This is How We Pack?

Before you head off for a weekend trip, don't you:

set the chalkboard blocks out to air-dry after one last coat:

and then spray paint the shopping cart:

We do, apparently--at least those are the last-minute chores that we found ourselves hurrying to finish before we set off for a weekend in Cleveland. It was a weekend full of Bazaar Bizarre, the Great Lakes Science Center, banana splits, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and barbecue. We came home in time for parades, gymnastic, mowing the lawn, riding bicycles, and Geomags, and now Matt's fixing the girls grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner before their early bedtime (no late-night fireworks show for us this year!), after which he and I will collapse in bed with Baked Lays, Harry Potter, hard lemonade, and ideally our own early bedtime.

Yawn.

Rainbow W.I.P.

Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland is in less than two weeks! I need the whole family's help to get ready in time, even, apparently, the help of those who might not seem traditionally helpful:

Walking too close to the iron and ensuring that I have to inform people that my products do NOT come from a cat-free home are important jobs, too, you know.

And thus stands my stack of cut fabric, ready to sew into rainbow sets of bean bags:

Add to this the additional cat duties of knocking over my fabric stacks if I leave them out, batting bobbins underneath shelves if I accidentally drop them, and scattering the dried beans if I leave the box open and unattended. They keep me tidy, those cats.

Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland 2010

Whew!

Prepping for Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland added a CRAZY amount of pre-holiday stress to my pre-holiday stress, from trying to craft extra-large multiples of everything to figuring out how to cram all my stuff onto a table display to the 6.5-hour drive late at night, but it was so worth it.

The lights were customizable:

This allowed us to perfectly spotlight everything from the felted wool Christmas trees--

--to the crayon rocket pops:

And all that was left was to get a perfect picture with my sweet, sweetly-smiling little kids:

Oh, well.

While I sold my butt off and gossiped with my neighbor, JukeBoxArt, Matty and the kids hung out at the Great Lakes Science Center and the Children's Museum of Cleveland, and did a lot of swimming. They came back to Bizarre Bazaar to do a little shopping, since I had taken great care to instruct the children to tell their daddy that they really, really, REALLY wanted to buy a Christmas present for me at Bazaar Bizarre. Having kids is so great!

One thing that I love about big indie craft fairs is how awesome EVERYTHING is. Whenever Matt drops by, he'll watch the booth for a while so that I can stretch my legs, look around, and visit a little, and I swear, at every single table that I pass, I want to buy everything on that table. At one point, the organizer got on the intercom to announce that an item had been found in the women's restroom.

"If anyone lost a glass bracelet with the Seven Deadly Sins on it, please come to the information table," she said. And I swear, every single person at the craft fair (including me) stopped and was all, "Ooh! Seven Deadly Sins! Did she buy that here?"

I still want that bracelet, actually...

Bound for Cleveland

I have been crafting my butt off, in what often seems like ten-second intervals, to get a ton of stuff and all my infrastructure prepped for Bazaar Bizarre Cleveland tomorrow. Ten-second intervals, of course, is what I get between helping make Rice Crispy Christmas trees, baking bread, setting up science experiments (and cleaning up after them), setting up art projects (and cleaning up after them), reading books out loud, setting up the telescope (and putting it away), chilling at the playground, chilling at the library, taking the girls Christmas shopping, taking the girls to playdates, taking the girls to ballet class and ice skating class, etc., etc., etc.

I never get nearly as much done as I want to, and not quite as much done as I need to, but here's what I did get done. I've got--

Rocket Pop Crayons 

Felted Wool Sweater Trees

--and travel felt playmats, six different felt playsets, comic book pinback buttons, dictionary cut-out pinback buttons, record bowls, coffee cup chia kits, colored pencil roll-ups, tutus, I Spy quilts, blue jean quilts, and T-shirt quilts.

Think I have enough? Well, it has to be enough, because we're leaving in two hours, and I still have to pack, pack the girls' stuff, pack the craft fair stuff, write another CAGW blog post, make lunch (and clean up after it), laminate some signs, find my favorite hoodie...

Etc., etc., etc.

Indie Craft Fairs

Sporting the strawberry hat I bought her at Renegade Fair!

I'm a really big fan of indie craft fairs. I find the modern DIY practice really fresh and appealing, and the vibe so different from your typical craft fair. So far I've enjoyed attending them and buying lots and lots of awesome stuff, and one of my goals for this year is to apply to some of the fairs in driving distance in order to test how my work might sell in a market that's really suited to it.

Here is a list of my favorite indie craft fairs:

I attended the Renegade Craft Fair in Chicago this year, and it was quite a good outlet for some retail therapy. I bought loads of things, including a vinyl wrist cuff in orange and grey, knitted strawberry-top hats for both my kids, postcards, pins, and soap, and I studied the kinds of displays and marketing that the successful booths employed. It was where I figured out that my own displays need to look way more put-together.

The Bazaar Bizarre (I wish it was the Bizarre Bazaar, but I'm not in charge of all aspects of the world at large) is a winter event that I've never attended, but there's one in Cleveland, which is in driving distance, so I'm so there this year. Even though they're obviously not updated for the upcoming year yet, their sight is very valuable if you like to sell because they have lots of photos of past events. I flip through the vendor photos and gaze jealously at their awesome displays, and wish I, too, could make their awesome products.

Craftin' Outlaws also looks really cool, and is in good old Columbus, a driveable distance, but it seems like it might be really close in time to Chicago's Renegade Fair, which would be unfortunate. I can't spend the year tooling around in my RV from indie craft fair to indie craft fair until Matt and I retire. Or if we worked independently. Which would be great.

The No Coast Craft-O-Rama is too far away for me to attend, but it's another winter event. This is the thing I didn't get last year--I chose to sell at a sci-fi convention last Thanksgiving weekend instead of at the local craft fair's holiday fair, and I did well at the convention, but I might have done better at the holiday fair, because people love themselves some Christmas. I was opposed to the idea of making "Christmas" crafts because I generally only make things that I'm really into myself, and I'm not so into Christmas, but I was thinking I might try it this year. Christmas-themed stuff, anyway, if it doesn't sell, would also make good Christmas presents that would fit in with my handmade holiday ethic without the last-minute stress of actually making the handmade holiday. I noticed on etsy, too, that everybody but me made Valentine's Day stuff and it all sold like mad, so another one of my goals for the year is to figure out a schedule for creating for the big holidays.

Finally, the Urban Craft Uprising is also much too far away for me to attend, but I'm also a really big fan of the Web sites for indie craft fairs because they always provide links to the Web sites of their vendors, and I love indie craft Web shops as much as I love indie craft fairs.

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