Crafty Carnival

nascar update

I promise to get back to craftiness after this last nascar post.  I'm kind of in bunny mode since I signed up for Debra's bunny swap and I have to ship it this week, so I drew some really really cute bunnies, and I'll have pics of those in a few days, and I've been working really hard on Glitter and Grunge since I got home too!

BUT!  in the meantime, here's the lowdown on Nascar.... IT WAS SO FUN!

My kids hated it.  They had fun on Friday playing in the trailer and all of that, but by Satuday they had had enough of the heat and the noise and the dirt.  SO my mom (who only lives about an hour from the track) very graciously came and picked them up Saturday morning and kept them for the rest of the weekend where they had way more fun swimming and hanging out!  So... that was a nice break for me too!  I got to drink!!

We loved our camping neighbors and made friends... they were awesome people!  And they made this drink called Yucca... and everyone has to shake the jug and then we drank it straight from the jug.  I felt like I was in college again, which was a good thing.  LOL.  It was kind of like a big lemon drop.  I tried my hardest to get on TV, but I don't think I did.  I got lots of compliments on my custom shirts, so that was fun... made a lot of friends doing that too!  The race was awesome, we had great seats, and there was a little bunny that hopped across the track at one point and we were all standing up yelling go go!!  Cheering him on... and I know he made it across the track, but I'm not sure he was happy.  Poor little fellow :(

The top pic is with the kids, and the bottom pic is post kids... if it looks like I was having a little too much fun... I was.... but why not?  It's only once a year right!?  and now I'm all rested and rejuvinated and ready to get back to work! 

I seriously missed my computer... how sad is that!

WINNER WINNER .... chicken dinner!

I sound like a carnie huh!?  LOL!  Well the winners of the charm packs are....

Sandra Gonzales, and Romy!!!  YAY!  the only bad part is neither one of you left your emails so I could contact you... so hopefully you'll just read this, and email me :)  Wouldn't you know it!?

But really, you're all winners in my big heart!  LOL... and so therefore... I'm going to point you in the direction of a big fat huge fabric sale :)  luv ya!

I won't be home again until Monday, and then I'm going straight back to work on Glitter and Grunge!  See you then!  :)

BUSY busy BUSY

Oh my goodness... there is just so much going on.... we are getting ready to leave this weekend to go camping at NASCAR.  My husband is a huge race fan, so I am by default.  I love Dale Jr. cause he's cute and funny, and southern, so I had shirts made up for us that say

JUNIOR + HENDRICK = CHAMPIONSHIP

and then the kids' shirts say

JEFF WHO?

That's really funny, and if you're into NASCAR at all, you'll get what I mean.  They are red shirts with white writing.  We also made up some really fun glittery signs to hold up and spo we can try to get on tv during Trackside in the morning.  So if you're a fan, and I know at least one of you is, watch for us on TV on Sunday mornin!!  This is really going to be an event for our family of 4.  Our whole trailer is all decked out in red, white and black for the weekend.  I promise lots of pictures!!

On another note, my friend Elaine started blogging.  She's a really talented paper mache artist, so check out her blog, and leave a comment to show her some luv :)  Tell her I sent you!

And finally, you may or may not know that I run an artist co-op called Glitter and Grunge.  I started it as a way of networking for artists, and building clientel by being associated with other fabulous artists.  It's a great way to drive traffic to your blog, etsy shop, website, etc.  It is juried so that there isn't too much of one thing (ie altered art, dolls, bears, etc.)  I would love to have some new artists join up, so if you're interested, please email me!  The long and short of it is this:  You send me pictures monthly, and I upload them to the site, and there is a small fee to be involved.  The money goes to support the website and buy marketing materials such as business cards (which everyone involved gets stacks of for FREE!)  We also do an annual holiday postcard to thank our customers and collectors for their patronage.  That postcard is coming up soon, so it's a great time to join! 

Right now, Glitter and Grunge is getting an extreme makeover, and the grand re-opening will be July 1st!

Here's a preview of what some of the wall papers and banners look like... you can tell it's going to be stunning! And this only a rough draft SAMPLE... I hope you're intrigued!!!

UPDATE:  typepad hates me right now... it won't show the image I've inserted even tho I've tried to insert it 500 different ways, maybe it was only 499, but still.... so here's a link.  It's a link to my sample page... it's not done and the links don't really work, and the bears are sold, and all that good stuff... but you get the idea :)

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy father's day to my dh, Bryan, and my dad, Zinn!  We had an awesome brunch at Sacramento Brewing Company, and then we went to camping world, and home to NAP!  I had all planned out to write something sappy, but with only 23 minutes left in father's day, I don't have time... or energy.... so just know that I love the dads in my life... and here's some pics:

The lady at Camping World asked if we did anything special today for Father's Day, and I said... the girls are wearing dresses, and they are dressed like twins... what more do you want?  LOL!  It literally killed Daisy to wear this dress.  She took it off 4 times in the hour she had it on before we left for brunch... said she couldn't go potty in it, it was in her way... I said that's the price you pay to be beautiful, she grumbled and went on got her favorite tomboy clothes... which are princess t shirts with shorts... always shorts!  (and she pulled out her ADORABLE side pony I put in for her!  GRRRR!) Gracie liked her dress tho... she twirled in it about a dozen times.  A great big shout to Gramma for buying the dresses too!  The girls looked really cute!

This is really sad

Something aweful has happened, and there just aren't words to describe it.  A mother in the artist community, Iva Wilcox, has stood by her daughter Brianna's side day and night for almost a year as Brianna fought for her life.  A few days ago, Brianna lost her fight, and I can't even imagine how big the hole is in Iva's heart.  My mind won't even let me go there.  (I didn't know Iva and Brianna very well, but I did meet them both personally a few times, and they are two of the nicest people you will have ever met.)  So today, I got an email from another artist friend, Sylvia:

Hello everyone,

Some of you may already be aware of Brianna's story, and unfortunately it did not have a happy ending as she lost the fight for her life last week. A few of us have decided that we want to do something special in Brianna's memory, and to help out the family, so we are putting together a benefit auction in her name. The theme is Angel's, and we are asking everyone in the art community that we know to please help by donating an angel to be auctioned off. They can be done in any medium....cloth, paint, collage, clay....etc. so long as they fit the theme.

Iva is Brianna's mother, and she has been keeping a daily blog since Brianna became ill last year. Here is a link in case you would like to read about Brianna, or leave her family a comment....

http://iva-and-family.blogspot.com/

If you feel as though you would like to help, or would like more information, please email me back, and I will add you to the list. We hope to have everything finalized in the next week, and the plan is to start the auction in about two weeks time.

Thank you for your time,

Sylvia

      Sylvia Anderson
www.sylviaanderson.com

So if you are an artist or crafter, PLEASE consider a donation... and if you are a buyer of art and collectibles, I will post the auctions as they become available.

Who wants a charm pack? + more.

Well, I have extras!  I just mailed off my fabric swap hosted by Jen.  We had to cut 10 five inch squares from 50! different fabrics, and then we get back 10 bundles!  I can't wait to see what I get!  I made pretty quick work of this.  I actually thought about calling this post "my name is missy... and I'm a fabric-ohalic!"  I decided to use my fat quarters because I didn't want to clean off my cutting area to accomadate bigger pieces of fabric.  And it worked out perfectly because each fat quarter yielded 12 squares... so that means I still have 2 charm packs left after mailing out my swap!  SO 10 for my swap partners, and 2 to give away here!  Just leave a comment and I'll draw two names on wednesday and mail em right out to you!!  (These are 2 packs of 50 five inch squares)  GOOD LUCK!  and thanks Jen for hosting such an awesome swap.

*Oh!  And back to the reason I'm calling myself a fabri-oholic, I used most of my blue fat quarters, and a few green... but that added up to 50, so I didn't even dip into any of my other colors... now that is just sad on my part.... so I added a few extra fun ones in just in case.  I also wrapped each packet up with a cute ribbon, and stuck a little trinket on top with a cute gift tag.  Then I stuck my Crafty Carnival biz card in the back.

In other news... ole missy has decided to sit down and put some more stuff in her etsy shop.  I hate listing on etsy because it takes too long... and I'm impatient, but I love the concept, so I will muscle through.  Here's a huge collage of some of the things I'm putting on this week.

If you want to visit my etsy shop, just click here!  and here's one more collage I made showing my etsy stuff in case you're curious! (click on any pictures in my blog posts, and you'll see them bigger :)

Swappy updates

Well... I just joined another swap!  This one is a FABRIC SWAP, which will be good for me,  because I really want to get back to my quilting roots.  :)  It's a swap where you pick 50 fabrics and cut 10 5" squares from each.  There is a limit of 10 people in the swap (and there are a few more spaces, so hurry if you're interested!)  and each of the 10 gets 50 squares from each of the 9 other people!  Does that rock or does that rock!  I'm so dang excited I can hardly stand it!  Jen is hosting the swap here if you want to check it out.

I stole this picture from my best friend's blog.  She went to Jo Ann's today, and I'm quite jealous... I may have to venture out myself now.  But I especially love the pink cherry print with the white polk-a-dots.  You can read all about it on her blog.

The other swappy update is this:  my partner, Jeanetta got her cupcake swap today so I can post pics of what I sent her :)

I sent her a whole ton of notecards with cupcake theme on them.  She is right in the middle of moving from Texas to Arkansas right now, so I didn't want her to have to pack something silly, and I thought she could use these.  Her fav colors are green and orange, so I tried to work with that, even tho my fav colors are pink and brown and they were just screaming at me the whole time... LOL!  When I think cupcake... I think pink... so that was hard!  LOL!

She'll be mailing my swap out very soon... right now it and her are burried in moving boxes :)  I've been there, and I don't envy her!  So good luck, Jeanetta!!!!

Free Pattern for Folk Art Mohair Teddy Bear

FINALLY!  Can you believe it!  I typed up the pattern directions and scanned in the template for you to use!  These little bears are really super easy and fun to make.  Mohair can be really super expensive, so if you want to make them, but don't want to use mohair, use wool felt (the good stuff... it's worth it.) fleece, or calico cottons... even gingham would be adorable!  I jokingly call these little guys really expensive dog toys... because that is what they remind me of... but seriously tho... they just add the perfect touch of whimsy to a shelf!  If you make one, take a picture and add it to my Crafty Carnival tutorials Flickr group!

The pattern directions are here Download folk_art_teddy_bear.pdf

and the template is here Download folkartbeartemplate.pdf

Have fun!

photoMy growing boy

NO!  That bump under my shirt is not a baby... it's my love for Mexican food and Krispy Kremes... I'm talking about my dog you guys!  And you have to love the white trash truck, garbage can, and END sign in the background huh!

Well the end sign, my dh put up as a joke because this old crazy drug addict that lived a few doors up "forgot to turn" (we live at the end of a street, like the top of a 'T' so you end at our house and have to turn left of right, or go into our drive way) and she crashed her piece of crap car into my gate, then into our boat which then went into our trailer)  She scared the crap out of me... cause I heard the whole thing and ran outside, so I yelled at her a little bit and then stuck the cops on her!  Alas, there was nothing they could do because she is legally on METHADONE!  and still gets to drive.  So, hence, the end sign.  And the white trash truck... it's sentimental.  It's the truck Bryan drove when we were dating... I haven't ridden in it in like 5 years... but I do still like to see him drive it every once in awhile.  It makes me giddy.

Here's a better pic of my big boy.  I just love him so much.  We took him to get him "tutored" as we like to call it last week, but his liver had elevated levels of something... so we are waiting a few more weeks, he'll get tested again, and hopefully everything will be fine and he can go and get smarter.  If not, they'll do some diagnostic stuff... I'll have to work a lot to pay for it, and my teddy bears will be stuffed with poly-fil and weighted down with vet bills. 

I'll be back soon with some crafty updates... I promise... just like I promised that teddy bear tutorial... damn it... I forgot again... sorry.  Tomorrow looks good for me.. I'll do it tomorrow.. I promise (again :)

Glitter has Updated!

The Glitter side of Glitter and Grunge has updated!  This is a really great group of artists, and I couldn't be prouder to host it.  The picture here is a sampling of what you will see on Glitter this month.  The great big bunny in the middle belongs to Debra Schooch and she is hosting a bunny swap that closes on JUNE 9TH!  Are you in!?  I just joined.  I LOVE bunnies!  Please stop by and check out Glitter and Grunge.  Support hand made artistry!

Also, Claire of Little Lovelies Handmade has opened her etsy shop!  She has some really cute stuff in her shop.  She is the one who went to Baz Biz with me and she's a fellow Sacramento Craft Mafia member!  This would also be a good place to tell you that Jessica of MY PUNK HOUSE, another fellow member, has made some awesome strides this week with her business!  She is on page 42 of Sacramento Magazine this month, and on Monday morning she will be on our local news show Good Day Sacramento!  Way to go Jess!  Big hugs to you!!!

And finally...in a shameless plug... I'm revamping Glitter and Grunge to give it a more contemporary look.  It's been a year, and it's time!  It will be closed for the last 15 days in June and re-open in the beginning of July.  If any of you fabulous crafters out there would like to join us, please shoot me an email :)  (The long and short of it is this:  You get to list 4 items per month for $20, and it's a great way to advertise for you websites, shops, and blogs... and network of course!!