What can I say?

So I tried out a new Arts and Crafts venue today and I can officially stated that I will likely never return to this location. The Cypress, Texas Shop til you Drop show. It sounded like a great show, large venue, well established over many years, they 'say' well advertised and while not cheap it was within my fee budget.

I suspected within the first hour that it would be a poor venue for me when I saw the lady behind me setting up small pump hand soap dispensers that were decorated with machine cut decals and selling for $7-10. OK. So it took 3 hours!!!! for me to make my first sale (which was $5, wow) meanwhile I hear these same customers exclaiming to the soap lady "Oh, how adorable! I've never seen anything like this!" And they bought and bought! OMFG! I made 50% of my fee back and was ignored by at least 1/3 of the people I said hello to.

Decalled store made soap dispensers, seriously? At least she could have done was hand paint the designs then maybe I'd call her crafty.

My first pieces for Houston Fashion Week

Amber and I have been working since this weekend on the new pieces for Houston Fashion Week and since I'm not as young as I was my hands and forearms have been aching a bit more than usual this week. Seriously, getting older sucks. However, I do have my first two pieces finished! I started with the largest jewelry project just to get it out of the way so that the rest should move along much faster. Plus I'm watching on a few other parts on order in the mail which should arrive this week.

Here's my first set, the very bold Neo-Victorian necklace with matching earrings!

I'm so excited!!

It's official this week! A local friend of mine, Amber; who also makes jewelry and I have been asked to collaborate on a jewelry line for the First Annual Houston Fashion Week!!!! It's this Nov and we have to have all the pieces finished by the beginning of Sept. OMG!

It's a week long, will be located in downtown Houston and will get LOTS of media coverage with many international and famous persons in attendance!! Our local former international model and fashionista Lynn Wyatt is officially connected in producing this event.

Our jewelry will be worn on the catwalk but professional models, I'm totally freaking out! And it'll be offered for sale with our names in the credits (of course!)

This is one of the things I've been working on off line which is why I've been so busy. The last few weeks have been ARGH waiting for the official word if we were in or not.

Just had to toot my horn cause I got the word yesterday and could barely sleep last night.

HAPPY DANCE!!!!

Artfire's new collection feature

I love playing with Artfire's new feature. You get to browse through the website choosing different items under whatever theme you like and curate a collection of 16 different items with 4 alternates. And this isn't just for showing off other art's work it's also for showing off and promoting your own!

This may seem selfish at first blush but what are we all trying to do? Promote ourselves! Artfire and their mavens had made it clear that this collection feature was create for just that purpose. So promote away! Each other and yourself!

Here are the links to my first collections including a collection of the favorites of my current work.

Summertime sales

Bird Lover's paradise

Flower Power

and my collection

My personal favorites


Enjoy!

My blog has been hijacked!

I haven't posted lately because I've noticed that ever since my last blog giveaway my blog comments section has been hijacked by overseas commenters. I suspect that the comments are auto generated because even when I don't post for weeks at a time someone will post a comment with some random saying that has nothing to do with my post. And the comments will only be on the most recent post. Very weird.

The post prior to this one has 14 unmoderated posts so far with some very strange comments and some in Asian text that I can't even read without an online translator.

So that makes me wonder if I should continue my blog at all or just use my Artfire blog feature. Any thoughts?

I won earrings!

Woohoo! I won a sort of threadkiller turned chat thread by being the 3000th poster and these are the totally cool earrings that I won from Wooden Love Affair of Etsy.


How awesome is that?!!

Fringe-less

Here's my newest 11 x 14 colored pencil artwork, titled "Bright Macaw", finally got it finished!


I've been super busy handling local craft fairs, my full time job, baby sitting my niece and trying to catch up sleep. Plus I somehow pulled my right thumb causing pain during most normal, daily tasks so I've been trying to rest it as much as possible the last few weeks; hence no typing-no blog posts for over a month.

You just don't realize how important seemingly minor parts of your body are until they hurt all the time, lol!

But it's slowly improving so I'm trying to post a short update and I'll be trying to do more update more often. Meanwhile I'm also dealing with my mild depression at the summer break of my favorite TV show FRINGE! It starts it's 3rd season this fall (already been picked up, woohoo!) and I can hardly wait to see what JJ Abrams crew dreams up for us next!