#boothtique

#TBT to us over the years!! 

I think the top photo actually predates our very first blog post! The blog existed in our heads but only became a reality a couple weeks later in the final days of 2013...SO MANY YEARS AGO. 

Look at our baby selves at AAS223, the World Science Festival, and the Intrepid Museum’s Hubble25 exhibit in 2014 - we were so young and carefree living on stardust. 

Flash forward to 2016, hanging out at Columbia University’s Astrofest and in the StarTalk studio (with Star Baby #1 making its presence known). 

And last but not least, two of our last conferences together in person - AGU 2018 and AAAS 2019 (with uber imminent Star Baby #2). 

Now here we are and it’s hard to believe our dreams of an online shop have finally become a reality!

Thanks to all of you for being here every step (post) of the way. You never forget your first (blog) home. ;) 

Exciting new designs from Boutique Academia on hand at our AAS235* BOOTHtique featuring everyone’s favorite black hole (M87) and a perennial favorite of ours, the solar spectrum as seen by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory. Plus their speed of light necklace that we love (available in both gold-plated and sterling silver).

For those of you not at AAS235, these designs are also all available on the Boutique Academia website. Be sure to follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and check out all our previous posts here. 

- Summer & Emily

We are so embarrassed that we haven’t shared the wonderful work of Liz Kruesi on the blog yet even though we’ve been carrying her designs at the #BOOTHtique for almost two years now!! Liz is a freelance science writer and jewelry maker on the side. We fell in love with her pieces back in 2017 at the Women in Astronomy IV meeting where she was sporting her solar system necklace. 

Since then, she has created quite possibly one of the loveliest planetary collections. Her pieces feature beads reminiscent of each planet (and its moons) and each item comes with a cheat sheet describing the stones that represent each object. We started with her Jupiter and Saturn designs and they were so popular at the Division of Planetary Sciences Conference in 2018, that people were soon swapping them with each other so they could sport one of each planet. The fad soon took over the Neptune and Uranus designs as well. Now we just assume this will be the case and order both matching and mis-matching pairs from her. ;)

New to the BOOTHtique at AAS235* are her Earth+Moon, Earth/Mars mismatched, and Pluto+Charon earrings! 

For those of you not at AAS235, check out Liz’s Etsy store and be sure to follow her on Twitter, Instagram. 

- Summer & Emily

Good news for all you Chrissy Sparks Art fans: we have restocked her lovely “Love You to the Moon and Back” hand-painted signs at our AAS235* BOOTHtique! BONUS: gorgeous new earrings designs featuring Orion, Saturn, and galaxies. 

For those of you not at AAS235, check out Chrissy’s Etsy store for more of her work. Be sure to follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and check out all our previous posts here. 

- Summer & Emily

FBF to our amazing volunteers at the BOOTHtique at AAS 235 last week! Thanks to everyone who stopped by, supported us, and helped make it happen.

Thanks to all our stellar volunteers (top to bottom) Betsy Hernandez + Danielle Rowland showcasing our new logo, UH Hilo students Hannah Blue + Kamalani Poepoe + Andrea Waiters working hard and hanging loose, Kristen Dage + Teresa Panurach + Victoria DiTomasso + Brandon Barker enjoying stellar gifts from Dr. Rachael Livermore & Maria Vallejo, and Tom Rice showing how to dress for success. Briley Lewis + Hannah Blue living it up in the exhibition hall. Not pictured but just as amazing: Stephanie Douglas, Karen Knierman.

Long time, no posts, but we are working on extragalactic things! First up: #AAS234 featuring goodies from these space-tastic designers and more!

Okay so I was a bad astronomer last night because I was too exhausted to stay up to watch the SpaceX launch live, but I sure woke up in a hurry this morning when I saw on my Insta stories that there was a special little passenger in the capsule!

In case you didn’t immediately recognize it like I did, it’s a plushy Earth by Celestial Buddies! We’ve been huge fans of Celestial Buddies for years now and we carry the entire collection of plushies at the BOOTHtique wherever we go. The are not only adorable, but awesome teaching tools too - I personally use my Earth, Moon, and Sun all the time when I talk to kids. And if I could go to low Earth orbit, you better believe I’d be using one as my zero g indicator too. ;) 

Check out all our Celestial Buddies posts here and come see us at #AAS234 in St. Louis in June to take any and all buddies into your own orbit.  

NASA’s New Horizons Mission successfully completed its second flyby of its journey through the Kuiper Belt (the first being Pluto in the summer of 2015). This time, its target was Ultima Thule, aka 2014 MU69. The flyby happened in the wee small hours of the morning here on the east coast, just after the new year rang in, but it wasn’t until just before noon that scientists received confirmation from the spacecraft, including the pixelated image above. 

You can show your love for the New Horizons mission and all of space exploration with these earring sets by Pretty Little Earth (top) and Jabebo (middle) or with this choker necklace by Space Bling (bottom). All of which will also be available at our AAS233 BOOTHtique starting on Monday! 

Previous post featuring: New Horizons, Pluto, Pretty Little Earth, Jabebo, and SpaceBling.