Just to be sure...

Just to be sure that progress has been made, and that change really is constant, I decided to do a little comparisson in the aesthetics department.
Above: My first day setting up my booth at the Portland Saturday Market at the beginning of last year. How sad. How pathetic.

Below: Almost 2 years later, setting up on xmas eve - the last day of Market for the year.

Ahhh, now that's better. Yes, I think I can tell now that I have improved my booth. Thank goodness.

The last day of market was less than a week ago, yet it feels like the duration of several months. And now I never know what day it is, or what I should do after finishing my current activity, and I can hardly think about making more glass in the near future.

So it's good that a friend brought up Valentines day to me. Perfect! I need to get cracking on some good Valentines jewelry! Yippee! Fire up the kiln, fetch me my glass cutters and get out of the way! This will give me something to do for a bit and hopefully will turn into a few sales during this offseason phase.

Oh, and I need to make some New Years resolutions really quick-like.

Away for a Week

The greatest new blog discovery this month is called "It Made My Day - Little Moments of WIN". Click HERE to read it. I can hardly wait until some little hilarious thing happens in my day so that I can post to their site.

Sunup Jewelry won't be at the Saturday Market this weekend. Instead, I'll be selling my jewels at a 5-day festival near Seattle - here's hoping for a bright turn-out!

I have started posting a few things to my little ETSY site, and will try to build it up more when I get back from my trip. Find it here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/sunupjewelry

I can hardly believe there are only 4 weeks left until a 2 month break! [No Market during Jan/Feb] Whatever will I do?!

See you in a week!

New Stuff

Friday proved to be a suprisingly wonderful day, anchoring a week of unending blah-ness. I met a friend for coffee and pastries before heading over to the Catlin Gabel Rummage sale at the expo center. It was several acres of Portlanders dragging behind them cardboard boxes filled with their treasures. It was thousands of square feet of possibilities. It was magical. I shopped in Housewares, I shopped in Womens, I shopped in Boys, I shopped in Electronics, I shopped for hours. And when I was done I only had to part with $25; 8 shirts and a hoodie. Score.
From there I went home and busted out a whole bunch of glass in one tiny little hour. Lately, I admit, it has become slightly mundane making glass. I have been clinging to certain designs so much that I have exhausted my motivation to find more color combinations of the same pattern/shape. But yesterday was different - I made new stuff, I let myself make whatever I wanted. And since the kiln was still a tad warm this morning, I spent all day at the market getting excited about opening it up upon my arrival home.

Ok fine, I also spent most of the day shivering. It is certainly starting to feel winter-y. Almost time to get out the propane heater for the weekends outdoors selling.

Write it Out

Here's a little jewel I learned during college. At the end of the day - or, really at any point in the day - write down 5 good things that happened that day. They don't have to be big things, something as simple as 'I'm wearing my favorite tshirt' is enough, or 'Made an artichoke for dinner'. I'll tell you what, you will be shocked and amazed at not only the amount of events that happened since waking, but also how many positive things are occurring in your life. Shocked and amazed, I tell you. So sit your little self down for 3 minutes every night, and pick up your pen. I often practice this exercise when I feel like I accomplished nothing, and I find that by the time I'm done writing the first item on the list, I've already thought of numbers 2 and 3.

Suddenly, everything seems to be going well.

Last Chances

I discovered yesterday that the huge annual Catlin Gabel Rummage sale at the Expo Center is ending! This is the last year, after 65 consecutive years, that they will be having this event. Apparently Craigslist and Ebay aren't helping their cause. So make sure you go this year! Here are the hours:

Thursday, November 5: 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. (35 percent markup on all items)
Friday, November 6: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, November 7: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (25 percent discount all day)
Sunday, November 8: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (50 percent discount and bag sales all day)

Also, here is a little ditty about my stuff jumping into Splurge: Click This!

Well, it has been a rare, challenging week for glass; I've had two full kiln loads not turn out well. They will each have to be re-fired. Things haven't been heating evenly, or for long enough, plus I've been doing a little experimenting which is always tricky. All of these things added together have put me a little behind this week. Oy! But I suppose things can't always turn out perfectly. Next week will surely be better!

Can You Move Your Horns, Please? They're, like, totally in my way

Okay, I realize this has little to do with anything, everything to do with nothing, anything to do with something, ...but check out these long-horned cattle! The photo above is from a recent trip to Texas -- the Fort Worth Stockyards. Imagine waking up in the morning and having to pick up that much weight just to lift your head off the pillow -- er, sawdust.

Playing Catch-Up

Oh dear. I see now that I haven't written much in the past month. Let me fill you in.

The beginning of October was filled with surprisingly good weekends at the Saturday Market. My display racks have been less than full for a little while and I find myself constantly playing catch-up to restock my wares during the week.

I put a batch of jewelry into Splurge, which happens to be one of the most adorable little gift stores in town. It was started by a bunch of market vendors a few years ago and houses a significant amount of market products. Check it out!


Quickly, I sped through 'The Time Traveller's Wife' which was rather phenomenal. I had a difficult time putting it down, which doesn't happen that often for me. Highly recommend it.

I'm planning on switching over from my website to etsy. That is, if I can just. get. started. on it.


Took a trip to the Tacoma Glass Museum in Washington; we had beautiful weather, free coffee and cookies at the rest stops, and were able to see some pretty impressive artwork. It's fun to try to think about how each piece was made.

Now I'm off to a wedding in Dallas at the end of the week and will get to see the fam!

Love the Rain

Just took a fresh load of glass out of the kiln - I finally did some larger pendant pieces. I rarely use brown glass but...why?! It looks great with the reaction that happens between the silver leaf and white glass (the brown swirl around the clouds in photo). This piece has a nice amount of reaction - and I love using silver leaf! All I need to do now is find a heavy chain to put it on -- my dinky snake chains simply won't do.

Swift Magic

It's September! Go watch the Swifts funnel into the chimney at the Chapman Elementary School downtown at NW Pettigrove and 25th-ish.

The New Rummaging Schedule

One of the very worst things about being at the Portland Saturday (&Sunday) Market, is that I miss all of the rummage sales! Imagine all of the wonderful, cheap-as-dirt housewares and clothes that are only available on random weekends through the year, which I am missing out on! It drives me a very particular kind of crazy. My one saving grace, to which I anticipate with immense excitement all year long, is the Catlin Gabel Rummage Sale which is held every November. It is gigantic in a way that you can only comprehend by attending. So big, in fact, that it fills the Portland Expo Center. Believe it.

And it is a mere 2 months away.

Escaping the Burn (of both theft and heat)

Considering all of the drama and events that went on in Seattle, I find myself with a very short version of the entire story.

I drove to Seattle for a wholesale show, had all of my jewelry and supplies stolen out of my car, and then the next day I got it all back. The End.

Some good things came out of it; some bad things came out of it.

This is what my jewelry looks like if you are standing on a picnic table and wearing really cute 'avocado shoes'.

Fortunately, I returned to a good weekend at the Portland Saturday Market, went out for some sushi with friends, and started a bikram yoga class. It is amazingly hot in that yoga room, and my very calm instructor confessed that lately he has been taking "window hits" from the one open window in the room, so that he can get some cool fresh air. I wonder what kind of person he is outside of class.

Until next time, I'll be in spot #201 under the Burnside Bridge (weekends only). Oh! And I'll be attending the Belmont Street Fair a week from Saturday. Later, kiddos.