1% for the Planet

Blend Creations is now a member of 1% for the Planet. This means that 1% of all of our sales from 2008 and onwards will be donated to an environmentally-conscious charity. In other words, for every $100 dollars spent at Blend Creations, $1 will go towards charity. This may not seem like much, but we're committed to doing this little bit at the very least.

You can read more about 1% for the Planet's mission, history, and how you too can get involved if you have your own business. You can also search the list of 850+ companies to see who else is part of this movement.

We're giving away a pair of earrings

Check out Rare Bird Finds today and follow the instructions to enter a contest.
The prize? A pair of earrings of your choice from us. :)



The winner will be drawn on May 11 by Rare Bird Finds. Good luck!

Be green(er)

Happy Earth Day!

It seems that everyone nowadays is trying their best to be a little bit greener. With Blend Creations, we try and use off-cut materials whenever possible, we recycle all of our scraps, and part of the reason we chose to work with stainless steel was because it is both a recycled and recyclable material.

I think having a child makes you want to be a better environmentalist, if for no other reason than when they're an angry teenager, you can honestly say, "hey, we tried to do what we could!".

Ever since Jack was a wee little baby, he's been at least part-time in cloth diapers -- we use Fuzzi Bunz on him and they've worked quite well.

I got to thinking how if Jack was in cloth diapers, that perhaps I should try and do a little bit more myself in terms of the female equivalent of over-used paper-products. (Guys, I can understand if you want to skip a post about menstrual products).

I'd seen LunaPads before in Bitch magazine, and after being reminded of them again at Arbour (an environmental shop here in Ottawa), I decided to give them a try and I ordered the Deluxe kit in the mixed light fabrics. My first thought when I received them in the mail? "Oooh they're pretty."



And normally, who thinks that about menstrual products?

The "extra" work with these reusable pads is minimal -- just a cold rinse before putting them in the wash, which isn't really "extra" work if you're already used to washing cloth diapers. The LunaPads FAQ is here. I wholeheartedly give them my thumbs-up and it's nice that they're a Canadian company too!

Want $5 to spend at Blend Creations?

Right now, we're asking people to fill out our survey so that we can hopefully learn what it is we're doing right, what it is we're doing wrong, and what we should be doing.

If you'd like to take a few minutes to fill out our survey, we'll send you a $5 Blend Creations gift certificate as a thanks for your time and input. Simple as that.

Oh, and if you fill it out before April 29, we'll be drawing for a $100 gift certificate amongst all those who've responded. The winner will be announced in our next newsletter.

So go, go now and answer a few little questions for us. Please? :)

Itching for some home improvement

It is with fond farewell that I bid adieu to the 7 FOOT HIGH snow banks that lived in our little courtyard for so long. There is no longer any trace of snow around any piece of property that's 'ours'.

Of course, in its place are neglected patches of (crab) grass and we're itching to do a little home improvement, both outdoors and in. As inspiration, I recently found "This Young House".

I love old 50s era houses (in their post-war mass-produced housing kind of way), and seeing what people do to them to make them right for today. Our house is a 70s era townhouse, so it's a little younger, but still needing some help in the updating department.

I've already wasted a good 20 minutes looking through their Flickr photos. (I'm really liking what they did to their master bedroom). Might as well share the procrastination ;)

Better get to work!

Big heart, little heart

From the time I could hold a crayon, I've always made my own cards. The very first ones were just folded sheets of lined paper with a drawing and a simple message written inside with a shaky hand. As I got older, the cards have gotten more sophisticated, and even more so when we acquired a laser-cutter to enable us to do tiny, intricate cuts that would be a challenge to the steadiest and most patient hand.

Today we're going to kick it old school so that anyone can make their own hand-cut card just in time for Mother's Day-- no laser required! (And moms always appreciate handmade stuff).

The card design is called "big heart, little heart", and it's free for you to download the templates: This one is for the card itself, and this one is for the envelope so that you can make your own version of this:

(Of course, producing this design commercially as yours, would be pretty wrong, so please don't do that).

You'll need:
- A printer to print out the templates
- One letter-sized (8.5" x 11") sheet of printable paper for the card. Regular printer paper will do, although in the example, I've used printable card stock that's about a 65 lb weight.
- Another letter-sized (8.5" x 11") sheet of printable paper for the envelope, preferably in a contrasting colour, although white will do.
- One sheet of contrasting paper that's at least 4.25" x 5.5" (You can cut down a letter-sized sheet of paper).
- A good cutting knife. Retractable is nice because you can always have a nice, sharp blade.
- A cutting mat so that you don't damage your table. If you don't have one, cardboard or an old magazine will do.
- A ruler for straight cuts (metal is better since it'll hold up to getting nicked).
- A bit of glue. Glue stick works very well for thin paper.
- A pen for signing your work and writing a heart-felt message inside.

And here we go:
1. Print out your templates and assemble your tools.


2. Cut just outside of the black lines of the card (so that they're not visible when you're done).


3. Once you've got all the bits cut out, fold the card in half so that the shorter sides meet up. Then fold it again so that your card is 1/4 the size of a letter-sized sheet of paper. It helps to crease the edges with a pen so that you get a nice, sharp fold.


4. Your card should looks something like the picture below. It looks pretty contemporary as just a tone-on-tone card. You could pretty much give it like this if you'd like.


5. Sign the back as your own, since this ain't no Hallmark card.


6. Write a lovely message inside. If you sign it with "XOXO" you might get some affection headed your way ;)


7. If you want to add some punch, this is when you use whatever contrasting coloured paper you've got. In this case, I've got letter-sized bond-weight printable paper that just happens to be bright blue. You could also use wrapping paper so that it'll match the gift you'll be giving.
If it's letter-sized, fold the paper in quarters (like you did with the card).


8. Taking your ruler, trim the paper so that it's slightly smaller than a quarter of a page. This way, none of the contrasting paper will stick out of the card.


9. Tuck the paper into your folded card and voila! you're done. (The fold will keep the contrasting paper in, but if you're paranoid, a dab of glue works too).


If you'd like a custom envelope to go with your card:
1. Print out this template and using your ruler, cut out the perimeter of the envelope shape. Ignore the rounded corners for now and just extended your cuts beyond where you need to go.


2. Round the corners freehand with your knife.


3. Fold along the dotted lines and apply a little glue to the side flaps.


4. Fold up the bottom (larger) flap and stick it to the side flaps. Insert your card. You can either seal it with some more glue... and you're done!


Now go and make this your own!

You can easily make this in about 15-20 minutes -- which is great if you're stuck without a card and all you've got is your printer and some regular paper. As I said, you can contrast it with gift-wrap, or if you're reading this, and it's Mother's Day, and you oh, forgot to buy your wife a card, you can do a collaboration with your kid. The grown-up should do the cutting and the child can do a drawing on a quarter of a page and just tuck in their masterpiece in place of the contrasting paper. Alternatively, you can skip the cutting altogether, and just have your child colour the card and learn all about negative space ;)

Our little monster is a bit young yet to contribute his art, but here's a quick example with some pink highlighter scribbles:


The envelope template is also very handy for any cards that are just letter-sized sheets of paper folded down. So you can always go draw your own card and stick it in your own little hand-made envelope. Have fun!

Experiencing technical difficulties :/

Things have gone rather pear-shaped with our web host.
For a while, the site was completely down, and now there seem to be a few glitches appearing. We're in the process of upgrading servers.

Please bear with us!

By the way...

We've lowered the regular price on our earrings from $120 to $89. This means that if you've got a promo code, you'll get even more savings.

So in case you were eyeing them before, take another look.
(We were able to lower the price due to some much better metal supplier prices, so we're reflecting that in the pricing of the earrings. Yay!)

A wee post

Inspiration comes from so many sources, and as a designer, I can truthfully say that sometimes, what I've done I've thought to be original and mine, but in essence borrows so much from what I've seen that it has seeped into my unconscious mind. If the ideas are too similar to someone else's, then it gets shelved until something can be done to actually make it "mine" -- through an improvement or my own interpretation.

It is also quite possible that an idea is so great that many people can simultaneously hit a very similar "Eureka!" point independently. With our products, we try very much to make sure that the things we produce don't infringe on anyone else's creative rights and it pains me when others do not share the same sort of respect.

Today, I was reading wee wonderfuls and my 'creative' side aches for Hillary Lang, because no one who has ever put in the time, thought, energy and most importantly heart into any sort of creative endeavour wants to see someone else take that creation and claim it, un-rightfully, as their own.



To be fair to the company that has produced the dolls, I know nothing about why/how they came to be. To an outside observer though, it just seems that the dolls shown just look remarkably similar to the patterns that were produced by Hillary Lang, that were never meant to be produced commercially without her consent.

I can only hope that that company will do what's right.

Spring Sale at Blend Creations!

Here in Ottawa, Canada it's a far cry from spring in terms of weather (we still have snow banks that are more than six feet high). But, the calendar says it's spring on March 20, so in hopeful celebration, we're having a spring sale starting today and lasting until March 27.

Originally it was going to be an "anything green" sale, but we decided to take that further and put over 200 items on sale.

In other news, we've added some new products to the store. Engraved wood earrings to match our engraved wood necklaces and pendants.


Also, some new foliage necklaces:


All of the foliage necklaces, all washi jewelry and all earrings are on sale until the 27th.

Happy shopping!

Cheap Eats Ottawa

We recently ordered (and finally received!) our copy of Cheap Eats Ottawa (v2).


This little book is "Ottawa's guide to good inexpensive restaurants" and lists over 200 eateries which all must meet the following criteria: Is it good? Is it cheap? Does it have at least one seat?

We have yet to specifically try any of the establishments based on the guide's recommendations, but we have already tried many, many of the places mentioned. As expected, there are many Asian restaurants in the guide since on the whole, Asian cuisine is a pretty good deal! Some of our favourites are Ben Ben for noodles and the "rice with two-treasure sauce" (aka "Ying-Yang fried rice) :9, and the New Mee Fung (on Booth St.) for Pho and the crazy multi-layered drink with the coconut milk and the beans (the name of which escapes me) -- it sounds a little odd, but it's so good! If, just talking about food doesn't do it for you, there's a Flickr group dedicated to gratuitous cheap eats food photos.

We like having our little eating adventures about town whenever possible, so using the Cheap Eats book as a guide should be fun, and by all accounts, pretty cheap. On the shortlist of places we'll be trying are: Culinary Conspiracy, the Blackburn Arms Pub, and Oh Basil.

At a glance though, the book is certainly a good comprehensive guide for out-of-towners who want to eat like locals. You can buy one on the Cheap Eats site for $12.95CAD. If you're in or going to Toronto, there's also a Cheap Eats Toronto available.

Habitrails for all sizes

A Habitrail for those of you that never got the opportunity to look after the class mascot in grade school, is a really cool system of cages, tunnels, observation areas etc. designed to keep your little hamster/gerbil/mouse active and happy. As a kid, I envied the fun that the hamster must be having!

Well, now I can envy fish too.

Octopus Studios has these Habitrail-esque aquariums that look so amazing. The company is based in France, but they ship worldwide -- though, prices start at $3400. And then there's that small problem of cleaning... (Found via Gizmodo)

Thankfully, we've recently found human-sized Habitrails locally.

If you're in Ottawa, and you have kids, I highly recommend checking out Cosmic Adventures. It's a little on the pricey side if you're going for a single visit, but since we live fairly close, we opted for the super-deluxe annual membership, where we've already broken even with 8 visits in 6 weeks. Since our son is still young enough to require constant supervision, we've made the sacrifice and gone up to the upper eschelons on the play structure with him ;)

My inner child is quite happy there.

"Make my logo bigger!" cream

This will probably only be really funny to the designer-types out there. Though, it might also strike a little too close to home for anyone who has ever had a client who has hired them for their expertise, only to have said client request the opposite of what you've recommended (you know, as the "expert").



The folks over at Agency Fusion created a (very long) parody infomercial for a bunch of products: "Make my logo bigger!" cream, "White space eliminator" spray, "Starburst" dust, "Fluorescencesizer", and "Emotionator".

"Now that's what I call stand-out advertising!"

For just three easy payments of $29.95, you could get all of them above! The video on this site is long, but it's worth the chuckle.

OooOooh earrings!

At long last, I'm pleased to say that we've finally got brushed stainless steel earrings in the store!
For now we've got various washi patterns to match our different washi necklaces and pendants (By the way, if you haven't visited the store recently, we've also added washi pendants in long and small too!).


In the next little while, we will be adding earrings to match our other necklaces and pendants in natural mother of pearl, engraved wood, bamboo, and more! Stay tuned!

Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year!
It's the year 4706 according to the (lunar) Chinese calendar, and it's the year of the Rat.


In celebration of the occasion, you can use "RAT2008" in the coupon code, and save 15% off any orders of $100 or more (before shipping). The coupon code expires at midnight tonight, so take advantage of it! ;)

Seeing red

Just a heads up: we're having a two-day sale starting tonight, at midnight (CST), and ending at the stroke of midnight on the 19th. (And weirdly enough, the times start at CST even though we're in EST because of the time setting on the shopping cart system...)

What'll be on sale, you ask?
Well, see here. We've got a selection of products in varying shades of red.

Just in time for this sale, we've also added a couple of new red designs:

Red bamboo pendants


Red abalone shell


Red because of Valentine's Day (February 14th), and also for Chinese New Year (February 7th this year). While red for Valentine's day has meanings of love, for the Chinese, it's symbolic of luck and good fortune. (And for this same occasion, we'll also have the Chinese zodiac pendants on sale too).

So yup, if you'd like to get a deal and you like red, come see the shop tomorrow and Friday.

A new year :) and the top 7 highlights of the 2007 holidays!

We're now officially back from our little holiday hiatus. I'd love to say that we travelled to exotic locales and experienced warm tropical climes, but that's quite the opposite of what happened.

We stayed home, happy to take a break from work ;) (though again, thank you all for your orders and giving us enough work from which to take a break!), and experienced a few snowstorms. So what did we do with our couple of weeks off?
Here are the top seven highlights of Christmas 2007:

1) We.. er.. Jack, received the Encyclopedia Prehistorica collection of pop-up books.

Jack received these from one of his uncles and hopefully in time, he'll come to appreciate the art that is paper engineering. These books are recommended for ages 5+, but we'll probably wait until he's about 6 or 7 before handing them over. You can get them at Amazon for under $18 each, which is a bargain, considering just how much work must go into each one.

2) We watched a lot Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

If you've only experienced the show from what's seen on Fox, then I highly suggest you watch the UK version. We'd seen the UK version first on the Food Network, and then watched the US version, and it's not nearly the same show. The UK version is loads better and makes Gordon Ramsay seem less like an arse.

3) We made some presents.
Along with some of the jewelry we gave various members of the family, we also made these pretty things for our friend Julie (who is a personal chef):

They're cutlery-themed 'snowflake' ornaments. They were fun to make and we may even consider making some Christmas ornaments to sell on the site next year! :)

4) We ate a lot: we found quite a few good recipes on the interweb.

One of them was this curried carrot soup recipe, that I found after we inadvertantly bought 5 lbs of carrots before Christmas dinner and unsure about what to do with them. We like this soup so much, we've made it three times in the last 2 weeks, and Jack (who is beyond picky) enjoys it too (just leave out the cayenne pepper for the little ones).

5) We ate a lot: we went to the Urban Pear for a special night out (my birthday!)

Eric took me to the Urban Pear for my birthday meal. It's been the subject of a few rave reviews locally, and we try to make our (rare) nights out something special.

Overall, the food was 'okay', which is a little disappointing for those rare nights out. The antipasti plate was good, and reminded us how much we enjoy roasted garlic and brie :9, the olives were a little too vinegar-y though. We both had the duck breast which was very good, but the accompanying french toast that was a little too heavy for my liking. We also had the crème brulée which was disappointing since there wasn't enough crust on it for my liking, which made it a little too much like a pretentious vanilla pudding :(

Our next big night out will be at Beckta since we received a gift certificate (thanks Ray!) (Beckta is another local restaurant that's had quite a few rave reviews too).

6) We ate a lot: we got this series of cookbooks, which is a collection of the most requested Milk Calendar recipes from the last 25 years.

Every year the Canadian dairy board puts out a calendar with recipes using dairy products. You can find some of the more recent recipes here. They're usually pretty simple dishes that are made with things you've already got in your kitchen. Out of these books, we've made a really good mushroom and leek soup, apple custard crisp and lots and lots and lots of blueberry muffins. Yum.

7) We ate so much that now we're going to try and eat a little less and exercise a little more :)
In the past we've tried following the Body for life regimen of eating small meals and exercising regularly and it worked rather well. So we'll try that again!

Hope you all had a good holiday!

Merry Christmas, Happy holidays, Festivus, or what-have-you :)

Saw this via our friend Julia, (Hi Hula!), It's the a capella group "Straight No Chaser" of Indiana University. (I have a weakness for humourous, a capella music).



Anyhow, we'll be on holidays until January 1st, which means any orders that come in at that time won't begin shipping out until January 2nd.

Hope you all have a wonderful and restful holiday. We like to celebrate Christmas with our families, and typically we do something for Festivus by dragging out the ol' aluminum pole and air out some grievances. The feats of strength are difficult, since our living room is rather small. ;)

Plushie! for the pattern impaired

Saw this via BoingBoing:


It's "Plushie: an interactive design system for plush toys". It's a little interactive program that allows someone who couldn't draw a pattern to save their life (me! me!) to create patterns for 3D plush toys. They've got a link for the demo program (see under 'Demonstrations'), but it's for Windows only and not for us lowly mac users. It looks intriguing enough though, that I'm willing to unearth my old, loud PC to give it a shot.

I've made plushies in the past, but they've been more along the lines of fluffified flat shapes, as evidenced by these:


These are my version of Eric's parents, done in miniature, about 5" high, with cardboard versions of their furniture. It was part of their Christmas gift a couple of years ago, and it's been hard to top... I figure the gift of the grand-child will just have to suffice now.

In any case, I'm already thinking I'd like to try more 3D plushies when there's actually time. (Time?)

Oh and FYI: next Tuesday the 18th is our last day for taking orders. Then we're closing shop until New Year's. We'll still be around answering emails though. And if you're stuck for a gift, and don't want to do the panicked, last-minute shipping, we've always got gift certificates.

Easy tree-topper

We have an artificial Christmas tree. I've never actually had a real Christmas tree, but that's probably a good thing, since it turns out I'm allergic to most tree and tree-related products. :/

As artificial trees go, ours is pretty run-of-the-mill and flimsy. So much so that when I picked up a star for the top of the tree from the local Ikea, it turned out that the tree was not robust enough to support the weight of the star. Then I saw this link featured on Rare Bird Finds. It's how-to instructions for making a 3-D paper snowflake, which in my opinion, makes a perfect Christmas tree topper.




I made one using two sheets of white bond paper (stolen from our computer printer in the office), and voila! instant tree-topper. It seriously only took about 15 minutes in all to make. Since it's just paper, it's very lightweight and a fun, easy way to top the tree.

A nice surprise

We got a nice little surprise yesterday. It turns out Blend Creations was featured in the yesterday's Ottawa Citizen. We were mentioned in "The Ottawa 100-mile gift guide", under the heading "For the glitterati".

Basically, the gift guide promotes the idea of "local shopping for global change" -- shopping locally as a small way of reducing your carbon footprint on the planet. Now, I realize that most of our customers are not actually local, and we really, really appreciate each and every customer who has purchased from us, and enjoyed our products. It is nice to get some local recognition though :)

So, if you're from Ottawa and found us through the Citizen, "hi!".
If you're not from Ottawa and reading this, why not try "local shopping for global change" in your area -- support your local artists and independant, small businesses. (That being said, I think we'll have to get a "Rim Roller" the next time we're at Lee Valley...).

You can read part of the 100-mile gift guide here. The "For the glitterati" section is here.

(Note: I'm not sure how long the Citizen actually keeps stories active in their online archive).

The last of the November giveaway winners

Congratulations to Megan Reigner of Azusa, CA.
She's the last of our mi-SPA/Blend Creations mi-COLLAB contest winners, and she's won a four o' clock foliage necklace.


Thanks to everyone who entered!

Last week's contest winner

Congratulations to Audrey Larson of Bloomington, MN.
She's last week's mi-SPA/Blend Creations mi-COLLAB winner of a 20" coral bells foliage necklace.


That's 3 winners down with one last drawing to go. Enter this week by using this form, and get an extra ballot for each purchase you make at Blend Creations or mi-SPA
.

BIG! GINORMOUS! SALE!

Hey, what are you doing reading this?
Blend Creations is having a sale today! (In fact, I should probably be in the shop filling orders...)

The sale's for 24-hours only, so go check it out now.

If you're still reading this and you feel like buying me a present, I just saw Kristen's (of Cool Mom Picks' fame) cool "Mominatrix" t-shirts:


They're $30 and I want one. This is mostly a hint for Eric to go buy me something ;)

Last week's contest winner

Congrats to last week's mi-SPA/Blend Creations contest winner, Mindy Blair of Omaha, Nebraska! She's chosen our pretty scattered flowers cards as part of her prize:


So, that's two winners down, with two more to go. To enter the contest, fill out this form. Make sure to enter by this the end of tomorrow to be eligible for this week's draw. Then, enter again next week to be eligible for the last of the draws.

New products, and pssst, there's going to be a SALE!

Have you seen our latest of pretty new things?





Those are two of our new laser-engraved wood-inlay stainless steel necklaces and pendants (say that 5 times fast). As you can see, we've been putting our laser-cutter to good use :)

And in other news -- we're going to be having a SALE this Friday, aka "Black Friday". A number of our most popular items are going to be on sale at more than 20% off. The deal is even sweeter if you're privvy to any of our coupon codes since the codes WILL WORK on sales items for extra money saved.

Happy shopping!

Last week's contest winner

Congratulations to last week's Blend Creations + mi-SPA mi*COLLAB winner: Stacey Brown of Shippensburg, PA!

Stacey chose this set of our lovely laser-cut blank cards, the "Broken Baroque": Emblem 2 set:




So, that's one winner, with three more to go.

We draw EVERY WEEK with a whole new batch of ballots, so if you entered last week and didn't win, then make sure you enter the contest again this week (and the week after, and the week after that).

For more details, and a contest ballot, just go here.

Toys R Us of the 1950s?

We're the parents of a walking toddler (boy) who just happens to have an affinity for anything that looks like good, wholesome, cleaning fun -- a swiffer, a mop, a broom, what have you. It's become more and more difficult to actually be able to use these in his presence because he insists on "helping". Being the clever parents that we are, we thought, "Hey, I bet they make toy ones that would make him let go of our toys!". (If only cleaning were actually so much fun).

Being interweb-oriented, I went to Toys R Us' Canadian site, and found two possibilities when I searched for "cleaning", since "broom" yielded no results. Of the two relevant results, I was rather surprised with what I read.

For the first set: "14 Piece Cleaning Playset English Edition", by "Just like home":


It's described as, (and I quote):
"This Mr. Clean playset will help get the house spotless, just like mommy does!"

Now, I try not to rant in our blog, but WTF?, "just like mommy does!"?! It's 2007, not 1957. After reading that I thought, "well, this has got to be the exception" since I would think that a major toy store wouldn't fall prey to such gender-biased stereotyping.

Then I went to the second set: "Cleaning Set", also by "Just like home":

This one is described as, (and I quote again):
"This toy is sure to be a favorite for the little girl who loves playing house."

Now, both sets are made by the same manufacturer, and there's a good chance it's a Chinese manufacturer (as 95%+ of toys are these days) that had badly translated copy for their product. But, for Toys R Us to actually have this as the copy for their website is pretty unbelievable. It seems that it's the rule and not the exception for Toys R Us website copy writers to try and pass on gender-based "roles" for the next generation. I'm not sure if I want to go look at "play kitchens" next.

I've got to say, I'm very disappointed with Toys R Us, and I'm now thinking that when we find a toy cleaning set, it won't be from them. So, do any indies out there make a toy cleaning set?

Update: Mrs. Tiggy Winkles (our favourite local toy store), has a cleaning set. But, notice it says, "Help mum and dad clean up!" That's more like it. I know where we're buying our toy broom from.

It's funny 'cause it's true

"Goodnight Moon, hello martini" by Sloane Tanen -- the same author who did the book "Bitter with baggage seeks same" (which I love). I was surfing around imagekind.com and came across her work, and was quite pleased to see that you can buy prints of the different chicks from her various books, starting around $13! See her full gallery here. (Incidentally, imagekind.com is a great site for finding some great artwork by both new and established artists.)

Our foray into the land of cute

We've just added a new line of pendants to Blend Creations: Chinese zodiac pendants.

This year is the year of the pig. (It'll be the year of the pig until the next Chinese new year, February 7, 2008).


The illustrations were taken straight from the pages of our sketchbooks, and while we're responsible for all of them, we each have our favourites. Eric's is the "rat":

(Just so you know, next year is the year of the rat!)

My favourite is the "dragon":

I like him best probably because I thought he would be the hardest to illustrate, but he just kind of flew onto the page.

Both Eric and I were born in the year of the "tiger",

so he's a bit special that way -- and now, if you do the math, you can hazard a pretty good guess as to both our ages. (Yes we're old! ;) but we still like cute things). You can see the full set of Chinese zodiac pendants here.