CHRISTMAS SHIPPING DEADLINES!!

Official reminder to order ASAP if you need it by Christmas!! Our official last date to ship with a guaranteed arrival by Christmas is next Monday. Many of our products (especially textile ones) require at least a couple of days of creation time before shipping (so for example if you don't order that pillow you want by Sunday, it will either be late or need overnight shipping).

You can email us to request and pay for Express Overnight shipping, but it must be ordered by next Wednesday.

Also! All of our shipping prices for jewelry on Etsy will go up to reflect Priority Shipping tomorrow!! They will return to our lower rates after Christmas.

Newly Renovated Website!!

We just finished revamping the site for Cyber Monday!! We are super excited about how pretty it is now. The old one was basically what we managed to scramble together, so we've been dying to update for quite a while. And not only did we prettify it, but we added some new products!!

- Necklaces
These have been on Etsy for a bit, but had yet to make it to the website. Now you can buy them from whichever site you'd prefer :D

- Custom Pillow Ordering!
Love our pillows but want a different color scheme than the ones we offer on Etsy? You can now request one however you like it! Also keep in mind that you can always email us with custom ideas; if we can make it, we will make it.

- The Koopa Shell!!!!!!
Long anticipated, it has been officially released online!! Available in red or green. Check it out in action on Youtube!


Check out these new products, and our beautifully remade site, at www.omonom.com!

Omonom To-Do Lists

Unfortunately, our team suffers from acute bursts of motivation. Either we're extremely motivated and excited and making little tiny fairy wings like it'll cure cancer, or we procrastinate. Obviously, these bursts are typically right before conventions. And they usually don't start until it's too late to meet our goals for any one convention.

There are also many tasks which are unnecessary for actual conventions, but highly necessary in the long run. These include paperwork, website updates, photographing new products, etc. And since our motivation is restricted to convention season, these tasks end up on our back burners until one of us finally feels guilty enough/motivated enough to make them happen. Fortunately, this system has actually managed to work moderately well for us without inflicting major damage so far.

New York Anime Festival/Comic Con

Was awesome!!! Saturday and Sunday were super crazy and there were moments at which we desperately needed all four of our team members behind the table to field questions and help sell. And we only had a single table! I unfortunately did not have any time to take pictures but I think Jen or Gordon may have managed to. They'll be here or on Facebook soon :D

Some highlights:
Our first Comic Con!! We have previously only been to anime or gaming conventions, so it was interesting to see how a comic con works! There were many more famous people, official movie trailer releases, big name corporate sponsors, and attendees!! The combination with an anime festival also added an interesting dimension. The con planners lumped exhibitors for both conventions into one HUGE room, but kept the two artist alleys separate.
Children in costume. There are always many awesome parents that clothe their children in awesomely adorable costumes at every con, but this won the prize for having the highest volume of cute! We saw several family group cosplays and tiny babies in costume! The convention also allowed children under 12 to attend Sunday for free.
Again, repeat customers. We are still getting used to this phenomenon!! Now that we have been around for a year, people keep telling us they've seen us before or come to the table wearing our products. It is amazing! We love seeing our products in action.

The only problems we had with the convention were slight. The Anime Artist Alley was in a kind of hard to find location, but people seemed to figure out where it was by the end of the weekend. And the Javits Center is on the very edge of Manhattan, so there are not many places close to the convention center to get food, but there is a food court (slightly overpriced) within the center to provide for this. Overall we loved the convention, loved the combination with NY Comic Con, and hope they decide to combine again next year!!

Happy Birthday to Everybody! (PRESENTS!!)

So, as you may know, we just went to our first repeat convention (Otakon), which in some ways makes Otakon weekend our birthday. What you may not know (or maybe you do) is that at our first convention, we were under a different name (Arigateau) with some friends. It wasn't until later that the three of us split off and coined the name Omonomopoeia. Our first convention under that name wasn't until September 19th. So with all this birth record confusion (are we even from America!?), we decided to just take an entire MONTH to celebrate our birthday!

And you know what comes with birthdays? PRESENTS! And who gets presents? YOU!! (Sweet.)

So for the entire month of September, anyone that orders something from us (whether it be from our website or from our Etsy) will get something extra thrown in. What kind of "something extra," you ask? It could be Omonom products, coupons/gift certificates, accessories, even never before seen items! Or in a pinch we may have to resort to sending candy (we have a lot of candy). Who knows! It'll be random, like a grab-bag. What I can tell you is that the greater the value of the order, the greater the value of the freebies!

So act fast! This celebration is on starting NOW, and ends September 30, 2010 at 11:59pm (EST).

Have a Happy Birthday!!!

Omonom is Moving!!

Well, I am. Being the youngest member of our little team, I am headed back to school for the fall semester! I already hated packing before we began this endeavor, and now it's sooo much worse. Packing up all my fabric, pillow forms, polyfil, beads, shipping supplies, sewing machines, and various sewing accoutrement takes forever! So please allow me a small grace period, and wait patiently if you order one of my personal products (jewelry, pillows, or towels) in the next few days. I will be back to full shipping potential next week.

Relaxation

It's awesome. Right now we're in the phase where we restock supplies and start to maybe think about getting ready for the next convention. Which basically means procrastinating.

In other news, I saw the Scott Pilgrim movie and greatly enjoyed it! It was a great adaptation of the comics, which my boyfriend made me read hours before the movie. I didn't quite get all the way through the comic, so I can vouch for it being enjoyable whether you've read the comic or haven't. Gamer references and hilarity abound.

Also: I've been listening to copious amounts of La Roux, who is pretty awesome. If you haven't heard her song Bulletproof on the radio yet you should definitely check it out!

The Omonom Photography Studio

We've been working hard to get photos of new products online. Our jewelry photo studio? The back of a grand piano in our parents' living room. Professional? Definitely.



Pretttttty sweet.

They say it's your birthday

Happy 1st Birthday Omonom!! We are back from Otakon, and man are we exhausted!! Being our first repeat convention as a team, we were excited to compare it to last year's awesome level. Naturally, it again exceeded our expectations tenfold. We met so many new faces, premiered tons of hit products, and generally had a blast. We already have pictures on our Facebook page if you want to check them out.

Some highlights of the convention:
Selling out of so many items. We did this last year, and we did it again. We still cannot believe how many people love our stuff. It is an awesome feeling, and we love every single smile we help to create.
Awesome customer stories. One mother just had to buy a luma because "her five year old wants to be one this Halloween." One man bought a luma to "woo" a girl. Another person bought a fairy because they were "creating a Legend of Zelda display shelf in their house and the only thing they still needed was a fairy in a bottle."
Fire evacuation? This Otakon featured the first convention fire evacuation we have ever experienced, and we were very impressed with the staff's preparedness and organization. Considering just how large a convention Otakon is, the whole operation took very little time. Yes, standing around outside in the heat for an hour, desperate to return to our products, was not the most fun thing in the world. But they proved their definite ability to keep us con-goers as safe as possible.


Overall, it was a great success. In the next few weeks, we will be posting our Otakon premiere products to our website and our Etsy, so be sure to look for them!

OTAKON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We are OFF! Up up and AWAAAAAY!!!! Come visit us in Siberia, aka our fringe of the Artist Alley: BB11 and BB12. Look for a SIX FOOT SIGN with our name on it. And LUMAS. And FAIRIES.

I APOLOGIZE FOR THE EXCITEMENT!!!!

Tornado?!?

So, uh, there was a tornado in Maryland? Two days ago? Yeah tornadoes don't happen here in Maryland. But neither do earthquakes. And one of those happened here 2 weeks ago. So this tornado took out our power on Sunday and we have been scrambling to set up operations in homes less affected by the storm. Pepco got our power back on today, but Comcast still hasn't fixed the internet. This post is being typed from my boyfriend's house. Gordon (my boyfriend, our own personal lint roller specialist, and part of our usual convention staff) luckily lives in one of the tiny areas that was unaffected (electricity-wise) by the storm.

Let us reflect, also, on Katsucon. A week prior Maryland received the merry gift of four feet of snow from mother nature. We also lost power then, just when we needed it most for luma and pillow sewing. Are we cursed? Doomed to forever experience natural disaster just before conventions? Yup. These calamities are definitely occurring merely to affect our business. Doesn't have anything to do with climate change or just plain luck.

Pictures!!

We decided to take a break from the factory line and post some pictures of us in progress! Enjoy.



ONE MILLION FAIRIES.



















Luma army attacks!!














Pillow cases...














....plus fluff....

















...equals PILLOWS!!!!













Guess what guess what! Otakon is LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY!!! :D

Chugging along

One of the great things about our kind of work is that we can listen to or watch whatever we want while we work. We go through a lot of t.v. shows while we sew/glue/pin/paint/sculpt, and a lot of music. My personal favorite is listening to the Protomen while I sew. Nothing beats epic rock opera while being domestic.

Just in case we haven't already linked to them:
http://www.protomen.com/

Systems Powering On

Hello! How is everyone? Good, glad to hear it. Jen and I just finished a big step in our current move/renovation situation: Internet at the new place!

It is shiny and awesome, and the installer guy gave me an entire box of Coax cable. :D

Anyways. With that step out of the way, all systems are go for creating a copious cacophony of clever colorful companions (a buttload of bottled fairies). Lumas, I hear, will also enter a production phase unlike anything we have ever seen.

The jewelry/pillow machine (Danielle) was already in full gear last week or so.


Anybody ever listen to The OneUps? Videogame cover band with a jazz flavor. Very awesome. I would imagine the only way to make listening to them more awesome would be to at the same time wear our One Up earrings on the ears you are using for listening.

I am only imagining this because I do not wear earrings. For me, it doesn't get any better.

Otakon!!!!!

Ok, we've definitely posted way too many posts on our various networking sites about Otakon. But we are so excited!!! Since Otakon 2009 was our first convention ever as a team, we will forever have a special place in our hearts for it. And now that we have sampled a great number of east coast conventions, (anime, gaming, you name it) we can truly appreciate just how awesome Otakon is. We've found other conventions to love, of course, but some just pale in comparison.

So! This year at Otakon we will have many exciting new designs, two whole tables to spread out in (sharing half of one with our awesomely awesome friend Judy of Hats by Judy), and maybe even those team t-shirts that were previously mentioned. There will be twice as many designs of earrings, newly designed necklaces, more luma color varieties than you can imagine, and even some new cool artsy steampunk designs from our Chairman of Lights! And, of course, much much more.

Be sure to stop by our tables, BB11 and BB12, in the Artist's Alley!
Otakon Artist Alley Map 2010

Tshirts!!!!

We've been trying to concoct some team Omonom uniform tshirt designs!!! And are very excited about it!!! So far nothing we love. Mostly because all such designing merely involves me playing around in photoshop until something passable materializes. But we maintain hope! Or may go enlist the aid of some art student friends we have...

And speaking of friend connections, the whole reason we are considering tshirts is because we know someone who works with a company that makes tshirts and could hook us up!! So our budget might survive this project. Friends are great.

Business Cards!

So, we ordered some business cards...

We bought five thousand of them. Last year, before Otakon, we bought two thousand of them and that nearly lasted us the entire year. So we should be set for a while.

It was immediately suggested that I create some sort of gun that shot business cards at people, like one of those t-shirt cannons, but for paper. As fun as that would be, I probably wouldn't get anything else done and we would get kicked out of Otakon.

So when you see us at a convention, take a card. Take lots of cards, give them to your friends, your family, your coworkers, your furniture, your pets, your coworkers' pets, and so forth.
Spread the word.

Gothing it up

Tonight we will be in the vendors corner of club Midnight in DC. We have never been a vendor in a club before, but we are pretty excited to give it a try. Danielle came up with some pretty sweet new jewelry designs that we are debuting tonight, and they are definitely appropriate for the venue. They will show up on the internets sometime next week, as we get a chance to photo and post them.

This week I discovered the PATV videos, where you get to see the behind the scenes of the Penny Arcade machine. They were fascinating and inspiring, I would highly suggest checking them out. Watching them fills me with pride in the gaming culture. These two guys started playing games and drawing comics in their apartment, and now they run a business, a charity, and run a huge biannual convention. They now represent the American gaming culture in a large way, and I personally feel that they do a pretty good job of it.

Omonom in the DC goth scene

Still no info about the new products, but we did find out that there is a goth club in DC that has vendors come in and sell stuff on Saturday nights. We'll be at Club Midnight on Saturday May 29th, selling our adorable wares. Everybody recognizes old school nintendo, even goth kids.

The Protomen are an awesome band

So I went to see the Protomen this week. They are an incredible band to see live. Anyone who is a fan of Megaman and epicness should check them out, and see them live if possible.

Here at the Omonom headquarters, things are going well. I will have a new product to unveil soon, we've had some friends playtest it and it has gotten very positive reactions. Since the prototype is pretty beat up now, I'll make a new one, hopefully the final version, and post some pictures up here.

A couple weeks ago we went to a anime and gaming convention called T-MODE. It was in Alexandria (fairly local for us) and it was pretty fun. It's not a big con, focusing on a more intimate kind of experience. It was a fun place to meet people and hang out, so anyone looking for a more casual gaming and anime con experience would have a lot of fun there.

Hello!
I am Dave, and I will hopefully be posting a lot in this here blog thing here. I'm going to try to post at least once a week, we'll see if that happens.
Here at Omonomopoeia, we all come up with neat ideas, but usually I'm the one that gets super excited about them. I'll be talking about some of our cool new ideas, revisiting old ideas, and just basically communicating in general.

I'm not usually very good at communication.

The next convention we're doing is Otakon in July, so we have some time to make some changes around here. We're coming up with some awesome new products that I will post about as soon as possible. So come back soon (in about a week) for more Omonom news!

Dave
Chairman of Lights