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Fun times...

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Well the art & wine thingy in Gold Beach was so much fun! Ok... there were mishaps, but first the positive. Gold Beach is gorgeous! Right on the ocean, as was the Event Center on the Beach, aka Curry County Fairgrounds. And the people were SO so friendly, wonderful crafts and wine vendors. I just had a great time. Not only that, but I was approached by a nice lady who owns a shop in town, South Beach Gallery on 101... and she'll be carrying some of my nicer clothing items from now on. Woo! I really made some great new friends and business contacts. Fun fun. The downside (and I'm a little embarrassed to add this) was that Shiny Van broke again. Seriously. Barney came up all the way from the bay area to help me tow it back home. Again. I know... ridiculous. Well, the good news is that a) I believe the correct diagnosis has finally been made and is on its way to being fixed, and b) after a little sit-down with the lot we bought it from (used & 'as-is'), they seem t

Gold Beach Art , Seafood & Wine

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Pretty...

Feverish

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True, the show was not busy... still it was fun. I was surprised at how not-busy it was, really. I know it was an unusually warm weekend, but jeesh. Last year's was much better, even with all the increased advertising this year. Hmp. Again, the crafts were great, the music was fun (we were right in front of the stage), I saw many friends and spent some quality time with Dimitra & Veda, my awesome booth helpers. The print booth was a hit... well, relatively speaking. If there had been more kids or um people, I think we would have cleaned up! Still it was a great first run, learned a lot and over all it was well received. Yvonne of The wax hands come by to consult for a while. She had some great ideas for improvements. I think I'm going to try it (by myself!) at the show in Old Shasta for Mother's Day weekend. Woo.

Spring Fever Time!

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Ok, on to something more uplifting. Spring! It's again time for the Spring Fever Festival at Redwood Acres this weekend, Apr 26-27. Wooo! The theme is luau and folks are encouraged to wear their loudest Hawaiian shirts or mumus. Again there will be hourly door prizes, donated by the artists. This time it costs $1 to get in, but that gets you into the prize drawing and the prizes are always really nice. This is a relatively new festival in its 3rd year, and it's really a fun family scene. Mostly it's a craft fair, featuring wonderful quality handmade goods from local artists. I have been impressed with the quality and variety of crafts. There will also be non-profit booths like a photo booth & face painting, food, beer & wine. Oh and music both days. I have had a great time at these shows (spring and fall), although they aren't very well known yet. This year there's an ad on KHUM, so maybe that will help. Really I'd love to see these shows take off and ge

Hey! THAT was fun...

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Never a dull moment around the Palace. Adventure is my middle name. Or is it Panky ? One of those... Yep, worked hard all week to prepare for this big awesome show down in Bodega Bay... about a 5 hour drive from here. Packed up the Shiny Van by noon with a big smile on my face. Ready to go! But, Shiny Van wouldn't start. Made noise like it wanted to, but no go. Fighting back panic, I called Barney who sent our friend Bob over to help with some male mojo or whatever. Bob shows up, looks under the hood (just looks, doesn't touch anything), casually turns the key and tada ! Started right up! I was baffled. I may have felt a little dumb. But hey... it's running and I'm behind schedule. Thanks Bob! Barney suggested I take it by his mechanic for a quick look-over... but after driving it around town doing my errands with no problems, I decided to get going. Good thinkin . Driving down 101 was great fun... the sun was shining, the ipod & I were singing, the van was runnin

Time for the Fish Fest

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Wooo! Man, I am sooo ready to hit the road next weekend for my first show of the season, the Bodega Bay Fisherman's Festival . As I mentioned earlier, this is my first time vending at this show... but I have art buddies who do it and say it's great fun. I've been checking the weather, and right now They are saying 76 degrees for next weekend. What? 76?? At the coast?? Ok, sounds good to me. Since it dumped rain last year (and last night), I'll take warm and sunny no problem. I wonder if I can embed a little weather doohicky that will update itself... hm let me see for a sec... Bodega Bay Weather Forecast, CA Ok, that didn't work. I guess blogspot doesn't like java script... huh. Anyway, back to the festival. Lots of neato activities happening there... um, a wooden boat race, blessing of the fleet by a mermaid lady (at least that's what I read someplace - I sure hope I get to see that), boat parade, kite flying, pet parade (and me with no doggy T-shirts grr),

VAN ALERT!! VAN ALERT!!

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That's right, people. At long last a new Mermaid Mobile is born. AaaaaahAAAAAAh (that's my imitation of angels singing). After maybe 2 years of whining and hoping and hunting and discussing , yesterday we brought home my baby. A shiny 1999 Chevy Express cargo van. This is by far the newest vehicle I have ever owned. It has running lights and air bags! Never mind that, CUP HOLDERS and air conditioning! I'm fairly bursting into the nineties here. And see my birthday-ipod radio adapter? Oh, I'll be traveling awesomely this summer alright. You bet. I might hyperventilate. I don't think I could be more excited. It really has been like bringing home a baby. OK maybe a new pet. All kinds of new toys and we just want to play with it obsessively. I already have new tires, oil change, a paint touchup pen, washer fluid. We're discussing how to outfit the back for shows... liners, storage. Whew. Barney keeps poking at stuff. I can't wait to clean it. And I'm thin

Meanwhile... back at the Palace...

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I'm working on my booth display some. The Mermaid jewels are a relatively new addition to the booth ... and displaying them has been a challenge. So far, I've been putting them on hooks. I've tried more hooks, shorter hooks, horizontal bars, that little board. I do sell them, and they do catch people's eye. But, they are still too hard to see. All bunched up with no fabric behind them. So, recently I made these lovely boards. Tada! Nice huh? I got some big picture frames on sale, covered the mats with batting and some fake raw silk fabric, and I think they look fabulous! I still want to add some swirlies with a silver paint pen... but they really give the jewels some presence. I think when they were bunched up they looked kind of cheap. Now they are in a showcase and so they look a bit fancier. I just had to accept the fact that I don't need to display every necklace I have at once. That whole backstock concept is hard for me. Oh, and I finally got some of those ni

More Van Talk

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Yep. I'm pretty sure that THIS time I really AM getting a new van. One that looks very much like these photos. Possibly by week's end. Why now? (you might be asking yourself).... when shows have barely started and you must surely be broke as hell, Bekki?? Yeah good question. Because, the (ugly) reliable van I have been using for the past couple years needs some work. Barney took it in for a pre-craft-fair checkup and found it needs at least $400 worth of repairs to safely leave town. Tie rods I think. Plus it needs some other work soon, brakes I think. Yeah. Not stuff you let slide when you drive 200 miles of winding mountain roads to get to work. So, we decided it would be best to take that $400+ and put it toward a new van, which we've been hunting for anyway. It's exciting. But also a little stressful. I had to cancel my show in Oregon this next weekend (ouch)... I'll have 2 more weeks until the next one in Bodega Bay. So, hopefully this van thing will pan out a

Oh, It's On.

Yep. Confirmed for my first show with my new Stamp Art print your own T-shirt booth. Ha. I'm a little nervous... just because I want it to go well, and it's so different from my usual booth. But, I think it has real potential. And the Spring Fever Festival at Redwood Acres (apr 26-27) is the perfect first show... not too busy, but lots of children. Heehee pretty exciting. Here's how it will work. To start, I'll have bandanas for $5, baby onesies and kid's T-shirts for $10, adult T-shirts up to 3x for $15. Eventually I'll add black and dyed shirts for an extra few bucks. For the money, you choose one awesome rubber stamp and one ink color, extra stamps or colors are $2. The key will be having cool stamps to choose from. I'm making them myself. The ink will be water-based and non toxic, so it will have to be heat set. For this show I'll probably have an iron for that... outdoor shows will need a take-home instruction sheet. It only needs like 1 minute of i

Shows Season Begins! Yippee!

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At long last... it's time for the craft shows to begin. It's been a long dark winter in the depths of the sea here at the Palace. But now it's time to rise up to the bright surface and do some serious Mermaid work. I am SO ready to get moving! First round of shows begins in 2 weeks, here's the confirmed line up so far: March 28-30 - Spring Fair - Douglas County Fairgrounds, Roseburg, Oregon. This is my firs time at this show. I didn't do spectacularly well my last time in Roseburg . But, it's a nice drive and an indoor show so at least I won't get rained on. I plan on having lots of little girl dresses and clearance items at this show. April 12-13 - Bodega Bay Fisherman's Festival - Bodega Bay, CA. I've been wanting to do this one for the past few years. Last year I heard it poured rain... but maybe I'll be lucky. Looks like an awesome festival right on the bay, boat parades, boat building, kite flying, animal parade. Sounds like fun! April 2

Oh How I Love the Breakfast Blogger

Check out the Pancake video ... I tried to embed but I don't think it worked right. Wait, let me try again here... maybe it's my crappy computer, but mine keeps stopping. Go to youtube and it works great. lol. I enjoy this video every time I watch it. Yay Pancakes!

Ready for Spring

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I think I'm just about ready to get going on some festivals. Lots of planning and purchasing going on here at The Palace. This weekend though, I mostly hung out with Barney. He started working in the bay area, so I only get him on the weekends for a while. Sigh. We did lots of movie-watching and snuggling... and I made so much jewelry I got a blister. I'm a machine, I know. Well it really started with a flower garland I made to decorate my booth. The wire in the flowers was hard to cut and I worked on that thing for like 3 hours. I was having so much fun I didn't care that my hands hurt. Then I made jewelry for 2 days. I can't help myself. I got a couple of neato packages yesterday... one full of hats! I'm excited to have found these cotton hats to dye. I want one of each. I also got my first shipment of shirts from the Buz finally. They are sweet! I'll get a photo at some point...

Birthday Report

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Last saturday was my birthday. Barney had a training thing in Benicia on friday. So, I went along and afterward we headed over to Reno for a visit to my little bro and his wife. It was lovely. Weather couldn't have been nicer, sunny and wonderful the entire time. Let's see... it took about 5 hours to go from here to Benicia. No problem. The drive to Reno, according to mapquest , takes about 3 hours. Hm. 3 hours got us just through Sacramento. Bloody hell. It actually took 5 hours. We could have driven home in that time. Anyway, that's life in civilization...I don't know how people can live that way. Blech. We mostly hung out at the house there... went out for birthday sushi. mmmmm it was good too. And got some ice cream afterwards. Perfect. Otherwise we laid around and watched movies, drank beer and visited. Oh, we did visit Pam & Jim and their two little kids, which was neat. I had never seen the kids awake. Of course I didn't take any pictures. Trust me, the

I Love Etsy!

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Ok. Let's see... I posted my first 2 skirts onto etsy.com before I left for the weekend. Yesterday, I posted 4 more. Today I sold one. I'm in shock I think. Woohoo! Thank you Pamela in SoCal!! I'm totally excited. Of course, I hoped the larger sizes would win some hearts... I notice there aren't many larger sized things there. Nor much hand-dyed clothing really at all. Let's hope this is a sign of things to come. Woopie!!

More Etsy Stuff

Etsy

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Uterus Skirt by hissyfitoly Maybe you've heard of it. Etsy.com "Your place to buy and sell things handmade." I have. And it looks like after only 2-3 years, lots of other folks have too. This site is awesome. It's very cheap to list things, the listings last a long time, and you pay a small percentage when the item sells. The variety and quality of goods on there is amazing. From fine art to jewelry and everything in between... there are also sections for vintage goods and art/craft supplies. From what I can tell, buyers know about it too. And they buy things. Sweet. This has been on my list of things to do for a while... I'm just about ready to list stuff. If not today, then next week when I get back from Reno. Here's my (empty) store: Bohemian Mermaid .etsy.com I'll probably re-post when I have actual stuff in it.

Print Your Own T-Shirt!

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Man, I am just full of plans and schemes right now. After checking into the teaching studio thing a bit more, I'm not as convinced it's for me. We'll see how they evolve... but for now that's kind of off the list. However, after doing my taxes and deeply assessing last year's show income, I'm once again thinking about having a kid's activity booth (in addition to my clothes booth). I think I do this every year. Ha. I have two ideas for activity booths - Silk Painting with Kool-Aid and a Print Your Own Shirt booth. The first one I usually think of more around the holidays. It takes electricity and is sort of gifty. The latter is what I'm thinking for this summer... no electricity and m ore general appeal. All I need are some cool rubber stamps (made by me) and some T-shirts. The tricky part is the printing ink... but I think I have that figured out. Anyway, I have always liked this idea and I think it could really take off. If it did, later I would add b

Notes from the Winter Cave

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Yeah, definitely hibernation time around here. But never fear, I'm doing stuff. I'm always doing stuff. I maybe in my pajamas all day, but things are being done. Let's see, a few interesting developments. I have connected with a new art teaching space that sounds pretty cool. I'll find out more this weekend, but a lady has brought together a multitude of artists to teach classes in a big studio. I like teaching, I like studios. Um, I used to teach in mine, when I had one in public. So, this might be just the ticket to not working another regular job this year. Fill in the craft show gaps with teaching. Perfect perfect. I convinced a sewing friend of mine to make some cool cotton bags for me finally. She wasn't sewing for a while, but bags are her thing. I really need one or two nice bags... like girly purses. Not tote bags, which is mostly what I have now. Yesss. Awesome. And I found a new source for more hip type cotton hats. I find that exciting. What else... I&

Life & Death

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Hm... what a weird day. My little baby brother turns 30 today. I also learned a few minutes ago that my old friend Jim Fahey has died (I guess there's a big remembrance piece in today's Eye... I'll see if they post it for reading). Both pretty trippy in themselves. Hmp.