Buy Yourself Gifts

Why not!? You know your own taste better than anyone else!

Whats that saying... The best gifts you receive you buy for yourself. :) I don't know if that is true in my life, but I certainly enjoy splurging on myself.

I thought I'd share some pictures of things I bought myself this year during all this holiday gift-giving season and encourage everyone to buy themselves a gift.
a widget kinetic toy from Kikkeland - I found this at the Seattle Art Museum. It makes sparks and I like the wind up mechanism (its the metal coil, you twist a crank and the metal coil tightens).
a scrarf with pockets in it and orange fabric with Mariachi figures from my friend Merrit. Its awesome, there is chapstick in one pocket already, the blue is very very soft. I picked up this gem at Crafty Wonderland from PDX Softgoods. Did I mention it has pockets! Awesomeness.

a hoodie from Cretin, one of my favorite artists at the Portland Saturday Market. I don't have a picture of this... I am wearing it right now, its wonderful.
a bag from Appetite - printed with parsley (I love parsley. very much) and it has a pocket perfect for my new sig waterbottle (its a HelloKitty waterbottle! Thanks Scott!). I picked up this wonderful new handmade purse at the Portland Saturday Market.
and one last goodie: stripped Cronert stockings from the cute boutique Sofia on NE Fremont.

a handmade holiday

This is a picture of Oleo the cat attacking her handmade crochet catnip eyeball she received in her Christmas stocking. She loved it, for a whole 5 minutes. I got a lot of funny pictures of her freaking out, licking it and attacking it, she got a claw stuck in it and I held onto the optical nerve for her fun times. It was good stuff. I found this little handmade eyeball at Urban Craft Uprising this year.

Christmas here at the Pellegrini household was really nice as usual. The lovely people in my life spoil me, and here I am sending out gifts late! Eek. Such is life in the retail season. My own gifts get sent late after I make sure and mail all my sold mobiles to their recipients on time!

Oh and I cooked up a storm on Christmas. Italian style - this big gravy dinner with all sorts of meats from the local butcher. And I made pasta by hand - Tony got a pasta maker for Christmas so I put it to good use, and the noodles turned out way tastey!

Check out this great picture I found of the Portland Saturday Market during the "Festival Days". It got really cold and foggy here in Portland for holiday. No snow, for that I am happy. Although I did go down and vend for 1 day of the festival downtown and it was cold! Too cold for me and I really didn't sell much and it just seemed so silly. But the fog at night was beautiful. I was too cold and moody to take any pictures of the beauty. Ah well. This one is great, and it shows my friend Yasu's wooden sign for his booth "Toys4U"
Anyhow - this holiday season was really good to me. Lots of handmade gifts were given and received! I wasn't crazy with buzyness, but I was very busy.

I came out with this new "Mobile Making Kit" just in time for the holidays and I sold every single one that I made (50). They cost me about 70cents a piece to make(between the cute little plastic tube, stickers, ink for the instructions and labels, the swivels and steel bits, the firing of the glass pieces, etc.) so in the end after cost I made just a little over $700 on getting rid of a pile of scrap pieces of glass! Whoohoo. That was successful in my opinion. I ordered more little golf ball tubes, I would like to sell these thru art museum gift shops. I already have a few tweeks in mind for the packaging and such. Any feedback is welcome!

Many mobiles made by me found new homes this Christmas season, at least a couple hundred pieces of art were constructed, packaged and sold over the last month or so by my little hands. I don't know the precise number off the top of my head... but I thought rough estimates at least might be interesting to read for my blog readers out there. I am a voyeur myself, I like reading specifics in other people's lives and businesses. Although I would like to keep things relatively private, and I am frequently embarrassed that my business is not much bigger after being around for over 8 years now... but I keep at it and I still enjoy myself and I make a lot of mobiles. I am glad people like them. In fact, I am overwhelmingly grateful people like them. It really is my pleasure.

If you ever would like to get a mobile made by me - let me know :)

Merry Christmas Lights

no need to drive around in the car to look at crazy light displays - just check out YouTube! I got lost in this post: 8 Spectacular Christmas Light Shows

Enjoy!

DIY Make Your Own Pac Man Paper Mobile

Pac man paper mobile - More DIY How To Projects

Vending = A Good Workout

this is a picture of my friend Judi pushing her market stuff to her car

This is my summery of the routine that is vending at the PSM:

Pack the tubs, move the tubs, pack the car with tubs and tables/whatnot, unpack the car and load whatnot into the booth, move the car hiking to and from the various allotted parking places, unload stuff from storage, roll out tent from storage (have I mentioned this "unloading" involves walking about 2 blocks up and down a couple of ramps, across a major 4-lane road *there's a cross-walk signal* and across a set of train tracks - yeah - pushing a cart)... where was I. Oh yeah, get the tent to stand up tall and hang walls and lights, weights are good, and signs on the booth... then get all the stuff out of the tubs and set up shop. And then act like a sales-lady all day. wha?!

When I first started the market years ago my friend Helen always came down in the morning on Saturday and helped me set up. I would buy her fresh tortillas from this vendor who would be making them in the morning. She would help me pick a spot and set up the booth. Thanks Helen!! After a while I tackled doing it myself and gained some confidence, its a great workout and sorta peaceful when you're well-organized and alone. For the last 6 years Tim has helped me set up when he can. I am not much of a morning person, and I am not tall, so having his help in the morning is wonderful. If you ever want a taste-test of the market let me know and I'll buy you breakfast and you can help me set up my booth! ha! just kidding. Thats a bum deal - trust me! :)

Anyhow, no Tim help this weekend. Friday night Tim had his first closing shift at The Morrison Street Grill, so he didn't get home till around 2am. Thus no AM style help from Tim... therefore I was on my own. And man oh man did I break a sweat! I am shorter than the load I was pushing around on this gigantic wooden cart, so that was humerus as hell, me bouncing around trying to keep momentum but also having to see what obstacles were in front of me...

This huge cart barely fits threw the door from storage, and then I push it down a ramp, across the train tracks, down a cobblestone road, across Naito Parkway, threw a crowd of vendors waiting to get spots (non reserved space vendors), up a ramp and around the marketplace to my spot. Whew. That kicked my ass. Seriously.

I knew it was going to be raining Sunday and I was planning on not vending in the yucky weather, but sheer exhaustion by the end of Saturday made me decide to leave my booth up and vend another day. So I got rained on all Sunday. Fortunately there were some happy mobile-loving customers down at the market that appreciated my presence. It started really pouring when I had to take my booth down in the rain. Fortunately my brother comes and helps me take down, so I wasn't alone getting drenched in the rain, I got him wet as well!

Poetry Inspired by My Mini Mobile

I was reading some comments left on my recent online interview and this one jumped out at me - someone wrote a poem about a mini mobile of mine!! How great is that!!

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12 Days of Christmas Give-Away on Meylah!

Check out this website Meylah if you are an artist learning how to promote your work online, or a crafty person considering selling your work, or simply a shopper looking to get your holiday shop on and want to win a gift for FREE!


Each day for 12 days there has been a FREE GIFT given away on Meylah by an artist to one of their readers who has left a comment on their featured post.

Today the featured artist is ME! If you post a comment on the Meylah interview you can win a free little miniature mobile to give away this season (or keep it for yourself!!!)