I have a very cute giveaway for you guys! Joyce Wan’s board book “You Are My Cupcake” (ages 4-8) is coming out this August, and she offered to give three of my blog readers a copy of it!

Described by the publisher as, “A scrumptious board book, filled with sweet terms of endearment. This bite-sized board book is an ode to all the names we call our children: cutie pie, sweet pea, peanut, pumpkin. With a candy-colored palette and irresistible art, this is the perfect baby shower gift!” The book will retail for $6.99 and will be available August 1st wherever books are sold.

Publishers Weekly also just released a delicious review of the book: “You are my cupcake… My sticky little gumdrop… My mushy little sweet pea,” coos this plucky board book featuring terms of endearment based on cutely personified foods. Embossed for a satisfying tactile effect, Wan’s digitized characters, reminiscent of Japanese animation, have chocolate-brown eyes and rosy cheeks. “Baby, I could just eat you up!” concludes the adoring final spread. All that’s left of the cupcake is its smiling, green liner. Presumably, no actual cupcakes were harmed in the making of this crowd-pleasing plum.”

The companion book called “We Belong Together” will be coming out in the Fall.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment :). You can earn additional entries by linking to my giveaway on Twitter or on your blog, and you must put either of those links in separate comments, since I will just use the number of blog comments to determine the winners. If you leave a comment with two links in that same comment, that’s just going to count as the same entry! I used to edit and separate links and comments for you guys in the past, but it’s too time consuming, so if you don’t end up doing it properly, then I’m afraid I can’t count it correctly.

I’ll run the giveaway for a week, so I’ll use Random.Org to choose the 3 winners on Tuesday, July 19!

If you have a wee one who is just learning to read, or you need to get a present for a friend with a kiddo, “You Are My Cupcake” will be a yummy surprise!

EDIT!

P.s. Joyce told me that since the book doesn’t come out until August, she will not be able to ship the winners the book until the last week of July. Hope that is ok!!!

Today Hairy and I trekked over to Fort Mason to check out the first day of Renegade Craft Fair. It’s also open tomorrow, so you should go have a shop!

I also met my lawyer for the first time! She flew in from NY to check out the fair, so that was cool to hang out with her in person. We also met up with Tess, so I got to have TWO rounds of shopping through the fair, which is a rare treat considering I’m usually vending now and just do a quick 5 minute walk around the place!

They’ve also started to step up the food situation at Fort Mason. It used to be turkey sandwiches and hamburgers and hot dogs, but now they have shawarma and knishes and fancy cucumber beverages. Thumbs up!

Since I am a big lame-oh, I didn’t take an pics at the fair, but I thought I would share some of my fave shops, or, at least shops I remembered to grab business cards from!

Rusty Cuts

It looks like she pulled most of her handmade from her Etsy in order to sell it at the show, but I really loved her handmade/upcycled dresses! I was very tempted to get a Star Wars one!

w.ho made it

It also looks like her new collection is on the table now and not so much in her Etsy shop, but I instantly fell in love with these neato jewelry holders made from tea cups and stuff. The knobs on top are magnetic for easy on/off!

I Adorn U

Apparently these arrow bracelets were so popular today that she already sold out! I met Mary Beth on Etsy after buying a few of her cute bunny jewelry holders, which don’t seem to be in her Etsy shop right now. Tess bought a jewelry holder today as well! They come in tons of cute colors!

Bossa Nova Baby

Okay, her Etsy shop totally does not represent all the cool designs she has at the show! I LOOOOOOVE this cardigan she sells that has a cute little whale on it. I was VERRRY tempted!

Knickerocker

That is actually a pic I took of the underwear I bought today! She has sooo many cute undies designs that are not in her Etsy shop, including this amazing pair of rainbow undies with tiers of rainbow ruffles on the bum!! If you go to the show, you HAVE to check them out.

Lemon Bird

So, Hairy loves fancy jams and pickles, so this was the booth for him! He bought a strawberry with lemon basil jam, but they had all kinds of cool yummy stuff.

Wood Thumb

Wooden ties! Ties made out of wood!

Nice

This shop had a ton of cute stuff in it, but I was particularly drawn to her upcycled lamp shades that looked like they were made from vintage doilies and other stuff like that.

Skeletal Dropkick

I seem to be running into this issue a lot in this post, but I couldn’t find a photo of my favorite object from the show. Anyway, there were tons of cool mugs that looked like monsters, with open mouths and pointy little teeth!

Plastique

Cool acrylic jewelry! My fave was the Golden Gate Bridge knuckleduster.

Before leaving, Tess and I also indulged in purchasing mini vegan apple pies on a stick. YUMMY!

Remember that banana split tank top I made for Onch’s Eat It All Party?

When Hairy asked if I wanted to participate in a “fashion meets art” show at Big Umbrella, I immediately thought of the banana split tank top. However, when I wore it, I found it was really heavy, too big for me, and ill-fitting. If I were to put this banana split on display, for sale, I wanted it to be 100% awesome! So I thought for a long while about how to re-purpose it and still make it wearable.

I have been seeing a lot of DIY’ing of denim, with a heavy punk influence and metal studs. I never was really punk, so I wanted to think of a way to embellish a jacket my way. DIYummify! I kept thinking about Madonna’s jacket in Desperately Seeking Susan. I love that movie! Obviously, there are not a lot of design similarities.

I think I mostly internalized all the gold glitter! 😛 And making something feel mystical. Ice cream is VERY mystical, yes? Using my crocheted banana split piece as the main graphic, I then decided to ask Hairy help me think of a phrase or a lyric that would go with my ice cream as well as evoke something slightly rebellious and kitsch. He suggested “pour some sugar on me.” This lyric reminds me of my buddy Elysse and a gumdrop nipple, but I will say nothing more about that! I also threw in a bunch of different heart-shaped cabochons. The word “SUGAR” has iridescent glitter on it, but I couldn’t capture it in photos. Sadly the jacket is waaaaay too big for me. It’s actually Manda’s old jacket. I txtd her last night to see if she had a jean jacket she didn’t want anymore, and lo and behold she said SHE DID. If the jacket doesn’t sell at the gallery, I will post it on Etsy!

I used Simple Times as a giant weight while I waited for the fabric glue to dry on my crochet piece. I think Amy Sedaris would be proud of this usage of her book. (Also I sewed the edges of the banana split down after I used glue as an achor.)

I wanted to stuff some items into the pockets of the jacket in case someone ended up buying it. While I don’t smoke or condone smoking, I just felt it seemed appropriate! If I could have found candy cigarettes in the neighborhood at midnight, that would have been ideal. I have never bought cigarettes before and it was kind of awkward and I asked the guy at the store to pick a brand. I also got a pack of matches and had Hairy right “Dez”‘s phone number on it, Dez being a character from Desperately Seeking Susan. I also included some gum and some money. I tried to crumple everything up to make everything seem “used.”

If you are in SF, you should come out for the show opening. It’s today, Friday, from 6pm-11pm, at Big Umbrella.

My buddy Kim of Finest Imaginary is having a blog party week, all about working for yourself, since she just decided to quit her day job and work on her own business full time! She asked a bunch of cool peeps to share stories and tips about being your own boss.

Check out my guest post here or click on the banner below. Leave a comment for Kim and wish her the best of luck with her new adventure!!