IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! AND OOPS!

It's here! The August edition of GREENCRAFT MAGAZINE, it's here. The one that my VesTote was to be featured in, in the Gallery section.  I've been so excited about this. I came home yesterday whispering, "Let it be here. Let it be here." And, lo and behold, it was.

I flipped to the back of the magazine for the gallery section, starting from the back. And turned page after page until, there it was. On the FIRST page of the Gallery section. FIRST page. A FULL page. FULL page. The photo is fantastic. The write-up mine, what I sent in, but in third person.  Yaaaaaay! And then . . .

Murphy's Law strikes again.  For the contact info it says,

KC Miller * Fort Collins, CO

Email: cheryl@croppingcooks.com

Website: croppingcooks.com

From huge excitement to huge disappointment in milliseconds. I knew any chance of getting anyone to my Artfire shop from seeing my VesTote in the magazine is all but nil. And, of course, I'd told everyone I knew about it, so embarrassed, too.

But the good news -- well, the next good news, because making the magazine in the first place and getting a full page and the first page of the Gallery section was pretty good news -- I'll get another go at it because -- drum roll, please --

My Tee Leaves (bookmarks) will be in the From the Bin section of the November issue of GREENCRAFT MAGAZINE.  Keep your fingers crossed. Say prayers. That this time it'll all be correct.

To cover my bases, I emailed cheryl@croppingcooks.com and bcc'd the editor at the magazine so she'd know what happened. I explained to Cheryl (whose article and creations are awesome, by the way) what had happened and asked that if she gets any inquiries about the VesTote (which the magazine hyphenated, BTW), if she would forward them to me. She agreed, saying she would be happy to help out a fellow Miller. Her name is Cheryl Miller. Miller. Now I kind of understand how it happened. I figure that someone queried Miller when filling in contact info, and hers came up before mine.  Drat.

Anyway, it's in there. It's beautiful. It's a full page. It's the first page of the Gallery section and it did refer in the body of the write-up that "she decided to offer them for sale at her website, yayamade."  So, hopefully if anyone is interested, they'll go to yayamade.com on which I have given the link to my shop at yayamade.artfire.com.  We'll see.

SHOPPING, NOT DROPPING

Another shortcoming -- oh, so many -- that I must confess to: shopping for fabrics and notions for my bags. If I did more sewing than I did shopping, I'd be a lot better off. And so would the closet in my studio. It's full. I mean FULL. But I keep on shopping. I mean, if I don't, I might miss the perfect thing for my next project, right? Don't you feel that way, too? At least I shop THRIFT. I haunt the local thrift shops and garage sales to scoop up those wonderful finds.

So, in honor of shopaholics, thriftaholics, GSaholics everywhere, who live for the hunt and smile over the finds, this is for you.

Check out the double-knit fabrics from the Sixties. If it were a puppy, my mom would say, "It's so ugly, it's cute."  I mean FUGLY, freaking ugly. But, oh, so, wonderfully cool. Is that what you call "kitschy"? 





I also snagged a bag full of ribbons and trims. Most are so-so; nothing you'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming for, but the ones wrapped on the flat card are the ones I bought the bag for. Really nice trims that I can envision on one of my bags in the near future.

And check out the envelopes of embroidery transfers. These have to be from the Fifties-Sixties, too. They retailed for 19 cents, for crying out loud! And were made in the USA! I don't know if they'll actually transfer, but I can scan them and trace them if NEED BEE. (Note the cute reference to one of the envelopes of cute bee sayings.)



Last, but not least -- well, maybe least. Naw! It's pretty cool -- is a brocade valance with tassels. I can see this becoming some pretty amazing Just Enuf bags, and maybe some larger versions of Just Enuf bags. Perhaps they'll be More Than Enuf bags. (My cleverness at naming my bags is exceeded only by my silliness at naming my bags.)





Uh, oh. Almost forgot. Whew! (So, the valance is not last nor least.) Here's some vests I snagged for future VesTotes. You know, the soon-to-be famous YAYAMADE design that is to appear in the gallery section of the August edition of   GREENCRAFT magazine. (See "Whoa, Nellie" post below.) Not that I'd brag or anything by repeating that I'm going to be published!

Whoa, Nellie!

Okay. OVER a year since I last blogged. So sad. I've been thinking: I spend way too much time surfing the web instead of contributing to it. Besides sucking the time out of my life, it sucks the life out of me. No productivity. No good feelings of accomplishment.

No, I've not been depressed. It's just way too easy to get on the net and Pinterest or Facebook my life away. Both fun sites. Both way too easy to stay on and get nothing else done. They're like the candy and magazine displays at the checkout.

It's time to break the cycle. I'm thinking egg timer. Set that puppy for 15 minutes or so, and when it dings, that's it. Off the site I go and back into the studio to create wonderful things.

So, here we go, F&F (Family and Friends -- or -- Friends and Family -- whatever you feel more comfortable with), time's a-wastin'.

Besides all this deep thought, I also have some GOOD NEWS. Perhaps -- not perhaps -- for sure, that's what has inspired me to be more inspiring and get off my net.  Ready? Interest peaked? or is that piqued? Anyway:

I submitted three of my YAYAMADE items to GREENCRAFT magazine -- Tote-A-Tee, both regular and messenger styles; Milk Money, several pieces; and VesTote, two or three.  I received an email this week that VesTote will be included in the gallery section of the August issue.  I AM SOOOOOOO EXCITED. 

Now, keeping things in perspective, the gallery section is like the honorable mention section, where you get a page or half-page for a picture of your item and a brief write-up. But to me -- I'm so freaking excited! I'm going to be published!

So, I was thinking, why don't I get off my net and get more serious about this whole creating and blogging and promoting/marketing and selling thing. I mean, I love to create/sew bags and the like and I really enjoy selling them. I could use the money. So, here I am, blogging.

I HAVE created a few things. I'll be posting about those things, including pics. We all love pics. And I'll also post pics about some of my recent finds at my local thrifts and garage sales.