Crafty Bastards is Tomorrow!

It's finally here...Crafty Bastards is tomorrow! This show was one of the first things I heard about when I moved to DC two years ago, and I'm so excited to be a part of it this year. The last few weeks have been crazy with printing, sewing and packaging (as well as shipping my normal wholesale and Etsy orders), and my apartment couldn't be any more full of prints. Literally every surface is covered with drying tea towels, and to get from the bedroom to the kitchen you have to tiptoe between one-inch gaps of floor. All in the name of art! Tomorrow everything will be neatly folded and packaged, and ready for the Crafty Bastards crowds.

Don't forget, you can vote for your favorite vendor by clicking the link below:

AND! Don't forget the sale to all blog readers, mention this post to get $6 off the price of a tea towel!

See you all there!

Prep Work

Crafty Bastards is coming up this Saturday, and is the show I've been most excited for all year. It takes place right down the street from me in Adams Morgan, and if I forget anything I can just run the two blocks home and grab it.

I visited the show last year as a customer, and it was the most crowded craft fair I have ever been to, like a block of people shuffling from booth to booth. I am so excited to be on the other side of things this year, and am manically prepping as much as I can.

Today is the last day I can print so the ink will be dry by Saturday, but there is plenty of sewing, book binding and packaging* to do after that.

*Thanks to Sara Brinda I have been much more conscious of Oxford commas lately, but decided not to use one here. Thoughts?

Coasters debuting on Saturday!

I will be doing a special sale this weekend for those blog readers/email subscribers: if you mention this post, you can get a $26 organic fair-trade tea towel for just $20! All you have to do is mention the blog, and I will give you $6 off every towel you buy.

There is also a competition to vote for the "Craftiest Bastard" of 2011, so you can click this super fancy link and vote! All you have to do is enter your email address, with no account sign-ups or anything. Thanks in advance!

On Pinterest

I was very late to join Pinterest because I was so loyal to my desktop folder full of saved images, but I finally made the switch and wish I had done it earlier. Pinterest is a site that lets you collect images from all over the web and put them all in one place, so you can easily see everything together.

I started to notice a very cohesive look to the images I was saving, so I thought I would share a little of what has been inspiring me lately:

Quilt via Cassandra Ellis

Embroidery via Purl Bee

Quilt via Style-Files

Watercolors via Caitlin McGauley

Flowers via Marisa Dukowitz

Fabric samples via 100LayerCake

Travel Journal via EmersonMade

Flowers via Brides Cafe

Map collage via Geninne

Postage stamp via here

Textiles via An Indian Summer

Block Print via Hand/Eye Magazine

Framed scarves via Style-Files

Quilts via Vineet Kaur

For more, you can see all the images I have collected right here.

Monogram Cards are now available Online!

The new monogram cards are now available in the shop! I have been working on this project all summer and I'm so excited that it's finally ready.

Get your own monogram, a friend's for a thank you card, or get your initials. You can send them, frame them, or make a banner to spell out words, the options are endless. I have a K hanging over my desk right now:

There is also an ampersand, which you could put in a frame as a gift:

The very green studio during the photo shoot:

It took months to finish carving all the letters; if you came by any craft show in the past four months you probably saw me working on them. To get your monogram card, you can go to the shop right here.

Gift Tags on Minted

There's another design challenge going on at Minted, this time for customizable holiday gift tags. I carved a linoleum block with a ribbon and holly design, and on the back you can add your own photo.

Will you head over there and vote? Everyone was amazing with voting during the last round, and my Christmas Card will be going on sale soon! You can vote right here. Thank you!

Four in Hand IPA

While we were in Maine a few weekends ago, we had a bonfire on the beach with some friends, and while we were shopping for supplies, I came across Four in Hand. The beer was good, but the packaging was amazing, and I decided to get it even though I don't normally like IPAs that much. But, this beer proved to me that good packaging makes things taste better.

It's available at Whole Foods, so head over there and get some Four in Hand packaging to hang on your wall. You can drink the beers too if you want.

An Interview

I did an interview with Rena Tom yesterday, so head over to her website and take a look. Rena started the store Rare Device in San Francisco, and now does retail strategy among many other things, including contributing to Design*Sponge. She also just got back from a trip to my favorite place, Hong Kong! Thanks so much for featuring me, Rena!

New Stores!

A few new stores to tell you about this week: Tender Loving Empire in Portland, OR, Urbanic in Venice, CA, and my first international store, Milton in Melbourne, Australia! If you live in those areas, stop in and take a look.

Images here and here

Images here

Images here