A Winner

Here are a couple of peeks from the boutique we had just this past weekend. My friend Kathy hosted us in her lovely home and we spent the day together laughing and nibbling treats and sharing our wares with visitors. I was very excited that my best art pal Shoshanah came and showed her new jewelry creations which are dynamite! The picture below is her table dressed in blue. Its so great to see her being able to share her artistic visions with the public in the form of finished artwork vs. vending supplies as she usually does. I am excited to do more fairs with her and to collaborate on some pieces. This little shabby table was my table for showcasing ornaments, journals and cards. I sold every last holiday card! Now I need to get back to it to be ready for the other shows we have scheduled.

In addition to these two tables Vicki and I also had our mosaic wares and they were well received. We did our biggest total sales to date and are very happy with how this endeavor is going. The mannequin shown is covered with pins that my Mom has created with various fibers, fabric, vintage buttons, jewelry, etc. They were well received and she was excited to make a little extra cash out of something that is her hobby. (sorry the pictures and formatting are all wonky, Blogger is not cooperating with Safari)

Anyway, I am enjoying doing this artist thing for real and also being available to be with my daughter and volunteer at her school, etc. I am so fortunate that I am able to do this and my husband is so supportive. Thank you honey!!

And last but not least, the randomly drawn winner of the drawing from my last giveaway post is ... Liz aka lala! So, hopefully you are reading this as I am having difficulty contacting you. If so, please email me with your address so I can send you some holiday treats! Congrats!!

Thanksgiving peeks

I love Thanksigiving. I think it is my favorite holiday. I spoke with my SIL today who is hosting this year and she has an old fashioned turkey dinner planned. Yay. The best thing about Thanksgiving is that it is in the autumn which is my favorite season ( such as it is in CA) and I always feel invigorated by the crisp air and the beautiful colors. Since I have been creating so many items for holiday boutiques, I figured it was only right to slip in a few Thanksgiving items.. here is a peek:

Open House photos

I know I said I'd post these pictures of our first holiday open house a post or two ago but I lost track of time and got busy with my design team stuff. So, anyway, I decided to do it today. A couple months ago my friend Vicki and I did our first "craft fair" in San Juan Baustista. It was kind of a bust with low attendance and low sales but we had fun and had pretty good response to our wares. Shortly after, a friend here in town invited us to participate in her annual open house. We accepted and really enjoyed our day. Here are a few shots of our tables.

I really need to display my cards better. We ordered a card rack but its kind of sterile and I will not have it for this weekend. I also need to get set up to take better close up shots. The mosaics are pretty reflective so they are hard to shoot. We are going to install a light in Vicki's garage to light up the photo cube and hopefully get some shots uploaded to our Etsy shop soon.

Ho Ho Ho, Holiday Design Team projects...

Yeah, this month I was ON TIME for the Lollishops Design Team reveal. I have been working on things ever since I got my kit a few weeks ago and it really helped me get in the groove for the holiday cards and tags I am making for upcoming holiday boutiques and maybe a swap or two.

I received a bunch of fun vintage holiday goodies compiled by Sadie of Lollishops and this months sponsor Chocolate Letters who has some great, inspirational supplies and goodies.

Initially I wanted to make an advent calendar with my goodies but I was unable to find the form I wanted so my pile of inspiration turned into a pile of projects. I was really inspired to create useable items as opposed to knicky knacky "sit arounds" because I am in major purge mode. I started with a couple of gift boxes embellished with goodies from the kit like this cute felty Santa and cool ribbons. And I can't wait to give someone a treat in this cute round one embellished with a little vintage house and snow trimmed in old sheet music, crepe paper and vintage lace...

Next I moved onto another fun project which my daughter and her little friends have been coveting. Some fun Christmas wands! I made several but this one was the one I used my design team goodies on:

This of course led to some ornaments which were heavily inspired by my friend Karin. I am especially loving the white and gold one with the vintage bells from Chocolate Letters. (Sorry the picture is not great)








I imagine by now this post is getting pretty wonky with pictures and text but please bear with me.

Finally I want to share some tags and cards I created with the goodies from this kit. I got some cute collage images and various tag bits which I cut up and used in various projects. I plan to make some stuff that would be cute with one of these gift tags attached.
I love to make greeting cards and as I mentioned before this challenge really kick started me to get moving on my holiday cards. These are just a couple of the stack I made which I will
also share as the holidays get closer.

By the way, I haven't hosted a card swap for a while and its getting a bit late for a big organized swap, but if anyone would like to do a small 3 for 3 or so card swap with me, please let me know. I haven't done any swaps for awhile and I miss it!!

If you have made it this far with me in this post Thank You! Here is the good part. leave me a comment with a way to contact you and I will enter your name in a drawing to win a box of holiday goodies (both finished items and some bits and pieces to create with). Thanks for reading!!

Tweet Twit

I have really been procrastinating on joining the leagues of Twitter-ers because, frankly I just don't need ANOTHER thing to suck up my time. But as of today I gained a new official title in our family business (where I basically just do consulting and fill in from time to time) where I became "director of social media" because we are FINALLY trying to take advantage of all that the 21st century has to offer.. i.e. computerized ordering, mailing list tracking, digital newsletters and soon a blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc, which is where I come in.
Last week we sent out our first digital newsletter and are relishing having so many statistics and tools at our finger tips. Today we set up a Twitter account for the company! I figured I had better set up my own account so I can mess around with it and see how it all works. I already have ONE follower. woohoo. LOL Anyway, I figured since I have to do this, it'd be nice to have some followers to see what I am doing so if you follow my Twitter feed I will enter you into a drawing for a package of holiday goodies from the pile that is growing on my desk. I can't unveil them yet, because they are for my Lollishop design team Christmas kit reveal on November 1 (also to include a giveaway!)
Oh, in other news, the boutique I mentioned in my last post was successful! We sold a bunch of stuff and had great reception. I am so excited for our next one on November 7. I will post pictures in the next post.

winner

SUE of Its a Very Cherry World, you are the lucky winner of my 700th post giveaway! Please email me with your address and I will send off your box of goodies to play with. I hope you will feel inspired!

In other news, the little and I just got back from a fun trip to Disneyland. Being in private school, we don't have all kinds of in-service days and minimum days so the kids got 4 day weekend for Columbus Day... our twin friends just happened to be turning 6 over the weekend so the 3 mamas packed up the 3 kidlets and road tripped down for some fun in the sun. It was cool to see Disneyland all decked out for Halloween and we even attended a special Disney Halloween Party in costume one night. I was super proud of the little for being brave and attempting some new rides and cozying up to a bunch of the characters. Goofy is always her favorite!!

Well I am off. Tomorrow is a studio day as we need to come up with some holiday items for an upcoming open house boutique... more to share soon!

Ooh wow, 700 and LolliShops Design Team

As I was logging in I realized that my last post was number 700!! Wow, I had no idea I was that close. Well its kind of timely because today is the big reveal for the LolliShops design Team Autumn Projects. We each got a packet of inspiration provided by Sadie and some of her Lolli Vendors and friends... The Retro Art Cafe, The Tin Tiara, SkyBlueBunny and Lollishops itself..

We were each sent a similar packet and asked to create something(s). I almost missed the deadline but scrambled and finished up my projects today. It felt like the nature was conspiring against me to keep from this, child illness, rough school days, computer issues.. but I did it!! I think the things I did were fun and cute. It was a good exercise is stretching myself as I have not been using much in the way of pastels lately.

First off I made this cute tag on a form that was provided. The cute doll stickers were fun and I embellished with vintage music, wallpaper and lace, along with lace and ribbon from the kit. Its topped off with some vintage buttons and embroidery and a sparkly flower in her hair. I will be sending this along with some other goodies, off to a lucky commenter in thanks for supporting me and my blogging ups and downs. Just leave a comment and a way to contact you and I will draw a name in a few days.

My other creations was inspired by the "Bits and Pieces" swap I did a while back that was hosted by Jenny of Everyday is a Holiday. I did a small "collage" on top of a box that can be used for trinkets and treasures. It has already been snapped up by my daughter for her room which is undergoing a make over. The various bits were from the kit, the pretty brooch, paper doll, lollipop, lace snippets, buttons and darling velvet flower along with the background paper. I had a lot of fun doing this "challenge" and look forward to next month.

Edited: I am adding a small covered box similar to that shown here ready for you to embellish with some goodies left over from the kit and some other things from my stash as well. Just leave a comment and I will draw a name to win it and the tag. Good luck!