One of the great things about doing craft shows is that I get to meet people in person. Online shops are great for reaching customers across the globe, but craft shows are great to build deeper connections with local people. I can talk directly with customers about the products - the materials, the process, anything! I receive instant feedback on products and designs, and so it's not only a wonderful social arena, it's a wonderful learning opportunity for me. Additionally, I can speak to people about custom orders. Since the customer and I are both there in person, it's an easy and efficient way to bounce ideas off each other, consider colours, textiles, and design all in one go, instead of in 30 back-and-forth emails.

 
I recently completed a custom order for Trish, one of my favourite customers. She's been to all the Urban Craft shows, is local to the area, and loves and understands the value and beauty of handmade goods. Her first custom order was an apron for herself - my "Dishy" apron in different colours and in a bib-style. She did a great job of combining natural and 'chardonnay' - a beautiful yellow-green linen I had in at the time. She was so pleased with the result that she decided to get aprons made for her gallery as well - Wall Space Framing Gallery. It's an adorable gallery in the heart of Westboro, where they have various artist's work - mostly paintings, but also some jewelry and accessories. They showcase various artists throughout the year - definitely check out their website to find out more. Since they do a lot of framing at the gallery, Trish wanted to order some aprons that would protect their clothing as they are working in the back with all the glues, putties, and the like. We were initially thinking of creating a more complicated design, including a hand-drawn frame, for the final look, but decided in the end to keep it completely simple - modern and minimalist. I think the grey pockets on the black linen are really beautiful, especially with the pop of the bright white straps.
 
Here are the gallery ladies themselves in their new aprons, ready to get framing! What do you think?

A trip to IKEA on Saturday for something entirely different ended up in a spur-of-the-moment purchase of a shelving unit from the "as-is" section. The unit was really marked down, and for what I'm not sure - it was scratched, but you'd have to be an inspector or something to notice the imperfections. The only real hassle was that the unit is huge and we had to either strap it to the roof of the car, or take it apart. We ended up doing both - strapping to the car to bring it home, then realizing it was too big to get down the stairs to my basement studio, so had to take it apart anyway. It wasn't any problem at all, really (well, for me, anyway. I kind of just waved at it and asked my husband to make it magically appear in the basement. He did.).

I'm kind of a messy person. Let's just blame it on being creative, shall we? I love organizing and giving everything a place, but it's just difficult for me to remember where those places are when I'm "in the moment". Especially when I don't have an organized space to begin with - it just gets worse from there. I've been finding that after the flurry of making things for my craft shows, I have to spend an entire day just re-organizing my space. Not the best use of my time! Here are a few examples of my studio post-craft-show-preparation-mayhem:

In the back of mind, I'd thought of a million ways to organize my space, re-group shelves, re-place items that I use all the time. It wasn't working. Until I found... the shelving units of all shelving units! Well, really, it's just that square unit from IKEA that everyone seems to have. But I saw it, and it was a great price, so home it came with me. And now? It's like the clouds have parted and the angels are singing when I walk into my studio. I'm ready to prepare for the upcoming shows. Not only is everything neat and tidy, it's easily accessible, easily stored, and hopefully, easily put-away-able. I'll let you know how it looks after the next show! Here it is for now - quite a different, no? Added bonus - it hides the gawd-awful furnace! The two tables I use? Used to be his and her desks in our office, until we merged everything onto one desk. The white desks will be for sale once my old dining room table (also an IKEA as-is special!) comes downstairs to be my new work table. This will only happen once my husband finishes building the new dining room table that he promised to have for Christmas - last year....