Books with Numbers and Such

It's almost over, I can't believe it. This holiday season has been fun and exhausting for me, and so, like the nerd-bomber that I am, I've set my sights on finding the perfect date book. Who needs to go out for New Year's Eve when you could be shopping online for the perfect planner? Put your champagne in a sack, mister, because I'd rather be transferring addresses into the back of my new dayminder.
Here's my first choice, which I actually learned about from the design sponge blog.

You can't tell from the picture but that's a printed linen cover, and I'm sure it will only get better as it collides with gum wrappers and kleenexes in my purse. You can get it at Hable Constructionfor a mere 73 bones.
Next up, and perhaps not a surprise to many is Jill Bliss's answer to plannin'



The Jill Bliss Redwood Forest Date Book is apparently filled with all sorts of cute tonal illustrations that I would love looking at on a daily basis. It's a fill-in date book, meaning it has no dates. I kind of like the idea that you can pick up and leave off whenever you want...but I don't know if I trust myself to fill in the right dates, you know, what if I forget that a month has a 31st or something? But it is pretty, and you can get it at Greer Chicago for a measly 15 dollars!
Also in the world of undated planners is this perfectly charming Sukie Agenda:


It has all sorts of fun decorative tear-out sheets, plus stickers! You can get it at Fred Flare. for $28.
And back into the safe, comfortable land of dated planners:

Here's a snappy little number from Calendars.com. It's only $10.99.
And finally, the somewhat bland yet super-awesome one that I'm pretty sure I'm going to get:

Moleskine rarely fails me. I like how this one is kind of huge (almost 8 x 10 inches) and yet sort of soft cover and floppy. I think I'll probably decorate it with some rub-ons or something. You can get it at Moleskineus.com.
OK, I'm going to go and panic now about the fact that I won't actually have a planner to write in tomorrow. At least I have a lot of legal pads.

Sewin'

Brrr...it's kind of cold and wet in Minneapolis right now. People seem to be bustling everywhere, and I myself am getting ready to bustle on up to North Dakota for a cozy Brusegaard Christmas.
I already had my first installment of Christmas with my bestie joj. And. she. got. me. a. sewing. machine.
We have a history with sewing machines....I think at around the same point in our lives, we, unbeknownst to each other, purchased identical walmart sewing machines; the cheapest Brothers they had to offer. We had dreams of making elaborate patch-worked pants and dresses...and our dreams stayed just that. You see, apparently you pay for what you get, in the form of broken needles and jammed bobbins. And thinking you're sewing a line just fine, only to flip over your fabric and see a wad of gnarled string ball attached to your project. Attached securely.
So, we gave up our dreams...we got jobs and cats. And sometimes, we wistfully drove past a JoAnn fabrics and thought...someday.
Oh my gosh, that was a lot of build-up.
Well, here it is:

It's going to change my life, I just know it! Thanks, Joj!

OMG! Free Priority shipping upgrade?!

It's true. You could have that scarf right above this sentence before Christmas! In order to alleviate some of the holiday-related stress you may be suffering from, I've decided that the priority shipping upgrade is on me. It's the least I could do. Really, it probably is the least...but it's something!
Details:
Free priority shipping upgrade on all orders $15 or over purchased before or on December 19th! (for orders shipping within the US)

That means you'll get it by Christmas! (so just purchase your items and pay like normal, and your order will be shipped priority instead of first class).(If you are spending less than $15 dollars and would like a shipping upgrade, please let me know and I will adjust the shipping for you or send you an invoice for the additional shipping charge.)
The last day for shipping in order to receive your stuff in time for Christmas is Dec. 19th for Priority Mail. It's actually December 20th, but I have to work post office hours that day, so....

k, that's all for today.

The Craftmas Report

It was the last hurrah for my holiday craft show season, and it was spectacular! The VFW is an great venue because it's cozy and small and intimate, but not in a creepy way. (The above photo was taken by moncrief)
I know I said there wouldn't be any new photos until I got my camera back, but that's because I totally forget about jojo's camera phone. Here's some pictures of the booth:




That's me under the red arrow, in case you were wondering. Angela and Sarah from i like you planned the event on short notice and did an awesome job providing kickin' tunes and quality goods. They're planning on having an event 4 times a year...sign me up! You can read about that at the handmaidens' blog.
After a long day of craft enthusiasm ( and 1 hot dog each!), Joj and I had worked up an appetite and made our way to Ichiban's for a celebratory dinner. I cannot recommend going to the sushi bar on a Sunday night enough! There was all sorts of elbow room, and spicy tuna rolls aplenty. Mmmmm...
In other news, I headed over to my neighborhood Patina and did a little Christmas shopping this morning. I found this really great book for my niece:

The Daring Book for Girls has all sort of useful and fun information from making origami to camping outdoors to being a spy, to reading a tide chart (I don't know how to do that...). There's all sorts of "rainy day activities." It really reminds me of this book I received when I became a Brownie...It had all these cool projects in it, and I lost it shortly after getting it, and I remember searching for it a lot, thinking that if only I could find it I would have something to do! So I hope she likes it.
Well, I'm off to wrap some presents...thanks for the pics, joj, aka best booth buddy ever!

The Handmaidens' Craftmas Spectacular!

Everyone come, it's going to be craftacular! I need to go get ready now....

When your Digital Camera Breaks.

Hey, check out my new enclosure cards...they're golden peacocks on chartreuse with antique gold envelopes, aren't they pretty?

What's that you say? You can't see them? Yeah, me neither. My camera has been slowly breaking, and now it's official. So, naturally, I decided to take random pictures with it, as if I had gotten myself some sort of crazy new lens:

And that was enough of that. Then I decided, maybe I should just buy that adorable little leica digital, just to get me by until I can buy some super deluxe piece of computer chippery.

I would ALMOST buy this camera based on looks alone, but while it's features are comparable to many a petite pocket camera, you have to use an external flash! What is this, 1996?
While I guffawed over the flash, Jesse was on the phone with Nikon customer service. Apparently, this problem is a known problem, and so they'll replace or fix the camera for free if it is in fact said problem! Thanks to Jesse for calling customer service while I silently stewed with occasional mutterings about "modern tech garbage...disposable society...blah, blah..." And Thanks to Nikon for being an awesome company that didn't immediately dismiss us for having a 3 year-old (gasp!) camera, and didn't ask for a warranty (which I'm pretty sure has expired, if we had one...)
So, now I'm over the mini Leica and back onto to my stellar-ass Nikon, who can't help that it was built with a slight defect.
Isn't it pretty?

So, no new pictures for a few weeks. It's kind of like the writer's strike, I'll just have to rerun old posts...or rely less on images in the post and focus on writing....no thanks!

The No Coast Post

We went, we sold....we conquered? Maybe not. I for one feel that this event shan't be conquered, it should be celebrated and word of it shall be spread to the masses.
Yeah!
So, No Coast, what can I say? Me and my bestie Joj had a lot of fun manning the made by Michelle Brusegaard booth. Here's what it looked like:

This was right after setting up uber early on Friday afternoon. It looks like no one's watching the booth, but you must look closer....

There's JoJo keeping a watchful eye on some napkins. It looks like she's in red poppy jail.
Here's my favorite part of the display, the brocade department:

Many a patron enjoyed this display as well, as I sold out of brocade dishtowels!
Of course everyone wanted a piece of me, but I still managed to find time to get slightly bored and force JoJo to be in this picture illustrating the four word tune that was stuck in my head (from Arrested Development, anyone?).

The song got stuck in both our heads on account of the fact that we were next to the half-British booth, Charlie and Sarah. They had some really awesome t-shirts featuring educational British flashcards. Check them out, they have lots of good stuff in their Etsy shop.
Speaking of me being amused, here's how happy I was when JoJo agreed to be in the above photo:

All in all, sales were good and a lovely time was had by all, despite the raging snowstorm that took place on Saturday.