Merry Christmas Eve

Like you, I'm sure, I've seen a bunch of these types of videos but this is my favorite! (Thanks Dad!)

I killed it!

But first: Happy 22nd Birthday, Simon!!!

I don't have my final numbers for this weekend's craft show but based on what I sold Thursday and Friday, plus how (half) empty my Sticky Notes rack was at the end of Saturday, I think I did really well. It's been a while since I could say that! My more typical answer for 2008 and 2009 has been, "Good enough," - so I'm thrilled.

I got up at 4:30 yesterday to continue embellishing Sticky Notes. I worked so hard that when I took a break, Saturday had morphed into Sunday in my mind. Simon and Steve were both at work, so then I thought it was Friday and I was on a vacation day. It took some serious concentration to get my head straight.

So while selling well is good news for sure, I have the big 2-1/2 day Rochester Museum and Science Center show next weekend. I'm taking Thursday and Friday off this week though, to catch up and set up Friday morning.

Last year I went to a show in Canandaigua called The Christkindle Market to check it out. It's an outdoor show in November so I was intrigued to see how it was set up. Vendors set their tents up inside a gigantic tent, which is heated. Though our weather lately has been so lovely, not sure they were needed as much as some years. It's a high quality show so I decided I wanted to apply, and almost did. But it's always this same weekend as this Brighton show.

The Brighton show is run as a co-op, we all pitch in with set up and take down and other tasks - I maintain the mailing list. This is my third year doing the show and it's always been the Little Show that Could. It's always been a surprisingly good show for me. And because it's such a small group of nice women, I feel a certain loyalty to them.

I was driving home from the show last night, trying to decide if I regret not applying for the Christkindl Market. I would have presumably made more money but I would have invested a lot more time and money. Not only would I have to be at the show Friday afternoon, all day Saturday & Sunday, but I would have lost the time I got to spend making more product. For the Brighton show I only have to work one 3-hour shift. And the entrance fee is one of the lowest around.

No contest. Brighton is where I should be. This time of year gets like this - many shows on conflicting dates. Can't do them all.

I found a similar video on my new friend Lisa's Facebook page. When I went to You Tube to grab it, I found this one which is a bit more informative. Wild stuff I never knew about before!

39th Annual Holiday Bazaar

Friday November 20, 5:00-9:00
Saturday November 21, 9:30-5:00
Sunday November 22, 11:00-4:00

Rochester Museum & Science Center Holiday Bazaar
657 East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14607

Dancing Baby

Oh man, the leg! The leg kills me!

It's about 5 minutes long but this is my favorite Beyonce video! (Technically, it's the only Beyonce video I've seen.)

Voices of Glory

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I'd like to pass along a link to a performance on America's Got Talent that Stephanie provided. The mom was a co-worker/friend of Stephanie's. Very moving. (Click the link, rather than the embedded video if you want to avoid a 30 second commercial.)

Love The Human Slinky.

Hope to see you there!

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New Letterpress Equipment

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I love the look of letterpressed paper. I used to follow a blog of a young woman who was given a free old letterpress machine - she just had to move it to her home. It was the size of a piano!

Now Lifestyle Crafts, a division of QuicKutz, offers a small home version. The website says it will be in stores this fall. I didn't see any pricing. I honestly don't have any desire to buy this, but I think it's really cool. (Never say never, right?) Seems like such a natural extension of the die cut machines, doesn't it?

Yay! YouTube comes through again.

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You Tubes

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Being a relatively new Prius owner, I was vaguely aware of this commercial, mostly bummed that I didn't get this new model with the solar powered ventilation system. I liked the music and knew the commercial was all nature-y. I never really watched it closely until I saw this video on my friend Becky's Facebook page. It's people making up the scenery! I know, duh. This is cool stuff.

Becky also posted this video, which Simon was just telling me about earlier yesterday. I think it's making the rounds so maybe you've seen it, but it's too dang cute not to share. Simon was right - it's extra cute because there's an Asian baby in there. I watched this thing over and over.

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In other news I guess vacation is about over. I was at work (all night?!) in my dreams. Of course it was the irritating, nothing-makes-sense work, not the work I enjoy. I woke up too full of angst and annoyance to go back to sleep so I got up. At 5:00 am on my last vacation day. Ergggh. I figured it was better to get up and put some of this energy to work and maybe sneak in one last not-so-guilty pleasure - a nap!

Btw, I did go to bed around my normal bed time last night, for the last couple of nights actually. I had to chuckle, reminded as I was of how I used to make Simon go to bed early the last week of summer vacation before school started when he was little. He was as resentful of me then as I was of me now.

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Raccoons Rescued From Vending Machine

Dunking Devils

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(I'm not sure if that's supposed to say "Best of" - or it's really "Best Off". Guess it kinda makes sense either way.)

Fearless

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Don't worry. If you're afraid of heights, there's only a couple of
places you'll have to white-knuckle through. Mostly, it's amazing.

I found this video through my pal, Ashton Kutcher who Twittered
it recently. Please note I was following AK before it was newsworthy. :-)

Green Box

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How clever!

So two exciting things have happened lately.

I broke my little pinky toe on Sunday. I did it the usual way, walking into furniture. It hurt but no more than you would expect it to. I noticed a few hours later it still hurt, which seemed unusual. After I sat at Spot Coffee Sunday night for hours, the first time I got up to walk around, it really hurt. Limping hurt. I noticed that night it was pretty purple.

I consulted Dr. Google and found what I expected. Do nothing unless it gets worse.

Here's the bummer. It's practically healed! How is a girl supposed to garner sympathy and be waited on hand & foot without a cooperative toe?? Seriously, by mid-morning it really didn't hurt at all and even I have to look really hard for any discoloration.

This morning though, when I put my shoe on, it hurt a bit. So maybe there's a little hope for complete servitude towards me after all. Go me!

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I've been accepted for the Letchworth craft show! This has me scared shitless and really, really excited. This is a major 3-day show about 45 minutes from here, held Columbus Day weekend, so it's Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

I know seasoned artists who don't feel ready to apply for this show. And you can choose to exhibit 1, 2 or 3 days but I decided to be all go-big-or-go-home about it and asked for 3 days. Oh my.

The thing I didn't pay attention to, but wouldn't do any differently anyway, is that the following weekend is the Junior League of Rochester 2-day show. It was my 2nd best show last year.

So I have to be ultra-prepared. Which I am, each year is better and better, but still, yikes!

And I received an application for the brand new Finger Lakes Riesling Festival to be held in Canandaigua in August. It's a 2-day outdoor show. I have nothing planned for July (except vacation with Steve) or August - so I want to do this one too.

I'm feeling so motivated! (And Pam, I'll be in touch with work to do!)

After not being allowed to use my own table at Spot Coffee I checked with the Nixon Peabody people yesterday and was told yes, I can use my own table tomorrow and yes, I'd already asked that. Oops. Once bitten, twice shy.

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Stand By Me

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Love, love, love this video. I think this song will be stuck in my head all day. I hope! (Thanks Sue.)

Blue Duo and Babyproof Drawer

.I'm really stepping up my stitching - just kind of worked out that way. It's always one of those I-wonder-what-it-would-look-like-if-I-did-this kind of things. The unintended benefit to using heavily stitched elements like this is they require very little or no embellishing so they are quick to assemble. More time spent stitching = less time spent embellishing, so it's probably a wash time wise, but lots of fun either way.

I don't know yet how I did at last weekend's craft show - I'll receive my check in the mail probably late this week. I expect to be down from last year, given the economy. As goal-driven as I am, I told Steve I need to get those things out of my head sometimes so as to not feel disappointed at things (presumably) out of my control. I need a more glass-is-half-full approach, in that I made XX more dollars than if I had not participated. (I know I easily covered my entrance fee.)

I worked Saturday morning and it was surprisingly busy! The weather was blustery - rain, snow, wind, the works. I knew people wouldn't be outside doing yard work which is always a "problem" when we have nice spring weather. But I thought it was so nasty out that people wouldn't want to leave the house. Glad I was wrong! We had lines at both registers several times. I knew 2 out of the 3 people I worked with so it was pretty fun.

I've mentioned previously that because we can sell buy/sell product at this show, I've hesitated to participate - and cite the candy-filled plastic American Idol guitar from last year's show as evidence. This year I saw a guitar shaped air freshener come through the line. I think it was an air freshener (no American Idol logo though!) I know I only noticed it because of the guitar theme. I was laughing to myself, "Here we go again!"

What I had totally forgotten about was a vendor who makes (I assume she/he makes them) little novelty items relevant to the season. In cellophane bags, with a computer-printed header tag, she bags up a dozen pieces of pastel colored mini-marshmallows and labels it Easter Bunny Poop. I've seen her do green mini-marshmallows for Leprechaun Poop and of course the always classic white mini-marshmallows for Snowman Poop. She sells them for 50 cents, I think it is. She has a bunch of different things but that's the only one I can remember.

In spite of the above mentioned items, as I looked around further on Saturday, there really was a lot of nice stuff there - far outweighs any lesser items. Mom stopped by and she'll vouch for the show. :-)

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Work has been extra depressing this week. You'll recall I had a virus for a few days that we couldn't get rid of so I was given a new-to-me computer, using a virtual module. It turns out that I can't live with my slowish computer so our IT person told me yesterday she's getting me a new machine with a faster processor and she's doubling my RAM. I hope I get it today. I was near tears with frustration yesterday. I want the computer to respond as fast as I can type and click, which is pretty fast, if I say so myself.

Our Illinois sales tax auditor is here for the week. I honestly had hopes that this would be his last visit. Oh silly me. He is extending the time frame in which he has to finish the audit to June. June 2010. I really did want to cry! He thinks he'll be done in August though, including time for us to dispute any of his findings. He says he'll be back for another 2 or 3 week-long visits. He really is a nice guy, very reasonable, couldn't ask for a better auditor in fact. But woe is me. I would say that I think most of my part of this is wrapping up - now it's up to him to review all the information I've given him. But I'm trying hard to remove all expectations about how this will go because clearly, I haven't a clue.

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I went into work early Monday and Tuesday but decided I need to do some happy, crafty work this morning to get myself "right". Another thing I did was I went to Stever's Chocolates on Park Avenue on yesterday's lunch hour and bought Easter chocolates for Steve, Simon, Simon's girlfriend, Steve's mom, DJ, Gershum, Lizz and "the girls" at work. The only thing I bought myself was a 5-piece package of dark chocolate covered pretzels. I ate them throughout the afternoon at my desk. Beats cryin'!

Another local chocolatier is Andy's Candies. They set up shop around town for various holidays so they are a lot more convenient but my problem with their chocolate is that it is always filled with air bubbles. Stever's Chocolates are pristine and perfect!

Oh crap! I just remembered a fellow vendor I met last year who has a shop in East Rochester. Darn - I would like to support her, wish I'd thought of this earlier. Stever's does have a lot of novelty (there's that word again!) chocolates - so I bought most of the aforementioned people chocolates relative to their interests: iPod, cell phone, laptop, Sodoku puzzle, etc.

Let's end with an infectious laugh, shall we?

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Bailey, Play Dead

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Uncle John sent me this video - isn't it hilarious?

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So I took today off and I'm proud to say that in the last 3 days, I have added embellishments to 351 Sticky Notes. That is the most I've ever had on hand at one time. I have a feeling I have no other product prepared for this week's craft show, but by God, I've got Sticky Notes.

I ordered the most perfect free-standing display unit for my Sticky Notes and was told it would very likely arrive early this week. Today I received an email from the company saying it's been discontinued. Poop. I'm very disappointed. But I'm taking this as a sign that there must be a better solution out there. This company does have a bunch of other pieces so I'm sure I'll find one that will work out even better. My goal is to display the Sticky Notes one-deep, not 3-4 deep like I have been.

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I started taking Mucinex again and it's helped my stupid cold/voice thing, just not fast enough for me. Mostly I decided last night to ignore the whole thing and move on. You shall not hear me speak of it again.

April 2, 3, 4 - 10:00-6:00 & April 5 - 10:00-4:00

26th Annual Signs of Spring

Powers Farm Market

161 Marsh Road, Pittsford, NY

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Barclay Waterslide

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Sorting, embellishing, pricing, oh my.

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Friday at work I was feeling very frustrated by two time sensitive big deal deadlines. I ended up staying until 6:00, mission accomplished. Even after I got home, ate dinner and was stitching while watching TV with Steve, I told him, "This is weird, especially for me. Work is still in my head."

Enter Simon. I was trying to explain a concept to him, didn't think he was listening properly, and started to cry while talking to him. I immediately said the tears were from a stressful day at work, blah, blah, blah.

After he left the room I said to Steve, "I was going to say those tears came out of left field, but " - and Steve finished my sentence, "But we pretty much saw that marching down Broadway." Oh yeah. With lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Got that out of the way. And the weekend began. Mom and I made a new custom fitted tablecloth for one of my craft tables, now that I use it with risers. Looks great! Last night I bought more fabric for the other table so we'll put that one together on Sunday. Mom thought I was going to wait until the last minute. Ha! We will have the 2nd tablecloth completed a full 3 days before the next show.

This is a slightly longer version than the video cousin Scott sent out to the family. I think it's interesting, in the version Scott sent, Barclay edited out the part when he goes through the children's bedroom, for example. I agree with their decision, it had a unintended slight creepiness to it.

Lotsa Beads

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A perfect representation of my 3 major addictions: paper, thread and beads.

$7.00 in my shop.


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The Tivo in my studio is old school - only 40 hours. Seems like a lot of hours, doesn't it? You'd be surprised at A) how much crap I record and B) how little time I've spent in here the last week or so - or how little time working and watching anyway. If I have to use my brain, which I try not to, I need silence.

I tell you this to point out one of the few commercials I don't fast forward through.

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Cougars

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Happy Valentine's Day!

I saw a story on the news this morning about Queen Elizabeth introducing the new and improved official website of the monarchy. When the news reader concluded the story, going back to the hosts, she said, "I hear she also Facebooks and Twitters - and she sent me a text message a few minutes ago." Much hilarity ensued. My point in telling you this is to say that just hearing the words Facebook and Twitter made me start jonesin' bad to check my Facebook and Twitter pages! I got it bad, but I know I'm not alone.

Speaking of which, I found this on Facebook today - it cracked me up.

Paper Craft Planet

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Oh no, what have I done? Joined yet another community?? It looked interesting enough but they had me at the description, "It's like Facebook, but for paper". Hook, line and sinker.

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I can't believe we forgot to watch President Obama speak last night! It's the first presidential address I've wanted to watch in a long time. Too caught up in our Cold Case episodes. (It's a new series to us so we're catching up on old episodes. We started because we think we've seen every Law & Order SVU there is.)

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Steve made me sick. No, literally. Thanks to echinacea and Mucinex, I shall soldier forward.

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Craft Sanity's Podcast #92, an interview with Daniel Vosovic, has made me want to watch Project Runway. I've gone from being a reality TV snob to watching too many reality shows.

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Cheesey Art

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I follow Demi Moore on Twitter and her tweet led me to this video.

FYI - I found her by following Ashton Kutcher, who I found by following Tina Fey, who tweets a bunch of hilarious one-liners. I'm turning into a regular Celebrity Twitter Stalker. I found these 3 the day before Ashton outed Lawrence Taylor about being on Dancing with the Stars next season. I've now seen that bit in the news twice so I know Twitter is pretty darn mainstream these days. And I felt terribly in-the-know since I'd already read his tweet and come to the same conclusion.

Heck, my 70-something parents both Twitter!

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I just received an email from CraftyCoach and thought I'd pass along this resource to my art/craft business friends. I'm a new subscriber so I really can't vouch for the site just yet but the topics look right up my alley.

And that Start Your Arts & Crafts Business online class I'm taking at Ed2Go.com? So far it's a bit disappointing because I really haven't discovered any new material. But there are 3 bits of good news. 1) The twice weekly lessons don't take up much of my time because I can skim each one fairly quickly. 2) It confirms I'm on the right track already. 3) She provides good resources at the end of each lesson so I think I'll find those useful as I have time to explore.

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Dos and Don'ts of Efficiency

I love the Internet in about a million ways but one of the best things I did late last year was subscribe to Digg. I added the Digg Toolbar and with it comes a setting whereby you can be notified of popular posts for whatever categories you choose. I have found some fascinating stuff this way - like this video. I had to Google it to find out more and here's what I found out:

Minnesota storm sewer overflows during heavy rain and launches giant manhole cover onto freeway where a pickup truck hits it. This is where East 35th street crosses I35W in Minneapolis.

Isn't that incredible? I had to watch it several times.

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I am also loving Facebook and especially Twitter. Facebook also has a notification setting, which I'm enjoying. My friends pop up in the lower right corner of my screen with their little post showing. I don't know that Twitter has a notification thing but since there are literally hundreds of Twitter-related applications, I'm sure one of them does.

(Edited to add: I just downloaded Tweetdeck because Vickie recommended it highly. It's like a dashboard of your own Twitter, arranged how you want it. Pretty cool.)

The irony is that a year or two ago, I turned off my email notification at work as part of some research I was doing with one of our managers/my mentor. We're both into workplace efficiency, using technology to be efficient, etc. We both found that simple thing of turning off email notification to be extremely helpful in reducing distractions.

The irony of that is that shortly thereafter, I received a second monitor to use at work. Side, by side, joined via a specific dual cable and software setting so I can have 2 full-view applications visible at once and can drag windows back & forth between the new monitors. Not to overstate it, but it's been life-changing! My mentor had read that such a set-up increases productivity by some impressive number. Almost everyone in the building now has 2 monitors. In fact, my boss just went that route this past week and wonders why he didn't do it sooner. Especially at this time of year when he's working on the budget for 2009, he's always moving between spreadsheets and he's found this so much easier.

So my irony point is that I stopped the email notification window from popping up but now I keep my email open on my right screen. It's usually covered up by other applications, but I can still sneak a peak at it far more often than I should. I should just minimize that window but just can't (won't!?) bring myself to do it.

For the last 6 months or so I've really been working on staying focused on one task at a time. I proved how well it works when focused on Pine Tree Designs work at home so I figured, what the hell, might as well give it a shot at the place I depend on to earn a living.

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The Great Beagle Escape

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Thanks Dad for sending me the link to this video! I found myself making up thought balloons over the heads of the escape artist - and the beagles left behind. Our beagle Reggi is fortunately (!) too overweight to attempt this - but she'd never have to because she's always with us.

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Our Lady of Mercy High School
4th Annual Art Show and Craft Sale
1437 Blossom Road, Rochester, NY
November 1, 2008, 10:00-4:00

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Post-It Note Fun

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This blows my mind! It's color! It's Post-It Notes! It's wow!

I found this over at Lori Anderson's blog. She's a jewelry artist I found through the eSMArts team I was on for a while. She's one smart cookie and takes her business seriously. I like that.

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Moose in the Sprinkler

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If I saw this scene in person, I know I'd be crying because the playfulness of these baby moose are almost too much to bear. Mama, on the other hand, is a little scary. My only moose familiarity comes from the opening of Northern Exposure but I know they are big creatures!

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3rd Annual Penfield Community Festival
Saturday, August 16
11:00-4:00
Heritage Park, Penfield

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Mothering Instincts

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You might have caught this piece on the CBS news on Mother's Day. I'm a sucker for these baby animal stories. Some of the slides on my work screensaver are of unexpected animal pairings, like these.

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Pile o' Puppies

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Origami

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Wouldn't some of this type of origami fit nicely with my stitch work in some interesting mandalas? I found this on Quilling Xu's Flickr site. I had to look at each of her 197 photos - her work is outstanding! I have several books on origami; I have always found it fascinating. Not enough hours in the day to try everything at once.


This style is also called teabag folding, although those designs tend to be made from flowery identical pieces of paper. It started as an art form derived from folding tea bag wrappers by a woman who needed a birthday card for a relative and had no money to buy one. It started in Europe, England, Holland, etc. - depending on one's source of information.

Here's an interesting site for different types of origami.


Oh my gosh! I'm a big fan of toilet paper folding but I've never seen anything fancier than the simple point. I've got some practicing to do!


How about toilet paper wedding dresses for those on a budget with LOTS of time on their hands?



This is why I could spend my life on the Internet. One thing leads to another. Look what else I found.

Enough. I must be productive today, must be productive, must be productive.
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Improv Everywhere

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It's fun to hit the links below and read the background on these performances.

Frozen Grand Central

Food Court Musical

Best Game Ever
(This one almost made me tear up, so happy for these little kids!)

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ADHDD and ADHD HD DVD

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Jimmy Kimmel

I was waiting for a response! Here's who I saw: Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Josh Groban, Huey Lewis, Macy Gray and Joan Jett. I had to look it up to find out who the others are: Ashlee Simpson, Christina Applegate, Joel Madden, Rebecca Romijn, Dominic Monaghan and Lance Bass.

The original is here if you missed it.

The Gratitude Campaign

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The Gratitude Campaign
I watched this video 3 times and teared up each time. Check it out.

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Two New Frames

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Sunday was all about assembly. I put together these two 5" x 5" framed pieces for Mom to give as gifts to her cleaning ladies. I wasn't sure about that purple one at first but Mom loved it and now that I see it again today to post it, I like it too.

My customer came over at 10:00 yesterday morning to discuss some custom pieces. One is a 12" x 12" framed piece she's buying for herself so I can do that one in January (along with another one that size I took an order for at the museum show). I have a few cards and a 5" x 5" framed piece to make for her for Christmas though. She's deaf but she speaks and I wrote stuff down. She's very nice - and placed a nice order.

Then I put together 12 Sticky Notes in reds & greens. I called the customer who ordered those at the museum show and she changed her mind. Not to worry, I used them for the wholesale order that I shipped on my way to work this morning. That order is for 20 so I put together 8 more.

I have other orders to finish before Christmas but I feel a whole lot better about things today than I did yesterday morning. I worked from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm, taking meal breaks. I still haven't read the Sunday paper. Or grocery shopped. God bless PB & J.

I'd heard from another vendor at the School 46 craft show about a craft show at the new artist lofts downtown, Station 55, but I couldn't find anything in the paper about it. I was going to go down anyway just to see - and half-hoping I could get a look at the lofts. I'd read about the lofts in the Sunday paper a few weeks ago and said to Steve, "If I had a different life right now, I would live there in a heartbeat!" I said that to a couple of other vendors recently and they all agreed. Seems really cool - and affordable from what the newspaper article said.

There are 17 lofts with artist retail space below on the first floor. I don't know how that part will work and even that part isn't where I am at as an artist career-wise at the moment but I still want to see it. Anyway, I decided not to go yesterday because I really needed the time to work on orders. Then, I found the Station 55 website, which sort of satisfied my curiosity about the lofts. I could SO live there! Modern, uncluttered, lots of space, giant windows. The part about "modern Ikea furnishings" certainly didn't hurt.

Don't get me wrong, my life is really good.

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OK Go - Here It Goes Again

Dad sent me this - it cracks me up. I love the part where it looks like they are skating. Ok Go seems to be a band that has created it's own subculture with knock-off videos and contests, etc.

(I just realized my notify message says I posted my first You Tube video - I meant here. Not that I posted a video on You Tube!)
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