SF day 1

 Highlights: having a yummy lunch at Bread & Cocoa, finding a sale at the Camper store, riding the Trolley Cable Car to Fisherman's Wharf with Grace,  and eating the most amazing seafood pasta at a little Italian restaurant that we found in an alley.
Lowlights: being incredibly cold and realizing we hadn't packed for how cold and windy it was going to get, and the long cue for the trolley to head back, while being hungry and cold! brr

Renegade SF

 Please come by and visit if you are in the neighborhood- we are booth #100!  My lovely studio neighbor  (and booth sharer) and I have arrived and are taking in all the great sights this city has to offer!  I'll be back with photos soon, in the meantime, hope you are having a lovely week!

On the horizon...

 Hello! I'm slowing down on the blogging front for the next week to finish up as much as I can before my boys are home from school for the summer months!   I've got a few orders to fill and more work for Renegade to finish up, while also preparing for a summer of filling the largest order I've ever produced.  Yes, it feels exciting and harrowing all at the same time.  I know I've said this before, but this ride I'm on- making and selling my artwork and crafts, is a wild one!  If someone had told me at the beginning of the year what opportunities would come my way, I probably wouldn't have believed them.  Usually I have goals and vision for what I do, but somehow this year I was having a hard time imagining how I could possibly make 2011 better then 2010.  I guess 'better' is a loaded word, because everyone's idea of 'better' is different.  Certainly there have been highs and lows, but this year is again exceeding my expectations and I'm having to plan and make decisions that I didn't expect to make so soon on this adventure.  Needless to say, I feel really thankful to be in the midst of it, a little overwhelmed, and excited at the prospect of things to come.
I just wanted to thank you all for stopping by here, to the place that I share my inspirations and thoughts.  I'll be a bit random from here on for the summer, but I'm looking forward to sharing with you the highs and lows of producing a volume of work in a fairly short amount of time.  My due date on this order is September 5th, so basically my summer will be spent with my nose to the grindstone. I've thought a lot about this, especially concerning our kids and Dean's schedule (he's running 2 week-long skateboarding camps this year instead of just one) and hopefully we can still make this a memorable summer despite the busy works schedules!
(sorry, for some reason my blog isn't uploading images today... )  

Summer Plans

Now that the heat has finally arrived, the nights are long and it's June (ack!), we have been sorting out our summer.  It's tricky, not only do I have Renegade in SF coming up, but I potentially have a large order to fill over the summer months while Dean runs 2 skateboarding road-trip style camps, one in BC and one in Ontario/Quebec.  And our kids are home for the 2 months, wanting to do all the fun stuff that summer should be about.  Thank goodness for grandparents, weekends, and day camps. 
Trust me, it won't be all work and no play though- we've been invited by 2 different neighbours to stay at their cabin or go camping as families.  The boys are so excited! There are usually plans to head up to Vernon and the Island in the mix to.  As usual I think the summer will go by much quicker then we expect and all of a sudden it will be back to school.  

Mountain to lake

Hello June!  Wow, did that ever happen fast! Six months into 2011 already...
So a couple of weekends ago we made it back to Princeton for Dean's yearly staff conference.   The boys and I rode the Zip-line from one side of the valley over the lake to the other.  We went on boat rides, the boys swam in the pool.  They played hockey with their friends and my hands took a much needed break from making work.  I didn't take as many photos as I usually do, but I liked the pairings of these ones: Sky to mountain top, mountain to lake.  Not perfectly matched up, since I wasn't really planning it out when I took them, but there is something about the topography that is similar in each one.
**In the studio this week:
 With all my spring shop orders finished, I will be focusing on getting ready for Renegade, which is a mere month or so away.  I've got a few things sorted out: getting there, where to stay, where to ship to, & hopefully how to get the work to the show from our friends' place.  There are just a few more details to sort through.  It's tricky doing a show across the line.  Apparently there are a lot of rules, which make it nearly impossible to do this sort of thing.  Anyways, we shall see how it goes. 
In other news... supposedly Canada Post is going on strike.  Tomorrow.  So this affects my shipping rates and time-lines until the strike is over.  I will be shipping via UPS in the meantime- this means extra time for me at the post office filling out forms, and extra costs associated with shipping. Good times!

Renegade SF

Photo from Renegade Craft Show's Flickr Site

I'm pretty excited to let you in on a few things that are in the works for me- the first being that myself and my studio neighbour, Grace from Eikcam, were accepted into Renegade SF together.  As first-timers to Renegade, and also to doing a craft fair down in the US, we are sharing a 10X10 booth and I'm pretty excited and a little nervous about the whole experience!  The show isn't until July 9 & 10th, and it will be the only summer show I'll be taking part in this year with all the other stuff I've got going on.  I'm also pretty darn excited having a reason to be in San Fransisco again too!