nerd JERK rocks the Cherry Blossom Festival!

=NEW= Pink Boo Amigurumi Plush by nerd JERK - $54 USD

It's exciting announcement time! nerd JERK will be at the Artist's Village hosted by New People and Bazaar Bizarre at the Cherry Blossom Festival in April! It's going to be completely awesome! I'm going to have lots of new items at my booth, including a new Pink Boo Amigurumi Plush, inspired by Mario Party.

And if that wasn't enough to get you all excited for geeky goodness, I'll be selling everything for special craft show prices. You can save up to 15% off the listed price in my Etsy shop, so you don't want to miss it. And for you, loyal readers, I have an extra special deal:

Come to my booth and say the word of the day, "WarioWare" for an ADDED savings of 10% on your purchase of $40 or more! WarioWare was my favourite game ever when it first came out on the Gameboy Advance!!! It's made for people with short attention spans (which means it's fast enough for me to play between switching tasks throughout the day) & is made up ridiculously quirky content. See screen shot below if you don't believe me.

Nope, that's not a tear. Major case of the sniffles must be cured in less than 3 seconds.
Screen shot from Wario Ware, Inc by Nintendo

You may say, "But Steph, I'm not going to be able to make it to the Cherry Blossom Festival!"

I don't want you to feel poopy about it, so...

And if you're a nerd JERK fan who can't get to the Cherry Blossom Festival (but seriously, you should try to go because it's going to be awesome!), never fear! I don't want to leave you guys out, so I'm running an online special during the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Enter Coupon Code "WARIOWARE20" at my Etsy shop & you'll get 20% off your online purchase over $40, too!

The Cherry Blossom Festival runs for two weekends, April 14th & 15th and April 21st & 22nd, in Japantown, at Post & Buchanan. I'll have a booth in the NEW PEOPLE building for both weekends, so seriously you guys come down and check me out. You can even RSVP here!

Balls, guys - I'm so excited to see your faces! Let's rock out next weekend in Japantown.

CRAFTCATION! - I'm Little Miss Etsy!

Kick Off BBQ Photo Booth at Craftcation
From Left to Right: Me, Dorothy Mack, Ashley Jennings,
Tiffany Moore, Danielle Maveal & Marlo Miyashiro

You guys... I had such a blast at Craftcation this last weekend. So many dreams came true that I've gotta list em to make any sense of it all!

• I was flown out by Etsy, Inc to represent them as an Etsy Ambassador!

• I taught a really rad class on Etsy 101 - Starting Your Etsy Shop. Here's an action shot!

Image Credit: Rosalie Gale of Unanimous Craft  

• The folks who took the class kept telling me how much I ROCKED the whole weekend. I'm still getting "Thank You" emails from these amazing humans! :D

• I went to every event they had (including the 80s Dance Party) & followed up with fellow Etsy Sellers on their small businesses. More photo booth action in between consultations...

Tiffany Moore is every 80s high school boy's fantasy! So glad I committed to go BALLS-OUT-80s with her.

I'm rockin it with my side ponytail, sparkly headband (thanks to my Panamanian model cousin), rad earrings from Boo + Boo Factory AND my awesome red skirt MADE FROM SCRATCH by my epic fiance, Roger!

• In all that follow up, I realised that it made sense to finally launch myself into Creative Biz Consulting. So if you need help, you can now hire me to help you succeed! I'm super awesome at it, otherwise I wouldn't be doing it! Email me for deets!

• And I still had some time for fun in the sun in Ventura, CA at the hotel where "Little Miss Sunshine" was filmed. Since I'm a huge film geek, not only did I constantly incorrectly quote the movie, but I had to take pictures!

Delilah's fabulously restored VW Van that I got to ride in! Lovingly known as The Jam Van!

So, that was MOST of it, but totally not all of it. I guess what I took away from my whole Craftcation experience was that I thoroughly enjoy helping people succeed. I have been helping people do this for YEARS, but it's only recently that I've realised that I've been doing what I loved all along.

Remember that list of Things I Want To Do More Of in 2012? Well, this weekend hit on almost all of them!

1. Read Books
2. Travel
4. Write More (I wrote a ton) / Blog More
6. Walking
7. Take more photos
8. Get Organised
9. TEACH! And Start Consulting!

I love it when dreams come true!! 

Holy sh*t! Wil Wheaton!

Despite the very real fact that I was entertaining company in my living room, I  flipped the f*ck out when I saw my bud, Bonnie Burton (author of the Star Wars Craft Book & worth a whole rad blog post for herself!), posted the following last night:

..what?

Wil Wheaton & his rad wife, Anne, are currently in possession of one of my Red Mario Mushrooms?

And they're making it sing like total nerds in a video? You mean someone else plays with my amigurumi as I'd previously instructed in video-form?

For real?!?!?!

Wil Wheaton sings "Happy Birthday" using random toys in his house

including a nerd JERK Red Mario Mushroom

HOLY SH*T!

Okay, y'all need some context:

For those of you who haven't guessed, I'm a giant dork.

My dad thought having two daughters meant that they'd love playing racing video games on the Sega Genesis for hours on end, being able to quote random cult classic movies in everyday conversation and have Star Wars & Star Trek TNG marathons every Friday night of their childhood.

Daddy raised some top class ladies.

DIY Holiday Family Portrait - circa 1990

Pee Wee Herman-idolizing me in the red jumpsuit with dad to the right.

Needless to say, this tubby photo-bombin' 8 year-old gal was smitten with Wesley Crusher.

And years later, when Felicia Day (Penny from "Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog") created her own web series about being a gamer geek called "The Guild", I was stoked! And Wil Wheaton was back on my radar.

When I got on Twitter, one of the first people I followed was @wilw.

When I decided to read more books this year, the only eBook I bought (other than Bossypants) was Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton.

I also happen to love "Big Bang Theory." ANYways...

Through following him on Twitter and reading his works (which have a foreword by Neil Gaiman *le sigh of swoon*), I've learned about Wil's life struggles, his battles and have come to appreciate his successes. This new-found respect has made his geekdom even awesomer...

In short, the man himself knows what time it is!

Image Credit from wilwheaton.typepad.net

So, when my home-gal, Bonnie, told me that Wil Wheaton had just made a video with my red Mario Mushroom in it, this was my response:

As you can see, my first response was to go to revert to my 8 year old self & get angry at my cracked iPad for not keeping up with the internets! But then I tried to recover...

I did the best I could.

And since I know that Wil Wheaton can appreciate the fact that sometimes you've just gotta let your true self show, I'm collating my collective embarrassment on my very own blog to show that I'm not a d*ck about it.

---

If you haven't already, you should really check out Wil's blog & follow him on Twitter.

Check out his books, too. They're effing awesome and worth every bloody penny.

---

 This post was in no part sponsored by Wil Wheaton. I'm just a nerd & dig what he has to say. Hopefully, you have something to say about that?

Gettin' a little Wacky - A new look for nerd JERK

You can scratch even the TINIEST of turntables!
DIY Nerdy Cross Stitch Kit - Record Player - $18 USD @ nerd JERK

If you've been tuning in, you know that I've been working very hard on mixin' it up & getting things done in 2012.

..except for maybe regular blog posts.

And fortunately for you, this ain't no regular blog post!

A new look for nerd JERK from Steph Cortes @ nerdJERK on Vimeo.

G'ahead! Tell you friends what a weird geek lady I am. :D Cos it's about to get awesome up in this blog, yo!

Much <3
- Steph

Happy 2012, Nerds!!

=NEW= Happy Hot Pink Crayon Plush
First in the new 2012 Collection I'm working on

I thought I would start this New Year off right by thanking all of my friends, fans and family for such an eventful year! So many good times were had and I can't wait to see what 2012 has to offer nerd JERK!

I've been hinting about some new items that I finally got to put together over the weekend on Facebook and Twitter, but I didn't have a chance to show you any of them yet. So I took a quick snapshot on Instagram [find me as @nerdJERK] to give ya a sneak peek!

What do ya think? I know it's not video game related, like most of my amigurumi is, but I've got a deep passion for school supplies and especially CRAYONS!! You can't see it from here, but I even embroidered the name of the crayon on its butt! Hehe

I'm hoping this new line will light up some smiles! I know that as soon as I finished this cutie, I grabbed her and started "writing" all over the walls, like when I was a kid! That's how I know that my inner geek was genuinely stoked.

Happy Christmas!!!

My Silly Family - taken by Sarah Cortes - Top Left (clockwise)
Sarah (sister), Me, Roger (boyfriend) with kitty & Lita (grandma)

What a wonderful holiday season, dudes! It's been ridiculously busy and I was struggling just to keep up. But I was so stoked to have this many awesome folks ordering nerdity for gifts this holiday!

Some of my new items ended up being hits at shows. I'd meant to actually have these gift sets ready to sell online in October, but Granny's heart troubles took priority over gift planning. So, I've extended the offer until the New Year! :D

Giant pile of Holiday Gift Sets - $36 USD each

These cute gift sets have my Mini Mario Items in Holiday Harmony - meaning at a savings! :D Some of the Sets include:

• Mini Bob-Omb & Mini Hot Pink Bob-Omb - $36 USD
• Mini 1-UP & Mini Mario Mushrooms - $36 USD
• Mini Blue & NEW Mini Hot Pink Mushrooms - $36 USD
• Mini Merry Yoshi Eggs (Red & Green) - $36 USD

But I gotta say, the best seller this Holiday Season was one of my NEW DIY Nerdy Cross-Stitch Kits! Can you guess which one?

That's right!

Don't Be Poopy - Beginner Cross-Stitch Kit! - $18 USD

Making tons of these kits reminded me to be less of a poo when I was stuck crocheting all night. And at my holiday craft shows that I did after sleepless nights. And hanging out at my retail gig for..ev...errrr!

Anyway, just wanted to wish you all a Happy Holiday season and I hope that you're all doing awesome things with rad people!

Take care & remember to lay off being poopy. ;D