Craftopolis

Okay Etsy sellers - do you know about Craftopolis?! I did not. Now I do. Now you do to.

I linked up my Etsy shop and my Google Analytics to this site and it came alive with info. Its hard to put words to how good it feels to look at Craftopolis and see that hundreds of people are looking and hearting my shop every day. Some days this month it has been thousands! What a pat on the back. I already knew this information, but somehow seeing it all laid out visually and politely made my eyes boggle. Somehow it all seemed so amazing. Makes me proud.

Go check it out for yourself. You do have to have your Google Analytics set up, but if you sell on Etsy and haven't done that yet, its a good thing to do.

Did I mention there is a "Batch Editing" function on Craftopolis. Oh yes. Batch editing (can you see me swooning). Say the cost of your materials goes up, log into craftopolis and you can adjust all your Etsy prices at once.

Craftopolis.com

I made Milk Liqueur

Im so excited to show off my latest weird crafty project... making milk liqueur!

Evidently this is an old recipe that infuses Grappa with the tastes of sweet chocolate milk. Its a little scary, seems contradictory to my every notion of what not to do with milk. And Grappa - seriously?! I was really intrigued by this recipe because my father loves Grappa and I think its particularly foul! Evidently you can't even buy Grappa in most states (its like grain alcohol, but made of grape skins) - but Oregon not only sells Grappa, I found some that was locally made here in Portland! Usually you can only buy Italian Grappa and this imported product can be very pricey... the local product was much more cost effective. I could have used grain alcohol (for the really cheap version - and yes I can buy this in Oregon as well, there seems to be not limit to what kind of liver pickling booze Oregonians will sell ya) and I also could have substituted vodka for the Grappa. All the blog articles I read about making milk liqueur used vodka. I used Clear Creek Distillery Grappa.

Ingredients:

I used equal parts of

• Grappa
• sugar
• whole milk

plus a few ounces of shaved 70% dark chocolate, half a lemon and a vanilla bean

Its pretty simple, you put it all in a clean jar and shake occasionally. This concoction sat on my kitchen counter for 10 days looking thick and strange. After filtered the ugly goop I ended up with a golden liqueur that tastes like milk chocolate for big girls. The best milk chocolate ever. Although its a sipper... a whole glass of this stuff would render me uselessly drunk and consume half of what I made! Instead I bottled it in these tiny little bottles. All I got out of a whole bottle of Grappa was four tiny bottles of liqueur. And it took SO LONG to filter. Good grief I went thru a whole box of coffee filters and a package of cheese cloth, filtering and re-filtering. But one drip at a time my golden liqueur slowly accumulated.

Wow its good. Surprisingly good. Although I don't know if I am patient enough to do this again. I am tempted to geek out and do a comparison between using a base of Grappa v. Vodka v. Everclear. But honestly all the filtering made me a little batty - and I find the smell of grappa to be pretty disgusting - it permeated the whole house while I was filtering for hours. But the taste is nothing like the smell. The taste is awesome. Chocolate milk for big girls. Oh yeah.

if you are as intrigued as I am - here are the blogs I read that got me started in this crafty quest

• Making Milk Liqueurs
• Milk Liqueur

I'm not a quitter...

As I sit here eating a breakfast sandwich that is oh so tastey, I am thinking about the Portland Saturday Market. Notice the bagel - its from Gabriel's Bakery here in PDX... he sells his baked goods at the PSM as well as all around town in grocery stores and whatnot. I met the baker that owns this company at the PSM years ago. He would set up a small tent down by the Burnside Bridge and sell his baked goods. My brother came home with a bag of his bagels one Saturday and we were amazed by how marvelous they were. I became an addict of his chocolate hazelnut scone, having one for breakfast every weekend. Ridiculous. We became fast friends, the baker and I (not the sweets and me) - his name is Amilcar, he is from Peru. He puts cream cheese in his cookies (1/2 butter 1/2 cheese makes them stay tall and chewy), he uses quinoa in his breads, he makes the biggest cinnamon rolls ever. Basically everything he makes is delicious. On the weekends he sells his baked goods around town at the local farmers markets and the PSM and whatever pastries and breads they have left at the end of the day is donated to the local soup kitchen. Sometimes on Sunday evenings they would leave a paper sack full of goodies in my booth as I was tearing down for the day. My freezer was always full of Gabriel's baked goods. What kind of heaven is that?!

The Portland Saturday Market has been an endless source of interesting friends in my life. I feel reflective lately, contemplating the PSM and its potential. And contemplating quitting the Portland Saturday Market. Yup. Quitting.

I have reached the point of outgrowing the market. I busy myself with shows and selling wholesale and online selling and teaching... doing the PSM every weekend is a bit much. I have to face reality. So I quantify what I get out of the market as opposed to how much it drains me.

To be honest I've been thinking about this for years. Clearly change hasn't happened fast here in the Garden of Leah. I like to stop and smell the roses, rather than rush from one thing to the next.

Its all about the people. The friends at the PSM are a crazy bunch. Its an international motley crew. Something straight out of the new show "Portlandia". Everyone has a such incredible stories, and everyone works so hard. When I think about what the PSM has meant in my life, I can't help but think about the people.

There should be a book about the PSM, portraits of the artists and stories... I would read it!

But here is what I've been thinking about lately (writing it down makes me feel nervous... accountable): I would teach classes on the weekends (for years I have only taught class during the week) and sell a Groupon for these classes. Basically it would be like selling my teaching classes wholesale. This has two appeals for me:

1. what I make each weekend as an artist would be predictable and dependable
2. my classes would be full

It would be a lot of classes, so I would be teaching 2 or 3 weekends a month and I would quit the PSM. The market is not a predictable income, and its very exhausting in so many ways.

I meet a lot of great people thru teaching classes, I love to pry people's stories out of them and listen to them talk about themselves. The dynamics between people is particularly fascinating to me... and there is something therapeutic about playing with fire and talking about one's self. Perhaps its my interest in psychology, perhaps its my love for people - either way - its one of my favorite parts of teaching. I like to joke that I turn everyone into kindergarteners: pink cheeks (from the flame and excitement) and big smiles and clumsy awkwardness.

Its a different crowd than the Portland Saturday Market though. I would greatly miss the people of the PSM. I know I could always go down and visit the artists down there, and hang out with them socially and whatnot... its different though when you are a vendor. The comradery of the work involved, its like a family. I have learned so much about Portland because of my involvement with the PSM. It has inspired me, enabled my growth, supported my endeavors and pushed me to use alarm clock at least once a week.

ps. I am still on the fence though, and planning to vend asap as the market reopens next weekend!

I Heart Art:Portland Party Friday Night

Party at PNCA for IHeartArt:Portland

I'll be there - how 'bout you? Come join me for some crafty good times! There are some fun crafting tables, some music, some cake, some Etsy shop help... I think someone from Etsy is flying out to join us.

I Heart Art: Portland is now one year old and we're celebrating the occasion! Its been a great first year and we have a lot planned for 2011. It rocks to be a crafty artist living in Portland. It rocks so much that now Baltimore has joined the fun and they have started an

I Heart Art: Baltimore. We're downright inspiring :)

Come to the party - celebrate local craftiness and learn more about the

I Heart Art organization.

7pm PNCA be there or be square

1241 NW Johnson Street
Free and open to the public.

I Heart Art: Portland

Advocacy, Education and Support for Portland's Vibrant Community of Makers

I like this green mobile...

I like this mobile a lot. I might make more, not sure yet. After taking some pictures of it and really loving, I listed in my Etsy shop. Frankly I'm surprised someone hasn't snapped it up yet. Its a deal, its not too big, and its eye-catching. This little dancer will hang happily in someones home/office/garden. I know this for sure.

Researching Etsy Traffic Sources

I knew something had caused a wave of traffic to my Etsy shop... its never easy to know why. But its possible to find out!

So I checked out this website called CraftCult and found out why. It was an email from Etsy! One tiny little picture in their email newsletter, one small wave of traffic. Excellent.

This website CraftCult is pretty darn useful! You can see all sorts of information concerning your shop, like if you've been on the front page, if you're in a treasury, if you've receive new hearts, theres even some graphs. I like it a lot. The stats Etsy finally gives us on the site itself are pretty slim and not so interesting. CraftCult seems to be picking up the slack. They even have a "vault" of screen captures of front pages. How wonderful!

Dot Mobile

This mobile is a tribute to the beauty of clear glass. The little bubbles that make me happy. The look of liquid frozen in motion. And yet it is a bright colorful mobile. Each clear glass circle is decorated with a colored dot. I melted one color on each disc - the seven discs play in the wind and the colored dots cast shadows. I like it. I like it a lot.
If you'd like to meet this mobile in person (as in hang it in your home/office/garden) it is available in my Etsy shop: click here