Cat Nap Caps Blog

FanimeCon 2011

2011-06-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

So we were lucky enough to get an artist alley table at FanimeCon in San Jose, CA this year. Having only been to conventions in Southern California, this was to be our farthest con yet. We left two days before to allow a full day of driving north with enough time to rest. We spent around 7 hours driving and arrived at the Marriot,, which is one of the 2 hotels attached to the convention center, around 10:30pm. This made everything a lot easier for us since we needed to haul our artist alley wares back and forth everyday. When we were given our keys we were delightfully surprised to find that they were made specifically for the convention. This is something that we had never seen before.

Thursday we waited in the pre-registration line for around 3 hours. I would love if conventions could make picking up your badge an easier experience, but at least it was Thursday and there was nothing else going on. We had reserved a spot in Fanime's Swap Meet for that night so we could attempt to sell off some of our older DVDs, manga and other merchandise. The swap meet was set up along the perimeter of the Arcade and had a lot of people selling there. We were able to unload a few of our items (yay extra shelf space!) and even found some good deals from other sellers. Swap Meets are great things to have at conventions and I hope more cons decide to incorporate them.

Artist Alley check-in on Friday was very well organized and we began setting up shortly after. Having done artist alleys for several years now, we spotted a lot of familiar faces. At 2pm, the alley opened and attendees began pouring in. Even though we were right near one of two entrances, the entrance near us wasn't where the majority of people were coming in. Most attendees check out the Dealer's Hall first and go from there into the Artist Alley through the entrance right next to the dealer's exit. Though we were happy with our spot, we would have loved to be on the opposite side of the alley.

The first day came and went with little excitement. Being the first day, it's never all that busy so we spent most of our time at the table, working on things and chatting with people. We brought some new items to sell at Fanime such as amigurumi plushies, lots of resin jewelry and updated hats with cute faces. We also brought a couple screen printed T-shirts of our popular Mortified Onigiri design, sadly we did not think to photograph them beforehand...oops. We've been working on getting t-shirts made and this was our first attempt. We'll be trying for more shirts for Anime Expo this July :D. That night we checked out the Swap Meet again as well as the Arcade. The Arcade featured an excellent selection of games and even had purikura photo booths! Unfortunately for us, it was very busy and we didn't feel like waiting around to play anything.

Saturday was our first full day in the alley and the convention really picked up speed. A steady flow of friendly con-goers came by the table throughout the day. We noticed throughout the convention that everyone at Fanime were exceptionally nice to us. Even in the crowded elevators of the Marriot, we found everyone to be very polite. We were both able to check out the Dealer's Hall Saturday, although neither of us found anything we needed to buy. There was a nice selection of merchandise from a good variety of dealers. Around 1:30pm, Cindy went off to wait in line for the Yoshiki Panel so I stayed and watched the table alone until she returned around 6:30. You can read about her experience here:

~~~Yoshiki Q&A + autograph session summary~~~
If you've read our past blog entries, you may know that I like X Japan a little tiny bit >.> <.< >.>....*hides hide costume in the closet* When I found out Yoshiki, leader of X Japan, (pronounced YOSHki) was to be a GoH I just had to go to his panel and get an autograph. I rarely ever go to any panels during conventions because of my artist alley table, but whenever X Japan/Yoshiki is involved I make exceptions. The panel was scheduled to start at 4PM, at a little after 1PM Brian informed me that there was already a line forming. By 1:30 I was in line decked out in my hide guitar print dress which I made for the X Japan concert in L.A. this past summer, surprisingly the line wasn't very long at all. I was maybe somewhere around #30-50th in line. I chatted with a few people in line while I waited, it's always nice to meet other X Japan fans. 4:00 came, and we were all still standing in line...I wasn't really surprised because every single X Japan/Yoshiki event I have attended has never started on time. We were eventually informed that the panel was to be delayed.

While we waited during the delay, the staff changed their position on photos and video 4 times. First no photography, then yes photography, then no flash photography and no video, to finally anything you want. We were finally allowed into the panel room and I got to sit pretty close to the front. Press was sitting in the first 2 rows and I made it into the 4th row on Yoshiki's side of the room. Staff announced that Yoshiki's plane was delayed and he wasn't even there yet and that autographs would probably not happen =_=. To keep us entertained they played the X Japan Last Live DVD. The crowd was pretty energetic, during the song "X" a lot of people (including me) shouted X and crossed our arms in the X formation.

Yoshiki arrived between 5-5:30PM and the panel finally began. First we were shown a making of video of the Born to be Free music video that was shot at Club Nokia during the Yoshiki foundation party which Brian and I attended last June. Due to my bright costume, I was able to be spot myself several times. I was incredibly surprised O_O. We were also shown footage from the North American tour from last year. Yoshiki entered the room right after the video ended, and everyone went wild cheering and taking photos and video. The entire panel consisted of a couple more videos pertaining to Yoshiki's charity foundation and his fashion project. Staff asked Yoshiki some general questions and picked a handful of fans to ask questions as well.

Finally at the end came what we had all been waiting so long for, the autograph session. Staff announced that there would only be 40 spots given...and it would all be determined by a game of rock, paper, scissors =_=. 4 round were played, and I lost on the last round. A lot of the people who were given a spot were not the ones who had waited several hours in line. This was honestly one of the dumbest ways Fanime staff could have determined who would get a slot. It was incredibly easy to cheat, and from what I have heard/read, there were people who were not honest. Since there was no way to monitor the game, there was no way to tell who was being honest and who wasn't. I was incredibly disappointed and I'm sure all the others who were waiting in line even longer than I did were.

Overall the panel was rather bland. The video about the fashion project was almost 100% in Japanese with no subtitles and it was fairly long. The introduction video was also rather lengthy and I felt there was too much prior concert footage. Since the panel was advertised as a Q&A session I thought there would be more Q&A. The autograph fiasco kind of just topped it all off into blahville :(.

~~~Yoshiki Panel Summary End~~~

Sunday & Monday:
Our squid plushies and amigurumis found loving homes over the weekend and both of our Onigiri shirts sold! This was very encouraging for us being a first attempt at shirts. We wandered the Artist Alley and got to see a lot of wonderful artists we hadn't seen before. Across the aisle from us was BoxKat who was nice enough to give Cindy a lovely Pikachu keychain they had been selling. She was incredibly impressed with it as this is something we had never seen in an artist alley before. It was great inspiration to see artists trying new things. Just look at the way the image grows when the light shines on it!

Monday being the final day of the con, we had low expectations since most attendees are usually gone by the last day, however, we were happy to discover plenty of business to be had and somewhat surprisingly, we sold the most buttons on Monday. This was also our last chance to buy things. I purchased a beautiful print from Elda The and Cindy bought a shirt from Azuzephre (one of her top 3 favorite artists) who was nice enough to take a picture with her. Our Fanime Artist Alley experience was very good overall and we hope to make it in again next year. The convention is big without being overwhelming and staying in a hotel attached to the convention center makes the experience much easier and comfortable. The surrounding area is also very nice with lots of good places to eat within walking distance.

After taking a few days off, its now time to get ready for Anime Expo next month. We'll be bringing all our Fanime leftovers and lots of other new things to AX. We look forward to another year there and will be updating our online store throughout the summer. Thank you to everyone who came by during Fanime and we'll see you next month at Anime Expo!

(To see all our Fanime Photos, check out our Flickr gallery here)

Stars and Rainbows!

2011-05-11T15:22:00.000-07:00

We're finally reviving our blog to announce a few things. We were lucky enough to get an artist alley table at Fanime Con in San Jose, CA this May 27th - 30th. This will be our first convention outside of Southern California! It's both exciting and scary at the same time. We'll also be returning to Anime Expo this July 1st - 4th in Los Angeles, CA.

In anticipation of these events, we designed a new business card. Our old card worked well for us but lacked color and just didn't pop. To fix that, we completely redesigned it with lots of color and printed on a glossy cardstock. The cards just came in yesterday and we're happy with the results.

Since we have two conventions coming up, our online store and etsy shop will be offline temporarily near the convention dates. Starting today through roughly June 5th, the store will be offline and then again June 22nd through roughly July 10th. Once we've returned from Anime Expo and have had time to recover, we will begin adding new items to the stores again. We apologize for any inconvenience and look forward to seeing you at the conventions! :D

Anime Expo 2010

2010-07-13T15:46:00.000-07:00

We've returned from the biggest anime & manga convention of the year! Anime Expo happened just last week and we spent 4 incredibly busy days in the Artist Alley selling our plushies, caps and lots of jewelry. The convention felt even busier than last year with a lot of really amazing cosplayers roaming the area. The artist alley expanded this year with over 300 tables. We were located at Table C19 which was a nice location at the end of a row.

We arrived in the early evening on Wednesday, checked into our hotel and quickly hurried down to the convention center to pick up our badges and check in for Artist Alley. Unfortunately for us and a few hundred other people, there was a massive line for registration that moved at a snails pace. Considering all you need to do to pick up your badge is scan a barcode, confirm your name and then get your badge, there was no excuse for badge pick up to take so long. Long story short, we got our badges but were too late for Artist Alley check-in. We spent the rest of the night preparing for our first day in the alley.

Day 1
We got up early that morning and gathered most but not all of our stuff. Our plan was to only stay until 4pm because that evening we were attending a few events happening over at Club Nokia. (More on that here) We arrived at Artist Alley check-in and it only took a few minutes before we were let in to start setting up. The doors officially opened at noon and it didn't take long before there were crowds of people streaming through the rows of the alley.

We brought some new items to artist alley this year which included Caps with Faces, Super Soft Onigiri & Kitty plushies, and our brand new Resin Jewelry. Our Mortified Foods buttons returned with a few new designs as well. It was a busy first day and we didn't want to pack up early but a once in a lifetime experience was waiting for us so by 4pm, we were on our way back to our hotel to change.

Read all about our experience at the Club 2 the MAX Event with X Japan in our previous blog post here: http://bit.ly/cxfBtU

Day 2

After getting only 4 hours of sleep, we dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready for our first full day. With the help of our friends, we carried all our things to the convention center including our overhead display. We arrived a bit late but got set up and settled in for the long day. Cute food cell phone charms were another item we were introducing this year. We've had some of these in the past but never this much variety.

Friday was spent almost entirely at the table with a very constant crowd coming and going. Everyone was very nice and we got a lot of compliments on our things. There were quite a lot of amazing cosplayers about on friday and the nice thing about being in artist alleys is that the cosplayers come to you. :D

Day 3
Saturday we decided it was our turn to dress up so Cindy wore her Baby the Stars Shine Bright bunny-themed outfit and I cosplayed as Ginko from Mushi-shi. The crowds from Friday carried over into Saturday which continued the trend of us not being able to leave the table. It wasn't until the last hour where we got to take turns wandering. As Ginko, I got stopped several times for pictures which is always a nice compliment. I haven't cosplayed since AX 2007 so it was nice to step back into that world.

After packing up from artist alley, we wandered the convention center for the first time since pre-registration day. We walked through the arcade briefly to check it out, looked at the menus of the many food trucks parked across the street, and eventually made our way over to the Nokia Plaza for the Laser Show. When we arrived, there was a taiko drum performance going on that was very good. We hung out near the back of the crowd to observe and as the sun started to set, glowsticks were being distributed to the crowd.

While waiting for the show, our friend from the X Japan event showed up in his hide cosplay. We had been searching for him earlier to give him our new hide fanart button. Luckily, we brought one with us for just such an opportunity and finally gave it to him. The hilarious part of this encounter was that Cindy was in her full lolita outfit while our friend had only seen her dressed as a male japanese rock star. She had to first explain who she was and a surprised look came over him when he realized who she was. XD The laser show was only 30 minutes long and wasn't that impressive but worth going to. You got a free glowstick and got to take part in a big, glowing dance routine.

Day 4

The last day of cons always begin with packing things up and checking out of our hotel. After two trips to the car, we got everything packed and headed to the convention center. Sunday was the first slow day and we didn't have a lot left by this point. We were nearing the end of our adventure which we had spent months preparing for and we were tired. The day flew by and as is tradition for us, we packed up an hour early so that we could finally wander the exhibit hall together. As much as we'd love to be at the table 100% of the time, we want to have a little fun too!

So for the last hour, we shopped the exhibit hall until it closed and then made our way back to artist alley to say hello/goodbye to a few of our artist friends. Our few purchases from the con were some art prints, Pon & Zi buttons, Pon & Zi shirt, a few Nanospore vinyl figures and a couple Tokidoki cell phone charms. Not a lot but we never got the chance to do any serious shopping. After exiting the exhibit hall for the last time, we hung out with our friend Spoon until finally leaving to get dinner in Little Tokyo and then go home.

As it's always been, AX is different every year with whole new experiences and we had a great time again this year. We hope next year is just as good and that we have more opportunities to get away from the table to run around and play. :)

Thank you to everyone who visited us and we hope you'll check out our website and Etsy shop (when it's back up). We look forward to making next year even better and hope to see you all again soon! Thank you!!!

For more of our pictures from Anime Expo 2010, visit our Flickr gallery.

X Japan at Club Nokia

2010-07-09T16:02:00.000-07:00

Club 2 the MAX Event

Thursday (July 1st) evening we arrived at Club Nokia to attend an Animaid Cafe dinner followed by the Yoshiki Foundation America kick-off party with h. Naoto fashion show, acoustic performance by X Japan and finally an X Japan music video shoot. Cindy wore her infamous neon green vinyl hide cosplay and was instantly stopped for a short interview. We went up to the club, checked in for the Animaid Cafe dinner and were seated. We played a fish catching game and whack-a-mole with our maid while watching a few dances on stage. Dinner was catered by the Wolfgang Puck restaurant next door and it was delicious although we had to hurry to finish. They needed to quickly vacate the club to prepare for the Yoshiki/X Japan event.

With our paid Animaid Cafe dinner we were guaranteed premier seating for the X Japan event and were led to a special waiting area outside. We made conversation with another hide cosplayer we had met last year. The show was to begin at 8pm but the doors didn't reopen until nearly 9pm. We were lucky enough to be some of the first in line back inside and were astonished when we were able to walk right up to the bars at the edge of the stage. We could literally reach out and touch the stage. Unbelieveably awesome.

It was about another hour before anything actually got started but we were entertained by Ginger Fish of Marilyn Manson DJ-ing some music for us to listen to. Did I mention we were right near a very large speaker? Yeeaahh... luckily we had napkins which we used to plug our ears. That saved our hearing. Finally, we met our host who quickly learned the correct pronunciation of "Yoshiki" from the crowd. (Never say "Yo Shiki" in front of a horde of X Japan fans) The night finally got underway with a video explaining the purpose of the Yoshiki Foundation and Yoshiki himself coming out to say a few words. It being a fundraising event, large checks were given to St. Vincent Meals on Wheels, the Grammy Foundation and the Make a Wish Foundation.

After another break, we were treated to the premiere of X Japan's new music video for "I.V." they had shot in Hollywood back in January. Curiously, that was shot while Anime Los Angeles was going on not too far away. Following the music video was the h.Naoto fashion show which was interesting although a bit long. Finally, we came to the main events. Yoshiki, Toshi and Sugizo came out to perform a rare acoustic version of "I.V." Yoshiki on piano, Sugizo on violin and of course, Toshi on vocals. Unfortunately, we have no pictures or video of events up to this point due to one of the very large security people standing nearby stopping several other people from taking pictures/video.

However, after the acoustic performance, the entire band walked out on stage to shoot the music video for their brand new song, "Born to be Free." This we were able to get pictures and video of. The music was pre-recorded so the band members weren't actually playing but it didn't make the experience any less amazing. Japan's biggest rock band was only a few feet from us rocking out with all the enthusiasm as if they were playing live. Check out all of our pictures from the event on our flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/catnapcaps/sets/72157624438373202/

Our video from the second take of "Born to be Free." (Best viewed full screen in HD)

As you can see in the video and pictures, we were right near one of the flamethrowers on the stage. We overheard one of the security guards being told to keep their distance and you can see at the start of the video above one of the photographers being yanked away because they were too close to the fire. Those fire blasts were really cool but a little scary being so close to it. Between takes, Yoshiki briefly stopped to chat with the audience which was entertaining.

After four takes, the band walked off stage for the last time and security immediately began to disperse the crowd. We hung out near the bar area for a few minutes checking out the X Japan pachinko machines and Cindy posed for a few pictures. The event ended a little after midnight and we hung around outside for a while with many other X Japan fans and cosplayers. It was a truly memorable experience that we won't soon forget.

Highlight of the show: Pata's amazing golden pants. XD no, seriously. Pata is awesome ♥

New Website and Anime Expo!

2010-06-26T23:53:00.000-07:00

The new website went live on Monday and we're pretty happy with the new look. It took a lot of time and effort but it's finally up. We'll be adding decorations, updating the shop with new pictures and adding paypal checkout to items we have in stock. Soon, you'll be able to buy from us safely and easily right from our website!

As always, you can e-mail us if you'd like to request a commission. Check our new Information page for details. Also, we're looking for customer feedback to add to our About page. If you've bought from us, send us your feedback and/or customer appreciation photos! Take a picture of you and your Cat Nap Caps item and send it to us. Our Etsy store is currently offline until we return from Anime Expo but be sure to check it out when we get back.

Anime Expo is just days away and time is flying by. We still have a lot to do before the convention but we should hopefully get it all done in time. *crosses fingers* As a reminder, we'll be at Table C19 in the Artist Alley. Stop by our table and say hi! We love visitiors! :D

Notice: Day 1 of Anime Expo (Thursday, July 1st) we will be leaving the Artist Alley early. We plan to be packed up and gone around 4pm to attend MAX at Club Nokia next door. We will be in Artist Alley from open to close Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So if you miss us on Thursday, don't worry.

Here's a preview of some of the necklaces we'll have available at Anime Expo! See you there! :D

Coming Soon!

2010-06-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

July 1st - 4th we will be in the Artist Alley at Anime Expo at the Los Angeles Convention Center in... Los Angeles, CA. :D We'll be located at Table C19 which is an end table. (Yay!) As always we'll be selling our hats, some plushies, have a huge selection of sweets jewelry available and some lolita accessories. This year the artist alley is bigger than ever with over 340 artist alley tables so to help you find us, check out the floorplan below.

We're working very hard to get all of our stuff done in time and this involves getting the new website up as well. Originally planned to be done in February (then March and then April...), the new website will officially be up later this month. Please note that when the new website is up, a lot of old links will no longer work. Follow us on Twitter to be notified when the website will be going down as well as when the new one is up. Visually, the new site will look similar but the code behind it has been completely rewritten.

Over the summer, we'll gradually be adding decorations and tweaking the look of the site, as well as retaking pictures of all our products. We're very excited to have finally gotten to this point and are thrilled to announce that we'll have an easy Paypal checkout for our pre-made items. Currently, we sell our products on Etsy.com which has been really great for us and we will continue to use Etsy. However, we've always wanted to have our own online store and, if all goes well, you can expect to see items up for sale on the new website sometime after Anime Expo.

As a parting gift, here's a teaser image of the new website which is still in progress.

Anime Conji 2010!

2010-04-13T15:50:00.000-07:00

This year was the debut for San Diego's first anime only convention, Anime Conji which was held at the Doubletree Club Hotel. We learned about the convention during our trip to Anime Los Angeles in January and inevitably signed up to participate in Conji's Artist Alley. The past few weeks have been spent making more items and new, redesigned Mortified Foods buttons. We had purchased a button maker a couple months back and this was our first con selling the new, smaller buttons.

Day 0 - Thursday

San Diego being roughly a two hour drive away and neither of us being very good at waking up early, we decided it be best to arrive the day before so we can be on time for Artist Alley check-in. We gathered all our stuff, packed up the car to near capacity and were on our way.

Day 1 - Friday

The convention clearly hadn't started when we arrived for Artist Alley check-in but by the time we finished setting up, there were two long lines for registration. There were a lot of familiar faces in Artist Alley which was comforting. Unfortunately, our table location worked against us due to the AA map not being to scale. As you can see on this map, we were to have an end table with space to the right to easily come and go. This was not at all the case as the wall was right up against our table and space behind our table was halved. We literally could not push our chair out from under the table all the way. Our neighbors were kind enough to give us some extra space we desperately needed. Thank goodness both of us are skinny or this would have been a bigger problem.

Knowing this was a first year convention with an attendence cap of 500, we tried to keep our expectations low. Clearly this was not going to be Anime Expo or even Anime L.A. However, the convention was put together pretty well for its first time out. Friday had a serious lack of signage but it improved by the weekend. The convention consisted of: Dealer's Hall/Artist's Alley, Consuite, 2 Anime Viewing Rooms, Art Show, 2 Panel Rooms, Gaming Room, Workshop Room, Costume Repair Station, Dealer's Mall and a large tent outside next to the pool where the Masquerade and concerts took place. Things were a bit strangely spread out so if you didn't have a map, it would've been difficult to find where things were.

Friday was a bit of a disapointment as far as sales went but Saturdays are always the busiest day of conventions. After the alley closed, we took everything back to the hotel room and returned for the Artist Alley 101 panel and then played some Street Fighter 4 before calling it a night.

Day 2 - Saturday

As expected, Saturday started with a significantly bigger crowd. There were a lot more cosplayers roaming about and we got a lot of very nice compliments on our stuff. People remember us from Anime Los Angeles and/or Anime Expo which is always a good feeling to be recognized. One highlight of the day was Tabe BBQ, which is a food truck that sells Asian styled tacos, burritos and bowls. We got ourselves beef, chicken and pork tacos for lunch as well as fries with special spices that make your lips go a bit numb. The pork was super spicy but delicious. I ended up going back and getting a burrito which I saved for dinner. P: Their food was just so good!

Being such a small con, you can see most everything in one day so we didn't have much else to do Saturday. We enjoy spending time in Artist Alley so overall, it was a good day.

Day 3 - Sunday

The last day of the con, we expected for it to be as dead as Friday but were happy to see there were still a lot of people around. We made some sales and chatted with people. Everyone during the convention was very nice to us and made our last day there fun. The Artist Alley began thinning out and closed at 4. We packed up for the last time and said our goodbyes. If you had a chance to stop by our table, we'd like to thank you for visiting! :D Anime Conji was our first really small convention and it was an enjoyable experience. We hope to return again next year and get a full table in their Artist Alley. They'll be moving to the much larger Town & Country Resort next year so we look forward to a bigger and better Anime Conji!

If you're interested in buying from us online, you can check out our Etsy Shop. A new website is still in the works but if all goes well, you'll be able to buy items from us directly through CatNapCaps.com. Our next convention is Anime Expo in July unless we can somehow get ourselves a table at Fanime. Once again, thanks to everyone who visited. See you next convention! ^_^

P.S. - If you're interested in any of the items pictured, please don't hesitate to e-mail us at: catnapcaps@gmail.com. We'll be adding some items to our Etsy Shop soon.

Anime Los Angeles 2010

2010-01-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we participated in Anime L.A.'s Artist Alley for the second year in a row. Last year was our first year attending ALA and we had a half table in the artist alley consisting mainly of leftovers from Anime Expo '08. We were so pleased with the convention last year, we had to come back and give it the same attention we've given to Anime Expo. This year we got a full table and prepared lots of hats, sweets jewelry and more. We even had a new table layout which worked very well for us and our customers.

Friday morning, we still had to finish packing for the trip and didn't arrive until roughly 2pm. We had trouble finding parking and then had to make multiple trips to the car for all our artist alley stuff. Our friend RivetSpoon was our neighbor again this year and she's always a blast to be around. She made an incredibly detailed hoodie for Mika, Cindy's ball-jointed doll, which features our mascot kitty Mimi with "Cat Nap Caps" written on the front. Friday was a slow day and had us worried about the rest of the convention. We wandered the convention halls after closing and Cindy made more starfruit plushies that night.

The next day, turned out to be a lot busier. Crowds poured through Artist Alley frequently and we had some return customers stop by and say hello. People loved our stuff and we were so happy to get so many compliments. We really appreciate all the support from everyone we meet. We took a lot of pictures of happy customers wearing our hats and holding our plushies. We'll be putting those up on the website shortly. One girl told us she's had one of our rings for over a year and it has not broken. We never get to hear feedback on items from people who've used them for long periods of time so it was nice to know our rings are as durable as we thought.

That night we went to a small ball-jointed doll meet-up in the lobby of the hotel. We brought Mika and met up with Spoon who brought her doll as well. It was very interesting to see the other types of dolls all decked out with fancy clothing and accessories. We even got to see one doll being put together.

Later that night, we went to the dance and listened to DJ Amaya and saw our friend Patrick dance around on stage. We crashed after that and got up early the next morning to pack. We had a great time saturday and were very inspired to start cosplaying again. We returned for our final day Sunday and took turns going back and forth to the dealer's hall. Cindy bought me a Mameshiba plush and I got her a T-shirt from Fat Rabbit Farm. The convention began winding down and we finished a few last minute sales before artist alley closed and everyone packed up.

We had a lot of fun and were sad to leave but we'll hopefully be back again next year. Thank you to everyone who came by our table. We're hoping to do more with CatNapCaps this year and look forward to the next convention. We hope to see you all again soon!

Update: View pictures of our Anime Los Angeles customers here!

Happy Holidays from Cat Nap Caps!

2009-12-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

We've recently added new winter/holiday themed items to our Etsy Shop, as well as a new Mortified Foods Peppermint Button. Nothing says, "Happy Holidays" like something in pain! :D If you're looking for a cute stocking stuffer or something just adorably unique, check out the new items. Remember to order soon if you're looking to get them before Christmas.

As a treat (pun intended), here's a short look at the making of the new peppermint button. Designs for Mortified Foods, as well as images for the website, start with a sketch and are then recreated in Photoshop. After a lot of tweaking, they're finalized and printed.

Once printed, the images are cut out and pieced together to be pressed and turned into a button. We carefully inspect each of our handmade buttons to ensure the best possible quality. The end product is a shiney, adorable button screaming for your love.

Available now in our Etsy Shop

Aside from our holiday items, we're preparing for our second year in Artist Alley at Anime Los Angeles. We're getting items ready and planning out our table design. We hope to provide attendees with some truly unique and delightful items. We look forward to seeing you there!

Now on Blogger!

2009-11-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

After some careful consideration, we decided to move our self-hosted wordpress blog over to blogger. We're working on new things for the website and want to make it easy for anyone to read and comment on our posts. We'll be trying to post at least once a month on our activities with the website, etsy and events.

You can expect to see some updates with the website and more items posted in our etsy store very soon. Christmas items are currently in the works so if you're looking for something cute to give this holiday, keep an eye out!

Also, if you missed our previous announcement, we'll be in the Artist Alley at Anime Los Angeles January 8th-10th! We'll be selling caps, plushies, sweets jewelry, ball-joint doll items, lolita skirts & accessories and more! If you'll be attending, stop by our table and say hello!

Anime Expo 2009!

2009-07-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

For the fourth year in a row, we've been lucky enough to get into the Artist Alley at Anime Expo. This year the alley was increased to 250 tables and was moved into the Dealer's Hall. Everyone who attends Anime Expo knows the dealer's hall cannot be missed and so artist alley had a great flow of traffic. We were located at table B07, which was a pretty great spot. Since this was our fourth AX, we decided it was time for an overhead display as well as a fancy cake-like display for our sweets jewelry. We would have loved to work on our displays more but we simply got overwhelmed by last minute preparations

We arrived at the convention center around 7pm on Day 0 after leaving 2 hours later than planned. We found our way to badge pickup and met up with our friend Spoon who had also just arrived. We got our badges and bags (which contained only the program this year) and then head back to the hotel to finish preparing for our first day.

We got up early and arrived for Artist Alley check-in around 10am and immediately started setting up after getting to our table. Although we had our new displays, we hadn't yet put together a table setup with all of them. The Dealer's Hall and Artist Alley opened at noon so we were able to get everything done in time for opening.

It didn't take long for people to wander into Artist Alley and our first day went very well. People loved our paopu fruit plushies, our new sweets jewelry and best of all, our new Mortified Foods buttons and bookmarks. Mortified Foods is a project that started earlier this year and we've been developing it since. If you haven't seen them, they're original designs of adorable foods being eaten. We had bought a button maker and experimented with it. However, it wasn't until the week before AX that we had all the designs down. So unfortunately, this led to late nights and constant button making at the table. @_@

Luckily, our bookmarks were ready to go. $.50 per bookmark and $2 for buttons. We also had a postcard but it was a flop. Overall, Mortified Foods was a success and we'll continue working on designs for buttons, bookmarks and more.

By day 2, we had only a few paopu fruit left and half our sweets jewelry was gone. One thing we noticed this year was a huge increase in the number of cosplay hat vendors. There's some stiff competition but our hats continue to be popular as they are not overpriced and are all handmade. We continued to draw a lot of interest from attendees and we're hoping to get a lot of new visitors to the site and hopefully some buyers. ;D If you're new to CNC, please visit our Contact page where you'll find where we're located on the web.

There only being two of us to run the table, we were unable to do much else during the course of the convention. However, we did manage to make it to the Artist Alley Sketch Jam & Mixer which was kind of fun in an awkward way. We played an interesting game where you have half of a famous pair/pairing written on a piece of tape and stuck to your back. You must then go around and introduce yourself to people, ask them a question about what you are until you figure it out, then you must find your other half. Cindy was Mario and I was Beans. XD

We also made it to the Artist Alley feedback session which proved to be a bit on the boring side since we both actively read the AA forum. However, some good information was given out and we're hopeful for a few improvements next year. We also got free Cartoon Network sketchbooks! :D Saturday was a busy day but we had sold quite a lot by that point. All but a handful of sweets jewelry was left and we ended the day with a fairly empty table.

Saturday was also the day Cindy dressed in her X Japan cosplay of hide. After packing up from artist alley, we decided to wander the convention center. This became very interesting when for the first time ever, a second hide cosplayer had the same cosplay as Cindy! We were on the second floor waiting for the AA feedback panel to start when we spotted him on the first floor. We gave chase and managed to finally catch up with him. We must've seemed a little crazy but he was a nice guy and we got a few pictures of the two neon green and pink hide cosplayers together for the first time.

Sunday was the last day and we had to check out of the hotel before leaving for AX. This lead to us arriving after AA had opened but we planned to take it easy Sunday. Not a lot was sold the last day but we always enjoy being in the artist alley. Since we had spent the whole trip with one of us behind our table, we were determined to pack up early and wander the dealer's hall together before it was closed for good. However we still wanted to sell and also had to give out parting gifts to a few friends. We managed to pack up, hurry to the car where we threw everything in and literally ran back to the dealer's hall to get a good 5 minutes of wandering in before they started kicking everyone out. :( Oh well. It was a good 5 minutes.

We spent the very last artist alley time with our friend Spoon and watched as the tables cleared and nothing was left but trash. Soon, Spoon and company had left and we wandered until the closing ceremonies. We were stuck watching the charity auctions for a good 30 minutes and witnessed the mad bidding on a signed, color sketch from Gundam 00 that ended at a whopping $3,500. The Guests of Honor came out and we were very pleased to see Moi dix Mois was still at AX and they said a few words. Cindy fangirled a bit and our convention seemed to be complete.

We took some final pictures around the convention center and then finally said goodbye. Anime Expo was definitely one to remember this year, despite the fact we didn't get to do much outside artist alley. We met a lot of really nice people and got a lot of compliments. A big thank you goes out to everyone who stopped by. We really appreciate all your support and strive to improve every convention we attend. We look forward to returning next year and hope everyone who attended AX this year had as great a time as we did.

Keep checking the site as we promise we'll be updating it more regularly from now on. Also, starting now, we'll be doing full convention galleries! We want to start getting pictures of our customers too so if you stop by our table and make a purchase or if you purchase something online, we'd love to get your picture with our stuff! Check out our Anime Expo 2009 page for lots of pictures.

We hope to see you next year!

- Brian

If you missed Cindy's Thank You on the main page, here it is again:

Thank You, Anime Expo!
Hello, everyone!
We’re back from Anime Expo 2009. I had a lot of fun this year and even though I couldn’t do a lot of the things I wanted to, I still enjoyed seeing new faces and talking to new and interesting people. I want to thank everyone who came by our table to look, pick up a card, say hi, chat and of course purchase something from us. Hopefully a few of you have come to visit the page.

I did receive a comment about our rate of updating our website, I sincerely apologize for that and I promise to update it more often now. I was also really surprised to meet one of our twitter followers in person. You can look forward to seeing more items similar to what we had during AX as well as new items I didn’t get to finish in time for the convention. It was wonderful to meet all of you and we hope to return to Anime Expo next year.

Thank you very much! Please come visit us again!

-Cindy

Ball Jointed Doll Meetup & More

2009-05-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

During the last couple months, things have started picking up for CNC. We acquired a table for Anime Expo's Artist Alley once again and we've begun preparing new ideas to unviel for this year. Also, the website has been completely redesigned! We're working to make the site feel more professional as well as keep it updated regularly with new pictures and information. There's still a fair amount of updating that needs to be done and if you find any broken links or problems with the site, please e-mail us and let us know.

Currently, we're working to get items ready for AX. Caps, plushies, jewelry and more all still need to be made. A new idea we'll be bringing to the convention this year is Ball Jointed Doll clothing. Ball Jointed Dolls, like lolita, can be very expensive to get into. Since we already make caps, clothing and accessories for humans, we decided we should start offering miniature versions for BJD's. To see if there was any interest in our items for BJD's, we recently went to a small Ball Jointed Doll meetup at the University of Riverside's Botanic Garden. We met up with our friend RivetSpoon who introduced us to some very nice people and their dolls.

We brought several caps, cupcakes and a lolipop to let the dolls play with as well as a black polka dot skirt (pictured above). We were pleased to find that the BJD owners all really liked our stuff. We learned quite a lot about the world of ball jointed dolls and the community behind them. We'll be working to make more items soon for BJD's. If you're interested in commissioning something for a ball jointed doll, please e-mail us at: catnapcaps@gmail.com

As you can see in the pictures above, the botanic garden was really beautiful.

Last week, Cindy's puppy accidentally ate some snail poison. He became very ill and needed to be rushed to the vet. We're incredibly pleased to report that he's made a full recovery and we wanted to share his good health with a few photos! :D

Isn't he adorable?? The big dog in the last picture could eat him in one bite.

Anime Los Angeles 2009

2009-01-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

We've returned from Anime Los Angeles and have nothing but good things to say about the experience! :D The convention was held at the LAX Marriot which provided a comfortable atmosphere for the event. There were bean bag chairs, pictures of cosplayers on the walls and a Con Suite providing free snacks and drinks to attendees. Artist Alley had an excellent location between the Dealer's Hall and Registration, as well as being right next door to several Live Programming rooms.

We started the convention off around 2:30-ish Friday after some delays in getting to the hotel. We went straight to registration and then straight to Artist Alley to check-in and set up. It didn't take long for business to pick up and we were a little surprised by the immense interest. This being the only other convention we've attended and it being significantly smaller than Anime Expo, we set our expectations low. By the end of the second day, we were almost completely sold out.

Our good friend Spoon (rivetspoon.deviantart.com) who was running the Artist Alley was our neighbor and we can't thank her enough for making the event such a wonderful experience. We'd also like to thank Taskmaster for introducing us to Anime Los Angeles. Ribbon collecting was interesting, the Dealer's Hall was fun and Cindy even entered the Fashion Show.

We plan to return next year and we're really looking forward to it. Our first trip to ALA was a huge success and we want to thank everyone for stopping by our table. If you're interested in getting some custom-made lolita clothing or any other items we offer, please visit our Info page or simply e-mail us at catnapcaps@gmail.com.

Be sure to check back now and then as we will be updating the site with new items very soon. For now, please check out some more photos from Anime Los Angeles 2009 below.

Nisei Week Anime Festival

2008-08-17T11:37:00.000-07:00

We were invited to the Anime Festival during Nisei Week in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles this year to sell at the Artist Alley. It sounded like fun so we decided to bring our new sweets jewelry items and leftover Anime Expo merchandise. The Artist Alley was to take place in a vacant store where they were playing anime. However, the "Alley" only consisted of ourselves and two other artists. :(

We decided to share a table with our new friend RivetSpoon (rivetspoon.deviantart.com). Unfortunately, we weren't getting much business inside, so we all moved our stuff outside. We immediately got more people coming up and checking out our works but we paid a price. We spent most of the day in direct sunlight and eventually had to buy japanese parasols to protect us. X_X

Overall, it was an interesting experience. We sold some things and met some nice people. If we're invited again next year, we can only hope the Artist Alley will be bigger and more noticeable. (And also not in the sun! X_X ) Thanks to everyone who stopped by our table!

Currently, we are planning to attend Pacific Media Expo in November and Anime Los Angeles in January. If you're planning to attend either con, be sure to stop by our table and say hi!

Back from Anime Expo!

2008-07-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

Hello to everyone who visited us in Artist Alley! We're back home now, readjusting to normal life again. T_T But we had a wonderful time at Anime Expo and it was a great success for us. We fully intend to return next year to Anime Expo 2009! If you stopped by our table, feel free to e-mail us. Let us know what you thought of our products and what you'd like to see us have at future conventions.
For those of you who couldn't make it to the convention this year, you can check out the following on our adventure to Anime Expo '08. Enjoy!
Day 0
We spend the morning packing and getting some last minute projects done. We arrive in L.A. late afternoon and check in to our hotel. After resting, we set off to the Los Angeles Convention Center to scope it out and pick up our badges.

No time to rest, however, so we head back to the hotel to prepare for Day 1.

Day 1
We get up early and pack our things for Artist Alley. Having been in artist alley at AX '07, this year's check-in was painless. It only took a few minutes and we were ready to go. Our table location this year was awesome. Artist Alley had lots of room to move around in and there really weren't any bad table locations. On top of that, AA was huuuge! It was like a mini exhibit hall full of artsy goodness. XD

After getting set up, we anxiously awaited opening. A lot of time and effort had gone into preparing for Anime Expo '08 and we were finally going to see if it would pay off. Not long after the doors opened were we getting people coming up and checking out our hats. Within 90 minutes, we had already gotten a good amount of business. Unfortunately, due to a cosplay emergency, we had to leave less than 2 hours after opening. We had planned to return later but (long story short) we were unable to do so. : (
However, if you spotted a neon green hide cosplayer Thursday or Saturday, that was none other than the owner of Cat Nap Caps, Cindy!

Day 2
Our first real day in Artist Alley. We spent the morning and afternoon selling more hats, plushies and a few other items. Business went really well and everyone who stopped by the table was very nice. We caught our first sightings of people wearing our hats around the convention. We were very happy to see people enjoying our products. ^_^

There being only two of us to run the table this year, we decide to pack up late afternoon and check out the exhibit hall. Anime Expo is known for it's massive exhibit hall and this year was no exception. There were lots of things to buy and lots of cosplayers out shopping.
Day 3
Saturday being one of the busiest days for AX, we wanted to devote a lot of time in Artist Alley. However, we had already sold a lot the first two days and we didn't do quite as well as we could have. Lesson learned: Make more stuff! Each year we bring more and more to sell but it never seems to be enough. Next year, we will try to bring double the merchandise so we can maintain a good amount of variety for our awesome customers. :D

We took turns watching the table as we each go wander Artist Alley. There were some really talented artists this year and lots of cute things to buy. Over the course of the con, we bought buttons, bookmarks, prints and an adorable little woven plushie in a jar (we named him Rattles). We took off to the exhibit hall once again in the afternoon and returned that evening. The last two hours in Artist Alley on Saturday were very disapointing. We had absolutely no business until artist alley was closing and someone was hurrying to buy a last minute gift. A big thank you goes out to that person!

Day 4
The very last day is always a sad one. We arrived a little late and got set up. By this time, most of our stuff had been bought and the table was looking a little empty. Still, we sold a good amount of items in just a few hours and then packed up for the last time. We still had things to buy in the exhibit hall and shopped until they closed. Artist Alley remained open longer than scheduled so we did some last minute shopping there as well.

We had reached our goal for this year and by the end of our time in Artist Alley sunday, we had exceeded it by a pleasant amount. Lots of our business cards and stickers were picked up by visitors and we hope to have people buy and commission from us this summer. We would sincerely like to thank everyone who visited and bought from our Artist Alley table this year. You made this year's Anime Expo a very memorable one for us. Please visit us at next year's AX and check back to find out what other conventions in Southern California we will be attending next!
Thank you!
- Cindy & Brian
More Pictures!

Cat Nap Caps at Anime Expo

2008-07-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

We're leaving for Anime Expo tomorrow! I'd just like to remind everyone we'll be at table B37 in Artist Alley. Once again, here's a helpful little map to our table.

If you're reading this during/after Anime Expo, we hope you came by the table and got yourself a hat or another cute item. :D We'll be updating this blog after AX with (hopefully) lots of pictures and a short summary of our trip to Anime Expo '08!

One week until Anime Expo '08!

2008-06-26T17:37:00.000-07:00

There's less than a week to go until Cat Nap Caps packs up and heads to Anime Expo. We're working hard to get things ready. I've updated the store and redesigned this blog which, most likely, no one cares about but me. ^_^;; However, I'll try to keep it updated with any news or events we may be attending in the future.

For Anime Expo attendees who want to visit our table at this year's Artist Alley, we'll be located at table B37. To make it even easier for you to find us, take a look at the map below.

Basically, head down the middle row of the Alley until you get to the center. We'll be on the left side just before the center aisle. If you happen to find the table is empty, have no fear! We'll be at AX all four days so chances are you just missed us. We may not stay all the way until closing every night so it's best to try and visit us in the afternoon. Thanks for visiting our site and we look forward to seeing you at Anime Expo 2008!

- Brian

Blog up and running

2008-06-07T11:32:00.000-07:00

Cat Nap Caps

We will be updating this blog with any news about CNC in the future. Feel free to comment anytime and we'll be sure to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks!

- Brian (webmaster)