Bohemian Mermaid Palace

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!

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...

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...

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!!

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.

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...

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...

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.

So, there I was... minding my own business... recovering from a pretty good little New Years psycho breakdown (don't ask)... when I get a call from The Busam saying she's on her way to my house from Oregon. Just what the doctor ordered. For those who don't know, The Busam, aka The Buz, aka Heather (or Sweet Heather as my dad calls her at times) is my super best friend. We met the first day of our senior year in high school, and have been like sisters ever since. We were roommates as wild young adults in Stockton, then again here in Humboldt as wild college students. Now, she lives with her hubby in Alaska where they both work for the forest service. I hadn't seen her since my brother's wedding like 1.5 yrs ago. How she knew I needed her right then one can never know. Vibes. They are actually seeking some sort of property for Joe's retirement ... either around here or up in Oregon. Both completely acceptable to me. Woo. They stayed for a couple days and it was su...