My Creative Blog:
etsy

So you all know by now that Monica and I never make a design decision without consulting one another. We honestly send about 30 texts per day back and for to each other. It's getting out of control, and our cell phone companies love us. But, it's how we roll and we're not about to change it. Even though I talk incessantly to her, and vice versa, we do almost all of our projects on our own, or with the help of our husbands. Until now. It has been such a blast combining our talents to create fun items that you can decorate your homes with. If you haven't heard yet, we recently opened an Etsy shop we like to call The Barn. While we have have lots of awesome products, I think my favorite is the destination sign with coordinates.

This sign is the ultimate in chippy, weathered goodness.

We use old planks of barnwood that have a subtle blue-green tint to them, and then use a block-print method to add the destination name and coordinates to them. Finally, we finish them off by hand-painting in the numbers and letters and then seal it with coat of water-based polyurethane (to keep the paint from chipping, and seal in all those wonderful wood tones.)

The possibilities are endless with this sign since it can be customized to your preferences. Add the place you and your spouse were married; where you honeymooned; the city where your kids were born; the town you live in; your favorite vacation spot, and the list could go on and on…
I can't get enough of the coordinates. We scoured the web looking for cool signs like this one, and really couldn't find anything similar, so we decided to make our own. When we finished this one, we couldn't stop ourselves from smiling goofily and proclaiming,"It's perfect!","It's mine!","No, it's mine!","Wait, we should sell it!,"It's the people's!" (We are ridiculous like that, and yes, it actually happened that way.)

Is anyone else in love with coordinates?

PS. If you have an idea we didn't list here, but would like us to try, please shoot us an email via our contact page. We are itching to try out new things!

Imagine my thrill when I was contacted yesterday by Etsy Admin to let me know that my jewelry and my Etsy shop were going to be featured in Kaboodle's Celebrity Style Watch!
The article, Etsy Inside Scoop: How to Snag Celeb Style was a collaboration between Etsy and Kaboodle, and spotlights celebrities seen wearing items made by Etsy artists.
In the article, True Blood actor Tanya Wright is shown wearing a necklace that I designed and made for her. Other celebs in the article include Christina Hendricks, Katy Perry, and AnnaLynne McCord who were shown wearing designs from madredeolivia, Blackbirddesignhouse, dishfunctionldesigns, NewYorkCouture and LuaLosAngeles.

Thank you Tanya, Etsy, and Kaboodle!
View the article here: How to Snag Celeb Style

In less than two weeks, one of my best friends is getting married. It happens to be on the same day as the Swedish Crown Princess Victoria is tying the knot and I'm a little frustrated with that, actually.

I would have really liked to see the chaos live (on TV) but of course my friend is a thousand times more important! Besides, I suppose they will show reruns for months and months to come so it's cool.

Anyhow, in the spirit of weddings, here's some beautiful pictures for you.

Hugs, Bettina.

I was thrilled to find my items included in five different Etsy treasuries last week, and even more thrilled to find that one of the treasuries was featured on Etsy's front page...
....of course I'm never home when these things happen, but got a capture of the screen shot: -)

So glad to be back to my little blog and working again — this winter I made like a bear and hibernated most of the season....but am back with lots of new pretty things and a refreshed Etsy store with tons of new stock! (Check it out below!)
http://www.etsy.com/shop/dishfunctionldesigns
Note the new Etsy store name — missing the letter "a" in Dishfunctional — but alas, Etsy only allows so many character spaces for shop names....so I am without the a, but still dishfunctional if even now more so...
I actually had one of the very first shops on Etsy way way back when they first began. At the time, I had been a steady eBay seller for many years (I started selling my broken china jewelry on eBay in 1999) Since then, I've amassed over 5,000 positive eBay feedback — the number they show is 3,788 give or take a few, as ebay no longer counts additional feedback from returning customers — a bummer for sellers, but what can you do?
In any case, I closed my Etsy store after the first year, as I found I was spreading myself too thin, trying to supply both eBay and Etsy with new stock on a constant basis. Now times have changed. I've found the handcrafted market on eBay to be too....well, too complicated. Fees and rules are always changing, I get phone messages on my answering machine from eBay associates trying to sell me new features, etc etc... I figure it this way, life is hard enough, why complicate things? I'm still a registered eBay seller — I haven't cut the cord completely, but am definitely shying away from the eBay marketplace. My new items will now be listed on etsy on a regular basis!