Lyndsay Peters is a member of G33Kmade.com – a website created by GEEKSOAP’s Lesley Karpiuk and Kylee Lane of Luxury Lane Soap. I was so impressed not only by the skills of the individual crafters, but also the camaraderie and teamwork of the group as a whole, I had to get know each member a little better. Lyndsay is one of our newest sponsors for this year’s Geek Gala and she recently took the time to answer a few questions for me. Here’s her response to our five questions:
How’d you get started making dice bags?
I am one of those accessory geeks. I don’t know what it is but if I am geeking out, I want part of that to include my personality. I spend 10 minutes choosing a set of dice to represent a D&D character that I really love – it doesn’t matter how many sets I have at home. If they don’t fit my character, I don’t want to use them! So that interest naturally extended to dice bags, and I had trouble finding them anywhere. I’m sorry, but “Crown Royal” is not really what my D&D character is about. I’d go into any gaming shop I could looking for something, anything. And I usually came out dissatisfied with the dice bag selections found there.
I am also someone who grew up with the mantra “I could make that, and make it better!” My mom and I have always been crafty. Before Dragon Chow Dice Bags, I had an Etsy shop where I sold purses and wallets, as well as other little odd side projects. The purses and wallets weren’t that exciting to make, so when I made one more trip into a gaming store and was disappointed in the dice bag selection and these two parts of me clicked together.
I made a few different designs and sizes in an Etsy shop in February before settling on my Standard sized dice bag and starting dragonchow.com this summer. They didn’t all sit flat on the table at first. They had weird drawstrings. I love them and still have some around, because when I feel frustrated I can look at them and look at a current Dragon Chow Dice Bag, and remember that I went through that process.
I know you recently had an encounter with a certain Star Trek star – tell us about it!
Well, I wasn’t really there. But it was the best birthday present ever, and is really a story of my favourite part of doing Dragon Chow Dice Bags. Since starting in February of 2010 I have been given amazing opportunities, help, advice and friendship within the geek community on Twitter. In July, Lesley (@geeksoap) and Kylee (@KyleeLane) sent me an e-mail. “Hey, do you want to sell at GenCon?” A website they founded called G33Kmade.com had recently featured me, and they had a GenCon booth. Once I stopped jumping up and down, I said yes. I made something like 30 dice bags in one day. I sent all of my stock, 90 or so bags, to Indy. It was already a dream come true.
Then, @cmdrsue on twitter made some magic happen. She suggested that @wilw (that’s Wil Wheaton, for the non-tweeters) needed a dice bag. I agreed, and I tweeted it. @G33Kmade tweeted about it. Lesley and Kylee said they were working on it on August 5, the first day of the con. August 6 was my birthday and I tweeted like mad about it again but wanted to be realistic – Wil is a busy dude. And really, my dice bags were already at GenCon. It was amazing enough.
On August 7, it happened. I was on a raft floating in the middle of a river. I normally would not raft a river with my cellphone, but I was hoping against hope that Wil would visit the booth and take home a dice bag. I got a twitter DM texted to my phone! Wil had a Dragon Chow Dice Bag! And there was photographic evidence! This was only made better by the fact that I was on a river, my mom was there, and we were both wearing foam trojan soldier hats from the craft store.
The only way any of that happened was with the amazing geek community on Twitter. I would never have had a booth at GenCon in my first year, or a really awesome photo for my ipod touch, or the great feeling you have when you know people are cheering you on, if it weren’t for the geeky friends I’ve made on twitter. I have so much gratitude for that.
I know you’re located in Canada. Do you find that Geeking differs between the US and where you are?
I’ve never been to the states, I just chat with a lot of people in the states. So I can’t offer much in the way of differences. I do know that Americans expect their mail to arrive much more quickly! Really though, I have found that the geeks I know in Canada and the US are the same: passionate, creative, confident in their intelligence and inquisitive. We’re proud of who we are and we love to share our interests with the people around us. US geeks just get to play Fiasco before I do (it’s STILL not out in Canada!). Oh, maybe you can spend more time of the year scantily clad for gaming convention purposes. It gets cold up here.
Got any new product lines coming out? Any new projects you want to tell us about?
Well, you kind of learn about new projects the same time I do. I’m very spontaneous and when I have a new idea, I have to get it out there or else I will die! Or explode! So when I have an idea I am obsessed with it until I make it. I do have a goal to keep more of the tall pencil strap dice bags in stock. They’re my newest idea and I think they’re very solid. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen someone walking around with a sharpened pencil sticking out the top of their dice bag but it just screams recipe for disaster. These new dice bags are almost double the height of a standard dice bag and have a strap to hold mechanical pencils and pens in place, as well as a truly epic amount of dice. I also recently did a custom dice bag that was absolutely huge!
I think with three sizes of dice bag I can satisfy almost any type of gamer off-the-shelf. However, I’m always open to doing custom orders. One thing I have been tossing around in my mind is deck bags. As an accessory-loving gamer, I totally had colour-coordinated deck covers for my magic decks. I think a deck bag would rule.
As far as new projects are concerned, I’m currently really interested in helping gaming conventions out with prizes, like with the Charlotte Geeks benefit gala. I’ve also sent bags to Necronomicon in Florida, and my dice bags are part of Geeky Clean!’s Geek or Treat contest prize pack. I think it is a very cool way to show my dice bags to more people and help out gaming conventions at the same time. Because gaming conventions are a special place for geeks to be geeks.
Now, here’s the big question: If you were to suddenly find yourself in the League of Evil, what would you want your villian name to be?
You’ll have to contact the Canadian Patent Office and look it up, I knew you’d ask this question so I have taken measures to legally protect myself from your devious deeds! I think I would be the SCOOTERNAUT. I already ride a 250cc scooter, so it only follows that when my mind is gripped by a lust for power I would want a scooter I could ride through space… and time.
Find out more about Dragon Chow Dice Bags online at http://www.dragonchow.com/or @dragonchow on Twitter
