Monday, June 30, 2008

Home Companion Pictures

The pictures for the Home Companion ad were due today. These are the 2 I sent in. The final picture size will only be 1.25 inches X 1 inch - so not real big, but hopefully these will crop well for it.


Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Mary Englebreit's Home Companion

I'm so excited that I couldn't wait and had to blog twice in one day. I'm going to have one of my items in the Mary Englebreit's Home Companion Magazine! Etsy does something they call a cooperative ad - where they put in a full page ad in the magazine and then sell a limited number of spots to Etsy sellers to be on that ad. There are only 30 spots available so very hard to get - but I did it! I was spot #10! Yeah!

The details are: The ad will be in the Oct/Nov issue which will go on sale September 9th, 2008! The theme of the issue is Flea Market Magic! I think I'll submit one of my ancestor spoons as my 1 item. It'll go well with the theme, it's made from spoons and photos found at the flea market.

I have been reading this magazine for years now and I can't tell you how thrilled I am to have an item of mine in it, even if it's only in the ad section!

So, on September 9th, run to your nearest bookstore and pick up the new issue of Mary Englebreit's Home Companion and look for the Etsy ad! Thanks!

Vintage Aprons – Who Knew?!


Who knew that vintage aprons were so popular? Okay so probably lots of you knew but I didn’t until just recently. Back in January I bought a lot of about 40 vintage aprons. I had visions of doing crafty things with them, making embellishments, sewing cupcakes on them, etc. Well, as it happens with many of my crafting ideas, I just ran out of time and never ended up doing anything with them.

So, when craft shows started up again a few weeks ago I decided to decorate my booth with the vintage aprons strung across the sides. I already had a kitschy kitchen feel going with some of my other display items and figured the aprons would look nice. I was right, they look great strung all together hanging from my tent and within hours of them going up at my 1st show I had people asking if they were for sale. At first I said no, they’re just for decoration but I was quickly overcome with the requests and seeing I had a large stash of them from my initial lot purchase I started selling them. Would you believe they’ve become my #1 selling item at shows right now?!

More than just the sales though the aprons just seem to have some magical memory powers. Every person (and it’s not just the women) who comes in my tent and sees the aprons shares with me some story about their mother or grandmother and their fond memories of aprons! I’m having so much fun listening to everyone that I think I’m going to have to make the aprons a permanent part of my booth just so I can continue hearing the stories.

Maybe I’ll start writing them down and I’ll share a few with you!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Swaps!

A couple months ago I found a website that I have become obsessed with. It is http://www.craftster.org and it's a place for anyone who likes to craft to come and share ideas, questions, tutorials, inspiration or just chat.

One of my favorite parts of the site though is the swaps. These are organized swaps where you pick a theme (usually) and you then get a partner and you craft a certain number of items for them and they do the same for you. If anyone knows me even a little bit they know that I love themes, crafting and getting mail - so this was just perfect for me.

So far I have finished 3 swaps, a postcard swap, a Star Trek swap and a Doctor Who swap. I'm currently in 3 more; a Star Wars swap, a Jim Henson swap and one called the little visitor swap.

The little visitor swap is a bit different. I took a toy robot, made up a name and cute back story for him and mailed him to a girl I was partnered with who lives in Australia! She in turn sent me a little stuffed animal dog. So for 2 months we go around taking pictures of our toy wherever we go (work, movies, trips, etc) and at the end of the 2 months we make a scrapbook of all the pictures and then return the toy with scrapbook to its original owner and get our toy and a scrapbook back. The post below with the picture of the felt food shows my little visitor - the dog chappy. It's been a lot of fun. People look at you a bit strange when you take pictures of a little stuffed animal wherever you go, but who cares and just think, my toy is in Australia! I wish I could have gone too!

The other swaps have been just as fun! Here is a picture of one of the items I received as a gift in the Star Trek swap! A hand knitted Mr. Spock! How cool is that.
If you'd like to see what other wonderful things this crafty lady makes you can check out her Etsy shop at http://www.creationsbyteapot.etsy.com/

Monday, June 9, 2008

Providence Open Market and the Rhody Girls Art Club

Wow, life has been so busy lately. I haven’t had time to tell you about this wonderful new craft group I’ve joined called the Rhody Girls Art Club or the fact that we Rhody Girls are now managing the Providence Open Market. It all just seemed to happen very quickly but the results have been fabulous!

This past Saturday was the opening day for the Providence Open Market! We had over 50 vendors show up on a hot steamy 94 degree day! The street looked marvelous all filled up with tents and crafters and somehow we all managed to stay cool (between the frozen lemonade and canning jars full of iced lemonade, I felt like a giant lemon by the end of the day).

This is a photo of 3 of the fabulous Rhody Girls. They are (L to R) Kim from Lucky Bird Studios, Layla from Doll Face Designs and Erin from Kiddo Mio.


This is a shot of some of my felt food on display (and a little visitor in the middle).