Crafty Wonderland's Spring Sale

Crafty Wonderland's Super Colossal Spring Sale!
Saturday, May 1st + Sunday, May 2nd

 at The Oregon Convention Center, Hall D 

(777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR) 

from 11am-5pm

FREE * All Ages

www.craftywonderland.com

Our first event of the year is coming up this weekend! We'll be at booth #89, between Crafty and Knotpile. We'll be debuting our newest juice glasses, plus we'll have an assortment of fused glass jewelry, all our most popular tumblers, soap dispensers, oil & vinegar bottles, and super discounted less-than-perfect items.

Check out the other reasons to come to the Super Colossal Spring Sale:

* 200 goodie bags stuffed with fantastic treats from local and national crafty businesses that will go to the first 200 shoppers through the doors - EACH DAY! That's right...200 bags on Saturday morning and 200 bags on Sunday morning!

 

* Local craft supply super store, Collage, doing free workshops both days in the DIY area.

  (a complete schedule is below)

* The lovely folks from Hello Craft running their Make Something Awesome area to help spread the word about the upcoming Summit of Awesome.

 

* Crafty super star Mark Montano will be signing books and leading a craft project in our DIY area!

* A fancy event program featuring a fun craft project, an interview with a local crafty superstar, and a full vendor list + map of the room!

 

* Lots of food options - including vegan and vegetarian options.

* Space to sit and relax between shopping and crafting!

Read more...

Send Me Your Badger Artwork

Back in high school, my goal in life was to become a tattoo artist. I bought a whole kit of tattoo equipment (including an autoclave to keep things sterile, of course), and I practiced on grapefruit for a long time. I did eventually tattoo a terrible tribal thing onto my calf when I was 16, and I gave some not-so-great kanji symbols to my friends.

I gave up on the tattoo artist idea a long time ago, but I've still been collecting body art whenever it's affordable. I know that tattoos are an extravagant waste of money to some people, and a regret waiting to happen for others, but it's something that makes me feel good about myself--putting artwork onto my body for everyone to see--and I rarely spend money on myself otherwise.

Not all of my tattoos have stories behind them, but my next one certainly will. I've been especially frugal for all the years since starting Bread and Badger, and I'm finally feeling like the business is successful enough that I can afford to celebrate it with a tattoo. I've made my appointment with a local artist (Lew at Atlas Tattoo) for late June, so I have plenty of time to get my artwork ideas worked out.

A lot of my Twitter followers wanted to share their tattoo artwork ideas with me, so I'd love to see what you guys have got! There are no guarantees that I will actually get your artwork as my tattoo, but I'd love some inspiration.

I'm planning to get a badger (naturally) on my forearm, opposite my purple and blue knitting tattoo. I'm thinking it should be a semi-traditional style with bold black outlines to complement the yarn design. Since honey badgers are my favorite, I'd like to get one of those, possibly fighting with a snake. I mean, it should be pretty badass, right? And they're impervious to viper's poisonous bites, so it would be symbolic of my little business succeeding in this tough economy.

If you want to sketch out some ideas for me, send them this way! I'll post your drawings on the blog here, and let you know what I think. I'm totally open to suggestions (Lew thought I should have the badger and snake in cartoony wrestlers outfits, maybe even as luchadores). It's going to be fun, and colorful, and completely empowering!

[The badger drawings shown are from the Wikipedia page about honey badgers (ratels).]

Read more...

New Camera!

My dad sent me an early birthday present this year, and it's a Canon EOS 10D camera! I've been using the same Nikon Coolpix 995 for the past 6 or so years, and it's done me well, but I've been itching for something with more capabilities.

I've been playing with it for the past few days around the house and around Portland. It's amazing how nice the photos are turning out without being edited in Photoshop! The camera is quite heavy compared to my old one, so I'm having to build up some muscles to use it, but it's giving me some really nice results. Plus, the telephoto lens is capturing views of our house renovations that really show off the space. It's so exciting!

Read more...

Zombie Apocalypse Teacups

I've been pretty excited about these zombie teacups ever since I found them at the thrift store! I've been trying to do photoshoots with fake blood to get the flesh-eating zombie vibe down, but it's been harder than I expected. I thought our backyard would make a good backdrop for a zombiepocalypse wasteland, but it turned out looking like a teaparty in a slightly neglected garden.

I might try to redo these photos another day with some props or something, but for now I'm pretty satisfied with this photo. What do you think?

Read more...

Dinosaurs Rule the Earth

Back when Sean and I went on vacation, I finally had some time to sketch out some new design ideas. One of them is going to have a steampunk theme, one is going to be a kitten, and one is going to be a dinosaur.

The only problem with the dinosaur is choosing which one. I'm pretty sure everyone has a favorite from when they were a kid, or from reading a variety of current webcomics.

In an effort to make some of the people happy all of the time, I decided to put a poll up to find out what most people's favorite dino species is. If there isn't a clear winner when I decide to tally up the results, then I'll just have to make an assortment to sell as a set.

Vote for your favorite now, in the poll at the top of the right-hand column!

Read more...

Salamander Sighting

I've been working on cleaning our yard, since there's a huge pile of trash and rotting wood that the previous owners left back there. A large mound of wood was piled up under a tree, and grass and weeds have been growing over it, but I've been picking out the wood to level the ground again. Today, I discovered my first salamander!

I think he/she's an Oregon Ensatina.

The funny thing is that I totally thought I'd discovered a snake when I lifted a log and saw it's head! It's very lumpy, like a snake's, and not many salamanders seem to have that.

Here's another website with info and great pictures of these guys:
http://www.wildherps.com/species/E.eschscholtzii.html#oregonensis

I guess I don't know much about salamanders, since I never expected to find one in my yard, in Multnomah County, nowhere near a body of water. I always thought they lived near rivers. Pretty cool! The beehive that's also in the wood pile is a little less cool.

Read more...

2,000 Sales Celebration Giveaways!

We've almost reached 2,000 items sold in our Etsy shop! As of my typing this, we've had 1993 sales, which is the year that my favorite album of all time came out: Siamese Dream. If you consider that most of the "items" that we sell are actually sets of 2 or more glasses, then we've probably sold around 4,000 products on Etsy since opening shop on July 5th, 2007. Wow!

To celebrate this big milestone, I've decided to give away some extra special fused glass jewelry and brand-spanking new BADGER shot glasses for each sale up to our 2,000th. None of these products have been available for sale online before, so you'll be the coolest kid on your block (and possibly your whole state) if you get one.

Purchase something now to get one of these free gifts! Thanks for helping us get this far!

[Fine print: I'll choose the gift that you receive, and the gifts are subject to availability, but I'm open to suggestions if there's something you'd prefer. Fused glass jewelry incorporates an assortment of my original designs, includes pendants, rings and hair clips, and comes in red, turquoise and olive green. Badger shot glasses come in round cobalt blue or clear square shapes. Also, the retail value of your gift will be of equal or lesser value than your purchase, but I'll throw in some extras if you spend over $50 or buy more than one item. Mmmkay?]

Read more...

Not Amused

Right now, we're working on a custom order of shot glasses for a memorial party that's happening this Friday, so we're rushing them out! Sean drew guidelines on the glasses with a gold paint marker so he can line up the text properly when applying the stencils.

After he'd drawn all the lines, he said, "I'm sitting in front of a table full of shot glasses that are clearly not amused with me." I had to sit down to see what he was talking about, but he was right!

Read more...

Vacations Make the Mind Grow Stronger

Sean and I took a spontaneous vacation last week, to visit family in Nevada. It's about a 17 hour drive down there, so we turned our escape into an excuse for a roadtrip. So much more fun than flying!

It was just a couple days of hanging out, reading books and relaxing. Exactly what I needed! We saw so many different landscapes and weather patterns along the way, that it really felt like we'd left our busy lives behind for awhile.

I keep trying to take at least one full day off from work every week, but it's nearly impossible. There's always some project that I decide to work on, and before I know it, the day's over. No matter how much work needs to get done, there's nothing more rejuvenating than a serious break. I'll have to keep reminding myself of that, as time goes on.

I had time to draw in my sketchbook, (which hasn't happened in ages!) and I'm already working on some new designs for summer. I've got a T-Rex design in the works, and I'm considering adding another dinosaur to keep him company. Any favorites I should consider? I'm thinking of something really iconic, like a stegosaurus, or triceratops. I'm also working on a cat design, since they're basically the best pets in the world (if you disagree, then I'm sorry to say that you are just WRONG). Mr. Kitty might end up looking very distinguished with a top hat and mustache.... I've also got a top-secret steampunk idea that is being developed. Stay tuned!

You can see more photos from our journey on our Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/breadnbadger/ (or just click one of the photos above). We went to Red Rock Canyon, and saw snow in the Blue Mountains of Oregon. There were lots of tumbleweeds.

Read more...