Schroon Lake, you won me over

The following is how I mentally crafted this post mid-morning Saturday:

Oh Em Gosh, people.  Rudeness.  Nothing but rudeness.  I'm here in beautiful Schroon Lake, practically On The Lake and all I can see are these rude knuckleheads who are rudely rude right to my rude. 

Thank my stars my day eventually got better.

Saturday was the Schroon Lake Arts & Crafts Fair, at which I was a vendor.

*picture lifted from the Schroon Lake Association, a certain someone forgot her camera....me, it was me.

The Schwhat Lake wha-wha??

SLA&CF: a little fair on the shore of little lake in the gigantic Adirondack Park where you could just quit your job/life and live forever and ever.

Sure it takes an hour to get there.  And, yeah, you will most likely find yourself rolling through several "exploded" raccoon carcasses on the highway.

Nice mental picture, Stace.

But boy is it worth it.

I can say that now because my day later redeemed itself.  After staring up nostrils for most of the morning I finally found real, genuinely interested folks wander through my booth. 

(whose nostrils I did still see because there are some people who are taller than me and I sat down occasionally....)

Not all of them made purchases, and I could not have cared less.

"This is so cool!!" some of them would say.

Or "I love this ______!"

I was in heaven.

Wrap me up and call it a day.

Say goodnight Gracie.

Stick a fork in me....and so on.

Yes, of course I like the stuff that I make, but to hear you say you like the stuff I make is that little bit of confirmation I need to feel like I'm on the right track/not totally out of my craftin' mind.

So thank you! to my SLA&CF friends...you made my day!

....

(and of course thanks to my mom who I dragged out of the house at 6am to help me All Day Long, and to my dad who we forced to make us egg burritos before we left....love you!)

Garage Sale Day!

"So there's this girl in my spinning class who.....wait.  What does that sign say?"

"What sign?  I don't see a sign."

"It says GARAGE SALE THAT WAY!!!"

Oh yeah.

Holla.

You know this is you.

It's me too.

I happen to be driven by the quest to find that one thing that may or may not be covered in varnish/ugly paint/melted popsicle/something questionable that can be turned into something I can mount on my wall/use as craft display/sit in closet for yet unknown purpose.

It makes sense.

And last Saturday I hit paydirt.  Six homes.  Five items.  Six dollars.

I can see you're speechless.

Allow me to break it all down for you.

Milk glass lamp.  One dollar.

I collect milk glass.  The good stuff is sorta see-through, which lets the light pass through and makes it look brighter.  But I mostly like it because I used to drink milk out of a set of glasses my mom had and I swear milk does taste better out of white glasses.

Old picture frame.  One dollar.

I collect picture frames.  Old frames.  Interesting frames.  And the best frames come from houses where the wife is preoccupied with selling little girl clothes and leaves the pricing to her husband who says "eh, gimme two dollars.....nah a dollar."

Natalie Grant CD.  Free!

Good, old fashioned worship music is never out of style.  And the owner of the garage in which I was browsing was more interested in spreading the message of Jesus than collecting the dollar he was charging for it and his daughter's old Backstreet Boys CDs.  Win-win.

Horse racing buttons.  Four dollars.

Corey has a shadow box nearly full of horse racing memorabilia.  I thought these two featuring the silks of Triple Crown winners (maybe you've heard of a little horse by the name of War Admiral, huh?  Huh??) would be a good addition.  And just as soon as we remember where we put the key to that box I'm sure they will fit in nicely.

Score for this girl.

"Now just keep your eyes peeled for another sign..."

Chevrons 'n Me: a love story

There are just some things that make my world go 'round.

Like turquoise earrings.

Pea green shoes.

And ugly stuffed bunnies.

Today it's chevron ribbon.

I found these one inch wide ribbons at Paper and Pinafore's etsy store.

They caught my eye the same way puppies do.

...and three inch wedges I could never wear.

The colors....ahhhh the colors!

I love the colors.  I love them more than chocolate covered chocolate donuts.

More than sparkly eyeshadow.

More than....wait, is there anything else?

I don't exactly have a plan for the ribbons yet.  I mean, beyond laying them out next to me while I watch TV at night.

...we all have our own creative process, you know; mine just happens to involve proximity and Matlock.

Friends and jewelry and ample amounts of cheese

Hello working world.

All of you nine-to-fivers sitting in your offices, wondering why you packed a baloney sandwich when you were obviously thinking turkey.

I won't rub in that I'm looking out at the ocean on Cape Cod right now, or that the sound of the waves consistently drowns out Law and Order reruns at night.

But that's beside the point.

Corey and I have been in North Truro since Saturday and are packing up to leave early tomorrow.  We're this close to Provincetown, which is where we've spent a lot of our time, walking up and down commercial street; shopping, window shopping, filling up on Portuguese baked goods, and thinking aloud "are those storm clouds coming our way??"

Every Thursday you can find an arts and antique fair downtown.  I found it.

Which reminds me that I forgot to go back for the old sink stand I wanted.  Dangit.

I met a very nice girl there.  She was selling some old goodies that included a few scarves I would have loved to cut up.  For what purpose, I'm not quite sure, but I don't always have a plan when I make purchases.  Corey doesn't understand it.

The girl uses turquoise in the jewelry she makes and she had a display of earrings in her booth.  Not an entire representation of her work, but enough to make out what exactly she's about.


It was very pretty; intricate with bold colored beading.  I'm more of a simple gal myself but I can appreciate details in others' work.  I can pick out good composition when I see it.

Hello?  I did spend one whole year as an art major in college.

I'm kicking myself a little for not catching her name for the purpose of, at the very least, not having to call her "the girl" in this post!

What I loved most about our brief interaction was that as a slightly more seasoned, semi-professional crafter I was able to share some of my experiences with her (solicited, of course, i'm not that kind of girl) (wait, what does that even mean?  what i was trying to say is i don't go all yammering on about myself to people who don't need yammering to),  we talked about what works for me, what doesn't.  At the end of it all she can do what she wants with it, but she'll be able to make a decision with an iddy bit more information than she had before.

Helpful?  Maybe.  Hopefully.  But at the very least I wanted to impart that as a fellow crafter who would also like to make a little dough at this gig, I'm here; for support, and advice and criticism.  The good kind.

Ohmigosh.

That was cheesy.  So cheesy.  I'm sorry you had to read that...unless you're like me, trying to make your way in this crazy world.

Again.  Please excuse.

Time to pack anyway.  Adios Cape Cod!

A study in booth design

Lower Adirondack Regional Arts Council.

LARAC for short.

For 40 years they've run a spring craft show that is now nearly busting at the seams with vendors, attendees, and lemonade stands.

And yet, still only one crab cake sandwich truck.  Why?

Why??

This year was my second as a vendor.  You can read about my horribly wet first attempt here.  It was a live and learn experience.  I lived.  And learned.

What did I learn, you ask?

Enough to draw people in to make purchases, which aside from the enjoyment of making the goods, is pretty darn important.

I wanted, no I needed, a booth design that was more inviting.

...so I went with more layers.

Height.

And if girlfriend is going to claim she possesses whimsy there'd better be some element of fanciful.

If milk glass, driftwood stolen from the shores of the Pacific Northwest, and antique silver trays turned chalkboard surfaces does not scream fancy I don't know what does.

Ok.  Maybe lace does.

A lot of my favorite display items are garage sale finds, things families have no use for, like this old wooden tray (and the picture frame from the first picture) I walked away with for $3.  It's former owner, an old man that lives down the street from me said, "Sure, I'll give it to you for three.  I can tell it's going to a good home."

Little known fact: I have this thing for collecting picture frames.

And milk glass.

And cow creamers.

Among many other items.

But I put the frames to work here with a little help from a Staples pack of cork board and sewing pins.  Easy, easy, easy.

(white wire frame is another garage sale fine.  i love it more than life itself.)

The colorful table runner is courtesy of Joann's Fabric (and my mom's handiwork on the Bernina), but I don't think you'll find any of it for yourself.  I've cleared every bolt from every shelf from Queensbury, New York to Yorba Linda.

But I exaggerate.

......

More to come on this great festival and some deets on my displays.  It was a two day affair, after all, and just one post doesn't nearly do it justice.

Plus I'm hoping to make one more appeal to the Internets for another crab cake sandwich vendor.  The world is ready, LARAC festival organizers, for more crab cakes.

Almost ready!

My new favorite thing to do is tell people to hold on to their britches.

Why?

It's a dash old-timey and a sprinkle stuff-I-wish-we-still-said.

And maybe I get a little giggly when I read it real fast and it looks like something else.

Did you try it?

Are you giggling?

No?

Ok....then it's just me.  Well this is embarrassing.

Anywho, what I'm trying to say is that you should just wait one hot minute because something lovely is going to happen here!  Ashley, owner of Little Leaf and blogger at Our Little Apartment is designing a blog for me to share this:

...and this:

...and sometimes this:

....because everyone needs to complain about the clumpiness of an awful tube of mascara every now and then.

So until we're up and running, keep holding onto those britches and check my facebook page for more deets!

........

UPDATE: Sooooo, we are obviously up and running.  Many, many thanks to Ashley for the design and not LOLing at my computer illiteracy.  "Self host WHAT?!"