I chose for the water, but I'd worry about it going rancid, even sealed up in a Mason jar.

While waiting for the jar to pop, I decided to have a little gardening time with Meows. I found those two Buddha head statuettes at the 99c Store, they're really pretty. Usually all I find there are Jesus statues, and really tacky, odd things (like, a typewriter statuette? What?), and I'm not much interested in Jesus, not that I'm Buddhist either, but I like that style of art. In a garden, especially, it just seems so peaceful and calm. So the new Buddha heads go by the miniature roses, which I also found at the 99c Store! They haven't gotten all the attention they needed over the past 3 months or so, but I am slowly bringing them back to life. Very hardy little things.

PING! It's time.

This thing is CRAZY. You can shake it forever, and every time, it still goes back to being perfectly separate - clear on the top, and orange on the bottom.

So here's the stuff:
1 self-sealing jar, a la Mason/Kerr ball jars.
Food coloring
Baby oil (I used somewhere around 230ml, or 3/4 a 10oz bottle)

Boil water. Fill jar halfway with boiling water. Add desired amount of food coloring. Fill to top with baby oil. Put on the top and secure tightly. It's done when the seal pops, or when jar is completely cool.

TOTAL COST: $3, if you can find everything at the dollar store. The food coloring will last FOREVER, so if you want to make more jars, you really only need $2 per jar, and if you're making 4, you'll only need 3 bottles of baby oil.

Have fun!
Cat

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Glitter Jars, Part Deux: Son of Glitter Jars

Damn you, Michael's!

That's right.

We graduated.

Because mason jars just weren't cool enough yet, I found these fake lightbulb bottles with flat bottoms at Michael's. 40% off sale? Yeah. Yeah, we'll go for that. Those huge packages of glitter with every color in the rainbow (in several different shades, I might add) are $5, and you can use your 40% off coupon on them, hint hint. The bottle of glue was about $4, which was more than I wanted to pay, but it worked really well. I have seen other people use clear Tacky glue gel. I was prepared to use the whole bottle, as some other crafters have suggested, but I ended up using about half the bottle for all 3 jars combined. I guess that's the little bonus you get for using smaller jars.

'Cause dat glue is expensive, yo. Then again, I'm cheap.

So in news no one cares about, I'm taking a break from packing. Taking a trip down to Indio to visit some relatives of Husband's visiting from Canada. I've still got a bunch of stuff to do, a little shopping trip, and a shower waiting for me, but who has time for that when you've got a blog post to write? I told Husband I was going to try to write an entry a day, but I've already screwed that up. Every other day?

Yeah. I meant every other day.

Anyway.

Look at all that majesty. For the curious, that's about 2 drops of blue food coloring, 2 tbsp of clear glue and 1 tbsp of glitter glue, with a whole lot of glitter dumped on top. The bottles themselves are colored, this one blue, so the dye really just darkened it. I used silicone to seal it, and so far no leaks, even with a lot of vigorous shaking. I did that one yesterday, it's nice and shake-able today. Doesn't it look nice in the window there? Yeah. Very nice.

Here's the green and yellow ones filled. Notice the difference there in their relative color and opacity. I have read on some blogs that the milky quality of the water is caused by using glitter glue. I have plans to test that theory before too long. I don't think it honestly could have been the food dye that I used, but who knows. I didn't use any glitter glue or dye in the green or yellow bottles. I used so much glue in them that some of the glitter never sinks. Perfect! Though some of the larger glitter particles settle almost immediately.

'Til next time, crafters!

Cat

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Calming Glitter Jars for Cool People

Glitter jars. Glitter. Glue. Jar. It gets no easier than this. Seriously, it's harder to make a picture frame with macaroni glued to it. And with those 3 ingredients, you can make a super-relaxing bottle of shake-up chill-out tonic. Don't drink it though.

There's glue in it.

Everyone's got a mason jar in their house somewhere. Yes, you do too. I'll wait.

It's cool. Probably in the back of that closet... with the half-burned candles? No? Check the hope chest.

Under the sink?

Yeah, there it is. I told you. Dust it off, polish it up, scrape off the sink gunk, and make sure it has a two-part lid. One part screws on the top, and the other part has a rubber ring on the bottom. Both parts are equally i

As for the glitter, anyone who has ever crafted probably has some kind of glitter in their stash. I've been known to buy a packet of glitter or two in my day, so I was fortunate enough to have a few different kinds of complementing colors. The color was white, and sparkly white, and star-shaped also white. Be jealous of my color combinations there.

So the only really tricky factor here is having the right kind of glue. If you have glitter glue, you're good. If you have clear elmers-like glue, you're good. If you have neither, I'm afraid it's time for a trip to Ye Locale Crafte Shoppe (AKA Michael's) to humble yourself before the glory of the glue section. As far as I know, clear Elmer's and clear Tacky glue both work, I've also tested the Cheapest Glitter Glue on the Planet (from the 99c store), and it worked just fine. So be a rebel crafter and blaze a new trail through the unknown. Don't believe what I say. Find out on your own.

But I digress.

Then you need water. Yeah, I didn't mention the water before, but chances are, if you turn on the tap in your sink, water comes out. Put that water in a pot. And put that pot on the stove. And put that stove on high. Yeah, that's right - we're boiling water here. We can't fear danger.

If you're feeling adventurous, now's the time to put a drop of food coloring in your jar. Just a drop. Make it count.

Now pour some boiling water into your jar, a tiny bit below the neck of the jar. Squeeze a bunch of that glue in there. Don't be shy. I squeeze about a half a bottle, maybe more. The more glue you put in, the slower the glitter will fall when you shake up the jar.

Then dump a lot of glitter in it. If you think you're done, you're not. You want a nice big pile of glitter on the bottom when it settles. I put in about 2 tbsp of glitter glue, and about 3 tubes of glitter in - pretty good, but I don't think it's possible to put in too much, so just keep going.

Now stir! I used a whisk. Basically, you want to see the glue dissolve totally, so you don't end up with a chunky mind jar. You know, not that there's anything wrong with chunky. I'm a little chunky too, so chunky solidarity. But, in this case, you want to downplay the chunky, so whisk it away.

Time for the lid. Put on the plate with the rubber ring, and then screw the top on. When the jar cools enough, you'll hear a POP! That tells you your jar is sealed and ready, and exactly why you don't need to bother with sealing the lid. It does it FOR you, because Mason/Ball/Kerr jars are made by winners, for winners. Don't shake it up until you hear that pop, though. If you missed it, wait a good 24 hours to be sure. When the jar is cold, it's guaranteed to be sealed if you did it right. If you shake it up and water comes out, it's time to get the glitter glue back out and start again.

So, you've got a totally sweet jar full of glitter and glue, now what?

Look at it, man. I mean... really... loooook at it. Shake it, and hold it. Watch it spin. Shake it up and get all that anger out, then watch it all fall and settle. Feel groovy. Use it as a rough timer for brushing your teeth, or for a time out for your crazy little ones. Teach someone to meditate, all you have to do is shake it up and watch it settle, and your mind will settle too.

Very groovy, man.

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Etsy vs. ArtFire

Hi folks!

So here's a good topic that I've had a bit of experience with in the past three months or so. I've sold a few items online in the past, but usually, I do it through Facebook or word of mouth. My first online storefront languished; it was hosted on Etsy before the redesign, and I was very unimpressed with the layout. In fairness, I never ended up listing an item. Around that time, I was pretty busy with helping my husband emigrate from Canada, so not only did I have much free time, but I felt as though I had a lot less to offer back in those days.

I was a big fan of Regretsy back when it was still around. For those of you who don't remember Regretsy, it was a comedy site that highlighted the worst of the worst items that people were selling on Etsy at the time. It also showcased a lot of the problems with Etsy, especially when it came to Etsy's horrible mismanagement of their own site. Their admins were unlikeable, their policies went unenforced, and people sold mass-manufactured items completely unchecked. After a while of reading Regretsy and watching the trainwreck, a Regretsy commenter mentioned Artfire as an alternative. After a while of browsing the site, I decided to join up.
Artfire is a very different site than Regretsy. They're very focused on showcasing only handmade items and craft supplies, and it shows in the quality of work you see there. Etsy CLAIMS to feel the same way, but even to this day, you still see items that were very clearly made in a factory somewhere in China. Artfire charges simply to have a seller account with them. It's about $10 a month if you pay for 3 months at a go. This is a nice feature, since they don't take a commission, and don't charge per item listing. Artifre also doesn't consider your items to be inactive after 4 months, requiring you to re-list them, like Etsy does.

These things were REALLY attractive to me.

Unfortunately, after a few months, the cracks started to show. Artfire is really outdated, where the newly-redesigned Etsy is modern, clear, and convenient. Artfire is a LOT less popular. I mean, when people go to search for handmade items, generally speaking, they just go to Etsy. It's a well-known name, and Artfire just isn't. I imagine this might be the first time that most of you have even heard of it. Were it not for Regretsy, I STILL would never have been there.
So, after some prodding, my friends finally convinced me to at least give Etsy another try. I was very reluctant, but I hadn't seen how amazing the recent redesign was - and it really is amazing. Etsy is incredibly modern and seller-friendly now. I could probably write a novel about all of its convenient features compared to Artfire. I was spending nearly a half an hour per item to list my items on Artfire. There are duplicate information fields to fill out everywhere, unnecessary information (tagging an item as a gift for Summer?), multiple description fields, and slow-loading store section dropdowns. The only thing I miss from Artfire's item listing page is the ability to put a promotional overlay on a picture. As soon as I started using Etsy, I had 10 items listed in a half an hour or less.

So what does Artfire have that Etsy doesn't?

AUTOMATIC TAXES. Oh my god. Etsy, why don't you have this? I don't want to set up tax profiles for every city in the US. I am not an accountant. I don't understand how these things work. I am the equivalent of a crazy cat lady with a stand at the swap market. It is a miracle that I can work the post office.

But, honestly... it's the only place where Artfire excels. Sure, it's nice that Artfire doesn't take a cut of my profits, but at $10 a month, at the moment, I'm only breaking even. Artfire also lets you keep a gallery of past work, but it's shoved off in a corner that most people will never see. But on the whole, the minor conveniences are in no way worth it, considering what you get with Etsy.
With Etsy, I can DITCH PAYPAL. I hate Paypal. With a seething, fiery, burning passion. All you have to do is Google "Why should I hate PayPal?" and Google will tell you allllllll about it. So it's nice to have the ability to never need to use it again. I can just enter my bank account information right into Etsy, and people can pay with plastic. Instead of sitting in my PayPal account, it goes directly to me. With Etsy, I can print shipping labels, save on shipping costs, and never have to wait in line at the post office again. With Etsy, I can view detailed stats about my store, graphs of what days my store and various items are popular, and where my traffic is coming from. With Etsy, I can crop photos right in the item editor for clean thumbnails.

It's time for the ArtFire vs. Etsy bottom line.

Choose Etsy if:

• You are new to selling items online.
• You are successfully selling fewer than about 50 items a month.
• You hate PayPal.
• You need more exposure.
• You hate the post office AND have a working printer.

Choose Artfire if:

• You already have a customer base.
• You are selling more than at least $10 worth of items each month.
• You want a showcase of your work and studio, rather than "just" a storefront.

I chose Etsy, by a long shot. What's better for you?

Good luck!

Cat

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Hi!

Welcome to Raised by Sitcoms :)

My name is Erica, though I go by Cat (for reasons which I am sure will be divulged in later posts). This blog was really inspired by my interest in learning how to work Blogger itself. When I was younger, I was a prolific journal keeper, but it seems like over the past decade or so, my resolve has faltered for reasons unknown. Even in making this blog, I created about 3 others, made a first post, and deleted them. I agonized for days over the name, since I had a bunch of great ideas that were all taken. So much for originality, eh? Eventually I came to Raised by Sitcoms while watching Frasier with my husband, because seriously? I love sitcoms. There's just something so soothing and comfortable about them.

I was inspired to learn Blogger after being invited to be a contributor to Nerd Rendezvous, a crafting blog made by a wonderfully talented friend of mine. Realizing I had no idea what I was doing, I decided to make my own blog, and see if I could make it look nice and operate well. I don't have any ambitions of external success, fame, or fortune, but I figure as long as I can make Raised by Sitcoms something I can look at and be proud of, I can feel accomplished.

For a little background on myself, I'm married to a Canadian programmer, Matt, who was pretty much cut from the same cloth as myself. We are the best of friends. I am unemployed due to a disability, but I have spent a lot of time in a marine sciences program, studying research, and I am most of the way to a general associate's degree. I am an avid crafter, and will work with ANYTHING, though I'm terrible at sewing, and even worse at drawing anything coherent. I love to work with polymer clay (think Sculpey or Fimo), and I am always looking for new crafting obsessions. Every time I step foot in the craft store, I see a new thing that I've "always wanted to try" - last time it was jewelry resin! I think it was Mod Podge before that. My most recent project was a costume based on Mrs. Foster, from a game called Killing Floor. It turned out pretty well, and I took it out for a spin at C4, the Central Coast Comic Con (of California, not Canada - that's a lot of Cs!). When I was younger, I had aspirations of being a sound engineer for video games, which I guess is still on the table. When I'm not crafting, I enjoy photography, writing, reading, gaming, music, and tea. Matt shares my time with our cat Meows, chinchilla Misty, and plecostomus Paul (and other shrimp, snails, and tetras).

Hopefully that answers any questions my nonexistent readers might have. If you, my nonexistent readers, have any questions, feel free to comment or e-mail. Hopefully there will be some actual content soon. Thanks! :)

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