BeeBlog

I don't know about you, but I am really excited about doing some shopping at this year's Spring Bada-Bing!  Oh, yeah I almost forgot: will be vending as well. :)

Make sure to mark it on your calendar, save your dollars and come visit me and over 60 other indie craft vendors from all over the region, it's gonna be a rockin' show!

...to a deluxe craft blog in the sky.

Richmond Craft Mafia's "I Heart Craft" event (and thusly my graphic for it) was featured on the craftzine.com blog!

Neat-o!

Since I just don't have enough to do in my life, I've started a 2nd Etsy shop for all the cute crafts that Ryan and I make.

You can find ultra-adorable needle-felted critters, cute brooches and more at OtterandtheBee.etsy.com.

I'll be adding more items throughout the week so be sure to check it out!

On Saturday, Dec 8th a fire started near the water heater at AlterNatives (3320 West Cary St) which caused nearly $500,000 worth of damage to the store.

Fortunately, no one was hurt, but this fire destroyed more than just their inventory.

AlterNatives is a retail outlet for fairly-traded crafts that directly supports over 100 Guatemalan artisans and their families, many of whom have no other source of income. It is also part of the broader Highland Support Project, which does a variety of humanitarian work in the Guatemalan highlands (including empowering women to start their own craft businesses).

The busy Christmas shopping season accounts for the lion's share of their yearly sales, so this fire could not have come at a worse time. Efforts are currently underway to move to a temporary store front across the street, but for now store employees are set up on the sidewalk in front of the store selling jewelry and other items that were stored offsite & escaped the blaze.

How you can help:

Donations to help rebuild the store can be sent to:

AlterNatives
P.O. Box 7185
Richmond, Va. 23221

Please make checks out to "AlterNatives" and put "re-building" in the memo line.


Fellow Etsy sellers: I am donating 10% of my December (and probably January) Etsy sales to the rebuilding fund--if anybody would like to join me, I would love to put together a post featuring everyone's shops. Email me at BeeMail@BeesKneesStudio.com

Also, there are many smoke-tarnished silver items from inside the store that they would like to try and salvage. Anyone with silver-cleaning expertise who would like to help with that or offer suggestions is welcome to contact Kim at alternativemarketrva@gmail.com

 I give thanks that I don't work retail!

I spent many years working in a small local shop and I cringe every time one of those ads for 4am Door-Buster sales comes on TV. I imagine tired, blurry-eyed salespeople and cashiers getting up at 3am to get ready for work and deal with seething masses of crazed bargain shoppers. I remember the nightmares I would have around Christmas time: the ones where I could never ever leave work because just as we would let the last person out, someone else would come in.

Why has Christmas shopping become a full-contact extreme-sport obstacle course? An obscene spending glut of mass-produced crap from China that will be in the landfill by next Christmas? How is this special? How does a $20 DVD player tell someone how much you love them? It doesn't.

I give thanks for handmade gifts!

My family and friends are all receiving handmade gifts this year. Sure, I may not be able to buy them as many things as I would if I went to some big box retailer, but each thing will be special and unique. Many things will be made by me or by people I know personally. Call me a big old hippy, but that's how I think things should be.

"But what if I'm not a big old hippy craftypants artist like you Erica?" you ask...

That's fine, there are plenty of craftpants people out there to help you!

I give thanks for local Richmond, VA crafty folks!

For those of you in the Richmond, VA area here are some upcoming opportunities to handmade and local!



I give thanks for crafty people all over the country (and the world!)

Not a Richmonder but still want to find craftiness near you this holiday season?

Go to craftmafia.com and see if your city has a craft mafia. A good place to start if you are looking for local crafty resources and events.

Check out indiecraftshows.com for upcoming craftshows all over the country.


I give thanks for Etsy!

Oh, Etsy, how I love you, let me count the ways! How about 70,000 and counting? That's how many sellers there are on Etsy to choose from!

Etsy is a 24-7 world-wide craft fair. Find a unique handmade gift for anyone on your list, buy craft supplies for the crafter in your life, or reduce - reuse - recycle with fabulous vintage finds!

You can browse my favorites and check out some of the great Etsy sellers!

So, instead of wrestling the last crappy off-brand DVD player out of the hands of someone's crazed granny tomorrow at 4am, sleep in and do your shopping on Etsy. Many sellers will be running sales for the Thanksgiving weekend (you can check some of them out by doing a titles and tag search for "cybersale.")

 

It would have sure come in handy today when Ryan and I put up almost 70 pieces of art at River City Cellars.

70 pieces x 4 pins each = 280 pushpins.

Our thumbs hurt, but look at all the art!





Show will be up through Christmas. Come get your drink on and buy some tiny art while you're at it.

Come out and join me and dozens of other local artists and crafters at the Bizarre Market!

This Saturday Oct 13th
12-4 @ Chop Suey Books
Cary & Randolph St near VCU 



10% of sales go to the Johnny Z Memorial Fund at Art 180.

There will also be a raffle to benefit Art 180: buy tickets to win gift certificates from Joe's Inn & World of Mirth or a super sweet Craft Basket from Richmond Craft Mafia.  (See some of the items I've collected for the basket here.)

Oh and I wasted valuable work time today by playing on Etsy. Damn you, Etsy! ;)

Click to check out my newest treasury:

And the finished paintings:



They're too big for my scanner so please enoy this craptastic digital camera shot:

(Does anybody remember the Fraggles? I really liked that "Workin'" song on my Muppet tape when I was a kid.)

ANYWAY.

Ahem.

It's design season at work.  This means I am in FREAK OUT MODE, turning out 1-3 finished sets a week when I get home from work, in addition to my tiny paintings and everything else I normally do.

This is what's on Erica's drawing table today:

Right now it's just the background color and the pencil drawing.  Hopefully if I put on some good music and drink a bunch of coffee, I can post the full color versions tomorrow.

 

OK, the site is up & running!



Everybody check it out!

If you're anything like me, you probably have some boxes overflowing and a scary full closet and a couple of drawers that won't even close because you have way too many supplies that you will never ever use.

Well, now you can get rid of the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" stuff and replace it with something you might actually use, all while benefiting art programs for underprivileged kids!

What is this wondrous and magical event, you ask? Why 'tis the Crafters Anonymous Craft Swap!

Presented by Richmond Craft Mafia and the Richmond Etsy Street Team, this craft supply feeding frenzy will take place on Sunday September 16 at Artworks from 2-5pm. 

Admission is 5 bucks or FREE  when you drop off supplies ahead of time! Then, at the swap, you get to fill a grocery-sized bag with whatever supplies you want! Sweet!

All proceeds and unclaimed supplies go to Art 180.

Website coming soon (with graphics and layout designed by yours truly) but for now you can check out rad Craft Swap gear at our CafePress store.

Just coming up for a brief gasp of air before I dive down into the murky depths of design season at work!

I just got back from San Diego ComicCon and boy did I have a great time! I sold a bunch of art! I'm also exhausted.

You can see my convention photos here.

Charlie got me & Ryan into the advance screening of Stardust and it was a lot of fun!  I was prepared not to like it, but (other than the very movie ending and painfully bad pop song on the end credits) I really enjoyed it.  It's very Princess Bride: I can't remember laughing that much in a theater in a looong time.  But Auntie K did get me tipsy on the vino at dinner....

Anyway, it opens August 10, go see it!

Oh man, where do I start? Pile of Craft was a totally bleepin' cool show put on by the fine folks at Charm City Craft Mafia.  The space (St John's Church on St. Paul Street) was amazingly cool! (Hands-down the coolest place I've ever done a show...)

 Behold its awesome decrepid splendor in this wicked photo Ryan's dad took:



I snuck up the World's Creepiest Staircase to take this one from the choir loft and then my battery died!:



Luckily, a friendly shutterbug sent me these next ones of my booth.

This show's Helper Bee was my friend and co-worker Becky.  Let me tell you, she completely lost her voice talking all day over the music and apparently I worked her so hard that she didn't even make it into work the next Monday! But I couldn't have done it by myself: it was madness!



And, is there ever a photo of me at a craft show where I'm not holding a cup of coffee?




OK, so that's not even a full update, but I'm sick, so be nice to me! (I think it's karma from making Becky lose her voice).

I am so indescribably exhausted right now, and I can't even begin to do a proper entry, but if I had the energy I would be doin' a little dance of happiness.  As it is, all you're gonna get out of me right now is some shout-outs:

Thank you, people of Baltimore for your insatiable love of tiny paintings! 

Thank you Charm City Craft Mafia for a fantabulous event! 

Thank you Becky for being my awesome last-minute helper bee: I couldn't have done it (sanely) by myself!

OK, bedtime now!

 

So, I decided to be a good little bee and send out my much belated newsletter so I could talk up RCM and our booth at Renegade and AOL decided to play evil little AOL tricks on me.

I sent out the email to my entire mailing list (I send a copy to my webmail and everyone else is bcc'd).  I went and had a lovely dinner. I came back and checked my mail.

I had never clicked "OK" on the box that says "your mail has been sent" & there were 5 copies of the email in my inbox.

I said many things that turned the air blue, mostly cursing AOL, signed off, signed back on and sent out an apology.

I went and had a cup of tea and came back.

It had sent the apology multiple times as well!  And continues to send it!

I am in computer hell right now.  I did the little AOL Live Help thing and talked with a tech who gave me steps to follow and I followed them and the blasted apology is still sending.

The irony of this all is the original email only sent 5 times. But the apology (at current count anyway) has sent 9 times!

Anybody want to take bets on how many "unsubscribes" I get?

Well, we worked our little tushes off and Alternative Market went pretty well today!

Hey look: VENDORS!

I was unbelievably pleased that my post on indiecraftshows.com brought us a new vendor all the way from Norfolk!  Janet (Sankofa Beads) was a great addition: beautiful work and a fun craft show buddy.  I traded some tiny art for a Mini Mojo Man, who I christened "Disco Ball."   He will now start his new life as my rearview mirror voodoo buddy. So, don't cut me off in traffic! ;)

Traffic flow was improved by bigger, louder signage out front (and fun with sidewalk chalk...thanks, Eleanor!), as well Common Groundz and their iced coffee.




More fun with sidewalk chalk!

Now that I have a few free moments, here's the scoop on a show I did 2 weeks ago!

Sat, May 5th was the Craftinistas May Fair in Arlington, VA and let me tell you it was in the cutest building ever!  It used to be a Bible school back in the 1920's, but now it's the community center for a sweet little neighborhood.  (It was really nice to see an entirely non-crappy, non-prefab neighborhood in NoVA. With trees! Wow.)

This was my first ever craft show roadtrip and it went sooo much better than expected. I did not encounter traffic! I did not get lost! And I didn't have to bring my own table. Nice. And I even had an assistant. Super nice.

I ended up having the space right in front of the stage area so Riki braved the musty and super ugly curtain to hang my art prints. Thanks Riki!

It wasn't terribly busy (especially in the afternoon when it got cold and rainy), but I had a very successful day!

My booth:


The two very best craft show assistants: Riki and a big cup of coffee!


  

My aforementioned foray into the realm of fun with felt was a mixed success.  I started out making little individual felt animal ornaments/package decorations. 

These were a heck of a lot of trouble: the felt kept wanting to skeeter out from under the sewing machine's presser foot or scootch around in other unhelpful ways. Which is a shame, because I really wanted to make some stick puppets, too.  I guess I'll give it a whirl anyway and watch the disaster unfold. Hurrah.

The successful part of my afternoon resulted in this supercute little number:



I found children's aprons in fun colors and bought one on a whim.  And for once, it turned out to be a good whim.  That so rarely happens! With me, whims involving sewing usually end in cursing. Lots of cursing.