My Christmas List

With Christmas fast approaching, it's time to start making lists. In my house, we like to make big lists of anything we can think of that we may want, so the other has a few things to choose from. We don't usually get even half of what's on the lists, but they're fun to make and sometimes make shopping a little easier. 

Here's what's on my list this year for my fiance: 

1. Necklace from Mollycharms. Bottom one is my favorite, with my daughter's name and blue stone if possible. 

$45

$45

$52

2. Hyperbole and a Half - book. 

(Second one from top *new* = $3.29 + $6.49 shipping)

3. Hyperbole and a Half Calendar

Free shipping if you spend $25 before taxes, or if you can't find other things to give free shipping, get it where it says "20 New from CDN$ 5.90" and the first one should be cheaper. 

4. One Tree Hill season 6 (or 7, 8, 9)

$15 or less. Second hand is fine (preferred). They'll likely go on sale cheap after Christmas anyway. 

5. Light grey mitts to match hat/scarf. Take 'em with you when shopping if needed. 

(I got my awesome scarf from Green Eye Designs as a self Christmas present. See below)

Green Eye Designs

6. PJs from Bluenotes. Size___. 

7. Gift certificate to Rossy's Nails. 

8. Gift certificate to Moksha Yoga

9. Awesome mug. 

10. Pokemon game maybe. Or something Luxray, Togepi.

11. Bigger makeup bag. 

12. Critter Crunch PS3 downloadable game. 

13. Colorful, cartoon-y puzzle. 

14. Starbucks gift card.

15. Pedicure gift certificate. 

16. A book of Chloe and Madi's artwork. 

17. Homemade coupon book. 

Stocking Stuffers

1. Light blue nail polish (not Dollarama). Sally Hansen is a good brand, Essie. Etc. 

2. Decent toothbrush. 

3. Deoderant. Lady Speed Stick only. 

4. Schick Intuition razor refills. 

5. Hot chocolate packets (cool flavors from Bulk Barn or wherever). 

6. Straws. 

7. Colorful pens for work. 

8. Perler keychain (Create your own owl!)

9. Cookies and cream Lindors. 

10. Marshmallow, sour apple, or orange cream Big Foot candy. 

11. Massage oil. 

12. Black work socks (I'm size 7)

What's on your list?

And the winner is...

I'm a day late (sorry!) but our Frozen giveaway has ended. 

The winner is......

Wendy! 

Wendy has been notified and chose her prize. Thanks to all that entered! 

Don't forget that Elsa and Anna can both still be made to order for a price of $8 each, or both for $15. 

We'll be having another giveaway sometime closer to Christmas. Stay tuned to find out details about this one. It will be our biggest and best yet! 

A Look Inside Our Space: Bead Storage

Bead storage is something that took a lot of time to figure out, and we're still working on perfecting it. Our current bead storage was bought in the hardware section at Canadian Tire. It fits an entire bag of a color, and has enough bins for more than all the colors we have. 

We don't currently have any pearl, glow-in-the-dark, striped or glitter beads. If we did, there wouldn't be enough room. But it holds all your regular colors. 

We labeled the colors with removable stickers found at the local dollar store. The kind of thing yo would use to price things at a yard sale. 

The rest of our bags, we keep in two spots. We keep one of each color (more of black and white though) hanging on a peg board that I got years ago at Michael's as scrapbooking storage. I have one more board, but can't find the pegs in store anymore. 

The extras we keep in a mini cube storage shelf that we keep on our desk. We got the shelf and the mini baskets at Target. We also keep other random beading odds and ends in there as well. Including the animal/fish peg boards that we rarely use. 

The rest of our storage, at the moment, is just a mess on an old bookshelf. 

The worst part, is that all of this resides in our little dining room in our tiny apartment. We are lacking in space, but we make it work. 

Do you like surprises in the mail?

I once wrote before about the fantastic thing that is Loot Crate. Loot Crate is a subscription service that sends out a monthly "goody" box of gamer/nerd toys and gadgets. It's about $30 plus taxes with shipping included. It's amazing. Eric has received a couple of great shirts, a shot glass, deck of cards, a Batman wallet, a South Park (Stan) speaker (my favorite). 

[ via ]

Now, someone just brought to my attention Nerd Block. 

It's a few different types of subscription boxes - some of which directed as kids. Even a box with items like Hello Kitty and My Little Pony geared towards girls ages 6-11. 

[ Not from actual site. Found here ]

I didn't sign up today, but I'm not going to lie - I wanted to. 

Have you ever signed up for a snail mail goody box subscription? 

Giveaway: Anna OR Elsa from Frozen

I'm pretty excited to announce not only a new project, but a giveaway as well!

Everyone seems to love the movie "Frozen" lately, and our household is no except. We even had a Frozen-themed birthday party over the weekend. It should come as no surprise that we also made bead sprites of Anna and Elsa (and also Olaf awhile back!) 

Elsa and Anna were a ton of fun to make, and the kids love playing with them. Each girl measures approximately 7.5 inches tall. 

We're giving away your choice of either Anna or Elsa. The winner will also get first dibs to purchase the other. They would make great stocking stuffers!

They are also available for purchase, although we would need to have them pre-ordered very soon to ensure that we can have them made in time for Christmas if it would be for a gift.

Winner must be able to pick up their prize in Charlottetown, PE.

You don't need to do all entries to win, but you need to do at least one. The more you do, the better your chances of winning.

Contest runs from now until midnight October 3rd, 2014. We will announce the winner Monday, October 6th.

Enter below:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

Favorite Apple Apps: Toddler Edition

Sometimes I find it a little hard to find really good apps. I end up downloading some (for me or my daughter) and half the time we end up having to delete it for being to annoying, not working properly or because we just don't really use it. So I'm going to try to regularly recommend some of my favorites. 

I have an iPhone, so most apps will be for iPhone, but I'll do what I can to find info for other devices as well. 

All my apps for today are from the same developer: Originator Kids

[ via ]

Endless Alphabet

Endless Alphabet is by far my favorite app for my almost 3-year old daughter. Basically it's a puzzle-like game, but so much more. It gives you a word, says the word for you. Monsters run across the screen and send the letters flying. You put them back where they go, like a puzzle. The game pronounces the letter the whole time you're moving it, then says the letter once it is put in place. When you finish the puzzle, it says the word, defines the word, then there's a little skit acting out the word. 

It's pretty much amazing. That's probably why it's $6.99 on Apple devices. Less for Android. People complain that there aren't many words. You can buy more on iPhone (not familiar with other devices) but my daughter was fine with what they have. I believe it taught her a lot about identifying letters. She even started using a few of the words in her own speech. 

[ via ]

Endless Numbers

Endless Numbers is like Endless Alphabet, except with numbers. The pronunciation is the same, the puzzle aspect, the stories. Except with numbers. This app is FREE to start out. It doesn't have many levels, but free is free. You have the option to buy more, but we never did. 

[ via ]

Endless Reader

Endless Reader is cool, but my least favorite of the three. In this one, it's a mini story. You're moving words into the right spaces instead of individual letters. These ones don't go into their spaces as easily, I find. My daughter got frustrated with this one. It's FREE as well, but again, not many levels but more you can purchase. 

The best part about all of these, is that my daughter isn't constantly getting annoyed by ads in her way. 

What are your favorite toddler-friendly apps?

Some information about our busy season & ordering

We are quickly approaching our busy season, and orders are already picking up. With that being said, I wanted to go over a few things to make sure our busy Christmas season goes smoothly for all. 

Christmas will be here before we know it. 

- This year, we hope to do something we've never done before - take part in a craft fair. As soon as we find out if our application is accepted, we will pass along details on that. We're pretty excited. With the (potential) craft fair coming up in November, as well as having two children, and a full-time job each (one being mostly an evening job that will deal with a lot of local Christmas parties), we expect to be much busier than last year. 

- We are currently still accepting "rush orders" for any birthdays etc, on a case-by-case basis, but won't be offering that option as it gets busier. Rush orders being orders we bump ahead of people who've already ordered to make a specific deadline for you. 

- Christmas orders will be done in the order that they're placed. 

- We can get many small orders done sometimes in the span of one evening, larger projects can take a couple of days. 

- With custom orders, we like to send you a final picture of your project before it's melted and set in stone. Until we get a response, those orders sit on our boards which limit what we can make that particular day until you respond. The faster we get the okay to finish them, the faster we can move on to other orders. (*Note: Everyone's been great with that so far!)

- For very large orders that use a lot of one color, we may need up to 4-6 weeks to process as not all colors are available locally.

- For large or rare orders we may require a deposit before creating. We accept cash or email money transfers. 

- We LOVE to see pictures of our projects in use and hear how you like them. We even have a brand new reviews section on our Facebook page, just waiting for some feedback. 

- With Christmas approaching we want to have one last giveaway soon. It's for a specific item that's never been seen before, and I can't wait to show it off. 

- For any other questions, you can comment here, email evbeadsprites at gmail.com, or find us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter all as evbeadsprites. 

Charlottetown Islanders Bead Art

The increase in traffic near my home leads me to believe that hockey is back in Charlottetown.

I'm not one who gets out much at night, but I have every intention of attending at least one game this season. 

But! In the meantime, does anyone remember our Charlottetown Islanders-inspired bead creations? Maybe you even know Hockey Hat Guy from the games. I've heard he cheers the loudest. 

Anyway, you know where to find me if you decide you want bead art made of your wearing your Islanders jersey. 

*Please note that we're not affiliated at all with the hockey team. 

Minecraft Cupcake Toppers

It should be no secret that we love to do custom orders. We especially love seeing our projects in action. 

Last week we got a request to make some Minecraft cake toppers. 

Now I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a single thing about Minecraft. My other half knows a bit more, and it the one who made this project. 

Please note: We made the bead art, not the cake. 

Our client was kind enough to let us share the pictures of their birthday cake, complete with our toppers and Minecraft-inspired letters. 

This set currently runs for $15*, with additional letters that can be made for approx. $0.50 per letter. 

* Prices subject to change without notice. 

Bubble Guppies Bead Sprites

Some of my favorite things to make are my daughter's favorite tv characters. She's currently in love with Dora the Explorer, Diego, Bubble Guppies, and random Pokemon. 

She was pretty excited when we first pulled out these Bubble Guppies for her to play with one morning. 

The funniest part is one of the first things out of my 2.5 year old's mouth when she saw these was "Where's Mr. Grouper?", which was the first thing the new owner of Gil, Deema, Molly and Bubble Puppy said when his mom gave them to him. Guess we need to make a Mr Grouper soon. 

My only regret is that I didn't get a decent picture of the entire set before we sold 4 of them. 

bit bead: A Great Bead Idea

I'm not exactly sure how they found us, but 'bit bead' found us on Facebook, and I love their idea so much that I had to share. Their idea is basically a kit to make your own phone case art using beads. As an active beader and an iPhone user,  I think it's great. 

Watch the video to get the idea: 

What do you think? Are you as impressed as we were? You can also find bit bead here:

Facebook | Twitter | Website

Many Pokemon Bead Sprites

Once upon a time, Pokemon was a tv show. And there was a yellow thing they called Pikachu. That was all I knew. I never would've guessed that in 2013, someone could convince me to play a Pokemon game on DS, but it happened. I definitely would never have believe that I would complete said game. Pokemon Heartgold. 

I even got my own fancy purple 3DS shortly after. And then Pokemon Y for Christmas. We will omit the fact that I've been playing Pokemon Y for about 5 months and still only have 3 gym badges. I think. My fiance would know for sure. He parting words with me everytime he goes to work and I'm home is "Catch some Pokemon." But I never do. 

But we've made quite a few Pokemon bead sprites over the past year. A couple were custom orders. Dragonair was for me, as he was one of my favorites of my first ever Pokemon team. We've made many, many Pikachus. 

Which brings the question.. which Pokemon should we make next? 

It's Time for Burger Love

It's that burger time of year again on our island. PEI Burger Love. I could pretend to be excited about the burgers, but I'm just a plain ketchup & cheese kind of person. It could be worse - my partner in crime doesn't even like cheese on his burgers. But he's a little more open to trying some of these burger than I am. (Call me crazy, but I think my favorite burger in town is from Big Burger. 

Slammer

But with us being two of the pickiest people alive, we don't go as crazy for the burger love burgers as others do. Some, like the 1911 Slammer or The Senator in Chambers or the Zoomboom from Boomburger sound like things I may be able to handle with slight alterations though. 

The Senator

But I absolutely love the idea. It gets people excited for food. It gets people into restaurants they may have never tried before. It promotes our tourism-driven island. Everyone's talking about it. 

Zoomboom

Maybe this will be the year I try one. Who knows. 

Have you tried any? Which is your favorite? And if not, which looks the best to you?

Follow Burger Love:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Blue & Pink Coin Bank

I needed to make a coin bank for myself. Just a little something that wouldn't look so tacky when it held my loonies and quarters for my laundry money. Yeah, I even have to worry about stuff like laundry money in my mid-twenties. So I needed something to hold my laundry money instead of having it all over the place, or sitting in a dish that should hide in my kitchen instead. 

I found a bead bank online that I liked with hearts, and took it from there. I wanted more than two colors, but I didn't want four completely different colors. I finally came to the decision to use two different shades of two colors and I love the result. 

The top and bottom of the bank came about by simply putting beads in, and altering it until I liked what I saw. 

This is a unique bank compared to all the others we've made - the lid just sits comfortably on top. It doesn't snap into place. So if you drop your bank, your money will go everywhere. But it's for laundry, a common occurrence around my house, so I didn't want to have to pry the top off on every laundry day. I like how easy it is to get at the money, but I'd rather a lid that stays a little more secure in place. Will I make another bank like this? Maybe upon request, but I'd rather a more solid bank. 

Either way, I quite love my laundry money holder. Much better than the bowl I had before. 

Customizing a Custom Order: Hockey Hat Guys

I've spoken before about HkyHatGuy, who was our first ever custom look-alike order:

A few weeks ago, we branched out and made some special Hkyhatguys:

There's 'Away Jersey Hockey Hat Guy', 'Breast Cancer Awareness Hockey Hat Guy', and 'Christmas Hockey Hat Guy'. So if you're looking to get a custom look-alike done of you or someone you know, just remember the the possibilities are endless. 

* Valentine's Day Giveaway *

It's time for our second giveaway, just in time for Valentine's day.

If you're looking for something unique to give to that special something for Valentine's Day this year, let us help you out. Enter for your chance to win a rose or a two-piece heart.

The hearts can be made into magnets for free, or into two keychains for $1. Either one is also available for purchase. Winner must be able to pick up or meet in Charlottetown.

Winner will randomly be chosen on February 5th.

To enter our contest, visit the post on our Facebook page.

Big Bang Theory Bead Sprites

This is a set that we made to be a Christmas gift for a friend. As the gift, we had them all glued to a piece of canvas that could be hung on walls. 

We take no credit at all for these patterns, they were found somewhere online, but they did make a great gift. 

It didn't hurt that we also sold two Sheldon's before the gift was even completed, and had to remake him twice. 

10 Things We'd Like to Make Soon

Mario with his oversized bottle of Coors Light

10 Things We'd Like to Make Soon

1. A personal coin bank.
2. Super Mario video game scene.
3. Oversized Luigi.
4. Bubble Guppies.
5. Misc Pokemon.
6. Cake toppers.
7. Our own logo.
8. Disney Princesses.
9. Minions.
10. Different forms of Super Mario.

What would you like to see next? 

You need to know about Loot Crate

We've been a fan of Loot Crate since our first box arrived in June 2013. The theme that month was 'Mashup' (view the contents of June's Loot Crate here). Although I had no idea why there was a picture of a guy who kind of looked like the Kool-Aid guy on the t-shirt, my male counterpart was pretty excited by it. The glasses were fun. One of the stickers is still displayed in his iPhone case. It was like love at first sight. Because of our budget, we didn't keep our subscription going, but we did order again in October and November. 

October's theme was 'Survive' (picture here) and was filled with Zombie goodness, including yet another fun t-shirt. Those are our favorites, and the size fits perfectly. 

We finally got our November crate last night. It's theme was 'Celebrate'. The contents are pictured above, and we are super excited about our South Park (Stan) mini speaker, which I'm using right now. 

These make the perfect gift for any geeky/gamer person, and at $30 a month including shipping (for Canadians) it's practically a steal. 

So check out some Loot Crate now for yourself! Their Facebook page is fun too. 

New Promotion for 2014 - Buy a custom order & receive a coupon for next purchase!

I have just updated our 'About Us' page with a few fun facts.

Now that you know a few of our not-so-dirty secrets, I have another one for you. I've mentioned that we are getting married someday. Someday in 2015. I believe our date is set, but I don't want to reveal that until I'm 100% sure.

You're wondering why I'm telling you this?

Because starting now, the first day of 2014, 100% of our profits will be going towards paying for that wedding. Because let's be honest, this is my life:

And we want to put our hobby to good use.

So for this reason, we have a new promo starting - this offer is only available to 2 people, and only between January 1st and January 15 of 2014.

The first 2 people to place a custom order (cost must be of $5 of more to qualify!) during that time frame will receive a coupon for $4 off your next purchase with us.

Please note, we have the right to refuse any custom order for any reason.

You can use that $4 credit anytime after paying for the initial custom order - they don't expire. You can use the credit towards a more expensive purchase and pay the difference, or to purchase any of our $4 items. Just to get an idea of just a few things that you could use a $4 credit on, there are any of these keychains, which could also be made as magnets, plus so much more.

So start spreading the word and thinking about your next custom order. Now that Christmas is over, we're missing having some work to do.