Getting to knooow yooouu....

Amanda, here!

I suppose you have plenty of information about me from the posts I imported from my old blog, so I'll make this brief and give other people a chance to talk.

I just graduated from Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. My bachelor's degree is in Psychology with a minor in Biology. My personal focus was on Neuroscience, however the Psychology department at WMU is very heavily focused in Behaviorism, so I received rigorous training in that, as well.

My crafting history is brief. In high school, my friend Wendy wanted a Harry Potter scarf for Christmas, so I bought some yarn and asked my grandma to show me how to knit. I picked it up very quickly and started knitting big bunches of Harry Potter scarves and selling them to my friends. I will have a couple in our Etsy store when it opens in July, so keep an eye out for that!

While I love knitting, and I'm very fast at it, I don't know how to do much more than the basics - and I definitely can't make clothing yet. Mainly just scarves and blankets. But I'm learning more every day, so we'll see what I come up with!

A few years ago I took an art course where we learned some valuable techniques, among them were linoleum block print carving, book binding, and charcoal. This makes up the majority of the things you'll see from me through Nimble Toad - I plan on making mainly books and customized prints. So, if you're looking for paper goods, I'm the one to talk to.

I love the look and feel of block prints. They've got texture. They pop off the page without dominating the document they're printed on. They interact with the paper, too - you can't just print on computer paper. The paper a block print is printed on has to have character of its own. And I love the crackled look you get when you go light on the ink - it looks as though the paper has history, has a story to tell. It's a time-consuming craft, but I love it.


There are a million new crafts I'd like to learn - watching Val do her embroidery is really inspiring, it's a simple way to personalize something, or really punch up a pattern. I would also like to learn to sew. I want to start small, though - mainly accessories like purses and wallets. The difference for me is that I feel comfortable with linoleum and yarn - I can make anything someone commissions, there isn't really a limit. But with sewing, unless I find some fabric that really inspires me, or a technique that looks interesting... I feel like, at the moment, it's just not going to happen. But who knows? Maybe you'll be seeing a lot more from me in the future!

Introduction #2: Val's Turn!

Hello, it's my turn!

I'm Valerie (often Val because people are laaazy). I'm currently living in Lansing, but who knows if that will be true in a month. I'm getting married in 3 weeks (ahh!) and everything is up in the air.

Crafting is currently my escape. I can turn on music, start stitching, and just forget about all of the things I should be doing. I've always had a crafter on the inside, but she's not always expressed herself well, often with half-finished projects that wouldn't make sense to anyone else. I could succeed in art classes, but without guidance I was pretty hopeless. It wasn't really until I discovered cross-stitch a year ago that I really started to harness my craftiness. Since graduation from college, I've played with cross-stitch, knitting, embroidery, clay, jewelry, hand-sewing, weaving, stamping, a tiny bit of felting, and painting miniatures.

My main skill is currently embroidery. I've found that it is guided enough that my inner crafter doesn't go nuts, but I can still express myself creatively. The different stitches come pretty naturally to me, and I enjoy losing myself in projects. I'm currently working on five (yes 5!) onsies for my nephew, on top of several other projects. I'm definitely working against the clock!

In the future I'd love to get back in to clay. I really enjoyed my ceramics classes in the past, and it's so much fun to shape a lump into something beautiful with your hands. Unfortunately, clay can be pretty costly, so we'll have to see. I also try anything that I come across that seems doable, so who knows what you'll see from me!

As soon as I get my room clean and find my camera, I'll be able to get pictures of all of the things I've been working on lately. I'm itching to share!

- Val

Introduction of sorts

Hi, I'm Kittie. Stealing an entry from Amanda. Mwahaha.

I live in a quaint little college town known lately for its apartment fires. I'm a super senior, screwed over by the study abroad office after living and studying in Germany for 13 months. Major: Deutsch. Minor: Nihongo. Dream career in life: translating literature and comics, or adding subtitles to foreign films. Anything that involves me being surrounded by books.

Crafting runs in my family. Well, my dad's side of the family. I crochet, sew, play with clay, macrame it up, and [not lately] draw. I feel strongest crocheting and doing basic macrame, although polymer clay will most likely join the ranks. Sewing is more of a hobby right now.


Most of the stuff that I make can be tied to video games, anime/manga, or other geekdoms. I have a penchant for crocheting octopi and other fishy critters.

My fiance and I have started dabbling in soap making. We've started with simple melt and pour soaps for now, but plan to move onto cold process soaps (made with lye) eventually. Eventually being when we finally get married and live together and he lets me strew my crafty projects all over the place. I've started working on t-shirt surgeries and am trying to perfect that technique.

Crafting I'd one day like to try: resin, glass, making really awesome soaps, and taking over the world

Slow Start

Amanda here. I am working on importing all the entries from my old craft blog, so a bunch of new content should be popping up on this site very shortly (edit: It worked! See the entries below! All kinds of new stuff to read!) Then, I hope to get everyone to do some intro posts - just a quick post about ourselves, what we do, which crafts we hope to pursue in this humble little company of ours, and of course... our nerdy interests.

So that's what's coming up, check back soon!

Val's Thank-you cards (Amanda's old blog)

I finally finished the "H" block print! So, I drove up to Lansing and hung out with Val for a day. We went to Staples and she bought some cardstock. I cut the sheets in half, then used my (Martha Stewart) bone folder and folded them into little cards. Then it came time to start printing them!

I was in Farmington staying at my mom's place this weekend because it was my stepsister's baby shower on Saturday. I gave her the baby blanket I knit (which I forgot to get a final photo of, sorry!) and she liked it. So, I knew I was going to have some time on Friday night while I was staying with my mom, so I brought the block print and my printing gear, and set up shop in her living room (as usual).





We used her clothes-drying rack to hang them overnight to dry.

Some of them were a bit off center, or too crackly or too heavy. I'm printing way more than they need so I can toss the rejects.


I'm back in Kzoo and I decided to do another batch today.


The printing part is the easy part of the process, carving the prints takes much, much longer. To print them you just have to roll the ink out on a smooth surface(That paper is laminated, it's all I have at the moment. I'm just using it up until I can get something better.), then once you have a nice, even coat on the roller, you roll it onto the block itself:



Then, center the paper carefully and press down:



It takes a little bit of time and rubbing around, feeling to make sure you've hit every portion of the pattern. But the results are great! Cue the super artsy blog photo!


Yay for thank-you cards!



I'm pretty excited about this project. While Val isn't a customer, this is my first large project - and my first real project for someone else. It turns out it's really easy to print a large number of prints, and it means less ink goes to waste, since you have to use enough to roll it out - no matter whether you're printing 50 or just one.

Test Post

This is Amanda, I'm setting up the blog for Nimble Toad. I'm just putting up a quick test post while I find my way around and set everything up. We'll start with real posts very soon, so check back!

Noodles on the Brain (Amanda's old blog)

I recently decided that I need to commit myself to a personal quest to make ramen noodles. Like, real ramen. In real soup. With vegetables and meat and delicious broth from scratch.

Oh, and did I mention that I want to make the noodles from scratch? Yeah, it's a crazy project. It should take me a long time to get it right, but getting there is half the fun, right?

So, for my first attempt, I got the noodle recipe off the internet. I will likely look for varying recipes and tweak it as I go. It calls for flour, salt, eggs and water. It's really, really basic - however, getting the noodles right takes real skill.

Alright, so I mixed the dough, let it sit in a damp paper towel for half an hour, then I rolled it out.

That's Stacy and Eric's beautiful new cutting board. They got so many nice things at their bridal showers - I'm going to be so spoiled by the time I move out of this house.

Then, you have to fold the dough over a few times (with LOTS of flour in between so it doesn't stick) before you cut it.



Sometimes it's hard to choose which pictures to use - Brandon does such a wonderful job.



That knife is another totally nice kitchen utensil that I will miss when I move out. It is so sharp, it cuts through everything like butter. It's pretty much the only reason I was able to get the noodles as thin as I did, and they were still a bit too thick.


It was really hard to keep the water at a rolling boil without it boiling over, so I had to keep turning it down and back up, which was one of the major flaws of this project.


So, we had some beef broth in the freezer leftover from my last pot of cabbage soup (Hal made bread bowls - I'm sorry I didn't get any pictures). We heated up the broth and added some onions and lettuce.

Brandon had the brilliant idea of adding a touch of sesame oil to the soup.



Okay, so the broth was thin and the noodles.... they were doughy. Frankly, I'm labeling this a failed attempt. They were pretty bad. Here are the things I think went wrong:
-I didn't knead the dough NEARLY enough
-I didn't let it sit long enough
-I didn't slice the noodles thin enough
-I couldn't keep the water at a rolling boil

So now I know what to look out for for next time. Hey, it's a start, right? And since they started out terrible, they can only get better!


One other project before I leave you:


Knitting! It's been a while since I've picked up a pair of knitting needles, but this project has been going pretty quickly. It's a baby blanket for my stepsister - she's having a baby shower this weekend. I'll take a picture when it's done so you guys can see.


I've got all kinds of news about my crafting company, but I'm going to hold off for a while, until I have more to show you. Lets just say, get ready to change the URL for this blog on your bookmark menu!