Indie Mart

The indie mart yesterday was a ton of fun, I would certainly recommend it to any San Francisco residents as a lovely way to pass an afternoon. It was exciting to see a good number of shops I recognized as favorites from Etsy. I ended up walking away empty handed again (except for a couple of really delicious cupcakes), but this time it was because I had neglected to bring any cash. There were a few places I would have been happy to drop some dollars, including my new favorite, NousSavons. They have really lovely vintage inspired jewelry with whimsical names, like the above Parlor Lace earrings, which are made with vintage lace. The jury is still out on whether I will be submitting an app to participate in the next indie mart, but I will certainly keep you updated.
mel

Things Are Happening (have happened)

I am sorry for the lack of posts in the last week. I don't exactly know what happened, I think it was a combination of being in Sacramento over the weekend, a broken alarm on my phone, and, y'know, being old now. But posts will start occuring at their regular frequency again. I'll give you a quick recap of things I've been thinking about this week.

*I am going to go to my coworker's daughter's Girl Scout meeting next weekend and teach the troupe how to make perfect bound books. This is exciting and a little scary.

*Steve and I will be hitting up the Mission Indie Mart this Sunday. Woo hoo craft shows!

*I am excited about the new record cover notebooks I've made that I'm slowly listing in the shop.

*KK of Lulaboutique wrote a really nice post about roska handmade on her blog. What a sweetie!

*I am on the lookout for art! I need things to hang on the wall, things that Steve and I will both like. Please share any suggestions you may have, either particular prints or places to buy. I'd sure appreciate it!

mel

Renegade SF

Renegade Craft Fair, originally uploaded by DaveyWilson.

I'm getting really excited about the Renegade Craft Fair! This is the first year that there will be one in San Francisco, and it will also be the first time I've been to a craft fair since I was in kindergarten and my mom was selling her puffy painted tshirts in the Elks Lodge parking lot. I'm really looking forward to it. It's being held at Fort Mason, one of my very favorite places, on July 12th and 13th. I was looking at the vendor list a little while ago and it looks like there will be lots of awesome shops there. One of them is a recent etsy find of mine, honeylux, a letterpress company in Oakland. I love pretty much everything in the honeylux shop and am really tempted to buy it all up right now, but I'm thinking I'll wait until Renegade, it will be more fun to buy stuff there. Stuff like this

Twilight by honeylux

Yeah, I don't know if I'm going to be able to hold out for another week. If you're going to be at Renegade SF, I hope I'll see you there!

mel

ps - Don't forget to enter the notebook giveaway here. The winner will be announced on monday!

Boo

So, the craft fair was....bad. I don't know, it was fine, it's just that I didn't sell anything. Which is ok. It was still fun. And I got a buncha buncha books made, and I've been slowly getting those up on my etsy page, and now they are selling like hotcakes! So everything is ok. I just don't think the holiday craft fair at my place of work is the right market for me. But hey, I learned that lesson, and it's important to learn, right? Anyway, do you want to see some of my books? Ok, here we go

I really like this one, it's from this really old atlas (1942!) that I bought a long time ago, but I had never used before. I am really happy with how they turned out, I think they look really great. You can see that I did these a little differently than usual, they have "wrap around" covers and I think they're cool. And since the maps are interesting because they are so old; the world looked pretty different then. I think on this one you can see that there was no Vietnam yet, it was called French IndoChina. These would be perfect for history buffs, they would really get a kick out of them I think.

Not too much else going on, just chugging away making books and knitting a lot. In fact, I taught Steve how to knit! It's pretty cute. He asked me to teach him, I think, because he can't stand that there is something I'm good at that he can't challenge me at. He's very competitive. And I'm happy to report that he's doing really well, he's picking it up very quickly. All my success with teaching people how to knit tempts me to start offering lessons on craigslist or something. Steve is the seventh or eighth of my friends that I've taught the knitting basics, but probably it's different teaching your friends than it is teaching strangers. It's something to think about though, I guess.

Oh, just one more thing. I've been really enjoying this blog lately: mccain blogette. It's written by John McCain's daughter, who is on the campaign trail with him, riding the "straight talk express" or whatever his bus is called. Don't be scared, this is NOT a political blog, it is pretty much 100% fluff, but Ms. McCain is strangely winning. And she has the cutest clothes. But mostly I like it because it is a look at campaigning from a point of view that someone like me (early 20s, female, not particularly interested in politics) can appreciate. And it makes John McCain look really likable, which is a feat; you would think the McCain peeps would be pimping it a little harder, they could probably win some lady voters.

mel

be careful what you wish for

Okay, I know, I know! I haven't posted in a really long time. I'm sorry. There, now that's out of the way. I've been really busy with class and all kinds of things. I'm working really hard to get stuff ready; I was accepted to be a vendor at the holiday craft fair at my work, but it's on the 14th! So soon! And I barely have anything to sell! Today I started to get a little stressed out. Before, I was just excited at the prospect of my very first craft show, but today I'm nervous. I have sooooo much work to do. I will try really hard to remember my camera that day, then I can post some pictures of my table. I don't know how I'm going to set up, I have a few ideas but I haven't thought about it that much. I'm selling my books and some scarves and maybe some hats. My mom sells her scarves at her work and she displays them in a big vase with the scarves all spilling out, so I might do something like that. I don't know! You should leave a comment if you have any suggestions for me, ok?

I started doing my Christmas shopping today. It's going pretty well, I guess. I found things for four of the people on my list. I'm trying to do most of my shopping online this year, mostly on Etsy of course. I don't really have any ideas of what I want to get for people though, so I'm just browsing and choosing randomly. That's why it's not going especially quickly.


Well, gotta get back to work. I'll leave you with this cool shop I came across on Etsy today. 2ndDraft, they're pretty new to Etsy but they had this bracelet on the front page today. Everything in the shop is made with film; microfilm or regular film. It makes for a really interesting look. I love this clutch:

mel

SuperOrange

All right, I think I am seriously addicted to Orange-Carrot Juice. For a while I was having it everyday for breakfast. Then I stopped for a while, because I am lazy to walk to Jamba Juice from my office, but I was thinking about it ALL THE TIME. Now I'm back. It's just soooo good. I don't know what it is, there's just something so refreshing, yet slightly creamy about it...it's really flavorful and satiating. The way they make it at Jamba Juice it gets all frothy....yum, just thinking about it is making me salivate. Anyway, the point is that I'm a little worried that having the same thing for breakfast everyday is not good for me. Also, I am a little worried that I might turn a little orange, even though, really, I know that won't happen. But still. So I tried having yogurt and an apple for breakfast but it's just not the same! I'm going to try the yogurt thing for a while though, because I bought a TON of yogurt, and maybe eventually I'll be as obsessed with yogurt as I am now with Orange-Carrot juice. It could happen.

It seems like I am finally starting to feel creative again. Unfortunately, so far it seems like I'm feeling most creative while I'm at work, where there is nothing creative to do but doodle. Like I've mentioned before, I've really been inspired by this collage project we're doing in my drawing class, and by the Joseph Cornell exhibit at the SFMOMA. In fact, I went to see the Cornell exhibit again last night, with my boyfriend, and I feel like I wouldn't mind at all if I were going to see it again. I loved it so much. Last night I wanted to walk across the scary bridge they have on the top floor of the museum. The walkway is metal, but the floor is kind of a grid (they call it steel truss), so you can see through it. The walkway is on the fourth floor of the museum, and you can see all the way to the ground floor. And these are gallery floors so I they're a bit taller than normal floors I think. If you get a chance to go to the SFMOMA and you are not too scared of heights, you should definitely do the walkway. It is so incredibly terrifying. But fun! Really! It's indescribable. I was giggling in terror for like five minutes after. But I did it twice! The real point is that on the other side of the bridge was the Olafur Eliasson exhibition, which was also super cool. It was all about geometry and it was organic, but it had elements of collage as well, but used in a totally different way than Cornell used them. It was a really interesting contrast.

The museum lobby and the bridge with Eliasson's work "One Way Color Tunnel." Unfortunately, it doesn't make the bridge look very scary. Sorry.

So, yes, very inspiring. But it doesn't really mean anything unless I make myself sit down and get to work. And now I'm thinking about doing the Holiday Shopping Fair at my work. My coworkers have been on me about it all year, asking me if I'm going to sell my scarves and hats. I want to because then I would get to basically take a half day off work, which is always awesome. But it also means that I would need to start cranking out the knitwear like NOW. So, I guess I'll have to see what happens.

mel