Wednesday, April 26, 2006

this and that and a little politics as well

Just in case anyone is wondering, the diet is like SO off. Not that I was the picture of healthy eating leading up to the BazBiz, but the view I had from our booth all day Saturday and Sunday all but screamed in my ear..."just give up! you know you want to eat all that crap!":



Corndogs?!? Hand dipped freshly fried corndogs?!? I'm surprised I only had 2. Man, these guys raked in more money than the beer Gods. At ten bucks for a Corona, even we stayed away from the beer vendor. But the corndog man, he had a line 5-deep all day long. Even in the morning. Can't beat those damn corndogs.

I feel like I've had a lot of catching up to do around the house. There was all the unpacking of the car...and the unpleasant cleaning up of the after effects of an 8-hour car ride for a 2-year-old. (not pretty) I've slowly been updating the site with the inventory I still have on hand. So funny what sold and didn't sell at this event. Last December at the L.A. BazBiz, everyone asked if I made felt baby booties in sizes bigger than newborn. So for this BazBiz I made an effort to generate a pattern that would work for a size 3-6 month old. And do you know that I didn't sell a single 3-6 month old size but sold several of the newborn size? Of course. A lot of what I'm walking away with is telling me to focus focus focus on the silk-screening of my designs. Silk-screening as applied to pillows (sold all but 2 of my pillows) and bibs (another very hot item, to my surprise). My head is just swirling with ideas, but mostly what I'm consumed with is how to continue with the work ethic I had prior to this Bazaar Bizarre even during non-crunch times. Yes, I tend to work extremely well under pressure. Now that I have 3 months until my next event [which is, by the way, Art in the Village in Carlsbad Village on Sunday, August 13th], I need to figure out a good system for keeping myself moving so I don't leave everything for the last minute. True, I worked good under this pressure-driven last-minute crunch. But I was constantly coming up with ideas that I knew there was no time to see out. I hated that. I'd like to keep the creative juices flowing all the time so that when these ideas strike me, I'll have the time to work them out and possibly incorporate them for my next event.

All in all, I am so so happy with both the success of my items and the reaction I got from people who seemed to absolutely adore the designs I've generated for my "Buzzing Bog" themed critters. It makes me SO happy to have moms tell me how much they love my drawings. As a mom myself, I know that it would have been so much fun to find a nursery theme that wasn't Winnie the Pooh or Disney when I, myself, was pregnant. I've got all the inspiration in the world to continue to develop this imaginary world I've started to create. And I'm extremely anxious to start designing some fabric that I can silk-screen and use to make pillows, clothing, plushies and wall art.

I'll leave you with just one more image taken during our road trip home. Never before in all our years of making this jaunt from San Diego to San Francisco (and those are stories I'll someday have to share) had we encountered such a bug massacre. This shot of our bug-splattered windshield is actually nothing compared to some stretches where bugs hit our windshield like hail. And, it's quite fitting that I caught the back end of a Walmart truck. For anyone still shopping at Walmart, please rent or Netflix "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price". I think it'll change your mind. It certainly changed mine.



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