The Macabre Magpie

09/04/2026

I added the weird little cobalt blue button-eye magpie cake window storybook scene (that has absolutely nothing to do with Coraline lmao 😭) to the shop! I made it specifically for the art market tomorrow, but for anyone who isn’t local and may still want to wel-CAW-me this strange edition home, it’s officially part of the strange storybook collection. 💙🎂🐦‍⬛

09/04/2026

I absolutely love this and I could not agree more. 🖤🥹

There are those with the opinion that I’m not very professional. Because I share my life my ups and my downs. That is never going to change. I’m never going to be a robot behind a screen. When you support my small business you support food on our table. You support my next creation to share with you. You become like a part of the family around here. I spend everyday working on each of your wonderful orders by hand. Everyday hoping you love what you’ve recieved. Everyday supporting other small businesses like myself. If you want professionalism and no heart behind things go to Amazon. Here you’ll only find transparency and friendship and things made by hand with love just for you. 🖤🐦‍⬛🕯️

09/04/2026

Tomorrow! 🖤✨
I’ll be at the Coraline Whimsigoth-themed Manic Pixie Dream Market Ohio with a little nest of dark folklore, including my market-special Coraline magpie art print and woven blanket 💙, plus woven art, prints, and some of my storybook totes!

If you’ve been wanting to see my work in person, come say hi and hang out for a bit at the strange little storybook sanctuary. 🫶🏻

📅 Tomorrow Saturday September 5th
⏰ 11 AM–5 PM

We can’t wait to see you there! 💙

09/03/2026

Apparently I accidentally released my guillotine woven tote, aka Harbinger of Justice, on ‘National Beheading Day.’ Lmao, gotta love synchronicity and the internet. 😭

Wouldst thou like to eat the rich? 💀🍴
Because butter is getting more expensive by the mf day. 🪦🧈

09/02/2026

Apparently the solution to my lil slump I have been in was in fact to stand in front of our gargantuan rose bush with my woven art tote bag to remember why I make art. 😭🖤🌹

So! The next storybook tote has arrived (or honestly had arrived weeks ago and I am terribly behind. 🫠).

This artwork is also my interpretation of Justice in the tarot deck I have been very slowly 🐌 working on for the past two years. The Major Arcana is finished. Do not ask me when the rest will be finished. I do not know, lmao. 😭

There are a lot of themes tangled together in this one: systems and power, climate grief, growth and decay, destruction and reclamation.

Which is perhaps why making this reel was aptly timed, because the political climate has been triggering AF for years, and lately I’ve found myself feeling stuck and overwhelmed by the state of everything again. Sometimes it is very easy to feel powerless against systems that seem almost omniscient.

And then I remember that art is resistance. 🖤🎨 And that keeps me going on the hard days.

September is also CPTSD Awareness Month, and I will probably be talking about CPTSD more than usual this month. 💜 That said, I am also painfully aware of my face in this video: my lips are currently wrecked from biting/picking at them when I’m triggered/dysregulated. 🥲 It is just one of the small ways it shows up in my body. I don’t always realize I am doing it, so Nick will lovingly redirect me like an annoying crow on my shoulder when he notices it which helps. 🖤🥹

Much of my art grows from that chapter of my life and has been one of the ways I’ve made sense of that history, and continue to make sense of it.

So much of my work is how I cope with my CPTSD and circles the same themes through a dark folklore lens: predators and prey, captivity and autonomy, power and resistance, destruction and rebuilding, grief and survival, the body, home, safety, reclamation, and what grows after something has been destroyed.

This artwork, Harbinger of Justice, grew from that same soil. 💜

A perfectly normal product reel from your friendly neighborhood Baba Yaga. 🖤😭

Original artwork by Kailey Rose Alflen (Straka) / The Macabre Magpie. 🖤

P.S. Wouldst thou like to eat the rich?
Or perhaps… yeet the rich? 💀

09/02/2026

Figured I would celebrate the start of September with my first hot apple cider of the season. 🍎 Even though Mother Nature undoubtedly has other plans. 🥵 As if there is really any other season in this witch house. 🖤✨🧹

09/01/2026

Coming back from my downward spiral the past few days precipitated by generative AI shops in my niche. 🥲🌀

But this morbid corvid is finally getting back to it. Working on Mr. Blue Jay again after he has been patiently waiting for me to return to his little mushroom forest. 😭💙🍄

And since I’ve been trying to share more of what actually goes into my artwork, please enjoy a tiny glimpse behind the scenes, including scrolling through the absolutely unhinged number of layers that have gone into this suspicious little man. I developed my own folk art feather rendering technique and I quite like it and it turns out I’m meticulous AF about it.🪦

But my meticulousness and the fact that I’m a real person and not a machine is also why my textile catalogue grows at approximately the pace of one very determined snail. 😭 I draw my artwork myself, one tiny feather, imperfect mushroom spot, and weird little detail at a time. Eventually those drawings become the woven blankets, Underfoot Folk Tales (rugs), pillows, totes, and other strange little objects that make their way into my shop and home. 🖤

Real human. Slow art. Copious layers.
And just doing my best to stay sane in a sea of slop. 🫠

09/01/2026

Howard, head of Quality Control, would agree that Mr. Magpie Mushroom Underfoot Folk Tale looks like he should have stepped right out of the same world as the Hungarian Folk Art table, which honestly makes me really happy. 🖤🐦‍⬛🍄💙

09/01/2026

I am back after my downward spiral. 🌀

After the past several days and the feedback received I may not be doing enough to clarify my stance for buyers.

So I made this text slide to replace/consolidate my existing slide later on in the carousel that clarifies that each photo is taken in my own home and no mockups are ever used. I answer the Al question in my FAQ, but because I like to write a lot Imao l figured this would be the best way to answer that question early on and so buyers wouldn't have to dig for it and if they don't care to learn about me personally first.

I have a tendency to use all 20 listing photo slots in each carousel for my listing photos and

For context: I always use this weathered parchment background I made in Procreate with the jacquard Blackletter header as my default font because my medium is jacquard woven blankets.

I have played around with placement for my "No mockups" slide and it didn't really seem to matter. But I don't know.

Feedback is appreciated! Here is a link to my shop if it helps.

Thank you so much in advance! 🖤

https://themacabremagpie.etsy.com

08/29/2026

I’ve been spending the last few days trying to analyze my conversion issue, and honestly, what I found basically confirmed some of my worst fears. I can’t stop crying (sorry to be dramatic 🥲, but it has been wearing on me slowly for weeks now).

I found shop after shop selling Gen AI artwork while using the exact philosophy I genuinely live and breathe and hold very closely to my chest, and honestly, seeing it triggers my exploitation trauma and makes me feel legitimately sick to my stomach.

Many of these shops have been around for a year or less (I am approaching my two-year anniversary in a few months). Seeing this language wrapped around mass-produced AI imagery (with insane catalogues containing hundreds or even thousands of mockups, while many of these shops openly admit they use AI) feels like an absolute gut punch.

Nick told me not to give up. I’m trying not to, but after this week, I’m finding it hard to remain optimistic at the moment or not feel nauseated by my own writing. A good cry does in fact always help, lmao.

Thank you for letting me vent about something that feels genuinely devastating. 💔 At least maybe now it will be easier to let go of perpetually blaming myself. 🥲 Sending hugs to anyone else who may also be grappling with this destabilizing realization right now.