Etsy Chicago Meet n Greet

Last night I went to the Etsy "Meet n Greet" in Chicago at Vecco Studio. They served wine, Fat Tire beer, fruit, vegetables, cheese, and a healthy dose of conversational networking. I had an absolutely wonderful time chatting the night away with Etsy Admins Morgan, Randy, Kimm, and Leland, and many Etsians. Worlds collided when Morgan and I introduced my

two team leaders to one another. Ashley of OneInTheHand currently captains Chicago Style Crafters, and Martha of OpenDoorStudio created and captains the Vintage Etsy Society Team (VestiesTeam), and we all had plenty to talk about!

Other people I talked to during the night included Vanessa of Little Lady Company, Paula of Eganaise, Karen of Will Oaks Studio, and Kim of Kim Holmes.

After the Meet n Greet, Martha wrangled a number of the vintage sellers together to go out to dinner. The Etsy Admins were nice enough to give Martha the leftover wine, so we found a sushi restaurant (Sai Cafe) that was more-or-less BYOB ($10 corking fee per bottle). Thanks to good company and the several glasses of wine we all already had in us, we had ourselves a fantastic and lively meal. The attendees were: Martha, Lisa from A Blast from the Past, Tanya and Lisa from Bunny's Trunk Show, Gwen from Chloe's Window, and Sarah from Zzouzi.

Yay networking!

Top photo of (from left to right) Martha of OpenDoorStudio, Me, and Creative Director Randy. By EtsyLabs on Flickr.

Dress photo from Zzouzi's shop.

Vintage Etsy Society Street Team!

I joined a new (to me) team on Etsy! The Vintage Etsy Society Street Team (AKA Vesties) is a global vintage team but lucky for me they're based in Chicago and happen to have a meeting this weekend not too ridiculously far from my house. I'm a big fan of being part of Etsy teams in general, so hopefully this one will be good for networking with people who actually do the same sort of thing I do (Chicago Style Crafters is better for the more-local more-varied side of things).
I'm still looking for help getting into more magazines and blogs, too, so I'd love it if we could do something as a group, but as a brand new member of an absolutely gigantic team, I don't expect to do much steering any time soon.

I was already featured in a team treasury yesterday:

'Dark Forest' by shadowjewels

Don't get lost!

1950's White Sn... prettyinprague $165.00	Norway impressions ... vlad $112.00	miniature garden ga... GardenBarn $24.99	Antique Brass Doork... jillhannah $25.00
Butterflies Butterf... VintageCanadia... $3.49	Chocolate Red Wine ... LianXiang $14.00	Vintage Bronze Blac... EnglishShop $69.95	SALE /////vintage R... thehouseofoliv... $69.00
The Frosted Fern - ... judemcconkey $30.00	Rhinestone Bird Bro... pinguim $46.00	Lightweight spring ... opendoorstudio $54.00	Vintage, Large Ena... STLvintage $26.00
1912 Gorgeous Guara... ryder $16.99	Lovely Oak English ... FBvintage $110.00	Silver Sugar Tongs Cottonridgevin... $45.00	Vintage Black Leath... ILikeThemOld $29.50

Treasury tool is sponsored by Lazzia.com A/B image testing.

DIY Trunk Show Chicago visit and purchase

I bought art! Face Beans 7" x 5" by Luisa Castellanos of Pock-It Palz. I need to do that more often. I don't buy myself wall art with any regularity because it is a bit out of my current budget (food, clothes, shelter being the only things within my current budget, and even those are questionable). But basic functions be damned, bring on the happiness!

Yesterday, my sister and I went to the DIY Trunk Show as spectators. I always feel a little weird now going to shows as a non-vendor, but it's way more relaxed and you actually have time to look at things and go back and consider, and it's totally fun. I also like having a second person with me while poking at things (as a vendor, any second person you've bribed into joining you is back at the booth while you run through the other tables) so I can share my thoughts and opinions out loud and point at things and say "buy that for me." Plus, with my sister, we have her entire life's worth of history and development of style and taste and understanding, so it's particularly entertaining to jointly coo over the same table of funky prints or yet another amazing but $65 and we know we'd lose it hat, and then come to bags that I think are the greatest things ever as she stands quietly trying not to make gagging noises at me, and two minutes later we are in the same situation over necklaces or pillows but in reverse positions.

Ah, sisters. Ah, crafters. Ah, humanity.

My highlights for the day:

Pock-it Palz in general. Plush things that eat their own little baby plush things, and other great plush things, and the painting I decided I couldn't live without. I actually liked a number of her paintings, but the one I brought home was my favorite.

loosetooth. Her pillows pulled us in but the Talking Alligator print may be my next art purchase. You can't really tell from the website, but it's gold foily and feels very multi-dimentional somehow, plus they're all signed and numbered and very professional and delicious.

MAKA designs. Her Etsy site isn't doing her work justice. I really loved her necklaces, and I'm not a big jewelry person at all ever. Hammered nickel and a really appealing aesthetic. I don't need to buy myself jewelry since I hardly ever wear jewelry, but it definitely stuck in my mind.

Sweet Mother of/at Renegade!

and Father, too.


The Renegade craft fair is a big deal in Craftland. Started in Chicago in 2003, blah blah blah, now also in Brooklyn and San Francisco and four times a year in each place (I think). Here's their website for all the accurate primary-source information your heart desires.

I didn't feel ready as a vendor to apply in time for this one, but I wasn't about to miss going.

Car's still in the shop. Raining like the dickens (whatever way the dickens rains) all weekend. Wicker Park is half wayish between my apartment and my parents' house, so I thought it would be a lovely thing to do with them if we could meet there. But since I'm still automobilicly impaired, they agreed to pick me up from my acupuncture appointment, which was at least 20 minutes closer to Renegade than my apartment.

I called them after I finished getting poked. It was still very cold and wet outside, and they had apparently decided to go shopping for stools for their new kitchen this morning in the exact opposite direction from their house, Renegade (farther), my acupuncturist (even farther) and my apartment (farthest). They were caught in traffic still closer to the stool store than anything else so after much discussion and debate over the various routes and possibilities afforded to me by public transportation, my mom told me to go eat lunch somewhere and they'd come and get me.

I did and they did.

To be honest, it took a few more frazzled phone calls from them, but they found me and we found Renegade.

Renegade!
Highlights:

• ■ Meeting the human behind my first ever Etsy purchase (I only bought six and gave them as presents, but she doesn't have six as an option right now)
  
• ■ Seeing Betsy (aka Foxglove Accessories) for the first time since she got back from her honeymoon and meeting Mr. Betsy.
• ■ Seeing the other "core" members of the Chicago Style Crafters who were there, in action: PixelParty and Cookoorikoo (another Mr. and Mrs. pair, but without a neighboring tent, they were having a hellish time with wind and rain and a persistently un-Velcro-ing tent side), Something Beautiful's warm-smelling if not warm-temperatured space, Donovan Beeson/16 Sparrows looking put together yet sarcastic as always, a probably cranky but definitely smiling CrankyPickle, and I barely snuck in a friendly hello to CircaCeramics as they seemed to sell things as fast as they could wrap them.
  
• ■ My dad insisting we come see this shirt he really liked, then him buying it for me. I really like it, too. All graphic and branchy, and then there's the monkey! I was just thinking the other day that my long-sleeved shirt wardrobe sucks. Now it is one shirt less-sucky.
• ■ Meeting Daniellexo from Etsy. I have no idea what I thought she'd look like, but I was surprised somehow that her particular face went with her particular person. Not in a bad way or anything, more like when you first see and hear Kevin Clash and find out he's Elmo.
  So Danielle, if you're reading this, I just called you Elmo. You gonna take that?
• ■ Seeing things in person that I recognized from Etsy (MikeandMary and RainyPrints come to mind)
  
• ■ Being totally awkward and weird as I said, "Oh! You know Diana Baumbach!" to the proprietors of Tugboat Printshop. Backstory: when I first began my Etsy obsession, my "BFF" from elementary school (Diana) mentioned she had friends on there and sent me their link: tugboatprinshop.etsy.com. So when I was walking by their booth, I stopped and made a dork of myself. Go me.
• ■ A few other noteworthy booths from which I made sure to get cards:
  ▪ foldedpigs. Fabulous dinnerware with brains, hearts, roaches, etc. Delicious. My mom was really tempted to get a roachy serving bowl for Thanksgiving, but our usual Thanksgiving guests are a bit on the conservative side for that. Pity.
  ▪ up in the air somewhere. Really great ceramic semi-functional sculptury design pieces. I want someone I visit a lot to own them and display them in an appropriately design-conscious environment. That person will never be me.
  ▪ huzzah! Video game nerd t-shirs in their most brilliant and pure form. I have to get The Blueprint T-shirt for my friend for Christmas. It's just too perfect and too him.
  ▪ Pink Kiss. Again with the clay, but these are more "pottery" and much prettier with words and images that look almost like they transferred when wet paper was left sitting on the piece before it dried. I liked the look and I liked a lot of the readable text and the unreadable text, too. I like text as art. Suck it.

I need to get my application together for Holiday Renegade. Sell my snarky card crap and dog sweaters in December. That would be swell.

Wow. I've completely degenerated into sleepyhead stooopid mode since I started writing this post. Think I can get images on here before I pass out and electrocute myself by drooling on the keyboard?

Southport Green Market

A few photos from the Southport Green Market on Saturday and the banner-making meeting Thursday:


I actually sold cards to a number of different people and had even more people look at them with positive reactions, so that was encouraging. I'm signed up for a bunch more this summer, plus they're now including Summer on Southport in our already low fee, so I'm pretty excited. It'll keep me out of trouble and at least pay for the food I end up buying while I'm at the farmers market. Mmm...apple butter and overpriced organic smoked string cheese...

Chicago Style Crafters Trunk Show

Find more photos like this on Indiepublic
The show was fun and wonderful, even if sales were slow. I took pictures. Have fun.

Teaming with craftiness

Today was Day 1 of my first show! I didn't know what I was doing, but it didn't matter since it was the most gorgeous day of the year and buyer traffic was very light. Still, my goal for the day was to have people come and just look at my cards so I wouldn't feel like I'd wasted my effort, and that much was accomplished. The best part about this being a two-day thing is that tomorrow I can post better signs for my instant super-personalized card-making services and maybe people will actually bite. The other artists showing are fabulous people and there's lots of fabulous things packed into CircaCeramics' fabulous studio. My parents came and I predicted they would buy something from CircaCeramics with a chicken on it, and they did. Not that they collect chickens or anything, it just seemed like their quantity and quality of quirky.

Wow. I'm rambly and half-stupid right now. Maybe it's the 5 hours of sleep I got last night so I could print and cut and fold and organize and pack and set-up by noon today.

If you are in the Chicagoland area and want to stop by Sunday, May 18 from noon-5 PM, we are at 3759 N. Ravenswood.

Links and press about the show:
Chicago Tribune article with lots of misspellings
Metromix event
Crains Chicago "10 Things To Do This Weekend"
Time Out Chicago article about Circa Ceramics that mentions the open studio
Facebook event
CircaCeramics webpage w/info
Chicago Style Crafters webpage