Hey Now, Whoa Now Video's up

I met Amy Hadley a few weekends ago at Austin Handmade Market... she grabbed some great footage off all us kids braving the heat of day and selling our wares. I love her attitude and I think that the name of her website is the best, talk about stickyness... she's got it! Anyways she made a great video with a cool song behind it.. it gives a great sense of the energy going on downs there... *after mojitos, before heatstroke* ;)
Thanks Amy!

Austin Handmade

The highlight of the past week for me was going to Austin Handmade's Opening event. Its actually a reopening since they just moved to a new and improved local. Just off of south First st in SoCo they feature some of the best local artists and designers. Last Thursday evening was a quite an occasion, I saw a bunch of Etsy folks... including Robie, of Parsimony http://www.parsimony.etsy.com/, who I had met at Funky Finds Spring Fling.. her fabulous dresses can be found at AH and she had the foresight to bribe ah hem.. persuade a few of her friends to model for her. I'm sure that wasn't too hard given the lively atmosphere and added incentive of Sweet Mama cupcakes.

Beth H. and Beth A. were there launching their creation of The Wonder Craft, a exciting new mobile art learning experience. http://www.thewondercraft.com/

It was so encouraging to see so many people admiring the cool and crafty offerings. (why, yes those are my Felted Sushi Kits in the DIY room.) I swear I didn't stand by them all evening, I was to busy juggling my cupcake and drink! (oh, and never put a half of velvet cupcake in your pocket the results are very bad) All in all it was a fun evening doing what Austin does best, having a good time and helping each other shine.

http://www.austinhandmade.com/

Tesla Event and Austin Handmade in the Shade

Whew! What a weekend! I made it through.. it was almost but not quite like a marathon. Trying to get it together for two back to back events was well, interesting. I did it! Yay! Of course I added to my stress by saying to myself, "Hmmm, I really need a table banner.." I've been wanting one that's more portable for indoors. It needed to be something I could pull off w/out a sewing machine since mines in the shop for over abuse. At around 12pm on Thursday I started needle felting "Gypsyharte" onto a piece of recycled sweater and then jury rigged that to a tapestry piece that I think was a valance at one point... It looked amazing! I had this hand dyed green and gold silk fiber (yes, silk) and I just printed out a nice font I liked to eyeball while I did it and lo.. it was done.

Crazy what you can do a 2am in the morning.

So I was running to get ready the next day ... but we made it there no problem. I thought Frugal Media executed a fantastic event. It seemed well advertised and attended. I loved being in the stacks of books and my table looked pretty good. I was right across from Haute Toddies.. I picked up a sweet patchwork journal from Sweet Wolf.. and little hot/cold rice pad w/ pink skulls on it from Deathly Cute. I was surprising swamped all evening long. I did a bit of demonstrating what I do and talking about needle felting. I got a lot of praise and sold some things! Yay! Thanks to all my friends who dropped by to see the event. It was also nice to see old vending friends from the Grapevine Market and of course the Etsy Austin crew.

My husband James/Cedric was there to promote his business Harmony Hypnosis and wow people with amazing hypnosis demos. Of course he was still busy at 10pm when everyone was packing up. Comes with the territory.

So scamper back home for a whole 6 hrs of sleep and schlep out again in the morning to Austin Handmade. The new store on S. 1st looks wonderful inside and there's a lot more space to spread all those cute hand made goodies out. I was afraid of being late and thus was the first one there and got a spot shaded by the huge live oak tree. I actually heard that it was a few degrees cooler than the day before... well, I dunno if a drop from 105 to 101 is "cool" or not. But it couldn't hurt. Out hosts at Austin Handmade are great, Jason helped me unload and get my tent up and everything. Next to me there was the most heavenly scent wafting my way from two soap people, Nepenthe's Bathtime (Samantha, did Tesla event the night before as well, so she's pro) and another soapy person from Dripping Springs (sorry I didn't get the name, I blame heatstroke) Lets see other brave and crazy folks were Irene, from La Beba, and Kelly of GemJunkie. (I love my amethyst wing earrings)

So there was great coffee next door to Austin Handmade... I had a wonderful iced latte,

Later in the day we had our Team meeting for Etsy Austin. I loved talking to all the South Austin folks as the wandered through our little show.. even a few familiar faces from the night before!

Austin Handmade had a gallery opening coinciding with the Market and then was not only great art, but do-it-yourself Mojitos! They rocked. It was mostly too hot to do anything except complain about the heat... but I manged to show a few kids a bit of felting and I made the world's smallest sushi platter out of wool. Oh, yeah Jason is going to be carrying my sushi kit in their DIY room at Austin Handmade, woot! And Amy Hadley was there doing some film interviews.. I shudder to think of myself on camera but hopefully I don't sound like a complete idiot. Its all about the felting, right? Her site will be http://heynowwhoanow.com I'm not completely sure its up yet, but soon.

Then it was sip my mojito and try to stay in the shade... But its all finished now and I can bask in the relative success of my shows and be equally thankful I don't have anymore outdoorsy ones anytime soon.

http://frugalmedia.com/

http://austinhandmademarket.com/

http://etsyaustin.etsy.com/