my first real craft show!

I had a great time at my first real craft show! I brought along 40 wine bags, 4 tie-purses, some poof ball flowers and vases that I made for the wedding, and two small paintings which you might remember: abcdef fail and anxiety.

A lot of people made me feel so great: Compliments on how clever my ideas really made me smile. It was wonderful to hear people admiring my sewing and my bags. AAAAAAAAND (drum-roll PLZ....) I SOLD 4 BAGS! I'm so glad I made more bags and spent time preparing as much as I could. I did learn a couple of things from my craft show experience.

• I need sign. I picked up foam-core to make one the other night, and I decided that it wouldn't look professional enough, so I didn't bother making one. I need to make one like I made for Bamboula. One that says something like CRAFTS MADE FROM TIES! or CREATIONS FROM TIES! or something like that.
• I wonder if I'm not being confident enough. I was so happy to talk to visitors at the table, that I didn't really "sell myself" like other people were. Is that a key to success?
• It would have been nice to have someone there for a couple minutes so I could have left to use the bathroom, or to walk around to see other peoples things. At one point, I had to pee so bad that I left a note that said BE BACK IN A MINUTE! and asked the couple next to me if they wouldn't mind keeping an eye out for me. 

All in all it was a great day for a great cause. I hope I can do more fairs in the future, and maybe with some luck, I can have some more success!

more F'in work

I do have some concerns about my giant F. I really needed the F to be lightweight, because the wall it's destined to hang on backs up to a shower. So I couldn't make it too heavy and risk it A: ripping off the wall with smaller screws, or B: having longer screws penetrate into the shower. Luckily, it's still light as a feather, so a couple of strategically placed small picture hanging hooks should work just fine.My other concern is having the F stay together. I tried as best as I could to execute it F'in properly. I just hope it doesn't crumble apart once it's finally up on the wall.

Last night I lightly sanded and primed the F. I'm hoping that I can get a coat of yellow paint on it some night this week. With my now part-time work schedule (eek) and part-time school schedule (EEK), I have to find a new balance when it comes to my craft-work-school time. Eek.

bag n' bread

When I was putting prices on all of my wine bags, I noticed one lonely half-finished tie purse in my bin that I started last year and just never finished. I had some free procraftination time today, so now the lonely half-finished tie purse is now a non-lonely ALL FINISHED tie purse! All I had to do was finish the inside of the front panel, create the back panel, and sew them to the already finished straps. It made for a great morning of work while I was cleaning up the house. The cat is shedding, and it constantly looks like a yeti exploded in here. Gross.

 
In other Saturday news, I made Lou's Dad famous bread, and I thought I would share it since I finally got to make it this afternoon. It's a super simple recipe that requires only four ingredients. I used a spicy salt and whole wheat flour. Yum!

 3 cups flour

1-1/2 tsp salt

2-1/4 tsp yeast

1-1/2 warm water

Spray the inside of a large bowl with cooking spray. Sift all the dry ingredients into the bowl, then add the warm water. Mix until combined. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm spot for four hours. Turn the dough onto an oiled surface and cover again for thirty minutes. While rising again, preheat your oven and dutch oven to 450°. Add dough, cover and bake for thirty minutes. Take the lid off the Dutch oven and bake for another ten minutes. Let cool on a cooling rack. Or devour immediately like I do. 

F! F! F! F!

Lord knows I haven't been F'in around lately. I've been busy as F. Why the F am I talking like this? Because I have a big F'in F I'm working on. NO. SERIOUSLY. I'm making a 40" tall wall-hanging F. My sister was looking for a giant F (the first initial of her last name, not an odd ode to F) for their den, but she couldn't find something that was F'in big enough. And most were F'in expensive. So I told her I'd give an F if she'd like me to.

Onto the F'in details! First of all, I had a lot of help from an amazing tutorial over at Green Zebra Crafts. I used some different materials which I'll explain below. You know, my original idea was to use flexible wire mesh covered with paper mache. Which sounds like a horribly F'in tedious idea. Idea fail.

a giant paper F

First, I literally needed to print out a giant F. Microsoft Word didn't quite work for me, so I went into MS Paint to create my 40" tall F. Here's a F'in tip though: DO NOT make your letter in solid black. Adjust the font to a light grey tone, and print it on scrap paper so you're not wasting ink and good paper on something you're going to throw away.

two cardboard F's

Once the F was printed, taped together and trimmed of excess paper, I traced F out on enough cardboard to make two F's. Regular ol' scotch-tape worked just fine, but I think masking tape would have worked better to join all the F'in F pieces together.

Then it was onto making the two flat F's into a 3D F. Out of the F'in scraps of cardboard, I cut 1" wide strips and joined them together into a massively long 1" wide strip. I took my time and affixed this strip to the interior of the bottom F with hot glue. I used making tape to sure-up the seams on the outside. Then, it was onto attaching the top F. This I did just out of masking tape. A LOT OF MASKING TAPE.

VOILA! I had myself an F'in giant 3D F.

Crystal at Green Zebra Crafts then covered her letter with paper mache. I was on the verge of going to buy some when a 1/2 used gallon of joint compound caught my eye. F'IN BINGO. Right now I have two F'in coats of the joint compound on the front and one on the back. This weekend I'm hoping to get it completely F'in covered and textured, and paint it a glorious F'in yellow.

finished!

I can't believe how productive I've been the past couple of nights! I completely finished all 23 wine bags. ALL 23 BAGS! Each one is stamped with my little "Nodyl's Noodles" stamp, and has a cute little tag with the price. Over the weekend, I'd like to make a price sheet that I can frame for my crafter table. I have a really nice black tablecloth to use, too. I'm so excited, I really hope I can make new friends and customers next weekend!

FINALLY SOME PICTURES!

I didn't realize how cray I look in this picture.

more bags, more glory (part deux)

On Monday and Tuesday I began almost obsessively working on new wine bags to (HOPEFULLY!) sell at the Arc Mercer 2012 Walk-A-Thon taking place on Saturday May 18th at Veterans Park in Hamilton Township. NJ. While I didn't get my original goals done on Monday, I sure blew through them on Tuesday night. Here's what I have in the works:

23 NEW WINE BAGS!

46 pieces of fabric cut and pressed

736 inches (or over 61 feet!) of ties cut into 16" pieces for all 23 bags

2 tie-handles sewed onto each of the bags

excess pieces of tie from handles trimmed and saved to make the tiny tie for each bag

all 23 bags ironed and ready for the final sew

Also, I think I'm going to do special pricing from now on whenever I do a craft fair. Since Etsy charges the seller per transaction and per item post, I try to build those small costs into each bag. Since I'll be interacting with my (POTENTIAL!) customers one-on-one, I can drop the prices a little.

Anyone who grew up in the 80's and lived near New York remembers Crazy Eddie! I'm going to be the Crazy Eddie of wine bags.

a little help from my friends (and major corporations)

So with the prospect of going back to school for Dental Hygiene, I ran into a little bit of what I'd call a 'mental roadblock'. While I know that I am perfectly capable and able to mentally and physically complete the program, I didn't want others (that being professors or classmates) to think that I physically wouldn't be able to because of my left hand. Nothing has ever really held me back (except ring around the rosie) and this won't either: I can sculpt, paint, type, sew, sign ASL and do most anything anyone else can do. Maybe a little better sometimes. I'm not bragging. This is just a fact. The only thing that I could foresee being a quote-unquote 'problem' was having the disposable Nitrile gloves not fit me properly. So naturally I did what any other person would do.

I started reaching out to every single Nitrile glove manufacturers and distributors I could find in the USA to see if they in any way could help me in my quest to find or make a custom fitted disposable Nitrile glove. So far, I've contacted 13 companies. Two companies emailed me back and said that they wouldn't be able to help. Which is totally fine, I'd rather have someone respond with an answer than not respond at all. One company representative called me to explain that they did not actually produce the gloves, but that she would forward my inquiry to companies that she knew of. (She also told me, good for you for following your dreams and not letting anything hold you back. TEAR!)

One company emailed me back to say "I hope that we can help you with your needs. I will consult with our team to see if there is a glove we can dip for you."

WAIT.
WHAT?
SOMEONE CAN HELP?

ER.
MAH.
GERD.

Thus begins my quest: To dig deep back into my mold making routes to make a perfect resin cast of my left hand to send to this generous company.

On Sunday, I made an alginate mold of my hand and a perfect plaster cast. From here, I will make a simple two-piece plater mold of the cast so I will be able to cast multiple hands in resin. I had forgotten how much fun it is to make a mold.. the materials, the preparation, the anticipation of cutting the alginate away to see how the cast came out. It's bliss.

Also, I need to get on my game and take some pictures. These pictureless posts are lame.

more bags, more glory

It's been awhile since I've sewed some wine bags. But I have to get on my game, because 12 days from now I'll be setting up my CRAFTY BOOTH for ARC Mercer in Veteran's Park with only 18 wine bags! My goal is to make another 12-22 to bring my total to either 30 or 40.  I think I can do it between my other projects going on. I think it's time for me to realistically set goals again, folks.

OK. By the end of tonight I'd like to have all of the ties for the bags' straps cut out, all of the fabric cut out, and all of the straps pinned to the fabric. I think that's a fair goal to set for myself.

Here are the projects I have going on right now:
- Make a 40" tall wall-hanging F. (I'll explain later)
- Make a mold and resin cast of my left hand (... I'll explain later)
- Make 12-22 new wine bags to sell at craft fair
- Update and work on my collaborative blog for Moxy Murals with my fellow artist Mrs. Brown!

I'm hoping that I can create a post a day detailing some of the other projects I've been working on. There's a lot going on in Nodyl's world at the moment!