I realized this morning, while getting ready for work, that I hadn’t posted any comments about my craft fair experiences this weekend. There’s not much to report, but I feel like I should at least say a little something.

The fair in San Jose Japantown was all right, with a few interesting things to look at. Some of it I’d seen before, and a bunch of it just wasn’t anything I wanted or needed, so I wandered around for about 15 minutes and just left. I headed up to San Mateo soon after, and found that the craft fair there was more like a secondhand sale. There were a few handmade items, including cards and baked goods, but the rest of the room was filled with used things, and nothing really interesting at that.

So, basically, the craft fair part of the day was a bit disappointing, but I ended up finding some items for my craft fair booth at a Japanese dollar store in San Mateo, so there was that at least. Not a very good start to the craft fair season though. This weekend, I’m thinking about stopping by the SF Craft Mafia trunk show, but otherwise I feel like giving up on the rest of the local fairs. Hopefully the shows in LA next month will be better.

Related to shopping for handmade items though, I came across an interesting challenge site the other day. It’s called 5-4-3-2…Etsy! (now defunct) and the idea is that you agree to buy something on Etsy (have you seen their new site?) each month. They suggest $5 or less per item, which sounds too little too me (why not set the $5 or another amount as a minimum?), but the idea of pledging to support craft sites and other crafters is definitely a good one. I’ve tried to do more of that, especially now that I’m working again, and since I now understand the work involved in making some of these items. I realize that I don’t have the time or patience to make everything myself, and if someone spends time making something by hand that I like and appreciate, then buying it at a fair price is the right thing to do.

Anyway, I’m still debating whether or not to join the 5-4-3-2…Etsy! (now defunct) challenge, but in the meantime, I have a personal challenge of my own. Though I’ve been working for just over 2 months at my new job, I haven’t really brought in anything to decorate my cube with, other than a pencil cup I received in a swap. Otherwise, my cube is pretty bare, and so I don’t feel very settled in my space. Especially now that we just moved to a new location, I really want to brighten it up a bit. So I’ve decided to try and do that with handmade items, at least as much as I can. They might be things I made or things someone else made, bought or traded for, but the key is that they’re handmade. I don’t intend to get it all right away, but here’s my shopping list so far:

• Push pins
• Magnets (for posting things on the metal cabinets)
• Postcards, art prints, etc., to post on the walls and cabinets
• Other decorations (artificial flowers or decorative piece to put in an extra pencil cup?)
• Small containers for holding paper clips, pins, etc.
• Mug for tea

This list might expand as I go on, but for now I’m starting with simple things to keep an eye out for. If I shop for some online, I’ll start with these sites, but will also check out individual crafter sites:

• Etsy
• Cut + Paste
• Pixelgirl Shop
• Copacetique
• My My
• Wren Eleven

As always, I’m definitely open to recommendations for cool sites or particular items to check out. And I’ll post whenever I’ve found something on my list. Maybe I’ll need to take some before and after pictures of my cube too.

I seem to go through these phases of being very interested in a particular craft or material, during which I immerse myself in everything about that craft or material. Sometimes, I create some nice projects as a result of these phases, but they’re often pretty short-lived, and then I move onto the next thing that catches my eye. The worst phases are when I buy up a bunch of supplies and then never get around to making the thing I wanted to make in the first place. (That doesn’t happen as much as it used to, and at least I usually come back to them later.)

After a brief interest in making keychains that never went anywhere, I moved on to cross-stitch and embroidery projects again, thinking that I might work on so many stitching projects that I’d get sick of it. Of course, I only finished one small project and bought a few books, before promptly losing interest in it (for a bit, at least). And now it’s clear that the next big thing for me is paper (again).

I can’t remember exactly what sparked my interest this time, but lately, I’ve been very drawn to any sort of Japanese paper, especially the large sheets of chiyogami (yuzen) washi. They’re really beautiful, made with a special sort of silkscreening process, and often have a little bit of metallic color to them. There are a few local stores that carry both the large sheets of this paper and packages of it in origami-sized squares, so I’ve been doing a little shopping around here. I’ve found some good sources online as well.

• Paper Jade - A nice selection of sheets and packages, good photos of the items, and the service was amazingly fast and good!
• Paper Mojo - Gorgeous sheets of Japanese and other specialty papers.
• eBay - I found a lot of sellers by searching for yuzen, chiyogami, and washi.

I’m going to use some of the papers for envelopes, collages, and for another quilted kimono piece, but here’s something different that I put together earlier tonight:

(More photos here.)

The matchboxes are fun to make, since they’re so small and simple. And the badges were done with a Hello Kitty toy badge maker I’ve had for a bit but haven’t used for awhile. I’m going to make more and then take some of these to the employee craft fair next month, though I’m not sure if they’ll get any interest. I figure I can always put them up on my Etsy store if they don’t sell. I like them though.

The holidays are looming on the horizon, and though I don’t really celebrate most of them, I do look forward to the crafting events they bring. It seems like every local school or special interest group has a craft fair or bazaar planned this or next month, and I intend to attend at a least a few.

Around this time last year, I wasn’t working and had plenty of time to stop by a number of craft fairs. Of course, the items sold at most of them were pretty much the same sort of handmade items I don’t care for, the cutesy stuff that grannies make and love. There were a few exceptions, of course, like the few Japanese organization shows, but for the most part I didn’t really see anything I liked or wanted to buy.

This year, I’ve decided not to visit as many, but there are definitely a few that look pretty good. This weekend, there’ll be a few Japanese organization craft boutiques in San Jose Japantown and San Mateo, and another in December up in San Francisco Japantown. The San Francisco Craft Mafia is having a trunk show for the holidays, and Amytha wants to organize something for local Craftster members and crafters in general.

I’m also trying to plan for going to some shows down in LA next month, including Felt Club: XL Holiday Edition and Bazaar Bizarre. Though I’ve lived in California for 6 1/2 years, I’ve never actually spent time down in LA, besides driving through on my way to Arizona a few years ago. I’m hoping to make a few weekends of it and see some other things down there, and I’m definitely open to suggestions (hint, hint).

If you’re local and want to find out what other events are going on, I’ve been trying to track them all in the South Bay Craft Group site, so feel free to join and check that out.

In other craft fair news, I found out that there’s going to be employee craft fair in December at work. When I first saw the flier, I got excited and wanted to participate, but then I kept going back and forth about whether or not I could get ready by then. I have about 4 weeks to put some stuff together, but I know there might be a lot of things going on between now and then. Last night, I was also worrying that I might not sell anything and my stuff might not be that good. However, I’ve decided to sign up and see how it goes. Even if I don’t sell anything, at least I’ll have tried, right? And it’ll be fun to see what others are selling.

Now comes all the preparation though, and I’m already learning that there’s more to do than I first expected. I figured that I’d mainly sell some card/envelope sets, like the mini square ones I make all the time, as well as some separate envelope sets and maybe postcards as well. But I was told that I can decorate my table/booth area however I want, and I’m not entirely sure how to go about that, though I have a few ideas. Perhaps some Japanese fabric as a spread, along with Japanese dishes to hold my items? I also found out that I’ll need to donate a prize for a raffle at the end of the fair, and I’m trying to decide what sort of item to make for that. Maybe something like the framed kimono art piece I did for the recent Craftster swap?

So much to do! I am very open to advice on this sort of thing though, so if you have any tips, please post them!

Man, this going back to work thing has been kicking my ass in a major way! Well, at least when it comes to trying to do things when I have some free time. On weekdays, my brain seems to have turned to mush by the time I arrive home, and I’m still working on pushing myself to do fun things on weekends. We’ll see if this keeps up though, but I’m trying to be crafty, I really am.

On Labor Day, I got together with Amytha and some other crafty friends to help her prepare some Halloween decorations for a party she’s going to throw. I mostly worked on painting a cardboard cutout of a scary clown, as part of a gory circus theme, and it was fun to just dive in and go to town with a paintbrush. There’s more work to be done, so we may have to gather again sometime before Halloween.

The painting continued at our September South Bay Craft Group meeting, with a demonstration on decoupaging wooden boxes, led by Amytha. Painting was optional, of course, but I thought the cut-outs I chose would look better on color than on plain wood. Here are a few photos of what I created:

Here are a few more photos of the box, if you’re interested.

Otherwise, I’ve mostly been buying more craft supplies I really don’t need. Amytha and I went to a rubber stamp show in San Jose, and I left with a pile of more origami paper (for making small envelopes) and some Japanese stickers from Hanko Designs. I bought some supplies to make some of these cotton webbing keychains, though I have yet to actually try to make one. I just haven’t felt like sewing much lately.

Instead of sewing, I really want to work on another cross-stitch or embroidery project, even if it takes awhile to complete. I have plenty of floss and various pieces of Aida fabric, so it all comes down to the pattern, which is the most difficult part of it all. I’d rather not create my own design, just due to the extra work, but then everything I see at local stores is just awful. I’ve lamented about this before, but there really needs to be a total revival of cross-stitch, and with better designs than the crap that’s out there now. There are plenty of cool things being crafted these days (just look at all the stuff on Craftster), but not enough in cross-stitch patterns. I don’t think it’s because there’s anything inherent about cross-stitch that prevents it, but someone needs to get the ball rolling, and with something more than just phrases. I want images and colors, people!

Anyway, enough ranting for now. I’ll just have to work on my own patterns in the meantime, and I’ll make sure to post anything I come up with. I’ve got some swaps to work on in the meantime though…

Before I go, I just want to thank Alicia at Posie Gets Cozy for linking to me this week. I’ve noticed a huge spike in my traffic, with lots of referrals from her site. Thanks to her and hello to anyone coming from there!

After working on a number of projects involving squares, I’ve been playing around with another simple shape: the circle.

I was inspired by the design on Metromint bottles, which have lovely silver labels with blue or green circles, depending on the flavor. It’s a very simple design, but I thought how it might work nicely as a card design, so I started punching out circles and making measurements.

I didn’t really get very far with the card idea, beyond making sample circles and sketching out some ideas, but I did end up making some bookmarks with circles of cardstock. I needed to finish off my last swap for the month, which is a reading themed swap, and I whipped up these bookmarks and laminated them before adding the ribbons at the top.

Very easy to make, and it gave me some ideas for color combinations to try out. Part of my inspiration came from these postage stamp bookmarks, which I’d seen in a local bookstore recently. I might try out my own version with the various stamps I’ve got saved, but that’ll be for another day.

Oh, and I almost forgot! I wanted to share some lovely items I recently bought from a few Etsy sellers. As part of preparation for my new job (which officially started today, though I only had to sort out paperwork), I’ve been doing clothes-shopping and picking out a few new accessories. I poked around Etsy for a bit to find a new purse and managed to find some really pretty ones.

First, I bought this gorgeous bag from Mint Workshop, which, even if it’s a bit larger than I’m used to, is so wonderfully made and beautiful to boot.

(More photos are available here.)

I also managed to find a cute business card wallet in a matching fabric, made by Keyka Lou, which I plan on putting my own business cards (when I get them) inside.

(More photos are available here.)

The quality of these pieces is so amazing, and I highly recommend checking out both of these sellers’ items. I try to support other crafters, and especially when I find pieces as great as these, it makes it even easier to do.

I’m still waiting on another Etsy seller purse to arrive soon, and am also looking for some nice, handmade pendants or necklaces for myself. (Recommendations are quite welcome!)