An Atomic Holiday 2011

Last year's Atomic Holiday Bazaar was a blast and I am flattered to have been accepted once again into Sarasota's finest indie craft fair!
Adrian Lucas is the lady behind the scenes and she's fine company to be in with this crowd. She puts in tremendous effort every year to make this event happen and when she announced applications would become available mid April I was mo-ti-vated!

I spent a few afternoons taking photographs of items that didn't sell at last year's shows (I know, major slacking right?) and listing items in my etsy shop and linking to them through Facebook. Then, I sent off my application and hoped that I made a good enough impression last year for her to have me back.

Well what do you know? I did!

(source)

I'll be starting to work earlier than I did last year (hello stressball) and will hopefully be able to crank out lots of inventory to keep my shop and my shows full through the end of 2011. I have a big order list to fill with raw copper shapes, enamels, and tools I need to make sure I have plenty of supplies for the season.

I'm excited to get started soon and I'm even more excited that the room I enamel in this time, has its own air conditioner. So, in my spare time you'll probably be able to find me working at the kiln, AC on 65.
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Retro Bold

The matching peace dove necklace sold at the last minute of the Atomic Holiday Bazaar this past year. One of my favorites, I was just a little sad to see it go.

Although, I do still have these fun and funky earrings for sale now at the etsy shop! I'll be sad to see them go too - good thing I can make more!

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Photo Bomb

Time is flying.
This is my most frequent complaint. This way that my perception of time continues to increase in speed over time.
I don't think there's any way to keep it from happening. But, I can continue to enjoy all those minutes like I have been recently. Here's a photo post to say "What's up?".

This is Jobin. He's called Baby right now but he will be coming home with me after the holidays to live at his new warm forever home. He's one of the five lab cats we have been fostering for the past few years at work. With an impending move coming early next year, we're all slowly taking these guys home. Jobin was the first who came to hang out with us, and he's awesome.

 

Babies on the couch by the christmas tree. Scenes like this are why I love to put our tree up right after Thanksgiving. 

Fall trees, they're turning to winter now. Gainesville stays pretty green all year around, but there is a delightful mix of trees here in North Florida. Some of which burn orange and yellow and red until they fall and blow away.

GLAM was a total blast this year. I wish I had the forethought to take more photos that day but I'm happy to say it was because I was so busy! There were shoppers lined up around the building for our opening and I met so many wonderful local art lovers. Our community so fully embraces the entrepreneur and it's wonderful to have been included among such talented peers. I definitely intend to dedicate a post to the sweet sweet stuff I grabbed either by purchase or trade.

Tomorrow we drive down to Sarasota to work at the Atomic Holiday Bazaar on Saturday and spend some much needed time with family and friends. Early is staying at Camp Gabe and Jenn with her buddy Foster. I'm hoping to eat my favorite food, make new friends, see old favorites, and sprint through this final stretch.
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An Atomic Holiday

Just a couple weeks ago I sent off my application to be included in the 2010 Atomic Holiday Bazaar.
Not even a week later I had an acceptance letter waiting for me when I logged into my email account first thing in the morning. AWESOME. Gotta love a prompt and enthusiastic welcoming to the show!

In it's fifth year already, I am blown away that I didn't know about this gem of an indie craft fair until last year. Maybe it's because I wasn't involved in my own business back then, but really, what excuse did I have for not knowing about it when I was living in Sarasota? I drove by this building where it is annually held every day.

Oh, I love that coastal Florida art deco architechture.

I am really optimistic that this will be the best show of the year for me and that means lots and lots of work this summer building my inventory for the Fall and Holiday rush. I have shows scheduled for November and December with one I'm wavering on for October. I've been really happy about using only profits from my artwork to pay for my needed supplies, but I think I'm going to have to give myself a little more cash to get everything I'll need to have enough work for all these shows.
It also means that I don't get to take too long off from creating while we're packing up and moving in July and August. I'll also have to get my enameling area ready for working pretty quickly even if that means leaving other (more fun?) home decorating projects aside until I feel confident that I'm not avoiding the real work to be done in the studio.

My goal for the summer is to work more consistently. I can't exactly keep a schedule because I like to plan studio time around when Collin will be working in the evenings too. This lets us at least have a couple nights a week to relax, cook, and eat dinner together. I need those nights. So, on nights when he is out I like to enamel, or photograph, or edit photos, or post them online. Right now I've been doing a whole lot of nothing because I have a larger stock of inventory. I don't want to let that lull me into a sense of security though.
Ideally I would make time for myself to enamel, photograph, edit and post items online once a week each. Maybe I can keep myself accountable by fitting in a blog post about new pieces and progress on here?
For now these sound like nice goals. I'm just glad people are reasonable here and no one really schedules art festivals in the middle of the oppressive Florida summers - I would be too tempted to sell and I need to pace myself to keep from getting burned out. Read more...