Friday Find: made by human hands

I met so many awesome crafty folk at the fabulous finds craft show this past weekend that I thought I'd share some of my favs during my friday finds segment I do here on the blog! This week is the wonderful Bobbi who sat directly behind me at the show. She is a super talented design school dropout with awesome bizarre taste and attention to detail! She runs two etsy shops "made my human hands" (which I'm featuring today) and "search and rescue" (full of vintage goodies). Take a look at some of her rad items:


The head pieced might be a little more difficult to pull off but I'm sure a few of my fantastic friends could do it. I especially love the giant pom pom pompadour in the top left corner. At the sale she had a more subdued minty ice blue one with two poms I drooled over and really wanted to buy for quinn (seriously quinn you would rock it). It also gave us the lovely opportunity to bond over our love for building the perfect pom and (the next day) we even discussed doilies! What a gal! And if outlandish accessories aren't for you she has quite the selection of cowls and scarves to chose from too! Yet again making me wish I could knit (and had time for it!). What do you think?

get creative with mae!

Australian fabric decal company mae lets you get creative with a whole bunch of different free downloadable wallpaper designs ripe for the taking:


Perfect to print and use to cover books, jars, pencils, your cat, you name it! The possibilities are endless! I combined the granny floral in the top left corner with a paper doily I saved from my hotel room this past weekend to cover possibly the ugliest thing in my kitchen:


Yup. Walmart brand fish food isn't exactly the most beautiful thing to look at but my fishes need to eat! So enter the items from above, some snips and a glue stick and voila:


Hooray! Much better! (Also further supporting my old lady ways...) What would you use the printouts for?

Procrastination!

As you may recall, I held a discussion on crafting burnout on the blog a while back and was so pleased with the feedback and comments that I thought it would be a great idea to start another! Today let's discuss a problem that plagues the world (or at least me) - procrastination!

First off I must say it is pretty suiting that I originally planned on writing this post on september 12th and it has been saved in my drafts since then...but since I recently suffered from last minute craft cramming for the fabulous finds show I figured it is time to revisit the topic! Oh procrastinating - we all do it (some more than others) but when it comes to crafting and deadlines I always mange to come up with several other things I need to do before starting a craft project such as:

1) if I just clean the house I will be much more focused to get to work
2) I definitely need to use this micheals coupon before it expires so I'll just stop by there for a bit
3) clean clothes will remedy this situation - laundry time
4) there isn't enough food in the house. I need nutrition. Time to go grocery shopping and cook a three course meal
5) perhaps the internet will inspire me....

I'm sure you get the point, and can come up with your very own convincing ideas of what you need to do before you can get down to work. It's like I get pulled into a "procrastinate and waste time because you don't think you have long enough to get everything done on time but you totally would have if you'd just started when you thought of it" trap! It quickly becomes a wicked cycle of excuses that leads to some level of panic. Actually one of my sister's favourite blogs (hyperbole and a half) explains it quite well:


I also really like the part in that post where the girl gets violently beaten down by her looming responsibility but I think it might be a little too dramatic for my crafting procrastination woes. After all - if I don't finish a craft the only one that suffers is me (oh and maybe the potential receiver of my goods) but yeah, not exactly a huge deal...Even though I know I am truly the only person to blame for any procrastination that happens in my life I'd love to think the increasing laziness of our society has something to do with it....

I find when procrastination gets me down it is time to write a list! Lists are an awesome tool to overcome evil wasting time demons by: (yes a list about lists)

1) letting me prioritize what I need to do and what is actually important
2) allowing me the intensely amazing satisfaction of being able to cross items off as I complete them (oOoO and even violently crumple up and toss when I'm done the whole list!!)
and
3) (most importantly) it lets me get all the tasks I'm responsible for finishing out of my head and down on paper so I can stop stressing and just get working! Hooray!

Hyperbole and a half sums it up quite well yet again:


The satisfaction in a job well done and a completed to do list eventually becomes the ultimate motivation for me to get to work and I think I just need to remind myself of how rad it feels to successfully finish things! It is decided - next time I find myself bogged down by deadlines I will take action! Write a list, limit distractions, and get down to work! I'd really like to set the goal of getting everything finished and ready for the next craft show I do a good week before the actual sale. That way I'd have loads of time to relaxingly do any finishing touches at my leisure (and get a good nights sleep before heading out!) Perfect! Now I just need to set these goals for all the deadlines in my life (perfect example = xmas shopping)! So we'll see how it pans out for me...

But it leaves me wondering -how do you deal? Do you chronically suffer from procrastination? How do you overcome that all too appealing laziness and rise to the challenge? Any tips and tricks on mastering deadlines? And how early do you finish your xmas shopping...

Revisting Granny Squares

About two months ago I did a post on lydia's lovelies fantastic granny square slippers. Naturally the granny style and promise of warm feets drew me in and I was inspired to make my very own pair. Well...being the over zealous crafter I am, I never actually got around to it! I'm sure you can imagine my delight when the most wonderful purl bee posted a tutorial on the very same slippers! Check them out:


Woo! And since I'm already quite the accomplished crocheter I'm sure these would be a snap! OoO! Available in men's sizes too? I'm sure jim is just dying for a pair of these (I say because he never reads my blog and would totally hate them)! Haha. Now to find some spare time between making mustaches and some neat yarn to use! Fun fun!

Fabulous Finds Recap!

Well I survived my very first two day large scale craft show and boy was it ever an adventure! I'm actually still pretty tired from all the madness (even with the time change to help out) but thought I better do an update for all of you in case you were curious how it turned out! Here we go!

So the day started off with very minimal sleep (we're talking less than two hours) after a super late thursday night/friday morning of crafting, preparing, and organizing. Once again I did not manage to learn my lesson to prepare early and avoid that last minute rush, but hey - perhaps one day that will sink in... So up and ready or not I packed the car up and started off the two hour drive to kelowna to set up for the show. There was a lovely sunrise to greet me (which I pretty much never see with my late night/sleep in a smidge schedule I run on). How pleasant!


We ended up stopping in vernon on the way there for an extra kick of espresso and made it to the summerhill winery (location of the fabulous finds craft show) pretty much on time! Hooray! The organizer of the event (the most fantastic rio) had everything organized and ready to go for us so we got to unload the car and get setting up! It is so nice to have such a great gal run the event - talk about smooth operation! Woo!

Time for me to set up my table and try to figure out how it will all fit in! I really wanted to do a dry run before leaving friday morning, but when I was still printing things off at 4:30am I decided a few hours sleep might be a better choice than a well planned set up...but not to worry! I had enough time to figure it all out and I absolutely loved how the lighting turned out! Fraser really came through with his octopus (er...pentapus?) lamp idea and the white xmas lights gave it an extra little pop. The lighting was certainly necessary too (just like rio warned me in an email a few days earlier) since the winery didn't have the brightest convention hall and the first day of the show was in the late afternoon/evening. All that hard work was paying off with a wonderfully stocked table of goodies. Check it out:


Oh so much fun! I am really quite pleased with how it ended up coming together - here is a closer up view too:


I'm also pretty stoked with the budget earring display I came up with using a $1.25 bulletin board, some black paint, butcher string and a few push pins:


Not too shabby! So now for the fun details - the show! I got to meet loads of amazing crafters reminding me just how awesome kelowna is and how kamloops sorely lacks culture! I got tons of great feedback on my stuff, craft shows, and my setup and learned tons about successful selling! I even somehow managed to contain my urge to buy every single item from every single booth at the show! Go me! Soon enough the craft sale started and the customers flooded in the door! My booth was totally a smashing success and the top seller of the event was my felt mustache sticks! When I originally set up I was a little worried they'd get lost in my full table too! I mean they don't exactly pop:


But regardless the very first customers in the door made their first purchase at my table! Before long everyone in the hall was buzzing about all my fun goodies and there were mustached people everywhere to be seen! Other top sellers for me included the pocket mirrors (as I suspected) and my coffee sleeves. I also sold quite a few magnets (thank goodness fraser was there to help me make them) and some buttons, postcards, and plush microbes. The earrings and bags weren't super hot sellers but the owner of one of my favourite kelowna shops (funktional) told me to bring all my unsold goods to her shop after the show to consign! Bonus! Oh! and when we went there late saturday chantel told me I was the talk of the town when she overheard various people talking about my table! Cool! I was so stoked to be such a hit and to actually make a bit of a profit! At the end of the sale I even won a "best in show" bottle of wine as vendors choice for best booth! Hooray! Oh and since we started off with a pretty view I figure I'd end with one too since I realized how gorgeous the summerhill winery was the afternoon:


*Sigh* What a great two day craft show! I gained some invaluable contacts, renewed my love for crafting, and had an absolute blast doing it! And even though the show is over I've still got loads to do making more felt mustaches for frock (another super cool shop in kelowna) before the xmas rush of shoppers hits! Yay!

Paper Pom Poms!

Well I'm back from the fabulous find craft show and....I'm exhausted! So here's a post I pre-scheduled to tide you over until I have time to blog about the show later in the week. Hint - it was awesome! but hey, so is this....

The ladies at nice package do it again - make the most fantastic packaging I've ever seen inspiring me to amp up my gift giving! Plus - pom poms! Oh my!


I'd love to modify this one for xmas wrapping - and heck! maybe I will! In the mean time check out their fantastic tutorial! Hooray!

Fabulous Finds - day two!

Today is my second day at the fabulous finds craft show in kelowna! (We're open 10 -4 if you're in the area!!!) I am internet free and (hopefully) super busy with much craft sale success so instead of a long winded post about something I thought was cool on the internet - here is a picture of percy:


What a sweetie! He is sitting/sleeping directly in front of the heat vent by the bathroom sink. Do all cats do this? I sure do and I'm not even feline...