theKatnoise was the name I used when I first started this blog. I was 29 and a semi-depressed adult trying to make my life work. I had plans to sell what I made, build something small but recognizable. I tried more than once, but it never really stuck. Handmade is hard to scale when people don’t value it the same way you do.

What did stick was the making.

I got really into decoden and anything that felt a little too cute. It was calming, a little obsessive, and I didn’t question it. I just kept going. Placing things, building things, collecting things. I documented it here in a way that made sense at the time.

Then I stopped.

Not in a dramatic way. I just… stopped using this. It sat here for years. I thought I had deleted it.

I didn’t.

I found it again over ten years later, still sitting here.

Looking back, none of it feels random. It’s the same instinct I still have now. I just didn’t have a name for it yet.

I’m not using the name theKatnoise anymore, but I didn’t want to erase it either. This is still that, just more defined. Some of the older posts will still reflect that name and where I was at the time.

The Cute Effect is what I’m calling it now.

A mix of what I make, what I keep, and the things that feel like a little too much but still work. Some of this will be how I made something. Some of it will just be the object. Some of it might be things I made years ago that I still can’t get rid of.

There are pieces from my archive I may sell. This is where I’m keeping the ones I actually care about.

If you’re looking for more writing, that lives on Blonde Asian. That’s where I’m actively building now.

What hasn’t changed is that I still like things that are a little too cute.