One of the Craft Happy founders/organizers has been featuring all the vendors on her blog. Click the image below to see mine!
This past week has really been a blur for me. It’s not so much that I’m working hard (though I am), but just that I’ve been here doing this for so many weeks now, the days just all bleed together. I’ve been fighting the ennui of routine in any way I can, large or small: watching a DVD in the evening with Erik (which we rarely do), changing up my breakfast foods (as this starts the day, it has big psychological benefits!). But most of the time I’m still not quite sure what day it is, and how long it’s been since I last did x. It’s an odd little place to be, to be sure, but productive and reasonably happy (if not healthy)!
Last Wednesday I got very excited to learn how to make hair clips that suit my taste. Later that evening, I was suddenly inspired to make bigger, crazier, somewhat 1920s-ish versions of the same! I’ve been referring to them as fripperies, because they’re such silly, delightful trifles. So far I’ve only made two — they do take rather a long time, because there’s a lot of hand stitching — but I’m really hoping I’ll 
manage to create some more before the show. There’s another one I’m working on right now but it’s even more elaborate than these two, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish it before the show. I hope so, because it will be an odd thing to photograph for the shop; I’d much rather sell it in person!
Besides painstakingly hand-sewing goofy hair ornaments, I’ve also been putting in some more work on my binder divider tabs. I’ve finished three more sets, and I have several more than that in the works. I had to run out yesterday and get some more spray adhesive because I used up all I had! You might remember that the same day that I made my first hair clip (truly a creative day!), I also bought a secondhand card table to use as a spraying station, supplanting my old method of squatting outside and using our front-door landing. I tried out my new spray station on Friday, and oh, I’m in love! It’s amazingly easier, faster, and more precise to do the spraying at a table. I was able to get more than three sets done in the time it previously took me to do less than two. I did, alas, still get spray glue all over my fingertips — blechh — but it comes with the territory.
Yesterday and this morning, I sewed some new eye pillow travel cases to bring to Craft Happy, made nine mini pouches, prepped some more dividers, and prepped some smaller decoupage projects. Those eye pillow cases are giving me some grief. The way I constructed them before, they were quick to sew and nice-looking on the outside, but there was always a little detail on the inside that bothered me. Yesterday I figured out a way to fix that part, but unfortunately my fix generates new problems that I’ll also need to address! What I’d really like to do is insert a zipper into my old flap design, but you know I’m dumb at visualizing in 3D, so I haven’t yet been able to figure out how to do that. Also, I feel like from a business standpoint, it might not be smart to make a complicated travel case design, because people might not want to pay for it. So this will take some more thinking. Do people want a beautiful case, so nicely made that it could double as a clutch? Or would they rather have something simple, utilitarian, that happily also happens to be made of pretty fabrics? Personally I’d rather pay less to get a simpler case, but as an artist, it also bothers me to send less-than-perfect work out into the world.
Yesterday was a quite busy day; along with all the crafting, I also managed to make a fruitful estate sale/thrift store/yard sale run in the morning, finding two stools, a giant old dictionary (1950s-vintage), and a short little bench. Jinny and I have yet to finalize our booth display, but I’ve been trying out some ideas that I think will work well. I’m excited — I think my display will be very cute and interesting to go through. I know when I’m at a show, I’m always drawn to the displays that are a little different from the standard thing that everyone else is doing. And I think my display might foster conversation, too, which is always nice. One of my favorite things about doing a show, as opposed to selling online, is that I get to meet the people who browse my creations. On the web, the only people who are required to contact me are those who buy from my shop, but even then, they don’t have to say anything. I don’t generally get many “hello I love your stuff!” messages, whereas at a show I can really see how people are reacting and interacting with what I make. Since I rarely duplicate any of my creations (even if the design is the same, the materials usually aren’t), I really feel attached to each one as an individual. I’d much rather send them home with someone I have some kind of connection with, rather than a faceless name on a screen! So I am very much looking forward to talking with the attendees at Craft Happy. 🙂
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
My inner monologue kept responding with, “Oh, I totally know what you mean,” after nearly every paragraph of this post. I spent two weeks prior to my show never entirely sure what day it was, and if I didn’t take a different yoga class each day, it would probably have remained a mystery until it was time to pack up and head to St. Louis.
You’ve been so busy!! I absolutely love all of the new items, and I’m likely going to faint when I see how ridiculously wonderful your booth set up is. (And I know exactly what you mean about wanting each item to go home with someone you feel as if you have a connection with, and I’m especially particular when it comes to my miniatures, as opposed to the jewelry. Since I usually only make one of each, I want to make sure they’re going to a good home 😉 )
Good luck with your last week of prep!!! I’m sure you’re going to have tons of fantastic pieces for the show, and it’s going to be a huge success 😀
😀 Good to know you were in that state too, before your show! I was even skipping most of my yoga classes, so I didn’t have them as touchstones for the days of the week — but this week I plan to get back into things. 🙂 No point going to the show all sluggish and stiff!
Heh, if the booth setup is as wonderful as I hope it will be, I’ll probably faint too. ;b I’m pretty darn excited about my props. 😉
I didn’t realize your minis are mostly ooak!! I guess because you do multiples of the jewelry, I had no idea it was different for the minis… though now that I look at your shop, it seems that should have been obvious. Oh, exciting *hand claps*!
I’m at a decent place with the prep: there’s still tons to do, but if you held me at, uh, glue-gun point and said “show’s in an hour, let’s go,” I could manage. But that sense of security makes me not want to do anything in any given moment, so I’m trying to shut it down. ;b