EDIT!!!!!! THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED!!!!!!!! I WILL NO LONGER APPROVE COMMENTS FOR THIS ENTRY. THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING! 🙂 🙂

Hey folks,
I’ve always wanted to do a giveaway, but I’ve been so crazy busy that I never have anything left to giveaway!
I took the opportunity after BazaarBizarre to put together a lil sumthinsumthin for all of you who have supported me and read my blog!

This giveaway package includes red and white striped peppermint wristwarmers/fingerless gloves, a red and white striped peppermint candy-heart necklace, and a red and wdhite swirled lollipop brooch.

TO ENTER:

Just leave a comment on my blog, telling me what your most favorite holiday treat is! (and make sure to enter your email address in the email address field so I know how to contact you!)

DEADLINE:

This is super quick! I will choose a winner with a random-number-generator on Monday, December 21st, at noon, PST. This way, I can hopefully have time to contact the winner, and have the winner send me his/her mailing address, and get the package out before the post office closes on the same day. For people in the U.S., the package should arrive before Xmas (according to the USPS….). Sorry to my international readers! I just didn’t get my act together in time! I will obviously still send the package to an international winner, but the package will probably definitely not arrive in time for Xmas.

Okay, this is my first giveaway at my own blog, so if I left anything out or messed something up…please let me know! 😛

xoxo

People have already begun to make purchases! Go go go!! Click on the image to go to my shop!

Wow, what a weekend!

We basically had to build up stock for BazBiz in 2-3 weeks and I was stressing out about not having enough to actually put on display! It turned out ok though. I think people were delighted and there was a lot of giggling in my vicinity. I always like to make people giggle. Here’s a quick video montage. I never take enough video or photos at these things!

Bazaar Bizarre San Francisco 09 from Twinkie Chan on Vimeo.

I only got 1 hr of “sleep” on Friday night, and then took 3 hr nap when we got home. Since I was running out of brooches, I decided to make more and then I didn’t go to sleep until 7am again! Oops! So I’m sorry if I sounded completely idiotic to anyone who visited. I was probably running on 4% brain capacity at that point. I would’ve been falling asleep at my booth had it not been COMPLETELY FREEZING!!! AHHH! My fingernails were turning purple!

Hairy put an ad on Craigslist last week for me because we wanted an oven-ish display unit to go with my fridge-ish display unit. At first I was afraid that the unit was going to be way too huge and look weird next to my fridge, but after all the was painted and done, IT LOOKED AWESOME!!! We picked up the oven in Petaluma in the rain on Friday night, and it was totally worth it. I am hoping to store it up in the bedroom and use the shelves for tshirts and the “stove top” for other stuff, too. It’s perfectly awesome. She even put hooks on it, so that’s what the zipper clutches are hanging from.

Zambi came for visits!!!! And she brought me the cutest little necklace and phone dangly of a cartoon-me wearing a pizza scarf. She is so talented. I heart her! Also I met her mom who was super duper supremely nice!

During the craft fair, I made this peppermint candy scarf:

I put it up around 3pm on Sunday and it’s still for sale. It will be part of my big leftovers-Etsy-update which I am trying to have up tomorrow, but I have to shoot pics of everything!

From my experience this weekend, I have two new rules for being an awesome visitor at a craft fair.

1) Do not roll your eyes at price tags, or ask sellers how much something is and then say “WOW” out loud and put the item back (especially when there was also a SIGN that said how much the thing was!). It’s really rude and disrespectful. I respect that you might not like my stuff or might not have the money to buy it, and I don’t take that personally. But you need to respect the time and love that artists put into their items. I am not a sweatshop worker. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it’s plain un-classy to insult someone to their face!

2) This should be so OBVIOUS but our booths ARE NOT GARBAGE BINS!!! HELLO!??!! Get a clue! Other crafters on Twitter were telling me that they always find trash at their booths, too. Come on, people. That’s just plain ridiculous. You’re grown-ups. And if you’re a kid, well, your grown-ups should have taught you better! 😛

I don’t mean to sound negative. I do appreciate the kind people who said hi and who made the effort to come out and see us all. It was rainy and yucky on Saturday, and still, people came to visit. Also the BazaarBizarre peeps gave us all snack baggies, which was way cool. Plus, my neighbor, Emily and her pals at Bird Mafia, were vegan so we got some extra goodies, too!

I wish I had more time to visit all the booths. I did a quick zoom around the place in the last half hour of the fair. I just felt bad to leave Hairy alone in our booth!

I look forward to going to Renegade Craft Fair next Sunday as a shopper :).

Cat from Cut Out + Keep asked if I would do a little interview and pattern for the holiday mini version of their online magazine, Snippets, so I said sure!! This is the first pattern I’ve ever posted anywhere, and it’s FREE!! I tried to keep it simple and sweet for the holidays. I hope it’s easy to understand!

I haven’t really had a chance to check out Cut Out + Keep yet, but there are like 30,000 members, and I just got an account. I know you might be thinking, “Oh no, not another online community!” But I think they did such a great job with my Snippets stuff, that I’m curious to find out more about the rest of the site!

Saturday December 12th 2009 12:00 PM – 6:00PM
Sunday December 13th 2009 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM
* Shop Handmade * Support Small Business * Craft, Learn & Support Art Education *
120+ Vendors * FREE Craft Workshops * Raffles * Food * Music and More!
San Francisco County Fair Building Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
$2.00 Per Adult ~ 12 & Under FREE
50% of Admission Fees Go To Charity

More info here!

I will be at booth #30! You can click the pic to see it bigger.

I am also donating two items to some raffle packages: a gingerbread man brooch, and also some peppermint candy stick wristwarmers!

Here are some in-progress pics of some of the stuff I’ll be selling!

Brooches!

Scarves!

Appliqued Cardigans!

(I’m just sticking a gingerbread man onto my own cardi. This is not really what the cardis will ultimately look like…)

New cupcake scarf colorway: Peppermint Red Velvet!

If I have time, I’m going to also try to do a cookie scarf, a lollipop scarf, and a mint cupcake scarf, but, yeah…the fair is on Saturday, so that all probably won’t happen!!

I’m also going to have zipper pulls, candy necklaces, wristwarmers, cute-tility packs, and ipod cozies!! Wish I had time to do tissue cozies too but…uh…yeah, I’m having a tough time figuring out what to spend time making!!!