Portland DIY Resources Adventure

I can't believe how many stores there are in this town offering great finds and deals to the small businessperson like myself. Tools, supplies, materials, displays, packaging, furniture, munchies, you name it! There is a store in town that sells it - and they do so with such character :)

I took my friend Amy on an adventure last week... Amy rents studio space with me at Aquila and is relatively new to town, I wanted to enjoy the afternoon with her and show her some of these great stores in Portland that are so useful to her crafty business.

Here was our itinerary:

1. Winks Hardware
2. City Liquidators
3. Bunk (sandwiches)
4. Portland Store Fixtures
5. Pitman Restaurant Supply Store
6. Harbor Freight

View Useful Stores in PDX in a larger map

As you can see the tour centered around one particular area of Portland, the SE waterfront area, cuz its awesome and packed with businesses that let their customers wander warehouses full of stuff.

I took Amy to Wink's first. I love me some W.C. Winks Hardware. Its a manly place, a quality hardware store, and its been in Portland since 1909. I love that you take a deli number to get your purchases. They seem to specialize in stocking wire of all types. This is very useful to me as a glass artist.

Then we continued on down the street to City Liquidators. We wandered every floor of both buildings. Its been a while since I've done this - this picture is from one of the warehouses, there is an entire floor of office chairs, we couldn't find the light so it was sorta dark...

photos courtesy of Amy - she was posting pictures of our silliness via her funphone on Facebook while we wandered warehouses!

After 6 floors of seating options, kitchen supplies, tools, office gear, warrior helmets, lighting and file cabinets, we decided it was time to eat. In need of fuel we headed over to Bunk for their famous sandwiches - delicious.

this is a picture of Amy at City Liquidator. Seriously you never know what you might find in this place!

Next was Portland Store Fixtures. This place is fabulous - and - they were having their first ever complete warehouse sale! It was pretty crazy, everything was on sale. Both Amy and I found some things we had to purchase. Everything in the warehouses was price-tagged in prep for the sale, and the labels were cracking me up. I bought this one display mostly because I loved its label, and I can use it to dispay a little mobile :) "Tall Shiney Thing".

We got a tour of all 3 buildings. They have renovated a new space down there right around SE 3rd and Main to rent to artists. Spaces are starting at a flat rate of $100 a month and there are larger spaces as well. Its a wonderful funky space - go ask them about it if this sounds interesting!

Continuing down the street we visited Pitman's Restaurant Supply - very useful place for the glass artist looking to buy inexpensive stainless steel things. They have both used and new kitchen supplies.

Our last stop was Harbor Freight on the way back up to the shop. This place is just amazing. Its like the dollar store for men. Cheap tools. You buy what you pay for, so yes, some of it is total crap, but its all cheap! And they have really useful stuff in there. Both Amy and I found a handful of things that we had to buy. I always seem to be drawn to silly things there... I found this kit from my little friend Micah:

Its a Crafty Wonderland!

This year the Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Show was spectacular as always. In fact, it was 2 days of awesome this year (in the past it was 6 hours on Sunday of crazy shopping craftiness).

12,000 people came to shop. Thousands lined up in the halls of the Portland Convention Center in the morning to get the free swag bags. This year they handed out free 2011 Chinook Books with the bags of swag (these are big books of local coupons - worth $20each).

I sold many pieces of my work, all the terrariums I had made went home with new owners and overall I had a really great time. Friday and Saturday nights I was still making things, by the end of the weekend my house looked like a hurricane of craft hit it. Sunday night I didn't even empty the car. I cleaned up in the morning and then brought all my tubs and display stuff inside to be organized back into storage to be used next summer for some big shows. I may vend at the Portland Saturday Market a few times before the end of the holiday season (weather permitting) but I am done with my craft show marathon for 2010. Now I must catch up on shipping and tending to my online orders. Yeah for the Holiday Season! Its an awesome experience to vend at the Crafty Wonderland, its like a big crafty hug... a little sweaty, a little glitter, a little retro, a little sumthin brand new, and a whole lot of awesome.

Made in Oregon Sign RIP

I love this sign. Its a landmark in Portland Oregon and literally a visual reminder of what I do for a living.

The White Stag sign (its real name) was originally built in 1941 as an ad for a sugar company, it read "White Stag Sugar". In 1959 the tradition began of lighting the nose on the stag with a red bulb for the holiday season. In 1978 the sign was designated a City of Portland historical landmark. Its changed messages a number of times over the years as the building has changed hands. Officially it became the sign I know and love in 1997 when the letters were changed to "Made in Oregon" (and the bottom little letters were changed to "Old Town" - they used to read "Sportswear"). When the Naito family sold this building in 2004 the cost of upkeep and maintenance on the sign became an issue. Actually, the monthly electrical bill and upkeep have been a problem for decades, but the last few years have seen a push to reconcile this issue.

Working down at the Portland Saturday Market I have watched the transformation of this building. Made in Oregon (the store) moved out and Venerable Properties moved in with demolition crews. They renovated and developed the White Stag Block... in 2008 the University of Oregon took a lease on the building and I was quick to note they specifically leased the sign as part of the deal. A request was put into the city to change the sign to "University of Oregon" - personally I had my own theory that they simply wanted it to read "Go Ducks!" or "O". Ug. Fortunately these plans were turned down and by 2009 the University had ceased leasing the sign. Wikipedia offers the whole story with all the details, but basically the short end of the story is that now the sign will read "Portland Oregon" and the city will be paying $2000 a month (note: not taxpayers money, its all $ generated from a city parking facility) to the previous owners of the sign to continue the monthly upkeep and maintenance. The property owner (Venerable) put up the $200,000 to have the letters changed. There is going to be a grand re-lighting the day after Thanksgiving.

Today when I drove across the Burnside Bridge I happened to notice the transformation of the sign. I didn't know that the change was happening right now, so this took me by surprise. Literally I exclaimed "Oh Snap!" and lunged for my camera. Um, I mean I stayed focused on driving while quickly snapping a few pictures.
This is what I saw. *gasp* I knew it was going to change eventually. I just didn't know it was changing today!

Rave Review of the Salem Art Festival

I had heard this was a great show, the Salem Arts Festival (one of the top 10 art festivals in the country) - it was certainly a pleasure to experience for myself and my business.

• good neighbors (aka amazing artwork and interesting new artists I got to know)
• amazing site (Bush Park is full of old beautiful oak trees, sunshine and shade in a beautiful big green park) and great weather (it was a mild/warm 80degrees all weekend)

• good munchies (Kettle Chips sponsored the show and provided artists with endless little bags of chips - wha?! - there was also fresh fruit, iced tea (hot tea, lemonade and coffee as well), trail mix, pastries... oh my)

• they made us breakfast! picture this: in the morning at the artist hospitality booth there was a string quartet playing exclusively for our breakfast... there was a line of husbands making omlettes to order and a group of ladies making pancakes with fresh local berries. It was insanely nice. Both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday the fresh berries had been made into a fruit compote for our pancakes. And picnic tables to have our breakfast on while greeting friends.
• good business (aka financially lucrative)
• lots of water (they gave us water bottles and had volunteers come by and refill them every day)

Every art show should treat the artists this well! It made things much less stressful and way more fun. I had a lot to smile about all weekend.

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.

The Future of Making is in Your Hands

I'll be speaking at a conference this week for crafty entrepreneurs like myself. Its looking to be a great event! I just went thru the list of speakers and made sure everyone's blog is in my blogfeed. The list of speakers makes me smile! Networking is awesome! This conference is called "The Summit of Awesome". I love the name. Makes me want to take some sort of rock star pose as I say it
I heard there are a few passes left for sale for the conference. It will be held at the Kennedy School and if you are a local crafty entrepreneur, I guarantee there will be much to learn. Check it out :)

here is a link for a great article in the Oregonian about the conference:

http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2010/06/portlands_community_of_crafter.html

Rose Festival Parade

My day at the Portland Saturday Market today was made colorful with the Rose Festival Grand Parade. This morning as I set up my booth the fire department there on Naito Parkway was all abuzz with parade prep. All the firetrucks were looking shiney and super clean, adorned with roses and there was an old antique horse pulled fire truck that was gearing up to go. I happened to be taking a picture of some of the firetrucks when this entourage of horses and antiques left the station and headed off to the start of the parade. It was fantastic!
Behind the big horses and the antique fire truck was this little mini cart pulled by ponies that seemed to be carrying the pooper scoopers!I tried to take a video to show what it feels like to have a booth in an art market under a bridge that has a huge parade passing over head. Its really neat. I sorta love it.

Mussel Gathering on the Oregon Coast

We went mussel gathering - wanna see the pictures?

People have been eating local mussels from the rocks of the Pacific NW for longer than I can imagine. Come low tide, they are easy pickings and a nutritious tasty treat. There are ancient Native American shell middens found along the Oregon Coast - they offer evidence of people eating mussels (and throwing away the shells in giant heaps) for thousands of years. I find this fascinating! And I happen to love mussels (or shellfish of any kind) - so this seemed like a fun adventure to try!

All it took was a visit to the local Bi-Mart in Lincoln city with our drivers license and whatnot. Friendly exchanges of social security numbers for tidal chart books. No problem. $7/per person and we can now hunt shellfish (with limits) for one year. The next day low tide (during daylight) was around 1:30pm.
Indeed we noticed low tide starting around noon and so we headed down to the beach. Irregardless of the nasty weather (ie clouds, rain and wind) we headed off with only a sand pail and our licenses. The rocks were neat - the Oregon coast line is amazing. For lack of sounding cheesey - it felt like being at an aquarium. Honestly I have spent a lot of time with the ocean, but I've never sought out low tide on purpose and headed into rock formations to find food - it was a totally new perspective! At first we looked on the North side of the rocks... not much... the South side turned out to be where the party was at! Look at all these mussels! It was incredible - so many mussels! Unfortunately we had not thought to bring gloves or knives/chizzles or scissors.. so we had to use our vulnerable fingers and man-oh-man those mussels hold on tight! Those mussel beards are strong. However humans are stronger! Me and Tim are stubborn - once I started to play tug-of-war with one of those fuckers I wasn't about to let the mussel win! For realz. No matter the sharp barnacles and slippery stuff. The cold weather made my fingers numb, so that helped.

In the end we obtained a small amount of mussels. No worries though - we probably picked about 2 dozen before we gave up (we were soaked and frozen - you would have thought it was December!). They were a fun taste-test. We know we need more tools if we do it again. Good weather wouldn't hurt either.

Flying the Oregon Skies

Last Thursday I had the awesome opportunity to hit the sky in a glider. What you see in the picture above is a glider being towed by a small airplane. I got to sit in that glider!

Down in McMinnville Oregon, across the street from the Aviation Museum - there's a small wooden sign tucked in a big blackberry bush indicating the gliding experience. Big shout out to my step mother Nancy for noticing this sign and bringing me along for the best birthday experience - she said she noticed the gliders in the sky, not so much the tiny signs. :) I think these guys should make a bigger sign! It was a really cool experience!

I love the feeling of flying - its spectacular! When I was in college traveling abroad I went skydiving a few times in Australia and New Zealand - there is nothing like the sensation of being a bird in the sky. Gliding here in Oregon was the next level of fun antics! Literally we sat (me and Tim squished together behind a pilot) in a small plane with no engine, nuthing but some rudders and one wheel to land on (ONE wheel - yeah, this sorta caught my eye)

The glider was dragged by an old crop duster airplane, by a rope connecting the two planes, until we ascended about 4000 feet. At that point our trusty pilot dipped the glider down abruptly (kinda felt like a roller coaster) and the rope unlatches, leaving the glider floating effortlessly thousands of feet in the air. We floated around for a half hour or so. Then the pilot circled the plane to the ground and landed us so softly I was pleasantly impressed (for some reason I thought the one wheel landing gear might make for a traumatic landing). It was a beautiful day and the views of the Mountains in the Pacific NW were inspiring.

Above is a picture of the glider

Below is the plane that towed us up - you can see the rope that they tied between the planes

This is a picture of out pilot - he was a kick!

We took a lot of other neat pictures, on my dads camera... and I have yet to get my hands on them... also we weren't allowed to bring cameras up in the plane (it would have been dangerous if we'd dropped them in all the excitement) but rest assured, I think you can get the feeling from these snapshots that we had a really really good time.

I love when family visits. Oregon is so awesome and its great to get to share in its bounty with my loved ones! After gliding everyone retired back to my house where we had a barbecue dinner in the backyard with the neighbors, old and new. It was wonderful.

Glass Frogs

Monday I taught a torchworking class at the Aquila Glass School - we made frogs out of borosilicate glass. Such fun in the studio - as always! If you'd like to come join me for a class like this sometime, and curious about what you will make - check it out! We made little frogs that I call "Coqui" because they are small and cute like little Puerto Rican Coqui frogs... Pictured below is a little handful of frogs I brought home to photograph so I could share in my blog what we made:Glass Coqui frogs and frogs on rocks (less fragile - no little feet that can break off) and frogs on pendants (wearable frog sculptures) - last night we also made some lizards on pendants (pictured in the first shot in this blog post)

New Glass Art Shop on NW 23rd in Portland Oregon

There is a new shop on NW 23rd called "Portland Glassblowers" - full of local handcrafted glass creations. It just opened up a few days ago - right on NW 23rd between Kearney and Johnson - when I walked up yesterday the movie running in the window completely hypnotized me. Fire and glass, this combination is mesmerizing.

Go visit - get a present for mom or for yourself! Help support local glass artists!
The construction on 23rd is pretty full on (tearing up the road to get the old tracks out and put new sewers, and a new road on top) but the shops are still open - and they need the love during all this construction!

Crafty Wonderland Summer 2010

Yesterday I had a chance to go check out the Crafty Wonderland summer extravaganza - it looked like 2 days of awesome! I had a booth at the Oregon Glass Guild show, the Crafty Wonderland was happening just around the corner in the Convention Center. So while my boothmates watched the booth in the Glass Guild, I ran over to Crafty Wonderland!

Here's the story: I had to get up early and run down to the Portland Saturday Market. I worked my booth there on Saturday and had taken it all down that night, but I forgot to tell the market staff that I wouldn't be there on Sunday (you have to keep the staff well informed so someone else can fill in my spot!). So Sunday morning I realized this and ran down there super early to correct this mistake. Since I was up and out I figured I'd go over to the Convention Center early and sit in line to get one of the infamous free swag bags (first 200 people in the door get these bags - last year at Christmas 2000 people lined up to get these bags!). I didn't realize that CW didn't open till 11, so I stopped to get myself a cup of tea and I was plenty early and secured a spot to get a swag bag. Fortunately my friend Stacey was there and we got to sit and chat for the hour or so and the time wizzed by. Next thing I knew I had a bag full of stuff in my hands and I was wandering the show.

Ever wonder what is in one of these bags? Well I can show you mine! I picked thru it and took a picture of the precious goodies... there were a lot of coupons and postcards as well... but this is the core goodness (not pictured is the awesome bag I received containing the booty)
I received (from top to bottom, left to right sorta, you can click on the picture to zoom in and see more details): confetti, a sticker, the cutest little pair of earrings, lots of cool buttons (I stopped and made the Hello Craft button at their crafty table), a crocheted olive, a coaster, a sketchbook, and two wonderful greeting cards. It was fun filled bag! Especially because the bag of confetti had exploded - so it really was like a party in a bag!

One of the buttons says: Give your hands a hug!

Pictured at the top of this post are my purchases from the show - I couldn't resist, but I only splurged on two little things... the cupcake painting is for myself - bought it from Izzy: one of the children selling their artwork there - its so tiny and so orange and so cute! The little houses with plants in them are from My House Party (gifts for Tim - his birthday is approaching fast)

My vote for best booth setup there: Badge Bomb - they made a cardboard replica of downtown Portland, put the artists names they represent on the tops of the building and the details are just incredible. Heres a link for the picture
http://www.flickr.com/photos/totinette/4570255956/

Gathering of the Guilds

Come visit at the Convention Center - the Gathering of the Guilds of Oregon is in full force down there. The Glass Guild (in which you can find my work), the Potters Association, the Metal Arts Guild, Woodworkers, the Bead Society, Handweavers and much much more are all representing with artwork from hundreds of local guild members. Its really an incredible show!

Some facts:

• the OPA (Potters Association) is the largest ceramic showcase in America!
• there are wonderful demos happening all the time in the Ceramic show as well as the Glass show (I might be doing some demos for the glass show in the evenings...)
• Crafty Wonderland will be there too on Saturday and Sunday
• hours of operation: 10am-9pm Fri and Sat. 10-5pm on Sunday
• its FREE so come check it

I'll take some pictures later today... seems odd to post this without pictures, but I forgot to bring my camera when I was setting up yesterday...

Crafting Crafty Ladies

This video is from 2008 - but its great! Check it out the OPB show Oregon Art Beat did a segment about how crafty Portland is, featuring Crafty Wonderland, the DIY Lounge and Queen Bee

It Rains Here in Portland

Portland Oregon has a reputation for the rain. These days the weather seems to always say "Chance of Showers" when honestly right now the sun is shining outside... occasional rain with mostly beautiful skies. What can I say. All these intermittent showers make Portland a very green city. The flowers and the trees and glowing. In fact, my lawn is growing quite fast and its getting embarrassing - but the dandelions look so cute with the daffodils and yellow tulips! I am too busy to cut it, and I kinda love how it looks long :)

Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm Pictures

Today I went out to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm with some friends... Tonight I taught a class at the glass school... I am very tired now, but I thought I'd share some pictures from the farm (I took 943 pictures!!)