The Spewing of Much Information!

The amount of awesome stuff I have to blog about is inversely proportional to the ease with which I blog. Got it? That is my excuse for not being here more often, and I am sticking to it. Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild! Amayyyyyyy-zink. Seriously, I have to do bullet points, or I will never remember all the stuff I want to say.

-KC Modern Quilt Guild had its organizational meeting three-ish weeks ago? And it was awesome. Not only are the people organizing it really great, but a million people showed up. Or, you know like 35. But EVEN MORE have joined the ning group, and so maybe more will be at the next meeting? Which is fabulous, and also overwhelming, because, where will everybody sit?

-One of the folks organizing the whole shebang is Jen, aka, Tula Pink. You know. LIKE THE FABRIC DESIGNER?!? And she said she liked my fabrics, and I swooned into her arms (or, well, not that,) but long story short, I HAVE MADE HER BE MY FRIEND. And it is awesome. I could go on and on about this, but I don't want her to think I am a huge dork if she reads this. Well, she knows I am a huge dork, but I am going to try and retain some dignity.

-(OHMYGODOHMYGODIAMFRIENDSWITHTULAPINK!!!!!!!!!!!!
OMGOMGOMG!!)

-Google Chrome is kicking Safari's lame butt all over town. And, Firefox, I would have stuck with you, if you hadn't decided to SHUT DOWN every five minutes. Thank you, google, for being the one thing in the world I can always count on. (Well, not the only thing. But top three, most defs.)

-We got iPhones. The rest of the world does not feel the earth-shaking impact of this on our lives, and we are confused. iPhones are straight crack. For real. iPhone flickr is so much more dangerous than regular flickr. HOURS. HOOOOOOOUURS. (I love drawing out words that lose all phonetic sense when the letters are doubled. Ha.)-I bought some fabric. THE BEST fabric. New Anna Maria Horner voile, and LIBERTY fabric. A YARD. Of LIBERTY. And 20% off. What will I do with it? Rub my face up against it for the next 60 years until it eventually turns to dust. Good plan? I got it at Bon Bon Atelier, if you are in the KCMO. Check it out.

-I did my third craft show this weekend, and it was LAAAAME. I "made" $12, and by "made", I mean "lost $40". It was a learning experience? Or something?

-I am doing another show THIS WEEKEND, so if you are in KC, come down to the Westport Flea Market on Saturday. I will be there, hopefully not looking at flickr on my phone. But no promises. Other people that I know and are cool will be there, too, so it is worth the trip.

-I have been stalking houses on the internet, and it has put my decorating hormones into overdrive. I cannot look at a room now without spending five minutes thinking about the color I would paint it. Usually it is dark gray, light gray, white, or green. I am creature of habit. Oh! Or maybe dark blue.

-APPARENTLY, not only do you have to make your designs public and for sale on Spoonflower, but you have to make your profile public, as well? This, to me, makes no sense, and I am still irked by it. I didna mean to put a useless link up, my friends! 'Tis nonsense! If you still want lovebirdie fabric, if you ever did, go HERE. For real, this time.

-I made shrinky dinks of some of the birdies, and it was super fun. I love shrinky dinks. ALSO, discovered that not everyone knows what shrinky dinks are, so if you do not, LOOK IT UP! It is the most fun you will have... all day?
Thas it. Love you.

What is this?

Why, it's more birdies!But these ones are IN LOVE!I will be uploading some pictures of things made with the actual fabric in the nearish future, but I wanted to go ahead and put it up because I lurve them so much. Those silly birdies, falling in love.The fabric is available right here (http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/laurenhunt) through the Spoonflower Marketplace. You'll notice if you go there that the pattern is on it's side- that's because I wanted the design to run from selvedge to selvedge, instead of running horizontally across the width. Does that make sense? Well, it does to me, and that's why I did it, so DEAL WITH IT! (Better Off Ted reference, anyone?)Woohoo!
Fabric + Birdies + Love = Awesome?

The BIG ONE.

What can I say? I am a fail at the end of year wrap-up. I always plan on doing it, and then I get swept up in all the real life things that need to get done, and it just doesn't happen. 2009 was a good year for me, especially when compared to 2008, which was somewhat of a disaster. But 2009, you treated me well. I figured some things out, and I started to really think about What Comes Next, something I had, up to that point, avoided.
And 2010. So far, I have been unable to get quite get into the swing of the new year, which hopefully will end soon. I have things to do! Places to go! People to see! Or something. I'm not quite sure about all that yet. But enough of this drivel. I DO have things to cover! I have about 5 blog posts that will be crammed into this monster post, because I am tired of them sitting in my head, unused and giving me guilty stares! Begin!
First things first, I have to thank the people who made the Overdue Book Calendar such a success. I had no idea how it would be received, and it was one of those ideas that I knew I thought was great, but had no idea if anyone else would. (I have a lot of those ideas, and for the most part, it's just me who thinks their great. Tragic.) The internet is magic, though, and it turns out other people liked it too. I am deeply indebted to the blogs it was featured on, am so, so grateful to all of them. Clearly, we should all read them because they have such FABULOUS taste!
Thankee to:
Design*Sponge
Coming Home To Roost
Bailey, Meister & Co.
Like Fire
designer blog.it (Italian!)
compradiccion.com (Spanish!)
supafine (Who is made of magic!)
Crazy Loves Company
Mystery Fanfare
Shelftalker (At Publisher's Weekly!)
Bookmark
studiothis&that blog
and of course, the love of my life,
books i done read.

Thank you to anyone else I forgot to mention or didn't see, and everyone who tweeted about the calendar, I am FOREVER in your debt! I am still pretty jazzed to think that people tweeted about me, and they weren't making fun of my hair. (Which I sometimes worry about, I have kinda dumb hair.)

The calendar is now also available at Crafthope for Haiti's etsy site, which is run by a group of just Seriously Amazing People who are working their behinds out to help support Doctors Without Borders' relief efforts in Haiti. So, if you were still thinking about snatching one up, grab it from their site. They have some really great stuff donated by some really fabulous crafters, so check it out.
Secondly, I have been meaning to post about my first craft fair experience FOREVER, and have been generally too lazy to do it. When I committed myself to the show, I was totally unsure about what I was going to do, how it would work, and whether anyone would even be interested in my stuff. I tried not to think of the last one, and threw myself into McGuyvering myself up a semi-respectable booth. Part of my love for crafting, and for making in general, is in problem solving. I LOVE thinking of how something can be made, (as cheaply as possible, of course,) from random stuff. One of the best lessons I learned during my internship was that many expensive pieces of equipment can be duplicated for almost nothing, and work just as well, if you are willing to forgo the slickness of commercially produced stuff. Anyway, I'm babbling, but I think I put together a pretty reasonable display for very little moneys. The night before, I was terrified that everyone would laugh at my little booth, but it ended up looking fairly respectable, and it turns out the crafting crowd is a lot more supportive than the teenagers in "Carrie". (They're all going to laugh at you! They're all going to laugh at you!") (Sorry if I have insulted you by explaining the reference.)
Anyway, I was REALLY pleased with the turnout at the event, and I thought my stuff was received pretty well. The show was held in an actual fancy movie theatre, so it was rather dark (hence awful flash photos,) but the setup I had to work with was quite nice. I sold a few bags, but mostly I sold these:
This was the project I thought up a week before the show, and made like 50 of them on a whim. They have Kleenex in one side and Purell in the other and they sold like hotcakes! (I'm not sure hotcakes exist anymore, but they sold well, is what I'ma saying.) My nephew says I should call them, "The Germ Exterminators". I think I will hire him to make a commercial for them, and it will be AMAZING.
So it was a great experience, and I have done another small one since then, and have plans to participate in a few more in February. The hardest part of these for me is trying not to be INSANELY awkward when talking to people. Because, internetten friends, you have probably never spoken to me in person, and so you do not know exactly how ungood I am at basic human functions, such as talking. I say things that even I don't understand, and get flustered, and then I laugh, but no one else does. The new plan is to smile a lot and do Vanna-White-like gestures in lieu of speaking. It could work, right?

NEXTLY! I made curtains! Minimal typing, maximum photos!(Baxter approves.)Also exciting, I inherited a used Wacom tablet with a broken usb plug in, and I fixed it, because I am clearly an electrical genius! Or, well, maybe it was not so much genius, because, after all, the wires were color coded. But I matched them! And now I get to use this fabulous new toy, with which I drew THIS CARROT!
Lastly, I am extremely excited because this weekend is the organizational meeting for the shiny new Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild, which is being put together by three fabulous ladies, Jacquie, Shea, and Tula. Come on. How can it NOT be awesome? So if you are in the KC general area, I hope to see you this Saturday! Information, IN YOUR FACE!

Saturday, January 23rd
10:00 am to 12:oo pm
Urban Arts & Crafts
4157 North Mulberry Drive
Kansas City, Missouri 64116

Seacrest, Out.

Wow.

I have a huge post coming up, so huge that I am MAKING A DRAFT of it, instead of just spitting out random words onto the blogger screen. But, it is slow going, I am dragging this year, and I need to Post something, or the giant post that has tons of stuff in it will just keep GROWING. So, while there are so many things I need to say, including a million bazillion thank you's to everyone on the internet, and especially you, I am just going to post pictures of my cat and dog. Because, they are like cookies that are SO GOOD that you just keep eating them but then you feel sick, but then you see them later and eat them again, and eventually you just have to give them away, because their goodness is destroying you. Well, the cute animal pictures are not quite destroying me, but I do feel the need to force them on others. Just wait until I make babies, people. And, seriously, why does my local news dedicate 2 minutes to American Idol every night? America. Whatever. (JK, I love America, BFFs!)
Prepare for cuteness, NOW!Rufus LOVES the hair dryer. Like, runs when he hears it turn on, and sits by you until you point it at him. Loves it.
Baxter, obviously, does not care for the hair dryer or the amount of attention the dog is getting. This is his "just abut to bite someone" face. You can see he means it.But, wait, what? Did someone just put a fitted sheet on? Because that is Baxter business.

Sigh.

The Overdue Book Calendar!

Ah! Ok, so I have been working on this project (read: procrastinating) for quite some time, and I am really really really really happy to have it done and out in the world. Reading is great, right? I am assuming everyone here knows how, because, well, yeah. So literacy, and three cheers for it, and all that, but books are Expensive, and so we need libraries. As some of you may know, I am deeply enamored with a certain Canadian(a) book blogger, and happened to one day wonder how she managed to borrow so many books without dying of late fees. Because, I, my friends, am plagued by late fees. My husband worked for the KC Public Library for 5 years, and as an employee had a get-out-of-late-fees-free-card, but I still managed to accumulate some $50 worth of fees, despite the fact that he checked out most of my books for me. Which is to say that if I TOUCH a library book, I automatically will owe at least $1 for it eventually. So, I thought, what would make it easier to keep track of these things? And THUS was BORN the 2010 Overdue Book Calendar! Fanfare! Shouting! Bored Silence! You pick! In any case, it is a GREAT last minute gift for any readers on your list, and since it is sold as a PDF it comes QUCK and you can print as many as you want for all those random aunts you never remember are going to be there. Here you are, Aunt Lillian! Oh, you can't read? Well, it is still pretty! Enjoy!
It has books, you see!?! And you label them, with the books that you check out! And then you write in the due date, and you circle it, and it is PRETTY! And you can KEEP it, to prove to people that you can read! I feel pretty dorky to be so excited about this kind of silly little project, but I do love the way the final product came out, despite all the gnashing of teeth that comes with any extended bout of Photoshop editing. Our computer loves to freeze, my friends, but only when you've just gone 45 minutes without saving your changes.
If you are interested, they are EEEEN the etsy shop, for a measly $4 for as many as you can print. You will get instructions to download the PDF emailed to you within 24 hours of the order being made. I had mine printed at a color copy place, but that's just because I like their fancy paper. ENJOY! and GOODNIGHT!

Hi Blog!

Hi! Remember me? We used to party a bit, back in the day... Uhm, December 3rd, to be exact. I really will eventually write the craft fair summary post, but today I am to lazy, and also have these adorable pictures of My Children. Rufus's nickname (or one of them,) is Muppet Face, I think this photo makes it clear why. Baxter loves to pass by Rufus and wrap his tail around Rufus's neck. Is this a thing that cats do? I suppose so, as the cat does it. This is some stretchin' for the ladies, Lottie and Millie. Note the little kitty paw in the upper right corner.

Liberty of London for Target

(Image has absolutely no relevance, but I cannot post without one.)

Ok, so I typically am not a blog that is all, Oh, I will buy this thing, because this thing is so good and you should want it too. Because I TRY not to be too wanty about stuff, and not get reoccupied with brands and that sort of thing but O.M.G., Liberty of London for Target, people. And not just clothes, but home decor and organization and BICYCLES and lingerie and kids stuff and GARDENING EQUIPMENT? And I know I'm feeling that somewhat gross crazy consumerist itch all over, but I am EXCITED. I have been obsessed with Liberty fabrics for a while now, but could never justify it. But Target, Target you sly fox, you. You have made my shopping dreams (potentially) come true.

However I need to remember not to get my hopes up, at least not until I see some pictures. I remember the Orla craziness, and I got uber excited, and then went in and... well. Eh. It was good stuff, but I just didn't really NEED any of it, and wasn't so in love with it that I could pretend I did. I ended up with two plastic cups and a laundry bag that I got on sale. Is this going anywhere? Probably not. Are you kids excited for this? Are you already planning Black-Friday-esque morning raids on March 14th? Are you slobberng over the thought of a Liberty bike? Are you dying to know if they will sell curtains? (Fabric! FABRIC, PEOPLE!)