Parallel-42 Technologies

Mar 01, 2025

Shop? What Shop?

What's this? A post that's not part of the site-meta category? Is that something you can do here?

Well, it is my site, so I suppose I can do what I want with it, right?

What Is It?

Several years ago, for completely unrelated reasons, I purchased a vinyl cutter. When I started toying around with it, I also started making stickers and vinyl logos of stuff I was interested in. For fun, I threw a couple of them up on an Etsy shop. Much to my surprise, they started selling. Selling enough to now have long since paid for the cutter and purchased a new one (higher precision, faster, and quieter).

So I've been selling one particular sticker off and on for the last couple of years. It's a vinyl cutout of the Belter Navy/OPA from the book and TV series The Expanse. Some of my all-time favorite media across genres and formats, I wasn't finding a lot in the way of logos and stickers. So since then, I've sold quite a few of them, usually between 3-5 per month. Nothing spectacular, but enough to keep me busy and a small trickle of cash.

What Happened Last Week

I don't know what triggered it, but something kicked off a HUGE volume of Expanse/OPA searches on Etsy, and my shop is always one of the first results. In less than 24h, I had more than 12 orders for that vinyl, and they're still coming in.

The only thing I can see is that there was a very popular reddit thread with a logo that's similar to the one I sell, and that must have kicked off a big surge in searches.

Whatever the reason, I'm not going to complain. I enjoy making them and prepping them for shipping.

Where Do I Go to Look?

If you want to have a look, my shop can be found here. You'll find the OPA/Belter logo and a few other things that I've had fun making.