Blue Genie Art Bazaar

I had so much fun at Blue Genie last year I was very grateful to get in again this year but with my own eight foot space. I tried to set up a fun space that reflects my shop's personality. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Shop my booth and many other amazing artists the entire month of December up until 10pm Christmas Eve. Details in the flyer below!

Handmade Star Wars Costumes

 

For Halloween this year my husband decided he wanted a Jedi outfit for his office costume contest so we decided the whole family would go Star Wars. Knowing I had a bunch of left over linen and brown felt from another project I decided to challenge myself, using only stuff around the house and a $20 budget for all three costumes.

Jedi Youngling: Gabe's outfit consisted of a wrap around linen undershirt, a sleeveless felt robe, my old belt, an emergency light from the car as a light saber, and booties made of daddy's old socks and stripes of felt. Super easy and cost under $5. 

Obi Wan Kenobi:  Wade's outfit took the biggest part of the budget because I purchased, on sale, some light weight brown fleece to make his robe nice and fitted. A black undershirt, linen wrap, belt, boots, silver hairspray, and light saber made for another easy, cheap costume. Not to mention my boys looked pretty awesome! 

Princess Leia: I'm still missing some files here and there from my computer crashing so I don't have a great one of my costume but it was pretty basic. I had a white sleeveless dress already so I whipped up a cowl neck and long, draped sleeves to wear on top with this belt and matching grey boots. The belt is made of felt, white foam scraps and left over google eyes spray painted silver; all items I had on hand from old projects. Because my hair is short I made a head piece by gluing stripes of felt left over from Gabe's robe into buns then onto a headband.

Besides making a surprise appearance at daddy's work, Gabe also dressed up and we all went to Cedar Park to play in the Halloween games, bouncy houses and see the petting zoo and fire trucks. He was pretty pooped after carrying around R2D2 (aka "ot") around all day.

Giveaway on Facebook

With all the exciting craft shows and events going on this fall I’d like to spread the word as much as possible.  So, I’d like your help and in return one FRIEND and one FAN will receive a bottle cap charm necklace & bonus goodies!  Contest runs October 11-15th, 2012 at midnight.  Visit lost little things on Facebook for more information on how to enter! 

Chicago Renegade Road Trip!

Well shockingly I got into Chicago Renegade this September so my friend Casey and I decided to road trip it 1/2 way across the US in my "new to me" mini van. It was quite the adventure but well worth it!  

We saw a lot of these along the way...

After realizing one of my doors wasn't locking properly (with thousands $ of merch in the back) we took a much needed break in St. Louis on day two of driving. Crab cakes and local beer at Broadway Oyster Bar were a delicious treat. 

Two and a half days of driving we finally hit Chicago a day before Renegade. We rented an apartment near Albany Park on the north side of town. The neighborhood was lovely and there were lots of fun places to eat and shop second hand treasures. Our roommate Oliver (the owners adorable cat we begged her to leave) was quite the character and the apartment even had a little piece of Texas on the mantel. 

One of our first tourist stops included Millenium Park with The Cloud (aka the bean) and famous Crown Fountain. It was a gorgeous view of downtown and the weather was perfect.

Chicago Renegade was fun and CRAZY busy all weekend! I of course loved how my booth turned out, sharing again with my partner in crime GemJunkie. I was surprised how many Austinites we ran into outside of the few vendors who had taken the trip too.  People who were moving to Austin, people who had just moved from, and those just visiting on a random week. I ended up moving my chalk sign to the front of the booth because people wanted to take pictures with it. Made my day.

We spent the last day of our trip just running around town being tourists. A quick stop to the Shedd Aquarium was a beautiful view of Lake Michigan and cityscape. We didn't make it to the Navy Pier but you can see it in the background below. 

The "must do" tourist attraction on my list was to visit the Skydeck in the old Sears building (now Willis Tower), the tallest building in the world.  At 103 floors up my nerves kicked in as I finally found the courage to step out onto the floating glass floor. I'm terrified of heights! I couldn't even look down to take this picture but it was an experience I will never forget. 

We ended the long weekend with some famous Chicago style pizza at Gino's East and got ready for the two  long days of driving back to Austin. 

Other then a visit to the Little Rock in Arkansas, some late night drinks, bbq and an overnight stay in Memphis for my birthday, we hauled butt back to Austin. It was a fun trip but a long one and we both missed our babies. :)