Crafty Bastards is this Saturday!

Remember how I'm getting married in less than a fortnight? Apparently I am not busy enough with that, because I'm also selling at Crafty Bastards this weekend!

As always, Crafty Bastards is in Adams Morgan at the Marie Reed Center on 18th Street north of California Street. I'll be in the tennis court section from 10AM until 5PM selling stationery and Gocco prints. Come find me in booth #165!

P.S. I miiiight just have a new print that will interest those of you who loved the Marion Barry pins.

A love requited.

The new craftgasm booth banner! Photo by Etsy Labs on Flickr.

Luckily for me, Crafty Bastards has loved me back. Here are a couple of press mentions that craftgasm has gotten from the show!

Nole of Oh So Beautiful Paper was kind enough to post pictures of my booth on her gorgeous blog (and was nice enough to let me reproduce them here).

Map pins, separated by region. Photo by Oh So Beautiful Paper.

The Foggy Bottom Blog wrote a super-nice little paragraph about my stuff in their round-up of the event:

Their upcycled cards and pins are unique and hip, and make you feel totally awesome about buying them. Plus, everything has a perfectly sharp sense of humor.

Scroll down past all the pretty pictures to see their assessment of some other awesome vendors; I missed the text part my first time through because I was so busy flipping through their images.

Pearls of Wisdom from Marion Barry. Photo by Oh So Beautiful Paper.

And last but not least, I was absolutely floored to be selected as one of the Washingtonian's favorite vendors in their Crafty Bastards post. Getting that email was pretty much amazing and made my week.

It's been so fantastic to hear from people who I met at the show and to get orders these past couple of weeks from those who said they read about my shop somewhere. Thank you so much for supporting handmade and making it possible for me and my crafting colleagues to do what we do!

Crafty Bastards: A Love Story

Photo by kestrel127 at Flickr.

Being accepted to Crafty Bastards had been a dream of mine for years. Fulfilling that dream? Possibly even better than I'd imagined.

Reclaimed Stationery Sets. Photo by Oh So Beautiful Paper.

Gov. Mark Sanford pins. Photo by kestrel127 on Flickr.

I had a couple of new items that I brought out for Crafty Bastards. In addition to Marion Barry, I added the disgraced (but somehow not-yet-impeached) South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford to my line of hypocritical politicians saying dumb shit that I type onto pins. Gov. Sanford did better than I thought he would against Mr. Barry in the District, so I'll need to make more of him for the holidays. His "Family Values" collection will be in the shop by the end of the week.

Photo by kestrel127 on Flickr.

I also had at Crafty Bastards my new "this is not a hipster pin" pins. These were inspired by my old roommate Ben (a hipster if there ever was one, despite his professed ignorance of this fact) and by people who have no idea what they're talking about using the word indiscriminately and completely incorrectly wherever I seem to go. Apparently other people feel similarly (or know someone like my former roommate), as they were pretty popular.

My awesome friends Christina and Meigh came in the afternoon to help Dan and I get a break from (wo)manning the booth. A break for me was getting to eat lunch behind my hanging maps about three hours after it was delivered by the fabulous Crafty Bastards volunteers, but hey, I take what I can get. Luckily, both those ladies know the merchandise well enough to speak for me when customers ask questions. (Helping me package the goods earlier in the week probably helped, too.)

Me sneaking food behind the maps as Dan straightens stationery. Photo by kestrel127 on Flickr.

The entire day was amazingly packed. My first sale of the day was at 9:40, 20 minutes before we officially opened, and there was foot traffic in the booth almost constantly until about ten minutes before 5pm, our closing time. I used that lull to go turn some nearby internet friends into real-life friends. It was great to meet Sara from girlscantell and Christy from a bardis, both of whom I've long admired. And it was equally awesome to talk about reclaiming paper all day with so many fabulous customers.

I was so happy to be part of such an awesome event, and am so grateful to everyone who came out to make the day such a success.

Tomorrow, I'll post about the Crafty Bastards aftermath -- I wouldn't want to shock you by having a complete blog post all together or anything!

Stacks and stacks

Why are stacks so satisfying?

This one is especially satisfying, as it took a few days to finish. First, I cut each envelope individually; you can see that some of the pages from which they were cut are visible at the bottom of the stack. Each one is then folded up to make it functional, and then I seal the sides to the bottom flap. I then make a crapton of secret-recipe peel-off strips. Finally, I apply each strip to the top of each envelope flap and organize them into countable stacks. Voila!

Here are 300 envelopes organized into sections of 25. Later this week I will organize them into groups of three and work to make sure each set gets envelopes from three different maps. This will be enough for 100 packs of Recycled Stationery Sets, available to you at Crafty Bastards or through craftgasm.

I can't believe that there are only four days left to work until Crafty Bastards!

Transition to Full-Time Crafter

It's been a while, hasn't it?

To sum up my absence, I was busy getting unemployed and then going on an already-paid-for-and-at-that-point-much-needed vacation.

Now, however, I'm busy getting ready for the massive crowds of shoppers who are coming to Crafty Bastards next Saturday, October 3. This full-time crafting thing has me working more hours than I did at my old job, but it is much more satisfying to have something produced at the end of each day. ("Plus, the dress code is much more relaxed," she said, typing in boxers and a T-shirt.)

Today's happenings in full-time craftgasm-land (FTCL for short):

I trimmed, folded, and assembled 600 sheets of paper into 100 packs of Recycled Stationery Sets this afternoon and evening. I didn't really need to band them up, but it is rather satisfying to do so. These now just need to have envelopes wrapped up with them and they'll be good to go.

Which means I will be cutting, folding, and sealing up 300 envelopes tomorrow. All in a day's work.

(P. S. Have you voted for your favoritest Craftiest Bastard yet? Not that I'm advocating stuffing of ballot boxes, but you get one vote per email address...)