Crafted - 2 days to go....

 So you'll remember at the end of the last post I was unhappy with the raw finish of the walls and so I bought a whole lot of paint and with a full crew dismantled all the shelves and decor and painted the whole thing. May not be interior design standard but it gives the space a finished feel. I'm glad I went with my gut and did it. We still need to put the colored flags up and product in but there's a much cleaner backdrop and the back wall is still wood. I'm excited to get everything in and there will be more tweaking no doubt.

There's our booth at the end.

The Silver Blue Glass Side.

4 days to go....before CRAFTED

So in the blur of preparations I was slightly terrible about documenting the transformation of the booth. It was kind of hot and exhausting. The shelves were painted beforehand but with the walls being less than 6ft tall I went for less is more and reduced the number of shelves I'd planned. The sign had to be rethought after I realised the yarn letters were just a fraction too big but I had a plan B and I think it worked out. The flag idea ties the two sides Silver Blue Glass and me together.

Mr B. hard at work

Pennants for a festive feel

Bright Green Paint

The Vision

The sign that goes on those two long planks on the back wall.

Yarn letters, sadly too big for the sign so this was plan b.

I put these shelves up myself.

A few props

I am really starting to think I need to paint the walls white, that would mean taking all the shelves down, recutting a bunch of flags but I know it would look a lot cleaner. Can't paint the back wall but at least its a nice dark color. How long does paint take to dry anyway ? It's going to be a loooonng week.

Just in, look who's sitting pretty in the July issue of Sunset Magazine. Praise is due to Lindsey Kliewer the wonderful creator of the image they used. Interestingly they took out the sky and reversed it, even handmade plushes can't escape a little bit of photoshopping !

ER and alternate Universes

Well it would seem that the flying start to the year that I had hoped for is experiencing a few bumps. This past week was almost a total loss except for the progress made when my intern came in. It was the jolt I needed to finish off a large pile of owls and begin some new projects. On Tuesday 3am, the husband started feeling excruciating pain otherwise known as acute sciatica down one leg. We ended up in the ER on Friday after the pain killers failed to make a dent. We struck it lucky as we were seen pretty much instantly, it was pretty empty when we arrived and we were the only ones checking in. I can't say that has ever happened when I've been to the NHS casualty where many an hour goes by in crowded waiting rooms. So after he had some pain medication administered he fell asleep and I was left trying to keep awake. I am so glad to not to have had back issues and touch wood it will remain that way. Fast forward 3 days and as we wait for a scheduled procedure this week, pain management has been the overriding priority.

On a positive note I have begun working on a Spring Line and signed up for a craft fair in Silverlake, Los Angeles in two weeks time so I need to get sewing.Here's some of the Valentine inspired Owls that have been finished.

 What an appropriate stitch ?

Love is in the Air

I think I'm going to need another week to catch up on the lost sleep. Boss, the oldest dog who sleeps in our room has started to snore really loudly and I haven't really got the heart to chuck him out. I think he would be a bit upset, so I've been trying earplugs that I found (they're for shooting with and we had a whole packet) they apparently go up to 30 decibels which means Boss' snoring is louder than that as I still hear a faint sound, but if I lie on my side and bury one ear in the pillow it improves a bit. When living in London we had these noisy neighbors from hell, we are talking Beyonce singing "irreplaceable" so loudly on repeat that the walls vibrated. It really put me off Beyonce in a big way and to this day I have flashbacks of sleepless nights whenever "I hear to the left to the left..."

With earplugs you enter this alternate universe where your own breathing becomes really, really loud.  Speaking of alternate universes I found myself in a laundrette having amassed so much washing that it would have been about 6 loads. The speed queen (honest that's what the washing machine is called) wasn't slow but when all you're doing is waiting for the spin light to come on it seems like an eternity. For those whose minds conjure up early 80's Nick Kamen Levi's Ads I can assure you that the likelihood of that happening in this particular laundrette were pretty slim. It was like an anthropological study trying to work out whose pale green towels were spinning around in the dryer. A bearded man apparently. I wondered what my washing load revealed about me, other than the obvious observation that I hadn't done laundry in a while. I had bought a book to read but I opted to watch the clothes spinning in the dryer. Those are 2 hours that I will never get back, how sad is that ?

Polar Babies

The latest kids on the block Polar babies are here and child friendly too !