Where Did the Last 30 Days Go?

Busy! Busy! Busy! And none of it was so interesting that it got a blog post! You know, the ho hum of everyday. Maybe I don’t see the interestingness for all the doing that gets in the way. So I guess you want an update on things seeing as it has been a month since we last met? Where have I been? What have I been doing?

A couple days after the show at St. Rita’s last month my dad had emergency surgery. Big, major, scary surgery. It went as planned but there have been a few complications. But Dad is now doing super-duper well after all the surgery and poking and testing. He is staying here with Mr. M and I for a bit. To be truthful, I like having Dad stay here with us. I get to hug him whenever I want and spoil him a little. He deserves it. He’s an awesome dad!

I get a lot of my craftiness from him. He makes things, too, but in a much larger scale. His skill in restoring antique cars and hot rods is stunning. He does it all old-school with steel sheet benders, welding, and paints them himself. You don’t find that much anymore. We have been hatching plans to restore a little MG he has hidden away. Of course, I want to make everything we would need from scratch, but he is experienced enough to know that is not practical if we ever want to finish it. C’mon! It’s a giant art project!! On wheels!

Other than that I have just been making “Tiny Works of Awesome” for shows. That’s my new slogan. Do you like it?

Way more custom orders came in this year than last and caught me off guard. Those are taking a little longer to finish than I hoped they would, but only because I want them to be my best work for my customers, and I am taking care of my dad at the same time.

If you are considering a custom order for this holiday, I encourage you to hop on it very quickly. I am only taking custom orders until December 6th in order to assure on time holiday delivery.

The photo up top on this post is a new work of mine. Trying the steampunk thing. She has a lot of little details like tiny watch parts, beads, washers, mini brass lock nuts, and brass nails. This one sold at my last show, but I am taking orders for more like her. Let me know if you dig it and want one.

Want to shop in person with In My Head Studios? I love to meet people at craft shows! My next show (and possibly the last show of the season):

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Irondequoit High School’s Arts & Crafts Sale

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Irondequoit High School

260 Cooper Rd


Rochester, NY 14617

It's About LOVE, People

I know I already gave y’all the craft show update from the St. John’s show on October 11th. But I left out a very big part of the story, as that post was getting long. And this part needed to be separate anyway. You will see why.

It’s no big secret that I’ve been going through a lot lately with pain, intractable chronic daily migraines and now hemiplegic migraines, which brings occasional sudden paralysis to my right side and with it an inability to make art. To say the least, my emotional state has not been great all the time. This has been difficult to accept and get through sometimes. I get mad. I cry a lot. Much lamenting is done about wanting to just quit all this. Yeah. It’s bad.

Last Monday was a big smack in the face about why I keep going despite all this suffering. It’s about LOVE.

I already told you about how I got sick Sunday night and my mom, Heather and Mr. M packed up for me and did the set up Monday morning. That was about LOVE. Specifically their LOVE for me and their belief in my work. Then my LOVE for them deepens because they totally didn’t have to do all that but they did and I LOVE them even more for it.

Fast forward to around noon on Monday. I finally make it to the show. I’m there with my mom and Mr. M at my booth. Lots of people at the show are commenting on how beautiful my work is. People are buying. More LOVE.

Then something strange started to happen. People started to show up just to see me. My twin sister came with her 2 small children; my father arrived; my friend Christi came (who works 70 hours a week and I never get to see her so I was so happy to see her); my good pals Heather and Maggie (who really helped a lot to get me ready for this show); my new friends Jack and Lorraine (who were old acquaintances and now are good friends thanks to Twitter and Facebook); a friend from high school who I have not seen since 1993 (who we caught up with through Facebook and through which he was spammed by me about the show); a totally random coincidental meeting of a youth group leader from when I was maybe 14 or 15 who lives in Charleston and was visiting Rochester and happened to be at the show; and (finally) my mom’s very helpful neighbor who came to help us pack up as Mr. M had left to go to work.

Including my mom and Mr. M that is 14 people total. My booth was a rocking party all day long. People, food, laughter, hugs. LOVE. One person would show up and go and then another would show up so it was spread out all through the day.

Then add all the people who stopped to just look and/or buy my work. And add other vendors who knew me and my work through other people or being online who wanted to meet me. That was weird. LOVE LOVE LOVE. Throw in a couple 55-gallon drums of validation while you are at it.

I was starting to wonder when the “This Is Your Life” cameras were going to pop out from behind a corner. Seriously. None of the other vendors were having loud reunions with friends all day. I wonder if we got to be annoying after a while!

I am getting all misty just writing about this. I think The Universe may be trying to tell me something like, “Good grief, woman! Don’t you feel all this LOVE? You can’t off yourself! Imagine all of these people at your funeral. How could you do that to them? They really really LOVE you!”

So I feel the LOVE. I feel it in my chest so much that literally my heart aches with all this LOVE. And, yes, now I am crying full blown tears as I write. Wah. This isn’t going to appreciate itself, people!

How did I get so lucky? What set all this good in motion? Me? How on earth could that be?

There are not words in this language to accurately express the depth of my gratitude to have this kind of LOVE happen in a time of such suffering and desperation from a loss of hope that this pain will ever go away and I will get my life back. But then again this LOVE has been around me all along. It just happened to kick me in the pants all at once in one day last week. Quite powerful stuff!

Yes, Universe, I am listening. I am spinning string made with this LOVE and how it makes me feel safe, valued and needed and I am weaving it in and out through my ribs and around my heart so I won’t forget it; so it will be my light through the yucky dark places.

Go share some LOVE!

- Vickie

Upcoming 2010 Shows

Saturday, October 23, 2010

St. Rita’s Craft Sale

9:30 AM – 4:00 PM

St. Rita School

1008 Maple Drive

Webster, NY

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Mayday Underground

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Village Gate Square

274 N. Goodman St

Rochester, NY

The first 50 shoppers will receive a free swag bag!

Mayday Underground Flyer

maydayunderground.wordpress.com

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Irondequoit High School’s Arts & Crafts Sale

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Irondequoit High School

260 Cooper Rd


Rochester, NY

Craft Show Happenings

Yesterday kicked off the 2010 craft show season for me and I think Rochester, NY in general. “What?” you say. “A show on a Monday?” Yep. It was Columbus Day and many folks had the day off. The turnout was actually quite good! We did really well, I am happy to report!

And I must say that is a good thing because I worked my butt off this week, as did my mom and Mr. M to get ready for this show. My pals Heather and Maggie also worked like little elves for me, too. With all the health issues going on and the memory problems associated with them I forgot to really look at inventory early enough. The inventory box contained a little less than I thought it did. So a slight mad scramble ensued. I cranked out tiny art. Mom sealed the dominoes. Heather and Maggie put on the cord findings for pendants. Mr. M ran ribbons for domino ornaments. It’s nice to have minions really good helpers!

However, the stress of putting in 15-hour days all week got to me and I crashed hard Sunday night incapacitated in bed in pain. Mom, Mr. M and Heather were left with the final packing of all the show items. Thankfully I made good lists so it was slightly easier on them. I wanted to cancel the show if I could not finish it all myself. I’m sick of everyone picking up the pieces when I become ill. But they throw the “Well, if it was one of us, wouldn’t you pack up our show for us?!” Uh, yes. Absolutely. Yes, I would. Hands down. No question. But for some reason, the same just does not apply to me. Hmmmm… Baggage claim! Aisle 3!!

What I really needed was sleep. Mr. M and Mom set up the booth at 8:00 AM by themselves. They are pros at it by now. I slept in and Mr. M picked me up a bit later. This worked out well because this show was a long day, not ending until 7:00 PM. See what a lovely job they did setting up?

We have Halloween on one end of the table, Scrabble tile pendants and domino pendants in the middle, then checker and domino key chains, and Christmas domino ornaments at the other end of the table. Sales were a pretty even mix between all of them except the key chains. Not one sold.

I always look forward to the first holiday season show so I can catch up with my craft show buddies. It’s an awful lot of fun to be on the vendor side of the table!

Upcoming 2010 Shows

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Victor PTSA Arts & Crafts Show

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Victor Intermediate School

953 High Street

Victor, NY

More information about the show

Saturday, October 23, 2010

St. Rita’s Craft Sale

9:30 AM – 4:00 PM

St. Rita School

1008 Maple Drive

Webster, NY

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Mayday Underground

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Village Gate Square

274 N. Goodman St

Rochester, NY

The first 50 shoppers will receive a free swag bag!

Mayday Underground Flyer

maydayunderground.wordpress.com

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Irondequoit High School’s Arts & Crafts Sale

10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Irondequoit High School

260 Cooper Rd


Rochester, NY

Collage Paper Prepping

Lately I have been creating my own papers for collaging. I’ve needed a couple specific colors for some new ideas that I could not find in my scrapbook paper stash. Gasp! How could that even be possible? I know! But it is indeed true!

My process starts with a generous coat of gesso on regular white cardstock. Nothing fancy… just a pack of white cardstock from the craft store. I kind of lay the gesso on thick creating a great deal of texture. This step is best done in batches so I do between four to six pieces of paper at a time. I bought some of those giant plastic carpet protectors so my chairs could scoot on the carpet in the studio. They have turned into great carpet protectors from painty projects (not that we are really attempting to save the carpet in the studio anymore at this point)!

I don’t know if it’s a throwback from childhood or what but I prefer to sit on the floor when I work. My body is displeased with this however and only lets me do it every so often. But painty gesso on paper calls for the floor! Huzzah! Also, there is not enough room on my worktable to accommodate the drying of four to six pages of paper.

The gesso dries quite quickly and I get to paint them soon. I think today I need more yellow and orange. Maybe some red and green for domino Christmas ornaments. Pink for cupcakes. I will also play around with some glazing and layering for visual interest.

This is a page I painted for a project a few weeks ago.

So what becomes of all this painted paper? It gets cut up into ridiculously small pieces for decorating dominoes. I’m talking about pieces smaller than half an inch, mostly much much smaller. Often I wade into dealing with one millimeter by one millimeter pieces. Yep. I do. Why? I’m still looking for the answer to that question.

- Vickie

It's Like We Water-Boarded It

We got a Topsy Turvy* tomato plant hanger thingy last year. It wasn't a really successful horticultural experiment then. So we tried again this year with a cherry tomato plant.

I've never seen a cherry tomato plant grow like this. Granted, we did hang it upside down.

It grew straight down for a day or two then decided to turn sharply upward. At this point it began growing at a rate of about three inches a day. I'm not even kidding. It was amazing. Thinking about the rate of cell division going on blew my mind. Just growing up and up and up... but not producing anything even remotely like a tomato flower.

It seemed to be saying, "To heck with you, Gravity. I'm going to grow as big, tall, and gangly as I possibly can under mostly my own support [note some twine we had to add to keep it from falling over and breaking off]. Then and only then will I make tiny tomatoes. Just in time for it to turn cold and my tiny green tomatoes will never ripen. I'll get those jerks back for hanging me upside-down!"

Do you think it was just really stressed by being upside-down? Maybe it freaked out and grew as big as possible trying to get far away from its oppressors reaching out for help in all directions. I have a feeling it just wasn't getting enough sun.

To give you some scale, I can't reach the top tiny red tomato. Erik has to reach and stretch to water it at the top and he is kind of tall. The plant itself, if the bottom of it were on the ground, would be about four and a half feet tall.

I have eaten approximately three tomatoes off this plant all summer. Right now there are a lot of beautiful green cherry tomatoes on it. We had a 90 degree day over the weekend. But the following day was only about 65 degrees so I think our growing season has come to an end. It's getting quite cold at night now.

So a big boo and hiss to the Tomato Fairy this year. Even our right-side up tomato plants didn't do very much. However I shall not complain too loudly as we had more than a bountiful raspberry crop this year to make up for any tomato inadequacies.

* Our tomato plant looks nothing like the plants on their website. I might submit our weird monstrosity to their gallery and ask what we did wrong.