Bloom And Barnacle's First Craft Fair

I've been hard at work trying to get ready for my first craft fair! Of course it was a last minute decision, so I'm scurrying as usual.  Good news though, I have this weekend off!  This will be the first Halloween that I haven't worked at the store in 6 years.  In fact, I think it will be the first Halloween I haven't worked since my freshmen year of college.  We have no idea what to do?

I started making these really cool ornaments from thrift store sweaters.  There's something so fun about having to hunt for things in thrift stores and at yard sales.  I remember my great grandpa had about 4 banquet tables in his backyard, covered in junk yard findings, sorted into piles, that he used to invent all kinds of things.  It's in my genetics, I can't help it.=)

Anyway, you know how sometimes you're making/painting/baking something and you totally screw up what you're supposed to do, but then somehow it turns out even better than it would've had you not?  So it goes with the ornaments.  I don't have a pic yet, will post tomorrow.

So I'll have some cool ornaments, some dolls, napkins  and winebags for the fair.  And possibly some clothespin doll ornaments if I can get supplies in time.  I love making ornaments because there's such a wide variety of things you can do, and most of them are fairly quick. 

In the meantime, Circus Lady Napkin pics.

I Made Etsy's Front Page!

Thanks so much to Bayanhippo.etsy.com, who put Poppy in her treasury that just so happened to make front page! (See right) I was so excited, I was dancing around and I think I scared poor Barney!  More tomorrow!

Some Good News, Some Bad News

I wouldn't say I'm a pessimist, however, I'm definitely a realist, so let's do bad news first.

Poor Barney has a (hopefully) mild case of pancreatitis.  He's been acting really funny, not eating as much as usual, had that look on his face like he really didn't feel well, actually got up in the middle of the night and hid in his crate, which he only does if he thinks he's in trouble, or something hurts really bad.  So I took him to the vet yesterday and she did some bloodwork, I guess his pancreas is irritated. So he gets boiled chicken, rice and cottage cheese for a week or so.  She gave him some anti-naseua meds yesterday and last night he was a whole different dog.  I was worried that it was a reaction to the previcox (for his dysplasia) but it doesn't look like it.  I guess it's usually caused be eating high fat foods. The only thing I can think of is a neighbor gave him a bone that was possibly fatty? Or he got into the trash or something outside that we didn't catch.  But he seems to be feeling better.  So scary.=(

Good news, I finally took some decent pics. I'm pretty happy with about half of them, the others came out slightly blurry. Work in progress, but definitely getting there. 

Today I'm going to get some different colors of fabric paint and should have the first set of napkins finished tonight.  I also finished shoes for 3 dolls last night, hopefully I'll get some good pics this evening and can list tonight or tomorrow.  No more days off until Nov 2.  So only 1 weekend off then we go to Hawaii.  I'm going to have to figure out how to get more done on workdays!=)

Photography Woes!

Good Resolution, Not so Good color

Decent Color-Bad Resolution

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but I suck (sorry, there's no alternate word that conveys such frustration) at taking pictures.

The only C grade I was given at UCSD was in photography.  And the sad thing is, I actually tried, and honestly didn't know what I could have done differently.  It just doesn't click in my mind.

So taking pics for Etsy has been rough.  I read through my camera manual the other day, figured out how to change the white balance and EV and actually in the last few pics the color came out much better than the first round.  However, somehow I'd adjusted the pixel size so everything came out blurry. It wouldn't be so bad, except that the best light I get is right before sundown, so it's race home, get everything set up and shoot, shoot shoot.  I hate being in a rush to do things.  But I have tomorrow morning too, so hopefully I'll have some decent pics posted by tomorrow afternoon.

Sidenote, we're going to family dinner tomorrow night and it's a costume dinner.  I haven't gotten to truly dress up for Halloween since Erik and I started dating, and consequently working at the Halloween store, 6 Halloween's ago.  We're so excited.  I've decided I'm going as Amy Winehouse.  It would be weird to dress up super hot & sexy since it's family dinner, and if you're not going hot and sexy, you've got to do something fun.  Can't wait!

My first sale!

I made my first Etsy sale yesterday, so exciting!  It was actually a wine bag, which I started making as gift bags for the dolls but then thought they would make a good side project, plus a nice excuse to paint a little.

It really is a lot of work figuring out how Etsy works.  The tagging, the listing, the shipping, etc.  Very cool and really exciting though.  I didn't realize how many great tools there are for checking stats.  Here are some great ones:
http://www.craftcult.com/
http://www.cr8tvity.com/

However, it's been hard getting new things done in the meantime.  Tonight I'll be working on new pics of existing dolls (I finally read through my camera manual and figured out how to adjust the white balance) and  on finishing four girls that just need shoes and shirts.  I'm also working on a doll for my psuedo niece that I'd like to have shipped off for her this weekend.  I had a hard time finding the right colored plaid, so I'm dyeing the undershirt to sort of liven it up.  Some samples:

And finally, I'd really like to finish the two witches by next week, seeing as it is almost Halloween.  That really is hard to believe.  I feel like summer just started yesterday.
Almost Finished:

And I almost forgot, I also need to reorganize the loft:

Etsy Shop is Open!

I can't believe it, I finally opened my etsy store!  I  have 8 dolls listed and am working on wine totes/gift bags right now.  Please click at the right to check it out.

Doll Boots!

Okay, so I had to push my etsy deadline back one last & final time.  It WILL be open, with multiple listings, on Saturday Oct. 10.  I finally figured out how to make the boots I wanted.  That was a serious, serious process.  I swear I spent almost all day last Saturday running errands because I kept finding out that I needed this or that.  Those days can be so frustrating sometimes.  So I ended up buying a clay "pasta" machine (for about $12 with my 40% off Michael's coupon) a bunch of sculpey, and a tacky glue pen.  My main problem was that I didn't make the feet in the form of the shoe I wanted, which meant I needed to make a mold of what I wanted the shoe to be shaped like, apparently called a "last" in the shoe making world.  Once I got that part figured out, everything kind of came together.  Once I get it all nailed down, I'll put up a how-to.

Regardless, I should have about 10 dolls done by tomorrow.  I've taken a long weekend starting tomorrow (so exciting!)  We finally got a silkscreen in workable condition.  I forgot what  process that was as well.  Lots of trial and error. 

On a sidenote, it's so interesting how the really frustrating things can end up being the most fruitful.  I was thinking about it, I'm always reading stories or watching interviews about highly successful people who beat the odds, and they're always noting "hard work" as the main force that got them there.  (An great book on this is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.)  It's such an over-used term that I kind of just took it for granted.  Well of course it took hard work.  School took hard work.  Relationships take hard work.  But I think a lot of the "hard work" they're talking about is not giving up when something doesn't work out, not taking no for an answer in a sense.  When I look back at certain things, I would say the most life changing, good things, they happened once I had reached a point where I should have given up and didn't.  I think you know when you get to that point.  And you think, okay I've been working on this for so long, I've tried so many different ways to make this work, and it's just not happening for me.  It's when your mind-set changes to, "I know that I can do this, and I'm not quitting until it does" that things start to come about.  Another interesting thing, I've noticed that this has happened a lot more often since I hit my late 20's.  I remember my Mom telling me that she enjoyed her 30's much more than her 20's because she was much more certain of herself, and it seems to be the consensus that women are generally much more confident in their 30's.  I would say it definitely rings true for me.  Phew, okay, off my soap box. 

So, dolls should be done by tomorrow, as well as the gift/wine bags they'll be packaged in.  Then I'm hoping to make more wine totes to sell individually and once I have enough of those, I'm on to dinner napkins.  Of course, this will involve more silkscreen making, and a lot more hard work-determination.=)

I do have to say though that the dolls seem to be coming along much more quickly now though, so I'm hoping to have quite a few new girls (and possibly some guys) by November.