Introducing: Faerie Wings!

I have been a busy bee since that last post. I went camping for a week and spent the rest of the time working on that "mysterious project" of mine. Well, I unveiled them at the Riverfest craft fair, and since then I've put the ones that didn't sell on my Etsy site. So here they are: Faerie Wings!

I have really enjoyed putting these together, and this is just the first batch. I have plans for many more. I am trying to make some that match some of the masks I have available, for stunning Halloween costumes and more. In my Etsy listings, I've already suggested matching masks and accessories right in the descriptions. It is such a joy for me to see people get excited about them. I love all of my accessories, but I think costuming is my absolute favorite. I've always loved Halloween, Mardi Gras, masquerades (hell, my wedding was a masquerade party) so this is definitely the way I love to do things.

Faerie Wings section of my Etsy shop

In other news, I made it about two weeks with my sketch-a-day commitment until I kind of took a break. (read: I haven't done a sketch in about a week.) This is mainly because of the stress of the craft fair, but it's been almost a week since the fair and I haven't really made an attempt to get back into it, so I need a kick in the butt. I finally have a full day off that I'm not spending cleaning or re-organizing or listing Etsy items, so I have no excuse not to get one done today. Keep an eye on my Twitpic feed to see my sketches, my new products, and more. I promise I'll get back to it!

I have two fairs coming up in September, so I'm looking at another busy month. Speaking of things I haven't been keeping up on... Remember the walk I vividly described in the last post? I haven't taken one since, unfortunately. I've been suffering with knee pain for awhile, but lately, it has gotten much worse. I've been managing it with a knee brace and naproxen, and I made it through camping and hiking just fine, but I haven't braved a nice long walk in awhile. I want to do more walking before the weather gets too cold. I love autumn very much, but it is a bit of a depressive season as we head into the frigid winter months.

~Segue~ Speaking of autumn (lol) I have been listed in a few more treasuries, and made one of my own. Here are the links:
Deep in the Forest
What do you MEAN that was POISON ivy???
Autumn
Fall is Comming [sic]
All Hallows Eve
And the one I made: New England Beach

That is it for today. I will tell you more details of how the Riverfest craft fair was and all about the upcoming craft fairs next time!

Listening to: A Particularly Vicious Rumor
Pics: I was going to post a few more autumn-themed items, but Blogger is being stupid at the moment, so I'll add them next time! :)

Night Walking

I just got back from a late night hour-long walk. I am guzzling water, and my legs are making those tiny muscle twitches that remind me of how a car engine makes ticking sounds when it's cooling down. The temperature was nice, but the humidity was brutal. It was so humid a visible mist hung in the air, and there was heat lightning in the distance. The grass was wet, and windows and my glasses were fogged up. It was worth it though. I hardly ever walk alone these days. It's nice to walk with my husband or my best friend, but walking alone is wonderful in its own way.

I love walking late at night like this. The world is a different place by the light of streetlamps and a sliver of a moon passing in and out of clouds. Everything is more mysterious and darkly beautiful. It's a little scary sometimes, too. An unexpected shadow or unexplained noise can easily make my mind jump to zombies or drunken rapists or vampire rabbits. My mind is a little too imaginative. I'm sure this town doesn't have any rapists, and only a few zombies. It does have a lot of drunks, though, so I avoid Main Street where all the bars are. I like to walk near the river. There aren't any roads that specifically run next to the river; it criss-crosses all over town, and you have to make sure the road you're on is one with a bridge or you may end up walking an extra three blocks to get to one. My favorite spot is the park, but I can't walk in the park at night, especially with my dog, lest I get hassled by the fine police force. A small part of the sidewalk is just close enough that I can see the reflections in the water, making everything look a little more romantic and fantastical; and hear the ducks splashing in the water.

Night walking is the perfect time to think. I don't have to exchange niceties with other walkers, I don't have to hold my dog back from trying to join a group of kids playing in their yard, I don't have to worry about what the people driving by think of my not-so-thin physique jiggling along the sidewalk. (Ok, that last one is probably all in my head. I hope.) I can just let my mind wander. Sometimes I try to think up new ideas for projects, sometimes I think about life and financial problems, and sometimes I just let my mind make up stories. The humidity tonight had me thinking about last week's heat wave. My house doesn't have central air, or even any window air conditioners, except one in the bedroom that we only run for a few hours at night to sleep comfortably. The days were mind-meltingly hot. The beauty products in my bathroom melted. I sat on the couch in next to nothing, with two fans blasting on me, and even then I was still sweating, and couldn't work up the energy to work on a single project. It's similar even in the winter. We have heat, of course, but to save on the bill, we keep the temp in between 60 and 64 at the most. The beauty products in my bathroom freeze, and I sit on the couch huddled in blankets, sometimes with a hat and gloves on, too cold to bring my hands out from under the blanket to work on a project. (I know, I know, I should get a Snuggie. lol NOT)

It's weird how something as simple as temperature can dominate your life. When you're uncomfortable, one way or the other, it's all you can think about. Even at work, which is air conditioned, my mind just kept repeating, "I'm so comfy now. I don't want to go home. Too hot. Ugh." Of the two options, though, I think I prefer the cold. I'm not a huge fan of winter, because I hate driving in the snow and I miss green growing things, but it's a lot easier to add layers to get warm. There's only so many layers you can take off to cool down. My favorite seasons are spring and fall. I love it when the temperature is crisp; you could put on a jacket to warm up a little, but you don't really need to. Fingerless gloves are more of a fashion statement than a necessity, but they don't cause you to overheat either.

As a side note, I spent today getting a lot of work done. I've been inspired by Kat Von D's recent twittering to start doing a sketch every day. Any artist should do a lot of sketching anyway, but I've noticed that since starting a business that doesn't require me to draw out my ideas before working on them, I've fallen out of the habit. It's been too long since I've done any painting, and I want to get back into that too, but I should at least be sketching to keep my talents sharp. My first sketch for today turned into a full-color drawing. I just couldn't resist. I'm going to try to keep it to quick pencil sketches after this, though. I'll never commit to a sketch a day if they all end up turning into two-hour detailed projects. Here is my Twitpic feed, where I'll be posting the daily updates.

The other project I hinted at is coming along pretty well so far. When I said my house was filling up with glitter, I meant it. I found glitter on the dog's nose that didn't want to come off. I still want to do some more work before I show you, though. In the meantime, here's another fun treasury I'm included in, all about Trilobites! Who says Trilobite is extinct?????

Listening to: Jill Tracy (great night-walking music)
Pic: Day 1's sketch

Rainy Updates

One of my favorite craft fairs of the year is coming up in a few short weeks. I'm keeping very busy with preparing and creating more products. All of my usual products will be there; feathers and flowers for your hair, masks for your face, and my latest adventure, jewelry with its roots in natural materials. I am also rolling out a new product for this craft fair, and for many others after if it goes well. I don't want to give too much away just yet; I'll show pictures when I have a few more finished, but for now I'll tell you my house is quickly filling up with glitter.

For information about the coming craft fair, please see my Facebook page or my Webs page. (By the way, if anyone has suggestions for a different web hosting site, please let me know, as Webs is frustrating me with its lack of storage. I had to take down a lot of pictures just to put in a few new ones.) The Riverfest craft fair is a two-day event, with plenty of other things to do, including a carnival, live music, and more. The only frustrating thing about that weekend is that I could not manage to get off work for Saturday. I'll be there for a short time in the morning to set up and get started, but my lovely sister will be manning my booth for the rest of the day. I will be there all day Sunday, though. Stop by and check out what my glittery new project is! ;)

Oh, and I promised to tell you about my last craft fair, Oshkosh's Faire on the Green, but there's not much to tell. We got rained out again and left way too early. I wish we could have stayed; things were going very well until the rain. We were next to a goat milk soap vendor I bought soap from at the last craft fair, very good stuff! They have a local farm and do everything by hand; from raising the goats to making the soap, which they mixed with other great natural ingredients. My lime soap had lime peels in it, my cedar soap had actual ceder needles in it (great for exfoliating, lol) and my coffee soap had coffee grounds in it. Great stuff! If I would have stayed longer at the craft fair, I probably would have bought more. I had some great customers in the morning as well.

The main reason we keep getting rained out is that our tent is not very waterproof. We are using a tent that my brother-in-law saved from the garbage, which was being thrown away because a few of the clips were broken. He fixed the clips and gave us the tent to use, and we discovered its other shortfalls quickly. Despite being much easier than our old tent to set up, the seams inside the tent leak at any rain harder than a mist, and it only comes with half-sides, no full sides. The wind blows right through us and the rain comes right in. For most fairs, this isn't even a problem if the weather's fine; we have just had some bad luck in Oshkosh, with each fair happening on a stormy day.

Our first experience at Riverfest (which was our first fair ever three years ago) was a stormy one. We set up in the rain and expected a very bad day. We were successful way beyond our expectations, despite the rain. With the liberal use of tarps and umbrellas, we made it through that weekend just fine. We thought we could do anything. However, apparently that tent, though not as sturdy and not as big, was a lot more waterproof than this one. None of our products got wet that entire weekend. At the last couple craft fairs, though, our products got soaked. Certain products can handle it and be fine; my feathers and fabric masks did not fare so well in the rain. Besides the products, our business cards and display cards can only handle so much rain before becoming unusable. I'm hoping to make enough money to purchase a brand-new tent, with proper waterproofing and large sides. They are expensive, though, so I have a lot of sales to make.

Listening to: Amanda Palmer
Pics: More of my latest products!

Treasury Love

Since the last time I posted links to treasuries that I've made and been in, way too much time has passed. So here's a quick compilation of what's been going on since ... April. Oh em gee, where has the time gone??

Treasuries I have made:

Grey Cabaret ~ "Smokey and emotional, misty and mysterious, filled with the soulful music of the blues, these artistic pieces bring to mind the cabaret of years past."

Mystical Moonday ~ "To add a touch of mystique to an otherwise ordinary Monday, I present this enchanting treasury of unique items."

Absinthe Amour ~ "Also known as the Green Faerie, Absinthe brings to mind the dark decadence of times past."

A Day in the Tropics ~ "The heat wave in my area makes it easy for me to create a 'staycation'... Just lay out on my back porch with a fruity drink in a coconut and pretend the ocean is nearby. Enjoy :)"

Treasuries I am featured in:

(Or at Least it Should Be)
Please, come back when I grow up!
Weddings Team April Style
Pearlescent Radiance
Who is that lady?
I never promised you a rose garden...
Slice of Summer!!
Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer
A Living Fairytale
Blue Jewels
Yellow Ochre Briars
Life's a bowl of cherries
Wedded Bliss
Summer Bliss
Colors of Summer
Bloomin' Brilliant
Inspired by the Ocean
Blissful I Do
still thinking of HP7 -BNS
Naturally, I'm Yours!
He's so cocky!

Thank you to everyone who has included me in their treasuries! They are fun, beautiful, classy, whimsical, and all in all an honor to be a part of. I hope you enjoy my treasuries as well. I love making them; they are a great way to help your fellow crafters get some attention and showcase beautiful items. Much love!

Craft Fairs, New Products, and More Updates

It's been too too long since I've written what I'm up to here. The last time I wrote was May, just before my first craft fair. Of course I have been busy busy busy, but also just a little lazy lazy lazy. I suppose it happens to the best of us once in awhile.

The Festival of Spring craft fair in May went very well. That one always does. I appreciate the beautiful surroundings of the Paine Art Center and Gardens; it makes for a very good backdrop to showcase some beautiful art. Our booth was next to a guy who made wooden frogs which, when you ran a stick across their back, made a noise quite similar to a croaking frog. Of course, I totally had to buy one. The noise was annoying to my booth partner, but I loved it. On the other side of us was a seller of Pampered Chef. Don't get me wrong; I support your right to make money however you choose, but there's always something about resellers at a craft fair that rubs me the wrong way. Just two booths down from us was someone selling bulk cheap jewelry for as low as $1. It was flying off his table, but it was plastic and shoddy and I just don't understand how you can bring such a low-end mass-produced product to a craft fair.

The last craft fair was the Taste of the Dells in Wisconsin Dells. Being a high-tourist area, I was really expecting that one to be very busy. The crafters around us, for the most part, were very talented and there seemed to be much less in the way of resellers. I was thrilled to get started. A two-day craft fair, and the booth fee was pretty cheap for such a huge event, I thought. Well, I soon understood why. I did passably fair, my booth partner unfortunately did a little less than fair, and all in all it felt disappointing. The actual "Taste" festival was over three blocks away from our little craft fair, which was not on the main drag of the Dells like I had thought, but just off of it. It felt like two different festivals with not much traffic between them. I'm always grateful for the customers I did have, though, and for the people we meet around us. The booth next to us had unique vinyl records (scratched) which had been partially melted under high heat and bent to form bowls which could be used for pots or just decorative bowls around the house. They also had purses made from "garbage" like Capri Sun wrappers, and bracelets woven from other wrappers. It was very fun. The vender who really caught our attention made fantastic candles and lotions from soy, with really unique scents like Ceder and Sage, White Zinfandel, Macintosh Apple, and more. In fact, here's her website: Makenna Del (I would share the website of the frog guy from the first craft fair, but he doesn't have one :P)

Our next craft fair is the Faire on the Green in Oshkosh at the Paine Art Center again. I hope it goes as well as the first, and I'm looking forward to seeing what unique venders will be joining us this time. Here's the info on Facebook: Faire on the Green and on my website, in case you're not a Facebook fan: Faire on the Green. That said, I'd like to introduce a new product that I've been working on for about a month or so now: Jewelry! I will include some pictures at the bottom, as always. Of course, I encourage you to check out my booth partner's jewelry as well, seen here: Lily Kay Designs I think our jewelry has a very different style. My friend's jewelry is trendy and fun, good for a night out or dressing up at the office or a lot of different things. She showcases several styles, with some hemp jewelry, a lot of sterling silver, large pendants, and several themes.

For my jewelry, I prefer to use as much natural material as possible. I use bamboo or cotton string, sterling silver when I can, natural stones and shells, polished stones, cameos, feathers, and more. My jewelry is more for people who have a sense of style similar to mine, I suppose. My friend likes to call me a goth hippie, and I suppose it's kind of true. I love my natural materials, but I also love the dark glamour of skulls and Victorian style cameos and other things. My jewelry is a perfect example of that. One thing I started doing which I really love is making hoop earrings that fit through gauged tunnel earrings. Finally, I can wear dangley feather earrings like all the cool kids, I just have to attach them to a hoop through my tunnels! Lol. I don't have pics of those yet; I'll post those later, but I do have pics of the rest.

Ok, that's a long enough post for this time. I promise to stay more up to date in the future! I won't let another two months go by before I update this again. I'll let you know what fun and interesting vendors and customers I have at the next craft fair.

Listening to: Hungry Lucy
Pics: New jewelry :)

Wisconsin Weather and Gardening Adventures

A day like this calls for piping hot tea first thing in the morning.

Wisconsin can't seem to make up its mind on the weather, which is not at all unusual for Wisconsin, I suppose. Last month we had an amazingly warm week. Flowers bloomed, people put away their winter coats; it was lovely. Then we spent a week being rained, snowed, and hailed on. Really, weather? Fine, it's April, sometimes things like that happen. The next couple weeks were actually quite springlike. The weather was cool, but not unbearably so, and we had warmer days. It rained, but no more snow and hail. Then last week we apparently jumped into summer a bit early. The humidity was terrible, but it was followed by some pretty epic storms with thunder that rattled the windows. (The storms are my favorite part of summer, by the way.) This week, we are apparently back to cold again. The temperature wouldn't be so bad by itself if it weren't for the icy, strong winds.

Getting any gardening done has been next to impossible. The nicest days always seem to be when I'm working, especially when I'm working a long shift. I have flowers planted in my front garden, and I even did some weeding, which for me is impressive. Usually the weeds and the flowers grow next to each other all season long. In the backyard, I did a bit of weeding and planting in the flowerbeds, and my husband and I installed some new bushes around the patio. We even went to the city's free yard site and collected a few bags of mulch to put around the bushes. I still need to tackle weeding and mulching the blueberry bushes, but the rest of the flowerbeds look quite professional right now. The poor vegetable garden, on the other hand, looks atrocious. I haven't been able to find a nice day that my husband and I are both actually home to till up the vegetable garden and re-fence it. Thus, no vegetables have been planted back there yet. I have some rhubarb growing from last season, and some seedling veggies from the farmer's market on the front porch just waiting to go in the ground, but no time to actually get them back there.

Last year, I will freely admit, I didn't put any time or effort into gardening and just let whatever happen happen. Surprisingly, I did get a few blueberries from the bushes, but the birds had free reign of most of them. I also had a few perennials sprout on their own and take care of themselves pretty well. I even had pumpkins in the veggie garden. They must have sprouted from the rotted Halloween pumpkins we put back there the autumn before. This year I intend to put as much effort into gardening as I tried to the first year I lived in this house. The first year, I planted tomatoes and herbs and pumpkins and gourds and flowers and peas and so many other things.... and almost nothing came to fruition. Perhaps that's why I was so lackadaisical last summer. Why bother, I said. But even without bothering, I did manage to have some results, so if I actually put in some effort this year, maybe my results will be even better now that I've learned a little.

Today is windy and chilly, but also sunny. I have a lot on my to-do list. I have to start getting ready for the first craft fair of the season coming up this Saturday. That means packing up my tote full of displays, taking inventory of everything I've made and/or sold since the last craft fair in November, pricing everything and getting it onto cards to hang on the displays, organizing everything into more totes without crushing anything, deciding what to bring and what to leave behind, and packing an emergency fix-it kit. Don't get me wrong; I LOVE doing craft fairs. They are my bread and butter all summer long, and it's really rewarding when you have a good fair where your items sell at a decent pace, or even better, sell like hotcakes. But the effort is exhausting sometimes. I only have a couple days off this week to use to get ready. Whenever I look outside, though, despite the chilly wind, the sun beckons to me. Nature is what I take my inspiration from. I can't resist the chance to go outside and revel in it.

I think I'll try to do a little of both today. I'll work inside and see if the wind calms down, and if it stays sunny out, and maybe I'll spend a couple hours outside before I come back in to finish the task at hand. I suppose I'd better finish my tea and get to work.

Listening to: Rasputina's latest album, Great American Gingerbread
Pics: Some of my flowers :)

Spring Events

Hello all! It's been awhile since I've updated things. It's been a relatively slow month; just crafting and waiting for spring to arrive. In Wisconsin, that's really hit-or-miss. We had some beautiful summer style weather mixed in with snowstorms and hail. Things seem to be evening out though; it's raining but the kind of wonderful spring rain that you don't mind getting caught in; the thunderstorms that help you sleep at night because they're so gentle, the lightning that my dad used to tell me turns the grass green in the spring.

It has been a wonderful time for treasuries on Etsy. I made a few of my own and got featured in several as well. Links here: A Nightmare Before Mother's Day, Spring has Sprung, I'm in a Purple Funk, Hair Do's, Member Treasury, and made by me, Earth Day Natural Beauty, Mardi Gras Magic, Cure for a Snowy Day, and A Few of my Favorite Things. Treasuries are really a fun way to get noticed and find many other beautiful crafters.

As spring quickly becomes summer, the craft fair season begins! I'm excited to tell you about a few craft fairs I'll be in this year. For now, I'm only telling you about the ones I've been confirmed to be in. I'm sure more will follow quickly. The first confirmed date is May 21st, where I will be at the Festival of Spring at The Paine Art Center and Gardens in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For more details, visit my Facebook events. If you don't have Facebook, check out my Webpage events. The next confirmed fair isn't until July, so I'll wait and update you about that one when the rest of my events for the coming months are confirmed. Looks to be a lot of fun though!

The wedding season is also starting! I'm thrilled to be working on several bridal party accessories. I'm hoping to get lots of pics to share the finished projects with you. I'm honored to contribute my work to someone's special day!

So with all the exciting things on the horizons, things are definitely looking up. I really needed this spring breeze to shake the winter doldrums away. Now I'd better quit typing and get to work...

Listening to: Beats Antique, Sunday Driver, and Niyaz
Pics: Latest projects!