wedding!!!

(photo by Arlund Imagery)

Wow!!!! I just wanted to say THANKS to everyone who came to witness Greggles and I get married on Saturday!! Greg and I just keep talking about how magical it was, and it wouldn't have been that great without all of our AMAZING friends and family who helped out that night, who took fabulous polaroids, who wrote typewriter messages, who told me their version of the wedding (I want to hear them all, people), and who danced the night away!

We're off to Italy today but I couldn't resist writing one last little blog before we took off! I'll see you all in two weeks! Muah!!!

Oozing with love and happiness,
Freshie

P.S. if you uploaded photos anywhere, please send me the link!

rejection sucks

I'm getting married in 10 days and I'm totally overwhelmed with last minute wedding details, including rescheduling all of my hair & makeup appointments with a new salon (don't EVER go to Trim in Nashville - they treat their customers like garbage).

I did, however want to blog a tiny bit about the American Artisan Festival. I applied to it, wrote a nice cover letter, sent a resume, slides and crossed my fingers. It's a great show - it's here in Nashville, and I've been going to it as long as I can remember. Well I got my answer yesterday after a generally crappy weekend in Knoxville - rain mixed with sleet and thunder and lightning do not yield a successful 3 day outdoor craft show and they dismissed us all early since there were no customers and so many crafters had already left. Sitting in this freezing weather for 3 days also produced a nice pre-wedding cold sore. Lucky me.

So anyway, I opened my letter and knew what it would say - yep - I got denied. I didn't cry or anything but I sure felt like it. I don't take rejection too hard or too personally because I know that shows, especially one this great, have a ton of vendors that come back year after year who are practically guaranteed a spot and that leaves very few spots open for new people like me - especially in the jewelry category. There was even a nice note that said my work was great but that they had too many jewelers.

Plain and simple, it just sucks, and I sort of got that "woe is me" feeling because I have gotten denied for every show I've applied to in my own freaking hometown (with the exception of the Nashville Craft Mafia show). It sucks that I have to haul my ass all over the southeast, pay high gas prices and stay in hotels in order to sell my jewelry at a show. I can't seem to ever just drive down the road to do a great show just miles from my home. I don't think these promoters are snobs (well, I think some judges are snobs since i see so much of the same scary and horrible albeit well made and expensive yuckiness at big fancy shows that I would never buy and when someone new and modern like myself comes along, of course I'm rejected because I don't make gigantic forged/fused hideous sculptures to wear around your neck.... do I sound bitter?), I just think they are loyal to all of their past vendors.... for year after year after year...

I guess I'm just kind of down because I have been rejected from a lot of shows this year, probably because I'm applying to better ones than last year, but currently I've been rejected from more than I've been accepted - several of those I really wanted to do. Hopefully one day these people will shake it up and let the new, young, hip generation of crafters in their club, and possibly expand their buying audience who will be pleasantly surprised to see something different.

Starbucks Vending Machine

Can I have one in my house? In my car? Next to my craft show tent? Bless those people at Starbucks, even though they're teaming up with the nasty Pepsi Company (Coke is better!). They are creating a hot coffee vending machine of superior quality that will brew up your favorite Starbucks drinks on demand in a convenient portable package. Here's the breakdown, quoted from this website...

Through research and product testing, Starbucks and PepsiCo learned that the common complaints about existing coffee vending included lack of consistent, high-quality coffee.... To tackle these obstacles, Starbucks and PepsiCo developed this revolutionary approach to hot coffee vending. With a simple swipe of a payment card (or with cash), a high-quality, hot latte or hot cocoa is served up in a ready-to-drink package in less than a minute. Utilizing proprietary packaging, each hot beverage will come in a convenient 9-fluid-ounce recyclable steel can with an insulating label, designed to keep the beverage warm, enjoyable, and still comfortable to the touch.

Hot beverage offerings will include Caffe Latte, Vanilla Latte, Caffe Mocha, Caffe Mocha Light, and Hot Cocoa. Each vender will allow customers to pay with cash, their Starbucks Card or with a major credit card such as MasterCard®, Visa®, American Express® or Discover®. In tests earlier this year, customer acceptance and feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

Hells yeah is all I have to say. I wonder if they'll have a way to mapquest these things...

etsy treasuries

First of all, I logged onto etsy last night and saw a pair of my earrings on the front page! How exciting! Good thing I happened to log in and see it before it went away! My hits on those earrings went front around 30 to over 200 so that was pretty cool!

Next, today I was cruising around treasuries and I actually got one!!! I have always had a love/hate relationship with the treasuries - they're fun to look at and exciting to be included in one, but soooo frustrating that I never ever ever get one no matter now hard I try. So I really didn't expect it to work this time, but it did!! Yay! Check it out - it's all mobiles - one of my favorite things. Here's also an awesome mobile from Kiln Enamel...