Paperfacets

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Paperfacets Tea Bag Folding Website A Year Old

This creator is celebrating because my website endeavor is still alive. Yes, It's Alive. Paperfacets Tea Bag Folding website is a priority. Towards the end of last year I did negligent putting new material up, but I was still very much thinking of it and logging on every day. Looking for those much anticipated comments and doing small updates in spelling and sentence structure.

At the beginning of each new year I do get a dose of new enthusiasm for all my online ventures. Looking at Google Analytics made me realize the site is doing fine but in twelve months it has only held even on visits and new visitors. I can not complain because 200-250 visits a month are not bad for tea bag folding. It is not a craft to discover like ten years ago when searches were almost 4,000. Now it is about 450 and my visits are doing okay because there are a few other long standing TBF websites. I am so grateful for the visitors I do have and I am offering reassurances I will be adding new material for those who revisit. Today I added a blog post about a tea bag folding paper website I discovered. Be sure to read it soon.

I was rather busy during December. My mother fell and cracked a hip and broke her arm in two places. She is still going through therapy and we are hoping she will be back on her feet and using the walker soon. I also was preparing for a Christmas event at the Homestead Museum in City of Industry.

I made these colorful tree cards and gift tags to display.

I will be making a goal of adding new keywords to the website and for you that means new pages and posts. Happy New Year and enjoy paper crafts all year.

SherryV

Saturday, May 23, 2015

I Have Been Priced Out of the Claremont, CA Farmer's Market

After almost 9 years I gave up my monthly space at the Claremont Farmer's Market. For the last year a friend and I

shared a space to halve the $32 dollar charge that was implemented at the end of 2013. It was hard to survive the new fee. The former fee was 10% of sales. The percentage plan kept me coming back because no matter the spending habits of the customers, Sunday strollers, or impulse buyers I felt the satisfaction of displaying my creations even if sales did not cover the morning Starbucks.

At a few nearby Farmer's Markets I learned artisans or craftsmen get charged the flat fee where the farmers are charged a percentage fee. It disappoints that somehow the artists have been set in a class that somehow has been deemed a group that can be charged more.

Plenty local markets are showing mass produced hardwares and frankly I feel those products may not be a good fit to be shown along with the food stuffs of our local farmers. The spirit and aesthetics of the handmade and artisan objects is the same as the local grower. Indeed, the time and effort that goes into handmade is the same as the farmer or produce grower. Artists are local to the communities and neighborhoods and deserve the same consideration as the local grower. After all, they espouse the same ideas for reducing foot prints and treading lightly.

As community members, artists support the local books for prisoners and each market's efforts for helping another less fortunate by shopping their local farmers market.

Each space at the market is now reduced to a business formula of how much is each 100 square feet worth?

The participation of the local craftsman, artist, seamstress or serious hobbyist is now ignored and priced out of the local economy because why?

Can you tell me in a few whole sentences why that is so?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Sincerely, Sherry Venegas

Monday, March 23, 2015

All New Paperfacets Website

In January I took the initiative and started working on a website for the name I have been paying for since 2007. Yes! I now have paperfacets.com, up and visible to all that are interested in tea bag folding or flat unit origami. I call it flat unit origami when browsers at Farmer's Market ask about what it is that I make and design cards with.

It is just easier for those that have never seen paper folding done in this fashion. The patterns I attach to the greeting cards almost always lay flat so the card can go through the mail in most cases. It takes eight squares of paper: thus unit.

The website is going to be added to on a regular basis and truthfully, many of the articles I have written in the past will be added to the website for easy management and bigger impact. I do not want readers forced from site to site to enjoy everything I want to share. So you will see some consolidation if you are familiar with my contributions to the Internet.

As with being involved with crafts, art classes, and writing on the web, creating is the fun part of it all. The new banner for the site was an enjoyable process. I took photos of a medallion placed on the paper I made the tea bag folding tiles of and then used Picasa to change color, tone, and lots else, to come up with the finished effect.

The mediallion above is the first tea bag folding instructions I posted on the site. It is like the medallion I used for the banner.

Visit

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Dont Tip the Waiter is a Game I Have Kept My Eye On

If one is raising a family in the U.S. products are bombarded at you. One category of product may be the toy. I do not buy toys very often but there are new babies every year and sometimes a toy is in order for a birthday, Holiday or special occasion. I look at toys for those times and for the memories they may conjure up in my head.

I found out toy products are not lasting. A toy today may be a buried closet item the next or no longer offered for sale. After awhile it may be even be a landfill item or no manufacturer support to get lost parts for the toy.

I have a problem letting go, as well, when I write about a toy for other's information.

2010 I found a toy called "Don't Tip the Waiter." It is a stack and fall game with a waiter holding as many dishes as he can. Two years into my campaign the toy was discontinued, as others have been. Well, this version with the plastic waiter on a titter ball is back on Amazon. Surprising for me.

Also, I found today something else that excited me. There is a wood version of the theme toy. I added it to the original toy article and blogging to call attention to it.

Dont hestitate, belly up to any table and no matter what they say "Tip the Waiter", anytime for family fun.

Monday, May 26, 2014

Five Marriott Vacation Clubs Resort Reviews

Having a Marriott Vacation Club membership has afforded the family some very nice vacations. We are not a long time member and only joined in 2008. We think we are going to enjoy many weeks away from home at some rather nice Marriott Vacation Clubs.

Hawaii has been the main place we have gone to, but in the future I want to see some other sites, tropics or not. For instance I very much want to see the East coast and Marriott members have big choices in the Carolinas.

To celebrate each time I visit a new vacation spot I write a review and post the best pictures I managed to take for sharing with other Marriott members and interested people. Get an ordinary person's take on the location and see images that are not so professional. Get a less staged look of each locale.

The view point will be of a retiree with adult children that like to share time with the older generation. I will mention the younger generation's input for a varied opinion.

Five Reviews now exist from this traveler and I hope they give you the little extra help you need for your decision making. A Marriott vacation ownership is exclusive and admittedly can be very expensive. Use it to the fullest and get information outside the normal corporate channels.

Marriott Timber Lodge South Lake Tahoe CA

A look at California from LA County to Lake Tahoe. Take a road trip and see the Mojave Desert, Owens Valley and Lake Tahoe. This trip can keep you busy for two weeks.

Marriott’s Ko Olina Beach Club,Oahu

A sunset view of one of the manmade swimming lagoons. I seen many fish and green turtles in these lagoons.

Kauai Marriott Beach Resort at Poipu Hawaii

Green turtles, monk seal and chickens are some of the wild life.

Photo Peek of Marriott’s Aruba Surf Club

Very clear waters.

Maui Beach Resort – A Marriott Vacation Club

See whales when in season from your oceanview window.

We also enjoyed our first cruise using points through the Marriott Vacation Club. 10 Reasons to Take a Princess Cruise gives you some insight on now that turned out.

As I write new reviews I will add them to this list as easy reference for you in the future.

The Marriott company umbrella is listening to vacationers. The last couple of years new Vacation Club locations have been added. One concept is the antique hotel properties being purchased in city centers. A few new locations are available in cities, such as, San Diego, Boston and New York. Look for them in your emails from Marriott.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Hyper Dash A Toy Demise

Being a member of the Squidoo writing community some years ago I started to write about products. I wanted the extra cash the webpage might bring in to my writing on the Internet as a whole. Hyper Dash was one of my first toys to feature. Having the kids move around sounded like a good alternative to computer games that are so popular.

I read everything I could and wrote up my sales lens, as this type of webpage was called on Squidoo. In just a few months the company, Wild Planet, came out with a new version. The original Hyper Dash became less searched for and I considered deleting the page for lack of interest.

In September 2012 I started to see a rise in traffic to the webpage. People were looking for the instructions and I had a link to the company's PDF, so I felt good about being able to help owners of the Hyper Dash Game.

I am not sure when but some time between September and April the link broke. I was pretty disappointed my write up was no longer of any help. I noticed many people were still searching for the instructions and I decided to buy the game again and get the instructions for game owners. I now have a Hyper Dash Game and the owner's instructions. I took pictures of the copy I received with the game and have posted them on the webpage for all owners of Hyper Dash.

Wild Planet's Website is gone, their telephone number disconnected and the instructions are no longer supported as a PDF.

I hope the posted instructions for Hyper Dash will give owners a few more months or years of play from their purchase and the kids get some fun exercise too. The copy of the instructions and my toy review along with my saga of observations on the game is here.

Happy Dashing.

Friday, February 22, 2013

What the Marketplace Offers for Steampunk Style Home Decor

Steampunk style home decor is a look that anybody can afford. If you can mash things together with an artistic touch you would be working in eclectic steampunk. The steampunk look is from the beginnings of scifi, Jules Verne's style, with the touch of Victorian art nouveau and you will not miss the mark of the aesthetic.

The steampunk style has been here in the present era since about the 80's when new scifi writer's coined the word to describe their take on fiction and science. I became aware of the term about 5 years ago.

The look is what I am drawn to. As an artist I use the same kind of mixing for my greeting cards and framed pieces. My creations are not steampunk but I can appreciate the feast the eye encounters when confronted with a rich texture.

I started noticing that many items from other genres can be used to decorate your home or space to fit you steampunk sensibilities. I just went with the fantasy and gathered objects together for my readers as an introduction to this very modern new design idea. The active steampunk fan can pick what they think they can use for their living space to express their steampunk fantasies. I soon had 4 separate pages with my ideas.

Match steampunk, a metallic, shiny, mechanical mix with Mod Vic, modern Victorian, and the marketplace has what you need to steampunk your home.

The series of pages were fun to make and I enjoy keeping them loaded with new items that come onto the market, mainly through Amazon and Ebay, but I look for other web writer's steampunk contributions and offer their links, to give you the richness this genre offers.

Three pages to reap what the general marketplace has to offer for steampunk home decor.

Steampunk Furniture Choices for the Home

Create A Steampunk Kitchen

Steampunk Bathroom Ideas