About

I am a 52-year-old working mom, originally from the Philippines, and now working in New York City.  While work and motherhood tends to take up 90% of my time, I try to be creative about the 10% left for my crafting ventures.  I always say you can make time if you want to find the time, and find time, I do.

I am a passionate crafter who learned how to knit using the instructions in our home encyclopedia when I was in grade school.  I used chopsticks and plain yarn and managed to create a water bottle holder.

My current passion is jewelry making, art journaling and sewing. 

For jewelry making, I love working with freshwater pearls and gemstones.  I usually create pieces for myself and wear them to test the quality and integrity of the piece, and the general reaction of the people who see them on me.  My own brand of market testing, I guess.

I have resumed working on an art journal every day which I write about and feature in my personal blog, Pinay New Yorker.

Around two years ago, I learned how to sew.  (Yes, I attended a 6 week class and actually ended up with something I redid many times over, but I made it!)  I have since sewn one skirt that was wearable to a holiday party.  I am in the process of embarking on a few other sewing projects that I hope to feature here.

My store, Gotham Chick is on Etsy.  This has been a continuing journey for me and I hope to do bigger and better things with the shop this year.  Part of that begins with reinventing this blog which is supposed to be a companion blog to the shop.

I sell earrings, bracelets, necklaces, brooches.  Soldering is a far-off project that I dream of learning about and eventually doing.  For now, I like working with my pliers.  I have progressed rather well in my polymer clay journey, and I intend to devote a complete section of this blog to what I have done and will be doing with the very versatile polyclay.

I love, love, love paper.  Paper crafting has always been a favorite, be it creative doodling or zentangling or making handmade cards.  There are just so many possibilities.  For a time I had even considered going into handmade paper, but in the end, I realized that that would be something difficult to undertake in the climes and temperatures of the East Coast where I live.  It is also rather space intensive, something of which I have very little of as it is.

If you wish to contact me, please send me an email at gothamchicketsy @ gmail.com or leave me a comment here with an e-mail where I can respond to you.

Thank you for visiting, and welcome to my craft journey.