The Upcoming Nashville Craft Mafia Show

Okay, I'm totally copying Beth but I have to list some of the cool vendors at the upcoming Nashville Craft Mafia show on March 3rd! Beth and I will be there along with some other fellow crafty peeps including Rinse Soap (see previous blog) and Jane Osgood. It will be so great to do a show in my actual home town!!! Yes, I know it's shocking but I was born and raised in Nashville. Not too many people I know can actually claim that! Anyway, back to the vendors...

Here is a cool men's shirt from Jimiyo.
I think I see one of these shirts in my fiance's future.

I love Beth Howard's art quilts - how amazing is this one?!?!

This is a pretty little tote from Kelly Marie Designs.
I hope she has more like these at the craft mafia show!

Here's a cute shirt for the ladies from MaryInk.
She has some really cute totes, too!I love getting things with boats on them for my future nephew like this one from Ask Apparel - his grandparents sail all over the ... Atlantic? Pacific? The one on the right... is that East? I suck at geography. Anyway, they beam whenever he wears something sailboat related and I beam whenever he wears something handmade! It's a win-win situation!

I love Hatch Show Prints and Isle of Printing old school type posters. I wonder what Agnes Barton-Sabo will have to sell at this show! If it's more posters like this one (but maybe she'll have the Features and leave the Kings of Leon at home), I'll be stoked!

Okay well that's my round up of what I'm most excited about at the show. A lot of the links on the vendors page link to scary myspace pages so I'm half expecting to see gothic knitted skulls or leather crocheted corsets... cross your fingers...

Handmade Soap isn't just for Hippies

Okay - I'm not usually a fan of soap or bath products made in someone's kitchen. They usually smell funky, look funky, or simply are funky. But I have to give a shout out to Rinse Soap and Mama. In case you haven't checked out my links page on my website, they are my only two indie bath & body businesses I list. Mama is made by a member of the Atlanta Craft Mafia. Personally, I love her exhilarating salt scrub. It's only $16 so you don't feel guilty using it every other day like I do. It really sloughs off your dead skin and leaves you feeling soft but not oily. Plus, I love the minty smell! Mama is having a sale right now on their holiday scents - they were $16 but now they're $10 so get them while they last!


Rinse products are as natural and delectable as it gets. I love the perfect pucker pack - it contains a lip balm and a lip exfoliator that is so much less gritty than any other one I've used yet it works far better. The peppermint fragrance in the lip balm is also yummy and my fiance is constantly taking it out of my purse and using it himself! I've also been enjoying my dead sea soap. It has dead sea mud to purify your skin plus spearmint and lavender for good measure. However, if you decide to try just one product from Rinse, I highly recommend a skin stick. (my favorite is the coconut mango) They make your skin soooo soft without being overly greasy. They're great on dry feet, hands, elbows - I even put it on my dry face! Heather, the founder of Rinse, will be at the Nashville Craft Mafia show in March along with myself - I can't wait to stock up on more of her awesome products!

Cupcakes!

Check out this adorable cupcake necklace! I was searching around on etsy and pixelgirl.com for something cute and cupcakey for my sister's 12th birthday. I found some cute earrings but decided that my sister probably wouldn't wear them. (She is sadly not into jewelry as much as I am....yet). So I sat at my jewelry table and hammered this out. I started with wire that I shaped into a cupcake-like form (I guess it could also be a mushroom). Then I wired some freshwater pearls across to "color in" the cupcake. I was so excited about it until my fiance told me he thought it was a really cute mushroom! Hmmm.. maybe my sister would think it was a mushroom, too. So, I decided to get her some silly rubber stretchy gooey things that she is way more into than jewelry, and listed this on etsy. You can check it out here. I think it's cute and that it looks like a cupcake, but sometimes you get so close to your project it's hard to see it from another perspective.

Have you ever searched for cupcake on etsy? There is some super cute stuff out there! Check out these sweet little pincushions by Crazy Cakes! These are so adorable, it makes me wish I could sew! Maybe I'll just get one to make my undie drawer smell nice - it is lavender scented, after all...

The White Stripes

Morton's strikes again! Greg and I went there for our two year anniversary and I had a feeling we would see someone famous again and we did! Jack and Meg White walked in behind us and sat a few tables over from us. Once again, I couldn't stop looking at their table but it was mostly because they were in my line of sight. Jack White lives here but I don't think Meg does, so I was more surprised to see her, since my friends seem to see Jack all the time. Apparently the Raconteurs are in town recording at Blackbird. It was pretty exciting to see them, I have to say. I have a feeling that most of the suit-types that were in Morton's that night wondered who the freaky looking people were sitting at that booth - they were with a guy who was wearing a skeleton hoodie.

On a side note, I will never eat at Morton's again. Our service was extremely slow but the biggest annoyance was that the whole restaurant is smoking - CIGAR smoking! Gross!!! How can you enjoy your $40 steak when you're breathing in nasty cigar smoke? Plus, Meg White was chain smoking cigarettes which sucked since she was fairly close to us. I would have just walked out the door had Greg and I not had a $100 gift certificate which still only covered about half our meal. For that much money, I refuse to breathe in smoke while I try to eat. Nasty.

fan mail!

YAY! I love fan mail! Here is a great email I just got after sending out my newsletter:

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Hi there! I’m glad you sent a newsletter because it reminded me to finally send you a note to tell you how much I love my birdie necklace. It’s my favorite necklace now. And the box it came it was so beautiful — all around I was extremely happy with my purchase. I will be back in 2007 for sure!

Happy New Year!

Kristen

CONTEST!

I've decided to create a contest! I hope people actually enter, since I think it will be so fun to post pictures of people across the country (or world) wearing my jewelry on my website! Want to enter? It's super easy! Here are the details:

.:::FABulous FAN Contest:::.

.::Deadline: February 20th, 2007

.::Email a photo to beth(at)freshieandzero(dot)com of you or someone you know (with their permission, of course) wearing your handmade hammered goodness

.::Use the subject line "FAB FAN contest" in your email

.::Include your full name and mailing address and anything else you want to tell me

.::You must be at least 18 to win

.::Prizes will be awarded to three lucky winners!

.::I'm not looking for anything in particular, so just send me something funny, cool, artsy, original, whatever! Use your imagination and have fun!

.::Winning photos will be featured on the website, so don't be shy!