Craft (Af)fair

Yesterday was the 1st Annual Craft (Af)fair in Oxford, Ohio.

We got set up by about 11 and man was it cold. The sun was about and tricked me into thinking it was going to be a warm, summery kind of day. It wasn't. In fact, the wind blew so hard it felt like it was in the 30s all day. We powered through the first two hours and eventually I got so numb it didn't matter what temperature it was anymore. A lot of people stopped by our table and had tons of positive things to say about the shirts, which was fantastic. We're grateful for anyone who took the time to rummage around (and extremely grateful to those people who ran to grab things as they blew away).


The little knuckle buster I bought worked out, although I was so frantic to make sure I was processing cards fast enough that a couple girls skirted away with one free shirt. Lucky ducks. I love free stuff. I wish I got free shirts. This whole episode prompted me to panic because I absolutely hate myself when I make stupid mistakes (which is fairly often). I ended up yelling "I fucked it up!" which I think ran at least 2 people away from the booth, thinking I was losing my mind. Probably a safe assumption at the time. Very unprofessional of me and I was forced to chide myself. As you may know, when you're your own boss there's no one else to wag their finger at you.

We sold some shirts to a member of 64 South who said he's always looking for great stuff to wear on stage. They're working on getting a gig at Stadium. Hopefully that works out for them and they'll get a chance to play in town. If they do we might be designing and printing some shirts for them which would be incredible.

We were trying to get out of there at about 3 because it was so cold, but a few people came by and said they were going to be back, so we held out. Thank God we did, because we made a whole lot more sales waiting for a guy to come back. It's funny how things work out like that.

My parents came up for the occasion and Mom snapped some pictures. You can see how inviting it was to buy a t-shirt. Sam's wrapped up in, count them, 2 blankets and we're both drinking hot chocolate. I even wore that stupid hat I hate (it's too small) because my ears were going to snap off.

Thanks to everybody at Green Oxford for putting the thing together and letting us hang out. Thanks to all the people who came by and we're glad so many people enjoyed looking through our hard work. We'll see y'all next year!

The Prone Wars

Tomorrow is our first show ever. I'm actually getting a little nervous. Since we took Spring Break in Texas I put off doing a lot of prep work for this week, and then it turned out that this week was pretty busy. So I have a lot to do today, but I'm really tired. I think I'm going to get some sleep real quick before I set in on getting ready for everything.

I hope to have an exciting update tomorrow or the day after about the show. If you don't hear from me, it probably went poorly and I'm probably irritated. But no worries, I've promised myself that if it doesn't go well it isn't the end of the world (just the end of my aspirations to get a job outside of a cubicle).

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Our feedback rating has gone up over the last few weeks, which is nice. People are starting to really pour in the positive comments, so I'm adding the newest one to our "Praise" section at the top. You know, that section where I post great things people say about me. It's not egotistical, it's advertising!

Ugh I feel sick. I'm going to power nap and that should clear things up a bit.

Homecoming

Spring Break is over and it's breaking my heart.

We flew from Dallas to Columbus, 75 and sunny to 30something and snowing. That was hard. Actually it was too easy. It's not like you can turn a plane around. While we were there in the sun we snapped some pictures of our shirts and expanded our inventory a bit, which was great.


We got some old, vintage suitcases over break too, which we're going to use to display shirts at the show on Saturday. Today they people running the show sent out an e-mail to the sellers and there were nearly 30 of us (they apparently don't know the purpose BCC to hide email addresses) which is good. Sam brought up a good point: The more people are there the more people are going to want to come. This helped put to rest my fear that we'd end up standing out in the park by ourselves looking crazy. Now at least I know there will be a bunch of other people looking crazy, too.

But being back has landed me in a seriously depressive funk. I've been trying to print the last 50 shirts to get us ready and I keep freezing up. I just didn't feel like doing anything today and when I got ready to make some shirts I didn't know which one I wanted to do. So I ended up pacing back and forth from the studio into the living room. Eventually I forced myself to just make one, which seemed to break through the fog and I made a few more. Hopefully I'll just make a few a day until Friday and we'll sell what we can. It was strange. I've heard of writers' block but this was apparently printers' block.

In other news: I also have writers' block. I can't let myself write more than a page or two on my last nonfiction piece. Luckily I found out it's due nearly two weeks later than I thought.

It's going to be a rough week.

Unplugged

Tomorrow I'm going off the grid.

Well, for a couple of days at least. Samantha and I are headed out to Texas for Spring Break. My grandmother is flying us down and we're spending the week with our family down there.

Last I heard the temperature is going to be in the mid 60s all week. It's not 73, but, hey, I'll take it. I'll take it all year long.

Today was kind of crazy. I had to print a whole lot of orders I've been putting off. A customer wanted a set of curtains and can't wait until we get back from vacation so I had to do them tonight. "Man, this is getting easier." Famous last words. I had to run out and get another set of curtains because I messed the print up. I shouldn't ever declare that anything is anywhere near easy. People always talk about the power of positive thinking, but I think negative thinking works just as well. Low expectations lead to great surprises.

It'll probably rain all Spring Break. It might even snow. Hell, I should probably pack my coat.

Juxtaposition

The world is fantastic.

Today my professors were laughing and joking, people are stumbling around decked out in Green Beer Day shirts, there's only a hint of the blizzard in the snowy gutters around town.

There's a tiny flower in the garden out front. On Saturday we're flying into Dallas where the temperature should hover right around 72 degrees. No school for a week. Randy's Burgers. My grandmother promised me a chicken pot pie. I'm going to sit outside and let my skin drink the sun. I'm going to watch to The Wheel at a torturous volume. I'm going to drive out past Bo Pilgrim's giant fiberglass head on my way to antiques. I'm going to ask Jack about his boots (the ones with the round toe, made of soft leather that don't come up so high). I'm going to walk barefoot in the broad, sharpened edges of the arid grass. I'll play with Ringo and Ginger and watch my grandma put food in their mouth and move their jaws "just so they get a taste of it." I'll forget to pick up the milk again and have a perfect excuse to drive into town with the windows down and the conversation up. I'll walk around the pasture with that mean ass pony, trying to get a look at the goose. I'll probably have fried chicken and talk about how it tastes just the same as it always did (she won't believe me). The mashed potatoes will be better than they used to. I'll hug them both and say goodbye. We'll fly back to Columbus on the 23rd and I might cry. I'll be rejuvenated, the summer will come and there will truly and honestly be no other time than the present.

The world is fantastic. So much more fantastic that it has ever been.

Blizzards aren't all that bad

Apparently we had a legitimate blizzard this weekend. We got over a foot of snow in one day and it was pretty awesome. I'm of the opinion that if it's going to be ass-cold, it might as well snow.

Mike came over on Friday and the snows came and he stayed on the couch because the roads weren't all that great. We woke up to the most snow we've had in years. The neighbors down the street had a guy out with a snowblower going over the sidewalks and their driveways, he even did a little path to the main road for them. He didn't come down to our house so I attacked the snow with a broom to get Mike's car out so we could go to Kroger.

We came back and spent all day playing games and I made a new screen and made up some shirts. I can't find the little Kodak camera and the other one doesn't appear to be working with my computer today so I can't load some pictures I snapped of the design in the mirror. I'll have to wait for Sam to get up to get some pictures.

One good thing about snow: it makes an excellent light reflector. We can take pictures in the house now as long as the sun is shining down on that lovely snow.

Winter come late

It's snowing today. Last weekend it was almost warm, and today it is snowing. Oh well. We were planning on traveling to Milford this weekend because it's been a while since we visited. Plus we need to deliver some curtains to Sam's sister and to pick up a copy of TurboTax my Dad bought for me.

We haven't uploaded any new designs in a while, mostly because we kept thinking we'd wait until the sun came back and then we'd get some nice pictures. Well, turns out that when the sun comes out we end up playing outside and don't really work on anything so we're working on new designs now. Hopefully we'll get some fresh stuff up soon, we'd like to have new designs before the Craft Affair on March 29th. I think it would be a good place to launch some fresh ideas and get some immediate reactions from customers.

I know, I know... half of this blog is promising new designs and the other half is talking about how we don't put up new designs often enough. In the eternal words of Everlast: "It ain't easy bein' greasy."

What that has to do with it, I'm not sure, but it's bound to be poignant to someone.

The fighting koi design I finished a while ago and never printed.
I drew the koi by hand, the cherry blossoms are digital.
Perhaps it will find its way to a t-shirt someday.

Craft Affair

We've signed up for a art/craft show on March 29th in our new little hometown, Oxford, Ohio, home of Miami University.

It's being put together by a student group on campus called Green Oxford. They've set aside the park uptown for the event and it's sure to be a fantastic day. The application was the easiest thing I've ever done: a simple e-mail with a few tid-bits of information about us and what we do with a link to our site. They sent back a reply and that was that, they're not even requiring a booth fee, probably because the venue has been donated - the park has a lot of events during the warmer months like free concerts, student organization meetings and the such.

This is going to be our first show and we're really excited to get everything ready and see how the whole show scene turns out. I'm fairly confident that we'll have a fantastic time and I'm hoping to see a few fellow Etsians that are coming. It will be nice to finally meet some of the people I've met through Etsy and especially to see all the fine handmade merch that will undoubtedly be in tow.

If you'd like to participate all you have to do is e-mail the people at Craft Affair: craftaffair@gmail.com for more info. If you do come, be sure to stop by TealTown Ink's booth and introduce yourself!