last night, for dinner

eating healthier is sooooo good :).

♥,
melissa

my first craft fair

july 4th (independence day here in the states) was my first ever art/craft fair, and especially considering only about 50 people showed up, i did very well!

i made my first sale before i was even completely set up (a bobby pin set), and the day progressed from there. the day started off super hot, though, as it is texas in july :p, so my one complaint would be that i was dying from the heat! i think it kept more people from showing up, too.

another fair is supposed to be happening at the same location in early september, so i'll definately be participating in that, as well! i had a lot of fun at this one - met some new people, made some money, and got to hang out and listen to music with my husband :).

some pictures for you:

my banner, made by a very nice etsian. love it!

and some different shots of my booth set-up:

believe me, people came in for the cold water! we had a big cooler with loads of ice :).

brandon looks exhausted because we had just finished setting everything up :p. i'm so glad he helped me out!

yay!

in other news, i am busting my butt the next 2 weeks to prepare for my epic french exam and complete the two classes i'm currently enrolled in, so you probably won't see much of me here on the blog. once all the craziness with school is done, though, i have lots of new things to take pictures of and list, so do keep checking back!

stay cool, y'all! ;)

♥,

melissa

introducing... 'kabuku' by maoiliosa!

as you may know if you follow me on twitter or are my friend on facebook, i've been working on these new necklaces for a few weeks now, and i'm happy to say they're finally here! they're called 'kabuku', which is the word that kabuki comes from, and it means "to be out-of-the-ordinary" in japanese. fitting, yeah? :D

i am just so excited about these new pieces! each is made using a kind of washi paper (of course!) called katazome, which is stencil-dyed instead of being silk-screened like chiyogami washi paper is. the result, as you can see, is bold, delicious colouring, which makes for very dramatic and fun pendants.

i've been wearing my test piece, which is just like the red lotus necklace above, everywhere i go, and i've received SO many compliments already! i set out to make a fresh, funky, chunky, indie-chic line of necklaces, and i think i definately succeeded :).

the pendants are approximately 1" by 1.5", and are a bit thicker than the other pendants i make, which i love! also, each pendant is pierced with a thick-gauge sterling silver ring and suspended from one of my 18" silver-plated chains. they're $17 each.

here are some of the others available in my etsy shop:

and in true maoiliosa fashion, they each come gift boxed like this:

how do you like them?

♥,

melissa

zoo

as promised, some of my favourite pictures from my trip to the san antonio zoo:

♥,

melissa

going to see tori amos soon!

oh my goodness, can life possibly get any better? i stumbled upon the most amazing thing the other day: tori amos is coming to austin on july 25th!

am i going? oh yes, i am! :)

i can't really explain what a huge inspiration tori amos has been to me throughout my teen and adult life. sometimes, i just hop on youtube and watch her taped concerts for hours. she's an extremely powerful performer, with such skill with words and melody, and her lyrics and tone really speak to me on a number of levels. i feel so lucky to be able to watch her perform in person in less than 2 months from now. i'll probably cry :p.

brandon is, of course, going with me, and we don't really have the best seats, but we are on the lower level, so that's enough to be grateful for! i can't wait!

okay, thanks for letting me share my excitement :).

♥,
melissa

sale on all pocket mirrors!

my pocket mirrors are on sale for just $5 (regularly $6) right now! plus, as always, buy any three pocket mirrors and get one of your choice free! go get 'em here.

enjoy! :)

♥,
melissa

so much going on!

well hello, my lovely internet friends! i see that it's been almost a full month since i last blogged - inexcuseable! ;)

i have been a busy girl lately, and that is my reason for not keeping in touch. i know i'll probably leave some things out by accident, but here's what happened this month:

• honeymoon! brandon and i escaped from the texas hillcountry to... another part of the texas hillcountry :p. we made the hour and a half drive from the marble falls area to one of our favourite cities, san antonio and stayed there for nearly a week, spoiling ourselves (hey, we deserved it!) and enjoying spending time with each other. we went to the zoo (pictures to come later), sea world, lots of neat restaurants, the rivercenter mall (which is on the riverwalk... if you've never been, you really should! it's beautiful!), and on our way into town, we even stopped off at a cave for a long and strenuous cave tour. if i haven't mentioned it before, exploring caverns is one of our favourite things to do!

• the day before our honeymoon, we saw nine inch nails in austin for their final tour.
  

with my fancy new camera, i was able to get this awesome shot :).



blurry, but me and brandon before nine inch nails. we decided to sit this time, instead of rock out in the moshpit, because we didn't want to be worn out during our honeymoon! we had excellent seats, though, because i got presale tickets (presale people are given the best seats in the house).

• i'm going to be selling in two new austin venues starting this week. the first is 'beth's book box', a second-hand book shop (which also sells local artists' wares). i've been helping beth out a bit with businessy things lately to help her get everything in order for the store's opening. the second venue, which happened almost by accident, is austin's famous 'capra & cavelli', an upscale men's/women's clothing boutique, which also sells local artist merch. the buyer for the store just happened to be visiting 'sweet tempered', one of my favourite clients, and saw my items. she really liked everything i make, so she asked my friend jenny, the co-owner of 'sweet tempered', for my contact info so she could have me selling at 'capra & cavelli' asap! so starting this weekend (or shortly thereafter), my items will be available at their location inside the hilton, downtown austin! needless to say, my little fingers have been super busy making close to 500 items for these two venues!

• brandon and i broke down and bought a wii finally! it'll be here in a few days, i'm so excited! we got a wii fit with it, and a few other ultra-cool games, and i can't wait to start having fun!

• living out in the middle of nowhere makes for a sad social life, so lately, b and i have been working hard at seeing friends more often, whether it's having them out to the house, or us visiting them in austin. my super-great friend whitney was recently in austin for a visit from nevada, so i was grateful to get several days of girl-time in while she was here!

speaking of whitney, her birthday is tomorrow, so i gave her one of my pieces that i thought she would adore. looks like she does ;).

that's 'sakura flourish', and it can be found here if you want one for yourself! also, congrats to whit for closing on her and her husband's first house tomorrow! yay!

• i've been preparing for my first craft fair, which will be july 4 at an event that my step-father-in-law is organizing here in cottonwood shores. that should be a lot of fun! oh, and speaking of cottonwood, did i mention our road got paved? yessss! so nice to not have to drive on dirt anymore!

• i've also been preparing for my french examination, wherein i must test out of 16 credit hours of the language. that has to be done by the end of june, so wish me luck! i also only have 4 more college courses left until i graduate!

• i've mentioned before that my husband and i love going to comedy shows of our favourite comedians. by two strokes of luck, just a few days apart, i was able to get 4th row seats to mike birbiglia (i'm in the future also) at the paramount theatre downtown austin in november (we donate to the theatre, so we get top seats. it pays, people!), and also ::drumroll:: 10th row seats to the one and only dane cook at the toyota center (same place we saw nine inch nails last august) in houston june 20th! so pumped!
• our geckos are all back to optimum health, yay! their eyes are so big, bright, and happy now, and their tails are getting so fat! i'm so glad all my nursing paid off - i love those little lizards!

• i think the only other major thing that's going on with me lately has to do with nerf guns :p. brandon and i are about to bust out like huge nerds and participate in this LARP (live action role-play) game called 'aftermath' which takes place monthly (i think?) in dallas. we bought several nerf guns, a bunch of nerf darts, and have been having nerf shoot-outs with each other almost daily, haha. such nerds we are! the next step is to get our costumes together. i'm going to be playing this class nicknamed 'gloomies' (emo, right?), so i got these wicked parachuters' boots (hot!), and i'm about to buy this "vampire" jacket and steampunk top (i'll post pics when i have 'em)... it's kind of hard to describe the look i'm going for, but it'll make more sense to you AND me once i put everything on together, heehee. brandon is modifying our guns and painting them (he's a skilled miniature painter, so this is right up his alley). is it sad that i'm so excited about this? ;p

so yes, i've been very occupied lately with all these goings-on! i'll be sure to update you more often :).

hope you all are busy with adventures and opportunities of your own!

♥,

melissa

lizard life

hi there!

i talk about my leopard geckos on here from time to time, so i thought it might be helpful if i showed you their homes, with them in them, looking cute :).

when people find out we have no dogs or cats, but a handful of lizards, we generally get strange looks. don't get me wrong... we love dogs and cats! if we had the room (read: a suitable yard), we would definately have a dog by now, at least. but i have always had a warm place in my heart for geckos. when i was younger, i would catch the little house geckos that would hang out by the patio lights outside at night and catch them, give them a tiny little kiss, and let them go. i was a strange child :p. okay, it continued into adulthood, don't judge me! ;). i only learned after i had a real pet gecko that you can get salmonella from kissing lizards, so i don't do that anymore (you think i'm so weird right now, don't you?), but i do have a lot of fun watching and caring for my little critters.



that's asuka on the top left. she was a gift to me from brandon, on our first christmas together ♥. the first time i held her, she bit the crap out of me, so i named her 'asuka' after the bitchy anime character on my favourite anime, neon genesis evangelion.

trent is on the top right. he's called trent because he looks mad all the time, and that reminds me of the most dreamy, angsty man alive, trent reznor ♥.

sonny is on the bottom (you can only see his illusive tail in this picture, sticking out of the hole in his rock on the right), and he is an albino leopard gecko. he may not be as pretty and colourful as the other two, but he has a lot of character to him (they all do, actually! they each have their own personality and behaviours), he's very sweet, and he often looks like he's smiling. i call him 'cling peach' because of his colouring and how he grabs onto my thumb when he's in my hand. brandon named him after the character from his favourite movie, the godfather.

sonny had a brother named mike, but he died last fall after being very sick and a terrible mishap at the vet :/.

anyway, those are my little ones! definately not your standard pet, but they're low-maintenance (which is great for me!), silly, and bring joy to my little life :).

see what i mean about personality? asuka's being sneaky in her hidey-hole :p.

♥,

melissa

featured in the storque!

i am on cloud nine right now! (and oops, so sorry for not updating my blog in forever!)

my 'beautiful day' washi fortune cookies were featured in etsy's blog, 'the storque'!

here's a link to the article, in case you missed it (i sure did! i had to ask in the etsy forums why my cookies were getting so many 'hearts'!)

wow, i never ever thought i would get featured by etsy... i'm so grateful!

life has been crazy since i last posted, but everything's going great - business is running smoothly and keeping me busy, and i've only got 4 more classes left in college (and it looks like i'm going to graduate summa cum laude, even!), but being insanely busy is all worth it when recognition comes, as it did today :D.

i hope you all are having a fabulous spring, as well! and a big THANK YOU to everyone who's supported my 'maoiliosa' business venture - you all are the best!

♥,
melissa

new happy customer-ness!

remember that giveaway i'm holding for customers who submit 'happy customer' pictures of themselves wearing/using my merch? (if you need a reminder on the details so you can participate, go here, and don't forget: submitting means you get free stuff!)

a camera-shy friend/customer of mine submitted this photo. she is wearing 'fresh', one of my washi-scape pendant necklaces, and might i say, that's the perfect necklace for that outfit! way to go, anonymous friend ;).

and just a reminder: free shipping in my shop until april 15!

♥,
melissa