In hindsight

I should have known better. Somehow or another, the organizing/cleaning/redoing of the bedroom turned into spring cleaning the entire house. I'm not quite sure when it happened or why it happened, but I think it might have started when I found some expired salad dressing in the fridge while making out a small shopping list. That led to cleaning out the fridge which somehow led to deep cleaning the kitchen which led to moving the couch to sweep under it... yeah, I'm not sure what went wrong either.

I did get to my bedroom and I've got it organized like I want it. It's still ugly, I'm not going to sugar coat it, but now I know what to do next. PAINT! I've got a reddish dresser that needs to be brown and a weird corner table that came with the house that needs to be brown. The room also needs curtains and end tables and more rugs, but I'm on the way to liking it.

Somewhere during the spring cleaning activities I hurt myself, badly. My right arm has been screaming at me since around midnight when I rolled over on it and woke up going "ow ow ow ow". I've been very tender with it since, but still, it screams. This is going to be a damper on my spinning every day challenge, but I will not give up yet, no, I will not give up.

Onto crafting news (because I know you don't read this blog to see which part of my house I've decided to organize). Sometime last week I decided I needed to participate in a fiber festival OR a different type of craft show this year. The shows locally are fabulous craft shows - HUGE craft shows - busy craft shows - but they are very generic craft shows. My scarves sell well and my jewelry does okay but I'm not sure my yarn and roving will do well locally. I'll know more after October once they have come and gone, but in the mean time, I need to branch out. I'd love to head down to Austin for some shows down there, but they are on the weekend of a very profitable one I do up here, so those are out. There is the Urban Craft Uprising in Seattle which I am very interested in and a couple in Chicago. I need to get busy and start making a list of which ones I want to go to and see if any are even possible.

Any show/festival suggestions to send my way?

Oh - I dyed some more this weekend - you can see my favorite addition to last night's shop update above. I love this dyeing thing :)

They're Here!

I have listed some of my necklaces into my shop tonight. They are brand new, never before seen in Idyll Hands' Etsy shop. I made these for my most recent craft fair and liked them so much, I thought I'd offer them to my customers. Keep your eye on the shop as I'll be adding more almost daily for the next week.

In other craft fair news, I finally completed the application packet for the Bella Vista Arts and Crafts Festival taking place in October. They were very particular about what they wanted pictures of and such, so I had a hard time getting that together (we won't even get into the artists statement that they wanted). Thankfully, PunkinHead handled the application for The Clothesline Fair, so I didn't have to worry with that one.

I was featured on the front page this week. Proof found here:

I haven't sold a bracelet since hanging out there for about an hour one morning, but I did sell 6 pairs of earrings yesterday. Coincidence? I think not. My earrings were not featured, but I find it hard to believe that people can resist them once they see them. I certainly can't. I'm dying to sit down and make some more to replace the sold ones, but I desperately need to finish a custom order of 3 bridesmaids bracelets. Work first, fun later.

Crunch Time

6 Hands (my mom, sister, and myself) will be at their next show in May. That might seem like a few months away and that I have plenty of time to get ready for it, but in reality, it's tomorrow and I'm already behind. Okay, okay, so maybe not tomorrow, but it seems like it's just around the corner. I have a regular day job and many other interests that can sometimes get in the way of my love of knitting and beading. Unfortunately, I can't sell my musical abilities or my amazing coordination of Walton Arts Center productions and special events at the show. I can only sell my scarves, knit bracelets, and earrings.

I'm lacking in craft show inventory. I'd like to think if I took all of my scarves and bracelets, that they would fly off of the shelf. But in reality, I need to take varied items in varied prices and a lot of them in all colors. Whew. I have some work to do. It's easy on Etsy to post what you like and only what you like because you aren't on a deadline to get it sold in 3 days. Craft shows are a bit different.

I've been busy creating new earring designs and different styles of knit bracelets this week. I'm pleased with what I have so far but want a bit more variety without straying from my mediums. Two of the new bracelets are found above and blow. There are some serious focal beads on these and are a bit different from my usual smaller beads. I'm counting on the fact that they will appeal to more people than my usual. I have a couple in my shop and I'm not sure if I'll post these or save them for the show in May.

Speaking of craft shows, go to the AREtsy Street Team blog and read up on some awesome show tips.