Magazine Deal Update

Recently, I shared some of my favorite ways to feed a bourgeoning magazine habit on the cheap (read the related blog post here).  Today I scored a year of Popular Science for $2!  Here's how:

Visit www.magazines.com and register for an account with your email address.  Don't place an order yet! Browse around to get an idea of what you might like, add something to your cart then leave the site.

I can't promise you that this will happen to you, but often to entice browsers into becoming buyers, sites like these email you within a few days to offer you something.  Magazines.com has been sending $5 "gift cards" via email to those on their email list.

Head over to www.retailmenot.com to check out the best coupon code for the magazine you want.  Through March you can use the code MARCHDEAL to get $5 off any one of more than 250 titles.  Magazines.com will let you combine coupon codes with gift cards, so...

There may be other ways you can get gift card codes:  try googling for them or digging deeper into RetailMeNot.  Not every code/card code you find may work, but if you're patient, for a little research, you can walk away with a year subscription to something you like or would like to try for less than the price of a single issue!

Introducing our new eco-friendly line Sprout! With GIVEAWAY!

Sine Metu Designs will be launching a new eco-friendly line of home and body products based on the principles of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle...ReThink,"  We've named this line Sprout, and a range of goodies from soy candles, essential oil-based Mediterranean Sea Salt blended bath salts, vegan-friendly vegetable-based lip balms, soaps, and body butters, to reusable Swiffer dusters, reusable dryer "sheets" and more.  We'll feature uniquely "upcycled" goods with eco-friendly packaging, and as always, no commercial chemicals or dyes!

We just posted our FIRST soy candles to our Etsy studio and have four scent combos available:

Orange-Earl Grey (orange oil, bergamot oil, black tea leaf)
Eucalyptus Rosemary (eucalyptus essential oil and organic rosemary)
Tea Tree Ginger (tea tree oil and finely ground ginger)
Cedarwood Clove (cedarwood oil and finely ground clove)

They are super long- and clean-burning, getting 16-20 hours for the 2.5oz size. No dyes, no artificial anything.

Our clever eco-friendly packaging includes (cleaned & sterlized!) upcycled containers, such as this version, in a recycled glass jar.  Even our label is upcycled-- printed on paper grocery bag!

And because we're so committed to reducing consumer trash and turning waste into beauty, we have kicked off this line with a special incentive:  for every clean glass jar you send us (3 oz or larger, such as babyfood jars) you'll get a 50-cent credit towards another candle, 12 jars= FREE candle (limit 2 freebies per month).

In celebration of our new line, we'll be giving away a FREE soy candle, your choice of scents (pick from above list) to TWO winners.  We'll pick the winner AFTER we get 55 fans on our FACEBOOK page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sine-Metu-Designs/204707879554196.

We're at 35 now, so at least 20 people need to participate for winners to be selected...so tell a friend.

Enter via the easy peasy Rafflecopter below! (click "read more" if you don't see it)

Porcelain Canister Rehab: Freebie Find into Crafty Orgnaizers

I recently acquired a set of four porcelain canisters as part of a Freecycle run to score a kiddie papasan chair for Avi and a cool bulletin board with a crown-molding-style shelf for my office space.  The canisters were just part of the take: usually you have to pick up the whole lot o' giveaway stuff and sort out what you don't want later..that's just part of the exchange for getting the cool stuff!

But we already have a set of kitchen canisters (for flour, sugar, coffee, tea, and cookies).  These were actually part of a very large set of  pre-1970's USA-made Pfalzgraff stoneware in near perfect condition scored at a yard sale for $50, which we later looked up and valued on ReplaceIt.com for more than $800!! <-- just another reason to check out thrifty sources for stuff before running out and buying new!!  But I digress.

Unlike the Pfalzgraff set, however, these canisters looked really dated--in a large floral motif that looked like an old lady outfit.  So since they were free, I decided to see how easy (or hard) it would be to give them a facelift and bring them back into this decade.

Help me! I'm ugly!

Since they are porcelain and  stamped on the bottom, I did look them up online just to make sure they weren't secretly worth something.  They weren't.

Knowing they weren't valuable, and that they were FREE gave me the freedom to experiment, because at worst, if I totally screwed up, we weren't out anything.  That's a good position in which to find yourself!

So using just materials I had on hand, I set about to make these otherwise destined-for-Goodwill canisters into something useful for me.  It wasn't too hard though it did draw out over the course of a day because of the drying time in between coats, but the premise is simple.  Watch their transformation, and get ideas for that next thrifty find of yours!

Step One:  PRIME.  Since the porcelain glaze is shiny, the canisters needed primed with something in order to be re-painted.  I'm sure there are better substances one could have used to accomplish this, but since I only intended to use supplies I already had, I turned to a giant tub of economy Gesso (free from another Freecycle run!) and figured since you prime canvas with this gluey basic white paint, it couldn't hurt.  So I slapped a couple coats of Gesso on the canisters, letting them dry in between coats.

Step Two:  PAINT.  I consulted my drawer o' random bottles of acrylic craft paint, and chose, as best I could, four colors that looked good together.  I ended up going with bright jewel tones.  Once primer is dry, paint one coat, let dry, paint another coat, and so on.  It ended up taking THREE coats to fully cover up the flower print for the yellow and red, and TWO coats for the darker crocus and turquoise.

I used DecoArt's one-step crackle on top of the final layer of paint.  I must say I was pretty disappointed by the underwhelming crackle effect.  That might have just been the product of it being a one-step so there wasn't the second-coat in contrasting color to really pop the effect.  They do look mildly distressed up close, but no so you would notice from afar.  It did act as a sealant glaze though, so they went from matte to glossy, which I liked.

Step Three: DETAIL.  I wanted the canisters to have something special on them since the crackle turned out insufficient as a decorative effect.  I decided to use chalkboard paint so I could make re-usable "labels" on the front, to write the contents of the containers, which could be changed and re-labeled with ease.  I used masking tape to frame out a rectangle, and then painted it in with the chalkboard paint.  Do be sure the paint is 100% dry or you will peel it off when you remove the tape.  As it was, I did end up chipping some of the crackled pieces off whilst removing the tape, which I just touched up with a small brush.




It is recommended to use at least two coats of the chalkboard paint, allowing to dry in between coats.  Then once dry, being VERY careful to remove the tape, I pulled it off, touched up any little chips, and let dry again.

Then I used regular black paint to make some additional details, to make the design pop a bit, and help reduce any still-evident shadows of the darkest            
                                                                                    flowers underneath.

The finished set, ready to conceal all my little craft orphans!

New Studio Platform- Bonanza! Come Visit Us!

Sine Metu Designs has been on ETSY, the handmade marketplace, for about a year now.  We're branching out and just signed up with another marketplace platform, Bonanza (formerly 1000 Markets).

Shop Front for our new booth at Bonanza HOME

 Bonanza has some diverse features that may appeal to our customers:

Payment Choices-
You can check out using PayPal, Google Checkout (Google Wallet), or using your existing Amazon account!  That's three different ways to securely check out and most people probably already have accounts with at least one of those services.  The same buyer guarantees each service offers still apply to checkouts from the Bonanza studio booth.

Diversity of Merchandise-
Bonanza is kind of like an Amazon and Etsy hybrid--there are numerous artisans offering handcrafted original work, but Bonaza retailers also run the gamut of commercial retail outlets selling everything from name brand clothes, books, electronics, music and more.

Flexibility of Pricing (Name Your Own Price Opportunities)-
Some sellers may indicate that they're willing to negotiate prices for specific items in their shop, including Sine Metu Designs.  Items that we may be willing to let go at a lower price than our regular studio pricing just to see it move on will show a "make an offer" feature which allows customers to negotiate a new price.

Better Coupons, Special Offers, Automatic Discounts and Freebies-
The Bonanza Platform offers sellers more control of how they can set up coupon codes, which is pretty limited with ETSY.  We can also set up automatic discounts that everyone can get just by meeting a certain qualification--for example, right now we have an automatic coupon that will discount 10% off an entire order of $50 or more (that's $5 free at the minimum!)

We also have shipping discounts--many items have US Priority shipping included in the main price with no special handling charges.  For those items that have shipping costs, ordering additional items that have shipping costs will only cost $1.50 more per item instead of whatever the shipping fee would be for that item separately--giving you the fairest shipping fee possible!

Plus Bonanza has an entire section devoted to FREEBIES--and will let you browse all the shops which offer items for free--either alone or available with any purchase.

Local Pick Up--
Bonanza also lets local buyers schedule a local pickup--avoid shipping charges and waiting altogether!  If you're nearby we can hook you up!

We are just getting set up and don't yet have our full ETSY line up uploaded, but we hope you stop by our new booth and take a look!

We realize some prices may be different on each platform.  The reason for this is that ETSY and Bonanza charge us as merchants differently for different listings, so we can pass along the discounts as we get them for some items.

See our new Bonanza booth HERE!
And of course, our ETSY studio Here.