treasury time

I'm slowing approaching the 1 year anniversary for my etsy shop and with that is coming a bit more growth in sales and recognition. It's been hard to do on a super small start-up budget and so finally seeing some of this growth is really exciting for me. Even in just the past couple weeks, GVK has been featured in a handful of treasuries, which it had never been before! Unfortunately I was gone on vacation and didn't catch them fast enough to post here :(

Today we landed in another though(!) by pixiepaper. It's kind of neat how she put the treasury together in order to tell a rather interesting story from her weekend, and yet it's all still visually appealing. Just click on the image below and it will take you straight there; her story is right at the top of the comments list.

happy earth day!

we all know there are small and large ways that each of us impact the earth and its resources, but it's hard to figure just how much damage we each do. to find out what your own ecological footprint is (and how you can reduce it), just take five minutes or so to use this handy footprint calculator! you may need to zoom in on the screen as the type is a bit small but otherwise it has some fun little graphics and straightforward questions to show how our lifestyle is directly linked to how much strain is put on our planets resources.

and in the interests of honesty, here are my own results:

i've got to say, i was really surprised by the results! i thought my impact would be much less because i live rather simply (a nice way of saying i'm dirt poor, haha) and do not even own a car. our apartment does have a lot of old appliances though that are not energy efficient and i have a habit of indulging in taxis instead of taking the bus to work. our salvation is really that we try to buy lots of local food at the farmer's market and that we recycle almost all of our plastics, glass, and paper waste. I reduced my footprint from 3.7 to 3.3 at the end by commiting to buy more products made of recycled material and to hop on my bike instead of cabbing it to work ;) i hope you find some ways that you can help too!

fabulous felt finds

i've recently been attempting to teach myself how to do some needle felting. it was slow going at first, but now that i am acquiring some better tools, it's actually quite fun. I also love how many different types of things people are creating with this medium!

so to go along with that, i thought i'd post a of few beautiful felt items i found in etsy land in the past few days...just wish i had pockets deep enough to grab one of each for myself!

Rosette Fascinator - The Swan, By giantdwarf
Isn't this gorgeous? Sigh, if only people dressed like this all the time...

Felt Owl Brooch, By lovahandmade
actually, i have already bought one of these cute little brooches for myself to adorn my spring jacket!

Felt Laptop Sleeve, By Lusitania
I can't imagine how much work went into this piece, what cunning design sensibility!

Eunice, By Mummysam
"Eunice has just bought a new pair of glasses, and decided to head out to town to celebrate...."
hahaha, i just love this!

gvk house cleaning sale

I've been doing a rare but ferocious deep cleaning of our apartment this weekend and so i thought it was also high time i aired out the shop. Lucky you, all this house cleaning means I've added several items to the sale section and have taken $5 off selected draft snakes.

Best of all, I've just gotten to 49 sales! Hurry over because if you become my 50th sale, I will refund you 10% your purchase (not including shipping)!!

beautiful buttons

after a day of working in the archives at Dumbarton, i walked down to the crowded sidewalks of Georgetown to check out the new location of my favorite DC fabric shop Exquisite Fabrics. They have all sorts of gorgeous imported apparel fabrics, miles of ribbon, and best of all there are boxes and boxes of beautiful buttons! Pictured are some of my favorites that i've gotten there. I mostly use them for clutch purses but now i'll also be using them to make the closures for some decorative pillow covers. And in the meantime, well i just like to paw through them and sort them by different colors and sizes...sigh, there's just something about organizing that makes me so content, haha.

and the winner is...

lovely little deer—congratulations!!!

The giveaway prize includes "spring cleaning" inspired items: a matroishka lavender sachet as well as a charming laundry bag for delicates! These are both new items from geschichtenvonkat and you can find more of them coming to the shop soon!


Thank you to each and every one of you who entered my first giveaway and to those who spread the word on your own blogs; it was wonderful to read all your comments and helpful for me to get a good idea of what items you want to see more of! If you liked what you saw in this giveaway, be sure to keep following here on the blog (just scroll down to see the follow button on the right hand side) and the GVK shop for future freebies, you never know who the lucky winner will be!

back from the brink, back to the giveaway!

remember the mysterious flu symptoms i mentioned just a bit ago? Turns out it was not the flu at all but salmonella poisoning from some of the infamous tainted peanut butter!! It's been one of the strangest sicknesses i've ever had and i'm so glad to finally be on the mend. Aside from having to get an IV at the urgent care center and epic amounts of needles stuck into me for tests, i'll spare you the details as they aren't quite fit for publishing...just be wary of all those peanut products out there for the time being because salmonella poisoning is quite serious and i wouldn't want any of you to have to go through that experience!

on the other side of the coin...today is the last day of the giveaway! i'm going to get myself an early dinner (because i can eat some solid foods now, hooray!) and then start filling the hat with all of your names—I'll be back on the blog later tonight to announce the winner so stay tuned!!