Shower Art - Holiday Craft Show Schedule 2011

Doug and I are frantically getting ready for the holiday craft show season that is about to hit. We start getting ready earlier and earlier every year -- and it STILL always takes us by surprise. Sigh.

We have two new products to introduce this year: 

T-Shirts! Oh yeah baby. We turned a popular Shower Art piece into a concept for a t-shirt with the help of Barry Blankenship.

Soap Dishes! We got tired of people always asking, "So this is Shower Art? But what do you DO with it?" Ummmmmm.... NOTHING. You just look at it. Like you do with other art. (I have a bad attitude - that's why Doug does most of the customer service). Now you can have Shower Art in the shape of a functional soap dish. Yes, yes you can.

This year we are participating in three shows: 

EtsyRAIN Handmade Holiday Show - Seattle, WA

Saturday, November 26th and Sunday, November 27th
11:00 - 5:00 both days

Location:
Intiman Theatre
201 Mercer Street
Seattle, WA 98109


Be one of the first 50 people in line each day and receive a swag bag filled with crafty goodness. 




Urban Craft Uprising - Seattle, WA

Saturday, December 3rd and Sunday December 4th
11:00 - 5:00 both days

Location:
Seattle Center Exhibition Hall
305 Harrison Street
Seattle,WA 98109
(the entrance is on Mercer Street)

Be one of the first 100 people in line each day and receive a swag bag filled with crafty goodness. If you want one, plan to get there between 9:00 and 10:00 to wait in line. There's always a line around the block to get these.







 
One of a Kind Show and Sale - Vancouver, Canada

Thursday, 12/8 - 10:00 - 9:00
Friday, 12/9 - 10:00 - 9:00
Saturday, 12/10 - 10:00 - 9:00
Sunday, 12/11 - 10:00 - 5:00

Location:
Vancouver Convention Centre West
1055 Canada Place
Vancouver, BC, V6C 0C3
  
Tickets:
Adults $12.00
Seniors (65+) $6.50
Students (13-17) $6.50
Children (12 and under) Free

If you are around for any of these shows, come on over and say, "Hey!" If you can't make it to any of our events but still want to buy some Shower Art for your friends and family, email me to arrange a private peek in our studio inventory. We'll drink coffee and dig through bins. It'll be awesome.

In closing: We love you.

I Builted a Website on the Internets

This is it. I did it. This website finally launched. It's been about a year since I started -- but it's done. It's done. It's finally done. What's EtsyRAIN? It's the street team for everyone who lives in Seattle and the surrounding areas and sells their handmade goods on Etsy. We've got over 700 members that now get to play with my creation. The site is built in Drupal (swoon) which is an open source, database driven, content management system. What's that mean? Basically that we can enter content in one place -- let's say an event -- and have it show up on a calendar, as a featured event on the front page and also in a sidebar block of upcoming events. And we only have to enter the content once. If you've ever updated a straight HTML site -- you know why this is awesome. Basically, if something changes, we only need to change it in one place -- not on every single $&*#&$#ing page. The site has a crafty calendar that we're adding all kinds of crafty related events to. It will soon be THE place to go to see what's happenin' crafy wise in this great city. Also, our Premium Members (they pay $20/year to get special discounts on shows and other benfits) get to create their own profiles on the site to highlight their work. It's cool. For reals. I heart Drupal.

What Are the Republicans Thinking?

Doug made this Shower Art recently.

I think it sums up perfectly what Republicans think of when a gay person says they have no choice about being gay -- that it just happens.

Praise it.

Mommy, Where Do Tater Tots Come From?

The newest release in my line of tater tot themed greeting cards -- "Mommy, where do tater tots come from?"

I made these in two colors, kraft and chocolate, but I only like the kraft ones.
The outside says, "Do you ever wonder..."
And the inside says, "If tater tots are made out of the lips and anuses of potatoes?"
Yeah.
It'll get a reaction for sure.
Maybe not a good one.
But definitely a reaction at the very least.
Perheps it will end friendships.
Marriages.
Business ventures.
Maybe it will change the world as we know it.

Or maybe it will just make someone screw up their facea and say, "Gross."

Here's the chocolate colored ones. The paper is a different texture and I don't like them as much.

You can get single cards (kraft color only) here or if you want a three-pack....go here
Happy Year of the Potato!

New Tater Tot Themed Greeting Card

Okay, I made another Tater card. This one says, "When I think about love it makes me smile" on the outside. And on the inside it says, "No wait. I meant lonely." It's printed in green ink on kraft colored paper and it's pretty cute. I listed it in my Ugly Baby shop on Etsy here and here for the a three pack

Farting Tater Tots - My New Line of Greeting Cards

Against my better judgement, I have decided to toss my hat into the greeting card ring. Here is my first attempt. Tater Toot. A farting tater tot. I can tell I'm going to go far with this. Snort. I have three tot cards in mind. The second one will have a picture of a happy tot on the front and say, "When I think about love it makes me smile." And the inside will have a picture of a sad tot and say, "No wait. I meant lonely." And the third design has some tots on the front who just won the Olympics (no reason, really) and it says on the front, "Do you ever wonder..." and on the inside it says, "if tater tots are made out of the lips and anuses of potatoes?" So there's the tot cards. I'm also designing a series of different robot themed cards where the robots take on different personality traits or situations -- some of my favorites: cursed to wander the earth in search of his shadow robot and scared of something over there robot. We'll see what happens. If you wanted to buy a bunch of them just to make me feel like I'm not wasting my time...you can do it here: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=9315421 Well, okay, you can only buy one, but that would be nice of you too. Here's some more pictures:

I replicated the image at 50% size on the back of the card and the envelope.

I like potatoes.

Rosalie

Shower Art for V-Day

My newest series of Shower Arts: I like you and I like like you. I've made about 20 of them in the last week while trying to get ready for my Showcase on www.etsy.com. I hope someone likes them. Or I'll have lots of them in my shower. But just think about how much that will improve my self esteem.

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!

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.