merry christmas everyone!

happy christmas! blog's been quiet cos christmas has been crazy busy this year, but to all my friends, all my blog readers, all the people who are looking at this wondering what on earth someone has bought them for christmas, hope you have all had a lovely day :D and please enjoy the best christmas song ever courtesy of mr shakin' stevens!

today's gaming bounty has included guitar hero, copious singstar, two versions of zelda, and endless ocean - which if you've read the zine you'd know i was really looking forward to :) so going to take a bit of time off to play with all these and will update in the new year.

couldn't leave without giving you all a little something to celebrate and thank you for reading, so you have a choice of *two* gifts from me (via some other reputable websites...):

dr who fans click here (and *how* good was today's episode?!)

music fans click here (especially if you like radiohead and hate x factor)

merry christmas to all and to all a happy new year :D

something for the (last day of the) weekend

blooper squid necklace, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

i *knew* i'd forgotten to post something yesterday...

i just added a load of stuff to my etsy shop including a blooper (squid) necklace from super mario, translucent mario invincibility star necklace and pacman chomp bracelet. star and metroid christmas decorations are also still available, not many posting days left!

and since i have just been looking at my google stats (welcome all my new american and canadian readers!) that tell me that you lot love the videogame papercraft, here are some handy links for you.

phoenix wright papercraft characters

printable thwomp (from mario galaxy)

and finally, saving me a lot of work - hawty mcbloggy's papercraft round up including portal, halo, silent hill, final fantasy, pokemon, tetris (i *love* this one), tomb raider and sonic.

bsangel (ms hawty mcbloggy herself) is also an etsyer and has some awesome stuff including this highly appropriate xbox 360 condolence card and these envelopes which i love mostly because they seem to be made out of old issues of edge (glad to see i'm not the only one appreciating it for its design just as much as (or in some cases more than) its content ;) ) *

the other thing my google stats picked up this week was this: "why is my wii lighting up when it is off" which sadly seems to stump even the mighty google. i think you'll find it'll be something to do with wiiconnect24, mystery searcher. check your wii settings and tell it not to illuminate the slot every time you have a message. unless you want it to. how's that for public service? :)

*whoops no link, they seem to have sold, have an incredibly sweet player 2 card instead (sigh, /me thinks of valentine's day...)

ps** oh dear, i am a doofus - the envelopes are actually by another seller called betty death who is also awesome and makes amazing cuffs.

urbis and the omegazoid

my stall!, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

ok ok ok, so i'm about 2 weeks overdue with this one, for reasons that shall soon become apparent. so, this was my stall at the manchester craft mafia market at urbis on dec 1st. it was my first ever craft show type thing so i was uber nervous, but everyone was really lovely and i really enjoyed chatting to both the customers and the other sellers! one of the things that was particularly fun was that i had my box of pixelblocks on the corner of my stall for people to play with as their awkward friend/parent was busy looking at my stuffs :) i set it up to have a competition for the best pixelblocks creation to win a genuine imported nintendo nes controller belt buckle if they left their contact details. unfortunately, i have looked everywhere during the past two weeks and seem to have misplaced it :( so i am going to put *all* the pictures up, and if one of them is yours, comment or email me and you might just win by default ;) *



one of the other things that was particularly exciting was that i launched my brand new zine! it's called omegazoid and is the printed sibling of this very blog, with activities, colouring in, me waffling on about games, and some other random stuff. issue 1, now available on etsy, includes pixel by numbers, picross, games reviews and a super secret surprise knitting pattern! i was up til 4am the night before the market printing and cutting and hand stitching each individual binding (i forgot to locate a stapler) and i must say i am rather pleased with the end result! now i just need to sell them all so i can get on with making issue 2 ;)

and to finish, an interesting weird thing that happened this week: not only did the owner of a facebook group i posted on that very day, find my zine (becoming the first ever etsy-facilitated omegazoid owner woo!) randomly without realising who was selling it, but it turns out he used to live round the corner from me! (waves to ste, quick plug for his radio show/podcast one life left which is very good.)

*not a scam, honest, i am just very bad at losing things :(

all i want for christmas is that... and that, ooh and maybe one of those?

additions to the pacman family, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

can't be too long, cos i need to go to the post office before it shuts - a lot of you must be getting pixel jewellery for christmas this year cos etsy has gone crazy this week! uploaded a pile of new stuff including the heart meter pin, one of which sold within mere minutes of going online(!); two sizes of pacman bracelets (if you want ms pacman, ask, but you may have to wait an extra day or so); the new translucent heart container necklace and a pacman ghost regiment pin. for some strange reason a lot of the pictures i took last weekend on my sister's camera (mine is broke :( ) look fine on my screen but come out really washed out on etsy. so don't be fooled, they are really bright in real life :) lots more to come this week!

amongst the packing fest, i finally read scott pilgrim 4 and it is ace. everyone should put it on their christmas lists - i'll see if i can put up a link to the review i wrote for DM around the time vol. 3 came out. christmas really did come early like i thought it would, cos not only is my discbox arriving this week, but i just got radiohead tickets woo! :D

and finally, i want a christmas tree like this one. spain must looove retro videogames, that's where my latest parcel is heading off to! the fair write-up, photos and competition winners will be up soon, promise :)

p.s. this is a really quick and easy and fun way to make really pretty and classy looking snowflake decorations if you are looking for something to pass the friday afternoon time away :)

also, -> there is my new rss feed showing all new items i put up on etsy - the address is http://www.etsy.com/rss_shop.php?user_id=5188149 if anyone's interested.

happy advent everybody!

nintendo christmas decorations, originally uploaded by spugmeistress.

and to celebrate it, we have some new items in the etsy shop, two mario stars and a metroid screw attack to hang on your christmas tree! lots of new items on the way including keyrings, brooch/pins, and my new zine, also entitled omegazoid, so keep an eye open here, on the flickr and on my etsy shop :)

the manchester craft mafia fair was on at urbis yesterday, which was fun, sold some stuff and got to chat to lots of lovely people! i ran a competition on my stall, for the person who made the best pixelblocks creation to win a shiny nintendo belt buckle. photos of all the entries, along with the announcement of the winner, should be up later this week! incidentally, at that pixelblocks link you can see the stop motion pacman animation i made with my set which were not actually bought from firebox at all but rather from the famous FAO Schwarz toy shop in new york :)

last of all i just had to link to this diesel sweeties strip, since it pretty much describes me and my affinity for tetris. after the craziness of craft fairing, arranging falling blocks is actually quite relaxing!