ellebee

craft insanity.

in a fit of psychotic optimism, i filled out applications for four craft shows today {and another two will be going out as soon as the applications are available online}. all i need to do now is write out the checks {scary!} and get them sent out. here are my little application envelopes awaiting a little ellebee-ification-ization before being sent in for judgement. i mean the jury process.

if all goes according to plan, I will be participating in a craft show once a month from june through december! {with the exception of august, the hottest month possible in north carolina}. i have always wanted to have a real show  “schedule” and this is the first time i’ll be doing more than two in a 3 or 4 month time frame.

I say psychotic because, well, my craft desk looks like this:

 

and my supplies look like this:

 

purely frightening. we just moved in, and since my studio is now in the basement, we simply put everything there to be unpacked and organized when i have {take} the time. my plan is to not even try to organize it {for now, unless a fit of frenetic cleaning energy hits me} and just try to work around it all until i have enough finished products for the show. the shows in november and december will be fun, because I’ll get to pull out all my christmas ornament ideas. exciting!

here's the lineup, hopefully, as long as i get accepted to all of them!

june: handcrafted in n.c.

july: designer's downtown market

august: {none}

september: designer's downtown market

october: autumn arts festival

november: mistletoe market

december: holly days

a little mental break

it's been a few weeks and i am just now emerging from beneath some really busy times! it started with switching to a new doctor in greensboro, and starting to go every 2 weeks instead of every month now that we're at 29 weeks pregnant with our sweet girl K! It's completely ubelievable and exciting that we only have about 12 weeks to go! (well, 13 technically, but i'm trying to think positive... sleeping at night is becoming an olympic event!).

follow that up with a new nephew last week! he was born september 10th to very happy parents and a very excited 4 year old big sister! of course, matt and i drove into raleigh for the day to be on hand for lots of love, snuggles, and pictures.

 

this weekend brought matt's ordination as youth pastor at our church, and the happy but big job of hostessing a lunch at our house for lots of extended family! it was great to have about 20 folks from both sides of the family gathered to celebrate matt and his accomplishments!

in the fray of it all, i had given up on trying to make the designer's downtown market happen on saturday as i had planned. i had to forfeit my entry fee, but after all the stressful planning all week and having a cold on top of it, i decided it was better to be able to stay home and get some rest rather than trying to make the second trip to raleigh. it ended up being a good call since we had so much more to do than we thought to get the last minute touches on the house and the food for the lunch party.

even though i felt like this would be the last craft show i could participate in (and definitely would have been at this point) and was very disappointed to miss it, i know that there will be some time in the future once i've adapted a bit to being a momma for more craft shows, and for the creative juices to keep flowing. in the meantime, i did make a sale to a family member for her christmas list... a necklace and a pair of earrings... and she picked out a lovely little pendant for herself as well! (i'm being a bit cryptic here to keep people's christmas surprises a surprise!) here are her selections:

 

 

 

my  mission this week is to get all of these lovely items i had stocked up for the show posted in the shop and available for more christmas shopping pleasure! soon the shop will be all-new and i'll get petite bee nice and filled as well!

hot market!

i'm happy to say i survived the wicked july-in-north-carolina heat (although it will be nothing like lazy days in august!) at designer's downtown market last weekend. there was an awesome turnout of shoppers, my husband toughed it out with me all day, and i was sandwiched between two adorable and very nice fellow vendors, tina and amanda... two lovely ladies who are the proprietresses of scatterbox and oh sew cute designs, respectively. my checkbook succumbed to a ridiculously cute and made-to-order with my choice of fabrics nursing pillow cover, which is extra exciting considering the sad lack in the ones available through mass retail. even target has let me down on that one!

and there i am, in all my pink-cheeked, sweating, 100 degree heat glory, concentrating hard on something or other and oblivious to m's picture-taking... surrounded by my fat quarters and carefully avoiding the tiny river flowing out of that pipe right beside my head! with a name tag and everything.

i think by far the most exciting part of this craft show for me was at about 11am when we had been set up and open for business for a little over two hours already, and m decided he couldn't stand the heat of the full mid-day sun (with little to no shade), much less make his 5 months pregnant wife sit through it, so he disappeared for about 30 minutes and returned with a tent. i am now an official crafter and not the one sad little table with no tent (as i was the first time i did this show! chalk it up to beginner's inexperience!). the truth is, you honestly just can't sit for 6 hours in the blazing july heat with no tent, no shade, and no relief.

and he brought me a popsicle too. i have the best husband ever.

i'm waiting to hear if i'll get accepted to do this great show again in september, which i am really excited about. i have lots of new ideas i hope to have ready by then! also, i think the heat won't be nearly as bad by then, which will be great since i'll be quite a bit more pregnant!

first show of the year

i always try not to make the craft shows i participate in into big productions that stress me out. they are, in and of themselves, a bit stressful just because, as an event, there is so much preparation for them... packing up, loading, unloading, unpacking, displaying, pricing, selling, loading up to bring home... and it seems to take quite a bit of work no matter how laid back and low-key you try to make your display.

well, not this weekend but next weekend, i'm going to be in a show that i've done before, but this time i'll be selling almost exclusively supplies. i'm trying to sell some of the bounty that i so unexpectedly inherited from my mom when she passed away in january. because she had so many, i'm only selling about a third of what i saved (what wasn't given to charities and craft ministries) and it's all things that i felt like could be packaged neatly as supplies, a project kit (where most of the pieces are there, you just have to put them together and maybe add some of your own embellishment), and of course, fabric. getting it all packaged (even simply) and priced in time for the show has been an incredibly big project! i'd say even at this point, i'm probably only roughly halfway finished.

the craft packs and project kits awaiting their labels:

scrap packs from cutting all the fat quarters:

and, of course, more fat quarters than have ever been cut at once ever:

in fact, i had never cut a fat quarter at all before, so it took me a little while of avoiding the project to finally get started and find out that it's really not that hard. very tedious to do this many at once, but not at all hard. what is still hard is not wanting to keep all of my mom's fabrics, even though as i cut up this whole tub of them, i remember that i have two more in the garage that i do get to keep. it's hard to go through because it all smells like her. i'll definitely be happy to be done measuring, cutting, rolling up, and tying!

i am excited about the show, though. this will be the second time i've been in it, the first being back when it's lowly name was the crafter's flea market. now it's called the designer's downtown market, and it's a really good show, relatively inexpensive with an almost guaranteed turnout. if you visit the link, you can see me on the vendor list to the right with a link to my etsy shop! call me a novice, but that's still really exciting to me! i'm also excited because they posted their show schedule for the rest of the year, and i think i may try to do the september one with my product instead of supplies. what's one more craft show at 7 months pregnant right? i'll probably skip the november 29th one, since, although on my birthday, it's also the day before my due date. probably not the best idea!

so if you're local to the raleigh/triangle area, be sure to stop by! it's a really great show with lots of variety. i promise you'll see something new there. and hey, if you're in need of any fat quarters, i'll be there!

around the studio

i've been doing a bit of work here and there on some new ideas for petite bee, hoping to get some things made and up in the shop to see if there is any interest in handmade baby things. seems like there would be, right? this is what a project-in-the-works usually looks like around here:

i guess because we don't know which gender our little B will be, i've been drawn to lovely greens, tans, yellows, light browns, and neutral linen in the meantime for petite bee. i'm finding it's very hard to find gender-neutral items that are

1. truly gender neutral (aka, no sneaking in of a bit of blue here and there) and
2. still cute, sweet, and adorable despite not being permitted to scream the obvious "boy" or "girl"

i've run into this so much so in my own shopping, that i'm considering making petite bee almost exclusively packed full of lovely neutral items to fill that void (though almost anything can be easily spiced up with a pink bow or blue boat to differentiate). and wouldn't it be nice to have a go-to place to make gift-giving easier for those who are too early in the pregnancy to know yet or (ahem... crazy enough to) want to be surprised?

the other slight dilemma i'm debating is whether to open a separate etsy shop exclusively for petite bee. as of now, i have just enough things posted that it's slightly bothersome to me to have the shop in such a jumble (and i don't want it to become too difficult to navigate). however, you don't want to have to send folks too many different places to shop for fear that they'll lose interest. any brilliant input on this idea?

also currently on a halt are any attempts at organizing my studio for now. anytime i get anxious or worried at the confusion i soak in the one little corner that does actually look nice and organized:

(and yep, that's me in the red shorts in the reflection! hi there!)

the red "B" bag on the left is the one i did the no-sew monogram tutorial on, and the one on the right is a new laptop bag bought on clearance from target because of the ellebee green trim!

i am excited though, that i've applied to be in show where i'll be allowed to sell only supplies (with a bit of ellebee advertisement thrown in, to be sure!) which will help relieve some of the supplies-overload situation from the loads of things i inherited from my mom. i've done this show before, back when it was humbly called the crafter's flea market, and now it has "grown up" into the designer's downtown market. The lady that organizes it is really nice, and it usually has a great turn-out among not only people wanting to buy handmade things, but also people who make things by hand themselves (thus the high hopes for releasing some of these supplies back out into the world). so i'll have lots of work on my hands getting them all packaged, priced, and labeled!

post-show!

my first really big craft show was a lovely little success! it was a long day, but it really energized me to be around so many crafters and to have such great shopper traffic. i was amazed at the size of this show, and to be honest, can't imagine how anyone was still interested in shopping by the time they got to my space!

there was definitely lots to see, although i was suprised at how few items really were handmade. there seemed to be quite a bit of cookie lee-esque re-selling going on. i was right next to two cute gals selling tupperware, one of which was the spitting image of reese witherspoon. (i'll leave the link there as though there is anyone on this planet who hasn't been inundated by celebrity culture enough to know what any given one looks like!)

these pictures were all taken right after i was done setting up, so i think i was so distracted by trying to get set up quickly that i really didn't take all that many pictures. but of course, you don't realize these things until days afterwards. i also didn't write down the one thing i was going to remember to do next time... and promptly forgot what it was. oh well! i did meet my goal for sales for the day, and had a fantastic time with my mom, and actually got to network a bit with the little crafty community of raleigh! i got to meet the awesome proprietors of these shops:

• white pear- delicious and beautifully packaged handmade soaps
• small beans- gorgeous baby things including the cutest felt booties ever.
• katie carolina- lovely beaded jewelry, and she is helping organize a craft show for triangle area etsians
• faded blues- you must see her adorable knitted tea cozies!
• rippa's custom silver- lots of pretty pink breast cancer awareness jewelry and accessories

i have some other possible shows coming up that i'm hoping i'll be able to do, but unfortunately, at this point it depends completely on my work schedule, which we only get two weeks ahead of time. i've got lots of lovely things left and could have gotten up and done mistletoe market all over again the next day, so i guess that's a good sign. after so much preparation, it's almost like a let-down for it all to be over so quickly. hopefully i'll be able to do another show or two before the season is over!

as of this week, i've been accepted into delightful blogs online directory of great blogs in lots of different catagories... you can go visit the main site to rate and bookmark the ones you like (hint hint!). i could spend hours browsing and clicking and finding fun new things to read. blogs are so interesting to me that way... little windows into peoples' days and lives and styles, all punctuated by pictures of course! i don't really take the time to read any books anymore, but each little blog really is like a book about the writer's life and interests. if you do get a chance to check it out, feel free to leave a little comment! (or leave one here for that matter, if the inspiration strikes!)

for now it's nice to be able to take a little break from the mad rush of creating. well, so to speak. i've actually started crocheting a little afghan (we call them snuggles blankets) for our couch. we have this pile of cheapies right now that i want to replace with several handmade ones. i'm starting with a crocheted one in shades of blue, and then will move on to a patchwork quilted one in neutral tans. crocheting is such a nice somewhat mindless project while you're watching tv and hanging out, even though i feel like i'm about 60 years old anytime i sit around crocheting! i do have a birthday coming up next week (shhhh...) but i'm not that far up there yet!

pre-show...

my first big craft show is tomorrow and i've got the pre-show jitters big time... do i have enough products finished? too many? too much of a variety? enough price points? does everything look pretty and cohesive? are my prices reasonable? will i have candy to snack on for a sugar rush when things get slow?

i think i do have everything ready, but there are always those little last minute doubts. i am, admittedly, much better prepared for this show than any others i've done. my signage and packaging is a little more professional looking (color-coordinated this time, at least) and i have more "inventory" you might say to fill the holes if things get a little patchy when i (hopefully!) make some sales. a few friends have said they are stopping by and i do have sweettarts on hand. and my mom. both crucial elements.

here is a very bad messy-dining-room-background picture of my layout plan (or plan-o-gram as they call it at work):

this is much messier and not completely arranged as it will be tomorrow... and it also doesn't include the huge picture frame i bought from the clearance aisle that i plan to make into a big chalkboard sign. for now it has cork in it instead so it will house letters to spell out ellebee studio since i don't have any type of shop name banner. but i think it will be pretty! more pictures of the actual booth are to come, of course.

so if you are local to raleigh, nc please feel officially invited to come check out mistletoe market at wakefield high school from 10am to 6pm tomorrow!

aprons and letters!

i've been trying to think of past craft shows i've done and things i wished i had done in order to be better prepared for mistletoe market, my big show coming up this weekend. (i can't believe it's this weekend already!) one thing i did think of was that i wanted some sort of pocket to keep money in so that it would be on my person throughout the show and i could easily access it to make change. so i thought, why not an apron?

so i took a lightweight cotton scarf that i never wear anymore but is the perfect shade of green...

cut it into three pieces, added some ribbon for decoration and a waistband/ties, and made a little kangaroo pocket out of one of my fat quarters, and voila!

it's pretty lightweight, and the pocket won't be able to stand up to a stapler shoved in it or anything like that, but i think it should serve it's little purpose well.

the mail fairy also came this week (or the post, as my newly-relocated-to-london best friend would say), leaving me two little parcels of exciting things! i've never met anyone who gets quite as excited as i do over "real mail" (except maybe my mom, who is cool enough to send people things just because. everyone gets tired of bills and junk mail before too long). anyway, one was my first package from the ever-lovely french general which contained this lovely book, not to mention an entire page of pink label stickers (all an early birthday present from my mom!)

the second package brought the contents of my first etsy trade, which included two adorable teacup pincushions, and french fabric-covered magnets which i love. check out more of natalie's lovely shop here! 

thinking ornaments in october

i'm peeking my head out from under a huuuuuge pile of craft show preparations! it's getting very close to crunch time (november 10th) and i refuse to replicate the madness that was the crafter's flea market, the last show i did (sometime last year, i think it was). at about midnight the night before the show, as i finished up the last piece i was making, i realized that i had not yet started pricing anything. and of course, knowing me, i couldn't just slap a price tag on everything. oh no. they had to each be hand-tea-dyed, hand-stamped with the prices, and have hand-written explanations of the type of stones used (i was making only jewelry at the time). oh, and add in there that they also had to be hand-dried with my blow dryer when they weren't dry fast enough to do the stamping and writing... long story short... i went to bed at 3 am the night before the show and had to be there at about 8am to get it set up. i am also incredibly not a morning person. i'd like to also take this chance to thank my husband again for not killing me, as he stayed up with me and even did most of the blow-drying.

generally, not the best plan.

it's also my goal to be much more organized and official this time around in the sense that i'm getting a full inventory done in time so i can keep up with things like, oh i don't know, which items sold and how much i sold them for (details, details). i'm also trying to make the packaging, display, etc a little more cohesive and professional looking as well.

you can expect to see lots of ornaments (including my favorite beaded stars) and others, lots of new notecards, sundress totes, and quite a bit of jewelry, including a big batch of petite treasure necklaces that i'm currently taking a break from putting the finishing touches on. check out an old post from my launch party to see a general idea of what my booth will look like! i'm in the process of getting a test run all set up in my dining room to see exactly what else i need to get done.

in the meantime, i've discovered the gorgeous and inspiring work of the lovely flea market studio! she has some of the coolest ideas i've seen in a long time... adorable birthday party boxes (she even lets you peek at the contents), beautiful and simple french-inspired packaging, and an ingenious use for an unexpected item. not to mention, of course, an etsy shop! it's so great to find new inspiration from crafters who seem to have it all together just when i'm working on re-focusing my overly abundant array of creative ideas.

back to the ornament making...

hottest august ever.

let me preface this post by saying to all you craft folks that carry on several blogs at the same time, i don't know how you do it. i've had plenty of time this week to write, have badly wanted to write, and am just now actually taking the time. so hats off to those of you that find time for more than just one! i'm amazed by you.

we went to lazy days in cary on saturday:

and let me tell you, for those who are not familiar with august in raleigh, it is hot. really hot. so hot you're not sure you can breathe the air and you don't even want to move and there's sweat rolling down your back hot. (if you're wondering if the girl with the tiny rear end in the white shorts is me, i'm going to just go ahead and let you think that it is).  so of course, there was no parking anywhere near downtown cary, so we walked quite a while before we even got to the walking where the interesting stuff was... and we couldn't help but wonder why they keep having this thing in august in north carolina? they know how hot it is by now, this is not the first year. we decided they should just go ahead and change the name to sweaty days. or keep it lazy days because after an hour or two out there you're too lazy to do anything else with your day.

i came home and took a nap.

but it was nice to see that so many different types of crafters were doing so well, and interesting to walk around comparing prices and display ideas, etc. we stopped and got an egg salad sandwich at blue moon bakery and it was wonderful. we got our fantastically delicious wedding cake there, and even though we don't go to cary that often, like to stop in whenever we can (or whenever we have an occasion for cake- which is easy to find if you look hard enough!)

i'm not sure who to hold responsible for the fact that i am just now discovering the loveliness that is marie claire idees magazine or how i knew to look for it the other day in borders, but oh wow... unbelievable. i didn't have any spare cash to take home the one copy they had, so i resorted to being that weird girl that tries to covertly take a picture of one of the pages that had a really inspiring idea (one of the great benefits of being obsessed with and permanently attached to my powershot).

besides getting to brush up on my french by trying to read it, it is crammed full of unspeakably cool handcrafted ideas for self and home that are so wonderfully simple, so wonderfully french, so wonderfully do-able. you know when you read some idea books/magazines and, even if they include instructions for the projects, you just know that you will never actually be able to pull it off exactly how it looks in the picture? well, everything in here gave you the delicious feeling of being able to make something exactly the way you're picturing the perfect outcome in your head as you read. it doesn't hurt that the french have that inexplicable way of taking something completely ordinary and making it beautiful and useful and special. i honestly don't know where my affection for all things french came from or where it's eventually going, but this magazine is really incredible.