Thank Goodness for Record Bowls

A lot of factors combined to make today's craft fair far more successful than May's craft fair--rain was forecast but never came, which always makes people happy; I was in a REALLY good location; there weren't any other major events (such as IU graduation) to compete with the day; and due to some long and hard thinking and some lucky garage sale scores, I've managed to put together a much nicer and more distinctive booth display.

Remember my dressmaker's dummies? They helped a lot:
Miss Dilley is sporting my vinyl record pendant necklaces (put together with a lark's head knot and a fisherman's knot, thank you very much) and my comic book pinback buttons:
Little John has the monograms over book pages pinback buttons----and Scrabble tile pendant necklaces: I haven't made the time in my schedule to go thrifting often enough to add to my T-shirt stash, so I wasn't offering many T-shirt quilts, but I did have the printouts of my digital button monograms displayed in the gaps where I didn't have quilts: The big winner, however, is always record bowls, and I finally got my act together enough to display them in an accessible and attractive manner: Let me tell you, that scavenged shopping cart is worth its weight in gold. It holds as much as a big Rubbermaid bin, but you can push it, not tote it; you can haul extra stuff to your both site there at the bottom; and once you get there, it's also its own display, so it saved a ton of time, too.

But where did it originally come from? No telling...My dear friend Betsy and I gossipped away happily while I took money and she crocheted plastic bags into other plastic bags (she gets a lot of sightseers when she does that craft in public), Matt eavesdropped on our gossip and read the newspaper and took the girls on trips to get honey sticks, and the girls played in the water fountain and small stream just behind my booth (perfect location!), colored with the special markers-- --and played with some AWESOME stuff that my blog friend Anna gave them. Check OUT these masks!

Sydney's channeling Picasso with this one:

I'm in such a good mood after that craft fair that I might get ice cream later AND try my hand at making jam.

A Sweet Valley High Craft Fair

One of the huge benefits of being a graduate student/instructor at IU is the library system--not only is the IU library system AMAZING, but my library science degree is pretty much the minimum qualification that one would need to actually be able to understand how to access and search and obtain all the information available in such a huge and complex system.

For instance, the IU libraries will get me anything I want. Anything. And I can want it for any reason. I wanted a copy of for Sydney, for instance. It's the soundtrack to the first film, is lauded as having one of the best film scores ever, features a rare Diana Ross cover, and is out of print. See how much it is on Amazon? Yeah, I interlibrary loaned it from IU, and they picked it up off of a public library in Portland for me. Mine for two weeks.

Take another of my obsession--crafting in literature. I find it highly amusing to read an author's non-professional take on crafting whenever it's included in a novel for some random reason. So when Margo Rising reviewed Sweet Valley High's Boy Trouble, including a secondary plot involving Jessica and a craft fair, I WANTED it. So I interlibrary loaned it from IU--they only had to go to New Albany, Indiana, to get this one for me.

Okay, there are so many ridiculous things about this book. Check out Margo Rising for the complete plot recap--here, all you need to know is that DeeDee is Elizabeth's friend and she's an "artist". When we join her and Elizabeth and all the other juniors at the lunch table--Todd Wilkins, Winston Eggbert (swoon!), Enid Rollins, and Bill Chase, in case you were curious--she's showing off her hand-painted shirt (barf!) and tell Elizabeth that she has a big craft fair this Saturday.

In the parking lot of the mall.

Vendors from all over the state are going to come hawk their wares in a mall parking lot. Um, really? I guess in the early 1990s...

And speaking of, how did a popular teenager ever get the idea to sell at a craft fair in the early 1990s? It was all ducks in bonnets and dried flower wreaths back then. Not that DeeDee's crap is much different: A black and turquoise seascape design, my friends--are you picturing it? Now picture it in a size large, because that's the way you LIKE it, and picture it on your body. Yep, it's the early 1990s, all right.

And an alligator-skin wallet? Is that supposed to tell me she's rich? Thanks for handing the planet down to me, lady.

But look, y'all! Craft fairs give you positive self-esteem!Now I know that a lot of crafters consider a lot of their work art (I admit I'm one of them, with some of my stuff), but I have yet to meet an "artist" who would sell at a craft fair. The one time I suggested to one of my artist friends that he could make a lot of money selling his ceramics at a craft fair, he made it VERY clear to me that he would not be caught dead whoring his work out at some low-rent craft fair. So it makes me laugh that DeeDee is written as seeing craft fair vending as the start of an art career.

Of course it's inevitable that Jessica gets involved in some hijinks--she booth-sits for DeeDee and gets caught up in some kind of mistaken-identity fiasco in which she decides to paint her own T-shirts to sell to a boutique owner who comes by, and of course they're fugly, but the boutique owner doesn't even rat her out when he gets ahold of the real DeeDee to offer her the real deal (Wholesale, DeeDee! Never consign!). The real plot, however, is some laughable business in which Patty and her boyfriend break up over a misunderstanding that neither will talk to the other about--don't worry about it, because it's really boring.

In other news, on the same garage sale day in which I found my dressmaker's dummies, Matt had a world-class score of his own:
It's a few of the issues from the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, the one with continuous covers. Matt's especially excited because the big geeky thing is that Mr. Fantastic's stretchy arm can be seen, I guess, stretching through the whole thing. See it over the big green face?

Yeah. I'm not sure how many more issues Matt needs to get the whole scene, but there's always another garage sale, right?

P.S. Ever figure out why I would use a Dremel to cut a vinyl record album? Check out my tutorial for making vinyl record album pendants over at Crafting a Green World.

Luna? Not So Much.

Ominously, the first craft fair of the season was quite...eh.

Mind you, all the stuff was there. Quilts:
Pinback buttons: Gift Tags: And some new stuff that I've been making with these terrific upholstery remnants that I scored a few weeks ago:

There was even my own personal troll-girl who crouched under the table and played with stuff for five hours:

Customers, though? Not so much. And customers wishing to purchase things? Um, there were even fewer of those, at least for me--the hallway where we set up is kind of narrow, so vendors could have been making a killing just three tables down and I wouldn't have known. There wasn't so much being killed right near me.

The experience was educational, however. All of my sales were very small--I didn't sell any item that cost over $5--so that tells me that I'll likely need to bone up on a LOT of really small items for my craft fairs this summer. Of course, it's actually harder to make a good profit if you're selling really small items, because you obviously have to sell 60 $1 buttons to make the same amount of money as you can from one $60 T-shirt quilt, but whatever a girl's gotta do, I guess.

People seemed to like the belly dancers. Perhaps I could belly dance just inside my booth? Draw in the customers? Earn some extra singles?

Controlled Chaos (Except for the Controlled Part)

This is what the work table in my studio looks like right about now:I count three different types of craft projects in the making there. I'm hoping to finish up one complete set of button alphabets tomorrow, which I'll likely sell by the letter. I'd like to do another complete alphabet to sell as a set, but it might be nice if at my first couple of craft fairs this season I had something to sell OTHER than two sets of button alphabets, ya know?

Ooh, and a third set just for the babies, but since we have nowhere to put that one it gets to be low priority for now.

I am so stoked for craft fair season.

And garage sale season.

It would be nice to see the sun again, too...

P.S. Check out my post about appraising your vintage stuff before you craft with it over at Crafting a Green World.

Come to the Moon

The moon, like Spanish: la luna? Old English: mona. Greek: mene. Latin: mens, mensis (literally, "month"). Welsh: mis. Like, you know, Luna Festival?

I'm so absurdly over-educated that I can't tell if my jokes are actually funny.

Anyway...come to Luna Festival!

Come to buy or come to sell--there are actually still a couple of tables open, and I can forward you the pdf application if you're feeling a little crafty. Otherwise, definitely come to buy.

I really like Luna Festival because it's like a craft fair pre-game--I signed up for five(?) sessions at A Fair of the Arts, and one of my New Year's Resolutions (oh, man, I just re-read those and noticed the "limit junk" one--whatev) was to get into some more national-level craft fairs this year, so Luna Fest is like my small, relaxed beginning to the season. I can try out some new stuff I've been working on all winter, test my pricing, have that extra time to work on signage--all that good money-making good stuff.

I also like to mix up my theme a little: last year I sold at Luna under Girls Love Dinosaurs, and this year I'm thinking of combining some kind of craft kit/rainbow thing. The girls have me unhealthily (unholily?) obsessed with rainbows, of all things----all those pretty colors! Lined up in a neat row! How organized! Fussy yet unfussy!

It's tiresome even for me to hear myself talk, sometimes.

Earn Money, Buy Stuff

The Fair and Green Gift Festival was quite the occasion:
Not only did I earn a tidy sum AND get all my papers graded (something I had to do this weekend anyway, so it's like I got double-paid!), but I was just a couple of tables down from a green burial company, so during the slow periods I got to eavesdrop on LOTS of gossip about, well...burial hijinks?

For those of you who were looking for something in particular--I sold out of felted wool dolls and crocheted grocery bag messenger bags, but I'll have two felted wool balls up in my shop tomorrow. I'll also be listing a few sets of Christmas-themed record bowls and two felted wool stockings.

But of course, we can't forget that yesterday was GOODWILL 50%-OFF STOREWIDE SALE DAY!!!

Everybody managed to get something nice and new to them, and the thrifting gods were indeed smiling upon me, because I scored two items that I have been on the lookout for. To help me finally make the soap from the soap-making kit I bought from the Kitchen Girls, I found an immersion blender--something that I was widely warned is rarely found in thrift stores. And, to replace the lousy one that broke TWO YEARS AGO, I found a super-super-nice digital five-compartment electric steamer.

Happy sigh.

Find Me

In case you're one of my *many* stalkers, here's where to find me tomorrow:

10am-3pm: Fair and Green Gift Festival, Alison-Jukebox Community Center, Bloomington, Indiana

This is the first year it's being held here, so the organizer fears that attendance will be light, but it seems to me as if she's been promoting it really well, so we'll see.

In honor of the festivity of the season, I'm just bringing my Christmas-y stuff (and in honor of the tiny little table I'll have), but the girls and I did have a happy morning together making these product signs: All from stash. Festive, right?

And, of course, nothing is more festive than crafting in the nude: The girls periodically get VERY into our mostly-thrifted rubber stamp collection: It would likely be a greater pleasure to use them if I took more care in keeping the stamps and ink pads clean. Seems like a lot of work, though...

I will have some of my newest stuff at the festival--soldered glass ornaments and felted wool ornaments and stockings and these guys-- --so I'm looking forward to seeing how well they do.

4pm-6:30pm: Cloth Diapering Workshop, Barefoot Herbs Barefoot Kids, Bloomington, Indiana

This is my favorite of the two workshops I do at the store. My guarantee: somebody will ask if you have to dunk diapers in the toilet to wash them, somebody else will doubt that tea tree oil does jack as a wash additive, and a third somebody will refuse to believe that you can use a wool diaper cover for a month without washing it. All of these people will be lectured into total submission.

7:00 pm: Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale, Central Indiana

Don't even ask me if I'm freaking that I'm not going to be there at 9:00 am, because you know I am. I'm hard put not to give Matt a list and make him go in my place--immersion blender, wool sweaters, retro sheets to make pajama pants out of, Christmas-themed T-shirts for a quilt, obscure crafting books, little-girl hats and mittens--all will be gone by 7:00 pm, I just know it.

Must get my mind off of it--look what came in the mail today!The provenance of the wood from Maine Wood Company looked pretty good, so I bought some little people, some bigger people, some trees, two snowmen, and some acorns.

They still don't have any furniture, though, so they all just stand around and stare out the windows:

Stalk me!

Nifty Little Gifties

Phew! I managed to catch a cold on top of whatever intestinal flu nastiness I had, so I'm not feeling all better, but my choices are no longer to either lie down or faint so y'all, I'm declaring it--I AM WELL!!!

Mind you, I still did a lot of tricking the girls into lying down with me today, and they've basically run through their screen time for the rest of the month, but I did finish my biggest, most important project this evening--my Craft magazine tutorial submission is ready to roll, as soon as the editor sends me her dpi and size preferences for the photos. For those of you who've been following my photo saga or who know something about photography, I'll just tell you--middle grey matte board, it rocks.

In other news, I'm waaaay behind (obviously) on prepping for the Fair and Green Gift Festival that I'll be vending at this Saturday (along with the Kitchen Girls, among other awesome local celebrities), but while languishing in bed off and on yesterday I did manage to finish up punching out the tiny little holes in these nifty little gifties:
Gift tags! From old greeting cards! I wrote a quick-and-dirty tutorial for them over at Crafting a Green World, but they were a Thanksgiving event unto themselves, I tell you:It seems that my late Mama, before she became too unwell, collected every single greeting card she had ever received--in our back hallway was a huge drawer, crammed to overflowing, with cards dating back from the 1950s. While spending the better part of Thanksgiving weekend sorting through them just to cull out the cards from exes (cards from exes are EXCELLENT for crafting with), I came across so many fabulous treasures that you'd just never find unless your grandma was a packrat, too.

For instance, look at this awesome card: It's freakin' adorable, right? It's from a big stack, held together with a rubber band, that came, apparently, from a baby shower held for my Mama when she was pregnant with her baby who was stillborn. The condolence cards for his death were in the same stack--keepsakes of joy and keepsakes of grief, all together.

There were other bittersweet cards from loved ones long gone, cards for graduations and anniversaries and Christmases 30 years ago, and cards from...
me. You betcha, in grade school, I used to dot the "i" in my signature with a CAT HEAD. Sometimes, though, I'd just sign my name like this: It was my trademark, see?

Here's the biggest mystery of the bunch, though:That's to me, when I was a small child, from Aunt Birdie. She sent me a Christmas postcard, and a Christmas sticker, and some Christmas cut-outs from a box top, and just check out this beautiful letter:

"Dec 23 83 (I was seven)

Dearest loving niece and loved one. Wish you was here with me for Christmas. I guess you are looking for Santa Clause to come Christmas. I hope he brings you a lot of nice gifts and nuts and gum and apples, oranges, and all kinds of good things to eat and nice presents. Are you looking for him to bring you a sweet baby doll? I hope he does.

I love you so much, wish you was here with me. I so all alone and so lonesome. Tell mother, dad, grandmother, all hello for me. All my love to my sweet thing.

From Aunt Birdie Gann."

Breaks your heart, right? Here's the thing, though--WHO IS AUNT BIRDIE? Never heard of her. Never seen her, never seen a photo of her, don't remember anybody speaking of her, don't know this name At. All.

But wow, she loved me, didn't she? And she was all alone and lonesome on Christmas. But because Mama saved her letter and sticker and postcard and cut-outs for me, after I probably looked at them and thought they were stupid and left them lie, I can remember her now. I feel more loved today, thinking about Aunt Birdie, who wanted me to have gum and apples and oranges for Christmas and wished I was there with her.

And thanks for the Christmas cut-outs, Aunt Birdie. I'll put them on the tree this year, I promise.

End of the Season

And almost before it began, it seems, the entire season of craft fairs at the farmer's market is over:

Until next year...

Strange Folk Saturday

It has been a good, good Saturday! If you've never been to an indie craft fair, my friends, I must tell you that I highly recommend it. Just imagine chilling out here in suburban St. Louis with me this weekend, wandering through the enchanted craft forest, visiting over a hundred handmade items vendors and with every one of them you think, "Huh, their stuff is cool!" When you get tired you can take a break over at the alpaca petting zoo or the #6 plastic Shrinky Dink station, and when you get hungry, why, there's both a coffee shop and a booth selling deep-fried Snickers bars. Yum.Here are just a couple of shots of my booth......and a worm.

The girls have been having an awesome time, too. One of the reasons St. Louis was a good choice for a craft fair was that we love spending the weekend there, anyway--zoo, Science Center, The Container Store, Whole Foods--but Matt and the girls didn't even get out of the park today. Not only is Strange Folk in a park with trees to climb and a playground and a picnic blanket with books and toys just behind my booth and lots of grass to run in, but there is also a #6 plastic Shrinky Dink station and a make-your-own necklace table and an alpaca petting zoo, etc. Sydney especially enjoyed the World's Biggest Sandbox: And Willow enjoyed--can you guess?

Matt got this great shot of the two vendors at the mei tai booth, along with their mannequin:

I even got some shopping time while Matt ran the booth with strict orders to smile at people, look pleasant, respond in complete sentences when they spoke to him, and not eat:
Becoming so crafty by habit has unfortunately spoiled my craft fair visiting a little, however, because everything I see, I say something like, "Ooh, a fleece hat with kitty ears! So cool! But I could probably figure out how to make that for myself. Oh, diaper prefolds with quilter's cotton on one side! Um, I could make that, I guess. Vinyl brooches! I should make some of those for myself." But I did find a loophole--supplies! I bought a yard each (so far) of two new awesome cotton fabrics, one of zoo animals and one of the alphabet, and the sock monkey one is kind of calling for me to come back again for it tomorrow. I also bought this beautiful and bright wool roving--

--for making the little felted wool balls from .

All in all, it was a good day for a little money-making, a little shopping, a little spending time with the family...
It was a good day.