02

May

f3Oakland’s “Art & Taxes” event recap!

Blog, oh hey!  I’m just gonna lay it out there, I’m super addicted to my friend’s building events.  SO ecclectic and fun!!  I have previously posted a few recaps about f3 events at the Cotton Mill Studios, should you want to check them out:

https://lisabbowman.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/open-studios-event-f3/

https://lisabbowman.wordpress.com/2012/10/20/more-adventures-in-faire-y-fairs-the-f3-oakland-event/

This past event was themed “Art & Taxes”, I’m guessing mostly because it was so close to Tax Day.  I made a few sewn stationery items that looked like lined grade school paper and yellow legal pads.  I also brought some jewelry, scarves AND amazing treats since we usually kill it during the later hours of the event when folks are peckish.  What can we say, we know our audience!  Lexi had awesome dino hoodies on hand, lumberjack and narwhal totes, a cloud mobile that is adorbs and stuffed whales and narwhals.  The Meck brought amazing jewelry too!   Sold a little jewelry, sold some stationery – but killed on treats.  Like, $100 on just treats alone.  Word.

As usual, there was no shortage of deliciousness that was put out on the delectables table.  The food, oh, the food – there was such a spread.  I made Madelines, triple chocolate chunk chocolate chip cookies, and Black Magic chocolate cupcakes with Vanilla Bean buttercream icing.  My mom made (yes, my mom) made Lemon Tea Bread, the Meck made the America’s Test Kitchen peanut butter cookies, and Lexi made gingersnaps, a gingersnap sandwich cookie with lemon cream cheese filling, lemon mini cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and gluten free dark chocolate brownies with hazelnuts.  Yeah, you could say we all like to bake or something.

After the event got started, it was a little slow.  Then a band member from Mad Noise walked in and asked if they could do a 2 song set in the studio, and I said hell yes.  So if you scroll through, you will see a photo of them captivating the audience we had in the loft at that point.  They were literally amazing.  Such talent!

Can’t wait for the next event, and hope you can come too!

11 years ago Short URL Comments

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05

Dec

The AMS Holiday Craft Fair Success

Blog, oh hey!  I didn’t forget about you guys, it’s been a weirdly busy week thus far.  This past Sunday was my aforementioned ‘other’ craft fair date.  We were approached at the infamous EBMMF event by a lovely woman, who said our items would fit in at her middle school’s fundraiser fair.  I took it as a sign, and gave her our contact info.  Didn’t remember too much about it, but she emailed me with an application form the following week.  It was an inexpensive table fee, so I figured why not.  I recruited my Mom and Aunt again, and we worked on some more items to bring.  Mainly arm warmers, my Mom and Aunt can knit like mad women, and that’s what did the BEST out of everything we brought to the other event.  35 pairs later (!), we packed up and headed to Albany Middle School for our event.

I decided we should maybe scale back a little from what we put out at the EBMMF event.  We put up our table, and started merchandising as best we could.  In my opinion, we can still do better with more levels to the table.  But, for a 3 hour stint, this was great.  This time around we put everything almost on top of itself, more like “piles”, that people would go through.  It seemed to work, at least with this crowd 🙂

See the pics below, we made some money this time!  All of our leftover product will be listed in the Etsy shop, if you’re so inclined to browse…

 

P.S.  If you are thinking about doing Fairs too, or anything like this – I highly recommend getting yourself a Square card reader.  I can’t tell you how many times I got a sale because the customer didn’t have to use all of their cash!!!  Of course, I have an iPhone, but I know there are other readers that will work with Droid, Blackberry, etc.  But that’s an unsolicited piece of advice from me, so take it for what’s it worth.

 

11 years ago Short URL Comments

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20

Oct

More adventures in Faire-y Fairs, the F3 Oakland Event!

So I said that I would write something before my next fair, who knew it would take so little time?!!  A friend of mine lives in a very cool building that is nothing but live/work lofts, and apparently has events periodically.  This particular event happens every three months and on the 3rd Friday of whatever the month, hence the title F3.  My friend has only lived in the building a few months and hadn’t been to an event, so she didn’t know much and I had zero expectations.

My plan WAS to bring jewelry, stationery and a few knits to sell out of her loft space, somewhere.  I didn’t actually remember to put the stationery IN the car, so it stayed at home, not selling.  Great work, Lisa!  But I digress.  I got to her place right before the event started, at 6pm.  It was 6-10pm, and at the very least, I was hanging out SANS chitlins and drinking with my friends.  They had me at “hello”, so to speak.  I took a table from her, and got to work setting up.  Mainly pinning my jewelry onto foam core boards that I had spray painted with black chalkboard paint, and planned to write on with these super sweet liquid chalk pens that I found at Michael’s.  I think it turned out alright, but I think I need to fine tune my presentations a bit more.  I’m always looking to improve…

Lexi had baked up a lot of goodies that were to draw folks in, which worked like gangbusters.  Right out of the gate a lovely woman sauntered in and started chatting with us and tried on a few things of mine.  She walked out with the most complicated 7 strand necklace I had made, so I felt great about the night starting so well!  And when I say she walked out, she paid me and literally wore it out the door.  Felt good.  😉  Lexi had these AWESOME, and I mean AWESOME stuffed animal narwhals that everyone loved.  She also had these great totes with a lumberjack silhouette applique on them, and some sweet dino hoodies and repurposed ceramic cake stands.

Throughout the 4 hour stint we had a lot of folks come and go, and some even came through a few times.  I think the baked goods were part of that… but hey, traffic is traffic, amirite?!  At the very end of the night there WAS this shorter latin man that latched onto my very gorgeous and tall friend Lacey, and things got weird because he kept missing the obvious social queues to leave.  It wasn’t stalkerish or anything, but more comical because he had clearly had his fair share of wine that night.

Anyhow, we had a great time and I cannot wait to attend the next F3Oakland event!!  If you’d like info on what the event is, and how to get there click here to go to the f3oakland website.  Enjoy the photos below of our adventures!

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12 years ago Short URL 2 Comments

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16

Oct

The feature on LilSugar.com !

Wow, it’s been awhile!!

Hi everyone!  I am super excited to back post today, on September 25th I was notified through Etsy that a blogger blogged about one of our knit items in my Etsy shop!  Not gonna lie, it was a big day.  Smiling.  So hard. Still.

The blog is called LilSugar, is geared toward parents and mostly moms, and is pretty interesting to look through.  So if you have a moment, check out her post!  Big thanks to Sarah Lipoff!!

Kids Custom Pencil Scarf @ www.lisaBbowman.etsy.com Kids Custom Pencil Scarf @ http://www.lisaBbowman.etsy.com[/caption%5D

12 years ago Short URL 1 Comment

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21

Mar

The newest piece just finished!

I found a box of random shells and coral pieces at an estate sale, and they instantly screamed at me to make jewelry from them.  So I obliged!  This is the first piece from the ‘shell box’ series I’ll put up on my Etsy shop in the upcoming weeks.  What you see is a 2.5 x 2.5 inch piece of pink fan coral, wrapped with gold tone wire on a gold-plated chain and featuring a pink opal bead.  The necklace also features a mini pendant at the clasp, with the LBB stamp and a single pink swarovski crystal.  This particular piece is meant for my very good photographer friend, Isabel Furie, from Furie Photography.  She volunteered to beta-test for me, and hopefully get some more word out on my shop 🙂 .

12 years ago Short URL 3 Comments

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