2013 Week by Week - Week 14

Whew, happy Monday, friends! I've been super busy this past week, preparing for my Envyversary Celebration!

I know you've probably already seen it, but I have a giveaway going on right now with prizes from eighteen incredible sponsors that have Storenvy.com shops + myself! It's a pretty epic line up - you can see all of the prizes here! - with over 3,500 entries already! That's pretty exciting! I am so honored to have such amazing sponsors in this giveaway!

I am using my Envyversary as a way to celebrate Storenvy and get the word out about what an epic shopping and selling platform it is! Every day this week my blog will have a post raving about Storenvy and why I ♥ it so much! :) I hope you are all enjoying learning more about the site I have chosen to be Lu & Ed's home!

When I wasn't typing frantically into my laptop, I was able to squeeze in some sewing!

I also sent another load of Mon-stors to Little Green Guy's shop in Wyandotte, MI! They should be there any day down - pop by and check out Brittany's monstrously cute shop! 

This week I will be working frantically in the studio to prepare for my second show of the season! Alpacas for Autism and Autism Speaks have come together and are putting on Pieces of Light Autism Festival at the Great Mall of Olathe April 20th! There will be music, food, entertainment, activities, arts and crafts vendors, a treasure hunt, and even live Alpacas to meet! :) If you are local to the area, come check the event out! I've been doing shows with Alpacas for Autism for three years now and they are always so much fun! Spread the word, send out some invites to the event on Facebook! I would love to see your smiling faces at this fun event!

And that's a wrap for me - I need to get back to sewing Mon-stors for this show! Eek!

Save the World, One Wonderful Piece of Eco-Art at a Time!

I am so pumped for my first show of the season, Zeleny Eco-Arts Fair!

Zeleny means green in Czech. Zeleny eco-arts fair is all about using resources wisely, and hand picks the best eco-artists to showcase each year. Plus, this is a wonderful charity event - 100% of vendor fees and all donations go to Heartland Center, which is a day and over night camp in Parkville, MO.

And for my Kansas City parents out there - Heartland Center is hosting an Easter Egg hunt this day that is free to the public!

In addition to the Easter egg hunt and epic eco-artists. there will be food, free entertainment and free activities! It's going to be a great event, and I would love to see some Lu & Ed fans at this event!

Wanna help a monster maker out? This is the link for the Facebook event page! If you are local and want to come to the event, click over and check "Going" so you will receive updates pertaining to the event! And share! Share the event link with you friends, send out invitations, spread the word! :) Let's make this the biggest year ever for Zeleny Eco-Arts Fair!

Paint pARTy!

If you follow me on Twitter you have already seen these photos (if you don't follow me on Twitter, you should!) but I just had to show off my latest non-sewing art project! I spent Saturday morning playing de Blob and got super inspired to paint something crazy-colorful, so I went straight to the garage and grabbed my favorite display piece from Daft Crafts, cleaned it off and set to work!
 

Let's get this pARTy started!

Just getting started, one coat and some primer

3/4 finished! Needs 2-3 more coats of color and to finish be trimmed in black

Finished!

Here is my logo, where I drew color inspiration from!

Sorry about the whack picture quality, I used instagram and the lighting was weird. Isn't this going to make SUCH a fun display piece with my Mon-stors on it at craft shows? I have other pieces from Daft Crafts I am going to tackle and convert to team Lu & Ed colors too! I don't have any shows booked currently, so if you know of any in the SC area, let me know! :)

ABT - Smile!

Do you participate in craft shows to promote your art business? Wonder how to get more people to stop at your booth? If you do, then today's Art Business Tip may be handy! :)

It's really simple to catch attention at craft shows. Step out from behind the booth, make eye contact, smile, and say "Hi! How are you?" Be open, inviting, and engaging with craft show patrons and other vendors. Give them a reason to pause at your booth. You have the power to stop people in their tracks and put a face to your brand. Even if people only pause briefly, have something positive to say and give them your card with a smile on your face.

A photo snapped of me, as I was standing in my booth ready to greet customers at Strawberry Swing IFC!

Some people think that seems pushy to stand at the head of your booth, but it's not. You wouldn't expect an employee at your favorite store to sit behind the counter with nary a greeting or smile, do you? If you received such inadequate service, it would probably leave you feeling discouraged with shopping there. I imagine that's how craft show patrons feel when they walk by booths with artists sitting, staring at passing people.

Don't be that artist.

Be the artist that greets them with an enthusiastic smile and leaves an impression! :)

Ignore the hangers behind the basket in the photo - we sold a lot of Mon-stors that day and I had been too busy to run the hangers to the car!

Strawberry Swing Recap!

What can I say about Strawberry Swing Indie Craft Fair...Hmm..

Simply put, it was phenomenal!

 I wish I had taken more pictures. Like of their epic banner with giant balloons! Or of the Lindy swing dancers (Trace is to blame for the lack of photos from the first day - he took the camera with him right after we set up and didn't come back until it was almost time to leave!). I also forgot to get pictures of the band that played all day today, too, or the epic cake pops we ate! They did such a great job providing entertainment for this show, with live music and swing dancing, and were the most hospitable craft show hosts ever, offering free water to the vendors, asking what we thought of the show, and just taking the time to walk around and talk to each vendor! It was really nice of them to do that! They also had a raffle with multiple prizes from vendors, and swag bags for the first 150 guests! It was a really well put together event and brought a great crowd, and was thoroughly enjoyed by all it seemed!

I ended up with a much larger booth than I expected! I brought small scale display pieces thinking I would have a pint sized booth, but someone cancelled last minute, and I was able to get a full sized indoor booth! Thank heavens, because today was pretty hot!

I was too busy today to actually take very many pictures of my monster adopters or of the surrounding booths, but I'll share the few pictures I was able to get! The pictures of my booth is minus a few monsters since I wasn't able to get a picture on Friday. I ended up adopting out over half of the monsters I made for the show! :D

My display!

Some of the monster plushies!

More of the plushies!

Some of the small Mon-stors!

More small Mon-stors!

Big Mon-stors!

These two super cute little girls came back to show me what they fed their Mon-stors!

Haha, Trace goofing off right at the end. ♥

My booth was right by Jesse, owner of be Mary by Hand, who I talked to a great deal. Very awesome person, super sweet! She and her husband drove about three hours from Tulsa, OK to come to the show! She makes fabric dolls with diversity in mind, of all skin, hair and eye color combinations, and will even custom make a doll to look like your little boy or girl! They were so cute, and she was working on making them right there at the show. It was so cool watching them be brought to life! I only snagged two pictures of her dolls, but she makes many more, including boy dolls, and sells them in her Etsy shop. Give it a looksie!

 Lots of friends came out to see me at the show this weekend, and I made some new friends, too! It was a lot of fun and I hope to return and do it next year as well! :D Thanks for supporting me through all of this, guys!

Oh, one more thing - I forgot to bring the sign up sheet to raffle the breast cancer Mon-stor (and I am totally kicking myself for that!), so the final totals are the same as they were Friday, and I will do the drawing tomorrow! :) Thanks for participating in the raffle, guys! Click here to see the total amount raised and the total amount of entries!

Mark Your Calendars!

I am now officially sold out of all the big Mon-stors in my shop (!!!) and I won't be restocking until after June 2nd because ---

I was accepted as a vendor in the Strawberry Swing Indie Craft Festival!!!! 

Formerly known as Indie Swing, this is a huge craft show that is sponsored in part by Etsy and held in Prairie Village, KS. It is a two day event, June 1st from 4-8, and Saturday 10-5. I will be there both days so be sure to come see me!  They have free swag bags filled with handmade goodies for the first 150 people, live music, Lindy Swing dancers, raffles, free crafts and demos, great food, and over 50 amazing art and crafts vendors!

I am so excited to be a part of this show! I tried to get in last year but missed the cut-off date for applications. Which, well, I missed them this year, too. But I begged Heather, the event coordinator, to pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease let me participate and, much to my surprise, she was actually able to squeeze me in both days!!! There was a bit of jumping, squealing and happy dancing all over my kitchen when I found out I could participate in the Strawberry Swing Indie Craft Festival this year!:)

Since I wasn't really planning on her actually letting me participate (who wants to accomodate that idiot that's always late to sign up, right?), I only had a total of four monsters made up - so I been sewing like crazy in every spare moment every day to get enough inventory built for the show. I started on May 7th when I found out for sure she could squeeze me in, and my tally so far is three big Mon-stors, seven small Mon-stors, and eleven plushies! I have seven more plushies cut out that need faces, and fabric ironed and ready to be cut for two big Mon-stors this afternoon, and piles of materials waiting to monster-fied. :) I am hoping to have at least fifty (50!!!!) monsters for the show. And while I would love to show off the completed ones, unforunately my camera has decided to no longer work in conjunction with my computer. *sadface* I did post some webcam images of plushies to my Facebook page yesterday if you wanna go scope those out. They definitely aren't blog worthy photos, Haha!

So, ladies and gents - if you are in KS or Western MO, come out to Prairie Village June 1st or 2nd (or both days!) and visit me at the Strawberry Swing Indie Craft Fair! :) I will have tons of great monsters, there will be lots of fun things to do, and it's a great chance to support local artists and crafters! Please spread the word! Here is the Facebook event page as well - you can RVSP and it will pop up a reminder in your newsfeed as the date gets closer under the events page! Send me lots of energetic vibes! I'll be needing all the energy I can get to make it to my 50 monster goal! :)

And the winner of Ralph is....

First off, thank you guys so much for your participation in this raffle! We were able to raise $110 for Camp Encourage! FANTASTIC! You guys seriously rock so much! Thank you all for your donations and support. It's been such an honor working with this organization, and we had a blast at Alpacas for Autism's Fall Festival we attended this weekend in Adrian. Here are a few pictures from the event that I thought you guys might like! ^_^

Jules manning the Daft Crafts/Lu & Ed booth!

Some info about Alpacas

View of the pastures!

Feeding the alpacas!

I love their hair 'dos!

'Sup?

And here is the part you've been waiting on.. The winner of this guy!

 

And here is the name my lovely fiance, Trace, drew at random while blindfolded... duh-duh-dun! 

Congratulations, Becca! I will be mailing our Ralph tomorrow!! ^_^ Yippie!

Also, a ginormous thank you is in order to all of our fans who made donations! ♥

Thank you to:

Lisa Y

John B

Jaime R

Kayla K

Katie K

Leighann M

Abby N

Telah

Megean K

Roni B

Chrissy

Norma D

Lu H

Danielle M

Becca B

Thank you all so much for your donations! You guys all rock so much! And to celebrate what a great success this raffle was, use code "Alpaca" anytime before Oct. 31st to get 10% off your purchase!

Upcoming craft show!

Finally finished the banners for my display! These will look great against black table cloths. I'm glad I saved all the scraps from other projects. 



The next show I will be at is Alpacas For Autism Spring Fling. You can learn more about this event by following this link which will take you to the Facebook event page for the show.

Alpacas for Autism will be held in the Marriot of Overland Park, KS. There will be a special appearance by "I Don't Want to Kiss a Llama" author Byron von Rosenberg (at 1pm) in addition to live music, shopping, crafts and activities for children. I'm really excited to be in this event, and I'm donating a Mon-stor for the raffle! We will also be donating a portion of sales to Camp Encourage, an over night camp for children on the Autism spectrum to help them with social growth and independence located in the Greater Kansas City area. I encourage you to follow the link and learn more about their unique program, and share the Alpacas for Autism Spring Fling link as well! I am super stoked for this event. 

I want to say, Tina, the organizer of Alpacas for Autism Spring Fling, was my first ever customer at a craft show. She bought a quirky orange stuffed monster for her son, the first stuffie I ever made, because it reminded her of a picture her son would have drawn. ♥ It was a birthday gift to him. It warmed my heart to know that my silly little monster had struck a heart string as a gift, and inspired me to keep participating in shows even though my first year of craft shows kind of sucked. I know the market better now, and have a few events planned for this summer I am sure will be hits, including one I am helping organize to benefit the Humane Society! :D I will keep you posted on all events as dates and locations are made available! 


As for the custom orders I have right now, thank you for your patience! I've been so busy trying to prepare for Alpacas for Autism Spring Fling I've gotten a bit behind! I hope to have all orders completed and out soon! :)