Where I've been

Hello friends, just wanted to let you all know I'm still around.

I've been busy busy busy getting ready for a craft show next week.

I'm so excited for this one. It's a juried show and it gets LOTS of press, so I'm really feeling like maybe I don't have enough inventory, but I guess we'll hope I sell out of everything.

Hopefully I'll remember to get some pictures of my products. If this goes as well as I hope, I'll have to get working WAY SOONER for next year's show.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Back to the grind

Wow, it's over already.

We just spent the last 5 days on a cruise ship to Mexico, and man did we have a blast! It was SO RELAXING. So peaceful, beautiful, relaxing. Did I mention it was relaxing?

We stopped in Ensenada and Cabo San Lucas. We learned how to make some really good Mexican food, we did some sea kayaking, snorkeling, shopping. It was AMAZING.

Oh yeah, and we ate. We ate lots. I've never had so much good food in my life. With the amount of lox I ate, I should be Jewish by now. With the amount of food my husband ate, he should be a whole 'nother man - literally - by now.

We saw some of the most amazing sunsets ever.

We saw the biggest flag in Mexico.

We also saw some dolphins, whales, and we're pretty sure we saw a swordfish jumping out of the water, although we weren't quick enough with the camera to show you.

And now that we're back, I have some mad sewing to get done. I have a craft show in about 3 weeks that needs some major inventory.

Back to the grind.

October Snowstorm 2009

Holy cow people. We just got a HUGE snowstorm here in CO. You've probably heard about it on the news, but in case you were thinking "it's way too early for snow", here's the proof.

Oct. 28th on the left, and Oct 29th on the right.

Mr. Big was out of school for both days, and as a bonus, I even got a snow day!

This is Dixie. She LOVES the snow. Unfortunately, the snow loves her back in the form of snowballs sticking to her hair and packing between her toes. The other thing she loves to do is let all this snow melt all over my house. My hardwood floors DON'T love that, and frankly neither do I.

When the kid gets his hands on the camera...

My creation
Originally uploaded by quayandco

This is what happens when the 7 yr old in the house gets a hold of the camera.

This isn't even all of them (there were 32 total). Most are unusable because of lighting, focus, etc. I can tell he's been paying attention (unbeknown to me) when I take pics of my items for etsy. LOTS of different views of each item. Including the bottom. hehe

He's really excited about the Frankenstein's Bride that he made. I found the directions here, after reading about it in Family Fun magazine. Every month they have directions for at least 3 items to make with Legos.

It all took about 20 minutes for him to take 32 pictures of his latest Lego project, Frankenstein's Bride, old Lego project, the lion cub, and a couple of the cat.

Craft show #2

This past weekend, I participated in my second craft show. It was put on by the Le Leche League of Arvada, and held in a local church.

I was pretty excited, considering how BAD my first show turned out. As with my first show, I didn't want it to LOOK like it was my second show, so I took great care in setting up my table.


My awesome friend Kate and her boyfriend Chad made me an incredible frame to set up behind my table so that I was able to get some height and stand out from the other booths. I LOVE IT!!



It's made from aluminum, so it's light, and it breaks apart into 4 ft. sections so I can get it into my car. My hubby made a couple of buckets full of cement that the frame pieces just slip into to hold the whole thing up.



I decided to wrap some garland around it because it seemed a bit "industrial" alone. Plus, it is the holiday season after all, so in the future, I can use other season appropriate items to decorate it.


The show was not as good as I had hoped. We had some pretty frigid weather which I assume kept most folks home. I'm really trying not to get frustrated with this whole craft show scene, even though the weather has been my nemesis so far.

I did end up selling a few items, but it definitely wasn't as great as I had hoped. I'm trying to get into another show before Xmas, so I'll be keeping my fingers crossed until I hear from then.

More crafting, less sewing

I'm getting ready for my second craft show. I'm actually thinking of it more as my first, because frankly, my first craft show was a disaster.

So I've been crafting and having a lot of fun making new items for this show. I had most of my items left from the first show, but over the months have sold a few and needed to make up some replacements. I also wanted do make some holiday/seasonal appropriate items to try to increase sales. Here are a few examples of the items, old and new, of what I'll have on my table.

Jewelry/Sewing Pouches, Table Runners


Moleskine Books, Pincushions


Pendants, Xmas Ornaments



Patchwork Scarves


My friend Kate and her awesome boyfriend Chad made me a rad frame to place behind my table so that I can get some height and hang items like quilts and table runners. I'll have pictures of that soon, when I get the test table put together. I've been spending lots of time in thrift stores looking for display items and have found some really fun things to use too. Can't wait to start playing with all my items to come up with the best set up.

Someone's getting territorial

And he's got backup.