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!

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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).]

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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!

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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?

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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!

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