Cardboard Cutout Rosalie

Okay, someone made a cardboard cutout of me.

How funny is that?

This is Ariane, she traded me Barbie Monster Fish in my bARTer Sauce project. She was kind enough to take a picture of our trade as well. HA!

Oh, and in other bARTer Sauce news, I'll be appearing on Northwest Afternoon for a six minute segment. We're filming on Tuesday, October 2nd, but I'm not sure when it will air. It might be on the 2nd...it might be a few days later. How funny is that?

Also, it's my birthday on October 3rd. You've all been hounding me about what you can get me. Just remember, I don't like things that aren't consumable. I'd much rather you just created an account (a new feature!) on the bARTer Sauce website and made a bunch of comments (another new feature). You might get some errors. If you do, email me at rosalie@bartersauce.com and tell me what you were trying to do when it happened. That's all I really want for my birthday. Some beta testing. Yeah!

Oh, and of course, I'd love it if you made me a trade offer.

But I assume you already knew that! HA!

What the hell is that?

Yeah, that's the most oft asked question when we go to craft shows with Shower Art. Then they lift it up, sniff it, and then say, "Oh, soap." Which is weird. Because it smells nothing like soap. And it feels like rubber. So, solution. I made a shower curtain with "Shower Art: Waterproof Art you can hang in your shower -- or anywhere else, we're no dictators" to hang behind our table. At I Heart Rummage last Sunday we tried it out for the first time. One guy bought two of them and then said, "Yeah, I think I'll hang these up in the bathroom. Do you guys get that alot? People saying they'll hang them in the bathroom?" Um. Sigh. Sniff. Weeps uncontrollably.

Etsy Rain Meet Up at Third Place Books

Okay, first of all, where has this place been all my life? I mean really? Does Powells' own them? They have the same bike racks. And the big cafe? Where you can apparently be really loud because no one in Seattle will step up and ask you to stop, they'll just fume quietly at their tables: PERFECT! At first I thought - 6:30 to 10:00 - no way we'll have that much stuff to talk about. HUH! Right. I think we did just fine. We chatted about different ways to promote our shops and Etsy Rain in general and ate lasagne or mac n'cheese. Mmmmmmmmmmm! I had the Mac n' cheese. It was GREAT! I don't remember everything we talked about...nor would I post it up here because it's extra super secret, but I do know that everyone who showed up had great ideas to bring to the table. We had some laughs. Talked about some stuffs. Taught a baby how to punch his mom's pony tail while he's sitting in a backpack thing (don't ever do that...it's not nice, but it's also just really tempting and I have no self control..obviously). So, all in all, I give it a big hug and 5 shiny gold stars. And, let me plug Sara's shop here because she's my new friend that I'm going to make a million dollars with PLUS she gave me a ride home. And let me plug Kimberly's shop here because she's my studio mate and she's not mad at me for borking the fire department inspection. Sorry Kimberly. (bork=screw up, just in case you were thinking something else). And let me plug Dawn's shop because she promised to trade me two press releases for Shower Arts. And let me plug Carrie's shop because I taught her baby to punch her in the pony tail while he was riding in the backpack thing. Plus, I want her to have to make more baby hats. mmmmmwwwwwaaaaahahahahahah! And let me plug my shop. Oh wait, some already has. Check out Treasure Trove for fun stuffs!

bARTer Sauce in the Seattle Times!

A trading experiement that I've been working on for the last two years was just featured in The Seattle Times The project is called bARTer Sauce and I trade for art and odd objects. Any crafter/artists out there who trade with me will get a write up of your shop, a permanent link on my website and an email to my mailing list as promotion. The website Here's the items currently available for trade And here's the form to submit a trade offer The Seattle Times must have some kind of following too, because not moments after the article was posted online, I got a trade offer for this Barbie Monster Fish. YES!

The Studio Window!

Kimberly from Stir has been kind enough to let me share her studio/retail space. I made an Ugly Baby window display last Friday for all the people who come to pay for parking to look at. I don't know why I'm nice to them, they just come in to ask me whether they need to pay the city meter to park in the lot. Answer: Yes, just like the big sign tells you. And here's my new favorite Shower Art. Scary!

First Thursday Art Walk

It was our first First Thursday Artwalk in the new studio. I'm studio-sharing with the coolest woman ever: www.kimberlyatstir.etsy.com. Doug and I set up a pretty kick-ass Shower Art display for the artwalk and crossed our fingers. Feedback was really positive and while we only sold one item: a starfish to a child who just kept holding it up and saying, "oooohhhhh" we did come home to a $76 Etsy order. That's awesome!

To kick off the night, I invited some of the EtsyRain folks (our Seattle Street Team) over to have some wine and get silly talking about forums and making fun of Carrie complainging about how she "can't keep up with her orders." Ahhhhh, to have that problem! She has the cutest baby ever. I'm probably biased though: he's the baby who demanded that she buy him a Shower Art. HA! I love that kid.

We walked around a bit, visited Kimberly at Stir, went to Occidental park...and then it was all over. Time flew by much faster than I had expected. Next month I'm going to start out much earlier. Thanks to everyone who stopped by. You're such a fun group and I genuinely enjoy your company. Let's do it again soon!

To close, here's some pictures of the most recent batch of Shower Art. We're making them out of rubber now instead of resin so they're squishy and nice and won't make quite such a loud noise if they fall off your shower wall.

Etsy Treasury of Hilarious Descriptions

I created a new treasury of hilarious item descriptions - -check it out if you are so inclined: http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=8089