Summit of Awesome Pictures

I have spent the last day or so celebrating crafty entrepreneurs like myself at the Kennedy School - its called the Summit of Awesome - and indeed it has been truly awesome. Above is a picture of my felt nametag. I made it Thursday night at the Welcome Party.

There was a table in the gym simply called "Make Something Awesome" that was all set up with stuff to make felty flowers and nametags (I combined the projects into one, sewing the felted flowers onto my nametag).

Here's a picture of me geeking out at the crafty table getting supplies for my nametag, and sewing the letters on (I had to take out all the stitches of the L and do it again when I realized I was using up way too much thread way to fast... and I was sewing on my name while the white elephant game was getting explained... so it was all done quite hectically - is that a word?)

Naomi came with me to the party and we had so much fun! She made some felted flowers for her nametag as well

The welcome party involved a "white elephant" game, basically all us crafty people showed up with a handcrafted gift and exchanged said gifts. I brought a little computer mobile and was happy to see my friend Rebbecca end up with it - she was very happy too! Naomi got this sweet little plushi owl (although she almost had this awesome notebook, but thats a whole nuther story!) Naomi brought some bike nutz and man oh man they were well received! At first I was nervous, the nutz exchanged hands a few times (oh no! people don't like them?!)... but in the end Jenna was the happy new owner of the platinum balls. People were talking about those shiney ballz the next day - I love that!! We gotta get some up in the Etsy store pronto!

http://BikeNutz.etsy.com/

Okay, so the welcome party was such fun! It was the end of a long day. I didn't get to attend classes at the conference yesterday because I was at the glass studio teaching class (which was also wonderful) so this party was a fun way to top things off. I stopped by the glass studio after the conference tonight and it was Pendant Night - good to see a studio full of people all enjoying making glass pendants! But I digress once again... back to the Summit of Awesome... the party ended with a screen printing session, we all got to print our own awesome t-shirt.

Today the crafting continued!!I went back at 8am for breakfast and socializing and then a day full of talks. Business discussions, crafty business histories, vending tips, legal matters, and oh yeah - I was a speaker as well! I participated in a talk with the Berkeley couple, Lucy and Ryan. It was great discussion on Collaborations and Commissioned Work. Really it was a big discussion about how we make things happen in our businesses.

I had a great discussion at the end of the day with Sara (of Hello Craft) where we broke it down and really got to the gist of things that it is all about collaboration. Basically collaboration makes our DIY style businesses happen, and in turn made this whole conference possible. Collaborations of one sort or another are what makes my little business possible and makes Portland Or such a funky cool crafty place to exist. The pivotal businesses in the scene are all working together in some way, when events like this happen it makes things so transparent that we all benefit from each other's strengths and weaknesses. Seriously. Perhaps I will do a separate blog sometime about collaborations, its a very interesting topic in terms of the DIY movement, and its something that I benefit from in my own business.

Okay. That's my thoughts on awesomeness for the evening. I've got to get off the computer. My brain is overwhelmed and I must start getting ready to prep everything for Seattle, tomorrow I pack the car and head North for 2 days of the Fremont Fair.