Another srs bzness 5 Fandom Friday, whoa! I can dig this. What chances am I going to take in 2016? First let me get this earworm out of my head...
#SorryNotSorry
1. Promote my jewelry more.
I've been selling nerdy jewelry on Etsy since 2008, and do you know how many blogs I've asked for a feature? One. One! What is that? Well, my photography has improved since 2008, and so has my craft, so now that looking at my shop doesn't make me cringe, it's time to put my work out there for people to find. I already have one deal done and dusted; since then I've found another blog and a vendor that are really relevant to STEM and steminism (that I also think are really interesting and cool in their own right!). Plus, there are a lot of great museums here in Stockholm that I could pitch to (though that might mean doing something unpleasant with my tax status). But the long and the short of it is, I have enough of a range now, in terms of skills, that I can start to bring Kokoba Jewelry out into the spotlight. A little bit.
2. Take more classes.
They're free (all hail the socialist nanny state!) and I can mostly survive on my editing work. This is maybe the best chance I'll ever have to finally study everything I've ever been interested in. Right now I'm in a distance Russian course, but there's certainly room in my schedule for one or two more. Arabic? Korean? Chinese? Finish trigonometry on Kahn academy?
3. Get serious about careers.
There are a number of careers I'm interested in and want to fall back on if it turns out I can't feasibly be a ninja tutor-editor-jeweler for the rest of my life. Those careers require official training and certification. Even being a ninja tutor-editor-jeweler means having a professional web presence and having to promote myself. Either way, I need to be less of a lump.
4. People more.
I am by nature an anxious, passive person. So are most people that I get along best with and want to be friends with. So we sit alone, never daring to suggest a fika or a movie or Netflix and chill (am I using that expression right? probably not), because we're afraid that the other person is actually too cool for us, or that we're annoying, or that the other person doesn't really like us as much as we like them, and never get to know each other better. So in 2016 I'm going to try to be more social (outside of NaNoWriMo).
5. Freak out less about my independence.
This is kind of counterintuitive, but I should put it like this: I'm an American and I have really strong, internalized ideas about BOOTSTRAPS!! and SELF-SUFFICIENCY!! that are not helpful at this stage in my life. Letting people help me and take care of things for me is, weird as it sounds, a risk for me. It's a chance; it's outside my comfort zone. But human beings are social creatures; after all, if all of my loved ones never wanted my help with anything, how would I feel? Frustrated. unappreciated, useless.
Okay, I know that I've already talked about this game before, in December 2015's Read Play Blog post (also, has anyone else signed up for the new Read Play Blog...whatever it will be? do you know what's going on? I'm super curious!), but I want to talk about some more SO I WILL.
I should begin by saying that for years I was convinced that Fallout was a shooter series. I guess it doesn't help that Half-Life, another scifi game with a nuclear-related name, is a shooter. (At least, it's a very different game from Fallout.) Or that the perspective from Fallout 3 onwards is first-person. So for years I had just put Fallout in the category of "hardcore brogamer shooty games that I won't like" and kept playing my platformers, RPGs, dungeon crawlers, hack 'n' slashers, fighters, and puzzlers.
But then I moved in with JV, my long-distance and long-suffering boyfriend of...13 years, now? Yeah, my math is right.
Now, we both like reading. We both like gaming. But for me, reading is my life's blood. If I go for too long without reading anything, I get depressed. Seriously: I get fidgety, I lose my focus, and I feel this general sense of malaise. Conversely, if I feel like shit, the quickest way for me to feel better is to finish a book. My most important possessions, even more than my jewelry supplies, are my books. Gaming, however, is a fun hobby that I can pick up and put down whenever. It's usually the first thing I drop when my schedule is too crowded, because honestly I can get along fine without it.
It's the complete reverse for JV. I don't think he could go for a week without a game, and his game collection rivals my books collection. It's taken a while for me to come to grips with the fact that I live with someone who isn't, to their bones, a reader, but I'm okay with it now. And presumably he's had the same journey about me and not being a gamer.
The good thing about this mismatch is that, from our deep love and understanding of our respective media, we can turn the other towards something they might not have picked up. JV is in the middle of Redshirts, for example: a book he loves but would have never known about or picked up if I hadn't recommended it to him. And I'm in the middle of Fallout Lou Bega New Vegas, a game I love but would have never given a chance if JV hadn't recommended it (and Fallout 3) to me.
This was a long story to say: if you, like me, were under the assumption that the Fallout games are whiz-bang shooters, you were wrong. If you are an RPG fan who likes exploring new worlds and meeting new characters, you need to give it a shot. It only looks like a FPS.
(That said, I won't be picking up any recent Elder Scrolls releases, anytime soon, even if they're essentially Bethesda's fantasy equivalent of Fallout 3. Not until they figure out how to work something like V.A.T.S. into the game.)
Anyway, on to Lou Bega. What am I really digging about it?
First of all, the graphics. But I already wrote about that, so I'll just say: I cannot overstate how much I prefer this look to Fallout 3.
Beyond the surface-level stuff, though, I really like your companions. In Fallout 3, your companions are automatically limited by your karma: out of the 8 available, 6 have specific karma requirements (2 good, 2 neutral, and 2 evil). The other 2 are karma neutral. To get to know all of the companions, you'd need three different playthroughs—unless you take the perks to reset your karma, but that would be kind of waste, I think. And personally, no matter how much I love a game and want to experience all of it, I have a really hard time taking the evil path. I'm not going to compromise my gaming experience to unlock extra followers. I'm just not that much of a completionist.
In Lou Bega, none of the 8 companions have a karma requirement, making it possible to collect all 8 of them in one go. Some of them definitely have different faction allegiances and preferences, but since (so far) they seem to align with mine (fuck Caesar's Legion, essentially), I haven't seen what happens if you line up with a group they despise.
Using a hazy faction allegiance framework instead of a strict "where do you fall on the good/evil spectrum?" framework makes the characters way more interesting. That, and the fact that the companions develop over time. In Fallout 3, my only companion was Fawkes (somehow I missed out on Star Paladin Cross). You learn his background as soon as you meet him (if you opt to save/not kill him), and then that's about it. In New Vegas, people have complicated histories with different organizations and as you spend time with them, you can learn more about them, and even unlock quests specific to their storyline. Even if Fawkes is definitely cool (an erudite and philosophical Super Mutant!), he doesn't develop in the same way as, say, Cass does during her "investigate the caravans" quest. If I stop to talk to him once in a while, the only dialogue options will be about his strategy (and maybe the same backstory as he tells you when you meet him, I forget).
It's hard for me to pick a favorite companion. I've unlocked all of them except Raoul and Veronica—it feels weird to have even four people at my disposal, compared to just the one I had in Fallout 3. (I mean, I also had Dogmeat in Fallout 3, but he feels like a pet more than a companion.)
ED-E is probably the most useful one. Because there is more of an emphasis on crafting in New Vegas, it's really handy to have a floating workbench following you whereever you go. Especially because I have a preference for energy weapons—energy weapon ammo is hard to come by, so I recycle everything.
Fun fact: JV pronounces ED-E as "Ee dee ee." The quest you get after you fix ED-E in Primm is called "ED-E My Love," which I recognized instantly as a nod to Grease as well as The Teen Queens and The Chordettes. References JV missed.
The first companion I picked up is Boone, who has kind of a typical tragic past backstory, but I appreciate his burning hatred for Caesar's Legion. Anytime I'm going to fight Caesar's Legion, I make sure to take him with me:
"I'm going to shoot any Caesar's Legion members I see. I hope that's not a problem."
"That sounds like a solution to me."
Lily is a more compelling and interesting character, with a more unique tragic past backstory. Story-wise, she might be my favorite. But Cass is pretty great, too. Arcade Gannon is maybe the least interesting, but he's the only companion who also packs energy weapons, making him pretty invaluable in combat—despite being a scientist and not a fighter by trade.
So there are a lot of companions who add a lot of content and a lot of different fighting tactics, because when you have them around you get their perk! Lily boosts your stealthiness, Boone helps you pick out far away enemies while aiming down sights, Arcade raises the effectiveness of your healing items, and Cass gives you a recipe for booze (and also makes you better at handling booze).
Overall, companions have a lot more nuance in New Vegas. (That's not even getting into the companions you temporarily pick up for the DLC quests! But I haven't started any DLC quests yet so I can't really say much about them.)
The other thing I really like in Lou Bega is the crafting. In both Fallout 3 and Lou Bega, there is a lot of stuff you can pick up. Some poor soul out there, I'm sure, has diligently picked up every piece of junk and scrap in every location. Just because. And while scattered pots and burned books in a house do a lot for atmosphere, there's not much point in making them something you can pick up. Sure, you can craft some custom weapons, but that's about it. In New Vegas not only can you make weapons, but you can also make a variety of consumables, ammo (either recycle it or make it from scratch), armor, and poisons. Every random piece of junk you find (or almost every) can probably be used to craft a fairly useful item. Duct tape, scrap metal, scrap electronics, WonderGlue, and a wrench? Weapon repair kit! Sensor module? Upgrade your regular StimPak to an AutoStimPak! Surgical tubing and buffalo gourd seed? Snakebite tourniquet! It's cool that all of this stuff finally gets some use, and it's also cool to have alternatives for supplies if you find yourself low on caps.
There are some things I miss from Fallout 3. The radio in New Vegas is great but there's no replacing Three Dog. Which is why I'm bummed he won't return for Fallout 4. What are you doing, Bethesda?! And while I appreciate the attempt at realism in a video game, sometimes having healing items heal X points over Y seconds instead of immediately upon use really fucks with my chi. There's also an esoteric damage versus DPS thing going on with the ammo (piercing armor versus doing lots of damage) and it just seems needless. I just ignore it and shoot things with plasma until they're green puddles of goo!
For those of you who haven't played a Fallout game yet, or are on the fence about it, let me try to sum it up: it is, first and foremost, an RPG. There's combat, and the default presentation is first-person, but it's an RPG, and a story-based one at that. You'll be surprised at how much shooting you can avoid if you have enough skill points in Speech or a high enough Intelligence score. And even when the combat turns up, you always have your trusty V.A.T.S. to help and you nearly always (not right at the beginning) have a companion or two at your side. You don't have to be great at shooters to enjoy Fallout. I suck at shooters and I love Fallout!
It's also not a game that's particularly fun to watch, either—so don't assume that because you didn't like watching someone else play it, you won't like playing it yourself. Personally, I get really terrible headaches watching someone else play a first-person perspective game. I can watch Saints Row and GTA San Andreas for ages, but anything more than five minutes of Fallout and I have to get up and do something else.
It supports a lot of play styles, too. Do you really, really, really hate shooting? Then don't! There are numerous melee weapons available. Hell, you can even bareknuckle box your way through the whole game, if you want. It might be a lot harder, but you can at least try.
You'll noticed that I only talked about Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas in here. There's a whole history of games I haven't gotten to yet, so if the first-person perspective really isn't your thing, you can try one of the first two, which are very RP-y. Tactics is much more action-oriented, as is Brotherhood of Steel—both of which are isometric rather than first-person. There's something for everybody!
Back when I was working on SUPER SEKRIT PROJECT (it's done now; all that's left is to count down the days until I can share it with you!), I bought a whole bunch of a kind of stone entirely new to me: snow quartz (also called snowy quartz, milky quartz, and white quartz). It was something I could use in so many projects, when moonstone was too expensive and when mother-of-pearl was too warm.
In so many projects, it turned out, that I used it all up before writing a geo-shopping post about it. Oops!
In the meantime, feast your eyes on this latest piece of sciart jewelry: the speed of light in snow quartz, with faceted amethyst acting as spacers.
This is only the second speed of light piece in my shop and (according to my photo backlog) the third I've ever done. How could I forget one of the most important physical constants there is? I don't know, but I'm determined to rectify that situation.
This would be a great gift for any physics nerds or hard SF fans you know, whether for Valentine's day or for a February birthday (since amethyst is February's birthstone).
Last week, I decided to dig on Etsy for some #sciart finds. This week I originally planned on searching on Pinterest, but you know what? Either Pinterest users are idiots, or there is something fucky with their algorithms (why not both?), because the vast majority of stuff that turns up when you search for "#sciart" is fairies and fantasy things. And, for some reason, fashion color palette advice based on your "season."
Meanwhile, if you search #sciart on Twitter, you get some really nifty new stuff! Like neurons painted in sumi-e style:
This week's 5 Fandom Friday isn't exactly fandom-y but I think that's why I like it so much. I don't care how much you like Star Wars or YA fantasy, your fandoms aren't your defining characteristic as a person. I always feel like I know a blogger much better after a serious, non-fandom-y post than a fandom-y one. I guess I'm just a Serious Sally or something. Fun comes later! First, bare your heart and soul to me!
I talked about this, uh, yesterday. And a month ago. But it's something I'm beginning to discover not only in my jewelry work but in my professional work as well. Until editing work picks up again (which it should soon, tack och lov!), right now my biggest income-earner is tutoring. I sat down, crunched numbers, looked at the time I was spending not only with my tutees, but the commute, and the time I was putting in on lesson plans, activities, and materials and decided: I am not paying myself enough.
At the beginning of December I let my tutees know that I was raising my rates in 2016. It wasn't an insignificant increase, but based on research I did, my new rate is much more in line with the market. Did I lose any customers? Not permanently. Did I see a drop in business? Yes.
However, for around the same amount I was earning before, I have so much more time. Half of my weekend used to be busy (longest commute there and back + 2-hour session = hard to muster energy for the rest of Saturday) and now it's free. I can be social! A few days after this client said they would be taking January off (and letting me know about the rest of the year after), I got the idea to have people over to watch Groundhog Day on...Groundhog Day. A Tuesday. That's a bad day for most people, and now that I've valued my time more, that's okay, because I can have my Groundhog Day party on the Saturday before.
2. I got over my bad break-up with exercise.
Note that this is stock photography. I only wish I had nice
hardwood floors and an adorable kitty.
Real talk, you guys: I was never a star athlete. Shocking, I know! I played kiddie soccer as, well, a kiddie, and then softball for a few years (which I always hated because I sucked at it, but somehow continued to sign up for it or be signed up for it or pretend I loved it or something, I can't remember), and then that was it.
Of course, when you're a chubby kid, well-meaning adults will try to find a way to get you to magically become athletic because scaremongers have convinced them that chubby kids are doomed to get heart attacks and cancer by their 40s.
So I looked forward to adulthood as this glorious, beautiful time where I wouldn't have to exercise or play sports or go to gym class. And that's mostly been my adulthood. There were times when I flirted with exercise, but it was always part of a "not a diet, ~*~*~lifestyle change~*~*~" period where I was trying to be smaller, and sometimes I almost liked it but inevitably it wouldn't work and I would bounce back to "FUCK YO' EXERCISE, TIME FOR STAR TREK AND PRINGLES."
2015 was the year I finished the Star Trek marathon and the can of Pringles. Metaphorically. I finally saw exercise as a tool that would improve my health (not my mood, never my mood: sorry health nuts but nothing will ever destress me and lift my spirits as much as a good book or destroying the competition at bar trivia) and, on a woo-woo note, how I felt in my body. I got back into daily yoga after years of off-and-on. I should probably do a whole post about yoga at some point, but here I'll just say that since the gentle stretching is something noncompetitive that I can practice in the privacy of my home, it's a lot easier for me to get into than hardcore cardio stuff. (Exercise-induced asthma means cardio needs to be approached with care and caution.)
I also made it a goal to do "some" cardio on our exercise bike every day. I learned two things from this. One: I hate that bike. The seat has no cushion (NO cushion! at all!) and sitting on it at all is torture. Two: I like walking.
The second one should have been obvious, but it wasn't. It wasn't until I was trying to get out of my promise to myself to do "some" cardio that I realized walking (and walking outside) was enjoyable. In the desperation to find an alternative, either my subconscious had given up its last resistance to movement, or forgotten all of the complex rules we have about what movement "counts," or something else, but suddenly walking from Gullmarsplan to our apartment on my way home, or taking walks around the neighborhood, seemed fine. Good, even.
I even started weight training with free weights, something I previously thought was only the purview of jocks and meatheads. But more on that later (much later). I'm still a weak-ass newb.
3. I got fatter, and I got okay with that.
Mostly okay. But I'm trying.
4. I took my writing more seriously.
2015 was the year of editing 2014's first draft from NaNoWriMo. This is significant for a few reasons. First of all, it's a coin toss whether or not I even the first draft of anything. Second of all, even if I do finish a first draft, I usually just let it sit and rot (digitally) forever. This was the first year I actively worked on and revised a piece of fiction...maybe ever. I'm on the third round of revisions and it's not even close to done. Prior to that I would maybe do the one token revision I needed for creative writing workshops and call it a day.
5. I stopped putting up with bullshit.
Clerks is one of my favorite movies of all time, and I think the reason I love it is because Dante and Randall remind me a lot of myself and my high school best friend. I have principles, sure, and I can lose my temper and even pick fights pretty easily (in certain company), but at the end of the day I am mostly passive and a pushover. I am that guy who you can call to open the store for you, even if I wasn't supposed to be there today.
So when I stop putting up with bullshit, it looks different than how other people might envision themselves doing the same.
Did I tell anyone off? No. Did I start responding to idiocy in Facebook comments? Hahahahah, no. But I thought long and hard about the kind of people I wanted to share my life with (in a general sense). Who should I grant access to? Who should I deny?
For a couple of weeks I stressed over whether the people I dropped would find me elsewhere, talk to me elsewhere, ask me why I had unfriended them. Nothing came of it.
For a lot of people, clicking the unfriend button on Facebook is just another thing, but the stress of that potential confrontation kept me from doing it for months.
I set boundaries with other people, too. I did this explicitly—informing people that I was not going to discuss certain topics with them, ever—but also in a more interior, subtle sense. I allowed myself to walk away from conversations if I had nothing to say, instead of manufacturing a hollow response to the latest Real Housewives of Nevada update. I started to hold others accountable for their actions and how they treated me.
Some of these changes happened quickly, others were a long time coming, but they were all important. How did you grow in 2015?
So! I made a bracelet. I'm sure this is all shocking to anyone who's followed me for any length of time!
The picture is not the greatest. Better ones will be up on the Facebook page tomorrow, when I have more flattering daylight. Until then, here's this noisy, low-quality, poorly-edited mess:
Speed of light (meters per second, in a vacuum) wrap bracelet/choker
This is a bracelet I've been thinking about making since December. Today I sat down and made it (mostly because I put it on my HabitRPG "to do" list). It took around an hour and a half to make. The beaded portion is around 16", meaning it will comfortably wrap twice around the typical wrist as a bracelet or once around the neck as a choker. (Really. Probably. If it fits comfortably on me, it will probably fit comfortably on a lot of people; I have a thick neck.)
Sometimes when I finish a project, all I feel is unequivocal pride. "Girl, you are lookin' flyyyyyy," my inner diva says, admiring the work. Other times I shrug and go, "Eh."
That is how I feel about this bracelet. Anyone who knows anything about making these guys will be able to spot some problems with my ladder stitching straight away.
So then the question is: should I sell it? Or keep it?
I love the colors the way I would love a throw pillow, or someone else's outfit. Really cool, but not necessarily my thing to wear on my person. So it's not something I'm dying to keep (unlike some other pieces in my shop that break my heart to sell). So the answer is to sell it, right? (Assuming for the moment I have no one to give it away to. Maybe I'll give it away here. Stay tuned!)
But then here we are, to the kernel of the issue: for how much? How should I price it? If I know how I normally value my time but wish to make an exception, how can I do that?
I talked just a few weeks ago about pricing items on Etsy, which I think sellers and buyers alike should read. If it's fresh in your memory, you'll recall that one of my guidelines for pricing is: how much do I value an hour of my time? how long did an item take to make?
My going rate when pricing things is $30 an hour, or $58,000 annually if I were working full-time. (Hint: I do not make jewelry full-time.) So I'd have to think of a retail price that would be profitable if I were selling this bracelet at $45 wholesale.
Whoa child, slow down!
If this had been a "girl, you are lookin' flyyyyyy" bracelet, I'd have no issue with that amount. But it's not.
Believe me, I value my work. And I value other people's work. But you should also be able to acknowledge when a piece of work is a (re)learning experience. When you were not efficient with the time you spent on something. So I can admit to myself that this is a practice piece, and so if I want to sell it I should take the hit. How much of a hit should I take?
Well, there's the "how much do I think other people would value it" method: you can try to imagine it in a store, or scour Etsy for similar items, but this involves a lot of shopping around and, ultimately, guess work. So
Let's make it the US minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. A retail value of $22 would be completely doable in that scenario....if I wanted to earn a minimum wage that hasn't been updated or adjusted in six years ($15,000 annually). Even if I think my time is worth more than minimum wage (it is!), I now have a "basement value" for this piece. If I sell it below this price, I'm valuing my time even less than Uncle Sam does. In fact, the basement price should really be something like $25, to account for Etsy fees, the time spent photographing and then image editing, and the packaging for when it finally ships—otherwise I'd be paying myself less than minimum wage.
Let's take the minimum wage that Barack Obama mandated in 2014 for federal workers: $10.10. That would be a retail price of $30. (Makes sense: an extra $2.85 an hour = an extra $4.37 in labor costs, which when doubled to account for retail is around the $8 difference.) Now we're looking at around $19,000 annually.
As a final tier, let's take the ideal minimum wage that many activists are campaigning: $15 / hour, or half of how I normally price my time: $29,000 annually. That would call for a retail cost of $44.
Now I have a range of concrete values to choose from, depending on how "meh" I feel about this particular piece—if I still want to sell it.
Because there are other ways to see value, too. The value for me, for example, isn't only in "how much money can I make from this?" There's also value in learning or remembering a technique, and practicing it so that in the future I can do it better and more efficiently. I can value it as a step towards more even stitches, and reducing the time it takes to make a comparable bracelet from an hour and a half to maybe just one hour, or maybe even less. It won't put food on the table but it's still worthwhile.
Even given away, under the right circumstances and with the right management, would be beneficial: free advertising, increased brand recognition, and other positive things could lead to future sales. Given away free, or for the cost of shipping, also relieves me of the guilt of "not as good as it could have been," since I'm asking nothing in return.
My point here in all this rambling is that it's possible to value "practice work" monetarily as well as abstractly. (My point also is that handiwork takes time and artisan's time is worth paying for, but that is kind of always my point.)
I guess my other point is that holy crap these wrap bracelets take a long time to make and I need some protips on how to do it better and faster.
I said I would read it in January, and that's exactly what I'm doing! I originally read Mrs. Dalloway in college so there's nothing really new to me. I will say that I'm reading this edition, and the introduction and footnotes are quite interesting—they're something new to me this time around, at least! (I don't normally read introductions first, unless I've already read the book.) So if you come across this one, pick it up. Or at least nose through the introduction.
Overall it's a cozy and familiar way to start the new year.
I've been busting my butt getting pieces together and getting them out on the intarwebs. Online sellers talk a lot about Christmas and Cyber Monday and so on, often saying that it's the busiest time of year for them.
Kokoba has always been a pretty small operation. "Busy" is relative and for me, that means 3 or more sales in a month. Just to give you an idea of how small I am.
What I have noticed is that I have just as many sales in April as I do in December, and more than I have in November. Now, I haven't polled my customers about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if those April sales were graduation gifts, or gifts for favorite teachers. So that means that as soon as the "holiday rush" is over, I need to start ramping up my game for April! Last year I let the store sit in a weird limbo and missed out on a lot. This is not the case, and here is one of the latest pieces created in anticipation of the end-of-school "rush".
I've forgotten how satisfying it can be to work with just one stone. This and my recent mookaite gravity bracelet both feature only one stone: this time, it's red creek jasper. (The small gold-colored beads are glass.)
The large ovals were a gift from a former coworker, back when I worked at the cave, and to be honest I almost don't want to sell this one. But I think it could make someone really happy, and I used the bulk of those lovely ovals in a Fibonacci necklace that is mine and mine forever. So.
Working with physical constants is tricky because I swear to space they're always changing on me. Rather, physical constants are hard to very measure precisely and accurately. This, coupled with the fact that in the past I would reference Google calculator, Wikipedia, and CODATA's official website willy-nilly means that there is inconsistency across my past work. These days I only use CODATA as a reference, but even then it's updated every couple of years, as scientists adjust their calculations and as our technology becomes more fine-tuned. So fact decay inevitably occurs and one day this necklace will no longer be quite as accurate or as relevant!
(Physical constants are a different beast than irrational numbers. We're incredibly certain about the precise value of numbers like pi or the Golden Ratio to an incredible amount of decimal places.)
I decided to step away from the #sciart hashtag on Twitter this week and see what I could find in Etsy. A lot of great things, it turned out!
Many I recognized from the Mad Scientists of Etsy!:
which makes sense, since they were the ones who let me know (via Twitter) that #sciart was a thing in the first place. But I also found some really cool new-to-me shops!
I've also admired Ink & Sword's clean retro graphic designs on previous sciart Mondays, but for some reason never made the connection that the pieces were available for purchase on Etsy!
