Crafty Wonderland Super Colossal Holiday Sale 2008

I'm back home from the big super colossal holiday Crafty Wonderland. All 180 vendors were stocked up and set up in the Portland Convention Center, Hall E. Outside it was a winter wonderland, I almost heard sleigh bells when I opened the front door to a white wintery world.

It was a bit scary driving to the Convention Center (thanks Tony for letting me borrow your car!), I crept at a speedy speed of 20mph all the way on the slippery frozen road. As a girl that grew up in snowy Ohio, I cannot believe that no salt is used on the roads in Oregon. Instead just gravel. That's useless when the road freezes. As I ran out the door I grabbed the chains for the car just in case. I fortunately did not need them on the way there.
To break it down, I was simply pleased with myself to have shown up and set up - I was not really expecting many people to leave the house and attend the show. Basically, honestly, if I were at home with the day off and plans to go to CW, I would have bagged and stayed home and warm. But shockingly hundreds of people took the bus and rode the train down to the Convention Center to check out the crafty goodness.
The 200 swag bags of amazingness were given away within 15 min at the door. I suffer from swag bag envy. I want one and I made a few people do show and tell for me, there was some great stuff in those bags! And they served as a great shopping bag for the customers.
It was crazy, there was a really long line of people waiting to get in, and may I say it was the cutest line ever! People were in their snow gear and sitting on the floor playing cards and knitting scarves. And there was another long line at the Starbucks of vendors waiting to get their coffee. I brought a jug of tea that lasted all day. Heres a pictures of my setup, its a bit hard to see what I really looked like... but lets just say it was damn cute. ha! It was an alright setup :) and I sold well, which is amazing, and I had a fine time meeting some amazing customers. I even ran into an old classmate from 1st grade!
And then as the show rounded to an end, a little early becuase honestly the sun set and the roads froze and covered in more snow, more gravel was sprinkled about, and the news was telling stories of pile-ups and abandoned cars... it was a bit sketchy and still snowing. Everyone loaded in the parking garage (Convention Center usually uses the loading docks) and we put the chains on once we hit the roads, this time at a whopping 15mph. But no worries, we got home safe and sound.
So thanks to all my lovely customers - thanks to my beautiful friends who showed up and vended their arts n' crafts - thanks to Tony for letting me use his car - and thanks to Tim for helping me set up and take down. Phew. It was a long weekend. Not as profitable as maybe I might have hoped, but certainly awesome none the less and given the circumstances, it was all good.

and there are more pictures of it on my flickr account :)

Pink Cheeks and Super Colossal Holiday Sales

My cheeks hurt. They are pink from being outside all day. I would take a picture, but I'd rather take a hot bath.

Vending outdoors is for silly people (like myself today!) and while I love my Portland Saturday Market customers (thank you!!!), I am now tired and whipped by the cold rain and wind.

Today I wore 3 pairs of long johns, not to mention countless layers, fleece, turtlenecks, thick wool socks and some kind of adult version of the moon boots I once had as a kid.

Tomorrow I vend indoors at the Super Colossal Holiday Sale called Crafty Wonderland!
And I will be having a super colossal holiday sale: 2 mini mobiles for $35! (regular online price is $25 each). So come stock up and give the gift of mobiles to all your friends, family and co-workers.

11am - 7pm at the Convention Center
see ya there - its free entry

Car Troubles Suck

So this car of mine, its a good '99 Rav4, about 72,000miles. I got it a couple of years ago, used. Good check-out on carfax(no history of any accidents), and I paid my guys at Toyota to check it out before I bought it as well. I even asked the man at the Toyota service center (who knows me from years of working with them)

"If I was your daughter - would you tell me to buy this car?" and he said "yeah, it'll be a good car for you."

So I bought it.

This is the car that recently the transmission died. DIED. No warning, no strange noises or behavior. It just went kaput one day, a couple of weeks ago. Luckily my brother was available to pick me up that rainy afternoon. He has been able to let me use his car on weekends to get my work down to the Portland Saturday Market. My brother rocks and I cannot even imagine what I'd do without his support. Well, I can imagine, I'd have to rent a car, and that would just add to this financial hole.

I am not a car person. I have very little appreciation for them. They freak me out, I have really been enjoying riding public transportation. Its a relief in my busy days to just stare out the window or read a book, listen to NPR "This American Life" - the bus rides are long and its a much appreciated break from holiday madness. But its really screwing with my life. Everything takes 3 times as long to do, and there are 3 times as many things to do because its freaking peak holiday season time! Arg. And I've had a few good experience with running out the door only to see my bus fly past me (arg) and also the joy of waiting at a bus stop transfer for nearly an hour (arg). Public transport has its pro's and con's - but over all, I really appreciate it lately. I think because I am so busy, its nice to be forced to sit around for an hour to get somewhere.

I am surprisingly prepared for this crisis, lots of stuff, lots of shipping materials, lots of inventory - but there is also constant shipping to do, more stuff to make at all times, and did I mention that this transmission failure is amazingly expensive! I think its the most expensive thing that could go wrong with this car! For that I am ill prepared. Financial crisis seem to be a common thread in the world at large right now. Seems to be the "bigger picture" if you know what I mean.

Well, I am having my own micro-crisis. Car failure: painfully expensive and inconvenient.

Tomorrow the car will be done maybe (new used transmission with a 6 month warranty is being installed, plus whatever else needs to be fixed), I have mixed feelings about this. Its going to cost at least 2Gs. Ouch. But the darned car is worth between 7-10Gs in trade in value(I looked up the current value before committing to the work), so its worth value of the car, or at least that's how I figured it. I really almost just donated the thing to Good Will, good ridance kinda thing, tax write-off potential. But it just seemed like the right business decision for me to fix the car, so that is what I am doing.

If you needed any extra incentive to shop for glass mobiles this year - perhaps you feel like doing a good deed for a friend? A few gifts for loved ones from LeahGlass? Please feel free - consider it a drop in the bucket called "fix Leah's wheels!"

I love public transportation for me - but for my glass business I need the automobile. gosh darnit.

Buy mobiles to help get Leah's car mobile again!

Need Inspiration? Take Pictures!

I am sitting here surrounded in work. Literally I arrange the trays of glass pieces and pliers and swivels and whatnot in a big circle around me. Now I just the need the umph to get going :)

So I picked up my camera and put a my lightbox under some of the glass pieces to take some inspirational pictures. They look like precious yummy gems. I love taking pictures of these bits of glass. Even more, I love making mobiles out of them.
So here I am, trying to take advantage of my compulsive picture taking. Inspiration = motivation. I am happy to play with these bits and make mobiles out of them, its just intimidating dealing with the holidays. I already have been making and shipping and selling a lot of inventory this season, but this coming weekend is Crafty Wonderland and I have been pumping out as many little bitty mobiles as possible to share. I am looking forward to the big Crafty Wonderland show, and I will be at the Portland Saturday Market as much as possible for the end of the season.

Making Hard Cider pt 2

Tonight we taste tested the hard cider!
And it was good. :)

Its done fermenting, to some degree. Although it will keep getting better over the next few months.

Tonight we transfered the brewing apple cider into a second sterilized container. This was to separate the liquid from the sediment,
allowing it to become more clear.

I cannot even tell you how good it smells!

Appley and gingery.

Yummy.

My Weekend Vending

It was a rainy Sunday yesturday at the Portland Saturday Market. Its December, so thats pretty typical, but it doesn't make for great weather to be selling artwork outdoors. Silliness. I took a video of the rain, you can't really tell it was raining so hard in the picture above. In the video you can see the construction on the Mercy Corps building too.

However, Saturday was a beautiful day - crazy beautiful. In the morning my world was covered in frost, and as the sun rose the sky was perfectly clear and the big pink building downtown looked like a big disco-ball reflecting rays of sunlight up into the air like a big halo. And I didn't have my camera - I was busy getting my booth out of storage and my purse was in the car locked safe with the camera in it. Ah well.

Later that afternoon the drunk santas came out in mass to confuse little children all over Portland. Its a big pub crawl called "Santa Con" and the drunk people in santa outfits gather in large masses and yell "Ho" in unison. Its always fun when they visit the Portland Saturday Market. I believe its a central meeting place for the organizers. Great for picture taking. There are a bunch of images on my Flickr account.

Then the sunset that night was incredible. Saturday was really a nice day. I got to meet lots of wonderful customers down at the market and enjoy the beautiful sunny day. Sunday I then got to get rained on like a louser - but hey - I ended up getting my neighbors to watch my booth for a bit and ran away to the studio to do a bit of work on a humming bird project.

okay, the image uploader for blogspot just stopped working for me... I'll try more later... but for now, you can see pictures of what I am talking about on Flickr

How to Sign Glass Art

I just bought this little cheap number at Harbor Freight (its dollar days there this weekend!) and its a miniature version of exactly what I like in a signing device. And it was only $5 - so hey - I'll love it while it lasts.

There are many ways to sign a piece of glass - I like to use a dremel tool equipped with a diamond tip bit.

Sometimes I forget to sign my work while at the studio, so now I have this handy little tool for signing things at home. Its so polite, its much quieter than my plug in number that I usually use at home - I am in love with this cheap tool. *sigh*