repurposing vintage finds - we really don't need those colorful whoseewhatsees from Target

Just a quick post today while I finish up some orders and family stuff this week

(is family stuff ever finished ...)

before I get back on track next week with a SUPER cool giveaway and a new marketing series for makers.

I took some pics around my house of some easy-peasy repurposed vintage goodies. The key to being able to flea market is to use the stuff you can't live without.

1. Vintage sifters make great silverware caddies - I have these out all the time, although it may not be practical for everyone - they would be great for parties.

2. Gumball machine turned dog treat holder - Olive comes running from anywhere within a 2 mile radius when she hears the handle turn - it is also a great way to get her to do some work around the house since we charge her in nickels

3. Grater turned magnet board - perfect for recipes - if you would like one of these adorable magnets just pop me an email - I have a few left over from a party I would be happy to send one your way for free

4. Birdbath turned bathroom/dressing room caddy - perfect for appliances, towels, soaps, etc

My other tip is my stop at 3 rule - which means my collecting must stop when I get to 3 pieces - so I do not end up on Hoarders until I am really ready to be there

(ie glassy eyed expression, chin hair, knee stockings, pissed off children)

I am about 75% there this week .... still need those knee stockings.

the journey of energy into matter ...

I have always been surrounded by big dreamers - people who think big

(and sometimes this thinking big results in the kind of craziness that has someone proclaiming that they invented Facebook because they said to their college roommates in 1987 that there should be a way to keep track of who is single and who is dating - electronically)

but maybe don't always take action.

I have never found the expression 'the well planned job is half done' to be ... well, true actually.

There is a whole lot of space between the timeless buzz of a dream and the time-filling demands of actually giving birth to it.

Because the action part - the journey of thought to form, the journey of energy into matter - no matter how many affirmations are said and positive thoughts are thought

(and I know these things do help with our intention and focus ie attention, but have never actually gotten anyone off the couch)

is pretty much the key to the whole thing - nothing actually happens until well, until something actually happens.

Anyhoo, our saga with David for anyone who has been following it at all closed a chapter a few weeks ago when he went awol, relapsed, got violent in a social setting he should have never ended up in and landed himself in jail.

He is probably going to get out next week, still untreated by anti-psychotic meds for his schizophrenia and looking to come back to our house.

(or maybe just looking for us to say he can come back to our house so he can get out of jail - it is hard to say and there is no lasting truth here anyway since the disease outruns any chance of finding it)

But our house isn't the same place he left. The windows are still peeling and the stairs still squeak, but being inhabited this summer by one person broken open and one person closed down from the experiences of the last six months doesn't create a whole lot of healing energy for anyone else - so much has been expended without an equal amount of anything coming in that things have become unbalanced.

(when I first started meditating again after a long lapse, I noticed that although I could exhale for what seemed like hours, my inhalations could never keep up - a sure sign from our bodies that we are putting out more than we are taking in)

And the dream work - the turning energy into matter - part of our journey has become as splintered as David.


* was it all a dream print by joy st. claire

major geek alert - adam savage (the mythbuster guy) at maker faire on why we make what we make

An inspirational 20 minutes with Adam Savage from Maker Faire last month.

He tells a great story about his Indiana Jones hat plus how he got started building his obsessions and why makers should embrace the things that they have no choice but to make ... love that!

a sneak peak at some new work for the NYIGF plus working with the stars

Right now we are all in the middle of an eclipse tunnel that started May 20th (new moon, new beginnings) and ends June 4th with the full moon (endings) - so there are alot of breakdowns and breakthroughs going on!

This tunnel acts like a kind of birth canal and is a great time to get creative work done if we can get in the flow of it -

I once had a mystical fertility counselor advise that if you have trouble starting a baby - start something else, if you have trouble finishing a baby - finish something else and this feels like good advice for our creative babies, too.

what part of our project/business is stuck? Leave it. Do some other creative something - either starting, developing or finishing - from a hand written letter to a from scratch cake to a garden.

It unblocks the creative flow that is always there for all of us .....

Then we have alot of Venus stuff going on in early June and you can google this if interested where astrologers can interpret it much better than I can - but things are definitely happening above us this summer folks!

Anyhoo, I have been working on these little cork backed washer book necklaces and a new fabric hinged locket style for New York International Gift Fair and my shops -

(these look awesome when worn - I am so happy with them)

after discovering these hoops in hubby's shop that I have been cutting and drilling and hammering and sanding and got things just about how I wanted them and then I ask hubs to get me some more and he says

"huh - what hoops" and I show him and he says "those are hose stabilizers, we can't get them without the hoses" and I'm all "what?!"

(this is the crafty girls nightmare scenario with supplies that we have to deal with again and again, but it keeps us on our crafty toes - this is probably why mine look like hobbit's)

but I will figure this out, have to talk to the junk guys at the salvage yards we deal with - they know everything (want to figure this out before the full moon on Monday).

Hoping everyone is having a wonderful week - I cannot believe tomorrow is June already - time has definitely sped up folks! xo

letting our message dictate our direction ...

We know that the internet is gigundo immense and that selling things here and creating a business here requires niche thinking.

(niche as in not everybody is going to love us - sniffle - and that is ok, more than ok in fact - it is necessary -

and this is actually a life lesson the internet has reflected back to us that we should have learned in grade school, but if you were like me you were maybe absent that day decorating plastic headbands with puffy paint)

This thinking isn't about our target market or our products or anything as tangible at any of that.

Niche thinking is all about our message.

And I am not really talking about the finding our voice thing that comes with or without the many off-key choruses of do-re-mi when we are alone in the shower.

This message is the very root of our business, the essence really - the part that all things amazing spring from

(and spring is not the right word here, because maker's makings do not "spring" - they meander like weeds in all kinds of directions while we run around behind them with trimmers and miracle grow until we have ... something)

the roots that define why we do what we do and when we get this part straight - and get a focus on this 

then deciding which makings to make, which people to connect with, how to attract our peeps and how to get in the money flow with this thing we have made becomes alot easier.

(and if we are thinking we are doing this to be making money, well, there are lots of things we could be doing to be making money - why are we doing this thing)

* does this poster .... print by 618love