hope your halloween is a hoot!

H.O.P.E. festival...success!

today i did the H.O.P.E. festival on the utah state campus and it was a pretty successful day. i made some good moola and it felt good to contribute some money to a good cause.

BUT - i was in the crappiest spot in the entire room. it was indoors (because we would have froze to death outdoors) in a large lounge that was off of the main hallway in the student center. i was stuck in the very back corner 5 feet from the "band." and i say "band" because it was a trio of wannabe bob dylan/modest mouse growling singer/guitar players. they had an AMP for an INDOOR venue and they played 4 out of the 7 hours of the festival. they were AWFUL, like possibly the worst live musicians that i've ever heard. i had to practically yell to the customers who came to my table, or repeat 3 times what i said and it was so frustrating. i did go over once and ask them, in the nicest way possible, if they wouldn't mind turning it down because i can't hear anyone and they said "ok" but when you're yelling stupidly into a microphone, loud is loud, amp or no amp. but it was the first year doing the festival so maybe next year the H.O.P.E. committee people will just have soft background music, or hey here's a bright idea, maybe none at all.

i guess i'm focusing on this alot but i was all excited to do this little festival and i worked really hard to get ready and it turns out it wasn't first come first serve for table locations (i was the second person there and got stuck in my assigned table at the very back corner) and after all that i could hardly hear the customers for 4 out of the 7 hours. gimme a break!

oh geez, listen to me, the woes of being a craft vendor. ha.

but i did make a new little paper triangle banner to decorate my table and i luuuved it! i don't have a picture of it on my table (in the chaos of scrambling around getting everything ready, i forgot my camera - boo!) but i did take a picture of it today hanging on my doorknob:


i just printed out a triangle on a piece of cardstock and then used that to trace 20 or so triangles onto some scrapbook paper. then i hot glued a string of jute onto the backs of the triangles and voila! 20 minutes later, done. this was a kind of a temporary banner though because we were indoors with no wind. i definitely want to make a triangle banner using my fabric scraps for all of the outdoor fairs/markets i plan to do next year. i know these triangle banners are EVERYWHERE but i still love them and think they add a perfect subtle, interesting touch of texture to your wall or booth.

one pretty thing giveaway

last month i did a giveaway on one pretty thing in order to get some more traffic in my etsy shops. the winner got a $35 credit to spend between either of the shops if they left a comment at the bottom of the post saying what was their favorite item from either of the shops. it was my first giveaway and pretty exciting! it was fun to read everyone's comments - kinda like an informal survey to see what people liked most (hands down, the owl clips, like this one, from jellabee jr and the rose headbands, like this one, from jellabee).

the winner was another utahan like myself and she selected the following:
Felt Clip / Spiral Rosette (1 pink and 1 white)
Puffy Snap Clip / Pink Pearl Flowers
Puffy Snap Clip / Beige Chickadee
Headband / Hand-Embroidered and Beaded Oval

she was way nice and she even emailed me pictures of her CUTE little girl modeling the white spiral rosette clip! how sweet is that?




those pictures just make me smile.

i had a really good first experience with this giveaway and i'm planning on doing another giveaway on make and love it mid-november. i'm definitely looking forward to this giveaway because it's right in the middle of the holiday shopping season - a good time to increase traffic in the shops. crossing my fingers!

house idea: brick accent wall

while living in an apartment i can only dream about what kind of house we might live in one day. and while i am extremely grateful for any kind of roof over our heads, it's still fun to imagine how i'd like to design our future house. i am constantly grabbing pictures off the internet of ideas that i'd like to incorporate into our future house, and saving them in a folder called "house ideas."

one of my favorite house ideas is to have a brick accent wall somewhere in our house. i just love the rough, exposed texture of the brick juxtaposed with modern, newer appliances - just like an old warehouse in new york or something that's been converted into apartments.

(*i also want that couch.)

oh, how i love hangings on brick walls, especially mirrors.

all brick walls might be too much brick for me, i think it looks so lovely where a painted wall meets the brick.

that arch in the brick and the doorway? heaven.

H.O.P.E. festival

this summer i've been a vendor at the gardener's market here in logan, utah. it was fun but it's a pretty small market. i would LOVE to do the salt lake city market next summer - it's bigger, has more diverse vendors and is in a great location. there are lots of other great 1 or 2 day markets in the salt lake area that i would love to do, too like the art market and craft lake city.

during the winter there aren't too many markets (and boutiques are expensive - most want a $25 upfront fee and then 15% of your earnings - bogus!) so i was excited when i got an email from the gardener's market about something called the H.O.P.E. festival on the utah state university campus (my old stomping ground!). it's free for vendors and they just ask 25% of your earnings to donate to CAPSA , the reason behind the H.O.P.E. festival. no vendor fees and donating to a great cause? i'm in!

if you're in the logan area (which you're most likely not because we live pretty out of the way), come on by this wednesday the 28th to the first annual H.O.P.E. festival. it's on the utah state campus in the taggart student center (198 Old Main Hill Logan, UT 84341) on the second floor from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. i'll be there selling my jellabee and jellabee jr wares. yeehaw!

(sorry, there are alot of hyper links in this post).