Sixth & Elm is on Scribbit this week, with a glowing review by the magnificent Michelle. If you aren’t a regular subscriber, consider adding Scribbit to your feed reader. It’s a fun read and Michelle is possibly the nicest person in the blogosphere.

Check out the Sixth & Elm feature on the IndieFixx galleria. The Galleria is a juried marketplace of indie shops curated by IndieFixx’s own Jen Wallace and is a good place to look for some new way to spend all the money you are supposed to be saving for things like food and car payments.

Check out the Roadside Scholar blog for the Sixth & Elm interview by Gigi Leonard, and the feature she did a few weeks earlier on Sixth & Elm as well. Gigi, the author of Roadside Scholar, is quite an extraordinarily nice person and it was fun to work with her.

Take a peek over on Modish today for the Sixth & Elm Handmade Spaces interview, and a write-up of my studio. Thanks again Jena!

I mentioned these in a previous post this week, but the first of a new series is finally up in the shop. This woodburned map of Middle Earth is the first of the fantasy maps I have been working on lately and will soon be joined by other famous fictional literary worlds such as Narnia, Hogwarts, Oz, Treasure Island, Alagaesia (from the Eragon Trilogy), Lyra’s World (from The Golden Compass), Neverland and others.

The maps are carefully burned onto 8×10 pine plaques, but custom sizes are also available. I would love to decorate a child’s room in large versions of these, creating a fantasy slumberland of children’s literary classics for them to dream by.If you would like to suggest a map to add to this series, I am always open for ideas. These maps make a great gift for fans of children’s fantasy stories, movies buffs, and anyone who enjoys getting lost in their imagination.

The blog has been quiet over the holidays due to the holiday rush, so I have some catching up to do. So, in the spirit of fourth grade english essay assignments, here is what the holidays had in store for us…

Orders from the shop, the majority of them custom designs, started coming in near the end of November and did not stop. It has been fantastic and horrifying and certainly a learning experience. I had completely underestimated the holiday rush for Sixth & Elm but that was very good news for me and I was able to buy some Christmas gifts for myself too, including the shiny new laptop I am now typing on. Running on 4 hours of sleep a night, cleaning out the supply of 8×8 boxes in the greater Toronto area and finding out what the couch cushion looked like with ebony black wood stain were some of the things I would liked to have skipped, but despite the rush I enjoyed it all.

I especially liked being touched by the stories each custom box told between the gifter and the receiver. The shy and sheepish requests for cute, silly, sweet and nonsensical (nonsense to me, anyways) phrases or images burned onto the boxes each told the story of a bond – a sweetheart, a daughter, a friend – and it is rather nice to be surrounded by these stories at this time of year.

For sanity’s sake during the rush I did take a few breaks to make some pieces for my family and for the shop. My sister Tia has liked the copper tree sculptures I have been making this year, so it seemed only appropriate that I make her a tree in her favorite colour for her favorite time of year. I have a listing up at the shop of the Christmas tree I made her if anyone is interested in commissioning a similar piece. I also finished a decorative wall map I made for her of Middle Earth from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Hers was unstained, as per her wishes, but I will be posting the version I stained with a Cabernet stain in the shop sometime this week.

We gave Mom a hand-etched wall panel of an elephant (Mom’s crazy about them) but the poor thing did not make it all the way to Mom & Dad’s. Staring at the cracked pieces of my hard work in the backseat after a fateful attempt to calm Chuki’s in-the-car panic attacks was really heart-breaking, but kitty didn’t get hurt on the glass and I can make Mom another.

I also played with copper plating a few items (using the electrophoresis tank at work – don’t worry, Yanming – it will still work for proteins), but I need to find a better conductive paint, and I made a few roses and other small clay items to fire sometime this year.

Next year I am already set up to explore origami and leather tooling (yes, it was because of Into the Wild, so what) along with some glass – slumping and maybe getting into lamp-working. Looks like it’s gonna be a busy year, but I can’t wait.

The first conscious memory I have of making something on my own was in first grade, during a recess break in a thunderstorm. It was October and the trees whipping by the window were quickly being stripped of their deep red and orange leaves, sending them spiralling up and away from me. Because of the rain and lightning we were spending the break indoors and Mrs. Wasko had put out art materials to use if we wanted. A number of children were crying as the thunderclaps seemed to be booming inside that very classroom instead of outside. My sister, Tia, was in Kindergarten and her teacher had let her come up to spend the recess with Big Sis. She did not cry, but she did not let go of my left hand as I drew, either.

I remember taking care to pick the most vibrant red paper, the deepest colour of orange pencil crayons, the brightest yellow markers. That day was the first time I ever looked at the world around me and visually journaled what I saw.

I think I remember that day so vividly because all of the elements of my favorite experiences were present. I love thunderstorms and to this day I cannot stop a grin when I hear the first distant rumbling. I am still in Love with Ontario in October and the simple fact that tree leaves get more beautiful as they grow closer to dying. And I am still touched when Tia lets me know in her own way that it would be okay for me to comfort her, if I can, even if she won’t admit she needs it.

The October Tree is the third in a series of trees for the seasons, mimicking the deep colours of the maple I remember watching as I drew and coloured that day. I haven’t been back to St. Sebastian’s in a long time and I don’ t even know if the tree still stands. I don’t want to know. I want it to forever look like it did to me that day as I shaded leaves holding hands with my little sister inside during a storm.

Vintage Reproduction Magnet Sets

These vintage magnet sets will add a touch of old-world style to your grocery lists and fridge artwork. (Painstakingly) handmade, these magnets took up the better part of a recent sick day, assembling and pressing while I sipped chicken soup. I love the way they turned out and if it were not for the fact that my fridge is already littered with previous magnet experimentations, I think I would have tried to keep them all. Check out the new selections here…

There are an astounding number of Etsy sellers that hail from the Great North, so we have set up a web ring to connect the blogs of as many current or former Canadians as we can. The idea is to help generate traffic to your blogs (and hopefully, your stores) and to help us all keep updated with each other’s busy lives. It will help make this huge land a little smaller.

If you are a Canadian Etsy seller, feel free to join the ring and add your blog to the roll. Please submit blogs only at this time, but feel free to recommend fellow Canucks to join us. Please make sure you also check out the Etsy Canadian Shops List and the Etsy Sellers Blog List posted on this site and verify your shop and your blog are on these lists.

You can find many of us daily in the Canadian Buy/Sell Party in the Promotions and Critiques section of the Etsy Forums, and we always want to hear from you. You can also check out the Canadian Street Team – The Trans Canada Etsy Team – on the blog and the flickr group.

To join the ring, click here. For instructions on how to join, or for details about what a blog ring is, click here.

Along with the Canadian Etsy Sellers List I have also been compiling a list of blogs run by Etsy sellers, which you can find here. I have added them all to my Technorati and would love a link in kind if you are on the list. If you are an Etsy seller and have a blog and I have not put you on this list, just leave me a comment with your Etsy username and blog URL and I will add you on the list.